Page 24 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

My hands move without thought, fingers digging into the half-formed stone, the rock grinding beneath my touch like it remembers what it used to be. It should be mindless work—stacking, shaping, calling the earth to rise and settle beneath me—but it never is. Not when I’m this wound up, this furious, this full of the things I can’t say out loud without tearing something apart.

Each stone I place is a curse under my breath. Each line of mortar crackles with the weight of the day, the weight of the fucking council breathing down our necks like we’re the problem when they’re the ones too busy counting bodies and bending rules to notice the world is rotting beneath them.

I can’t stop thinking about it—the way Keira looked at me like she could even stand on the same ground as Luna, like she had the right to demand answers from us after everything that’s happened. I told her where to shove her entitlement, clear and sharp, because I don’t play politics, I don’t kiss the ring, and I sure as hell don’t take threats from council daughters who’ve never bled for anything in their lives.

She threatened me.

Me.

And I should’ve torn the fucking Hollow down just for the insult.

The stone beneath my hands fractures, cracks snaking sharp and fast through the structure like a wound spreading open.

Luna’s voice cuts through the hum in my head, soft but sharp as ever.

“,”

she calls behind me, her voice threading through my spine like it always does, “you’re breaking the stone.”

I freeze, chest tight, hands flexing useless at my sides because of course I am. Of course she’s the one who sees me slipping when I think I’ve got a handle on it.

I drag in a breath through my teeth, forcing my magic to settle, forcing the stone to mend beneath my touch. The cracks smooth over, but the damage is already done. I’ve ruined the symmetry, fractured the work without even noticing.

I glance over my shoulder, and there she is.

Barefoot, loose shirt half hanging off her shoulder, eyes sharp and dangerous even when she looks like she just rolled out of Elias’ bed. She’s watching me, that look on her face like she can see right through me, see how badly I want to burn everything down just to make the weight in my chest disappear.

“You’ve been out here for hours,”

she says, voice quieter now, but not soft. Never soft.

“Someone’s gotta rebuild this place,”

I mutter, wiping the dust from my palms even though it won’t come off. “Might as well be me.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, hip cocked like she’s already preparing to argue, and I hate how much I fucking love her like this—sharp edges, narrowed eyes, her power thrumming wild beneath her skin now that the fifth crest’s settled into her.

“You’re not going to fix what’s wrong with your fists,”

she says evenly, chin tilted like she’s daring me to disagree.

I snort, turning fully toward her now, wiping sweat from the back of my neck. “Yeah, well, politics aren’t gonna fix it either.”

She smiles then—slow and dangerous, the kind that’s all teeth—and my pulse spikes stupidly in my throat.

“No,”

she agrees. “But you breaking stone like it owes you something isn’t exactly helping.”

I watch her, letting the burn of her settle under my skin, and realize for the first time in hours that the anger isn’t as sharp when she’s looking at me like this.

She’s still standing there, watching me like I’m going to explode any second, and she’s not wrong—I probably will. I’ve been on the verge since the council meeting, since Ambrose bound himself like a fucking fool, since Caspian started unraveling in front of us like thread.

But then she opens her mouth, and it’s not what I expect.

“I want you to put roses here,”

she says, her voice soft in that dangerous way that always makes me stop breathing.

I glance over my shoulder again, brow furrowing, sweat drying sharp against my skin. She steps closer, bare feet crunching softly against the gravel, her eyes flicking to the crumbled edge of the wall I’ve been trying to rebuild all night.

“Near the wall,”

she clarifies, chin tipping toward the crumbling stones. “Where they used to be.”

It takes me a second to register it, why the request knots something sharp in my throat.

Orin.

The roses were always his. He liked them, the asshole, the one thing soft about him that didn’t fit with the rest of us. I’d ripped them out once, years ago, in one of my worse days, and he made me put them back, quiet and patient like always, never even getting angry about it.

She’s looking at me now like she knows exactly what I’m thinking, and worse—like she knows I’ll do it anyway.

I huff a breath, wiping the back of my hand across my jaw, shaking my head. “You want me to grow flowers.”

The words feel ridiculous coming out of my mouth, like she’s asked me to carve poetry into the damn stone.

