Page 7 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

They rotate like shifts in a prison watch, like I’m a loaded weapon none of them trust not to go off again. I don’t blame them. If I were on the outside looking in, I’d have chained me to the bed and burned the key. Instead, they sit. Watch. Pretend I’m still one of them while their eyes stay sharp with the memory of me stabbing her.

Luna.

Fuck.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like that. Not with her.

Silas is the one on duty now. Feet up on my bed like it’s a chaise and this is some kind of vacation, toes bare and infuriatingly close to my ribs. He’s humming something off-key, deliberately annoying, deliberately casual. Except his eyes flick to me every few seconds, like he’s waiting for me to crack open and bleed something worse than guilt.

He pinches me with his toes.

I swat at his ankle with a snarl, too exhausted to put any real malice behind it. “You’re disgusting.”

He grins like I complimented him. “But I’m your disgusting,”

he says, sing-song, and stretches, bones popping like he’s been carrying weight even his chaos can’t deflect. Then he adds, quieter, “Still better than crying into your pillow all night.”

“I wasn’t crying.”

“Bro, I cried from hearing you cry. That’s how bad it was.”

I fall back onto the mattress with a groan, arm draped over my face like I can hide from it all—the shame, the rot Branwen left behind in my blood, the bond half-forged with Luna that pulses like it’s alive and starving.

“They’re all afraid I’ll touch her again,”

I say, voice cracked and rough. “Not just stab her. Touch her. You know what has to happen next.”

Silas doesn’t answer right away. He doesn’t joke either. That’s how I know he understands.

“It’s not like she doesn’t want it,”

he says finally, flipping onto his stomach like we’re having a sleepover instead of a breakdown. “You’ve seen how she looks at you. How she already starts responding to the bond. She’s yours—halfway.”

“And that’s the fucking problem,”

I snap, sitting up too fast, heart slamming into ribs that ache for reasons deeper than pain. “She’s halfway mine and I’m a broken fucking man with Branwen’s fingerprints still pressed into my spine. You really want me inside her when I can still taste another woman’s laugh in my mouth?”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t mock me. Just watches me with those maddeningly perceptive eyes. “You want the truth?”

“No,” I say.

“Too bad. You’re getting it.”

He sits up, legs folded, his ridiculous curls sticking out in every direction like static has taken permanent residence in his skull. “You’re scared. Not of hurting Luna. You’ve already done that. You’re scared of what happens if she forgives you. If she lets you in. You’re scared that you’ll love her, and you’ll fuck it up anyway.”

I stare at him, mouth dry, throat raw with silence. Because he’s right. Gods, he’s right.

“I don’t deserve her,”

I whisper.

“None of us do,”

he says with a shrug. “That’s the gig. We’re Sins, remember? You’re Lust. You don’t get clean. You don’t get pure. But maybe you can be chosen, and that’s something.”

I run both hands through my hair, trembling from the weight of want and revulsion curling like smoke in my chest. “She’s too good.”

Silas snorts. “She stabbed Riven once, remember?”

“She didn’t mean to.”

“And you didn’t mean to stab her.”

I drop my head into my hands, shaking. “You’re not helping.”

“You’re not listening.”

His voice softens, not mocking now. Not Silas the prankster or chaos incarnate. Just Silas, the idiot with his feet on my bed and some unshakeable loyalty tucked beneath all his jokes.

“She’s going to choose you, . Even if it kills her a little. That’s what she does. She breaks herself open for us. And if you let that happen without meeting her there, then yeah, I’ll be the first one to help Ambrose shove a blade through your chest. But until then? You sit here. You bleed. You ache. And when she comes to you, you show up.”

My chest caves under the words. My lungs rebel.

And I hate him for how badly I want to believe he’s right.

Silas taps my foot with his. “Now scoot over. I’m taking a nap. Your guilt is cozy.”

I shove at him, but he flops sideways like a limp dog and grins at the ceiling. And for a second—just one—the weight lets up.

I don’t think I can do it.

It sits in my throat like glass, like something that’ll shred me open if I say it out loud. So I don’t. I breathe around it. Swallow it down. Let it choke me instead.

Because it’s not about the act—not really. It’s about the demand. The expectation. The fucking inevitability of it.

I’m Lust. That’s the whole deal, right? The god of sex. The temptation. The tease. The Sin who always says yes, even when the world’s on fire and the only thing left to do is burn. I’m supposed to want this. I’m supposed to take pleasure in it. Slide right back into it like nothing ever happened. Like my skin hasn’t been branded by a woman who made me crawl.

But the truth? The truth is I don’t even know if I’m still whole. I don’t know if I’m capable of giving Luna anything that isn’t corrupted by everything Branwen took from me.

