Page 94 of The Sin Binder's Chains

Lucien

Looking at Severin is like looking at myself from the outside. It’s not just the resemblance. The sharp jaw, the high cheekbones, the features carved with the same precision, the same cold refinement. It’s in the way he stands, controlled, but just barely.

Because I know that look. I know that pull. The one he’s feeling right now as he tries, and fails, to mask his curiosity. His hunger. His need to see what I brought him.

A woman to bind him.

Layla.

And he cannot help it any more than I can help myself when it comes to Luna.

That pull, the knowing, that awful, undeniable certainty that she might be the one. The one who could unravel everything.The one who could rule them all.

Severin doesn’t speak immediately. He stands there, his body still, but his eyes moving, flicking from me, to Orin, to Elias, and always back to what’s behind us.

I watch it happen in real time.

The moment it clicks for him.

The shift from annoyance to realization.

Because he feels it, the tether stretching between him and her. For the things lurking beneath his command, waiting, starving, needing.

I tip my head slightly, watching his jaw tighten.

The same way mine does when Luna is too close. When I don’t know whether I should step forward, or if it would be too late to step back.

Severin knows he’s been outmatched.

Outplayed.

He may have taken Riven and Silas from me, may have thought that was enough to shift the balance in his favor.

But now?

Now, I have something he wants more. I can see it in the way he stands, controlled, calculating, but just barely. His breathing is measured, his expression carefully neutral, but his body?

His body betrays him. The slight flex of his fingers. The subtle shift of his stance. The way his gaze keeps flicking to the girl behind me, to his Sin-Binder.

Severin exhales through his nose, slow and steady, voice flat as he finally speaks.

"Give her to me."

I lift a brow. He doesn’t dress it up with a demand. Doesn’t make the mistake of commanding me. Because he knows that won’t work.

So he asks. Like he’s negotiating. And maybe he is. Because this is where I play my hand. Because I don’t trust Riven with Layla.

And I need him to release Riven and Silas.

I tip my head slightly, watching him like I’m considering it.

Letting him wonder if I’ll do it.

"No."

His jaw tightens. Just barely.

"Lucien. "

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