Page 36 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

The Fang Tavern is a hole in the wall, crumbling stone walls and iron lanterns that spit shadows across the stained wooden beams. It reeks of sweat, old magic, and the kind of regret you can drown in. A place built for monsters and men alike to forget themselves.

I sit at the corner table, back to the wall, always. Orin’s to my right, quiet as a blade left unsheathed, the exhaustion bleeding from him in waves, but the old bastard still watches everything like he’s cataloging the room for sins. Riven’s across from me, leaned back like he owns the godsdamn world again, like the war we just crawled out of hasn’t settled in his bones yet.

A round of something that tastes like ash and hellfire sits in front of us, untouched.

Riven’s voice cuts through the muted murmur of the tavern, low and measured. "The Council’s furious," he says, swirling his glass like the weight of it’s heavier than it should be. "You’re a ghost, . Vanished off the map."

I hum, noncommittal, letting the weight of it settle between us. I already knew the Council would call for our heads—they always do when we don’t play their game right.

But it’s what Riven says next that tightens something sharp in my gut.

"And Caspian and Ambrose?" His lip curls, like he can’t decide whether to laugh or snarl. "They’re bound now. To her."

Five. She’s taken five of us. And it will be six. Soon.

The knowledge sits in my chest like iron, heavy and unwanted.

"I don’t care what the Council says," Riven adds, voice sharp, dragging my attention back. "They can choke on their outrage. What matters is what’s coming."

I raise a brow, the tilt of my mouth dry. "And what’s coming?"

He leans forward, voice quiet enough only we can hear. "This place. The pillar. Is a graveyard. For Sin Binders."

The words scrape down my spine.

Riven sighs. "Every Sin Binder that ever existed is buried here. Every bond. Every mistake. Every nightmare."

It isn’t just a battlefield we left behind.

It’s a graveyard of power.

Of rage. Of every monster that’s ever been what we are. And that’s when it settles inside me, heavier than everything else—the war isn’t over.

It hasn’t even begun. Because the sins buried here? They don’t stay dead.

And Luna’s at the center of all of it, whether she knows it or not.

I lean back, exhaling slow, voice like ice sliding through the warmth of the room. "We’re about to have a lot of angry ghosts clawing at our throats."

Orin lifts his glass then, finally, toasting to the hell that’s coming.

And for once, I drink with him.

The table’s edge digs into my palm as I lean forward, voice low, slicing through the din of the tavern like a blade. "Do we have a number?"

Orin doesn’t glance up from the drink he’s barely touched. His fingers trace the rim absently, like the movement helps him keep the weight of what’s coming at bay. "Two hundred and twenty."

The words land like a stone in my chest.

Two hundred and twenty Sin Binders. Before her.

I glance at Riven, who doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react. He knew. He’s probably been counting them since the moment he walked through that cathedral and felt their bones humming under the earth.

I lean back, exhaling slow, biting down on the sharp edge of something ugly and unsettled in me. "Most of them we hated."

Orin hums in agreement. "Some we loved."

"Some we bound to," I add, voice sharp as glass.

The weight of it drags heavier across my shoulders, across all of us sitting at this cursed table. I don’t like looking back. Don’t like remembering how many of those binds we walked away from, cut loose, killed, or lost. Because none of them stuck. None of them mattered enough to last.

And yet—

I glance over at her. The girl who should be the biggest mistake we’ve ever made, the one thing that should’ve brought us to ruin. Instead, she’s still standing. Stronger. Louder. More dangerous.

I drag my gaze back to the table, thumb tapping once, twice, sharp against the wood.

"I’m not bound to anyone else," I murmur, half to myself, half to them.

It’s not a confession. It’s a curse.

Because if there were others, if those binds still existed—they’d hum inside me. Like venom in my bloodstream. Like Branwen’s always did.

But there’s nothing. Just silence. Just the ghost of a bond that turned to ash the second she died. Before the thought can tighten around my throat, Riven lifts his glass and says, dry and flat, "You might want to go easy on Luna."

That draws my gaze back to him, sharp and unimpressed.

He shrugs. "She’s sensitive about the whole thing."

I bark out a humorless laugh, but it feels like scraping steel against my ribs. "You mean the whole graveyard of exes who might crawl out of the fucking woodwork to tear her apart?"

Orin’s voice cuts in, low and knowing. "That’s not what he meant."

Of course it isn’t. It’s never about the battle, the politics, the corpses we left behind. It’s about her. It’s always about her.

I drain my drink in one long swallow, slamming the glass down hard enough to crack. "Well, then," I mutter. "She better grow teeth."

Because what’s coming? May devour us all.

