Page 119 of The Sin Binder's Chains

Riven

I step away from camp because if I don’t, I’ll tear something apart. The weight of the bond is a constant, relentless thing, a hook in my ribs, a tether I never asked for.

It tightens when she’s near. When she looks at me. When she breathes in my direction.

For weeks, I was locked in Severin’s hell, my body broken, my mind unraveled, but nothing, nothing, has ever crawled under my skin the way this does.

I agreed to bond with her.

Agreed. But I did not choose it. And Luna, damn her she knows that.

I hear her before I see her, boots scuffing against the uneven ground, her presence curling through the air like something inevitable.

But she stops. Not close enough to touch. Not close enough to smell her, fuck, I want to smell her. The thought alone makes my hands clench, nails biting into my palms as I drag in a breath, steadying, bracing, failing.

“I should’ve known you’d follow me,” I mutter, not turning, because if I look at her now, if I see that dark, knowing gaze pinning me in place, I might, I don’t know.

Luna doesn’t take the bait. “I gave you space.”

I huff a short, humorless laugh. “Generous of you.”

A beat of silence. She’s waiting, letting me settle into my anger, waiting to see what I do with it.

I want to tell her to leave. I want to say something cruel, something cutting, something to push her as far from me as possible.

Instead, what comes out is,

“What do you want?”

Flat. Rude. A weapon. But Luna is unchanged. Unaffected. Like she’s immune to me.

“I wanted to see if you were okay,” she says simply.

Something in my chest fractures, because I am not okay, I will never be okay, and she should know that.

I finally turn to face her, and damn her again, she’s watching me with that awful, calm steadiness, like she’s waiting for me to do what I always do.

Rage. Snap. Run.

I exhale sharply, shaking my head. “You shouldn’t have come.”

She lifts a brow. “Would you have stayed away from me if the situation were reversed?”

I don’t answer. Because we both know the truth.

Luna tilts her head slightly, studying me, waiting for something I can’t give her.

And fuck me, I want to give it to her. I want to step closer. I want to take a breath so deep my lungs burn with her scent. I want to grab her, shake her, demand to know why the gods chose her, why this had to happen to me.

Instead, I shift my weight, flex my hands, and say, “I’m not your problem.”

She hums. Unmoved. Unshaken.

“No,” she says, voice soft, almost amused. “You’re my bond.”

Something snaps.

Not physically. Not visibly.

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