Page 130 of The Sin Binders Ascent

I’m the eighth.

The complication.

And if she’s going to cross that line, it can’t be because I kissed her first. It has to behers. Her want. Her choice. Her need.

So I sit here, still, hands loose in my lap, head resting back against the stone, the rain drumming slow and steady outside the shelter. I let her feel the weight of me beside her. I let her stare. I let her decide how close is too close. And I wait.

Because the moment she says anything, one word, one breath, one misstep of truth, I'll take all of her. And I won’t let go.

I had so many plans. Survive. Stay detached. Keep her alive long enough to let the gods change their minds, or until something more final came to claim her. I was supposed tobe a means to an end. The unexpected tagalong. The eighth sin forced into her orbit by divine sleight of hand. I was never meant towantanything.

Especially nother.

But here I am, sitting beside her while the rain slips down the walls of the stone alcove in steady rivulets, and I can’t remember what life looked like before her. I can’t remember why I was so sure she’d be temporary.

She’s perfect.

And not in the soft, polished way mortals say it, like it’s a compliment too big for the moment. No. Luna is perfect in the way a firestorm is perfect, wild, consuming, untamed. She’s chaos wrapped in grace, trauma stitched into strength, and even after everything that’s been carved out of her, she still holds on to this thread ofgoodnesslike it’s the last honest thing in the world.

It wrecks me.

She should be bitter. She should be cruel. She should carry her power like a weapon instead of a burden, should let it turn her into something sharp enough to cut everything that’s ever hurt her. But she doesn’t. She aches, and stillchooses. She burns, and stillloves.

How can I not fall for that?

Even in this cursed place, where every tree groans like it remembers pain, where the animals are wrong, too many eyes, too many teeth, hunger stitched into every movement, she makes itbearable. She talks to me like I matter. Laughs like she’s forgotten I’m supposed to be a mistake. And when she looks at me, I can feel my edges softening into something I don’t recognize.

She teases me about the way I sleep, too still, too tense, like I’m waiting for something to strike. She calls me an overgrown cat when I sprawl out in the sun because I’m pretending thisworld doesn’t exhaust me. She caught me humming once, to myself, and she hasn’t let me live it down since.

And gods help me, Ilikeit.

I likeher.

I know I’m not good enough for her. I know the things I’ve done, the obsessions I’ve fed, the hearts I’ve shattered just to keep myself from starving. I am desire in its rawest form, selfish, greedy, consuming. She should hate me. Some days, I think she still does. But she keeps sitting beside me like she doesn’t. Keeps leaning into me when she thinks I won’t notice. Keeps brushing her hand close to mine, not quite touching, but not pulling away either.

Maybe I don’t have to be good. Maybe she’s good enough for the both of us. Maybe the kind of bond we could have is something different than the ones she’s already tied herself to. Not softer, not cleaner, butreal. A thing built not from who we were, but who we’ve become in the dirt and rot and hunger of this place.

Because that’s the thing about us.

We’re inevitable. We’re too close now. We move as one. When I reach, she’s already there. When she falters, I steady her. We don’t even talk about it anymore, we justare.

And I know, with bone-deep certainty, it’s only a matter of time before she does something.

Touches me without thinking.

Says my name like it means more than it should.

Choose this.

Choosesme.

When that moment comes, I won’t stop her. I won’t pretend I don’t want it. I’ll take everything she gives me and offer up every dark, twisted part of myself in return.

Even if this world is hell, even if it swallows us whole, if she’s with me, I might finally believe I deserve to burn for something beautiful.

She rubs her neck with the heel of her hand, wincing just enough for me to notice, then pressing her fingers into the spot like she’s trying to will the ache away through sheer force of irritation. It’s probably sore. Of course it is. We’ve been sleeping on dirt, on bark, on slabs of uneven stone that don’t forgive weight or movement. Nothing in this place has been designed for rest.

Luna sighs, like the sound carries something heavier than exhaustion. Then her eyes flick to me. There’s a question there before she even opens her mouth.

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