Page 139 of The Sin Binders Ascent

I grab her elbow and her head jerks toward me, eyes narrowed, and for the first time in hours, I see her face up close. She looks sun-drenched and furious, like the heat’s boiling under her skin and she’s trying not to let it out.

“What,” she says flatly.

I keep my hand on her. It anchors me more than her.

“You don’t get to walk around like that didn’t mean something.”

Her jaw clenches.

“Don’t tell me what I get.”

“We didn’t fuck by accident. You didn’t come on my cock by mistake.”

Her eyes flash, but not with rage. Something else. Pain. The kind she’s trying to outrun and can’t.

“You think I don’t know that?” she snaps. “You think I don’t wake up and taste it on my tongue? I fucking know what we did.”

“So why are you running?”

“I’m not, ”

“Yes,” I cut in. “You are.”

The jungle around us sways with movement that doesn’t belong to the wind. Trees shifting again. The ones closest to us now grow in impossible spirals, their bark etched with symbols that weren’t there yesterday. Everything in this place watches. Everything adapts. I’m half-convinced this stretch of terrain has twisted itself to reflect her mood.

She yanks her arm from my grip and storms ahead, but I follow. I always follow.

“You want to talk about guilt?” I say, keeping close. “About how it crawls into your bones and builds a home? Fine. But don’t act like you weren’t mine before I ever touched you.”

That stops her.

Dead.

She turns, slow, eyes storm-dark.

“You think this is fate? That I’m just supposed to accept you like a new pair of shoes?”

“No. I think you already did. And now you’re terrified because it didn’t make you feel empty. Because it didn’t replace them. It didn’t erase them. It just made youwant more.”

Her chest is rising fast. Her hands curl at her sides like she doesn’t know whether to punch me or shove me against the nearest tree and climb me.

“You’re twisting it.”

“No. I’m seeing it. Because you won’t.”

She laughs, sharp and humorless.

“You’re so fucking sure of yourself. Desire in a bottle. Say my name and make me drop my panties. That it?”

“No,” I say again. Slower. Deeper. “You’re not that easy.”

Her eyes narrow.

“You’re so fucking full of yourself.”

I lean in, close enough to taste the heat of her breath.

“No,” I murmur. “I’m inevitable.”

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