Her smile is small but sharp, and I already know I’m fucked.

“They were his,”

she says simply, voice lower now, like she’s reminding me and herself all at once. “And I want them back.”

I glare at her, but it’s empty. She knows it. I know it. She could ask me to dig up the gods themselves and I’d probably do it, so what’s a few damn roses?

Still, I grumble, dragging my hand over my face like this is the worst thing she’s ever asked of me. “If Silas sees me growing flowers, I swear to every hell, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Her eyes soften when she looks at me, and that, more than anything, unravels me.

“Please,”

she says, and her voice is a fucking weapon.

So I sigh, dragging my fingers through my hair, and crouch low, letting my magic pool under my skin, into the soil. It feels foreign, delicate in a way I don’t know how to carry, but I do it anyway—because she asked. Because she’s mine. Because Orin liked them.

The roses bloom beneath my hand like they’ve been waiting centuries to be called back to life. Soft, red petals unfurl from thorn-laced stems, delicate and dangerous—just like everything in this fucking place.

I keep my head down, focus on the roots threading into the stone, the magic settling like a pulse beneath my skin. It’s easier than looking at her, easier than seeing how she’s watching me like I’m something worth touching.

But I feel her move anyway.

Bare feet crunch slow against the gravel, the soft weight of her presence pressing against my side until she’s close enough to touch. I don’t look up, but her fingers curl against the back of my neck like she can feel the rage still coiled there, waiting for something to tear apart. Her thumb brushes slow against the hollow beneath my ear, grounding, quiet.

“You always pretend you’re made of stone,”

she murmurs, voice low enough to slide sharp under my ribs. “But you grow flowers when no one’s looking.”

My throat works around something I don’t know how to name, the weight of her touch and the roses pressing in against me like a noose.

I want to kiss her. I want to drag her down into the dirt and press my mouth to every place she’s carved her name into me.

I want—

The moment shatters before I can reach for it.

A crash echoes behind us, sharp and chaotic, followed by the sound of something—or someone—tripping over their own damn feet.

“For fuck’s sake,”

I mutter without looking, already knowing.

Silas’ voice cuts through the quiet like a blade wrapped in glitter.

“Are you two having a secret garden date without me?”

he calls, voice slurred just enough to tell me he’s either drunk or stupid or both. “Rude.”

I glance up, and there he is—Silas Veyd, barefoot, grinning like the devil, shirt half-buttoned, hair sticking up at every ridiculous angle. He stumbles to a stop a few feet away, squinting at the roses blooming by my feet like they’re some sort of betrayal.

“Is that—”

He points dramatically, eyes going wide. “Are you growing flowers now, ? Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?”

Luna huffs a laugh beside me, her fingers still curling against my neck like she’s not about to lose it.

I drag a hand over my face, muttering under my breath. “I’m going to murder him.”

“Probably deserves it,”

she murmurs, lips twitching.

Silas grins wider, bouncing on the balls of his feet now like he knows exactly how close I am to throttling him.

“Or,”

he says, voice sing-song, “you could admit you’re soft for her and let me make flower crowns for everyone.”

I shoot him a look sharp enough to flay him alive, but he just winks.

And because it’s Silas—because he never knows when to stop—he adds, “You can be the flower girl at the wedding. I’ll officiate. I already wrote vows. We can make crowns”

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw clicks, because I know that look on her face. I know it like I know the weight of a blade in my hand—the look Luna gets when she’s about to drag me into something humiliating and pretend it’s sweet.

She’s still laughing under her breath, that low, lethal sound only I ever get to hear when she’s not trying to shoulder the end of the fucking world. And she turns those eyes on Silas like she’s inviting him to destroy me.

“Show me how,”

she says, chin tilting toward the idiot beside us. “You said you could make flower crowns.”

Silas lights up like someone handed him a live grenade and told him he could juggle.

“Oh, sweetheart,”

he breathes, dramatic as hell, already dropping to the ground like he’s ready to host a damn arts and crafts hour. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to corrupt you properly.”

I move to stand, already shaking my head because there is no universe, no world, no timeline in which I’m sitting in the dirt threading roses like some lovesick fairy. But before I can even get one foot beneath me, her voice slices through the air.

