Page 21 of The Sin-Binder’s Fate (The Seven Sins Academy #1)

Lucien stands near the spot where she died.

I don’t know if it’s intentional, if some part of him is trying to carve a ghost out of the past, or if he’s just a fucking masochist. Maybe both.

It doesn’t matter. I hate coming out here. The ruins, the charred remains of what once stood, this place reeks of the past. Of things we don’t talk about. Of things I don’t want to think about.

But my body remembers. The way her breath shuddered in the last moments, how she tried to speak but couldn’t. The light leaving her eyes, the weight of her in my arms,

I grind my teeth, fists curling at my sides.

Time doesn’t heal wounds.

It just forces you to carry them.

And now she’s here.

Luna.

A fucking replacement. That’s all she is, all she was ever meant to be. A placeholder for what we lost. A puppet strung up in the same spot, given the same purpose, walking the same damn path.

They want her to be the next. To do what she couldn’t. To succeed where she failed. But all I see is a girl stumbling toward the same ending.

And I hate her for it. Hate that she’s here. Hate that she exists. Hate that every time I look at her, it hurts.

Because she doesn’t belong. Because she’s not her.

Because some sick, twisted part of me already knows,

I’m going to lose her, too. I will never love another. I will never let myself be blind. And I will never bind myself to something mortal again.

I know what happens when you let someone in. When you take, when you claim, when you bind yourself to something fragile.

You lose. And you keep losing.

I look at the place where she died, and for a second, I swear I see her. Just a flicker. A ghost caught in the periphery of my mind, whispering through the cracks. I clench my jaw so hard it aches.

This place is cursed. And Luna is walking straight into the same fate.

She doesn’t see it. Doesn’t understand it. She’s just here, standing in the middle of a battlefield she doesn’t even recognize. Our battlefield. She doesn’t belong. She never will.

The others they think they can resist her. They think they can ignore what’s happening. But they’re fucking fools. All of them.

I can see it. It’s already happening. She’s infecting us. One by one, they’ll fall.

I won’t.

I can’t.

She needs to leave. Now. Before they give in. Before I give in.

I turn, heading toward the ruins. The last place I saw her. The last place she stood before Ambrose wrapped his golden tongue around her throat and called it a deal.

She thinks she’s clever. Thinks she’s negotiating. Thinks she can survive.

She doesn’t realize, Survival isn’t an option.

She either leaves or she dies. And I’m about to make sure she understands exactly what that means.

I find her in the ruins, wiping blood from her nose with the back of her hand, a book balanced carelessly in the other, like she has all the time in the world. Like she’s not being hunted.

It pisses me off.

She should be running. Hiding. Fighting. Not standing there with her fucking head tilted, skimming words like they’ll save her from what’s coming.

From me.

I move before I think, a slow, predatory step forward. My power surges at my command, a pulse of raw, violent energy that makes the stones beneath her feet groan in protest.

Luna stiffens but doesn’t look up.

I reach for more. A deeper current of what makes me Wrath. The kind of power that doesn’t just strike, it consumes. The cracked walls tremble, dust spilling from the ceiling. The book in her hand twitches, like it wants to tear itself apart.

She finally looks at me. Not scared. Not even surprised. Just annoyed.

“You done?” she asks, dabbing at the blood on her lip, unimpressed.

I smile, slow and sharp, because that’s the last fucking straw.

I let go.

The force of my power slams into her, knocking her back a step. The book flies from her grip. Stone fragments rain down around her as the walls shudder, protesting my rage. She gasps, bracing herself against the ruined bookshelf behind her, the impact jolting through her frame.

Still, she doesn’t break.

I take another step. “You should be running, little Sin-Binder.”

She exhales sharply, her chest rising and falling. “And you should be doing a better job at scaring me.”

I growl, closing the distance between us in a breath. My hands slam against the crumbling shelf on either side of her, caging her in. The heat of my fury thrums between us, thick enough to taste. “You don’t get it, do you?” My voice is low, lethal. “I want you gone.”

Her throat works as she swallows, but she meets my gaze head-on. “And I don’t want to be here. But neither of us are getting what we want, are we?”

My fingers twitch against the wood, the overwhelming urge to shake some sense into her crawling beneath my skin. She’s infuriating. Reckless.

I grab her wrist, shoving the book away, and slam my other hand against the crumbling wall beside her head. Dust shudders loose, cascading down her shoulder, but she barely flinches.

"You don’t belong here," I say, voice rough, low. "And no one wants you here either."

She glares up at me, but I don’t give her the chance to spit something defiant back. I lean in, close enough that she has to feel the heat of me, has to see the violent pull in my chest that I’m barely holding back.

"You think you’re special because you walked in here alive?" I murmur, my lips curling. "Because fate dumped you at our feet like a fucking stray, hoping we’d take pity?" My fingers tighten around her wrist, not enough to hurt, yet, but enough to remind her that she’s fragile. Breakable.

Her mouth parts, and I see the moment she wants to bite back. The way her throat works, the way she forces herself to meet my gaze without hesitation.

"Newsflash, little binder," I snarl, leaning in until she has nowhere else to go, my body pinning her against the cold stone.

"You're nothing to us. A nuisance. An inconvenience. The last one of you meant something. The last one of you mattered. But you?" I let my gaze drag down, deliberately slow, from her mouth to the hollow of her throat, to where her pulse beats fast, betraying her. "You’re just a placeholder, and you won’t last long enough for anyone to care when you’re gone. "

I feel her inhale sharply beneath me, but she doesn’t look away. That pisses me off most of all.

"You’re wrong," she whispers, and for some reason, it’s worse than if she had screamed at me, worse than if she had shoved me away. There’s no fire in her voice, just something steadier. Something that doesn’t shake, even though it should .

I push harder, my grip sliding to her throat, my fingers barely pressing. Just a whisper of pressure, just enough to let her know I could.

I bare my teeth. "No, little girl. You are."

I expect her to flinch. To shove at me. To crumble like she fucking should.

Instead, she just exhales, slow, measured. And then she laughs. Not loud. Not mocking. Just a short, breathless thing, like she can’t believe me.

"What the fuck is so funny?" I snap, fury roaring hotter.

"You," she breathes, and her lips twitch like she wants to smile but doesn’t dare. "You talk too much."

For a second, I freeze.

Then, without thinking, without meaning to, I laugh too. It’s dark, humorless, but it cracks past my lips before I can stop it. And I fucking hate that the most.

She kisses me. Not hesitant, not soft, like she means it, like she’s daring me to take it further, to cross a line neither of us can come back from.

For a second, I don’t move. My body locks up, every nerve sparking like a live wire. I don’t want this. I don’t want her.

Liar.

I grab her jaw, fingers pressing just hard enough to make her gasp against my mouth, and then I’m kissing her back. It’s violent, aggressive, an answer to a question neither of us asked. She meets me with equal force, pulling at my shirt, trying to drag me closer, but I refuse to let her have that.

I take. I own.

And then I push her away .

Hard.

She stumbles back, breath ragged, eyes wild. Her lips are swollen, red from me. A mark. A mistake.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, like I can erase it, like I can pretend I didn’t just give in to something I swore I never would.

Her chest rises and falls, and for a second, I think she might say something. Might try to twist this into something it isn’t.

I cut her off before she can.

“Don’t do that again.” My voice is raw, sharp, edged in something too dangerous to name.

She tilts her head, assessing me like she’s searching for a crack, a weakness. “Or what?”

I step closer, slow, deliberate, making sure she understands exactly what kind of monster she’s playing with.

“Or I’ll give you exactly what you’re asking for. ”