Page 20 of The Sin Binder’s Destiny (The Seven Sins Academy #5)

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, boots still on, fingers curled tight around the rim of the chipped porcelain mug in my hands. I haven’t touched the tea. I don’t even remember who brought it to me. Probably Ambrose. He’s the only one who doesn’t try to sell me a version of Lucien every time I look away.

The others can’t help themselves.

I spent the entire day choking on it—every sideways glance, every too-casual comment about how Lucien isn’t that bad, how strong he is, how attractive he is, how his jaw could probably slice glass. Half of those words came tumbling out of Silas’s mouth between ridiculous stunts and chaotic grinning like he thought if he said it enough, I’d start to believe him.

The rest of them were just as bad.

Elias’s cringey little side comments. Riven’s pointed silences. Even Orin’s patience, stretched thin in a way that meant he was waiting for me to bend.

It wasn’t about the pillar.

The cathedral, the conversation, the whole bloody day—it was about me. About him. About trying to get me to let go of something that’s still sharp in my chest.

And now I’m here, alone in this room, waiting for one of them to show up like they always do, because none of them know how to leave me alone when I want them to.

But when the knock comes, it isn’t Elias, flustered and grinning with some stupid joke on his tongue.

When I crack the door open, he’s standing there like he doesn’t quite belong in this world, his sharpness dulled by something awkward in the set of his shoulders. And in his arms—a kitten. A mess of black fur and bright, startled eyes peeking out of his coat.

I blink at him, too surprised to hide it. “What the hell is that?”

Lucien’s mouth quirks, not quite a smile but something smaller, more dangerous. “A bribe.”

I should slam the door in his face.

But instead, I step back and let him in.

He moves like a shadow across the threshold, careful in a way that’s almost deliberate, like he knows one wrong step will send me closing the door again, this time for good.

The kitten wriggles in his arms as he crosses the room, its tiny paws batting at the string dangling from his sleeve. He sets it down carefully on the bed, and it immediately launches itself at the rumpled sheets like it owns the place.

I fold my arms over my chest, keeping distance between us. “You brought me a cat.”

His gaze meets mine then, cool and sharp as ever. “You looked like you needed something to claw at.”

It’s such a Lucien answer—sharp-edged, carefully deflected—but it lands anyway, burrowing somewhere beneath my ribs before I can stop it.

I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t want him here, shouldn’t want the way his presence makes everything in me tilt sideways.

But I do.

The kitten scrambles up the blankets toward me, a little dark blur with too-big eyes and ridiculous energy, and I can’t help it—I reach down and scoop it into my hands, feeling the way it’s all bone and warmth and fragile heartbeat.

Lucien’s watching me when I look up, his expression unreadable, like he’s waiting for me to say something cruel. Like he expects me to tell him to leave.

“You’re really bad at apologies.”

His mouth curls, faint and dangerous. “I know.”

The kitten claws gently at my sleeve, climbing higher, purring like it’s already decided I’m its entire world.

I glance back at him, my voice quieter now, edged with something I can’t quite name. “You don’t have to fix this.”

Lucien’s eyes flicker at that, something sharp sliding beneath the surface. “I know.”

There’s a beat, heavier than it should be, stretching between us like a pulled thread.

And then, softer—almost too soft to catch—he says, “But I wanted to.”

It’s the way he’s standing there like he doesn’t know how to cross the space between us anymore. The way he’s still trying.

The kitten purrs louder, burrowing against me, like it’s not another piece of this strange, aching puzzle we’ve all been circling for too long. I glance back up at him, and this time, I let myself smile. Just a little. Just enough.

“Next time,” I murmur, voice quiet but pointed, “try flowers.”

His gaze catches on mine, sharp and dangerous, but something softer at the edges now.

“I don’t do flowers,” he says.

“This is really unfair,”

He exhales slowly, like he’s releasing something he’s held in too long. “I’m sorry.”

I glance up at that, eyebrows lifting before I can stop myself.

He meets my eyes, and for the first time in weeks, he doesn’t look like he’s preparing for a fight. His mouth curves, but it isn’t cruel. “For what I said,” he clarifies. “I didn’t mean it.”

I stare at him for a long moment, weighing that, knowing how hard it is for him to spit the words out like that. But I don’t let him off easy.

“Yes, you did,” I murmur, voice steady. “You meant every word of it. You just didn’t mean to say it out loud.”

His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look away. “Maybe.”

I set the kitten aside carefully, shifting so I can face him fully, my legs folding beneath me on the bed. “You weren’t just angry at me,” I say quietly. “You were projecting. You weren’t talking about the guys—you were talking about yourself. You said the others didn’t want me, but what you meant was, you didn’t want me.”

