Page 64 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

The second I wake, I know. It’s not a whisper, not a hint, it’s a drag, molten and violent, low in the center of my chest. A pull so fierce it feels like someone’s curled fingers into the cavity beneath my ribs and is tugging.

Luna.

She’s bound to someone else. It has to be Elias. That idiot fought it. And now he’s hers.

I push up from the mattress and sit for a long moment, jaw locked, trying not to growl at the hollow, aching pulse under my sternum.

It's worse today. Stronger. Which means the balance is shifting again. Every new bond changes her, amplifies what she is. And the more of us she claims, the more unbearable it becomes for those of us she hasn’t.

A cruel design. The deeper her reach, the more we crave her.

No. Not crave.

Need.

I roll my shoulders, stretch out the tension, and try to ignore how fucking present she is in my head. In my bloodstream. It won’t kill me. I’ve survived worse.

But if this keeps up, I’m going to start dreaming about her again.

And that… is unacceptable.

I head down the hall, footsteps sharp against stone, and find Orin in the kitchen, a mug of something ancient and steaming in one hand, the other resting absently over his chest like he’s holding in a secret.

He glances at me when I enter.

And he smiles.

Smiles.

That’s how I know I’m not imagining it. He feels it too. The burn. The ache. The way the bond ripples outward from wherever she is and calls to what hasn’t yet answered.

“Let me guess,” I mutter, stalking toward the cabinets. “You woke up gasping too.”

Orin takes a slow sip from his cup, unbothered. “It’s not a gasp if you don’t fight it.”

I shoot him a look, sharp enough to cut.

He meets it without blinking.

“The bond’s stronger now,” I say. “Which means Elias gave in.”

He nods once. “He did.”

“And you’re pleased about that?”

Orin shrugs. “He was always going to.”

“Doesn’t mean he should’ve.”

Another sip. Another infuriating silence.

“You know what this means,” I snap, pulling down a glass and pouring something bitter into it. “Every bond tightens the noose. Her magic wraps tighter around the rest of us. This isn’t just heat, Orin. It’s design. Manipulation. Evolution.”

“She isn’t doing it to trap us,” he says softly.

“She doesn’t have to.”

I throw the drink back, the burn barely enough to distract me from the real fire still twisting under my skin. I can feel her. Not her thoughts. Not her voice. Just her presence.

Like she’s touching me from a thousand miles away.

And I hate it.

I hate how good it feels.

Orin watches me over the rim of his mug. “You’re scared.”

“I’m strategic.”

“No,” he says, setting the mug down with a gentle thud. “You’re falling.”

I stare at him.

But I don’t deny it.

Because that ache in my chest? The one burning deeper with every breath I take?

That’s her.

And I don’t know how long I can resist it.

“We have more important things to discuss,” I say, already turning from the kitchen.

I don’t wait for Orin’s reply. I know he’ll follow. He always does when the weight of things begins to shift.

We move through the ruined hall, past the bones of what was once Daemon Academy, our prison, our sanctuary, our battlefield. Outside, the morning air cuts colder than it should. There’s a sharpness to it now. Like even the wind remembers what’s been done here.

I stop at the edge of the courtyard where the pillar stands. Still upright. Still humming. Still carved with crests that should have lost meaning a long time ago.

But hers, Branwen’s, was never carved.

Because she didn’t need it.

The stone that bound us here, the rune-forged tether that marked our servitude to Daemon’s laws…

it was hers to begin with. She made it. Crafted it with ancient magic, layered it with intentions we were never permitted to question.

We thought the pillar was neutral. A fixture. A cage, yes, but a dormant one.

We were wrong.

I step closer, jaw locked as the hum under the surface buzzes against my skin. It’s faint, but the signature is unmistakable. Someone used it. Recently.

Orin approaches behind me, his steps slow, reverent in a way I refuse to be. He reaches out and presses his palm against the stone. His crest glows faintly beneath the surface, gold threaded with old, quiet power. His hand trembles.

“She used it,” he says, voice low.

“I know,” I snap. “I felt it. The pull, the distortion. Like something snapped inside the stone and rewired itself.”

“Not snapped,” Orin murmurs, still touching it. “Reactivated.”

The word lands in my stomach like a dropped blade.

Because if the pillar was dormant… if it needed her to awaken… then we’ve been standing on more than just the remnants of a curse. We’ve been standing on her design.

“She’s not just alive,” I say. “She’s moving.”

Orin nods. “And using this to do it.”

I pace a step away, dragging a hand through my hair, resisting the urge to punch the stone until it fractures.

