Page 20 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

I’m okay. That’s what I told them. That’s what Elias made sure of when he reset the wreckage of my body like it was nothing more than a misaligned puzzle. Silas’s arm, mended but aching. My ribs, sore but intact. And Ambrose—Ambrose, who shouldn’t even be standing right now, stands at the foot of my bed like he wants to throttle me and carve me open in the same breath.

He’s staring at the wall like if he looks at me, he’ll combust.

I stretch, deliberately casual, even though every muscle thrums like it remembers the impact. “You can stop glaring at the paint, Dalmar. It wasn’t the wall that drove us off a cliff.”

His gaze cuts to me like a blade. That sharp, cool thing he wears like skin, the one that makes you want to lean in even as you bleed.

“You’re sore,”

he says flatly.

“So are you,”

I throw back, voice lighter than it should be. “We match.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

His jaw ticks, and he looks away again. Like my voice is the thing scraping him raw.

I push up on my elbows, the sheet sliding down my stomach. He doesn’t look, but I know he notices. Ambrose Dalmar is a man who catalogs everything. Files you away in pieces until he can decide how to use you.

Except he can’t use me now.

Because we’re half bound.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, stretching deliberately slow. “You didn’t have to do it.”

His silence is louder than any lecture.

“You didn’t,”

I say again, meeting his gaze. “You could’ve let me crash. Let me burn.”

“I don’t make a habit of letting people die on my watch.”

I snort. “Bullshit. You don’t make a habit of letting anyone get close enough to die.”

His mouth twists. A smile that isn’t a smile at all. “Congratulations, . You’re the exception.”

There’s venom in it. But something else, too—something hollow and sharp, buried so deep I doubt even he knows where it starts.

I rise, moving toward him with slow, deliberate steps. The space between us feels like a live wire. His posture is perfect, composed, but his fingers twitch once at his side, like he’s imagining what it would feel like to close the distance, to cage me in.

“You’re angry,”

I murmur. “Not because of the crash. Because now you’re tied to me, and you didn’t get to choose.”

His gaze snaps to mine, unreadable. “You think I care about choice?”

“You care about control,”

I say, voice softer now, slicing closer to the truth. “And I took that from you.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw. His eyes flick down, a second too long, before snapping back up.

“You didn’t take anything,”

he murmurs. “I gave it. Stupidly.”

I step closer, until there’s barely a breath between us. “And now?”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. “Now we finish it.”

My pulse spikes. Not from fear. Not from nerves. From the way he says it—like a challenge. Like a dare.

I tilt my chin up, smiling without softness. “You sure, Dalmar? You might not like what you get when you finally fall.”

His laugh is low, bitter. “I never like anything.”

I lean in, close enough to feel his breath against my lips. “Good,”

I whisper. “Then we’re even.”

His hand snaps out, catching my wrist before I can pull away. Not tight. Not rough. But there’s no mistaking the power coiled in that grip.

“You’re reckless,”

he says quietly. “You don’t care what it costs.”

“I care,”

I murmur. “I just decided you’re worth the price.”

His fingers flex, that precise, infuriating composure cracking for half a second. Enough for me to see it—the hunger he's been swallowing whole since the night we met. The want that tastes like a curse on his tongue. The way he wants me, hates wanting me, and can't fucking stop.

But Ambrose Dalmar doesn’t fall. He doesn’t lose.

He releases me like I’ve burned him, like the taste of me lingers on his fingertips and he can’t scrub it clean. Then he turns, sharp and surgical, like he’s about to cut himself out of this moment entirely.

I should let him.

I don’t.

My voice is low, threading into the air between us like silk strangling a blade. “You can run, Ambrose. But you’ll never outrun yourself.”

That’s what finally stops him. The way his spine straightens like a blade unsheathed. He doesn’t turn, but his head dips slightly, like he’s listening harder than he should.

“I’m not running.”

His voice is cool, perfectly crafted, but it’s a goddamn lie and we both know it.

I move then, closing the space with quiet, deadly precision. I reach for him, not soft, not coaxing—just enough to catch the fabric at his elbow, to tether him here before he can pretend this didn’t happen.

“Liar.”

That single word cuts him sharper than I expect.

His breath leaves him in a low exhale, but when he finally looks over his shoulder, there’s nothing controlled about the way his eyes drag over me. He’s fraying at the edges. And he hates it. Hates that I see it.

“Say what you want, ,”

he murmurs, voice like cool wine poured over a wound. “But we both know what this is.”

I tilt my chin up, meeting him head-on. “What is it?”

“A mistake,”

he says, but there’s a catch in it—a fracture, so subtle anyone else would’ve missed it.

Not me.

I close the final inch between us, pressing my body into the line of his back, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Then stop standing here like you’re waiting for me to make it.”

