Page 178 of The Sin Binder's Chains

“She’ll feel them, Luna,” I say. “Every fractured edge. Every hunger. And if she lets herself answer it, if she reaches for that connection, they won’t be able to resist.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then they’ll burn for her from the inside out,” I say. “They’ll unravel. And so will she.”

Luna closes her eyes.

I don’t touch her again. I want to.

“You’re not responsible for her choice,” I say. “But she is.”

“That doesn’t make it easier.”

“No,” I say softly. “It makes it matter.”

She looks up at me again, and this time her eyes are wet. Not crying. Just too full.

I’ve lived long enough to know what that look means. She doesn’t want to carry this. But she will. Even if it ruins her. And still, I do not tell her not to. Because I would do the same for her. Every time.

Behind us, Elias groans, loud and theatrical. “Are we having an emotional breakthrough right now? Because I swear to all things ancient, if I wake up to feelings- ”

“You’re not awake,” Luna calls over her shoulder.

“I am awake,” he says, voice muffled by his arm. “And I am emotionally compromised. You both should be ashamed.”

“You’re jealous you’re not the one having a heart-to-heart,” she mutters.

“Jealous? Luna, please,” he groans. “If I wanted to cry about my trauma, I’d write poetry and join a blood cult.”

“Didn’t you already do that?” she calls back.

He doesn’t answer. But I hear the grin in his silence.

I look at her one more time. And though I say nothing, I know she hears the thing I do not speak.

If she binds me, she’ll never come back the same. But if she doesn’t… the world may never survive what comes next.

She sighs, soft and low, like she’s trying to let something go but it’s lodged too deep. Then she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, something so unguarded it nearly undoes me.

“They’re going to be mean to her,” she says, voice thin around the edges.

“Some of them, yes,” I admit. “Just like Lucien and Riven were mean to you when you first arrived.”

Luna’s lips curve into something between memory and warning. “They weren’t just mean.”

“No,” I agree. “They were cruel. Because they were afraid. You rattled something inside them they didn’t know could still move.”

“And the Sub-Sins?” she asks. “Will they hate her like that?”

“Not all of them,” I say. “They don’t want her. Just like we didn’t want you.”

She huffs a bitter laugh. “You make that sound like a compliment.”

“It is.”

I step closer, not quite touching her. I don’t need to. The air between us already hums like it remembers every almost we’ve ever let pass.

“And how did that turn out for you?” I ask.

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