Page 9 of The Sin Binder’s Destiny (The Seven Sins Academy #5)

Her eyes shine like she doesn’t know what to do with the weight of it, and maybe she doesn’t, because she’s been so used to the others circling her, taking her apart, needing her too much, wanting her too fiercely. But this isn’t want. This is surrender. This is my love.

"You’re mine," I murmur, dragging my nose along her cheek. "And now you know how much."

’s breath stutters, her hips shifting under me like she doesn’t know whether to run or pull me deeper. "You should’ve warned me," she whispers.

I laugh, the sound soft and wrecked. "I’m not in the habit of warning anyone, darling."

Her fingers trail over my jaw, over the curve of my throat, tentative like she’s learning me all over again. "It’s… a lot."

"It’s everything." I tilt my head, meeting her gaze without hiding from her, not this time. "And you’ll never get rid of it now."

’s lips curve faintly, almost shy, almost sharp. "Good."

The bond stretches, thrums tighter, and I let it wrap her whole, let it soak into her skin and bones and blood. She’ll feel it now, long after this, every time she looks at me—how utterly, irrevocably she owns me.

I press a kiss to her forehead, then her temple, then her mouth, slow and lingering. "It’s always been you."

And she smiles like it’s killing her, like it’s saving her.

Elias

It’s ridiculous, is what it is. I’m halfway up a crooked old ash tree, hammer in hand—yes, a hammer, because apparently Silas thinks we’re bloody carpenters now—while he’s below me, grinning like a lunatic and shouting measurements that don’t exist.

“No, no, Elias, it’s gotta be eight and a half arm spans long. That’s architectural law.”

I look down at him, sweat sticking my hair to my forehead, and deadpan, “Whose law, exactly? The council of deranged children?”

Silas doesn’t even blink. He’s dragging another rotted plank over his shoulder like it’s the most important thing in the world, twigs sticking out of his hair, dirt smeared across one cheek. “You don’t get it, Dain. This is legacy work. We’ll pass this down to our kids.”

“Our what now?” I arch a brow, snorting. “You and I are barely qualified to keep ourselves alive. Who’s letting us have children?”

Silas shrugs, already climbing the other side of the tree, boards strapped haphazardly to his back like some feral woodland beast. “You, me, , five mini versions of us running around. Chaos incarnate.”

“Stars save us.” I sigh, driving the nail into the branch with more force than necessary. “You’re certifiably insane.”

The tree groans under us, the old wood threatening to betray us both, but I don’t slow time—I want to feel this, the ache in my arms, the strain in my muscles, the normalcy of it. Because any minute now, it won’t be normal. The Hollow will remind us why we’re here, what’s hunting us.

But for now, I let Silas ramble.

“You’re gonna thank me when ’s up here,” he adds, waggling his brows as he balances precariously on the limb beside me. “We’ll string up lights, make it romantic. She’ll lose her mind.”

“She’s already lost it if she agrees to climb into this death trap,” I mutter, but I can’t help the way my mouth twitches.

The truth is, this is exactly why I’m here. Why I’ll follow Silas into the stupidest ideas he cooks up. Because when smiles—really smiles, not that brittle thing she’s been wearing since Branwen fell—the world shifts.

“Hey,” Silas says, suddenly serious, glancing at me over his shoulder, dirt smudged on his jaw, green-tipped hair falling in his eyes. “You think she’ll like it?”

I pause, studying him. And despite every sharp-edged quip that wants to leave my mouth, I know the real answer.

“She’ll love it,” I say quietly. “Because you made it.”

Silas grins, bright and boyish and wicked. “Good. Because I already invited everyone.”

Before I can ask what that means, he shoves a plank toward me. “Now hold this, Dain, and stop looking like you want to die. We’ve got a fort to build.”

The moment I spot her, I want to walk into traffic. If there were traffic here. Instead, there’s just the dirt-packed road leading from the Hollow's edge, and the figure coming down it—hip sway too pointed, smile too sweet, that deranged glint in her eye like she’s already writing our wedding vows in her head.

“Oh, fuck me sideways,” I mutter, dropping the plank I’m holding. “Silas.”

