Page 157 of The Sin Binder's Chains

Silas finally turns to me. His expression isn’t smug or defensive. It’s worse. It’s apologetic.

“She’s not like the others,” he says quietly. “You know that.”

Yeah. I know that.

That’s the problem.

Because she didn’t just take Silas’s heart. She took my place, too.

And now, standing in the shadow of the only bond Silas has ever wanted, I feel more unchosen than I have in centuries.

So I grin, wide and poisonous. “Great. Fantastic. Love that for you. Just promise me when you two start making creepy, magical soul babies or whatever, you’ll name one after me. Maybe the angsty one who never shuts up.”

Silas’s mouth twitches. A half-laugh. But there’s sorrow in it too. Like, he knows I’m not just joking. Like he hears the fracture underneath.

“I still need you, Elias,” he says softly.

But it’s too late.

Because he doesn’t need just me anymore.

And I don’t know what the hell to do with that.

“Yeah, well, I don’t need you,” I mutter, arms crossed tight over my chest like a pissed-off teenager, which, for the record, I haven’t been for… let’s just say a very long time. The words taste petty even as they leave my mouth, but I don’t take them back. I can’t. Not when he’s looking at me like that. Not when I know it’s a lie, and worse, so does he.

Silas turns, lips tugging into that goddamned grin, the one that’s always been a little crooked, a little too knowing. It usedto be for me. Our mischief, our chaos, our carved-out corner of survival where nothing else mattered. But now?

Now it’s soft.

Now it’s hers.

“You don’t mean that,” he says, not unkindly. Just… certain.

And fuck him for being right.

I drop my arms and sink onto a half-rotted log, glaring at the nothing beyond the edge of camp like it offended me personally. “I do,” I insist, kicking at a pebble with the tip of my boot. “I’m thriving. Flourishing, even. You just haven’t noticed because you’re too busy playing soulmates with Little Miss Apocalypse.”

Silas doesn’t bite. He just moves closer, drops into a crouch across from me, elbows on his knees, like we’re about to have some heart-to-heart bullshit moment. I hate it. I hate how calm he is. How sure. How easy he’s making this look.

“I still want you around, Elias,” he says quietly. “That hasn’t changed.”

And that right there? That’s the worst of it. Because he’s not lying. He means it. He’s not pushing me out, he never has. He’s trying to make space for both of us, like that’s even possible.

But I don’t want space. I want what we had. I want the world before Luna. Before bonds and battles and feelings. Before everything cracked open and started spilling out things I can’t shove back in.

“Yeah,” I say, voice brittle, “but not like before.”

Silas’s grin fades. Just a flicker. But I see it. I know him too well not to.

“No,” he agrees. “Not like before.”

And there it is. The truth between us, raw and undressed. I want to lash out. Say something cruel. Make him feel small just so I don’t.

But I can’t.

Because even now, even gutted, I still love the bastard.

So instead, I do what I do best, I ruin the moment.

---