“.”

Just my name. Sharp as a blade. Soft as a promise.

And fuck me, but I stop moving instantly. I glance over my shoulder, and she’s staring at me, one brow arched, mouth tilted in that way that means she already knows I’m going to lose.

“Sit,”

she says, voice light but threaded with something heavier underneath. “You’re not getting out of this.”

Silas is already patting the ground beside him like an idiot. “Come on, big guy. Show us your sensitive side.”

I mutter something under my breath that would probably get me arrested in three realms, but I sit anyway, because there’s no fucking universe where I can say no to her when she looks at me like that.

The grass is cool beneath me, the night air humming faint and restless at the edges of the Hollow, but everything narrows to the ridiculous pile of roses in front of us, and the girl beside me who could end the world and is asking me to make her a flower crown.

Silas starts weaving stems together like he was born to wreak havoc and make it pretty.

Luna watches him for a beat, then glances sideways at me, her smile softening like she can’t believe I’m actually here, actually doing this.

“You don’t have to be angry all the time, you know,”

she murmurs, fingers brushing over mine, lingering there like she’s testing how far she can pull me.

I huff a breath, grabbing one of the roses like it’s going to bite me. “Someone’s gotta be.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, just watches me try to thread the stem without snapping it in half.

And then, quiet, she says, “Not with me.”

The words gut me worse than any blade could.

So I do it.

I stay. And I make her a fucking crown.

I should’ve seen it coming. The second Silas starts humming to himself, that dangerous, too-sweet hum he only does when he’s about to commit a crime against basic decency, I should’ve stood up and walked away. Or buried him alive. Something permanent.

But I’m too distracted by Luna beside me, her fingers threading carefully through stems, her eyes darting up at me every few seconds like she can’t quite believe I’m here, on the ground, in the dirt, making something for her.

So when I glance up and see Silas digging into the inside pocket of his jacket—grinning like a devil caught mid-heist—it’s already too late.

He pulls out glitter.

Not a little.

Handfuls.

Fucking handfuls of glitter, like he’s a goddamn Fae gremlin loose in our world, and I don’t even have time to react before he’s tossing it into the air, spinning on the balls of his feet like some demented sprite.

“Blessings upon your union!”

he cackles, voice high and ridiculous, blowing a handful of the shimmering dust straight at us like a fucking wedding officiant on crack.

The glitter hits me square in the face. I blink, unmoving, one hand still holding the half-finished crown of roses, now dusted in silver sparkles like some cursed offering.

Luna’s sharp, delighted laugh cuts through me, and when I glance over, she’s clutching her stomach, head thrown back, glitter clinging to her hair and lashes like she was born out of starlight and chaos.

“Silas,”

I grind out, my voice rough, low, too close to feral.

He claps his hands, glitter falling from his palms like ash. “You can’t be mad, ,”

he says brightly, sidestepping like he’s ready to bolt. “You’re literally covered in love dust.”

She reaches out, swipes a smear of glitter off my cheek with her thumb, eyes shining sharp and soft and dangerous.

“You’re sparkly now,”

she whispers, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen.

I shake my head, resigned, because this is my fucking life now—flowers in the dirt, glitter on my skin, and the girl I’d burn kingdoms for laughing like I’m something she wants to keep.

“Next time,”

I mutter darkly, glaring at Silas, “I bury you alive.”

Silas just winks, hands on his hips, glitter falling off him like rain.

The glitter’s clinging to my arms like a curse when the voice cuts through the night like a blade dipped in acid.

“What the fuck is this?”

Ambrose’s voice. Cool. Controlled. Except it’s not. It’s edged sharp, like he’s already regretting looking at us.

I glance over my shoulder and there he is—arms crossed, expression carved from marble, that perpetual scowl of his deep enough to crack kingdoms. He’s glaring at the three of us like we’ve just violated every law of the universe.

Silas beams like he’s been waiting for this.

“Welcome to Craft Night, Dalmar,”

he calls, spreading his arms wide, glitter still falling off him like he’s the Fae King of Chaos.

Ambrose’s gaze drags over the scene in front of him—Luna sitting in the dirt with a crown of roses half-built in her lap, me with glitter in my hair and dirt on my knees, Silas looking like he just crawled out of an explosion at a rave—and something dangerous flashes in his eyes.