He sucks in a sharp breath. His composure snaps taut between us, brittle as spun glass.

“I will ruin you,”

he says quietly, like it’s a promise. Like it’s a fact already written.

I smile against his neck, letting my teeth graze the delicate skin just below his jaw. “You already have.”

That’s when he finally moves.

Fast. Rough.

He spins, catching me by the wrist again, but this time it isn’t restraint—it’s declaration. He backs me into the wall, one palm flattening beside my head, the other still gripping my wrist like he wants to crush me and devour me all at once.

His mouth hovers over mine, breath harsh and uneven. “You don’t want this.”

I laugh. Low and wicked. “I think you’re confusing me with yourself.”

His jaw clenches. I can see it—the exact second he gives in. That sliver of restraint slipping like silk between his fingers.

He kisses me like it’s a punishment.

Hard. Bruising. Furious.

Like he wants to make me regret every second that brought us here and can’t help tasting me anyway.

I bite his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood and he groans against my mouth, the sound guttural, almost broken. His hand fists in my hair, dragging my head back so he can look at me, and his eyes—gods, his eyes—they aren’t cold now.

They’re wildfire.

“Tell me to stop,”

he rasps, voice shredded.

I drag my teeth over my bottom lip, my pulse thundering like I’ve stepped off another cliff.

“Finish what you started,”

I breathe.

His mouth is on mine again, brutal and demanding, and this time when he kisses me, it’s not careful—it’s catastrophic.

Ambrose’s mouth is savage when it crashes back to mine, no more games, no more restraint. His kiss isn’t a question—it’s a brand. Possession, punishment, inevitability all stitched into the brutal way he claims my lips.

He shoves me back onto the bed, body covering mine in a blur of heat and fury, hands sliding up my ribs like he’s mapping out the places he wants to wreck. His grip bruises as he fists the hem of my shirt and drags it up, over my head, flinging it somewhere behind him without care.

I rake my nails down his chest in answer, dragging red across his skin just to watch him hiss. He leans down and bites my shoulder hard enough to make me gasp, grinding against me like he wants to imprint himself on every inch.

“You’re a fucking nightmare,”

he snarls against my throat, and I arch beneath him, pulse hammering, breath sharp.

“You’re the one crawling into it,”

I snap back, catching his jaw between my teeth.

His fingers find the waistband of my shorts and yank them down without finesse, peeling them off like a problem he’s finally done tolerating. He doesn't slow, doesn't hesitate—he’s stripped me bare before I can blink, his hands sliding over every inch like he owns the outcome of this night, this binding.

I hook my legs around his hips and drag him forward, his cock heavy and thick against my thigh, leaking and ready. My nails catch at the back of his neck, tugging him down until his mouth is on mine again, filthy and furious.

The kiss tastes like everything we hate about this—how much we want it, how much we need it.

He grinds into me, dragging the head of his cock through the slick mess between my thighs, teasing, tempting, and I growl low in my throat.

“Ambrose,”

I bite out, sharp as a blade.

He meets my eyes, dark and vicious, and slams into me in one ruthless thrust. My body arches, the stretch brutal and perfect, heat ripping up my spine. He doesn’t give me time to adjust, doesn’t slow—he pounds into me with punishing rhythm, hips snapping against mine like he’s trying to fuck the bond into my bones.

And I want it.

I meet him thrust for thrust, fingers clawing down his back, pulling him deeper, harder. His breath is ragged against my ear, his pace savage, ruthless.

There’s nothing gentle here. Nothing soft.

It’s a battle.

And I want to lose.

Ambrose fucks me like he’s trying to erase me. Every thrust is vicious, brutal, driving the air from my lungs in staccato gasps as he slams into me over and over, dragging me down into the same dark spiral he’s been drowning in since the night he met me. His rhythm is relentless, hips crashing into mine like he’s trying to stake his claim without saying the words.

The headboard knocks hard against the wall, a dull, steady beat, but neither of us cares. I arch beneath him, back bowing off the mattress, nails carving lines down his back just to feel something tear. His teeth scrape along the curve of my throat, the sharp bite of it making me moan, making me shove my hips up into his like I want him to ruin me harder.

And I do.

Because this is what Ambrose Dalmar doesn’t understand—he can’t negotiate his way out of this.

He braces one hand beside my head, the other sliding beneath my thigh, wrenching my leg higher so he can drive deeper, rougher. His breath saws out of him, ragged, sweat slicking his chest, his brow furrowed like he’s trying to figure out how we ended up here even as his body refuses to stop.

I drag my teeth over the hinge of his jaw, biting down hard enough to leave a mark. “Harder.”

His eyes flash to mine—wild, dark, dangerous—and the growl that rips from his throat is pure fucking rage.

Not at me.

At himself.

At how good this feels.

