Page 5 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

The descent is steep. Too steep. The kind of fuck-you, hope-you-have-good-balance kind of steep that makes my stomach lurch as the wraith horse angles downward. Which means, unfortunately, or maybe horrifically fortunately, I have to lean back.

Straight into Elias.

I brace myself, expecting a snide remark. A joke. A taunt. But what I get instead is,

“Oh, fuck me.”

It’s not loud. Not meant to be heard. Just a soft, strangled whisper under his breath.

And that’s when I notice, He’s tense. Not his usual, lazy, smug kind of tension. No, this is something else entirely. His entire body has gone stiff behind me, muscles locked, like I’ve just triggered some kind of full-body catastrophic shutdown.

And,Oh. Oh.

I shift slightly, just enough to confirm what I already know.

He’s hard. Under my ass. I cannot fucking believe this.

A strangled sound vibrates against the back of my head, his head.

Elias is malfunctioning in real-time, the heat of his body radiating into my spine, his hands clenched around the reins.

I should move.

I don’t.

Not because I want to stay here. Not because my brain is suddenly providing me with a very detailed, very graphic mental image of exactly what he looks like under all that infuriatingly casual, slouchy clothing. Not because I just realized, for the first time, that Elias is…

Muscular.

Like, properly muscular. Not in an overdone, look-at-me way, but in a lean, effortless way that says I don’t work out, I just exist like this. And fuck me, he smells good. Like cedar and smoke and something sharper, something that shouldn’t be attractive but somehow is.

I blame Silas. It has to be his influence. His bond twisting inside me, changing me, corrupting me from the inside out. Because there is no fucking way I am sitting here, fully aware of how hard Elias is against me, and not moving.

Another wheezing breath from behind me. I glance over my shoulder just enough to catch a glimpse of his face. Big mistake. His jaw is clenched so tightly it looks painful, eyes squeezed shut like he’s actively praying for death.

I arch a brow. “You good back there?”

“No.” His voice is wrecked.

I grin. Darkly. “What’s the problem?” I press, just to be an asshole about it.

He inhales sharply, exhaling through his teeth. “The problem is that you’re sitting on my dick, Evernight.”

I hum, tilting my head like I’m considering this. “Sounds like a you problem.”

His breath catches. I feel it. Oh, this is fun. I shift just slightly, just enough to make him suffer, and the noise he makes. A barely-contained, almost guttural sound, like he’s using every ounce of self-restraint he has not to buck up into me.

I grin wider. “Something wrong, Elias?”

“I hate you.”

He doesn’t sound convincing.

I turn back around, facing forward, still not moving.

“Sure you do.”

The hill levels out beneath us.

Elias shifts back. So, naturally, I move with him. His whole body locks up. A sharp inhale, a barely contained noise in the back of his throat, something between a whimper and an exorcism, before he growls, low and strained, “Evernight.”

I hum, tilting my head. “Yes?”

He exhales through his nose, the sound raw with suffering. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

I glance up at the sky, pretending to think. “Hmm.” I pause. “Yes.”

Elias twitches. His hands tighten around the reins, and if I listen closely, I swear I hear a faint, whispered “fuck” escape his lips. Good. Suffer. I should not be enjoying this. I should be mortified, embarrassed, at the very least uninterested in Elias of all people.

But I am enjoying this. Because he is suffering.

And it’s glorious. I shift again, just slightly, just enough for the friction between us to change.

His grip tightens, and I don’t even have to see his face to feel the way he clenches his jaw, how every muscle in his body is screaming at him to be stronger than this.

Spoiler: He’s not.

I press my lips together, fighting back a smirk. “Something wrong, Elias?”

He exhales slowly, carefully, like he’s trying to center himself. “I am experiencing… a crisis.”

I glance over my shoulder. “Elaborate.”

His head tilts back, as if he’s silently begging the universe to smite him.

“I am currently trapped in a situation,” he says, voice barely above a whisper, “where the woman I am desperately trying to be normal around is deliberately fucking with me. And I- ” he swallows, dragging a hand through his hair, visibly struggling to keep it together, “ am one bad decision away from ruining both of our lives.”

I blink. “Ruining?”

Elias nods once, very seriously. “Permanently.”

I arch a brow. “Sounds dramatic.”

He makes a strangled noise. “Oh, does it?”

“Very.”

His fingers flex against the reins, shoulders tense, his whole body radiating the kind of energy that suggests he’s seconds from committing actual crimes.

“Luna,” he says, voice low, almost desperate.

I grin. Dark. Slow. Cruel. “Yes, Elias?”

He twists slightly, just enough to put his lips next to my ear, voice dropping into something dark, something that shouldn’t send heat curling through my stomach.

“Get the fuck off me,” he rasps, “or I swear I’ll make you wish you never started this.”

For a second, just a second, I hesitate. Because fuck, that was a threat. A very good one.

But then I smirk, tilting my head just enough for my cheek to brush against his.

“I love a good threat,” I purr.

Elias visibly clenches his jaw.

I wait for a response.

Nothing.

Just silence.

And then, He moves. I don’t mean a subtle shift.

I mean a full-body, you fucked up, Evernight movement.

Elias jerks the reins sharply, the wraith horse rearing slightly, and before I can react, he grabs me.

A firm, unapologetic grip at my waist, lifting me just enough to slam me back exactly where he wants me.

And now, he’s the one pressing into me. I freeze. Because fuck, fuck, fuck, I did not think this through.

Elias leans forward, just enough for his breath to ghost over my throat.

“Now,” he murmurs, voice dark, starving, “who’s suffering?”

I do not move.

I do not speak.

Because for the first time in my goddamn life, I am completely, utterly fucked.

