Page 35 of The Sin Binders Ascent

Understanding.

“She loves all of us,” he says, and there’s no doubt in it. No hesitation. Just quiet certainty wrapped in something damn near holy. “Every single one of us, completely, uniquely. For reasons you and I don’t get to measure or rank. Lucien, for his command. Riven, for his fury. Ambrose, for the power he tries to keep caged. Silas, for the chaos. Elias, for his wit. You, Caspian, because you make herfeelalive.”

He doesn’t say his name. He never does. But we know why she loves him, too.

“She didn’t pick one of us,” he continues. “Sheclaimedall of us. And thirty years later, she still wakes up and chooses us every fucking day.”

That lands hard. Because he’s right. Again. And I hate how much I wish it were enough.

Orin looks at each of us in turn. “One more man won’t erase what’s been written into her bones.”

“She’s not a fucking bookshelf,” Ambrose snaps. “You don’t just stack another sin next to the old ones and pretend like nothing shifts.”

“Exactly,” Riven bites out, his arms folded, jaw sharp enough to cut. “It doesn’t matter if shelovesus. What happens when she startsneedinghim?” He looks to me, to Ambrose, to Lucien, standing stone-silent in the corner. “What happens when that pull cuts into what we already are?”

“I already feel it,” I admit, the words dry as ash in my mouth. “She’s distracted. Restless. And it’s not about some noble need to ‘help him.’ He’s in her head.”

Elias makes a choked sound that might be a laugh or a sob, leaning back against the workbench. “He’s like a goddamn virus.Flashy. Too pretty. Too wounded. A walking fucking cliché, and she’s got a thing for beautifully damaged disasters.”

“Sheseesherself in them,” Silas says softly. And when everyone turns to him, surprised at the weight in his voice, he just shrugs, upside-down again on the bench. “That’s why he scares me. He’s not just broken, he’s exactly the kind of broken she thinksneeds her.”

Orin shakes his head. Not in disagreement. In disappointment.

“Do you all hear yourselves?” he says, voice rising just enough to demand quiet. “You sound like we’re disposable. Like what we’ve built with her can be unraveled by one man whispering in her ear.”

“Thatman,” I spit. “Youremember what he did. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I remember every piece of it,” Orin says, stepping forward now, every movement deliberate, grounded. “But you know what I remember more? The day she walked into our world and didn’t flinch. When every one of us showed her the worst in us, and shestayed.”

His voice lowers, sharp as a knife dragged through silk. “And now we’re acting like she’s glass, like she’ll break if he gets too close. But we’re not afraid he’llhurther.”

He looks at me then. And it cuts deep.

“We’re afraid he’llmatter.”

The room goes quiet. Heavy. We’ve fought wars for her, killed gods for her, died and been brought back for her. But none of us ever had to watch her fall for someonenew. Not like this.

Not someone who threatens to unravel the shape of us. And none of us, not Lucien, not even Orin, know what happens if she does.

“She hasn’t loved us for thirty years,” Orin says, eyes locked on each of us, “to juststopbecause someone else enters the picture.”

The sentence hangs there, weighty and raw. He isn’t trying to soothe us. He’s telling the truth like it’s scripture.

“She didn’t fall into this,” he continues, voice edged with something sharper now, not anger, but reverence. “She built this life with all of us, from the fucking ashes. Do you think Luna loves easily? That what we have is delicate, flimsy enough to unravel just because someone unexpected walked back into the world?”

Riven paces like he can’t breathe in the same room as the words, and I get it. I do. Because Orin makes it sound so simple. Soclean.But nothing about Theo is clean. Nothing about desire issafe.

“She’s ours,” I mutter, hating the desperate taste of the word. “We’re hers.”

“She still is,” Orin says. “But you don’t get to love someone and dictate who they are drawn to. That’s notbond. That’sownership.And Luna doesn’t belong in a cage, she belongs at the center of everything we are.”

Ambrose’s jaw clenches. “So what, we sit back and watch while Theo makes her his next fixation?”

“No,” Orin says, stepping closer. “Wetrusther. We trust that thirty years meant something. That she can feel the difference between real and manufactured, between the life we’ve built and the hunger Theo breathes.”

His gaze lands on Lucien last. “And we stop acting like one man can rewrite the story we’ve written across her soul.”

Lucien doesn’t move, but the shift in his expression is tectonic. Like he’s fighting a war inside himself and losing ground with every syllable Orin throws down.

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