Page 140 of The Sin Binders Ascent

Something in her shatters. Not her strength. Not her fury. Just the pretense that she’s unaffected. Her lips part, and her hand shoots up like she’s going to slap me. But she doesn’t.

She curls her fingers into my shirt instead.

She pulls.

And fuck, I go.

Our mouths collide, messy and brutal, no finesse. Teeth and breath and fury, everything we can’t say poured into one kiss that tastes like punishment. Her nails dig into my shoulders, and I grip her waist, hauling her against me so hard I feel the pulse between her thighs press into mine.

When we finally break apart, panting, she glares up at me like I just kicked open a door she swore would stay locked forever.

“You still smell like me,” I say, voice ragged.

“Good.”

It’s not forgiveness. Not even close. But it’s something. A crack in the ice she’s built between us since dawn.

I want to ask her if the Seven were here, would she tell them? They’d smell me on her too. They’d know. And it’s not fear of them that’s stopping her. It’s fear of herself.

She already knows I belong to her. And she hasn’t decided if that’s a blessing or a curse.

I don’t ask. Not yet. Instead, I step back just enough to give her room to breathe. Her lips are swollen, eyes wild. She looks like something that should be worshipped or hunted.

“I’ll find us shelter,” I say. “You keep walking. Don’t trip into anything that wants to gut you.”

The jungle parts ahead, trees bending in unnatural angles, roots sliding out of the way like something underneath has shifted course. I can feel the pull of it in my chest, faint but deliberate. The landscape is changing again. It always does after she and I get too close.

It rises in the distance like a hallucination conjured by thirst and exhaustion.

We’re cresting the ridge, nothing around us but curling black ferns and the kind of trees that grow in spirals, the bark etched with symbols that bleed when you touch them. The sky is violet again, smeared like oil across glass, and then I see it. Past the valley. Past the skeletal forest. Looming on a jagged hill of bone-colored stone, shrouded in ash mist.

A castle.

Massive. Towering.

It doesn’t look built. It looks grown. Like something ancient birthed it from the ground and then left it to rot under the weight of its own presence. The walls are dark as obsidian, veined with glowing red like lava frozen mid-spill. Sharp angles. No windows. Spires like teeth.

My chest tightens.

Luna’s still ahead of me, kicking through moss and thorn like she’s trying to outrun the morning. But I catch up and touch her shoulder before I even realize I’ve moved.

“Wait.”

She turns, brows furrowed. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. Her gaze is already pulling toward it.

She sees it too.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” I ask, even though we both know the answer.

She stares at the structure like it’s something she’s seen in a dream and just now recognized. “We’ve walked this whole godsdamned forest for weeks. It wasn’t there before.”

“No. But it is now.”

Her mouth presses into a line. “It has to be Brashir’s.”

My skin crawls just hearing his name spoken like that. Personal. Real. He’s been shadow up till now, threat more than presence. This is different.

“Why show us this now?” I say. “What’s different about today?”

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