Elias stops breathing. Not in a dramatic, gasping way. Not in a fuck, I might be dying kind of way. No, it’s worse than that. It’s the kind of stillness that only happens when a man has completely shut down, like his soul took one look at the situation and noped right out of his body.

Which, honestly? Fair. Because I know him. I know he’s all false bravado and sharp-edged jokes. I know the second someone turns the game on him, he fucking crumbles.

And right now? I’m proving that theory spectacularly.

I keep my movements slow, deliberate, leaning in just enough to brush my nose along the column of his throat, breathing in the scent of cedar and heat, the faintest trace of something wicked lingering beneath his skin.

His hands lock around me, and I drag my hands up his thighs, tracing the shape of muscle beneath the fabric, pressing my fingers just hard enough to feel the way he tenses.

The way his entire body reacts.

I reach his ear, pause, then bite. A quick, teasing scrape of my teeth against his earlobe.

I grin against his skin.

“Something wrong, Elias?” I murmur, dragging my lips just barely along the shell of his ear.

I pull back just enough to glance up at him, taking in the sheer chaotic devastation playing across his face. His jaw is locked, his eyes blown out, and there’s a faint flush creeping up his neck, something he’d probably rather die than admit.

I raise a brow. “No comment?”

His mouth opens. Closes. Then, with all the confidence of a man whose entire nervous system is currently on fire, he says.

“I think I just saw God.”

I blink. Elias immediately realizes what just came out of his mouth, physically recoils, and follows it up with.

“NO. Not God. I meant.. I mean. Wow, fuck okay. So hi. ”

I burst out laughing. Loudly. The kind of laughter that guts you, that shakes your shoulders, that leaves you fucking breathless. Because I’ve broken him. Irrevocably shattered him.

Elias groans, dragging a hand down his face like he wants to disappear entirely. “I need a reset. A whole-ass restart. I need someone to unplug me and plug me back in.”

I wipe a tear from my eye, smirking up at him. “What’s wrong, Elias? I thought you were the one making me suffer?”

His gaze snaps to mine. It’s darker now. Sharper.

And then, He fucking grins. Slow. Dangerous. Something inside me shifts.

“Alright, Evernight,” he murmurs, rolling his shoulders, settling in. “You wanna play?”

His fingers twitch against my waist. His smirk deepens.

“Let’s see who wins.”

The first spark of pain is small, sharp, a bright ember searing across my skin. A flicker of heat, quick and fleeting. Almost ignorable.

Then the fire catches. It spreads. A white-hot brand tearing through my back, racing over my ribs, sinking deep into my bones like molten iron.

It doesn't stop. Doesn't ease. It only grows, a brutal, relentless agony, and I don't even register the scream that rips from my throat until it's already splitting the air.

Elias jolts behind me, his arms tightening around my waist, his entire body locking up.

"Luna?"

I can't answer. I can't even breathe.

Another wave of pain slams into me, carving through my stomach, coiling up my spine like something alive.

I double over, barely aware of Elias cursing, barely aware of the way his grip shifts, steadying me, holding me, his hands suddenly frantic as they press against me like he can physically keep me from unraveling.

I choke on another ragged breath, nails digging into his forearm, clutching, because there's nothing else to hold onto, nothing else but the agony roaring through me, scorching through my veins, burning everything in its path.

Riven.

Riven.

I can feel him. The raw, unfiltered wrath pouring into me, through me, the agony of it so blistering, so feral, I can't tell where his pain ends and mine begins.

I feel it, the crack of a fist against bone. The pull of chains, biting deep into torn flesh. The relentless, suffocating pressure of something holding him down. Something breaking him apart.

I convulse against Elias, gasping, body folding in on itself as another scorching lash of pain tears through me.

"Luna, fuck what is happening?" Elias grips me tighter, his voice frantic, sharp, wrong in a way I've never heard before.

But I can't answer. I can't do anything except feel. Pain, raw and constant, rolling through me in waves, every nerve lit up, every muscle locked, helpless against the sheer magnitude of it.

Then suddenly a sharp yank. A pull, a shift, then Lucien. He's there, arms cinching around me, ripping me off the horse, yanking me into him like I'm a fragile, shattering thing.

The impact should knock the breath from my lungs, but there's nothing left to knock out of me. Just pain, just this endless, unrelenting pain, and I collapse into him, body trembling, the heat still spreading, still burning, still consuming me from the inside out.

I force a breath. A jagged, broken inhale.

Then another.

I have to tell them.

“He’s- ” My voice splinters on the word, my throat raw, shaking. “Riven.”

Lucien goes rigid.

Another wave of fire rakes across my ribs, and I arch, a strangled sob tearing free.

“He’s being hurt,” I gasp, shuddering, every syllable a struggle, every word edged with agony. “Tortured.”

Lucien’s arms tighten, like he’s trying to anchor me, like his sheer will alone can keep me from breaking apart beneath it.

"Turn it off," he commands.

I shake my head frantically, or at least, I think I do. The world is spinning, lurching, twisting beneath me, and there’s more fire, more agony, more wrath seeping through the bond.

“I can’t,” I choke out.

Another lash of pain, splitting across my stomach, deeper, sharper, like claws digging into my flesh. Lucien curses, voice harsh, but it’s drowned out by the next wave of agony, by the fire sinking into my bones.

It’s too much.

“Elias.” Lucien’s voice is sharp, a command, and I don’t understand why until I feel Elias’s hands again, gripping me, his palm pressing to my forehead.

I try to fight it. I try to stay here.

But Elias’s voice is low, almost soothing, edged with something too soft, too foreign for him, “Go to sleep, little star.”

And the world goes dark.