The others are too polite to say it, but I can see it in the way they glance at me when they think I’m not looking. Like I’m fraying at the edges. Like there’s something wrong with me now. And they’re right.

Because when I think about touching Luna—really touching her, not just teasing, not just the old games we used to play—my entire body revolts. Not out of disgust. Not out of rejection.

Out of fear.

Fear that I’ll mess it up. That I’ll lose myself again. That the parts Branwen twisted and broke and rewired into something shameful will surface when I’m inside someone I actually care about.

And gods, I want her. I want her so much it gnaws at me, curls up in my ribcage like hunger that never goes away. But wanting her doesn’t fix what’s broken. It doesn’t erase the feel of another woman’s command in my blood, or the way I’ve started flinching when people get too close.

If I don’t finish the bond, Luna dies.

If I do… I die. Not physically. Just the last piece of me that feels like mine.

No one understands what it means to be Lust—not really. It sounds glamorous, intoxicating. But it’s a prison built on everyone else’s expectations. You’re only as good as your last performance. And mine? My last wasn’t consensual. It was demanded. Taken. Forced through a bond I didn’t want and couldn’t resist.

And now I’m supposed to pretend like none of that matters. Like I can walk into Luna’s room, smile, and lay myself bare like I’m not already ruined.

He hasn’t said anything, but he’s hovering more than usual. Quiet in ways he never is, and when his chaos goes still, you know something’s broken. I wonder if he’s waiting for me to snap. Or maybe just waiting for me to say it out loud.

That I’m scared.

That I’m not okay.

That I can’t do this without losing what little’s left of who I was before Branwen ever put her hands on me.

But the words don’t come. They never do. So I just sit on the edge of the bed that no longer feels like mine, staring at my hands, and wondering what happens when Luna comes for me and I can’t give her what she needs.

Because this time, there is no choice that doesn’t end in pain.

Silas launches at me like a feral cat with a sugar high and no regard for personal space.

One second, I’m braced against the headboard, lost in my own sick spiral. The next, I’m flat on my back with a very wet, very chaotic Sin straddling me like we’re in the middle of a wrestling match and not an emotional breakdown. His fingers dig into my sides, knuckles sharp and merciless. I jerk violently, teeth clenched, but it’s no use—he knows. The bastard knows exactly where to aim.

“Silas—”

I wheeze, trying to twist out from under him, “—I swear on your favorite fucking hoodie, I will burn it in front of you if you don’t get off me right now.”

“That hoodie has already seen your tears, Cas.”

He grins, wild and unrepentant. “It deserves a medal, not a cremation.”

I curse, trying not to laugh. I’m losing. Not just the upper hand, but the mental spiral too—he’s dragging me out of it, one ticklish prod at a time, and I hate that it’s working.

“Why—”

I gasp between sharp inhales, “—are your hands this clammy? Do you marinate in pond water?”

“I bathe in chaos,”

he replies, matter-of-fact. “And occasionally in the blood of my enemies. But mostly—”

He digs his thumbs into my ribs, making me flail. “—in your fucking misery, Lust Boy.”

“Get. Off.”

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Silas never does the thing you ask. He does the thing you need, and usually in the most obnoxious, infuriating, inappropriate way imaginable. And right now? Apparently what I need is to be tackled by a gremlin in human skin until I laugh myself sick.

“You’re not allowed to implode on me,”

he says after a moment, quieter now. Still perched on my stomach like a smug gargoyle, but something in his voice sobers. “You implode on Riven? Sure. He’ll probably punch you into next week and call it a bonding experience. You implode on Elias? He’ll roast you for it, then write a sad poem about it in his head. But me?”

His smile falters, just a flicker. “You don’t get to implode on me, Cas. That’s not the deal.”

I stare up at him, chest rising with uneven breaths, the ache behind my ribs dulling into something else. “You don’t even know what I’m falling apart over.”

“I don’t have to.”

He shrugs. “You’re still my favorite slut.”

I bark out a laugh—half-raw, half-exhausted. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m Silas,”

he corrects, leaning in until his hair flops into my face. “And you, Lust God of the year, are mine to babysit until further notice.”

“Why the fuck would anyone put you in charge of anything?”

He grins, wicked and warm. “Because I don’t give up on my people, . Not even when they’re bleeding inside and pretending they aren’t.”

I let my head fall back, the ceiling above me suddenly feeling a little less oppressive. His weight is annoying, but grounding. His voice—chaos incarnate—somehow steadies the pieces that feel too sharp to carry alone.

“I’m not ready,”

I whisper, and I don’t mean for it to come out.

But it does.

And Silas just nods like he’s known it all along.

“Then we wait. And when you are ready, we go steal something shiny and inappropriate and set something important on fire.”

“Like Ambrose’s favorite pen?”

