Page 26 of The Sin Binder’s Vow (The Seven Sins Academy #3)

She’s standing beneath the oak like she’s about to command the gods, hands outstretched, head tilted, lips parted with some half-muttered focus spell Silas probably taught her—and I’m watching from the railing with a cup of lukewarm coffee and a front row seat to the apocalypse of her patience.

The squirrels are furious. One hurls an acorn directly at her head. She dodges like it’s a spell and gives them the finger with both hands, which only makes them screech louder.

“You know,”

I call down, voice flat with just enough amusement to coat the insult.

“your mastery of Forced Stasis has officially escalated tensions between you and the rodent community. We’re probably going to war now. Should I alert the Council?”

She spins around, cheeks flushed, sweatpants slung low on her hips like she got dressed in a daze. And Dain, sarcastic mess that I am, nearly chokes on the last sip of my coffee.

Because she’s glowing—not literally, not yet, but something about her when she’s this frustrated, this raw with effort and not performance, makes it hard to look away.

“You’re not helping,”

she grumbles, marching toward the porch like she plans to murder me with a look.

I shrug, because I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen her worse. And yet—there’s a difference between pretending not to care and pretending she doesn’t undo me a little more every time she tries to be better. Stronger. Like she doesn’t already have claws in me so deep they’ve carved a home.

“You’re not asking for help,”

I say, stretching my legs out along the banister, watching her approach like she might crack the world open just to spite me.

“You’re out here yelling at squirrels and vibrating with unresolved sexual tension. I assumed this was your sacred alone time.”

She stops at the bottom step, arms crossed under her chest, which is a problem. She knows it. I know it. We’re both pretending I’m not staring.

“I was trying to practice,”

she says.

“But you and your stupid magic is impossible to copy.”

“Because I’m special,”

I say, flashing a grin.

“And irreplaceable. You should probably start worshiping me properly. Sacrifice a goat. Or your dignity. Either works.”

“You’re exhausting.”

“Only because you’re obsessed with me.”

She makes a noise in her throat that might be annoyance, might be affection. Hard to tell. I make her feel too much and she hates it. I hate that I love it.

But then she walks up the stairs, slow and deliberate, and she doesn’t stop until she’s standing between my legs, peering down at me like I’m the one misbehaving. Her hand lands on my knee. Casual. Deadly.

“I can’t get the timing right,”

she says finally, quieter now.

“It’s like trying to grab air. It slips through before I even—”

I reach up, curl a hand around her wrist, not to stop her, just to feel her.

“Because you’re trying to replicate instead of wield. You’re not me, Lu. You’re not supposed to copy my power. You’re supposed to break it. Rebuild it into something else. Something...”

She waits.

“...yours.”

The silence hangs like a string pulled tight between us. Her fingers slide into my hair, tug gently like she’s grounding herself, and I tilt my face up to her.

“You think I can?” she asks.

“I think you already are,”

I say.

“And I think it scares the shit out of all of us.”

She leans down, just enough to brush her mouth against mine—not a kiss. Not yet. But I feel it in every slow-burning inch of me.

And just before she pulls back, I murmur against her lips.

“Besides, if it’s a stasis you want—I’ve got a bed upstairs and absolutely no problem being unconscious for hours after.”

She laughs. Shoves me back.

I let her. But I’m already following.

Because gods help me, I’d let her stop time if it meant I got to stay in the moment where she looks at me like I’m hers.

She actually did it.

One second I’m sipping coffee, explaining the mechanics like some ancient, all-knowing stasis guru—and the next, Silas fucking Veyd is mid-gesture, halfway through what was probably an obscene mimed squirrel impression, and then boom. Timber. The man drops like a Victorian damsel in a corset too tight.

I blink. Stare.

Then I glance at Luna, whose face is a masterpiece of horror. Wide eyes, hands half-lifted like she’s just summoned a goddamn meteor instead of borrowing a fragment of my power. Her mouth opens, no sound. And then—

“Oh my god—I KILLED HIM.”

She bolts toward him, and I follow at a much more leisurely pace, because a) I’m 112% sure Silas is still breathing, and b) I refuse to run for a man who once used my toothbrush to clean his boot.

“by accident.”

Luna drops to her knees beside Silas’s dramatic, crumpled mess of a body, clutching at his shirt like she’s reenacting the third act of a tragic opera.

“Silas?”

she says, shaking him.

“Silas, wake up. This isn’t funny!”

It is. It’s so fucking funny I might actually lose consciousness myself.

She presses a hand to his chest. Then starts thumping it.

“What are you doing?”

I ask, leaning against a tree because this moment is going into the memory vault forever.

“CPR, obviously!”

she yells without looking at me.

“Is he not breathing? , help me!”

I snort.

