Page 8 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

The human world has changed. Gone are the mud huts, the fire pits, the crude weapons carved from bone and stone. The world I once knew was nothing more than survival, raw, brutal, and simple. But now?

Now, it glows.

Lights spill from the streets, blurring the sky with an artificial haze. Metal beasts hum along paved roads, their breath thick with smoke. Glass towers loom overhead, scraping at the heavens like sharpened teeth. The air hums with life, with movement, with progress.

And yet, beneath it all, the rot remains.

Humans have only refined their destruction. Hidden it behind glass and steel, behind flashing lights and whispered prayers to technology instead of gods.

I walk among them now, unnoticed, a shadow slipping through the cracks. They don’t see me. They never do. Their world is built for the living, and I have never been that.

The address Lucien gave me sits on the outskirts of a quiet neighborhood, too clean, too curated, the kind of place where nothing truly dangerous is supposed to happen.

They always think that. Until it does.

Layla Evernight. Younger than Luna by a year, still living with the parents who never even told her what she is.

The last potential Sin-Binder for the Sub-Sins.

I step onto the pavement outside the house, my gaze sliding over the structure, two stories, brick and wood, a front porch with a single rocking chair swaying slightly in the breeze. The lights inside are dim, but there’s movement, a shadow passing by the window, the faint murmur of voices.

I inhale. There it is. Faint, but undeniable.

Power.

Not like Luna’s. Not the raw, thrumming presence that demands attention, that pulls at the Sins whether we want it to or not.

This is softer. Dormant.

Unawakened.

She doesn’t know. The thought settles into my chest, heavy and inevitable. She has no idea what she is. Lucien sent me here with a purpose. Find her. Bring her into the Void. See if she can do what no one has done in a thousand years, bind the Sub-Sins before Severin drags the world into ruin.

But she is untrained. Unprepared. And if she is truly meant to be what Lucien believes she is,

Then she is already running out of time.

I step forward, slow and measured, my fingers closing into a fist at my side.

It has been centuries since I last spoke to a mortal. Since I last stood at a human’s doorstep.

Since I last looked into the eyes of something so fragile and asked them to follow me into hell.

But I knock anyway.

The door swings open.

Layla Evernight stands in the dim glow of the porch light, blinking up at me with wide, wary eyes.

And gods, it’s like staring into a fractured reflection.

She looks so much like Luna, but where Luna carries sharp edges, Layla is softer, untouched by the weight of what she is.

The same dark hair, but without the wildness to it, falling in neat, disciplined waves over her shoulders.

The same mouth, but without the quiet, knowing curve of mischief, her lips instead pressed into something careful.

Then her eyes. Not as bright as Luna’s, not yet filled with that ancient, storm-touched hunger I’ve come to crave like a sickness. But the shape is the same, the weight of them, and the pull.

And like Luna, she knows something is wrong the second she sees me.

Her grip tightens on the doorframe, subtle but telling. She doesn’t step back, but she doesn’t step forward either.

“…Can I help you?”

Her voice is smooth. Not as sharp as Luna’s, not honed for defiance, but carrying the potential for it.

I exhale, shifting slightly, aware that everything about me in this moment, the way I look, the way I stand, the way I am, too still for something that calls itself a man, is setting off every internal alarm she has.

And she should listen to them. Because I am here to ruin her life.

"Layla Evernight," I say, voice even, steady. "I need you to come with me."

Her brows flick up, surprise flashing across her face before she recovers, her lips pressing tighter. She crosses her arms, weight shifting, grounding herself.

"That’s funny," she says slowly. "Because I don’t know you, and that sounds like exactly what a serial killer would say before I end up on a true crime podcast."

A pause. Then, almost like an afterthought, “Also, I don’t get into cars with strange men, so you might want to rethink your approach here, creep.”

I blink. Then I nearly laugh. Because she is exactly like Luna in the worst fucking ways.

I roll my shoulders, inhaling deeply, my patience stretching thin. "You’re right. That was poorly phrased."

Her eyes narrow.

I tilt my head. "Would it help if I said your world is about to collapse, you are not who you think you are, and I am here to offer you the smallest semblance of control before the choice is ripped from you entirely?"

She stares at me.

Then, slow and deliberate, she clicks her tongue against her teeth. "Yeah, so much better,” she deadpans. “Now I feel safe."

