Page 10

I should be more upset than I am. A rational person would be—any normal girl might scream, or demand to know why she’s standing in the wreckage of two hundred ghosts of the Sins’ past, each one crazier than the last, each one a ticking bomb in this cursed, crumbling realm.

But I’m not normal. And I’m not rational. Not anymore.

I know exactly what I am to them—for now, for however long the Hollow lets me keep breathing. I know that no matter how sharp the edges between us, how twisted the threads that bind us, they’re mine. And I’m theirs. I can feel it in every stare, every touch, every breath.

Which is how I find myself sitting in a half-built treehouse with three of the deadliest creatures I’ve ever known, listening to them rank the women they’ve screwed and abandoned.

Silas is stretched out like a cat who’s eaten something wicked, legs swinging over the edge of the rickety platform, one boot tapping against the beam with a rhythm that matches his chaos. Elias lies flat on his back beside me, arms folded behind his head, grinning at the sky like it’s all some cosmic joke. And Ambrose—Ambrose of all people—is perched stiffly across from us, as if the treehouse itself is beneath him, but he hasn’t left yet.

That’s something.

"Alright," Silas says, voice too damn pleased with himself, "but no one was worse than Katriel."

Elias groans immediately. "No. Absolutely not. Do not invoke her name."

Ambrose lifts a brow, sharp as a knife. "Katriel is the one who carved our initials into her arms, isn’t she?"

Silas beams. "She added hearts."

I blink. "You’re joking."

Elias sighs, throwing an arm over his eyes. "She used to sneak into our rooms and steal our clothes. I swear I saw her wearing my cloak once, naked underneath, pretending to talk to herself like I was there."

"She also set a field on fire when Ambrose didn’t say goodnight to her," Silas adds helpfully, rocking back on his elbows.

Ambrose snorts. "She set the field on fire because you slept with her and forgot her name the next day."

"Semantics."

I shake my head, the absurdity of it all settling into my bones like smoke. "You realize you’re all insane, right?"

Elias peeks at me from under his arm. "Takes one to bind one, darling."

I glance at Ambrose. He hasn’t smiled—but his mouth quirks now, subtle, like he’s amused in spite of himself.

Silas nudges me with his knee. "Oh, wait. What about Leona?"

Elias groans louder this time, like it’s physically painful. "The one who painted portraits of us and then set them on fire?"

"While singing lullabies," Silas confirms, eyes sparkling.

"She also poisoned Ambrose once," Elias adds lazily.

"It wasn’t lethal," Ambrose mutters.

"Still poison," Elias points out, deadpan.

They keep going, tossing names back and forth like they’re playing cards, like they’re not recounting literal centuries of lovers who’ve gone insane for them, bled for them, burned for them. There’s something almost human about it, something ridiculous and grim and entirely them.

And somehow, impossibly, I laugh. Because this is my life now—sitting in a crooked treehouse built by gods and monsters, listing all the women who tried to ruin them, and knowing they’ll never ruin me.

It hits me when Silas starts in on a girl who tried to hex them all into marrying her.

The stories tumble out of their mouths so easily—like it’s all a joke, a long, bloody history of wreckage and women and wild obsession. But there’s a weight behind it, whether they mean it or not. Because every name they’ve thrown like a dagger was someone who wanted them enough to burn everything down.

So what does that make me?

And before I can stop myself, I ask, voice far too light, far too casual, "So… if all your old Sin Binders were insane… what does that make me?"

Silas stops mid-sentence, his grin freezing.

Elias peeks at me from beneath his lashes, something unreadable flickering there. "You fishing, sweetheart?"

"Maybe," I murmur, forcing a shrug, but my pulse is loud in my throat. "I mean, clearly you have a type. tics. And I’m here now, so…"

"Don’t do that," Ambrose cuts in, his voice a blade dragging over silk. "You’re nothing like them."

"Because I’m better at hiding how crazy I am?" I offer, trying to play it off, but something ugly gnaws at my ribs.

Silas groans, flopping onto his back like I’ve wounded him. ", no. You’re not crazy."

"You’re worse," Elias drawls, a smirk ghosting over his lips.

I arch a brow, pulse ticking faster. "Worse?"

"Yeah," Elias says, sitting up now, the sharpness stripped from his grin. "Because you don’t want to own us. You just… do."

Ambrose meets my gaze then, cool and direct. "They wanted to carve their names into us. You? You’ve carved yourself into us without even trying."

Silas nods, something almost serious in his eyes, for once. "They all wanted to make us theirs. You never asked. You just showed up and became ours."

Heat climbs up my throat, sharp and unexpected. "That sounds a lot like a compliment."

"It is," Elias mutters, voice too soft, too honest. "You’re not like them, . You’re not the storm that destroys everything. You’re the one thing we’re all willing to drown in."

