Page 38

The stone path curves beneath our boots, the gravel whispering like it’s been waiting centuries for this conversation to ruin me.

He hasn’t said anything since he asked. Bond with me. Three words. Quiet, deliberate. Not a question. Not exactly a command. He said it like it was already written somewhere—something old and holy, inevitable.

And now we walk.

My fingers twitch at my sides like they don’t know what to do with themselves. I want to say yes. I want to say it so badly my teeth ache from holding it in. But I can’t stop thinking about what bonding does—how it changes things. Not just the power. Not just the magic. The personality. Every time I bonded with one of them, something shifted. With Silas, I started craving chaos. With Riven, I started choosing silence more than I used to. With Elias—

Gods, Elias.

Elias is the reason I started snorting when I laugh.

And now Orin.

When I’m around him, everything inside me short-circuits. I turn into the most unhinged, awkward, vaguely feral version of myself. Like Silas infected me, and Orin is just too—too intense, too composed, too sexy—and now the only way I know how to function near him is to say the worst possible thing at the worst possible time.

I clear my throat. “You ever, uh, think about how weird it is that trees have skin?”

Orin’s gaze cuts sideways, slow and deliberate, like he’s giving me a full minute to re-evaluate that sentence before he commits to acknowledging it. “Bark?”

“Oh gods.” I groan. “Yeah. No. I meant—yes. Bark. Obviously. Not, like, sentient skin or anything. That would be... deeply alarming.”

His mouth curves. Just slightly. “You’re nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“You’re deeply nervous.”

I scoff. “I’m the definition of composed.”

“You’re the definition of unhinged.”

“I’m going to walk into this tree.”

“You almost already did.”

I curse softly under my breath and deliberately turn my head toward the willow. The branches sweep down like arms, the leaves pale silver in the early dusk light. There’s a hush here. Not quiet, not empty. Just… expectant.

My fingers curl tighter around nothing.

He doesn’t stop walking until we’re beneath the hanging veil of the willow, the world narrowing around us. Soft. Private. It feels like a secret place—like the kind of spot that remembers what it sees. My pulse kicks harder.

Orin turns toward me, and gods, he’s so calm about it. His face is unreadable—unbothered by the way I just spent half the walk talking about tree skin and existential root systems like a lunatic. I think that’s why I like him so much.

Because he doesn’t flinch.

“I want you to be sure,” he says. “Not because you think I expect it. Not because the others have.”

I look up at him. “And if I’m already sure?”

His gaze lingers on my face for a long, heavy second. “Then you say yes. And I’ll cut.”

I swallow hard.

“I want to,” I whisper. “But I—”

“You’re afraid you’ll start sounding like Silas.”

My laugh cracks out of me, sharp and embarrassed. “Too late. I already do. I tried to flirt with a window earlier.”

Orin doesn’t laugh, but his eyes flash with quiet amusement. “Did it flirt back?”

“It closed itself.”

He steps closer. “Then it has good taste.”

And that’s the thing with Orin. He doesn’t do lines. He says everything like it’s already a fact—like I’m supposed to understand the weight of his affection just from the way he breathes near me. And I do. I do.

But my mouth still says, “I’m going to say something incredibly cringe in about three seconds and you’re going to take it seriously and I’ll never recover.”

“Try me.”

“I want to bond,” I say in a rush. “Even if it means I start reading ancient poetry out loud in graveyards or—whatever your vibe is. I want it.”

He nods once. No hesitation. No smirk. Just absolute certainty. “Then we bond.”

My stomach flips.

He draws a blade from the inside of his coat. Not the ornate, ceremonial kind. It’s simple. Black-handled. Worn. Like it’s been used before.

“Left hand,” he says quietly.

I lift mine. He takes it without ceremony, holding my wrist steady as he slices across the heel of his own palm, then mine. It stings. Not much. Just enough to remind me this is real. Then he presses the wounds together.

The bond catches instantly.

It’s not violent. Not like with the others. It’s not a rush. It’s a folding. A sinking. A slow, perfect hum that settles under my skin and knows. I feel his magic winding through me like silk drawn over bare nerves. Heavy. Ancient. Patient.

He exhales once, low and rough.

His hand is wrapped around mine, blood sticky between our palms, the bond still hot and new beneath my skin when he lets go—and moves for my pants like we’ve done this a hundred times before.

“We could—” My voice pitches up an octave, which is just the worst. “—we could talk first. Or, you know, like… meditate. About it.”

Orin looks up at me through his lashes as he undoes the first button. “Do you want to meditate, ?”

“No,” I breathe, instantly. “Gods, no. Please continue.”

He hums, quiet approval, and lowers himself to his knees.

Oh no.

My brain short-circuits. His fingers skim the hem of my pants, but I can’t look at that because he’s on his knees. Beneath me. Calm and devastating and looking up at me like I’m the altar he’s chosen to desecrate. And I—

I’m absolutely not staring at his mouth.

I’m not.

I’m looking respectfully.

Mostly.

He opens my pants slowly, deliberately. His fingers graze over the fabric just enough to make me forget my own name. And I want to be cool. I want to say something clever or seductive or at least normal, but all that comes out is:

“You—you have really intense kneeling posture.”

His brow lifts slightly. “Kneeling posture.”

“Like, your back’s very straight. That’s good. Good form. Ten out of ten.”

He doesn’t laugh. He just slides his palms over my hips, over the outside of my thighs, outside the fabric still. Teasing. Unrushed. His thumbs stroke small circles as he leans forward, his mouth just there—close enough to kiss my stomach but deliberately not doing it.

“Do you want to slow down?” he asks, low and careful.

“No. I mean. Maybe. I don’t know. Your abs are really… abs.”

He finally lets out a low, amused breath, like he’s been holding it in. “You’re staring.”

“You’re going to be shirtless!”

“You’ve seen me naked.”

“Right, but now I get to look.”

He rises slowly, one hand still wrapped around my hip, the other brushing my stomach. He doesn’t touch skin yet, just hovers, his mouth inches from mine.

“So look.”

Oh, gods.

I do. And it’s humiliating how I moan at the sight of him up close.

But he’s still wearing his shirt—dark, fitted, irritatingly intact. Which feels like a crime. A very personal offense.

“You’re—” I flail. “—still wearing too much.”

He arches a brow. “Am I?”

“I’m trying to focus, but your clothes are... interrupting my process.”

