Page 55 of The Sin Binders Ascent

I hate him. Not because he’s wrong,but because,godsdammit, he might be right.

The cuffs weren’t a trap. They were a test. And we failed it the moment we stormed into his office ready to rip the entire fucking building down.

Luna finally lifts her eyes. Her jaw is clenched, spine straight. When she speaks, her voice is quiet,but honed to a blade.

“Then let’s go,” she says. “Because the longer we stay here, the more tempted I am to make that choice just tospiteyou.”

Theo smirks.

And Riven almost lunges again.

I raise a hand,not in command, but in restraint. The war’s not here anymore. It’s coming home with us.

I walk beside her because I have to. Not because I want to be near him. Not because I’m calm enough to keep my hand from wrapping around Theo’s throat. But becauseif I don’t, someone else will. And the next time someone touches her, it will end with blood.

Theo keeps pace behind us, the cuff between him and Luna catching light like itbelongsthere. It doesn’t. It’s a violation, a mockery of everything we’ve built. Of everything shechose.

I don’t care what Blackwell calls it,fate, consequence, design. It’s a leash. A tether meant to cut us out by degrees.

And Theo?

He’s eating it up. Smiling like he already knows how this ends. Like we’re just extensions of a problem he’s already solved. The arrogance isn’t new. That smirk has haunted every era we’ve crawled through. He was always too pretty for his good, always too smooth with his words and sharp with his lies. But this is different.

Now he has her attention. And Ihatehim for it. Not because I don’t trust Luna. But because I know what Theo is.

He’s not temptation. He’s corrosion. He doesn’t need to seduce her,he just has toexistlong enough to make her question what she already knows. Twist what she already feels. Doubt the men who’ve stood beside her for thirty years,fought for her, bled for her,diedfor her.

And he’s already gotten under her skin. I saw it in the way her eyes flicked to him when he stumbled after that fall, how her hands curled,not into fists, but restraint. As ifshehad to stop herself from softening.

Gods.

That’s what he does. He finds the fracture and makes itfeellike freedom.

But Luna isn’t a fracture. She’s not a crack waiting to be filled. She’s already whole,she’smine. Ours. And no golden cuff, no poetic speech about longing or loss, is going to rewrite thirty years of love just because Theo decided he wants to be relevant again.

He’s not a Sin anymore. He’s a fucking relic.

And if Blackwell wants to force her to walk around shackled to that relic,then he better prepare for what happens when wrath and lust and envy and sloth and gluttony and greed and pride are pushed too far.

We already rewrote the rules once.

And I’ll do it again. For her. Always for her.

Theo wasn’t always the arrogant bastard who stands in front of me now with that insufferable glint in his eye,the kind of look that says he’s not just three steps ahead, he’s already written the ending. Once, long before Luna, before the house, before our names whispered through history like a curse and a promise, he was one of us. The eighth. The missing sin no one speaks of anymore because we made sure of it.

Desire wasn’t a sin they could name back then. Not the way he embodied it. Lust, Greed, even Wrath,we understood those. They were clear, burning, definable. But Theo didn’t just make youwant, he made youhungerin a way that left you gasping for things you never admitted aloud. Things even we, with all our damnation and darkness, didn’t dare voice. He didn’t twistpeople into monsters. He handed them the blade and smiled while they carved their throats open.

And worse,he thought he was saving them. He made his ruin look like revelation.

When he first emerged from the dust like the rest of us, I’ll admit, I underestimated him. He was lean, quiet, almost elegant in the way he moved through the world. Dark hair constantly mussed like someone’s hands had just been buried in it, piercing blue eyes that never once stopped reading the room, the mind, the soul. He had a way of sitting still that made you feel like you were being studied. Not because he was curious,because he alreadyknew. And he was waiting to see how long it would take you to catch up to the realization that everything you craved would destroy you,and he’d let it happen.

People didn’t fall for Theo. They surrendered.

It wasn’t just mortals. It was us too. We didn’t talk about it later, but we all felt it in those first years. He made each of us question the very foundation of our purpose. Ambrose started second-guessing what he wanted from power. Caspian withdrew, obsessed with chasing feelings he couldn’t name. Riven grew quieter, angrier, like Theo had unlocked something in him he didn’t want to confront. And me? I tried to keep the pieces together while watching them slide apart in Theo’s wake.

There’s no Dominion that works on Desire. No command strong enough to root out something that already lives in your marrow.

So we gathered,Ambrose, Riven, Orin, the others,and we made a decision none of us wanted to name out loud. We didn’t fight him. Youdon’tfight Desire. You outnumber it. Smother it in stone and seal it in a place where even longing won’t reach.

---