“Oh yeah. Let me just reverse the cardiac arrest caused by your spectacular magical prowess. You’re a murderer now, Lu. Congratulations.”

She gives me a death glare, then slaps Silas’s face lightly.

“Come on, you idiot. Don’t die. Not like this. Not mid-squirrel impression. You’re too pretty to die like this.”

At that, Silas groans.

I smirk.

He stirs dramatically, blinking his eyes open like he’s waking from a century-long slumber, and then—because of course he does—he whispers, voice hoarse and tragic.

“Tell Luna… I died loving her bosom…”

Luna jerks back so fast she nearly falls over.

“I knew you were faking!”

she shrieks, and then she starts hitting him in earnest—light little punches to his chest, shoulders, anywhere she can reach.

Silas, still splayed across the grass like he’s auditioning for a Shakespearean tragedy, grabs her wrist and sighs.

“You stopped time. For me. You love me.”

“I’m going to actually kill you.”

“I knew that would be how I went,”

he whispers.

“Murdered by beauty. It's poetic.”

I groan.

“If you two start dry humping in front of the squirrel mafia, I’m leaving.”

Silas grins, wide and unrepentant.

“, I saw the light. And it looked like Luna’s thighs. I’m a changed man now.”

“You were never a man to begin with,”

I mutter.

“You were conjured in a lab full of glitter and erotic shame.”

She’s on her knees beside him now, muttering apologies between panicked gasps, hands fluttering like she’s deciding whether to perform a resurrection spell or a slap to the face. And Silas—absolute menace incarnate—curls on the grass like he’s about to be buried with honors. Arms folded across his chest, face twisted in noble suffering.

“I didn’t mean to hit him that hard,”

Luna says, her voice shrill with guilt.

“You said I couldn’t actually do it!”

I stretch out on the bench like I’m sunbathing, arm draped over my eyes.

“Correction—I said you couldn’t do it properly. This? This is just dramatic overachievement.”

She glares at me over Silas’s prone body, which he shifts ever-so-slightly so his head lands more strategically in her lap. Snake.

“I think he’s unconscious,”

she whispers, stroking his hair like he’s Snow White.

Silas lets out a long, theatrical moan.

“She struck me with her love,”

he croaks.

“Felled by affection, undone by power and beauty and… and squirrels.”

I lift my head just enough to raise a brow.

“You’re the reason no one takes immortality seriously.”

“I saw the gods,”

he murmurs.

“And they were… judgmental.”

“She killed you with a level one drain,”

I add, deadpan.

“Wow. We’ll have to downgrade your combat rating. Maybe demote you to distraction duty.”

“I’ve always been the distraction,”

he hisses, then lifts a hand and taps her thigh.

“But what a way to go.”

Luna swats his fingers away like he’s a particularly clingy cat, but she’s laughing now. That soft, startled kind of laugh that pulls from somewhere low, like she doesn’t trust it. Her guilt is still flickering, but it’s losing the battle against amusement.

“He’s fine,”

I say, pushing up from the bench and brushing off my shirt.

“The day Silas Veyd dies from a girl’s first spell is the day I stop being devastatingly attractive.”

“You’re not—”

she starts, but Silas cuts her off.

“He is,”

Silas says dreamily, eyes still closed.

“But I’m prettier.”

I roll my eyes.

“You’re concussed.”

“I’m committed,”

he counters.

“Luna, did you see the way time bent for you? It’s hot. I think I need mouth-to-mouth.”

“You’re talking.”

“Preventative.”

I walk over and tap his forehead.

“Wake up, Romeo. You’ve got grass in your hair.”

He opens one eye.

“Do I look haunted by her spell?”

“You look like a man who fake-cried so hard he forgot which performance he was in.”

“I was method acting.”

Luna shakes her head, pressing her fingers to her lips like she’s trying to stop herself from smiling. I know that smile. It’s the one she gets when she’s trying not to admit she loves us this ridiculous. Loves him. Me. Us. All of it.

Gods, we’re such a mess.

But this—her power finally blooming, her face lit with something close to wonder, and Silas stretched across her like a self-satisfied idiot—is the kind of mess I’d bottle up and guard like it’s sacred.

I lean down and whisper.

“Next time, try it on me. I’ll pretend it hurts way better.”

Silas perks up.

“Oh! Oh, me next! After . Then Riven. Then Ambrose, if he consents—which, let’s be honest, he never will.”

“I’m not a toy.”

“You’re our toy.”

She groans and lets her head fall back.

“I regret this.”

“No you don’t,”

I murmur.

“You’re glowing.”

And she is.

Even the squirrels are watching.

Speak of the devil. And by devil, I mean Ambrose—who somehow manages to look both royally pissed off and like he’s stepped out of a cologne ad as he storms across the courtyard, leather jacket flaring like it’s contractually obligated. He’s holding something in his hand. No, not something. A helmet.