His mouth curves. “And what exactly is your process?”

“Undress. Immediately. Please.”

His hands go to the hem of his shirt, slow and smooth, and he pulls it up in one fluid motion. The muscles of his stomach flex as the fabric lifts, revealing skin marked with ink and scars and the kind of lean strength that should be illegal. My brain completely blanks out. Words? Gone. Morality? Gone. Dignity? Never met her.

He tosses the shirt aside. “Better?”

I can’t answer. I’m too busy staring at his abs like I’ve just been handed a divine revelation. My mouth opens. Closes. I try to say something appropriately seductive and instead blurt out:

“You look like someone carved you from vengeance and sex.”

He pauses. Then slowly, slowly leans in, voice pitched low and sinful. “Is that your way of saying I’m handsome?”

“I’m saying you look like a very smart library ghost who could absolutely wreck me.”

He laughs again, rougher this time. “.”

“Gods, say it again.”

“Your name?”

I nod. Desperate. Embarrassing.

“,” he murmurs, dragging the word like silk over skin.

My knees actually give out.

“I don’t know how to do this without being deeply unsexy,” I whisper.

“You’re already perfect,” he says. “Every bit of you. Every ridiculous, breathless, unhinged thing you say.”

He kisses me then.

It’s not soft.

It’s not even sweet.

It’s slow. Deep. Possessive without being aggressive, like he wants to memorize every part of my mouth. His hand finally slips beneath my waistband, but he still doesn’t rush. He teases. He draws it out—his fingers tracing my skin, not quite touching what I need, like he wants to hear me ask.

And I am dangerously close to begging.

“I’ve thought about this,” I murmur against his mouth. “I’ve thought about you for weeks. About what you’d feel like. About your hands. About your mouth. And your—” I look down. Immediately regret it. “Gods.”

He presses a kiss to the underside of my jaw. “What about it?”

“It looks… wise.”

He actually laughs. “Wise.”

“Yeah. Like it knows things. Like it’s studied ancient texts.”

“Do you want it?”

My breath hitches. “Yes. Please.”

He drops to his knees again. And this time, when his hands slip inside my pants, he doesn’t tease. He doesn’t hesitate. He slides one palm over me with a deliberate slowness that makes my knees buckle. He groans softly when he feels how wet I am.

“Gods, .”

“You’re not helping!”

He leans forward and presses a kiss to the inside of my thigh, then another, then another—each one higher, slower, hungrier.

“You’re trembling,” he murmurs.

“I’m malfunctioning.”

He kisses me again, then finally—finally—touches me properly. Fingers sliding over me, precise and patient. My head drops back against the willow as I gasp, loud and shameless. I feel unmade already, and he hasn’t even started.

And then his mouth—

Gods, his mouth.

He worships me. He eats me like it’s sacred, like I’m the first thing he’s tasted in centuries, like his entire purpose has been reduced to this: making me unravel in his mouth. I come with a sob, loud and wrecked, my fingers tangled in the willow’s branches to keep from collapsing entirely.

His mouth leaves me slowly, deliberately, like he’s reluctant to stop tasting me. My whole body is molten. Boneless. My thighs are still shaking, my pulse crashing somewhere in my throat. I’m not sure I remember how to exist outside of his mouth.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, casual and composed like he didn’t just ruin me with his tongue. And then he looks at me—his gaze dragging down the length of my half-naked body like he’s already memorized every inch and plans to worship it all over again.

“You’re trembling,” he says softly.

“You did that,” I manage, voice cracked and breathless.

He nods, like he’s proud of it. “And I’m not done.”

“,” he murmurs again, and this time it’s not reverent.

It’s possessive.

His hands come to the hem of my shirt without asking—not because he doesn’t care, but because he knows. I already said yes. My magic is already tangled in his, humming low and open. I don’t move to help him. I want to feel the way he undresses me. I want to be stripped by him, slow and unflinching, like he’s opening a secret I’ve been too afraid to touch.

He lifts the fabric slowly, knuckles grazing my ribs, dragging over the underside of my breasts until my arms lift without thinking. He tosses it to the grass like it’s never going to matter again. And then he looks at me—and the sound he makes in his throat…It’s low. Raw. Like I’ve just answered something ancient inside him.

“I’ve imagined this,” he says, stepping close again. His fingers drift up my spine, barely brushing. “What you’d look like. What you’d sound like.”

“Please don’t say I’m beautiful,” I mutter, half-panicked. “I’ll explode. Just combust. Like a Victorian widow overcome by your overwhelming masculine presence.”

His mouth brushes mine, slow and deliberate. “You are beautiful.”

“Oh gods.”

“But I’m not saying it for you,” he adds, nipping lightly at my jaw. “I’m saying it for me.”

He kisses down my throat, every movement of his mouth hot and patient. My trousers are gone. My shirt is gone. I’m left in nothing but my underwear, and he’s still half-dressed—trousers low on his hips, dark against his golden skin, the curve of his cock already thick and pressing tight behind the fabric.

I reach for the waistband.

He catches my wrist.

“Not yet.”

“Orin—”

He brings my hand to his mouth, kisses each fingertip with slow, measured reverence. “You said yes to me. To this. To us. Let me have this moment, .”

“I’ll die.”

“You’ll survive.” His mouth brushes the inside of my palm. “You’ll come.”

I whimper.

And then he finally reaches for the button of his trousers.

His eyes don’t leave mine—not even as he unfastens the clasp, as he slides the fabric down those long, strong legs. He steps out of them without a single wasted movement. No shame. No hesitation.

Gods.

His cock is flushed, the head slick and swollen. My whole body lights up like a ward’s been broken—like now that I’ve seen him, I won’t ever forget the shape of him, the weight of what he’s about to do to me.

He moves in close, so close our bodies almost touch. One hand cups the back of my neck. The other slides between my thighs again, and this time there’s nothing in the way. His fingers stroke me slowly, spreading wetness, coaxing soft, shattered sounds from my throat I didn’t even know I could make.

“You’re soaked,” he murmurs, like he’s already known it for hours. “And this—” he presses his thumb where I need him most “—is all mine now.”

I want to answer. I want to say something sexy or clever or just vaguely coherent.

Instead I blurt out, “I forgot how to speak English.”

His smile is slow and devastating. “You don’t need to speak.”

