Page 66 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

Lucien is pacing again. Sharp turns, clipped footsteps like the floor personally insulted him. His jaw clenches every third step. I count it. One. Two. Clench. He’s trying to think, to strategize, to fix it, but he’s running on anger and caffeine, and neither are helping.

Riven’s leaned against the wall like he wants it to pick a fight. His arms are crossed, eyes narrowed, radiating enough irritation to crack drywall. No one speaks to him unless they’re ready to bleed.

Orin sighs quietly, the kind that holds centuries of weight and no solution, like even he doesn’t know how to carry this kind of failure.

Ambrose and Caspian are gone.

And yes, it’s serious.

Yes, we’re spiraling toward war with a dead sin binder who crawled out of her grave with enough power to rip through our wards like paper.

But, gods, does this house have to be so damn miserable?

I’m sitting on the floor beside the couch, my knees pulled up, hair still damp from a rushed shower that did absolutely nothing to calm my nerves. Across the room, Silas and Elias are throwing shadows against the ceiling like two delinquent children trapped during a thunderstorm.

“Look,” Silas whispers loudly, holding up his hands in an exaggerated shape, “it’s Lucien’s soul, empty, hollow, vaguely bird-shaped.”

Elias snorts. “No, no, that’s your intelligence. See? Completely flat and unintimidating.”

They dissolve into whispered laughter like they didn’t just watch the world fracture.

Lucien stops pacing and glares at them. “Do you two ever think before you speak?”

Silas doesn’t even blink. “Absolutely not. That’s your thing. We’d hate to step on your moody little throne.”

“Do you even care what’s happening?” Lucien snaps.

“I care,” Elias says, draped across the couch like he was born in that position. “I care deeply. But my version of caring involves not letting my insides rot from the anxiety stew you’re serving. So maybe dial back the doom before someone throws themselves off the balcony.”

Riven mutters something under his breath. Something that sounds suspiciously like “I’ll push you first.”

And gods help me, I laugh.

I’m not supposed to. It’s the wrong moment. The kind of moment that demands silence and fear and dark solemnity. But I’ve got Elias’s dry wit buzzing in my bloodstream now, and Silas’s irreverent chaos curled in my spine like a second skin, and the absurdity of it all just cracks me open.

Everyone turns to stare.

Lucien’s brow furrows. “You find this funny?”

“No,” I say, wiping my eyes. “I find you funny. And all of this. Because if we don’t laugh, we’re going to drown in the dread you’re all pouring into this room like molasses.”

Lucien’s mouth opens, probably to reprimand me, or scold, or condescend, but Orin cuts in, his voice quiet but firm.

“She’s not wrong.”

Silas perks up. “Wait, did Orin just agree with us? Mark the calendar.”

Elias raises his hands. “End times. We’ve reached the prophecy.”

“Enough,” Lucien mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

But the edge in the room? It’s cracked. Not gone, but less sharp. And for the first time since we realized Branwen had taken them, I can breathe without feeling like the house itself is pressing in on me.

I’m changing. I can feel it in the way my tongue moves quicker, my thoughts sharper, edged with humor that doesn’t quite feel like mine, but is mine now. That’s the thing about bonding with chaos.

It doesn’t just cling. It infects.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Because if we’re going to face Branwen… we’re going to need a little madness of our own.

I throw my hands into the air with exaggerated flair, weaving a clever wolf from my fingers and casting it across the ceiling.

It lunges for Silas’s bird-shadow, devouring it with flair and vengeance as I laugh, loud, unfiltered, wild.

Silas howls like I’ve just murdered his firstborn, flopping dramatically backward onto the floor.

Elias, ever the co-conspirator, gasps like the betrayal just broke his immortal soul.

“My shadow! You monster!”

“Merciless,” Silas adds, already halfway into forming a two-headed snake.

I counter with a dragon.

Lucien glares. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

And I yawn.

Not just a casual stretch-and-sigh yawn. No, I go full Elias, arms overhead, mouth wide, spine popping in a stretch that screams bored, distracted, done with your drama. The second the sound escapes me, I freeze.

Oh shit.

That wasn’t me.

Not the old me, anyway.

That was Elias. That yawn had his brand of defiance etched in every syllable of air. His irreverence. His shameless refusal to take anything seriously, especially Lucien.

Like a car crash in slow motion, I feel it building. That strange, inevitable compulsion twisting up my spine. My lips move before I can stop them. Before the part of me still trying to be careful can clamp down and reel it back in.

“Lucien, do you ever shut the hell up, or is brooding your full-time job now?”

Silence drops like a blade.

Silas gasps. “She lives.”