Silas, perched on the half-finished platform beside me, squints toward the road. “What?”

I point, dread pooling in my gut like a slow, inevitable car crash. “It’s Esmara.”

Silas’s whole face drops. “Oh no.”

Oh yes.

Esmara, the girl I stupidly, stupidly bound myself to in 1423 when I was still figuring out the art of survival and apparently didn’t give a damn about red flags. The girl who poisoned an entire convent because I flirted with the bartender instead of her. The girl who died dramatically, cursing me by name. And, because fate is cruel, apparently also the girl Silas took to bed one wild, drunken festival night two years before her death.

She’s coming straight for us now, brown curls bouncing, wild smile like she’s just stumbled across her long-lost lovers. Which, unfortunately, is not inaccurate.

“Oh my gods,” Silas says, already backing up. “She looks good.”

“She looks psychotic,” I hiss. “Why is she here?”

“She’s dead, mate. We’re in the Hollow. You do the math.”

I don’t have time to do the math because she’s nearly here, waving enthusiastically like we haven’t spent the last several centuries actively trying to avoid her name. Or grave.

“Elias!” she sings, voice syrup-sweet. “Is that you?”

I plaster on the fakest smile I can manage. “Esmara. Wow. You look… alive.”

“I knew it!” she beams. “I knew you’d be here. The threads were too strong to ignore.”

Silas mutters under his breath, “Yeah, that thread is called delusion.”

Her gaze flicks to him and lights up. “And Silas! I thought I’d imagined it, but there you are! You never wrote back after our night.”

Silas gives me a panicked look. I give him a slow, deliberate smile, because if I’m going down, so is he.

Before she can launch herself at me, I blurt out, “I’m married now.”

Her face falls, like I’ve punched her straight in the stomach. “What?”

Silas, unhinged genius that he is, throws an arm around my shoulder. “To me.”

Her gaze flicks between us, confused. “You… married Silas?”

I nod solemnly, wrapping an arm around Silas’s waist and pulling him closer. “Deeply, irrevocably. Happily.”

Silas leans his head on my shoulder, voice a little too breathy. “He’s my favorite problem.”

I grit my teeth but smile harder. “And he’s mine.”

Esmara’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. She looks genuinely baffled. “But… you’re not even—”

“Exactly,” I cut in. “It was a surprise to all of us.”

Silas, the bastard, squeezes my waist and says, “But love is love.”

I shoot him a glare so sharp it could cut glass.

Esmara is still standing there, trying to process, when Silas clears his throat and says brightly, “So. How’s death treating you?”

I want the ground to swallow me whole.

Esmara’s eyes narrow, lips curling like she’s trying to rearrange her entire worldview to fit this new, deranged narrative we’ve given her. She tilts her head, curls falling over her shoulder, and says, slowly, “You know… I always suspected.”

I blink. “Suspected what?”

She smiles sweetly, like she’s solving a riddle she’s been chewing on for centuries. “There was always something between you two. I could feel it. The way you looked at each other.”

Beside me, Silas lets out a strangled sound that might be a laugh or a choke. “I mean… who wouldn’t want all this?” He gestures wildly at himself, then at me, like he’s presenting the world’s worst two-for-one special. “Look at us. We’re a package.”

Esmara clasps her hands together like she’s thrilled. “I knew it! All those nights you’d disappear together and come back looking flushed—”

Silas grins wickedly. “That was the mead, sweetheart.”

I rub a hand over my face, praying for the Hollow to just swallow me whole. “There was no flushed anything.”

Her eyes sparkle, delighted. “You don’t have to lie to me now. I’m dead, remember? I see everything clearly.”

Silas leans in toward me and stage-whispers, “She thinks we’ve been secretly hooking up for centuries.”

I elbow him hard in the ribs. “You’re not helping.”

He winces but grins wider. “I could help. I’m very helpful.”

Esmara’s gaze drags over us like she’s already writing the next chapter of this nightmare in her head. “I just can’t believe I was in the middle of that all along. I was the third wheel.”

I cough. “You were not the third wheel.”

She beams. “I was.”