He guides me down—gentle but firm—until my back touches the soft moss beneath the willow. The leaves above tremble with every breath. My hair fans out around me. His body follows mine down, covering me without crushing. His thigh pushes between mine. His hand slides up, palm flattening between my ribs, over my sternum.

His gaze drops to my mouth. “You’ll feel everything,” he says. “Every part of me. The bond won’t let you lie. You’re about to find out how much I want you.”

He shifts between my thighs, and the moment his cock brushes against me—hot, heavy, slick with my arousal—I forget how to breathe.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he says softly, low and barely human. “I’ll stop. I’ll wait.”

“I don’t want you to wait,” I whisper. “I want you inside me.”

His eyes darken at that—like the restraint he’s been holding onto by his teeth just snapped loose.

“Then you take me,” he murmurs, “exactly as I am.”

He pushes in slow.

Too slow.

I gasp, eyes going wide as the thick head of his cock stretches me open, claiming space like he owns it. Inch by inch, he sinks deeper, dragging a moan out of me so desperate it sounds torn from my throat.

“Oh gods—Orin—”

“Breathe,” he says, voice tight, strained with control. “Just breathe.”

But I can’t. I’m so full already. So stretched around him I feel split wide. It’s not pain. Not exactly. It’s pressure. Depth. The overwhelming, invasive reality of being filled by someone who isn’t just fucking me—but binding me.

My thighs tremble.

My hands scrabble against his shoulders, and I feel it—his back flexing as he holds still, trying to give me time to adjust, even though he’s not all the way in yet. I look down between us and make a pitiful sound.

“There’s more?”

He leans down, teeth grazing the corner of my mouth. “All of it.”

“I’m going to die.”

“You’ll survive.”

“You’re going to rearrange my soul.”

His smile is wicked and reverent all at once. “Good.”

And then he thrusts deeper.

All the way.

I choke on a gasp, my back arching off the moss, every nerve lighting up like I’ve been cracked open to the gods. The pressure, the stretch, the weight of him—it’s too much and not enough all at once. My body clenches around him, trembling.

“—” he groans. “You feel like fucking heaven.”

He draws back and thrusts again, still slow, still measured, but deep. So fucking deep I swear I can feel it in my throat. I grab at him—his arms, his back, the muscles shifting under skin so tight and warm I feel like I’m burning alive.

I love the way he breathes against my mouth, wrecked and focused, like he’s studying the way I fall apart under him. I love the way he thrusts—long, fluid strokes that grind so deliberately against that spot inside me I forget how to think.

“You wanted this,” he murmurs, lips brushing my jaw. “You begged for it.”

“Shut up,” I whimper, rocking up into him.

“You told me I was unreal.”

“Because you are.”

He fucks me deeper at that—one hard thrust that punches the air from my lungs—and his hand slides down between us, his thumb finding my clit like he’s known my body his whole life.

“Then come for me again.”

I do.

Loud and helpless and soaked, my body clenching around him like I never want to let go. The orgasm rips through me, tearing me apart from the inside, and the sound I make is something feral. Honest. He groans when I pulse around him, hips snapping harder now, his mouth hot on my neck.

“You feel that?” he breathes. “Every time you come on my cock, you drag me closer.”

“Then come,” I whisper. “Fill me. I want all of you.”

He curses, low and sharp, and the next thrust is brutal. His rhythm falters—just a second—but then he’s burying himself as deep as he can go, his whole body tensing. And he breaks. He comes inside me with a groan that sounds like it’s been trapped in his chest for centuries, hips jerking against mine, his cock pulsing as he spills into me—hot, thick, endless. I feel owned by it. Ruined. Marked from the inside out.

We’re still connected.

Still moving.

His cock softening slightly but not leaving me, not yet. His hands grip my hips, his forehead pressed to mine, both of us shaking.

And then his voice—quiet. Reverent. Honest.

“You’re mine now,” he says. “And I’m yours.”

Lucien

I wake mid-dream—or maybe mid-death. The burn in my lungs is so sharp, so visceral, it feels like something clawed its way into my chest and stitched fire through every vein. I sit up fast, gasping like I’ve been drowning, my hands white-knuckled in the sheets, chest heaving. The shadows in the room haven’t moved. The moonlight still cuts the same silver line across the floor. Nothing’s changed.

Except everything has. I know what this is. I fucking know.

Orin bonded with her.

And my body—this cursed, loyal, traitorous thing—recognizes it like a blade to the heart. I can feel it in the raw hollowness of my chest, the gravitational pull to her like it’s no longer suggestion but command. And I’ve never—never—felt anything like this. Not in the blood-soaked thrill of war. Not even in the high of Dominion.

This isn’t want. It’s need.

Primal. Inescapable. And it has claws.

My legs swing off the bed before I’ve even registered it. My body moves toward her on instinct alone, like there’s a magnet somewhere inside my spine and she’s the only thing that will stop the ache.

No. No.

I sit back down so fast it rattles the frame. Fist clenched in the sheets, sweat bleeding down my temples, heart ricocheting against my ribs like it’s trying to break out and go to her without me. I drag in a breath, and another, but they don’t calm me.

I’m not supposed to feel this. Not like this. I’ve been in control for centuries. I trained myself to hold back, to wait, to deny the hunger, the bond, her. I let the others fall. Let them bind to her like fools with their hands outstretched for fire, and I stayed back because someone had to lead. Someone had to remain sovereign, detached, sane.

But sanity doesn’t feel like this.

This is desperation.

This is mine, something inside me howls. Something old. Something buried.

I clench my teeth, grinding them until my jaw aches. My fingers twitch. My Dominion wants out, wants to reach for her, call her, even now, across distance and stone and skin. But I can’t do that. I won’t.

If I find her now, I won’t be able to stop myself.

Because the truth I’ve buried for months is suddenly awake, prowling through my blood like it’s been waiting. I want her. I want to claim her, anchor her to me so no one else gets a piece I don’t own. I want her on her knees whispering my name, and I want her curled against me in the quiet just after, mine in every way that matters. I want her bonded to me because she chooses it—and not because I couldn’t hold back.

But gods, it would be so easy.

One word. One brush of my power.

And she’d say yes.

I press my hands to my thighs, shaking. My breathing comes shallow now. My body is hardwired to find her. And the bond she gave to Orin—freely, deliberately—has triggered something older than any of us. Something even I can't command.

I grit out her name, low and ruined, and bury my head in my hands. I’m angry. No—furious.