A glittery, rhinestone-encrusted, magenta-and-gold monstrosity of a helmet.

I blink once. Twice. Then I watch in frozen horror as he hurls it at Silas’s sprawled-out form like he’s trying to banish a demon through blunt-force trauma.

“Get the fuck up,”

Ambrose growls, voice sharp enough to peel paint.

“You’re coming for a ride.”

Silas, who’d been mid-performance of his death-by-magic Oscar reel, jerks up like a marionette cut from its strings. “A ride?”

he gasps, clutching the helmet to his chest like it’s a lover returning from war.

“With you? Ambrose, are we bonding? Is this our moment?”

“Helmet,”

Ambrose snaps.

Silas squeals. Actually squeals. It’s high-pitched and unholy and echoes off the stone walls in a way that makes me question reality. He shoves the glitter bomb onto his head—crooked, of course, because he’s incapable of anything symmetrical—and sprints toward the bike like a man possessed by the spirit of chaos and poor decisions.

“Shotgun!”

he yells, even though that’s not how motorcycles work, and mounts behind Ambrose with all the grace of a drunk goat. He throws his arms around Ambrose’s waist with such gusto that Ambrose visibly flinches.

“Touch me again,”

Ambrose grits.

“and I’ll drive us into a wall.”

“I knew you liked danger,”

Silas sighs, leaning into him like they’re on a honeymoon tour of the apocalypse.

Ambrose revs the engine like it’s a death threat. Silas giggles.

And then they’re off.

Tires screech. Dust kicks up. Silas whoops like he’s on a rollercoaster. Ambrose looks like he’s strongly considering murder as a lifestyle. They travel down the path toward the forest road, glitter helmet catching the last rays of sunlight like a disco ball bouncing off doom.

I stare after them, deadpan.

“Do you think Ambrose regrets every decision that led him to this exact moment?”

Luna asks, stepping beside me, her eyes wide.

“I think Ambrose regrets ever meeting us,”

I reply.

“But especially that.”

We both watch in silence as the motorcycle shrinks into the horizon, Silas’s glitter head bobbing with every bump, arms still wrapped around Ambrose like a deranged koala.

And I mutter.

“I give it five minutes before he’s thrown off like a sack of sparkle-shit.”

She snorts, and I finally smile. Worth it.

“Ooh,”

I drawl, lifting my hand like I’m blessing the chaos that is my life.

“I could stasis Silas right now. Just a quick zap—turn him into a decorative lawn gnome.”

Luna’s hand shoots out and grabs my wrist. “Don’t,”

she warns, and she’s smiling, but her eyes are daring me.

“He’ll be fine,”

I say, tilting my head.

“I’ve done this before.”

“That doesn’t make it better,”

she snaps back, stepping in front of me.

“That makes it worse. You’re addicted to torment.”

“I’m addicted to winning,”

I correct her, twisting my hand gently in her grip but not pulling away. Her fingers are warm. Distracting. Everything about her always is.

She tightens her hold.

“You wouldn’t win.”

I raise a brow.

“Oh? That sounds like a challenge.”

Then she does the unthinkable—she lets go of my wrist and shoves me in the chest.

It’s not hard. Barely a nudge. But the second she does it, something clicks in my brain. The lazy snark, the pretending I don’t care—it doesn’t hold up under provocation. Not from her. Especially not when she’s grinning like that.

“Oh, you’re so dead,”

I mutter, lunging forward.

She twists away, fast—faster than I gave her credit for—but I catch her around the waist. She squeals—actual squeals, and I file that away for blackmail—and we hit the grass, limbs tangled, her hair in my face, my arm around her ribs.

“Get off!”

she laughs, trying to elbow me, but she’s laughing too hard to aim properly.

“You started it,”

I grunt, flipping us so I’m hovering over her, one knee between her thighs, her hoodie riding up just enough to make my brain short-circuit.

“You challenged a god. This is on you.”

“A god?”

she pants, breathless.

“You’re the laziest ‘god’ I’ve ever met.”

“I’m a sloth god,”

I murmur, brushing hair out of her face.

“We smite at our own pace.”

Her breath catches. The fight simmers to something slower, hotter. She’s still beneath me, pinned, and we both realize it at the same time. The air between us goes sharp. Crackling. Her hands are on my forearms, not pushing me off anymore. Her legs are still parted around mine.

“,”

she whispers.

“Yeah?”

I say, low. Too low. Because everything about this feels like it’s shifting.

“You’re blushing.”

I blink.

“I am not—”

“You are.”

Her grin is wicked now.

“You’re blushing, Dain.”

“Shut up,”

I groan, trying to roll off her, but she locks her legs around me and I’m stuck.

“This is assault.”

“This is justice,”

she retorts.

We’re a mess. I don’t even know who’s winning anymore. But I don’t care.