Lucien doesn’t flinch. He just looks tired, like he’s been holding the weight of something sharp for too long.

“I don’t bend, ,” he says finally, the words slow, deliberate, heavy. “I don’t want to.”

My breath catches, but I hold it in, let him keep going.

“I spent weeks,” he continues, voice roughening like gravel underfoot, “with Branwen inside my head, inside my body, making me a thing I didn’t recognize. She controlled me through a bond I never asked for. Every thought I had wasn’t mine. Every choice was hers. And I crawled out of that with nothing left except this… pressure.”

He drags a hand over his mouth, shaking his head like he can’t believe he’s saying this.

“It’s not that I don’t like you,” he says finally, his voice quieter now, sharper at the edges. “It’s what you represent.”

My chest twists, but I keep my voice steady. “And what’s that?”

His gaze cuts to mine, and it’s devastating in how honest it is.

“Something I can’t bend,” he says. “Something I can’t control. And I know you’re not a leash. I know the others… they love you. They chose you. And you chose them.”

He swallows hard, the motion tight in his throat.

“But it’s all coming down to me now. Because once you bond with Orin…” He exhales sharply, almost a laugh but not quite. “It’s just going to be me left.” He shakes his head, gaze flicking away as if the walls might swallow him whole. “And I don’t like that. The pressure of what you are. What you mean.”

This isn’t about rejection.

It never was.

This is about Lucien Virelius—who has spent his entire life building walls no one could scale—terrified of being the last one left standing when they all fall.

I don’t want him to slip back into that cold quiet he hides behind, that distance he thinks protects him when all it does is make me want to tear him apart.

So I ask the question that’s been rotting in my chest since the moment he first touched me and pretended it didn’t mean anything.

“And what do I mean to you, Lucien?”

His gaze flickers, jaw tightening, but I don’t stop.

“Because you’re very confusing to me,” I continue, each word carefully measured, the sharp edge of it deliberate. “You run so hot and cold I can’t keep up. You tell me not to touch you, you act like I’m the problem, but then you pull me into your bed and fuck me like you’re starving for me.”

I don’t pause. Don’t soften it.

“And then the next day you’re cold again,” I say quietly, biting each word out, “like you didn’t touch me. Like you didn’t want me. You shut down, push me away, act like I don’t exist.”

I step closer, refusing to give him space to retreat.

“Even Ambrose,” I murmur, “told me exactly where I stood with him from the start. Riven never hid how he felt. Silas would tattoo it on his forehead if I let him. Elias—” I huff, shaking my head. “Even Elias can’t shut up about how stupidly gone he is for me.”

Lucien’s breath shudders out through his nose, sharp, controlled.

“But you?” I press, voice quieter now, sharper. “You won’t say it. You won’t admit anything. You keep me at a distance like it matters, and then you do shit like this—” I glance toward the bed where the kitten is still curled in the sheets, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing in the room. “Like showing up here with a stray and pretending you’re not trying to fix something you broke. You say nice things when you think I’m not paying attention,” I say, my voice sliding lower now, softer but sharper. “You flirt like you don’t mean it. You tell me I can’t leave the damn house without you like I’m yours to guard. All while giving me the fucking silent treatment.”

I watch him carefully, because I want to see him break under it.

I want the truth.

Not the careful distance.

Not the cold avoidance.

Lucien’s shoulders rise with his breath, his mouth pressed in a sharp line, but his eyes—gods, his eyes are molten, dark and wild in a way that should terrify me. Because he looks like he’s on the verge of cracking wide open.

And I want him to.

I step closer, my voice quiet but deadly. “So tell me, Lucien. What do I mean to you?”

And then, without warning, he exhales a rough, sharp sound that might be a laugh, except there’s nothing warm in it. His gaze flicks away, sharp and precise, like he’s taking inventory of every wall in the room before landing back on me.

“You want me to make it simple,” he says finally, voice pitched low and cutting, like he’s peeling his skin back one word at a time. “But I don’t do simple.”

I arch a brow, unblinking. “That’s not an answer.”

Lucien’s jaw works, his throat bobbing as he swallows whatever instinct he has to retreat.

“You mean too much,” he says, voice rough and biting, like the words hurt. “That’s the problem.”

I shake my head once, slow, deliberate. “No, Lucien. That’s not the problem. The problem is you want me to guess every goddamn time.”

“I don’t know what to do with you,” his voice pitched lower now, like it’s not meant to be heard. “You fit everywhere I don’t.”

Lucien’s gaze drops for a moment, like he’s reeling it all back in, already folding himself shut again. But he doesn’t leave. And I don’t tell him to.