Silas gasps, scandalized. “That pen is enchanted, Cas. That would be war.”

“Good,”

I murmur. “I’m in the mood for war.”

He laughs again, full-throated and loud, and the sound rips through the fog in my chest like a sunbeam through stormclouds.

Silas clears his throat like we’re in a goddamn boardroom and not a bedroom littered with old sweatshirts, rumpled sheets, and the ghosts of things I don’t want to name. He’s still perched like a goblin at the foot of the bed, legs crossed, one sock on, one foot bare, looking like mischief incarnate with zero sense of timing. His brows lift—mock-serious.

“So,”

he says, drawing the word out like he’s chewing it, “just a small request for when you, you know”—he gestures vaguely—“do the horizontal salvation tango with Luna.”

I close my eyes. “Don’t.”

He ignores me.

“Try not to cry during it. Before, after, I’ll even allow dramatic weeping near a window if it’s raining. But if you sob on her while inside her—”

I throw a pillow at his face. Hard.

He catches it with reflexes that piss me off, clutching it to his chest like it’s a wounded animal. “Rude. I’m offering genuine emotional support.”

“That wasn’t support. That was you being a dick with bonus emotional terrorism.”

He smirks, eyes sharp. “, you’re literally Lust. If you cry while doing the deed, I think the universe collapses. A kink apocalypse. Or worse—Elias tries to comfort you, and then he starts talking about feelings.”

I groan and drop back against the headboard, arm over my eyes. “You are the worst person to talk to about this.”

“I’m the only person willing to talk to you about this,”

he counters. “You think Elias is gonna offer you a shoulder to cry on? No, he’ll light a cigarette and say something so sarcastic it physically bruises. Riven will just try to kill you again. Ambrose will smile like he knows all your secrets and wants to use them in bed and in a business negotiation. And Luna…”

His voice dips. Just enough to make me lower my arm.

“Luna will forgive you,”

he says, softer now. “Even if you don’t deserve it. Even if you hurt her again. That’s the part I think you’re really scared of. Not the sex. Not the bond. But the fact that she’s still going to look at you like you’re hers when all you feel is ruined.”

I sit in the wreckage of my mind every night, trying to pick up pieces with hands that only know how to break, and she—gods, she just waits. Waits for me to get it together. To become someone worth her choice.

And I’m terrified I’ll never be.

Silas swings his legs off the bed, standing with a sigh that doesn’t match his usual energy. “You don’t have to be ready today, Cas. But you do need to remember she’s not expecting perfection. She just wants you. Whatever version of you is still breathing.”

“Oh. And when you do go through with it…”

He glances over his shoulder with a wicked grin. “Don’t do that breathy thing you used to do with Branwen. It’s creepy. You sound like a haunted wind chime.”

I throw the second pillow.

He dodges.

Barely.

And I hate how much lighter my chest feels after.

There’s a knock.

A fucking knock.

No one in this house knocks. They storm, they demand, they walk in like they own the floor beneath their feet—and maybe they do. But knocking? That’s reserved for one person. One person who still carries something like decency in her hands, even if the rest of us are dripping with everything but.

Luna.

My heart stutters like a traitor, and I scramble off the bed so fast I nearly trip over my own shame. I lunge toward the bathroom like it’s sanctuary, like tile walls and a sink will save me from the one person I’m not ready to see—will probably never be ready to see again.

But Silas grabs me by the collar like I’m a child and he’s the damn authority on bad decisions. “Nope,”

he mutters, grinning like the devil. “You’re not running from her. Not when you’re half-bonded and full-dumb.”

“I will kill you in your sleep,”

I whisper.

“Hot,”

he says, dragging me backwards like I weigh nothing. “Now smile pretty, Casanova.”

He opens the door without ceremony, without warning me, without giving me a second to breathe.

And there she is.

Luna.

Hair messy like she forgot to care, eyes sharper than any weapon I’ve ever held. She’s standing there in leggings and a hoodie that’s probably mine—gods help me—and she looks at me like she doesn’t regret asking if I was okay. Like she still wants to ask it again, just to be sure.

I forget how to speak. Or breathe. Or lie.

Silas claps a hand on my shoulder and says, “He’s been crying, but only in a really masculine way. Very dignified. Lots of sniffles, very few sobs.”

“Silas,”

Luna says, voice flat but soft in that way that makes me ache. “Get out.”

Silas’s grin stretches wider. “You got it, princess.”

He pats my cheek before he goes, murmuring just loud enough for me to hear, “Don’t cry on her, yeah?”

Then he’s gone, and it’s just her.

Me.

And the bond humming low between us like something unfinished, a song waiting for the next chord—and I don’t know if it’ll end in a crescendo or a collapse. But I can’t run anymore.