“I leave you unsupervised for one fucking hour,”

he mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose like this is somehow his problem.

Luna glances up at him, her smile lazy, sharp at the edges. “You’re late. We’re making flower crowns.”

Ambrose’s stare shifts to her, softening for half a second before he remembers who he is, what this is, and how utterly beneath him it should be.

“You’re making what?”

Silas is already moving, scooping up a half-finished crown, glittering like a lunatic. “We’re having a bonding exercise,”

he sing-songs. “’s the flower girl. I’m the entertainment.”

I level a glare at him sharp enough to kill, but Silas just winks like he’s immune.

Ambrose sighs, long and heavy, dragging a hand over his face like he’s wondering how we’ve managed to survive this long without self-destructing.

“You’re all deranged,”

he mutters.

Luna tips her head back toward him, grinning slow and sweet, dangerous as hell. “You married me now, Ambrose. You’re stuck.”

The muscle in his jaw ticks, and I swear, for a fraction of a second, something cracks in his composure. Before he can respond, Luna holds out a rose crown toward him like she’s offering a weapon.

“Sit down,”

she says. “You’re next.”

And Ambrose—cold, calculating, ruthless Ambrose—just stares at her like she’s a loaded gun pointed at his chest. Like he already knows he’s going to fucking lose.

I expect him to say no.

Hell, I expect him to scoff, snarl something sharp enough to flay skin, turn on his heel and walk away like he always does when we get too human, too soft, too close.

But Ambrose doesn’t.

He holds Luna’s gaze for a long, weighted beat, something dark and reluctant flashing behind his eyes like he knows exactly how dangerous this is—that sitting down means letting her win.

And then, without a word, he folds.

Literally.

He moves like gravity’s dragging him down against his will, long legs bending until he’s sitting cross-legged in the dirt beside us, arms still crossed, expression carved from marble.

Luna’s smile sharpens like a blade at his throat.

I blink at him, baffled, because there’s no universe where Ambrose fucking Dalmar voluntarily participates in glitter and roses—and yet, here he is.

Silas wastes no goddamn time.

The second Ambrose’s ass hits the ground, Silas grins wide enough to split his face, pulling a fresh handful of glitter from his jacket like he’s been waiting for this moment all his life.

“Ohhh,”

Silas croons, voice syrup-sweet and deadly, as he shuffles closer. “Look who finally joined the dark side.”

Ambrose doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t even flinch. Which is how I know he’s seconds from snapping.

Silas leans in dramatically, holding the glitter high like a blessing, and starts chanting under his breath like some cracked-out priest.

“Ambrose with the rose in his name,”

he sing-songs, already dumping glitter over Ambrose’s head like he’s anointing a king. “Stone-hearted and cold but now soft all the same.”

I bite back a laugh, my mouth twitching despite myself, because watching Ambrose sit there—glistening now, glitter sticking to his dark hair, shoulders hunched like he’s reconsidering every life decision—is maybe the only thing that could make me feel remotely human right now.

Silas isn’t done.

He scatters more glitter, hands fluttering like he’s casting a spell. “A thorn in the side, a blade in the dark—yet here he sits, covered in spark.”

Luna’s laugh is quiet, deadly sweet beside me, her fingers grazing my knee like she knows I’ll combust at any second.

Ambrose finally exhales through his nose like he’s about to murder all of us, glitter be damned.

But he doesn’t move.

He stays.

And it’s not lost on me.

None of it is.

Ambrose

I don’t know why a grown-ass man, a god, carries handfuls of glitter in his pocket like some delinquent Fae. I don’t know why he carries it like it’s ammunition, like he’s just waiting to detonate someone’s composure at the worst possible moment.

I don’t know why I’m not furious right now, coated in the shit like some tragic, glittering wreckage of a man who used to know how to keep himself untouchable.

I should be seething. I should’ve walked away, done what I always do—leave them in the dirt with their childish mess and their games I refuse to play.

But I didn’t.

I fucking sat.

I let her look at me with that soft, dangerous smile that cuts cleaner than any blade, and I sat. Like I didn’t already know better. Like I wasn’t already fucked.

