Page 19 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

I stare down at the glowing screen like it’s personally offended me. The council’s message blinks at the top—a cold, clinical reminder that nothing’s ever quiet for long. I miss the days when you had to send a bird if you wanted to ruin someone’s night. Hell, even a letter with wax seals and veiled threats was better than this.

Instead, I get a text. A digital summons like I’m one of their damn employees.

My thumb hovers over the group chat before I let out a breath and tap it open. The chat name, of course, is The Seven Sins I’ve felt worse and survived. But what’s lodged in my chest isn’t the problem.

It’s the smear of crimson on her skin. The delicate spill of it down her chest where the metal clipped her too. The sharp line of injury that might be shallow but feels like a fucking death sentence anyway because it’s hers.

The crack in me widens.

"Luna," I breathe her name like a curse, like a prayer, like the last thing I’ll ever say. She’s conscious, barely. Her lashes flutter when I shift my weight, and her mouth parts like she wants to speak, but she’s losing color fast.

I don’t move. I don’t dare.

My hand comes up, trembling, and I press it to her cheek with a gentleness that costs me everything because my hands were never made to be gentle. "Don’t move," I murmur, voice frayed at the edges, unraveling thread by thread.

She blinks at me, dazed and confused, trying to process why I’m pinned over her like I could hold back death itself.

And maybe I am.

Maybe I would.

I shift the smallest amount—enough to see the way her blood soaks through her shirt, slick and shining and too fucking red. I can taste the copper in my throat, feel the way the universe tilts around her heartbeat.

"Stay still," I bite out again, firmer, even as something inside me fractures so deeply I’m not sure it can be stitched back together.

The others are groaning in the background. Metal creaks. Tires scream against the rocks below. I hear Silas curse low, hear Caspian’s sharp breath like he’s trying to force air back into his lungs, but it all fades beneath the roaring in my ears.

I tear my eyes from her for the first time.

Because I need him.

The only one who can slow time itself. The only one who might be able to fix what I can’t.

"Elias," I snarl, voice sharp enough to draw blood. "Get the fuck over here."

It rips out of me like a demand, like a scream, like a man who’s already lost everything but refuses to let this be the end.

Because if she dies here, under me, because of me—

The prophecy won’t have to wait.

I’ll tear the world down myself.

There’s something about the sound of panic—raw, unfiltered—that doesn’t fit in the mouths of men like us. We’re not built for panic. We’re built for destruction, seduction, power. But right now, all I hear are their voices crashing over me like the goddamn rain slamming against the warped shell of this car.

"Fuck—fuck—Ambrose, don’t move!" Caspian’s voice is hoarse, trembling under the weight of everything he’s trying not to show.

Metal groans around us like the car’s spine is splintering, falling apart piece by piece, and I can’t breathe around the sharp, metallic taste in my mouth—can’t move, because I’m still holding her, caging her, trying to be the thing that keeps her in one piece when I’m the one bleeding out over her.

I can hear Silas swearing, a string of curses sharp enough to peel paint, and when I glance past the blood in my vision, I catch the bent angle of his arm cradled against his chest—fucked. That arm won’t be usable anytime soon. Elias is already halfway across the wreckage, his face carved from something grim and cracking, his hand shoved against the side of the car, trying to rip the metal apart like he can slow time long enough to undo this.

’s voice cuts through, sharp and deadly, barking orders none of us are equipped to follow. "Get the fucking door off! Now!"

I want to tell them to stop. To leave it. Because every inch they pry me away from her might pull that metal deeper, might shift the wreckage in the wrong direction and tear her apart under me. But my mouth’s dry and I can’t seem to get the words out.

Caspian’s hands are already on me, slick with rain and blood, trying to brace my shoulders. "You’ve got to let us get you off her, Ambrose," he grits, voice cracking on my name like it costs him to say it.

I shake my head, barely. "If I move, she dies."

"She’s bleeding out!" snarls from somewhere to my left, voice ragged and terrifying and desperate.

They don’t understand. None of them do. The shaft through me is the only thing pinning me here, and it's pinning her too—our blood mingling in a way that feels like the worst kind of irony. I’ve been running from her bond like a coward, terrified of the noose tightening around my throat. And now, I’m literally impaled alongside her. I am the chain.

And still, all I can think is: If I move, she dies.

Silas drags himself closer with one good arm, dragging his shattered body through the debris, muttering, "I can’t fucking lose her, Ambrose. You know I can’t."

He’s shaking, jaw tight, blood pouring down his temple.

Elias is crouched next to me now, voice softer, darker, so unlike him it makes me want to snap. "You have to let us try."

Luna stirs beneath me—a faint sound, like a breath caught on broken glass. That’s what does it. That small, ruined sound.

I nod once.

and Caspian move together, synchronized, teeth gritted as they wedge their arms beneath my shoulders, under the mess of torn leather and blood, trying not to jar her. Metal screams around us as they ease me back, inch by inch, like they’re dismantling a bomb.

I want to look down at her, want to see her eyes open and lucid, but I can’t. I can’t risk shifting the angle. So I stare at Elias instead, straight into his eyes, because if I’m going to die tonight, I want him to be the one who carries it.

"Slow it down," I rasp at him. "Just for a second."

Elias nods, jaw tight, and everything blurs—slows—not much, but enough.

The car groans again. The shaft embedded in my chest drags through my ribs like a rusted knife.

And still, they keep pulling.

For her.

For me.

For whatever sick, fucked-up thing we are to each other.

The second I’m off her, she whimpers—a sound so soft, so broken, it cracks something inside me that I don’t think can ever be put back together.

And I know—

If she dies, I won’t wake up tomorrow.