Elias claps slowly, like a proud father watching his chaos child speak her first insult. “Ten out of ten. No notes.”

Lucien turns to me, eyes glinting with something dangerous. Not rage exactly, no, Lucien doesn’t waste rage on things like me. It’s disbelief. Like he’s looking at a system failure. A glitch in the machine. Something he controlled…until he didn’t.

“You want to repeat that?” he asks, voice low, clipped, cold.

The old me would’ve backpedaled. Would’ve apologized or at least tried to reframe it into something diplomatic.

But there’s no room for diplomacy inside my head right now. Not with Elias’s laughter still clinging to my ribs, not with Silas’s wild joy tangled up in my pulse. Their magic, their essence, it’s in me now. And I don’t want to dial it down.

I shrug instead. “You heard me. Maybe try less pacing and more actual solutions.”

Lucien steps forward, and gods, he’s all heat and power, like the gravity in the room just tilted. His Dominion flares, it wants to dig into me, to bend me, to drag me down, but it doesn’t. Because I’m already bound to chaos, and chaos doesn’t bow.

Orin clears his throat, gently diffusing whatever disaster was about to unfold. “Perhaps now isn’t the time to turn on each other.”

Lucien doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not for a second. But he doesn’t reply. He just turns back to the window, jaw tight.

And me?

I smile. Just a little. Because for once, I got under his skin.

And gods, it feels good.

“This is your fault,” Lucien growls, voice sharp enough to slit throats. He points straight at Elias, eyes narrowed like he’s seconds from rewriting the concept of restraint.

Elias throws his hands up in mock surrender, lounging deeper into the couch like a king in exile. “What did I do? I didn’t make her fun, Lucien. That was all her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I cut in sweetly, tilting my head just enough to seem innocent. “Is fun a problem now?”

Lucien turns his glacial gaze on me, but it doesn’t hit like it used to. There’s no bite left in his Dominion when I’m this far gone into the madness that is Elias and Silas. I’m chaos-wrapped in sarcasm and unapologetic smirks, and Lucien doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Your behavior is erratic,” he says coolly. “You're becoming more like them.”

“Erratic,” I echo, rolling the word on my tongue like a luxury. “Or just finally done walking on eggshells for men who treat me like I’m one wrong word away from shattering your fragile little hierarchy.”

Silas snorts from his corner, where he’s using shadow to make a snake eat Elias’s shadow-puppet dick. Elias notices and immediately retaliates by giving the snake boobs.

“Lucien’s just mad he can’t shadow-puppet his way out of this one,” Silas says, grinning. “Sorry, boss. Want me to make you a crown so you still feel in charge?”

Orin’s quiet sigh slices through the chaos like a whisper of sense.

He sits in his usual chair, fingers steepled, eyes distant, watching everything, saying nothing.

But I feel the flicker of his power like a pulse under my skin.

He’s tracking us all, cataloging what’s happening, what’s changing.

I wonder if he sees me fracturing or becoming something whole for the first time.

“I think it’s beautiful,” Orin murmurs, and the room stills like it’s been slapped silent.

Lucien’s jaw flexes. “You think this is beautiful?”

“She’s adjusting,” Orin replies, tone calm but absolute. “The bond shifts her, just as it shifted Silas, Riven, and Elias. You can’t strip magic from gods and expect them to stay the same.”

“I’m not a god,” I say, softer than I mean to. But the truth of it thuds in my chest.

“No,” Orin agrees, gaze flicking to me with something ancient behind it. “You’re something stranger.”

Elias tilts his head toward me, mock whispering, “You should say that to more girls. It’s weirdly hot.”

I throw a pillow at his face.

He catches it with a smirk and zero dignity. “Lucien, tell her to stop abusing me.”

Lucien looks like he’s reconsidering every life choice that brought him here. “You’re exhausting.”

“You’re exhausting,” Elias fires back immediately.

“I’ll kill you.”

“Get in line.”

Silas leans over to whisper loudly to me, “I hope they fuck it out. The sexual repression between those two could fuel a Rift.”

“I’m going to murder him,” Lucien mutters.

And honestly, so am I.

But for now, I sit back, fold my arms across my chest, and feel it. The shift. The balance is tilting. The old Luna would’ve stayed quiet, tried to defuse them all.

But this Luna?

This Luna is starting to understand that chaos has its gravity.

And maybe she was meant to be its sun.

I don’t mean to do it. Truly. One second, I’m watching Silas try to make a shadow puppet of a duck riding a horse, the next… I feel the hum. That bond, the new one, Elias, it sparks in my chest like a live wire. Unconscious. Hungry.

And I pull.