Page 53 of The Sin-Binder’s Fate (The Seven Sins Academy #1)

I watch her for another long moment. The way she stands her ground. The way she refuses to back down. And I feel it again, The bond. The way it settles in my chest, deep and inevitable.

I sigh, shoving my hands into my pockets, muttering, mostly to myself,

"Yeah. They are."

Her anger has teeth now. And it’s not just hers.

It’s mine, too. She doesn’t realize it yet, but my wrath isn’t just some passive, inconvenient thing curling up inside her.

It’s changing her. Sharpening her edges, making her run hotter, making her reckless.

And right now? She’s pacing in aggressive, erratic circles, throwing her arms around like she’s trying to shake off the sheer rage still eating her alive.

“I should have throat-punched him,” she snaps. “I was going to. I was two fucking seconds away, and then you had to step in with your stupid, smug, looming bullshit.”

I snort. "Looming bullshit?"

She whirls, stabbing a finger at me. "Yes. Your big bad Wrath bullshit."

I lift a brow. “You realize Ambrose would’ve enjoyed that, right?”

She freezes mid-stride.

Her expression flickers, calculations rewriting themselves in real-time. And then, quietly,

“…I hate that you’re probably right.”

I grin. “I’m always right.”

She glares. Hard. The ground beneath us trembles. I feel it curling up through the soil, the same way my power always does when I’m about to wreck something beyond repair.

I narrow my eyes at her, watching the way her fingers twitch, the way her hands curl into tight fists, the way the sheer rage still licking through her system is making her whole body feel like it’s about to snap.

Yeah. No. She’s going to fuck up my battlefield before the Sub-Sins even get here .

I exhale, rolling my shoulders, keeping my voice calm. “You need an outlet.”

She stops pacing. "What?"

I nod at her hands. “Unless you want to keep throwing a fit until you accidentally split the fucking earth open, you need to get it out.”

She scowls. “I’m not throwing a fit.”

I smirk. “You’re throwing something.”

Her eyes narrow, her hands flexing, like she wants to throw me into the sun next.

I exhale. "You want to fight?"

She blinks, caught off guard. Like the idea never even occurred to her.

Slowly, deliberately, I tilt my head. "I mean, you’ve got my Wrath. Might as well use it."

She stares at me. And then, she squares off. Feet planted. Shoulders back. Arms up in what is probably meant to be a fighting stance but looks like something she copied from a half-baked action movie.

I stare at her. She stares back, jaw set, eyes dead serious.

“…Luna.”

“What?”

I lift a brow. “What the fuck is that stance?”

She glares. "A fighting stance."

I blink. “It’s terrible.”

She huffs, adjusting her feet, then glances down at herself like she’s re-evaluating everything. "Well, what’s wrong with it?"

I smirk. “You’re wide open.”

She glares harder. And then, without warning, She swings. I barely lean back in time, her fist slicing through empty air just inches from my face. And fuck. I wasn’t expecting that. Maybe it’s the Wrath in her. Maybe it’s the fact that no one’s ever pushed her this far before.

But she’s all in. And now? I think I might actually have fun.

The second her fist slices through the air again, I know exactly what kind of fight this is going to be.

Wild. Untrained. Pure fucking chaos. She’s fighting like she feels, reckless, full of rage she doesn’t know how to use yet, attacking blindly because she doesn’t know what else to do with all the power coiling hot and violent inside her.

And shit, it’s almost impressive. Not the form, because there isn’t one. Not the technique, because she has none. But the force behind it.

She moves fast, too fast, the raw edge of my Wrath pushing her past what she should be capable of. Her second swing comes without hesitation, her foot already pivoting into another attack, and I catch the shift in her stance a second before she slams her heel into the ground.

The earth cracks open. A jagged fissure splinters outward, sharp and sudden, like the land itself is reacting to her fury.

My power. I feel it curl up from the soil, responding to her rage, feeding off it, making the ground tremble under her feet like it’s waiting for a command she doesn’t even realize she’s giving .

But the land does. And it’s listening.

I exhale, rolling my shoulders, keeping my stance loose.

I don’t come at her. This isn’t about me. This is her outlet, the thing she needs to do before she loses herself completely to something she doesn’t understand.

So I just stay out of her way.

I shift back when she lunges, dodging effortlessly, watching the way she grits her teeth, the way she growls when I don’t strike back, the way her body is too hot, her movements too sharp, the Wrath in her making her reckless, making her dangerous, but only to herself.

Because all that power? All that rage? It’s not useful yet.

It’s raw, unrefined. And fuck, it’s hot. Not in a way I should be noticing. Not in a way that makes something coil low and dark inside me as I watch her, the way her body moves, the way her mouth parts as she exhales hard, the way her eyes burn like they could devour me whole.

She tears up the earth, cracking the ground with another hit of my power, and I sigh, dodging around her, my muscles coiling, my body reacting without thinking, without wanting,

She swings again. I catch her wrist. And everything stops.

The ground stills.

The air turns thick with something else, something heavier than Wrath, something that has nothing to do with rage and everything to do with the way she’s breathing too hard, the way she stills beneath my grip, the way her pulse hammers beneath my fingers.

I watch her, the way she’s still burning, still fuming, but now it’s something different. Something charged. Something unavoidable. And when she exhales, her lips part just slightly, and I feel the shift in her magic, in her body, in the way she doesn’t try to pull away.

I know.

We’re past fighting now. We’re somewhere else. Somewhere we probably shouldn’t be. But neither of us moves. And fuck, I don’t think I want to. This is a mistake. Every part of me knows it, but I don’t care.

Because her pulse is pounding beneath my fingers, her body hot from the fight, and the way she’s looking at me, wild, reckless, full of something she doesn’t even understand yet, is going to fucking undo me.

So I do the stupid thing. The irrevocable thing.

I yank her forward by the wrist, dragging her into me so fast she stumbles, her breath hitching as my arm comes around her waist.

And then, before she can react, I lift her off the ground.

She shrieks, thrashing the second I haul her over my shoulder. “Put me down, you asshole!”

I don’t.

I adjust my grip, ignoring the fists pounding against my back, the sharp little kicks that don’t even hurt, because fuck, she’s small, and fuck, she’s furious, and fuck, this is probably the worst fucking decision I’ve ever made .

But I keep walking, my pace measured, deliberate, making sure she feels every second of this. Because this? This is me giving in. Just this once.

She bucks, twisting, trying to wrench herself free. “You do not get to manhandle me!”

I exhale, shifting her weight higher as I push open the door to my room. “I’m cashing in Ambrose’s favor.”

She stills. Just for a second. Long enough for me to step inside, kick the door shut, and set her down. She stumbles when her feet hit the ground, eyes flashing as she whirls on me, breathless, seething.

“You- ”

I cut her off by doing the most ridiculous fucking thing imaginable. I square off. Like she did outside. Feet planted. Shoulders back. Arms up in a stance that is deliberately, stupidly awful.

And when she realizes what I’m doing, she laughs. Something wicked and sharp flashing in her eyes as she lunges at me .