I exhale sharply, my fingers curling at my sides. "I don’t have time for this."

"Then go away," she suggests brightly.

I step forward, just slightly, enough to let my presence scrape against her senses. Not enough to hurt, not enough to force, just enough for her to feel it. The weight of what I am.

She inhales sharply. Her pupils dilate. She knows. She doesn’t understand how she knows, but her body reacts before her mind does, that primal, ancient instinct flickering in her bones.

I drop my voice, low, steady, inevitable.

"You can argue with me," I murmur. "Or you can listen."

She swallows, but she doesn’t speak. So I give her the truth.

"Your sister is in the Void," I say, slow and careful, watching the way the words hit her. "And Lucien Virelius sent me here to collect you. Because if we are wrong, if you are not the one meant to bind the Sub-Sins, then Luna is the only one left. And if she fails…"

I let the silence say the rest.

Layla’s breath shudders. Her fingers flex against the doorframe.

And I see it, the shift. The moment she realizes this isn’t a joke. That something larger than her life is waiting just outside the walls she thought were safe.

She stares at me for a long time, her throat bobbing once.

"Who are you?"

I watch her, holding her gaze.

"My name is Orin Vale. And I am here to rewrite your fate."

Layla takes a step back. It’s slight, almost imperceptible, but I catch it.

The way her fingers tighten on the doorframe, the way her weight shifts, preparing to bolt.

Good instincts. But not good enough. She’s staring at me like she’s already decided what I am, dangerous, unnatural, something that should never have made it to her doorstep.

She’s not wrong.

Her hand moves toward the door, slow and deliberate, her pulse hammering beneath her skin. She’s going to slam it in my face.

I sigh. Humans. Before she can react, I extend a hand toward the small, potted plant sitting on the table beside her. It’s a fragile thing, green and thriving, something living in the middle of all this artificial sterility.

For a single moment, I let it exist. Then, with a flick of my fingers, I consume it.

The plant doesn’t wither. It doesn’t rot.

It simply ceases to be. The color drains first, leeching out like ink spilling into water.

Then the form itself collapses inward, shrinking, vanishing, until there is nothing left but the faint scent of something burnt and wrong.

Layla inhales sharply. Her gaze snaps from the absence where the plant used to be, back to me, her expression frozen somewhere between horror and understanding.

“Well, shit.”

I arch a brow. “That was faster than expected.”

She exhales through her nose, dragging a hand through her hair. “I mean, I could scream. Call the cops. Run upstairs and grab a weapon or something.”

I nod. “You could.”

She crosses her arms. “Would it help?”

“Not in the slightest.”

She groans, dragging a hand down her face. "Okay, I hate this, but, who the fuck are you?"

I step forward, careful, slow. "May I come in?"

Layla stares at me. Then, at the space where the plant used to be. Then back at me.

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”

She steps aside. And just like that, her world is over.

Layla’s house is… ordinary. It’s the kind of place that was built to be lived in but never truly felt.

The walls are a muted shade of beige, the floors polished wood, everything arranged with a kind of careful sterility that suggests nothing has ever really touched it.

No signs of chaos. No signs of something wild clawing through the seams.

Nothing like Luna. Luna is messy, untamed, full of edges that refuse to be softened. But Layla?

Her world is neat. Controlled. A world that’s about to be destroyed. She closes the door behind me, arms crossed over her chest, watching me like she still hasn’t decided if letting me in was the worst mistake of her life.

“My parents aren’t home,” she says after a moment, like it’s an afterthought. But I hear the undercurrent of meaning beneath it. This isn’t normal. This isn’t safe. What the fuck is happening?

I nod. “Convenient.”

She exhales sharply, raking a hand through her hair. “Do you want something? Water? Tea? Whiskey?”

I arch a brow. “Do you have whiskey?”

She gives me a look. “No, but I thought it would make me sound cool.”

“…There’s orange juice.”

I suppress the urge to smile. “Orange juice, then.”

She disappears into the kitchen, and I take the opportunity to study my surroundings.

It’s all wrong. There are family photos on the walls, stiff and posed. Smiling parents, two daughters standing in front of them, identical except for a single year between them. Layla and Luna, side by side, before the world had the chance to pull them apart.

Before I came into Luna’s life. Before she became mine. My fingers twitch at my sides. Luna should be here too. Not in the Hollow, not suffering through the weight of something she was never meant to carry alone.