Silas is barely holding back laughter now. “You were.”

I shoot him a look sharp enough to kill. “Do you want me to murder you in front of her?”

Silas shrugs, grinning like a man unhinged. “Hey, if I’m dying, I’d rather it be in the middle of a lovers’ spat.”

Esmara sighs dreamily. “I always wanted to be part of something like this. You two… you’re just magnetic.”

I glance at Silas, who looks like he’s actively trying not to burst out laughing, then back at her. “Magnetic isn’t the word I’d use.”

Her eyes glimmer, hopeful. “Are you open to a third again?”

I blink. “What?”

Silas snorts, full-on delighted chaos now. “She wants to join the marriage, Eli.”

“Absolutely not,” I say flatly.

Esmara pouts, her smile turning coy. “You don’t have to answer now.”

Silas wiggles his brows at me behind her. “We could use some help in the tree fort.”

I glance skyward, willing myself to keep breathing. “I will murder you.”

He grins, utterly unbothered. “I love when you talk dirty.”

Esmara takes a deliberate step closer, that smile still syrupy sweet but edged with something jagged, something desperate. “You know,” she says, her gaze flicking from me to Silas and back again, “I always wondered what it would’ve felt like. The three of us.”

Silas makes a soft choking noise beside me, and I glare at him before snapping my eyes back to her. “That’s… an unsettling thing to say.”

She shrugs, unapologetic, voice dipping into something coy. “I don’t think it’s unsettling at all. I mean, look at you two. All that brooding energy and nowhere to put it.”

Silas snorts. “Oh, we’ve got places to put it, sweetheart. None of them involve you.”

She ignores him entirely, her eyes pinned to me like a cat sizing up a trapped mouse. “You married him to keep me away. That’s what this is.”

I don’t even blink. “Exactly.”

Silas jumps in, far too delighted. “He proposed after the third orgy. Real tearjerker.”

Esmara hums, unconvinced but wildly entertained by herself. “And I suppose you both consummated it after?”

Silas, the bastard, doesn’t miss a beat. “Twice. Once in a tree fort.”

I elbow him hard, but he grins wider.

She sways closer, lashes lowering. “You could’ve invited me.”

I look at Silas like he’s my last lifeline. “We should go.”

Silas nods fervently. “Yeah. Gotta… uh… braid each other’s hair.”

“Reinforce the tree fort,” I mutter under my breath, already backing away.

Esmara follows a step, her smile stretching far too wide. “Oh, I can help. I’m very good with wood.”

Silas wheezes beside me. “You heard the lady, Eli. She’s good with wood.”

I shoot him a look that promises death.

Esmara’s eyes gleam like she’s hunting. “I can stay tonight.”

Silas’s grin cracks. “Nope. Sorry. Full house.”

I raise a brow at him. “Really? That’s your excuse?”

He shrugs helplessly. “It was that or telling her we have matching pajamas.”

Esmara’s smile sharpens. “I’d love to see you both in matching pajamas.”

I swear under my breath, grab Silas by the elbow, and mutter, “Run.”

And we do. Her laughter follows us down the path like a siren’s wail, too sweet, too sharp, too unhinged.

We don’t stop.

She’s running. Actually running. Like some deranged, lovesick predator on the scent of her prey.

Silas bolts past me, muttering something about not wanting to die like this—hunted by an ex with questionable hygiene and worse taste in men. I’m right behind him, because self-preservation is a perfectly valid reason to abandon dignity. Esmara’s laughter, high and wild, echoes behind us like a banshee’s cry.

We crash through the clearing at the edge of the house, and I don’t even hesitate—I duck behind Riven like the coward I absolutely am. He’s standing there, scowling at us like we’ve interrupted something important, which, knowing him, was probably brooding or carving death threats into bark.

“What the hell?” Riven growls when Silas ducks in behind me, both of us panting.

“She followed us,” I gasp, flattening myself behind him like he’s a shield I paid good money for.

Silas points wildly back at the trees. “She’s feral.”

And then she appears. Like a nightmare. Out of the woods, hair wild, skirt askew, smile manic as she spots Riven and lets out an almost gleeful squeal. “Riven! You’re here too!”