Orin—Orin—didn’t warn me. He could’ve said something. A nod. A glance. A single fucking word. I would’ve prepared. I would’ve fortified the walls in my mind, wrapped my control tight like a noose and pulled. Gods, I probably would’ve run. Straight into the woods. Or into the Void. Anywhere but here.

But I’m here.

And I’m stuck.

With this...need. No, urge. That’s too soft a word. It’s more like possession. Like something old and dark has awakened beneath my skin and is trying to crawl out. It seethes under every breath. It whispers when I blink. It pulses in the base of my spine, the center of my palms, the hollow of my throat—find her. Claim her. Now.

And I fucking can’t.

So I do what I always do.

I try to command it. I reach for my power, let Dominion flood through me like liquid authority, and I tell it—Stop. I force every ounce of command I’ve ever wielded into that single word. I’ve bent gods with that tone. Crushed minds. Shattered wills. But it doesn’t stop. It laughs in my face, my own magic betraying me. Dominion can make others obey. It can carve loyalty into bone. But it can’t silence this. Not when it’s mine. Not when it’s her.

I press my hands flat to the cold stone wall and lean in, jaw clenched, chest rising like I’ve just been thrown through a battlefield. The sweat rolls down my spine. My vision sharpens to pinpricks of movement—every shift in the wind outside, every creak of the house settling. Every footstep that isn’t hers.

She’s not here. I know she’s not. And still, my body is wired to chase her. To find her. Because that bond triggered something ancient and terrible and inescapable inside me. Something primal. Something buried. Something I’ve fought with every breath since the moment I met her and refused to fall the way the others did. Because I thought I was different. Thought I was stronger.

But I’m not. Not anymore.

I was created for this.

She was created for us.

For me.

And now…now it’s only a matter of time. Because this won’t end with me pacing the edge of my control. It won’t end with clenched fists and half-choked breaths and cold sweat. It ends when I find her. When I press my hand to her skin. When she says my name like she knows it’s always been hers.

My story was always going to end this way. With her. I think I’ve known it since the first time I saw her, eyes like the aftermath of a storm, defiant and afraid and too fucking brave for her own good. She didn’t cower. Not from me. Not even when I wanted her to. And now—

Now she’s wrapped in the marks of six of us, and yet still entirely herself. No one owns her. Not even the ones who’ve bled magic into her bones. That’s what’s unbearable. The way she still walks like she hasn’t been claimed. Like she chooses, every single day, to stay with us. With them.

With him. Orin was always going to bond her. I saw it coming. The slow inevitability of a man who plays the long game with ancient patience. Courting her like she was a queen, not a weapon. He made her feel sacred. He treated her like she was his—not because he thought he could have her, but because he believed she deserved to be worshipped. And he was right.

But that doesn't mean I can stand it.

I drag myself out of bed, my shirt soaked at the collar, hair clinging to my temple, muscles thrumming with a need I don't know how to name. Every nerve in my body feels rewired, screaming for her. For contact. For a claim I never wanted to make.

I head to the kitchen.

The house is quiet for once, but I can feel them. Their energy lingers in the corners like ghosts. Riven’s fury still simmers from the walls. Elias left sugar spilled across the counter, of course. Silas probably licked it. I ignore the mess and go for the coffee, methodical, needing the ritual. The grounding. The silence of it.

The first sip hits my tongue, bitter and black, and still it doesn’t burn away the want.

Because the truth is—

There’s nothing in me, nothing rational or cruel or cold, that can come up with a single reason to say no to her. . She’s everything. Still kind, still human, still choosing to love us despite the rot in our hearts. Despite what we’ve done. She carries every one of our sins like a crown, like armor, and somehow doesn’t buckle.

She’s not built for this world. And yet she’s still surviving it better than any of us. That should terrify me. But all I can think about is how fucking perfect she is. And how I’ll avoid her today. Tomorrow. However long it takes for this ache to become bearable. Because if I go to her now, I won’t be able to stop myself.

And I still believe, stupidly, arrogantly, that she deserves better than me.

Even if the pull says otherwise.

Fate must be laughing. Not the cruel, distant kind of laughter that gods might offer from their high towers—but the breathless, doubled-over kind. The kind where it can’t even get the words out because it’s too fucking amused watching me squirm. Because she’s behind me. Soft. Innocent-sounding. Dangerous in ways she doesn’t even know.

"Good morning," she says, like it’s normal, like I’m not seconds away from combusting where I stand. I don’t move. I don’t turn. I can’t.

She steps closer. “You’re up early.”

So are you, little one, I think, but don’t say. Because that would mean acknowledging her presence. It would mean looking at her. And I’ve never been good at looking at without wanting more than I should.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she adds quickly, like she’s trying to justify herself. Her voice is breathy, a little sheepish. “Silas snuck Mr. Bean into bed with me again. I woke up with a tail in my mouth.”

A ghost of a smile pushes at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it. I keep my back to her. Keep my grip on the coffee mug tight. "Should’ve eaten him. Saved us all the drama.”

She laughs. Not a small one either—a real one. Bright, warm, too alive for this place or this hour or this body I’m trapped in.

“I missed your jokes,” she teases. “Even when they’re violent and threatening small animals.”

“I’m consistent,” I reply flatly. “That counts for something.”

I can hear her step deeper into the kitchen, barefoot probably, because never quite adjusts to the luxury she deserves. There’s the soft scrape of wood under her heel, the air shifting with her nearness. I hate that I notice all of it. I hate more that I want to.

I finally glance over my shoulder—and I’m not prepared. Wet hair. Skin still flushed from sleep. One of Elias’s oversized shirts, threadbare and falling off her shoulder like it’s never learned the definition of modesty. My jaw tightens. My hands stay locked around the ceramic, as if that’s the only thing tethering me to this plane of existence.

She looks at me like I’m not terrifying. Like I’m not the problem.

“Lucien…” she begins, and gods, the way she says my name—it’s reverent, careless, sinful.

I lift the cup to my mouth so I don’t have to respond.

“I like seeing you like this,” she says softly. “Here. With us. It feels… I don’t know. More real now.”

Her words hit something sharp inside me, something that’s trying to root itself and grow where nothing should be growing. I should tell her to leave. I should throw her out of the room before she says anything else that twists me into something unfamiliar.

Instead, I murmur, “Go back to bed, .”

“I’m not tired,” she says immediately. “And neither are you.”