Silas rolls onto his stomach, chin propped in his hand, grin crooked now. "Also, you’re hotter than all of them combined. And you don’t make creepy dolls out of our hair."

"Yet," I deadpan, but my throat is tight.

Ambrose’s mouth curves, almost a smile. "You’re not crazy, . You’re inevitable."

And there’s nothing casual about the way he says it.

Ambrose’s stare feels like a blade slicing through the quiet.

Silas and Elias are arguing over whether or not they can rig the half-built tree fort with trip wires to “keep out unhinged exes,” and for once, Ambrose isn’t cutting them down with one of his cold remarks. He’s just here, near enough that the heat of him seeps beneath my skin, silent enough to make me hyperaware.

And it’s not like this is new—he’s always been a shadow I couldn’t outrun. What’s new is… this.

The way he’s been lately. Less sharp edges, more quiet proximity. He doesn’t leave after anymore. Doesn’t vanish like a bad habit he can’t wait to forget. He stays. Sleeps. Breathes beside me like it doesn’t cost him anything.

It’s unsettling.

Because for all the wicked, tangled ways I love Silas and Elias and Riven… Ambrose has always felt like a negotiation I couldn’t win. Now he feels like something I’ve already lost.

Silas makes some crude joke about rigging a rope trap with bear urine—Elias cackles like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard—and I feel Ambrose shift beside me, the edge of his thigh grazing mine. A deliberate touch that lingers longer than it should.

My stomach flips.

I swallow and force myself to keep my voice light. "You’re not going to suggest bear urine too, are you?"

Ambrose doesn’t look at me, but the corner of his mouth twitches. "No," he murmurs, voice low, velvet and razor-sharp. "I have better weapons."

I glance at him from the corner of my eye. He’s still staring straight ahead, but there’s something different about the line of his jaw, the way his fingers curl loose against his knee. Like he’s relaxed. Almost… playful.

Which makes it worse.

Because I don’t understand what this is. What we are. I know what the bond between us feels like when we’re tangled up in sheets, when he’s got me on my back, when the cold calculation in his gaze melts into something scorching. But this version of him—softened, present, not running?

That’s what’s confusing. What terrifies me more than the sharp edges ever did.

I should ask. I should demand to know what this is, if it means anything, if I mean anything to him. But not here. Not in front of Silas and Elias, who are currently building a shrine to chaos ten feet away.

So I say nothing. I just sit there, pretending I don’t notice the way Ambrose’s hand drifts closer to mine on the wooden plank, like he’s not sure if he’s about to reach for me.

And when Silas groans dramatically about needing help, I finally glance at Ambrose and murmur, "You’re staying tonight, aren’t you?"

He meets my gaze then, finally, and the weight of it punches through me.

"Yes," he says, voice like smoke curling low in his throat. "I always do now."

The thing I want to ask claws at the back of my throat, but I swallow it down, tuck it away.

A spark flickers in the corner of my vision, soft and pulsing like a heartbeat made of light.

I don’t notice it at first, too caught in the treacherous rhythm of Ambrose beside me, the quiet weight of his presence. But then it darts toward him—glimmering gold, feather-light—and hovers near his jaw like it’s trying to kiss him.

A single lightning bug.

Only it’s not like the ones back in our world. No, everything here in the Hollow is touched, corrupted, or sharpened into something more. This one glows brighter, threads of silver weaving through its body, tiny veins of starlight that pulse in time with the distant hum beneath this cursed place.

I suck in a sharp breath before I can stop myself, my gaze snagging on the fragile, impossible thing hovering by his face. Ambrose doesn’t flinch. He just watches it, watches me, like he’s already three steps ahead of whatever foolish thing I might do.

And then, before I can even think to move, his fingers lift—long, precise—and he catches it.

He shouldn’t be able to. It should have slipped away, wild and untouchable. But Ambrose cups it in his palm like he’s holding a secret, and when he shifts, he turns that impossible light toward me.

He holds it out, offering it like an apology he’d never speak aloud.

The glow softens against the lines of his palm, casting delicate shadows across his sharp cheekbones, the harsh slash of his mouth. He looks otherworldly like this—like something ancient and dangerous and too beautiful to stare at for too long.

The lightning bug flares again, but slower now, synced to the rhythm of my breath.

“For you,” Ambrose murmurs, and it sounds less like a gift and more like a confession.

My throat tightens, my chest twisting in a way I can’t untangle. My fingers brush his as I take it—just a graze, but it’s enough. His pulse flutters against mine, fast and steady beneath the cool detachment he’s always worn like armor.

The little thing perches in my hand, wings barely moving, like it knows it’s safe here.

"Ambrose," I breathe, not knowing what I’m about to say, not knowing what this soft, sharp ache in my chest means—but he already knows.

His gaze drops to my fingers curled gently around the light, and the corner of his mouth lifts. Not a smile. Something quieter. More dangerous.