Riven mutters something vicious under his breath and takes one decisive step backward like the ground’s about to swallow him whole.

Ambrose, who’s leaning against the doorframe with a book like he’s above all of us, glances up—his eyes widen a fraction when he sees her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Even Orin, who is supposed to be composed and terrifying, actually steps behind the house like he’s considering climbing through a window.

Esmara’s gaze snags on me again, sharp as a blade, lips curling in something predatory. “I knew you couldn’t resist me.”

I throw my hands up. “You’re literally chasing me through the woods.”

She doesn’t blink. “It’s fate.”

Silas leans over and whispers loudly, “This is what happens when you don’t use fake names.”

I glare at him. “You’re the one who called her Sugar Lips.”

He grins, unrepentant. “She liked it.”

Before either of us can bolt again, she starts toward Riven. “You’re looking well.”

Riven stares at her like she’s a bomb no one taught him how to disarm.

“Don’t look at her,” I mutter to him. “She feeds off attention.”

And because the universe has a sick sense of humor, she turns toward the house next, eyes gleaming as she catches Ambrose slipping behind the corner like he’s too wise for this shit but still somehow caught in it.

“Oh! You’re all here. It’s like a reunion.”

I look at Silas, deadpan. “We should’ve built that damn tree fort higher.”

He exhales, bending over with his hands on his knees. “We’re gonna die.”

And still—she’s smiling, walking closer, like none of us have been actively fleeing her across half the Hollow.

Esmara’s gaze flicks around like she’s cataloging all of us, and when it lands on Orin—poor, shadow-skulking Orin trying to quite literally blend into the side of the house—her entire face lights up like she’s found a lost relic.

“Oh! Orin,” she coos, like he’s an old lover and not a man who looks one well-placed comment away from vanishing into mist.

He freezes, the muscles in his jaw ticking before he straightens his spine with all the stiff dignity of a man about to face a public execution. His expression doesn’t flicker, but the barest lift of his brow is a warning. He doesn’t want to play.

Esmara doesn’t notice—or doesn’t care. She waves him out like she’s summoning a housecat. “Don’t be shy.”

Silas snorts under his breath beside me, and I jab him with my elbow because this is spiraling fast and we haven’t even gotten to the worst part.

“Is this a party?” she asks, spinning as though she's at a damned royal ball. “Did you all gather because of me?”

And because fate is a sadist, that’s the moment Lucien steps outside.

He stops dead, one boot on the threshold, eyes landing on her like she’s a demon he thought he’d exorcised centuries ago. His jaw sets, the line of it sharp enough to cut stone. “Fuck.”

I offer him a dry smile. “Good to see you, Commander. We’re being hunted by the ghost of bad decisions.”

Esmara beams at Lucien, clearly thrilled by the sight of him. “Lucien! You look positively brooding. Still giving orders?”

Lucien’s nostrils flare. His gaze slices toward me like I personally invited hell to tea.

And then—because the universe is cruel and timing is her favorite weapon—the door creaks behind us, and steps outside.

Casual. Curious. Barefoot and flushed from whatever she’d been doing, wearing one of Silas’ shirts, her hair a messy halo.

The second Esmara lays eyes on her, her brow furrows. Her gaze doesn’t linger long—no spark of recognition, no sign she knows who or what is—but there’s a flicker of assessment there, sharp and cutting, like she’s wondering why there’s a girl here at all.

“Oh,” Esmara says sweetly, eyes narrowing, “Didn’t realize this was a family gathering.”

Lucien shifts, every inch of him radiating that dark, lethal calm that only means one thing: he’s about five seconds from snapping.

, blessedly oblivious to the complete catastrophe brewing around her, blinks at all of us, then at Esmara like she’s trying to place her. Her bond with me is wide open—I can feel her confusion, her curiosity, her growing suspicion, all tangled in a lazy sprawl across my skin.

I glance sideways at Silas. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek, shoulders shaking like he’s holding in the worst joke of his life.

This is going to go badly.

And we haven’t even started.

