Page 59 of The Sin Binders Ascent

I pull back just enough to meet his gaze. It’s sharp, assessing, but the edges soften the longer he looks at me. And I know he sees it,how fucking done I am.How every breath with that chain burning gold between me and the man behind me makes me want to scream.

“You okay?” he asks.

“No.” I glance over my shoulder. Theo’s on his feet again, brushing imaginary dust off his shirt, mouth twisted in a half-smile likehewasn’t just yanked off my bed and flung onto the floor like a broken toy. “Not even close.”

“You pulled pretty hard,” he comments, wincing like he wants me to feel bad for him. “Could’ve hit my head.”

“Next time,” I snap, “I’ll aim for it.”

Caspian makes a low sound in his throat. Almost a laugh. Almost a growl. One of his hands lifts to brush a piece of wet hair from my cheek, and the way he looks at me,there’s no competition there. No questions. Justus. And the uninvited interloper trying too hard to belong.

“You shouldn’t have to share your bed with someone who doesn’t know what to do with it,” Caspian says softly, but he knows Theo hears it.

The smile on Theo’s face flickers. Just for a breath.

I cling tighter to Caspian, and the cuff yanks again. This time I don’t care if it dislocates something.

Caspian leans a shoulder against the doorframe, his eyes flicking between the cuff at my wrist and Theo still rubbing his shoulder like he didn’t deserve every inch of impact. His voice is soft, but there’s nothing gentle in it. “You want me to stay?”

I hesitate. Only for a breath.

He sees it. Of course he does.

But I shake my head anyway. “No. I’ve got it.”

“Luna,”

“If he tries anything,” I cut in, meeting his gaze dead-on, “I’ll gut him with the nail file in my nightstand.”

That earns me a twitch of his lips,more a promise than a smile. “Which drawer?”

“Top.”

“Noted.” His fingers brush my cheek one last time before he turns, but not without glancing back at Theo. “Try to keep your blood inside your body, golden boy.”

The room swells with an almost cinematic kind of wrongness. Like the moment in a play where the villain steps into the light and asks you to dance.

Theo’s still smirking. Still lounging near the bed like he wasn’t just dragged off it by a pissed-off tether.

“Should we shut the door?” he asks, cocking his head. “Make it more… private?”

I don’t respond.

I walk over, grip the edge of the door, and slam it so hard the glass in the frame rattles.

And then I turn back to him, all sharp teeth and venom. “Try to get comfortable, Theo. You’ll be sleeping on the floor.”

Theo flinches, like the slam of the door physically wounded him, and then immediately doubles down on the performance. He rubs a hand up the center of his spine with a wince so exaggerated I almost expect him to groan like a dying Victorian widow.

“See, that?” he mutters, rotating one shoulder like it might suddenly detach. “That’s what happens when you get yanked off a bed and hit a hundred-year-old floorboards at just the wrong angle.”

I cross my arms and raise a brow. “You landed on a rug.”

“A verythinrug,” he amends, dragging his fingers to the small of his back with a dramatic hiss. “No lumbar support. No give. Probably cursed.”

He tilts his head back toward my bed,my bed,which he previously sprawled across like a smug goddamn peacock. “Your mattress, though… Gods. That thing cradled me like I was born to be in it.”

“No.” I say it before he can try again. “Not happening.”

---