"You shouldn’t hold things like that," he says, voice smooth and low. "They’ll make you want things you shouldn’t."

And gods help me, I want everything. Before I can answer, the lightning bug flickers out—not dead, but fading into nothing, like it was never really here at all.

Ambrose’s eyes stay on mine, though, like he’s still holding something in his hands.

The moment softens too much—like the Hollow itself knows it, curling quiet around me and Ambrose, making the world hush, like it wants me to drown in the weight of him, the impossible thing he just handed me.

But then—of course—it’s Silas.

". Look at me," Silas’s voice cuts through the quiet, muffled, suspiciously smug.

I drag my gaze away from Ambrose, already bracing.

And there he is. Standing at the edge of the half-built treehouse like an idiot, grinning wide enough to split his face open, two lightning bugs stuck to his damn teeth. Their glow flickers between his lips like he’s trying to convince me he’s holy.

My lips part before I can stop them, but not because I’m impressed. No, it’s horror. Pure, unfiltered horror.

“You didn’t,” I whisper, breath catching in my throat.

He wiggles his eyebrows, leans in like he’s about to say something filthy—and that’s when I realize exactly how many times I’ve kissed that mouth. That mouth. The one currently crawling with tiny glowing insects.

A noise claws its way out of my throat, halfway between a groan and a gag. I slap a hand over my face.

“I’ve kissed that mouth,” I mutter into my palm, voice strangled.

Ambrose, beside me, snorts under his breath like he’s finally amused by something other than the collapse of kingdoms. Elias chokes on a laugh somewhere to my right.

Silas, the absolute menace, blinks innocently, biting down gently enough to keep the bugs trapped between his teeth. The glow inside his mouth pulses like a warning.

“You have. Many times. You’re welcome,” he says, voice garbled around the light.

I make the mistake of peeking through my fingers and catch the flash of his teeth again, the faint flutter of wings behind them.

I shove up from the half-built floor of the treehouse like I’m fleeing the scene of a crime, wiping my mouth furiously with the back of my hand even though I know it’s too late. I’ll still kiss him again. Because I’m in love with that stupid, chaotic, impossible boy who collects insects like prizes and smiles at me like he’s the end of the world wrapped in a joke. And somehow, that might just be worse than the lightning bugs.

I cut across the overgrown path toward the house, Silas’s stupid glow-mouth seared into the back of my eyelids—and still, somehow, the weight behind me burns hotter.

Ambrose isn’t walking. He’s hunting.

I feel him before I hear him, the scrape of his presence in the marrow of me, measured and sharp like he’s counting every step I take. His stride isn’t rushed; it’s deliberate, patient, but when I glance over my shoulder, his eyes are already locked on mine like he never needed the distance between us at all.

The bond between us thrums low and electric, a pulse that isn’t supposed to belong to him, but does anyway. I used to slam it shut—used to bolt and lock the damn thing every time he even looked at me too long. Now, there's a door. And tonight, he’s standing on the other side, knocking.

The knock isn’t polite.

Let me in, little binder.

The words pulse like silk and sin through the crack I’ve left open. I grit my teeth, pretending I don’t hear him. But he’s relentless. He knows exactly how to slide under my skin without touching me.

You looked good out there. His voice, low and lazy, like he’s tasting me with every word. Soft and wild and so fucking easy to ruin.

I swallow hard, keep moving down the hallway, pretending the heat licking at the back of my neck isn’t him.

You know what I’m thinking about? His voice dips darker, filthier. That mouth you’re so good at arguing with. Wrapped around my cock instead.

My breath shudders out of me, and my fingers tighten against the doorframe when I step into my bedroom. I don’t respond, but I don’t close the door either. That’s the problem with Ambrose. I never lock him out anymore.

You’re wet already, aren’t you? His words curl around me like velvet. You like it when I talk to you like this. Like you’re mine. Like you’d let me use you however I want.

His eyes drag over me like I’m something he plans to ruin tonight.

“You know,” he murmurs from behind, voice silk and blade, “you used to keep me locked out.”

I don’t turn. I can’t.

“And now?” he continues, closing the distance between us until the heat of him ghosts over my back. His breath kisses the shell of my ear. “You’ve left the door wide open.”

A shiver slides down my spine, and I hate how easy it is for him to read me. How easy it is to want him like this.

“It’s cracked,” I say quietly, trying for some measure of indifference. It’s a pathetic attempt.

He leans in until his mouth almost touches the side of my neck. Almost. “No, little binder,” he breathes, voice dipping into something that curls deep in my stomach, “it’s wide. Fucking. Open.”

His fingers graze my hip—light, too light—and then he’s moving, slow, lazy, unapologetic, toward my bedroom like he already knows I’ll follow.

"You want me to shut up and fuck you now?" he asks, voice rough and unapologetic. "Or do you want me to tell you all the other things I’m going to do to you first?"

His eyes burn when he says it, like he’s already picturing every single one.