Page 52 of The Sin Binder's Vow

“That’s what made it so appealing,” she whispers, smile deepening.

I make a show of gasping. Elias laughs, low and hoarse, and somewhere in that laugh is a thread of something real—something fragile we pretend doesn’t exist when we’re being this way. Loud. Dumb. Ridiculously entangled.

The quiet that follows isn’t empty. It’s laced with unsaid things, with the knowledge that this bed, this room, this brief flicker of calm—it won’t last.

But right now, with Luna tucked between us, with Elias breathing slow and steady, I let it matter. I let it mean something.

And in the morning, when the world demands more than we can give, I’ll remember this.

The Luna sandwich.

And how for one night, it didn’t feel like the world was ending.

Riven

Silas has great hair.

And I hate that it's all I can see.

We’re at a table in this gods-damned tavern with sticky floors, half-burnt toast, and the thick scent of ale still clinging to the wood like sweat. The whole place feels like a memory someone tried to bury under too much noise and not enough ventilation. But here we are—eating breakfast like we’re not fractured, like we’re not walking straight toward something that’ll leave at least one of us bleeding.

Orin and Lucien sit apart, as if the table we chose is beneath them. Orin doesn’t eat—doesn’t need to—but he cradles a blackened mug between his hands like it’s centuries of silence boiled down to one drink. Lucien leans in as Orin speaks, his expression unreadable. Strategic. Always. I could light the whole tavern on fire and Lucien’s eyes wouldn’t flicker unless he could make use of the smoke.

And then there’s Silas.

Flashing crumbs of croissant from his lips, swinging one leg under the table like he’s high on sugar and chaos. His hair gleams like something divine and ridiculous—too silky, too artfully disheveled for a man who doesn’t even comb it. It should be illegal to look like that without trying. And I hate it.

“Do you think he uses magic shampoo?” Elias mumbles beside me, eyeing Silas the way a starving man might eye a steak—conflicted, annoyed, but unable to look away.

“I think he steals the souls of woodland creatures and uses their tears as conditioner,” I growl back, stabbing my fork into the rubbery egg on my plate like it owes me money.

“You’re just mad you don’t have hair like that.”

“I’m mad because he exists.”

Luna snorts softly from across the table.

And just like that—my spine goes rigid. That sound. Hers. It claws under my skin, dragging heat with it. She’s not laughingatme, not really. But she’s amused. And that’s worse. Because Luna amused is Luna lit from within, and I’m still not used to the way her light finds the cracks in me I didn’t know were there.

She doesn’t say anything. Just takes another sip from the chipped mug between her hands, eyes fixed on something past me. Her hair’s a mess. Her skin still kissed by the morning. Her lips—

I look away.

The bond between us buzzes like a wasp trapped in glass. It’s quiet. But it’s there. Always. Waiting for me to give in, to stop pretending I don’t feel her like a brand behind my ribs.

She doesn’t push. Not today. She’s too aware of me when I’m like this—coiled too tight, my anger a slow swirl beneath my skin. She gives me space. I hate that. I hate how much I need it.

Silas is talking again. Something about how “croissants are the superior bread-based breakfast weapon.” And Elias is goading him, playing the straight man to Silas’s spiraling comedy routine. I should be irritated. But it’s normal. And the illusion of normal is such a rare luxury that for a moment, I let it be.

Then Luna shifts.

Just a tilt of her body, a lean in my direction as she reaches for the butter. Her arm brushes mine. Bare skin on bare skin. My jaw locks. My pulse stutters.

I don’t look at her. Ican’tlook at her.

Because if I do—I’ll see it. That softness. That glow. Thatfuckingpatience in her eyes that says she knows. That she understands. That she forgives me even when I can’t stand the sound of my own voice.

She says nothing. Doesn’t even glance at me as she butters her toast and takes a bite like she didn’t just rock my entire foundation with a two-second brush of skin.

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