Her eyes are dark in the dim light, unreadable. I don’t know what she wants. Maybe she doesn’t either. But she’s here. And the pull humming under my skin, ancient and newly awakened, coils tighter with every second she doesn’t move away.

“I made coffee,” I say finally, the only safe sentence I can offer.

She steps closer. “Make me some?”

Her voice is too innocent. Or maybe it’s not innocent at all. Maybe she knows exactly what she’s doing, stepping into my world and asking me to give her something as mundane as caffeine, when all I want is to give her things I don’t have a name for.

I pour her a cup. Set it on the counter. Don’t look at her when she reaches for it. But I feel her fingers brush mine. Deliberate. She doesn’t pull away. And for one brutal, fleeting second—I don’t either.

The knife sits behind her like a dare. It’s not large. Not ceremonial. Just a clean, steel blade with a polished handle and no sentimental origin—perfect in its anonymity. Easy to forget. Easy to use. One cut through her palm and I’d be bound to her. Fully. Irrevocably. My eyes stay glued to it, to the sharp glint of the edge catching the morning light, to the echo of every bond I’ve ever denied rising in my throat like blood.

One slice. One drop. That’s all it would take. One sacred offering pressed into my hand and the bond would lock between us. The last sin bound. The circle closed. Six others already wrapped in her warmth. And now the bond claws at the inside of my ribs, mine screaming from beneath centuries of restraint.

She doesn’t notice where I’m looking. She keeps talking, voice light, half-laughing. “I’m really glad we’re all back. That things feel like they’re… working again.”

Working. As if I’m not seconds away from losing every shred of command I’ve ever had over myself.

“I mean,” she continues, smiling, pushing her hair over her shoulder like she doesn’t realize the effect, like she doesn’t know I’m fucking unraveling. “After everything in the Hollow, after you and I—well, I didn’t think it’d be like this. Comfortable. Easy.”

Easy. Nothing about her is easy. Nothing about this is comfortable. The way she stands across from me, barefoot and smiling, talking about peace like it isn’t driving me mad. Her magic sings to mine. Her soul’s orbit is dragging me closer by the second.

My hand curls around the edge of the counter. I keep my body still, but the pulse at my throat is a war drum. My gaze flicks again—knife. Her hand. Knife. Her pulse fluttering beneath soft skin. My pull craving that cut like it’s a kiss.

Gods, I’m shaking. I never shake.

“You okay?” she asks, and I hate how sincere she sounds. Like she’d understand. Like she wouldn’t flinch if I told her that I want to taste her blood, bind myself to her forever, give up the last of my free will just to finally have what the others already do.

“You look pale,” she says, stepping closer, concern pinching her brows.

Don’t.

“Lucien?”

Don’t.

And then her hand brushes my arm—light, innocent, sweet. But the moment her skin meets mine, the hum becomes a roar. My pull lights like wildfire under my skin, screaming to complete itself. My breath comes sharp through my nose, and I close my eyes because I can’t fucking look at her right now. Not without doing something I’ll never come back from.

I murmur, voice too rough, too low, “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” she says quietly.

And gods, I want to say You’re mine. I want to say let me have you. Let me take that knife, draw the line across your palm, lick the blood from your skin like I’m starving for it. I want to beg. And I don’t beg.

She’s speaking to me like we’ve known peace. Like I haven’t imagined what she tastes like bound to me. Like I don’t already dream of what it would feel like to hear her say my name with the bond between us lighting our skin from the inside out. Knife. Cut. Her blood on my hand. And I swear, if she offers herself—even by accident—I don’t know if I’ll stop myself.

She takes a step back. Just one. Just enough. And I nearly lose it. It’s not even dramatic—there’s no storm in her eyes, no offended gasp, no flinch. She simply shifts, like she’s making space. Giving me air I don’t want. My head screams don’t go. My chest contracts like I’ve been cut open with something dull. And gods, I hate how fast my body leans forward before I catch myself.

"Am I bothering you?" she asks, her voice soft but not fragile. Curious. Not accusing.

No, my whole being snarls. She could sit on my lap, cut her palm open, press it to my chest and I’d still beg her not to stop. She isn’t a bother. She’s the gravity I’ve pretended for too long I didn’t orbit.

But my voice, when I answer, is a wrecked thing. “No.” The word scrapes my throat like broken glass. I make it sound colder than I mean to, rougher than I should.

Her lips twitch, like she’s trying to read me—trying to parse whatever the hell is leaking through the cracks I’m usually so meticulous about sealing. And I know what she’ll find if she looks hard enough. Not disdain. Not guilt. Hunger. Raw, wild, ancient want.

She doesn’t step forward again.

Gods, please, come back.

I move instead. Not much—just shift closer to the counter so I’m not bracing myself like a statue. I pick up the mug of coffee I forgot was even there. I don’t drink it. Just need something in my hands so I don’t do something stupid like reach for her.

She says something else—some innocuous follow-up, another bit of chatter to keep the morning from slipping into silence—but I barely register it. I’m still watching her mouth, the way her lips move, how her tongue grazes the corner before she smiles.

She could ruin me and I’d let her.

And that’s the fucking problem, isn’t it? It’s willingness. I want her to choose me. Not because of power. Not because of magic or fate or bonds. I want her to look at me and decide I’m worth burning the rest of her life for. And I don’t get to ask for that. Not after the way I treated her. Not after what I said in the Hollow. I already built the wall between us brick by brutal brick—and now that I’m standing on the other side, bleeding with regret, I have no one to blame but myself.

But I still want. Even as she turns to leave the kitchen. Even as her bare feet pad toward the hall, her hair brushing the curve of her back like it belongs in my hands. Even as the knife behind her glints on the table, whispering one cut.

No, I whisper again. Not to her.

To myself.

My hand moves before my mind approves it. The knife is warm. I slide it into my back pocket with all the subtlety of sin. I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I just know I can’t leave it there. Can’t leave it where someone else might use it, might offer her the choice I don’t have the spine to ask for.

And then—because apparently I’ve lost all sense of strategy or self-preservation—I speak.

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

I don’t mean for my voice to sound like that—like gravel coated in honey, like desperation trying to pass for calm. I meant to sound casual. I meant to not sound like someone who’s been sleepless and wild, crawling inside himself for hours trying not to track her down and take. But then she turns to me—and smiles—and it undoes me in ways that scare the hell out of me.