Now my hands are twisting stems together, careful and slow, thorns biting into the pads of my fingers while Silas hums something ridiculous under his breath and looks like he’s debating murder.

I glance up at her from beneath my lashes, and there she is. Loose and lethal, barefoot in the grass, her laughter tucked against the corner of her mouth like she’s holding the universe together with spit and wire.

She’s not paying attention to me now, not really. She’s laughing at something Silas says, leaning her weight subtly into like it’s effortless, like they’re stitched together at the seams.

Like she’s already won.

And maybe she has.

Because I’m sitting here, glitter clinging to my skin, weaving roses like I don’t know how this ends.

Like I don’t already know she’s the end of me.

“Ambrose,”

her voice curls over to me, sharp and sweet all at once, like she knows I’m spiraling.

I glance up, and she’s watching me now, gaze soft but cutting.

“You missed a petal.”

It’s not about the flower crown.

It never is.

I thread the missing petal in place, hands steady even when I want to set the whole damn world on fire to get her out of my head.

Elias appears beside me like a damn shadow out of nowhere, slouching down into the dirt with the same kind of boneless grace that only belongs to men who’ve never known how to carry weight properly. I don’t startle easily—I pride myself on it—but the bastard makes me flinch anyway, and the curl of his smirk says he knows it.

“Jesus,”

I mutter under my breath, which is ironic considering none of us here have ever answered to gods. Elias’s grin widens lazily, like he’s perpetually two seconds away from taking a nap or setting something on fire. Probably both.

Before I can level him with the appropriate glare, Silas is already moving like chaos incarnate, a blur of motion as he launches another goddamn handful of glitter at Elias’ head.

“Blessings upon you, sloth prince!”

Silas sing-songs, voice sticky-sweet with mischief, and Elias barely lifts a hand to brush the glitter from his lashes, too lazy to care, too smug to let it bother him.

“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?”

I mutter, more to myself than anyone else, because it’s not really a question. We’re all wrong. Every single one of us.

And the worst part—the part that eats at me like rust under my ribs—is that I’m here. Sitting in the dirt. Glitter in my hair. A fucking flower crown half-formed in my lap like I belong here, like I’m one of them now.

Bound.

It’s a slow thing, the realization. Something sour curling in the back of my throat. I can feel it, the bond. Faint and sharp and threaded under my skin like a leash I didn’t ask for. Like a hook buried too deep to pull out.

Luna’s at the other end of it.

And if I didn’t already know I was bound, I wouldn’t have to be told—because I can feel her. The pulse of her magic humming beneath my bones like a second heartbeat, steady and relentless.

But there’s a wall between us.

A thick, cemented thing, built high and smooth and sealed shut. I can feel her there, but she’s locked me out. Bricked herself away so neatly I can’t even get a whisper of her unless she wants me to.

I tried.

While she slept, when no one could see me unraveling like this—I tried. I prodded at the bond, tested it, poked and pulled and bled for it, trying to find a crack in the stone she’d built around herself.

She never stirred.

And it’s fucking killing me. Because that wall is still there. I can feel it like a bruise in my chest. And it pisses me off more than anything else has in centuries.nBecause if there’s one thing Ambrose Dalmar has always been able to do—it’s get inside.

And she’s the only one who’s ever locked me out.

I’m Greed.

It’s not just a name. It’s not something stamped on me like a title—I am the living embodiment of it, written into the marrow of this world before it had a name. When I want something, I take it. When I hunger, the world burns to satisfy me.

And now I want in.

That wall she built—cemented over so clean, so precise—I can feel it humming at the back of my skull like an insult, like a fucking dare. Like she thinks she can keep me on the outside when we’re bound.

I glance down at the petals in my hands, slow, deliberate, because I know exactly what’s coming next. If she wants to lock me out—I’ll tear the damn door off its hinges.

I shift the bond inside me, letting it unravel slow and deadly like silk through my fingers. It pulses, buried deep beneath the others, heavier than theirs, older, rough around the edges because it wasn’t supposed to exist.

She doesn’t know how to feel me yet. Not the way I want her to. She’s closed it off, tucked it away like she can keep me there, like I won’t fucking claw through her walls.

