Page 60 of The Sin Binders Ascent

He straightens from the half-slouch, expression sobering just enough to give me whiplash. “You’d make me sleep on the floor? With a bad back? That’s cruel, Luna. I thought you were compassionate. A healer. Softhearted.”

“I’m bonded to Wrath,” I remind him. “I’m fluent in cruelty.”

Theo exhales dramatically, hand pressed to his chest like I’ve just wounded him with poetry. “It’s not even the sleeping. It’s the alignment. My spine’s cursed enough as it is,”

“Then lie flat on your ego and try not to twist anything.”

He chuckles under his breath, that smirk turning lazy again. “You know, some women might be flattered to share a bed with Desire.”

I point to the floor. “I’m not some women. And you’re not Desire. You’re Theo, the jackass chained to my wrist.”

He grins wider. “You’re getting comfortable saying my name.”

“Say it again and I swear I’ll dislocate your shoulder on purpose.”

He presses his hand to his heart. “You wouldn’t.”

“Do you want to find out?”

I cross the room and rip the oldest, thinnest blanket I own from my closet. The fabric’s practically see-through in places, faded from years of washes, but it smells clean. Barely. I pair it with a pillow that’s more decorative than functional,flat, overstuffed with some down alternative that squeaks every time you shift.

When I toss it at him, it hits him square in the chest.

“There. Floor. Make it work.”

Theo catches the pillow with both hands like I’ve gifted him a crown, but the smug tilt of his mouth stays firmly in place. “You’re lucky I’m a man of adaptable tastes.”

I sit on the edge of the bed and don’t answer.

He unfolds the blanket like it’s a sacred relic, lays it down reverently,then immediately grimaces. “Gods, I can see the floor through this.”

“Maybe you’ll dream of falling into the abyss.”

“Too late. I’m already living the nightmare.”

He flops down anyway, with all the grace of a sulking child. The cuff tugs sharply at my wrist and I hiss, bracing my arm as he rolls to his side.

“Could younotmove like a dying walrus?”

“Could younotanchor my soul to yours with divine jewelry?”

I lie back in my bed with a sharp exhale through my nose, pressing the heel of my palm into my eyes. My bed, my room, my life,and now I’m shackled to a man who treats personal space like a flirtation and my sanity like a dare.

The chain between us doesn’t hum, doesn’t glow. Justis.Cold metal against skin. An accusation. A sentence.

He shifts again,violently. The cuff jerks my arm and I lurch an inch off the mattress with a strangled sound.

“Theo.”

“I’m trying to find the least painful vertebrae to sleep on!”

I grab the edge of the mattress, fingers digging into it like a lifeline, and consider the logistics of choking someone with a magical chain. The guys would frown on it. Blackwell would probably give me some sanctimonious speech. Theo would haunt me, just to be annoying.

Still. Tempting.

I stare at the ceiling like it might open up and swallow me. Honestly, I’d welcome it. One wide yawning mouth of cosmicmercy to devour me whole and spit me back out somewhere that doesn’t smell like smug man and faint floor mildew.

This is my life now?

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