Because this is what we are—sharp edges, unmet confessions, a thread stretched too tight.

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“Do you want to stay the night?”

I hear myself say it and immediately want to drag the question back between my teeth and swallow it whole. It’s not what I meant to offer. I don’t even know why I ask.

Because he doesn’t deserve me. Because he’s spent months pushing me away, cutting me down, treating me like I’m the problem. Because the Lucien I know is sharp edges and cold silences, a man who runs hot enough to burn when he wants me and cold enough to freeze me out when the morning comes.

And yet, I ask anyway.

Maybe it’s because tonight felt different—because the way he looked at me when he apologized wasn’t cruel. Maybe it’s because when I finally asked him what I meant to him, he didn’t lie. He didn’t confess either, but the cracks were there, raw and ugly, and I can’t stop looking at them.

Maybe it’s because I’ve already slept with him once, and that night—gods, that night—he wasn’t cold. He wasn’t cruel. He touched me like I was something worth worshipping and worth destroying all at once, and then left me wondering if any of it was real when the morning came.

I don’t know what this is, but I can’t stop the question from falling out of me.

Lucien stills like I’ve knocked the air out of him.

For a moment, with his gaze fixed on mine like he’s waiting for me to take it back. Like he’s already preparing for the door to slam shut in his face.

And then something shifts in his expression—not soft exactly, but something flickering beneath the weight he always carries around like armor.

His mouth curves, slow and almost uncertain, and then he says, quietly, quickly, “Yes.”

One second, he’s standing there looking at me, and the next, I’m pinned hard against the door, my back slamming into the wood, his mouth crushing mine without apology. His kiss isn’t soft. It’s sharp, biting, full of everything he’s been holding back. His hands find my hips, fingers curling in tight as he pulls me flush against him, and when his mouth crashes down on mine, it’s not careful. It’s desperate. Hard and hungry and rough, like he’s been trying not to touch me for weeks and now he’s caved completely.

I kiss him back like I want to ruin him.

My fingers fist in the front of his coat, yanking him closer, the taste of him sharp and hot on my tongue. There’s no sweetness in this—no careful, tender build-up. It’s desperate and messy and inevitable, the two of us colliding like we’ve been circling this moment for months.

His hands are already beneath my shirt, dragging it up over my head without finesse, his mouth never leaving mine for long. His palms are rough, fingers splayed wide as they drag over bare skin, possessive without trying to be. His kiss turns hungrier, bruising, like he’s trying to devour me whole, like he wants to disappear inside me until nothing else exists.

“You drive me fucking insane,” he mutters against my mouth, voice low and rough, like the words scrape against his throat on the way out.

I don’t bother answering. Instead, I pull him down harder, kiss him until we’re both breathless, until he has no choice but to let himself fall.

He lifts me without effort, my legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he carries me across the room, like he’s carried me a thousand times before. When he lays me down on the bed, there’s no hesitation—no pause to ask permission or wonder what this means.

He strips me, tugging my pants down with single-minded focus, his gaze dragging over every inch of me like he’s committing me to memory. And when his eyes meet mine again, there’s something dark and hungry in them, something dangerous.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he mutters, and it sounds more like a threat than a confession.

I meet his gaze without flinching, my voice sharp and breathless all at once. “Show me.”

His mouth crashes back over mine, and this time, his hands are everywhere—greedy, possessive, tracing down the line of my body like he’s been starved for this. He spreads my thighs without ceremony, his fingers slipping between them like he already knows how I’ll come apart beneath him.

The first stroke of his fingers is maddening, slow and sure, his thumb circling over my clit with practiced ease. When he slides two fingers inside me without warning, it’s deliberate, deep, filling me in a way that has my hips jerking up toward him instinctively.

“Always so fucking wet for me,” he growls against my throat, the words rough, almost angry.

I arch into him without shame, my fingers digging into his shoulders, my mouth falling open as he curls his fingers just right, driving me higher with ruthless precision. He knows exactly how to touch me—where to press, how to make me shatter. And he does it without mercy.

The orgasm hits fast and hard, tearing through me in sharp, ragged waves before I can even brace for it. My body clenches around his fingers, my breath catching in my throat as I ride it out, every nerve in me sparking like live wire.

Before the aftershocks have even begun to fade, he’s pulling his hand away, cursing low under his breath as he shoves his pants down, his cock hard and heavy between us. His movements are sharp, rough, like he’s fighting himself even now.

And then he’s back over me, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth grazing my jaw, my throat, like he’s afraid to stop touching me for even a second.

“,” he says, my name rough and reverent on his tongue, like it’s a curse he’s dying to speak.