Her face splits into something that doesn’t belong in this world—too soft, too radiant, like she’s still capable of joy and doesn’t know she’s offering it to someone who never earned it. Her eyes squint at the corners, crinkling the way they do when she means it, and it punches me square in the fucking chest. Like a laugh I forgot how to breathe through.

She says yes.

Just yes. No hesitation. No teasing. Like it’s a normal thing. Like I ask her to walk with me all the time. Like I haven’t spent every day avoiding her, every night telling myself I couldn’t have her, every second pretending she wasn’t the only thing that ever made this life feel like something I wanted to stay in.

The back door creaks open into the garden courtyard—roses still half-wild from our absence, weeds choking the statues like they’re reclaiming what was always theirs. She sighs, that little gods it feels good to breathe kind of sigh, and tilts her face toward the dawn light. And I—like a coward—watch her instead of the sky.

There’s a breeze, mild and scented with cracked stone and damp grass, and her hair lifts just enough to stir the ache I’ve kept buried too long. She starts walking, slowly, toward the path that winds around the greenhouse. Like she knows I’ll keep pace. Like it’s inevitable.

It is.

I follow her into the soft hush of morning, my fingers twitching with restraint, the knife a weight in my pocket and her name a curse behind my teeth. I could ruin her with one word. One command. One whisper of my power.

But I don’t.

I walk beside her instead. Silent. Starving. Irrevocably hers.

She talks like I’ve always been listening. Like we’ve done this before—just the two of us, on a walk through overgrown gardens and shadow-stained stone, like I didn’t try for months to make her hate me. Like I didn’t spend half her life at the Academy acting like her existence was an inconvenience to my power, my position, my goddamn sanity.

And maybe it was. But now I’m the one watching her lips, the curve of them when she smiles as she talks about Mr. Bean—how he climbed into the laundry basket and fell asleep on her uniform skirt, and how Silas claimed the kitten tried to hypnotize him into stealing jerky from the pantry.

“And he did it,” she says, grinning wide, eyes shining. “He actually snuck out in the middle of the night and came back with like eight kinds of jerky and insisted they were ‘gifts for our new overlord.’”

I raise a brow. “Our new overlord?”

She nods solemnly, though the corners of her mouth twitch. “Mr. Bean.”

Of course. Of course that ridiculous name would belong to the little hellbeast I handed her with the stupidest part of myself still clinging to the gesture like a fool with hope in his teeth.

I should be irritated. Instead, I ask, “And what are his demands, this tyrant feline?”

She bites her lip like she’s trying not to laugh. Fails. “Fresh fish. Clean sheets. Unlimited attention. And the blood of his enemies. Specifically Elias, who tried to dress him in a waistcoat yesterday.”

I snort before I can stop myself. “A waistcoat.”

“Velvet. Maroon. With gold buttons. It had a little tie.” She blinks at me, all mock innocence and dimples I didn’t know she had. “He looked very dashing. Until he vomited on Elias’s pillow.”

I shake my head slowly. “That sounds accurate.”

She hums, clearly pleased she’s amused me. “He’s very discerning.”

“He has taste,” I say, and when she glances at me sideways, her eyes gleaming, I can’t hold back the smallest grin. It’s involuntary, unguarded. A lapse. And yet, I don’t retreat from it.

Instead, I commit.

“So,” I ask, feigning gravity, “what punishment did Silas receive for betraying the pantry?”

She grins, wide and wicked. “Laundry duty. For a month. No powers.”

I let out a low whistle. “Cruel.”

“Justice,” she says with mock-regality, tilting her chin. “Mr. Bean rules with an iron paw.”

She’s glowing. Not with magic. Not with power. Just life. Just the kind of light I thought I’d bled out of the world with every cruel decision I ever made. And she’s choosing to give it to me—here, now, unprompted. It guts me more than it should.

I find myself responding more. Asking the kind of stupid, mundane questions I used to scorn. I ask how the cat sleeps, and she tells me curled between her ankles like a cursed little comma. I ask what else she missed about the Academy, and she starts talking about the creaky fourth step in the library, and how Elias used to charm it to moan like a ghost just to freak out the first years.

She’s laughing. And I don’t even fucking care if it’s at me or with me or at the world—we’re sharing it. The sound. The moment. The kind of weightless thing I didn’t think I could carry anymore, but here it is, in my hands like something fragile and real.

I should walk away. I should get this out of my system before I fuck it up again. But then she bumps her shoulder into mine—light, careless, like gravity means nothing around her—and I know I won’t. I can’t. I'm already in too deep.

So I just say, low and stupid and entirely unguarded, “Tell me another one.”

And she does.

Elias

I don’t say anything at first—just press my face harder against the cold glass pane like it’ll somehow decode the impossible image outside. Lucien. Lucien. Walking with like he didn’t spend the last however-many months making her life hell and acting like he’d rather peel off his own skin than be in a ten-foot radius of her heartbeat.

“Is that,” I say slowly, voice low with something close to dread, “a walk?”

Silas doesn’t respond right away. Mostly because he’s in the middle of squinting so hard I’m pretty sure he’s going to get a forehead cramp. He leans in until his forehead bonks against mine with a dull thud, and instead of apologizing like a sane person, he just grips the edge of the counter and leans harder to get a better angle.

Mr. Bean mewls in protest—probably because Silas stopped hand-feeding him his third helping of duck paté or whatever ridiculous gourmet nonsense Caspian stocked the kitchen with—and the little demon climbs up Silas’s chest like a tree, claws and all. Silas doesn’t even blink. He just whispers, “They’re smiling. Elias. They’re fucking smiling.”

“Oh gods,” I mutter, shifting to get a better look and immediately regretting it. Because yeah. They are. Lucien’s got this half-smile on his face, the kind he probably practiced in a mirror under threat of emotional vulnerability, and ’s talking animatedly, hands moving like she’s casting something soft and impossible in the space between them. She laughs—throws her head back, full-body, genuine—and Lucien doesn’t flinch. He watches her like he wants to bottle that laugh and drink it until it kills him.

I groan and slump onto the counter like the entire world just personally betrayed me. “We’re all going to die, aren’t we?”

“I thought they were going to kill each other,” Silas says, breathless. “And now she’s laughing. With him. You know what this means?”

“No,” I sigh. “But I’m afraid you’re going to tell me.”

Silas whips his head around, eyes wild. “She’s turning us all into simps. We’re going to be a harem of lovesick morons, Elias.”

