Page 30 of The Sin Binders Ascent

Caspian steps through the arch like a fucking storm incarnate.

Sunlight floods behind him, catching in the dark cut of his hair, messy and windswept like he didn’t bother brushing it, like he’sneverbothered, and still looks better than sin. His chest rises and falls under a black shirt so tight it might as well be painted on, the sleeves rolled halfway to his elbows, veins cut into his arms like promise and punishment.

He crosses the space between us in a blink, shoves his shoulder hard against mine to get in front of me, and drives Theo back three steps with a palm shoved into his chest. Not a punch, Caspian doesn’tneedto punch to make it hurt. His touch lands with the kind of fury that crackles in the air long after contact. Like a warning that just turned personal.

Theo stumbles once, catching himself with a lazy smirk, like Caspian’s reaction was expected. Welcomed, even.

"Ah, Lust himself," Theo purrs, adjusting his shirt like he didn’t just get manhandled. "I was wondering when you'd make your entrance. Late, but dramatic."

Caspian doesn’t answer. His jaw clenches, sharp enough to cut glass, and his eyes, normally molten with flirtation and mischief, are pure steel now. Not cold. Not distant.Deadly. He turns just enough to look over his shoulder, eyes flicking down to me, reading every breath I take. Every tremor, Itryto hide.

"Did he touch you?" he asks. Quiet. Dangerous.

The words scrape against my spine like a blade being drawn.

“No,” I say. “He didn’t get the chance.”

Caspian nods once. That’s all he needs. But the air between them curdles. And for a moment, the garden doesn't feel like ours anymore.

It was once a place of rebirth, built after the bloodshed, after the academy fell and rose again from the ash of what came before. The east terrace had been Orin’s design, the trellis built from stone pulled straight from the collapsed crypts beneath the old world. Caspian laid the tile himself, each square kissed with warmth-imbued spells, so I could walk barefoot even in winter. Silas accidentally enchanted the hydrangeas so they bloomed in unnatural, shifting hues depending on the emotions nearby. Right now, they’re curling with deep bruised violets, rage and confusion twisting up the stems.

Theo takes a step back. Not out of fear, he doesn’tknowfear. But out of that same calculated boredom, he wears like armor.

“You’re all sopredictable,” he says, flicking invisible lint off his chest. “She breathes wrong, and you hurl yourselves like swords. No wonder Blackwell choseme.At least I don’t beg.”

Caspian doesn’t lunge, though I feel it vibrating through his spine,wantingto. No, he does something worse.

He smiles. And it's brutal.

"Touch her," he says, voice silked in venom, "and I’ll fuck the soul out of you so slow you’ll beg me to end it. You think you understand desire? Iamwhat your sinwantsto be."

Theo’s grin widens, dangerous and gleaming. He tilts his head like he’s admiring a particularly well-bred monster.

“Darling,” he says to me, not even blinking, “I’m starting to think your boys are more fun than I gave them credit for.”

I raise the mug to my lips, stare dead into Theo’s eyes as I drink my coffee.

Caspian’s still a wall between us, stone and lust and barely leashed violence.

And I can already tell, this is just the first crack.

The fault line has been waiting.

And it just moved. Caspian doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. His body is carved in front of mine like an altar to rage and lust, his arms at his sides, fingers curled in barely-there restraint, the kind that makes your bones itch just watching. He doesn’t have to posture; he is the threat. Every inch of him radiates sex and danger and devotion honed to a blade’s edge.

His voice slices through the garden.“Watch your fucking mouth when you talk to her.” No rise. No shout. Just low, lethal velvet that carries the weight of one truth: Caspian kills beautiful things, and Theo is not special. Theo’s mouth curves like a secret. Like the punchline is something only he finds funny, and it’s rotting from the inside out. He rolls his shoulders back, slow and easy, and lets out a laugh, rich, unbothered, infuriating.

“Oh, come on,” he says, grinning like this is a game, like we didn’t just put the threat of war in the space between us. “You’re telling me none of you ever mouth off to her? The woman lives with seven of you. You expect me to believe she doesn’t like a little bite with her devotion?”

I move before I think. The mug slams down on the iron table between us with a sharp, angry crack. Theo doesn’t flinch, but he watches me, still fucking smiling, that smug curve of arrogance sculpted into his face like it was tattooed there at birth.

“Say one more thing like that,” I say, stepping past Caspian now, because I don’t need his protection; I need to end this before I choose violence. “And I’ll personally drag your cocky, washed-up soul back to whatever stone Blackwell cracked it out of and bury it six fucking feet deeper.”

Theo raises his hands in mock surrender, but his eyes… gods, his eyes. They don’t retreat. They burn.

“I didn’t mean offense,” he says with exaggerated innocence. “I’m just trying to understand how this works. All this worship. All this righteous fury. You’ve got seven sins on their knees, Luna. Forgive me for being curious about how you keep them there.”

Caspian shifts beside me like he’s about to lunge again. I throw out an arm, not for him. For me. Because if he touches Theo, I’ll let it happen. If I touch Theo, I might not stop.

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