I meet his gaze, my legs already wrapping around him again, dragging him closer because I don’t want distance. I want him inside me. I want to feel him lose himself.

“Don’t hold back,” I murmur, my voice wrecked and breathless. “I don’t want soft.”

The second the words leave my mouth, he’s there, thrusting into me in one sharp, brutal stroke that knocks the breath from my lungs. He doesn’t ease in, doesn’t take his time. He fills me completely, his body pressing me down, claiming me in the way he never says out loud.

It’s filthy. Messy. Desperate.

Lucien fucks me like he hates me and loves me in the same breath—like he doesn’t know how to do one without the other. He fucks me like he’s angry at himself, like he wants to carve himself out of his own skin and bury himself inside me instead. His pace is relentless, every hard snap of his hips driving me deeper into the mattress, rattling the bed frame against the wall.

I meet him thrust for thrust, my nails scoring down his back, my mouth dragging over his throat, biting at his skin because I want to mark him the way he marks me.

There’s nothing careful about this. It’s brutal and consuming and inevitable.

He drives me over the edge again before I can catch my breath, his hand slipping between us, fingers circling over my clit with ruthless precision until I’m falling apart beneath him for the second time, my body clenching hard around him as I cry out his name.

He fucks me through it, chasing his own release like it’s the only thing left keeping him sane. His breath stutters against my mouth, sharp and ragged, and when he finally comes, it’s with a groan torn from deep in his chest, his body shuddering hard as he spills inside me.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room is the rasp of our breathing, the wild, uneven rhythm of two people who have no idea how to stop destroying each other.

Lucien doesn’t move right away. His weight is heavy over me, grounding and devastating all at once. His face buried in the crook of my neck, his breath hot against my skin like he’s trying to memorize me from the inside out.

For a long moment, neither of us move. Our breathing is rough, sharp, tangled together.

And then he shifts, his weight still heavy against me, his mouth dragging over my neck, soft now, almost reverent—but not sweet. Never sweet.

I don’t ask what this means.

And he doesn’t offer.

Because this was never about words.

It’s about this—the sharp, messy, inescapable thing between us neither of us can name. And when he finally settles beside me, I know tomorrow he’ll go back to pretending.

But tonight, he stayed.

Lucien

I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. It’s not the inevitable pull of magic threading under my skin, trying to stitch me to her whether I want it or not.

It’s her.

It’s the way she looked at me last night—annoyed, exhausted, worn down by me and everyone else—and still offered me a place to stay like I hadn’t spent months making her question whether she mattered. Like I hadn’t carved my resentment into her with a scalpel every time she tried to get close.

She let me stay anyway.

She let me touch her, kiss her, fuck her like I was starving and she was the only thing left keeping me alive. And I didn’t stop. I didn’t just take her once, didn’t leave her like I should’ve after the first time. I woke her up again and again, until the sun was nearly rising and she was a mess beneath me, her voice wrecked and hoarse from saying my name like a prayer and a curse.

Every time she came apart for me, it only made me hungrier. Like something cracked open inside me and now I can’t shove it back in place. By the time I finally left, it wasn’t because I wanted to. It was because if I stayed, I wouldn’t have stopped.

I slipped out before the sun crested the horizon, before she could open her eyes and look at me like I was anything worth keeping.

The tavern’s only a few doors down from the house we’ve been squatting in since the cathedral—a cheap, splintered thing Branwen rebuilt to look like home, like everything else in this godsdamned world. The village is still quiet at this hour, no one on the cobbled streets but me, my steps sharp and purposeful, like if I walk fast enough, I can outrun the weight settling in my chest.

I round the corner, almost to the door of the house, already thinking about how I’ll scrub her scent from my skin, how I’ll pretend none of it happened—

And stop dead.

Because Silas is sitting on the front steps, elbows on his knees, head tilted back to watch the sky like he’s got nothing better to do at this hour. Except the second he sees me, his mouth curves in that slow, devastatingly smug smile that makes me want to put him through the wall.

“Morning, sunshine,” he drawls, like he’s been waiting for me all night.

My clothes are still rumpled, my shirt half-untucked, my hair a mess from ’s fingers dragging through it less than an hour ago. I probably smell like her, like sex and sweat and something sharp enough to bleed.

Silas’s grin sharpens when I don’t speak, like he’s confirming every single thing he already knew.

“Well,” he says, stretching lazily like a cat who’s just cornered a mouse. “If it isn’t our fearless leader, finally crawling home.”

I narrow my gaze, keeping my voice clipped. “Get out of my way.”

But he doesn’t move. He plants his elbows on his knees, chin tipping into his palm, watching me like I’m a show he paid good coin to see.