I blink at him. “We already are.”

Silas opens his mouth. Closes it. Points a finger at me like I’ve just stabbed him with truth. “You’re right. Gods, I hate when you’re right.”

Mr. Bean chooses that moment to leap from his shoulder to the counter, knocking over my mug of something-that-used-to-be-coffee, and Silas doesn’t even react. He just grabs a dishtowel, throws it at the spill blindly, and continues pressing his face against the window like it holds the answers to the universe. Or at least to Lucien’s sudden rebrand as a walking heart-eyed emoji.

“I’m not ready for this,” Silas says, dramatically. “He was the stoic one. The emotionally constipated king of ice. If he goes soft—if he starts getting all bondy—what’s left of our fragile masculine pride?”

“Pretty sure you forfeited yours when you got in a screaming match with Mr. Bean over who got to use the throw pillow.”

“It was my pillow,” Silas hisses.

I roll my eyes, then glance back out the window. And okay, fine. There’s something about seeing her like that—soft, open, glowing in a way none of us deserve—that makes my stomach twist in a way I don’t want to unpack. Maybe Lucien isn’t the only one losing the plot.

“She looks happy,” I say, quieter this time.

Silas doesn’t answer right away. Just nods. “Yeah. She does.”

We both fall into silence, watching through the glass like idiots while the girl we all fell for steals another piece of all of us with nothing more than a smile.

Mr. Bean sneezes on the counter. Silas absently wipes it with his shirt sleeve. “Do you think if we throw rocks at Lucien, she’ll still choose us?”

“Only one way to find out,” I mutter.

And gods help us both, we might actually try it.

He shoves me hard enough I nearly take out the tray of leftover croissants Caspian left as a peace offering to the gods—or to me specifically, because I threw a tantrum yesterday about there being no carbs in the house. Doesn’t matter. Because Silas is pressed flat to the window now, both hands splayed like he's about to tongue-kiss the glass, eyes wide and narrowed all at once.

And when I drag my gaze past the blur of ’s hair and the flush in her cheeks, the softness in Lucien’s expression that I hate, that I almost understand—I see it.

Handle. Black. Dull edge sticking awkwardly out of the back pocket of the most dangerous, emotionally constipated Sin alive.

I blink. Squint. Tilt my head.

“Why the fuck,” I murmur, “does he have a bread knife tucked in his pants like he’s about to butter toast and declare war?”

“Exactly!” Silas spins on me like I just confessed to killing Mr. Bean. “What if it’s a metaphorical threat? Like… he's actually gonna cut his own bond in or something. That’s what it is, isn’t it? He’s gonna get all ceremonial and weird and slice her open like a ritual.”

“Jesus, Silas.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Why are you like this?”

“You’re not freaked out?”

“Oh, I’m very freaked out. But I’m also emotionally constipated and exhausted. So I’m processing this by imagining all the ways Lucien could accidentally stab himself in the thigh trying to look hot with a kitchen knife.”

Silas nods solemnly. “That’s fair. I did that once with a potato peeler. Very tragic. Lost half a fingernail and my dignity.”

“You never had dignity to begin with.”

“You wound me.” He clutches his chest. “But back to the main issue. He’s got a knife. He’s making heart eyes. Those two things do not go together. Unless—” he gasps, “—this is his love language.”

I stare at him.

He stares back.

I don’t blink. “Silas.”

“What?”

“Do not finish that sentence.”

“I was gonna say murder is romantic in some cultures.”

“ is not a culture, she’s a person. And she—wait. Is she leaning in?”

We both smash our faces against the window again, and I swear we look like a pair of feral raccoons spying on a forbidden lovers’ tryst. Lucien’s head tips slightly, and says something that makes him laugh, which is already terrifying enough. And yeah—she’s leaning closer. No blood. No slicing. Just two people talking like they don’t have a long history of mutually assured emotional destruction.

Silas makes a distressed sound. “I feel like I’m watching the beginning of a porno and the end of my sanity.”

“Same.”

A beat.

Then, as if possessed by a demon of divine chaos, Silas mutters, “We should follow them.”

“No,” I say immediately.

“Stakeout.”

“No.”

“We could wear disguises.”

“That’s a yes from me.”

And just like that, I’m off the counter and halfway to the hall closet, rifling through whatever’s left from our last infiltration mission-slash-student-council-prank. I find two cloaks. One has feathers. I don’t ask why.

Because yeah, maybe Lucien has a knife in his pocket. Maybe he’s planning something. Maybe he’s just Lucien and doesn’t know how to not look like an impending threat. But I also know the way he looked at , like she cracked open something in him that’s been locked shut since the gods were bored enough to give us names.

And that?

That’s worth watching.

Silas is perched on the kitchen counter like a goblin waiting to pounce, elbows on his knees, mustache crooked and glued on with what looks suspiciously like honey. His eyes are wide with the manic clarity of someone who's either had too much sugar or too many dangerous ideas—and with him, it’s always both.

I stop in the doorway, arms crossed. “Why do you look like the love child of a nineteenth-century villain and a ferret?”

He lifts a finger with dramatic flair, strokes the mustache like it's real, and whispers, “Espionage, Elias.”

My eye twitches. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer,” he says, like that makes any kind of logical sense, which it doesn’t. “Also, if you must know, it was in the drawer beneath the steak knives. You know, the one no one opens unless they’re trying to summon a demon or find a wine opener.”

“I don’t think you understand what fake facial hair is actually used for.”

“You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first.”

“I’m mad because Lucien has a knife in his pants and is making goo-goo eyes at , and you look like you’re auditioning to sell cursed encyclopedias door to door.”

Silas hops off the counter with an actual flourish, dusts imaginary lint off his shirt like he’s about to attend a gala of chaos, and walks past me. “Come on, Elias. The mustache stays. It gives me gravitas.”

“You can’t even spell gravitas.”

He turns, walking backward now, and grins like the devil himself handed him a punchline. “G-R-A-V-I... never mind. Let’s go stalk Lucien and his emotionally constipated love confession. I’m invested.”

“I hate that I am too,” I mutter, grabbing a hoodie off the back of a chair. “But we’re not bringing the mustache.”

“Then I’m bringing the monocle instead.”

“You do not have a monocle—”

“I do, actually.” He pulls it out of his pocket. Polished. Ready. What kind of warlock bullshit is this?