Riven leans back in his chair like he isn’t holding the weight of every fucking war we’ve fought, his mouth tugging at the corner in something almost like a smile—but darker. "You remember the last time we were in this dump?" His voice cuts through the low murmur of the Fang Tavern, easy, casual, as if he’s not about to drop something volatile into the middle of this already loaded conversation.

I glance at him, arching a brow, waiting.

He doesn't make me wait long. "She set a girl's dress on fire."

Elias lets out a wheezing laugh across from me, almost choking on his drink, and Silas—because of course he's listening even when he pretends not to be—leans in from where he’s practically draped over his chair, grinning like the idiot he is. "Oh, that was so good. Right in front of everyone."

Riven’s smile turns crueler. "All because Elias smiled at the girl."

I snort before I can help it, shaking my head as the memory sharpens. I hadn't thought about that night in months—not since the chaos that followed, since we crawled back into our own personal hell. But now, sitting here, with Luna a few tables away pretending not to watch us, the image lands clear as blood on fresh snow.

Luna, bored and restless, holding a spark in her palm like it meant nothing. That sharp little smile on her mouth when she watched the flames crawl up silk and lace. And Elias, standing there slack-jawed, eyes wild, because the girl wasn’t the one on fire—it was him.

"She didn’t even blink when she did it," I murmur, the corner of my mouth twitching despite myself.

Riven’s voice is dry. "No. She smiled."

Elias groans dramatically, slumping in his chair. "I told you all, she’s terrifying."

"That’s not what you said when you were in her bed last night," Silas adds, sing-song, earning himself a sharp kick from under the table.

I lean back, my gaze sliding toward Luna again. She’s laughing at something Caspian said, her head thrown back, a smile on her lips that none of us deserve. And it twists something deep in me, something low and sharp that I refuse to name.

Because that’s what she does—she sets things on fire. And we’re all standing too damn close to the flames.

Riven catches my glance and, without missing a beat, mutters under his breath, "She’ll burn us alive before she lets anyone else touch us."

I nod once, eyes still on her. "Good."

Because I know exactly what’s coming. And I’ll take her flame over the cold hand of the grave any fucking day.

I drain what’s left in my glass, the liquor biting sharp and bitter down my throat, but it does nothing to numb the knot tightening in my chest. It’s not the kind of ache drink will drown.

"Let’s focus on getting out of here," I say flatly, leveling him with a look that leaves no room for argument. "Not on things that might not be true."

“It wasn’t just a rumor,”

he says, rolling his glass between his fingers without looking up. “The oracle in the summoning circle told us.”

That makes me pause.

My gaze drifts to him, slow, weighted, because if Riven is mentioning an oracle at all, it’s worse than I thought. Those fucking creatures don’t speak unless it’s carved in fate, and they don’t lie. Not to us.

Elias mutters something under his breath, slumping forward onto the table like he can fold himself in half and disappear. “Why is it always the creepy old oracles? Can’t we get a sexy one for once?”

Silas barks a laugh, sprawled sideways in his chair like the disaster he is. “What, you wanna flirt your way out of a prophecy?”

“I’d die trying,”

Elias deadpans, then grins without looking at me because he knows I’m ignoring them.

My gaze stays pinned on Riven. His mouth is a grim slash, his jaw tight. He’s waiting to see what I’ll do with the information. He always is.

I lean back in my chair, exhaling slowly, and let the weight of it settle inside me like a stone in my chest. Two hundred twenty Sin Binders buried in this realm. Every one of them capable of crawling back out of the grave now that Branwen’s leash is gone. Every one of them with unfinished business.

And they’ll be looking at us.

At Luna.

Because if the gods gave her this graveyard, it means they’re not done with us yet.

But I shrug, lazy and cold and unaffected, because that’s the only way I know how to carry it. “Doesn’t matter,”

I say, voice flat. “We can’t fight ghosts until we get out of here.”

Orin glances at me from across the table, and I see it—the wisdom behind his eyes, the way he’s cataloging the weight I just slid over all of us and pocketing it for later. He knows exactly how bad this will get. He’s already thinking ten moves ahead.

But he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to.

Because he knows me well enough to understand I’ll bleed for them when the time comes—but I won’t let them fall apart before the fight even starts.

Riven shifts beside me. “You’re right,”

he says quietly, and the words feel like a concession. “There’s nothing we can do about it tonight.”

Elias groans dramatically. “Great. Love that for us. Not haunted at all.”

Silas stretches, slinging his arm over Elias’s shoulders. “We can drink until we forget, yeah? Start a bar fight. Loosen up.”

I roll my eyes, but there’s a flicker of something like relief in my chest when Elias grins, teeth flashing like he’s already planning it.

“Let’s focus on getting out of here first,”

I say, voice razor-sharp, slicing through the ease at the table. “We’ll deal with what’s coming when it comes.”