“You’re messy,” he comments casually, voice dripping with false innocence. “Clothes all wrinkled, hair sticking up. Didn’t even bother to pretend you were anywhere but exactly where I know you were.”

I grit my teeth and push past him, but he keeps talking, his voice chasing me up the stairs.

“Must’ve been a good night,” he adds, sing-song. “You’ve got that look.”

I stop at the top step, my jaw tight, pulse pounding behind my eyes. “Drop it, Silas.”

He hums thoughtfully, tapping his fingers against his thigh. “Thing is, I would… if you weren’t so godsdamned obvious about it.”

When I glance back over my shoulder, he’s still grinning—but there’s something sharper under it now. Something that looks too much like knowing.

“She’s gonna ruin you, you know,” he says, voice lower now, almost soft. “You keep pretending you don’t care, but you wouldn’t be walking home like that if you didn’t.”

I turn away, shove the door open, and let it slam shut behind me but I don’t get two steps into the house before something sharp coils in my gut—something sour, crawling beneath my ribs like static.

Because I know Silas. And Silas doesn’t keep his mouth shut.

I yank my boots off by the stairs, fingers rough, movements clipped, trying to pretend it doesn’t matter, that what happened last night isn’t written all over me like a scar. But the second my shoes hit the floor, the panic sets in like a blade twisting under my ribs.

Because he’s not going to let this go. And if anyone is going to parade my fuckup through the house like a banner, it’s Silas.

I scrub a hand over my face, exhaling sharp, and without thinking, I turn on my heel and yank the door open again.

Silas is still exactly where I left him—perched lazily on the steps, his chin tipped up to the grey morning sky, humming some tuneless melody like he hasn’t just spent the last ten minutes cataloging every shred of humiliation I dragged home with me.

The second he hears the door creak, he glances back over his shoulder, and that smile spreads across his face slow and wicked, all teeth.

“Changed your mind?” he asks, voice pitched light, knowing.

I step outside, letting the door shut firmly behind me. “You’re going to keep your mouth shut.”

Silas arches a brow like I’ve just handed him a gift. “About what?”

I grit my teeth. “You know damn well about what.”

He hums low in his throat, tapping his fingers against his knee like he’s cataloguing all the ways he can make me regret this conversation.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” he says casually, his smile widening like he can taste blood in the air. “There are so many things this could allude to.”

I exhale slowly, counting to three, then five, because I know exactly what he’s doing—needling, provoking, peeling me open because that’s what Silas does best. And I’m too damn tired to play.

The grin he gives me is infuriating. Sharp-edged. Giddy.

I bite out a breath through my teeth, my pulse ticking hard behind my eyes. “About this,” I snap, waving a sharp hand vaguely in the air between us like I can carve the words out of it. “About last night.”

Silas taps a finger against his chin like he’s considering the weight of the entire world. “Last night,” he repeats slowly, deliberately. “See, the thing is… there were a lot of things happening last night. Elias fell off the roof again. Riven threatened to drown me for teaching the local kids how to lockpick. You’re going to have to narrow it down.”

“Silas,” I say, voice cold enough to cut. “Don’t fuck with me.”

His grin sharpens further, green eyes bright and infuriatingly pleased. “Oh, you mean the part where our cold, ruthless, emotionally stunted leader snuck out of ’s room looking like he’d been thoroughly fucked six ways from sunrise?”

My jaw ticks hard enough to crack. “Keep your mouth shut.”

He presses a hand over his heart like I’ve wounded him. “I’m wounded you’d think I’d gossip.”

“You gossip constantly.”

His smile is sharp enough to cut glass. “Not about you.”

I shake my head once, sharp, and start to turn back toward the door.

But his voice follows me, quieter now, almost thoughtful. “I won’t tell them.”

I glance over my shoulder.

Silas lifts a shoulder, gaze flicking away for the first time all morning. “Not because you told me to. Because she deserves to tell them herself.”

For a second, I don’t know what to do with that. So I don’t say anything at all. I just go back inside and close the door behind me like I’m shutting out a storm.

I take a breath I don’t need, scrub a hand over my face like I can scrape the last few hours off my skin. It doesn’t work. I can still smell her. Feel her. Every part of me aches in ways that have nothing to do with the walk home and everything to do with the woman I left tangled in her sheets, bare and soft and asleep—without promising me a godsdamn thing.

She didn’t say she’d move back in.

That’s what gnaws at me, sharp and incessant beneath my ribs like a blade pressed too close. She let me stay. Let me touch her. Let me fuck her so hard I forgot how to breathe.

But she didn’t say she’d come home.