So I push.

Not hard. Not the way I do with the others when I want something and I make the world bend beneath me.

No.

I slide inside soft, subtle, like gold slipping through cracks in the stone, decadent and corrosive all at once. My power knows how to seduce, how to tempt, how to slip under skin and make you crave things you shouldn’t.

And I whisper to her through the bond, the way only I can.

Let me in.

It’s not a question.

It’s not a plea.

It’s a promise. A demand. A quiet, inevitable undoing.

You don’t want to keep me out, Luna. You never did. You built the wall because you knew I’d break it. Because you want to watch me try.

I can feel her hesitation like a tremor in the space between us, the bond vibrating faintly under my words, her pulse fluttering against me.

Let me in, pretty thing. If I have to carry this, you’re going to carry it too.

The wall shifts—barely. A crack forming, something in her exhale softening, breaking open at the edges.

And I smile then, sharp and quiet.

Because that’s the thing about greed.

Once I start, I never stop.

The crack in her wall is there, faint and fragile, and I can feel her on the other side of it—smirking. Not soft. Not giving. No, she’s pulling the strings like the wicked little thing she is, and when her voice threads through the bond, it hits me low, sweet, and sharp all at once.

You want in, Ambrose? Her voice curls around me, laced in syrup and teeth. You’ll have to beg.

My pulse flickers dark and fast, the edges of me fraying even as I sit here, outwardly composed, twisting roses between my fingers like I’m not being fucking toyed with by a girl who shouldn’t know how to play this game so well.

I drag a breath in, slow, careful, because this—this—is why I don’t bind. Why I spent centuries keeping my power locked behind ice and distance. Because she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t break.

She tempts.

Beg for it, Dalmar, she purrs, her amusement sparking through the bond like lightning over water. You’re the one who wanted in.

It should infuriate me.

It does.

But not the way it should.

I tip my head back slightly, a low huff of a laugh slipping past my lips as I stare up at the Hollow sky above us—dark and endless, heavy with stars like sharp little knives.

You’re a menace, I murmur down the line between us, every word soaked in gold and venom. A brat who doesn’t know what she’s asking for.

I feel her grin bloom like a bruise against my ribs.

So beg, Ambrose.

I shift, rolling my neck like I can shake her out of me, but she’s everywhere now—threaded under my skin, tangled in my magic, laughing through the cracks she made herself.

Let me in, Luna. I send it softer this time, molten, dangerous. You’re already mine. You just don’t want to admit it yet.

She hums in my head, sweet and cruel.

Say please.

I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, because fuck her, she’s enjoying this too much. And because the worst part is—I am too.

I lean forward slightly, voice a murmur only she can hear, the bond vibrating taut between us.

Please, pretty thing. I drag the words out like silk over steel, dark and edged. Let me in.

The wall doesn’t crumble—not yet—but it fractures.

And through the cracks, I feel her smile.

The wall fractures like glass kissed by a hammer—not shattering, not yet, but splintering enough for me to slide through.

And she knows it.

The second she lets that crack widen, her magic slithers through it like smoke, curling against my skin, sweet and wicked. I feel her everywhere now—not just through the weight of the bond humming at the back of my throat—but under it, inside me, a pulse I can't scrub clean.

And then her voice slides through.

Took you long enough. It's playful now, soft and honey-warm, like she’s dragging her nails down my spine from the inside out.

I drag my gaze lazily toward her where she sits, her expression innocent, her mouth tipped in that smug little smile like she’s not unraveling me thread by thread. But her voice through the bond is a different thing entirely—hot, sharp, sliding over my skin like silk and barbed wire.

Didn’t think you were the type to beg, Dalmar.

My mouth curves slow, dark, teeth catching the inside of my cheek as I lean back on my elbows like I’m unaffected.

For you, darling, I’ll make an exception.

I can feel her shiver across the bond, faint but delicious, the sound of her laughter slipping into me like whiskey poured over an open wound.

You always this obedient after you get glitter bombed? she teases, the words like a low stroke over my jaw, and fuck if it doesn’t make my pulse spike.

Only when I’m seduced with roses and bratty little demands. I let my voice curl back toward her like a noose. You’ve got me on my knees, Luna Dalmar. Might as well keep me there.

