Page 41 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

I scratch the back of my neck, trying to grin my way out of it. “You ever meet someone and immediately know they could ruin you?” I ask. “Like just obliterate all the nonsense you hide behind and leave you standing there, heart in your hands, stupid and wanting?”

Her eyes widen a little. Not much. But enough.

I keep going. Because I’m already bleeding.

“Well. That’s you.” I give her a crooked smile.

“You’re the ruin, Luna. And I’m ancient.

I’m chaos incarnate. I’ve seduced demons, danced with death, pranked gods.

But you , ” I gesture vaguely at her like she’s the unsolvable riddle I’ve spent centuries failing.

“You’re the only thing that’s ever scared me. ”

She doesn’t say anything.

Which means I’ve either won this round, or I’ve doomed myself. Again.

She says it so softly I almost don’t hear it. Like she’s handing me her ribs one by one and daring me to break them.

“I’m no one,” she whispers. “I’m not special like you are. I’m barely old enough to drink and I’m… not good enough for you.”

Time doesn’t stop , but it stutters. The way it does when your name is said by someone who means it, or when you’re looking at something beautiful and realize it might vanish.

I blink at her, slow and stunned, because what the fuck is she talking about?

My laugh comes out rougher than I mean it to, like it’s been scraped raw against the inside of my chest. “Are you serious right now? You’re not good enough for me?”

She looks away. Down. Anywhere but at me. Her teeth dig into her lip like she’s trying to keep the rest inside, but it’s too late. I’ve seen the damage. The fracture line. The crack that shouldn’t exist.

“You want to talk about worth?” I step closer, dropping the stupid grin I usually wear like armor.

“I’ve lived long enough to forget who I was before the Sins.

I’ve done things , horrible, beautiful, cursed things , that should’ve earned me a nice eternal vacation in some pit of suffering. And I was fine with that.”

Her head snaps up.

“I was fine,” I repeat, quieter now. “Until you.”

I reach out and hook a finger under her chin, lifting her gaze to mine. “You walked into my world like you were meant to ruin it. And not just mine , all of us. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t fall apart. You chose us. You still choose us.”

She opens her mouth, but I cut her off with a shake of my head.

“No, Luna. You don’t get to call yourself nothing when everything about you is what keeps pulling me back from the edge. You think you’re not enough?” I laugh again, bitter this time. “You’re too much. That’s the problem. Too much heart. Too much fire. Too much truth.”

I lean in, close enough to smell the chaos she’s always drenched in. “And gods help me, I’d drown in you gladly.”

Her lips part, just barely.

“And by the way,” I murmur, brushing a knuckle down her cheek. “You’re the only one who’s ever made me feel special. So if you think I’m out of your league? You built the fucking league, Luna.”

I step back before I do something worse. Like falling to my knees. Or kiss her like she’s mine.

She says it so simply. No fanfare. No warning. “I feel the same way about you.”

It guts me. The words cut through the heart I swore I didn’t have left. But it’s not the words that undo me, it’s what comes next.

Because I feel it.

Not in the way people say they feel things.

Not metaphorical or imagined. This is real.

Immediate. A surge through the bond that sears straight into my chest and stays there.

It’s heat and ache and something like lightning, laced with the unmistakable flavor of her , Luna in all her chaotic softness.

Her emotions thread through mine, sticky and aching and entirely too honest.

She doesn’t just tell me how she feels.

She shows me.

Desire, tangled and breathless. Not the kind born from lust , but the kind that undoes. Wanting, not for my power or my clever mouth or my loyalty. She wants me. All of me. Even the broken, crooked, impossible-to-love parts. She sees every piece and still she pulls me closer in her mind.

And then there’s the other thing, that thing.

Adoration.

It blooms inside her and spills into me like it was always meant to live here.

Like her love was built from the same madness I was made of.

And fuck, it’s so raw. It scares me more than anything I’ve faced.

Monsters I can fight. Death I can outwit.

But this? This is the kind of power that could hollow me out with a smile.

Her eyes are on mine, watching me unravel.

And I do.

I stare at her like she’s rewritten my origin story and made it better.

“I…” My voice breaks around the truth. I can’t finish the sentence. I don’t deserve to finish it. So instead, I step forward and press my forehead to hers. It’s not a kiss. Not quite. But it’s something more dangerous.

Intimacy.

I want to say something clever. Something stupid and light and very me. But I don’t. I just breathe in the space between us, and I let myself feel it , the bond, the gravity, the unbearable rightness of her.

“You shouldn’t feel that way about me,” I whisper against her skin. “But gods, I’m so fucking glad you do.”

And I share mine back with her. It’s not intentional. I don’t crack open the bond and think yes, let’s spill the mess that is Silas Veyd all over her pretty mind. But the second she gives me hers , raw and aching and impossibly sincere , mine slips through in return like blood from an open wound.

She doesn’t flinch.

She takes it.

She lets it wrap around her.

My feelings aren’t neat or gentle. They’re sharp-edged, erratic, riddled with panic and longing.

I’ve spent lifetimes turning everything I feel into a joke, burying it beneath a smirk or a stupid flirtation because it’s easier than this.

Easier than letting someone know just how hard they live under my skin.

But now she knows.

She sees what I hide behind the bravado. The need that isn’t polite. The craving that goes deeper than sex or magic or proximity. The truth that when I look at her, I see the end of every escape route I’ve ever clung to.

And she still doesn’t look away.

I stare at her, helpless to stop the bond from bleeding into something too intimate, too dangerous.

I show her the way she colors every damn corner of my mind.

How every joke I’ve made about loving her wasn’t a joke at all.

How I’ve memorized the exact sound her laugh makes when she’s trying not to let it escape.

How I count the seconds between her breaths when she sleeps beside me because it’s the only time I let myself be still.

I show her all the things I swore I’d never let her see.

And in the silence that follows, she reaches out and places her hand against my chest, right over where it aches the worst. The bond pulses. I pulse. And for once, I don’t try to spin it, don’t lace it with a quip or a smirk. I just breathe.

“You’re stuck with me now,” I murmur, the words barely more than a rasp. “And if you ever tell anyone I said anything even remotely romantic, I’ll deny it until I’m bones.”

But she smiles. That soft, knowing smile that undoes me every time. And in her eyes, I see something worse than love.

I see belonging.

And it ruins me.