Ambrose

There are monsters in this world. I’ve fought them. Killed them. Hell, I’ve even invited a few into my bed and tasted what made them dangerous.

But Esmara? Esmara exists in a category all her own.

She stands at the edge of the clearing like a fever dream, wild-eyed and smiling too sweetly, the edges of her madness sharp enough to slice flesh. That smile hasn’t changed in centuries—it’s stitched from obsession and brittle threads of a mind long since fractured.

I still remember the first time I catch her rummaging through our rooms back at the Academy, locks of our hair tangled in her fists like we’re collectibles she’s cataloging. She made dolls out of them. Perfect replicas—stuffed with lavender and wool, their stitched smiles grotesque, their button eyes never closing.

It isn’t until I find one shoved beneath my pillow, a bloody ribbon tied around its throat, that I start sleeping with a dagger beneath mine.

And now she’s here, smiling like we’re old friends gathering for drinks.

My gaze flicks to Elias, who looks ready to peel his own skin off, then to Silas—who, to his credit, is trying to physically shrink, as though becoming small enough will make him disappear.

It won’t.

I shift my weight, folding my arms across my chest, voice dry and clipped. “Well. That explains why the Hollow feels heavier today. I was wondering when one of our sins would show up.”

Lucien mutters something sharp under his breath beside me. Orin stands still as stone on my left, unreadable, but I can feel the weight of his stare.

And — hovers in the doorway like a spark pressed to powder, blissfully unaware of what’s just stepped into our orbit.

Esmara’s eyes drag to me, lingering a moment too long. “Ambrose,” she purrs, voice as light as silk. “I never finished your doll.”

My mouth twists, humorless. “I burned the last one. Thought you’d get the hint.”

She giggles. Actually giggles. It’s a sound that doesn’t belong here, in the crumbling, haunted edges of this world. And when her gaze slides back to Elias, her entire body sways toward him, as if he’s gravity and she’s powerless against it.

“You always ran so fast, Elias,” she croons, voice sugar-sweet and full of something unhinged. “I knew it was because you liked the chase.”

Silas groans quietly beside him, muttering, “We’re so fucked.”

I tilt my head lazily toward Elias, savoring the misery strung tight across his face. “She still has the hair doll of you, doesn’t she?”

He shoots me a look like he’s considering murder.

I smile slow and sharp. “Told you she’d find us eventually.”

glances between us, brow pinched, sensing the sharpness in the air but not knowing why. Not yet.

Esmara’s gaze sharpens like a knife. She flicks her attention to the girl standing half-shielded in the doorway——and something unpleasant ripples through her smile. Her fingers twitch at her sides like she’s itching to tear the entire house down brick by brick.

“She’s pretty,” Esmara says finally, voice light, saccharine sweet, but sharp enough to draw blood.

Lucien steps forward, shoulders squared like a man preparing for war. His voice is smooth, clipped. “That’s ,” he says, and something dangerous coils beneath his words. “She’s our Sin Binder now.”

The air shifts.

Esmara’s brows knit, her head tilting like a doll’s, brittle confusion dancing across her features. “Your Sin Binder?” she repeats, eyes darting between all of us as if she’s trying to make the pieces fit, to rearrange a puzzle she never expected.

Her lips twist in a soft pout. “But… Silas and Elias told me they were married.”

My mouth curves, humorless, sharp. I glance sideways at Elias, who looks like he’s praying for death, and at Silas, who’s fighting the urge to bolt.

“I’d hardly call that a lie,” I murmur, voice dry as dust. “They’re practically married. Just not to each other.”

Esmara’s eyes narrow. “You’re all bonded to her?” She says it like the words don’t make sense, like they’re acid in her mouth.

Silas, to his credit—or his stupidity—grins, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s a modern thing. Very progressive.”

Elias coughs, muttering under his breath, “We’re a throuple now. A sextuple.”

Orin groans quietly beside me, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Esmara’s lips twitch, her smile splitting unnervingly wide. “How delightful,” she says. But her eyes never leave , lingering too long, like she’s peeling her apart, thread by thread, looking for the seams.

straightens beside Lucien, chin lifting. She doesn’t look away.