And when it does—I’ll be the one standing in the rubble. But it’s her I feel the most—like gravity. Like a pull I want to carve out of myself but can’t.

I stand without a word, scraping my chair back, and let my gaze catch hers. One glance. Sharp, deliberate. And her eyes flick to mine, like she’s been waiting for me to look.

She nods once and follows.

Outside, the night presses cool and heavy, the weight of this damned place clinging to everything. We’re not free of it yet, not really, even with Branwen dust and gone. The wind tastes of ash and old things that don’t stay buried.

I stop just beyond the tavern doors, my back to her, letting the quiet stretch long enough to make her wonder why I asked her out here at all.

I don’t know why. I just needed space. And her in it.

Finally, I glance at her over my shoulder, voice low. “You did good back there.”

Her brow pulls together like she doesn’t quite believe me, like she’s braced for something colder. She’s not wrong to expect that. I haven’t given her much else.

“I didn’t think I’d see you say that,”

she says, soft, almost teasing.

I look away, jaw flexing. “Don’t get used to it.”

Her footsteps crunch over the dirt behind me, stopping just out of reach. “Are you okay?”

she asks, voice quieter now. Like she knows this isn’t about strategy. It’s about something heavier. Something neither of us wants to name.

The words hit lower than they should. I don’t answer her. Instead, I glance at her again, meeting her gaze fully this time, and it’s like she can see too much.

And then she says, like it costs her something, “Can I hug you?”

I freeze. It’s not a question anyone’s ever asked me. Not like that. Not soft. Not careful. Not like they mean it.

The worst part is—I want to say yes.

I could make it sound clinical, transactional, a line on the list of things she’s stripped from me since the moment she walked into our world. But when I look at her now, there’s nothing strategic about it. It’s messy and stupid and real.

I clear my throat, pretending the weight in my chest isn’t sharp and raw.

“Just this once,”

I murmur. “Before I come to my senses.”

She wraps her arms around me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

As if I’m not the thing that keeps people flinching in doorways. As if she doesn’t know what I’ve done—or worse, does know and still thinks I’m worthy of this kind of softness. Her body presses into mine without hesitation, warm and unafraid, and for a single, fractured moment, the air between us forgets how to breathe. She fits against me like she's always belonged there. Like this moment was carved into the bones of something older than fate.

I don’t move. My arms stay at my sides, frozen, because I don’t trust myself. Not with this. Not with her. I want to shove her away. I want to remind her who I am—what I’ve done to girls like her, what I’ve turned into just to keep breathing through centuries of blood and ruin. But the weight of her against my chest is steady, grounding, and gods, I feel like I’m shattering at the seams just standing here.

There’s heat beneath my ribs. A slow, low ache that doesn’t belong to any injury I can name. It’s her. It’s always her. And I don’t even know what that means, except that I hate it, and I crave it, and I’m going to let it destroy me anyway.

Eventually, I move. Just enough. My hand settles at the small of her back—light, deliberate, but not detached. The other presses to the curve of her shoulder blade like it’s a checkpoint I’m not ready to leave. I tell myself it’s habit. That I’m steadying her. That I’m not folding into this like some idiot boy starved for affection.

“I’m fine,”

I murmur, though my voice is lower, rougher than I meant. I don’t look at her. “You’re heavier than you look.”

She laughs into my chest. Quiet, warm, and utterly disarming. It’s not fair how easily she breaks through the armor I’ve spent lifetimes forging. Her breath warms the fabric of my shirt, and for a second, I forget how to hold myself together. That laugh… it carves through me like something holy.

And I stand there, holding her, feeling the kind of stillness that should terrify me—but doesn’t. Not with her. My instincts, the ones honed through blood and betrayal, the ones that scream at me to stay detached, to pull back before I’m burned—those instincts go silent. Not dormant. Not dead. Just… quiet.

She pulls back slightly, just enough to look up at me. There’s nothing coy in her expression, nothing manipulative. Her eyes, darker now with power she hasn’t begun to understand, meet mine without flinching. They don’t plead. They see. And I hate how that rattles me more than any blade to the gut ever could.

“Thanks,”

she says simply.

I don’t ask for clarification. She could mean a hundred things—letting her touch me, not rejecting her, standing here in the aftermath of ruin with my walls fractured and bleeding. I nod once, short and restrained, because anything more would be too much. Because if I open my mouth, something I can’t take back might come out.

When she finally steps away, the ghost of her lingers on my skin like a burn. And I do nothing to stop her. I just turn back toward the tavern, slow and steady, and pretend like I’m not still carrying the ghost of her warmth across my chest. Like it hasn’t made a home there already.

To be continued….with a bunch of crazy ex’s

Thank You for Surviving This Book