She hums again, wicked and soft, and the bond between us hums hotter now, a thread wound tight around my throat. She leans her weight into me without moving a muscle, her amusement wrapping around my ribs like silk and sin.

Careful, Ambrose. I might make you mean it.

I flick my gaze to her, sharp and heated.

Oh, I always mean it, sweetheart.

The second she lets that little crack in the bond stay open, I don’t hesitate. I fucking pour through it.

My magic slides under her skin like honey and venom, slick and slow, threading down her spine, and I let myself imagine her exactly how I want her—laid bare, stripped of that sharp little mouth, all that pretty defiance melted sweet and pliant under my hands.

I don’t send her words at first. Just images. Filthy, indulgent, obscene. I lean into it, let every filthy, wicked thought I’ve buried deep unfurl like smoke through the space she cracked open. I want her to feel me, want her to burn with it the way I’ve been burning since the second I tasted her magic in my veins.

So I give her exactly what she asked for.

I send the image of her—on her knees, pretty mouth parted, those wild, sharp eyes soft and wrecked just for me. My hands tangled in her hair, guiding, owning, devouring. I let her feel what it would be like to have me pressed against her back, my teeth grazing her throat, my voice dark against her skin as I ask her—

Would you be my good girl, Luna? Would you let me ruin you sweet?

The moan that rips through the bond punches low in my gut, a sound that’s breathless, broken, like she’s trying to swallow it and failing miserably.

Her voice when it threads back is syrupy and wrecked.

Yes. Fuck, Ambrose—yes.

It’s not tame. It’s not coy. It’s filthy and desperate, and I want her like this—undone and begging. So I keep going, because I know how to destroy things and make them crave it.

I’d keep you on your knees, darling. Make you take every inch of me until you forget how to speak. Until all you can say is my name. My voice in the bond drips like honey laced with arsenic. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Being good for me. Letting me show you what happens when you finally stop pretending you don’t want this.

She makes a noise that’s almost a gasp, and I feel it ripple straight through me, every inch of my body burning.

Ambrose— she pants, soft and breathless now, but I can feel her shifting on the other side of the bond like she wants to crawl into my lap and let me wreck her.

Say it again, pretty thing. I drag it out like silk over steel. Say you’ll be my good girl.

Her answer is a whisper against my teeth.

I’ll be your good girl.

The words feel like they split something inside me wide open, and I could drag this out—could make her writhe under me in this bond until she’s raw—but there’s something sharper underneath the heat now, something dangerous and possessive and too fucking close to worship. The second she says it—whispers that filthy little promise down the bond like she’s already on her knees—I lose whatever leash I had left.

I lean forward, fingers still lazily weaving roses like I haven’t just set the fuse to something I can’t unlight. My voice, when I let it curl through her mind again, is velvet and poison.

Go to my room. Get undressed. Wait for me.

I expect her to balk. To snap back something sharp and sweet to remind me she isn’t some thing I can command.

She doesn’t.

Instead, she stands.

Slow, deliberate, her gaze cutting to mine like she’s just peeled the skin from my chest and knows exactly what she’s holding in her hands. She turns, hips swaying like a curse meant for me alone, and disappears inside without a glance back.

And fuck me—I didn’t think she’d actually do it.

The bond pulls taut, humming like a blade pressed to my throat, like a leash I put around my own neck without realizing it. I can feel her climbing the stairs, the weight of her slipping out of her clothes, leaving them scattered like sins behind her.

Every step she takes away from me is a deliberate challenge. She wants me to follow. She wants to see how far I’ll go.

I exhale slow, my hands clenched around the rose crown like it’s the only thing tethering me to sanity, petals crushed between my fingers.

Across from me, Elias’ voice cuts through the haze, his dark snark slipping under my skin like he knows too much.

“Uh, are we all gonna pretend you didn’t just psychically send her upstairs to ride you?”

I don’t look at him.

I rise, slow and cold, dropping the ruined roses onto the ground like they mean nothing.

“I don’t pretend, Dain.”

And then I walk away, toward the storm I started. Because when I want something—I take it.

And right now, I want to ruin her.