He slams into me harder, the sound of our bodies colliding obscene, echoing off the stone walls of my room like an anthem. Every thrust is a battle. Every snap of his hips feels like it could shatter me, and I meet him beat for beat, thighs tightening around his waist, dragging him deeper, faster.

The edge builds sharp and fast, spiraling up my spine like a knife pressed to the base of my throat.

I can feel it—feel the bond pulling tighter, magic crawling beneath my skin, electric and alive and waiting for the final spark to set it ablaze.

“Look at me,”

I rasp, breathless and desperate, my nails biting into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. “Ambrose—look at me when you come.”

His lips curl in a snarl, but he does.

And when I come—when the pressure inside me snaps and I shatter around him, pulsing and gasping, dragging him with me—he follows with a growl that sounds like he’s being ripped apart.

The second he spills inside me, the bond snaps into place.

It’s not soft. It’s not warm. It feels like a blade shoved through my chest and pulled tight, binding us in blood and sex and something older than either of us can name.

Ambrose freezes above me, breathing hard, arms trembling where he cages me in. His eyes search mine like he’s trying to piece himself back together, like he can’t quite believe what he’s done.

What we’ve done. The bond thrums violently between us, alive now—pulsing like a heartbeat, like a warning.

His lips part like he wants to speak, but nothing comes out.

There’s nothing left to say.

We’re bound.

And neither of us can take it back.

This bond doesn’t snap quietly. It carves through me like a blade, sharp and merciless, dragging every piece of me raw as it seals itself into place. It doesn’t settle sweetly beneath my skin like the others did. No gentle warmth, no soft tether tugging at my soul. This is fire. This is ruin.

It burns.

My breath punches out of me as heat lashes across my chest, slicing lower, branding me from the inside out. Like a thousand little teeth dragging over my skin, biting down into something deeper than flesh. I clamp my eyes shut, breathing hard through the pulse of it, teeth gritted against the ache blooming beneath my ribs.

The moment stretches too long, my pulse hammering inside my skull.

When I finally force my eyes open, Ambrose is staring at me.

But not at my face.

His gaze is locked on my chest, rigid, unreadable, like he’s seeing a ghost crawl out of my skin.

I follow his eyes—and freeze. It takes me a second to process what I’m looking at. The pain still licking through me like wildfire makes it hard to think, hard to breathe.

There are tattoos.

All over me.

Black, inky lines curling up over my ribs, trailing down my stomach, peeking over the curve of my breasts. Old sigils. Faint arcane glyphs. Symbols I know too well.

Because they’re theirs.

Theirs.

The delicate snare of Riven’s warding runes curl beneath my hipbone, precise and ruthless. I trace them with my gaze, my heart battering my ribs as I follow the pattern higher—Elias’ jagged script tangled over my ribcage, looping recklessly like he carved it there with laughter and sin. Silas’ swirling chaos inked like vines up the inside of my left breast. And there—beneath the swell of my breast, coiled like something dangerous and permanent—Ambrose’s.

Smaller. Subtle. A thin line of sigils circling my sternum, almost invisible unless you’re looking. But there.

Mine.

I can’t breathe.

Ambrose moves before I can speak—rolling off me like I’ve burned him, already halfway across the room, gathering his clothes with the sharp, precise movements of a man trying to put himself back together piece by piece.

He says nothing. Just straightens, methodical, pulling his shirt over his head like the bond didn’t just gut both of us and leave me marked with all of them.

I stare at him, my skin still thrumming with heat, the lines beneath my ribs still smoldering like fresh ink.

“You knew,”

I say, voice rasping, but I don't mean to. I don’t even realize the words leave me until his shoulders lock, tight and rigid, like I struck a nerve.

He doesn’t look at me when he answers. “Of course I did.”

Of course.

Because Ambrose Dalmar doesn’t gamble without knowing the odds. He knew the moment he let himself bleed for me in that car. He knew when he bound himself halfway, when he stepped into my bed tonight. He knew what the bond would do. He just didn’t tell me.

My fingers graze my stomach, tracing the spiraling ink, the familiar curve of Silas’ sigil tangled over my ribs, like he’s laughing under my skin.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,”

I whisper, more to myself than to him.

Ambrose laughs once, low and cold, cutting through the quiet like a blade. “Nothing about you was supposed to happen.”

He glances back finally, and his eyes rake over me—bare, inked, wrecked—like I’m something dangerous now. Something irreversible.

His voice is quieter when he adds, “You’re branded now, . And not just by me.”

Before I can speak, before I can ask him what the hell that means, he’s gone—moving sharp and fast, slipping out the door without another word.

I’m left alone in the wreckage. The sheets tangled around my thighs. My skin humming, burning. The tattoos stitched across me like a map I don’t know how to read.

And somewhere beneath it all—the bond pulses hard against my sternum. Final. Complete. His. Theirs. Mine.