Good girl.

Lucien glances back at her once, then flicks his gaze to me. It’s subtle, a look that says, We have a problem.

And I already know—we all do. Because Esmara wasn’t just obsessed. She was possessive, territorial. She collected sins the way others collected flowers, but she never let anyone else touch her bouquet.

Now someone else is holding her favorite ones. And she looks like she’s one wrong word away from setting the entire Hollow on fire.

I smile, slow and sharp, letting the weight of it slide over her like a blade. “You’ll find,” I murmur, voice cutting through the air, “we’ve all moved on.”

But something in her stare tells me she hasn’t.

Orin steps forward. He’s the polite one. The soft voice, the one that sounds like reason, like an elder brother trying to soothe a wounded animal—but Esmara was never an animal. She’s always been something else entirely. Something that gnaws bone clean and smiles about it.

Orin’s voice is deliberate, smooth, careful in a way that should’ve been disarming. “Esmara,” he says, as if her name isn’t already a curse wrapped around all our throats. “You’ve traveled far. But you’re not welcome here.”

He says it kindly. Like a man offering the knife before he uses it.

Esmara’s smile doesn’t shift. It stretches, sharpens, like she’s trying to peel his patience apart with her teeth. She shakes her head, a soft little motion that doesn’t match the wildness in her eyes.

“I only wanted to see you all,” she says sweetly, and her gaze flickers to Elias like a blade slipping into flesh. “You disappeared.”

“You died,” I remind her lazily, leaning back against the doorframe. “That tends to cause a bit of distance.”

Her eyes snap to me. Sharp, furious, adoring. It’s never one thing with her—it’s always too much. Too sweet. Too eager. Too vicious.

“I didn’t die,” she says quietly, voice dipped in syrup and acid. “I’ve been here, waiting. Like all the others.”

Lucien’s jaw flexes, his posture stiffening beside Orin. But Orin, ever the diplomat, only inclines his head slightly.

“And you can keep waiting,” Orin replies, his voice still gentle but iron underneath. “But not here.”

For a moment, she doesn’t move. I watch her mouth twitch, her eyes calculating, and I know what she’s doing—adding it up. Who’s here. Who’s not. Who stands too close to without meaning to.

And then she laughs. The sound cracks through the space, too bright, too brittle. It scrapes at the edges of my spine, and I catch flinching behind me.

“Oh, darling,” Esmara says, smile razor-wide. “I think I’ll stay.”

Orin’s patience doesn’t falter, but something sharpens beneath it—his shoulders straighten, his magic unfurling subtly, a quiet pressure behind his words now. “You don’t want to do this.”

But she’s already made up her mind. You can see it in the way her fingers twitch like she’s holding onto something sharp and invisible. You can see it in the way she’s looking at —not like she’s curious. Like she’s hunting.

My lips curve, humorless. “Well,” I murmur, voice low, curling toward her like smoke. “We did tell you we’ve moved on.”

Her smile doesn’t waver. But her eyes flash like she’s about to set the world on fire.

The moment speaks, the world shifts. Her voice isn’t sharp—it’s soft, almost sweet. But it cuts like a knife because she doesn’t ask Esmara to leave. She tells her.

"You should go now," says, her gaze pinned, unflinching. "They’re mine now."

Esmara stills. The wild light in her eyes flickers, confusion briefly threading through the madness. She looks at like she’s something Esmara can’t quite understand—like a puzzle with jagged edges she doesn’t know how to bleed on.

It’s a declaration. A claim. Not possessive, but undeniable. It hangs in the air, sharp as the weight of every bond between us humming beneath my skin.

I just watch her. . Our anchor. Our reckoning. The little thing that’s cracked us all open and keeps sinking her claws deeper every day without even realizing.

Esmera’s smile falters for the first time. "Yours?" she repeats, voice twisting around the word like it tastes foreign on her tongue. "They belong to me."

I laugh under my breath, sharp and low. "They don’t."

’s chin lifts a fraction higher. "You’ve had centuries to let go. You’re already dead, Esmara. You don’t get to haunt them."

