Page 157 of The Sin Binder's Vow

I step away from him. Not a big movement. Just enough to draw a line between what thisisn’tand what I refuse to let it become. Not a date. Not penance. Just two people tangled in something neither of us has the language—or the emotional dexterity—to label. Not lovers. Not enemies. Just… inconvenient.

And naked. Once. In a shower. With tears I didn’t mean to shed and hands that lingered a second too long after it was supposed to be over.

I roll my eyes at myself. The melodrama of it. A slow punishment that matches the one humming under my skin. I deserve it.

The barista hands me my drink without eye contact. She’s maybe seventeen, already dead inside, eyeliner thick enough to be war paint. Her name tag readsMORBIDIA,and she says it like a curse when I thank her. I kind of love her.

I’m about to find a table, maybe a dark corner to sit in and pretend I’m not spiraling, when Ambrose steps up beside me.

He doesn’t speak.

He just holds something out.

A cupcake.

The frosting’s black—of course it is—with silver sugar dusted over the top like ash from a ritual fire. A single candied skull is pressed into the swirl, grinning like it knows something I don’t.

I stare at it.

He doesn’t explain.

He doesn’t meet my eyes.

He just… offers it.

As if this is his apology. A cupcake. Not words. Not acknowledgement. Just sugar and death, presented like a peace treaty between monsters.

It’s ridiculous.

And sweet.

And stupid.

AndsoAmbrose it physically hurts.

I take it. Not because I forgive him. Not because it fixes anything. But because I’m starving for something that isn’t grief. And maybe, just maybe, frosting laced with artificial remorse is better than nothing.

I lift my eyes just enough to meet his. He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t smile. But his jaw relaxes—fractionally. Like the worst of the storm passed the second I didn’t throw the cupcake back in his face.

I turn without a word and walk to the far corner of the shop. There’s a table tucked between a crooked bookshelf and a stained-glass window depicting some sort of demon tea party. I sit.

He follows. Because we’re poison. And still—we keep drinking.

The sunlight hits just right—no,wrong. Wrong in that it’s splintering through the stained-glass demon wings and casting halos in all the wrong places. And Ambrose, with his sharp jaw and colder eyes, is sitting there looking like a damned fallen seraph caught mid-redemption arc.

Except he’s not an angel. He’s a dick. A beautifully constructed, cryptically seductive dick with a power complex and a god-tier resting bitch face.

And right now, he’s also very,veryuncomfortable.Which I’m kind of living for.

He doesn’t know what to do with this place. Or this table. Or me.

It’s too human, too casual. The chipped mug in front of him isn’t ancient or cursed or full of blood contracts. It’s just almond milk and espresso. It doesn’t tremble under his touch. Doesn’tbelongto him. And I think that might bother him more than he’s willing to admit.

I sip my latte slowly, licking a bit of the black rose syrup off my bottom lip just because I know it makes his jaw flex. He sees it, pretends he doesn’t, and keeps his gaze pinned to the window beside me.

We sit. In that awful silence that isn’t heavy, isn’t thick, butloud.Like a scream in a cathedral.

He shifts. Takes a sip. And then, low—like it betrays something to even say it—he mutters:

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