I sigh like a man who’s seen too much. Because I have. Because I’m bonded to , and best friends with Silas, which means my life is one long scream into the void wrapped in sparkles and crimes against dignity. But I follow him anyway. Because if Lucien has a knife and has that smile, then yeah. Something’s about to happen. And someone should be there to witness it—preferably wearing a fake mustache.

Silas hands me the wig like it’s a sacred artifact, like I should be falling to my knees and thanking the gods of chaos for this polyester monstrosity. It’s blonde. Curly. Shiny in the way only something deeply unnatural could be. The kind of thing you’d find on a cursed mannequin or at the center of a murder mystery party gone horribly wrong.

I stare at it. Then at him. Then back at the wig.

“Silas,” I say slowly, dragging the name out like an exorcism, “why the fuck do you have a wig in your back pocket?”

He tilts his head, as if the answer should be obvious, then shrugs and grins. “Why don’t you have a wig in your back pocket?”

“That’s not—” I stop myself. “That’s not an answer. That’s a goddamn philosophical crisis.”

He’s already digging into another pocket, like Mary Poppins if she snorted chaos instead of sugar. “You think this is good?” he asks, pulling out a velvet choker with a fake ruby the size of my self-loathing. “Wait till you see what I have in my sock.”

I don’t want to know what’s in his sock. I never want to know what’s in Silas’s sock. There are layers to his insanity, and I’ve seen enough to know some doors are best left unopened.

“I’m not wearing this,” I mutter, holding the wig at arm’s length like it might bite me.

“Oh, come on.” He slaps it on my head before I can dodge, tugging it into place with the precision of a man who’s done this too many times to admit publicly. “You look ravishing, Elias. Like a fallen duchess turned assassin.”

“I will end you.”

“But not before we spy on Lucien.”

I exhale, long and low, then reach up to adjust the wig. It's itchy. I feel like a soap opera villain. Or a very confused drag queen. “Fine. But if I get tackled by the academy guards again, I’m blaming you.”

Silas is already donning a pair of oversized sunglasses and what I think is a child’s trench coat. “Blame me? Darling, I live for your blame.”

“Silas,” I say with the kind of calm that means I’m ten seconds from throwing it out the window. “Is there a reason you’re carrying around women’s hair like a deranged collector?”

He shrugs, leaning back on the kitchen counter like this is completely normal. “It’s called being prepared, Elias. Ever heard of it? You’re just jealous because you don’t have the pockets for it.”

“I have pockets,” I mutter. “They just happen to be used for things like keys and weapons, not—” I pause, twisting the wig curls in my hand, “—synthetic Barbie scalps.”

Silas grins like I’ve just validated his entire existence. “That’s where you’re wrong. This is our new disguise. Mission: Lucien Moon Eyes.”

My jaw tightens. “We’re not calling it that.”

“Too late. I already branded it. Elias and Silas Investigations—Tagline: We Wig for Justice.”

“I hate everything you are.”

“No, you don’t. You adore me,” he says, popping a lollipop into his mouth from the other pocket—again, where the hell is he keeping all this crap?

“You are the reason I have trust issues.”

“And yet you still let me do your eyeliner last week.”

“That was one time—”

“For the eyeliner gods!”

It’s not even noon. And I am actively participating in a stakeout dressed like a failed drag act from a discount cabaret.

“You know,” I say, squinting through the tinted lenses of the glasses he handed me, as Lucien and reappear in the distance, “if we get caught like this, I’m blaming you.”

“You can blame me,” he grins. “But if we catch Lucien doing something stupid—”

“—like bonding without asking permission—”

“—we get to shame him for eternity.”

I glance at him. “You’d shame him anyway.”

He claps me on the back. “We need backup,” he whispers, like we’re defusing a bomb and not just spying on our favorite monster making goo-goo eyes at the girl we’re all in love with.

I’m two seconds from throwing him into a hedge when Ambrose appears at the hallway arch, coffee in one hand, murder in his eyes.

He looks at us.

Looks at the wig.

Looks at the mustache half slipping off Silas’s lip like a depressed caterpillar.

Looks away.

Then looks back.

“What the actual fuck,” Ambrose says slowly, like he needs time to recover from the visual trauma.

“Perfect,” Silas beams, “You’re in.”

“No.”

“Too late. You’ve seen too much.”

“Again, no.”

“We need your motorcycle stealth,” I add flatly, gesturing to the leather jacket that Ambrose is already wearing even though it's eighty degrees outside.

He scowls at me. “I’m not using my bike for—whatever this is.”

“Operation Lucien Is Up To Something Weird And Romantic,” Silas offers. “It’s a working title.”

Caspian appears next, followed by Riven and Orin, because apparently this is a fucking clown car of Sin now. One by one, they clock the situation. Caspian blinks slowly like he’s in the middle of a migraine. Riven sighs and rubs at his temple. Orin doesn’t say anything, but his hand twitches toward the book under his arm like maybe he'd prefer to beat us all to death with knowledge instead of witnessing... this.

Silas, undeterred, begins digging through his coat like a magician on meth.

Out comes: A full black velvet cloak. A monocle. A fake scar sticker. A cloak. A pressed ID badge for “Dean Meatballs, Paranormal Investigator.”

“I have exactly enough disguises for everyone,” he declares, eyes manic with power. “Except Lucien. He gets nothing. He’s the target.”

“You had a cloak…?” I ask.

Silas blinks at me. “I have six cloaks, Elias. One for every mood.”

“You’re not allowed moods.”

“Too late,” he says, slapping the monocle on Caspian, who flinches like it burns. “You’re now Lord Sees-A-Lot. Riven—cloak. Ambrose—scar sticker. Orin gets—”

“No,” Orin says calmly.

Silas hesitates. “Not even the badge?”

Orin takes the badge. Pins it to his chest.

“Okay, that felt weirdly powerful,” Silas mutters.

We move like idiots through the courtyard shadows. Ambrose is actively growling. Caspian keeps tugging the monocle off and getting it slapped back on by Silas. Riven’s hood is falling over his eyes and he refuses to push it up. I think he’s trying to go blind by choice.

We trail Lucien and at a distance. Too far to hear their conversation. Close enough to see Lucien glance down at her like she’s made of stars he’s not supposed to touch. My gut twists.

Because he will.

Because we all do.

And that’s the thing about Sin.

We were never meant to resist her.

Only survive her.