Her smile breaks then—splinters, cracks at the corners until there’s nothing left but something too empty, too sharp.

"You don’t understand what they are," Esmara says, her voice quieter now, but no less frayed. "You don’t know what they’ve done."

doesn’t flinch. She smiles, soft and lethal. "I know exactly what they are. And they’re mine anyway."

I feel it in my chest, how stupidly that word curls around something I’ve tried not to acknowledge—how warm it feels, how dangerous.

Esmara’s fingers twitch at her sides. Her gaze flickers between all of us and finally lands on Orin again, desperate, like maybe he’ll be the one to untangle this madness and take her side.

But Orin doesn’t move. His expression is unreadable now, carved from something older than time.

"You should go," he echoes, softer this time. And there’s nothing polite in it now. Only finality.

Esmara looks at him, at me, at Lucien who hasn't spoken, at Silas who’s practically vibrating with the urge to shout something crude, and then finally back at .

And then, for the first time in a long, long time, she looks… small.

The silence stretches. Dangerous.

I lean forward slightly, voice cool as a blade. "Don’t make us ask again."

Esmara tilts her head, her smile curdling like spoiled honey. "You’ll regret this."

And then she turns and walks away. But she’s not done. We all know it.

watches her leave, her spine straight, her jaw set. And when she finally glances back at us, her eyes snag on me—and for a second, she looks like she’s waiting for me to contradict her. To tell her she doesn’t get to claim us like that.

Instead, I smile slow, sharp, and tell her the truth.

"You’re dangerous when you’re possessive, darling."

She doesn’t blink. "Good."

The corner of my mouth curves higher. I think I’m starting to like her.

Silas lets out an exaggerated groan, loud enough to make a few of the villagers who’ve been peering too long from their windows wince and dart back inside. He drops his hands onto his knees like the weight of existence itself is too much to bear.

"Well," he huffs, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow, "that was exhausting. I haven’t had to pretend to be madly in love with Elias in, what, two centuries? And last time, at least I got dinner out of it."

Elias, standing beside him, doesn’t miss a beat. "You wish you could pull me, Veyd," he drawls, voice like smoke curling low in his throat. "You couldn’t handle me."

Silas flips him off lazily. "That’s exactly what you said the last time you let me tie you up."

I snort under my breath, because I can see where this is going already—the unraveling chaos that always follows when the two of them decide to perform for each other, for us, like they haven’t been ripping each other’s clothes off and falling into bed for months now.

Riven mutters something about idiots under his breath, but he’s smirking too.

Lucien rolls his eyes so hard I half expect them to fall out of his skull. "Can we not?"

Orin is the one who finally says what we’re all thinking. "The real issue isn’t their dramatics," he muses, folding his arms, his voice even but carrying weight. "It’s that she didn’t leave when we asked the first time."

"Yeah," Silas says, pointing a finger at Orin like he’s awarding him a prize. "That’s because Esmara’s idea of love is cutting our hair in the middle of the night and making dolls out of it."

I arch a brow at that, because I’d almost forgotten about that particular bit of lunacy. "And that little shrine she made in the woods," I murmur, voice sharp as a blade slipping between ribs. "The one with everyone’s teeth."

Lucien lets out a grim laugh, shaking his head. "Don’t forget the letters," he says dryly. "The ones she used to leave under our pillows—each one written in a different language."

"She’s multilingual, she’s ambitious, she’s deranged," Silas adds, counting off on his fingers. "And Elias is apparently the love of her undead life."

Elias drags a hand down his face like he’s regretting every choice that’s brought him here. "She used to leave dead birds on my windowsill. Every morning. For six months."

"That's courtship," Silas says, completely straight-faced. "You should’ve married her."

, standing beside me, shakes her head, lips twitching like she’s fighting a smile. But I can feel her gaze on me, can feel the ripple of something sharp and satisfied crackling through her bond to all of us.

Because she’s not laughing about the dead birds or the teeth. She’s laughing because she said we belonged to her—and none of us argued. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, the weight of her words from earlier pressing heavy against the edges of my ribcage.

And I think I might not mind being possessed.