“This was supposed to be dead magic,” I mutter. “Ruined with the Academy. This was ours.”

“No,” Orin says, quietly but firmly. “It was always hers.”

His words cut deeper than he knows.

Because Branwen was the first. The original. The one who bound us long before Luna ever touched our names.

And now she’s back. Using the very prison she built for us to take the ones we haven’t bound yet.

Caspian. Ambrose.

Gone. Not because she’s stronger. Because she still has access to the threads we’ve spent years trying to sever.

“She built this place like a goddamn key,” I growl, stepping back up to the pillar. “And now she’s opening doors we never knew existed.”

Orin’s fingers trail down the grooves of the stone, his expression unreadable. “The architecture of entrapment. Created by the one meant to free us.”

I glare at him. “She never meant to free us.”

“No,” he agrees. “She meant to own us.”

The glow fades from his crest. The pillar goes quiet again.

But I know better now.

It’s not asleep.

It’s waiting.

“How do we get to her?” I ask, staring at the pillar like it might finally give me something useful. “How do we get them back?”

He moves closer to the pillar, fingers trailing the faint, ancient grooves of its runes like he’s searching for something that isn’t carved in stone but embedded in memory. He doesn’t look at me when he says, “You know the risks if we approach her.”

“I know,” I reply, voice clipped. “But we can’t leave them with her.”

Orin exhales through his nose, slow and heavy, like I’ve just confirmed the thing he didn’t want to be true. “She won’t kill them.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s exactly the point,” he says, finally turning to face me. “She doesn’t want to kill them. She wants to use them. And if we walk into whatever web she’s spinning right now, we could give her more than just two Sins. We could give her the whole pantheon.”

I clench my jaw, grinding back the instinct to lash out. He’s not wrong. That’s what pisses me off the most.

“She was always ten steps ahead,” Orin adds quietly.

My stomach knots, and I don’t let myself show it.

Instead, I change the subject.

“Have you thought about where Blackwell went?”

Orin’s brow lifts, amused. “Now that’s a sharp pivot.”

“Answer the question.”

He considers me, then turns back to the pillar. “Why?”

“Do you think he had something to do with this?”

“I think it’s curious,” he says, slow and thoughtful, “that the Academy schoolmaster disappears with the students, during the collapse. We assumed they scattered, fled, maybe died.”

“Probably moved them,” I mutter. “After the battle here. Kept them hidden.”

“Yes. But why haven’t they returned?” he asks, voice low and deliberate. “If it were just about safety, they would have surfaced by now. Or sent word. Something. But they’re gone, Lucien. All of them. And the only person who could have facilitated that kind of mass displacement… was Blackwell.”

“And you think he’s working with her?”

“I think,” Orin says, and now his voice is grave, “that Branwen was never working alone. And if she survived… she didn’t do it without help. Which means someone from inside knew.”

The word lodges in my throat.

Inside.

The rot was internal.

“Blackwell played neutral for too long,” I say. “Maybe neutrality was just obedience in disguise.”

Orin’s gaze sharpens. “It always is.”

We stare at the pillar in silence, the old magic humming like a heartbeat beneath the surface. It still feels like hers. Everything about this place does.

But the question now is, where the fuck is she? And what does she want with Ambrose and Caspian?

Because whatever she’s building…

She’s already started.

I hear them before I see them.

Voices carrying down the ruined corridor, loud, grating, and so fucking unnecessary this early. Silas and Elias. Bickering. Again.

“If I catch you using my razor again, I’m going to slit your arrogant throat with it,” Elias is growling, sharp and theatrical.

“Would you relax?” Silas shoots back. “Your face could use a little character. You might finally look like someone with experience instead of a snarky virgin librarian.”

“I will end you.”

“Promises, promises.”

Their steps echo in rhythm with their escalating argument, and when they appear at the edge of the courtyard, it’s like someone set fire to the edges of the morning.

Silas is grinning, shirt half-buttoned, like he got dressed mid-fight, or mid-sex.

Elias looks like he hasn’t slept in two days, hair a mess, eyes glowing faint from residual magic, and still radiating that exhausted sarcasm he wears like armor.

Orin barely glances over his shoulder. “Good morning.”

Silas spreads his arms like he’s walking onto a stage. “Good? You wound me. This morning is phenomenal. I was just told I snore like a tragic poet.”

“You moan in your sleep,” Elias mutters, glaring at him. “That’s what’s tragic.”

Silas winks. “You’re just jealous Luna was in my bed first.”

“First?” Elias scoffs. “You think this is a race?”