Page 98 of The Sin Binders Ascent

“You’d like that.”

“Not particularly.”

His leg brushes higher up my thigh. Not a move. Just gravity. Just a lack of space. But my breath stutters anyway. His lips are close now. Too close. He’s not touching me, not fully, notyet, but it wouldn’t take much. A nudge. A sigh. A decision.

The roots above us drip. Not fast, just in that slow, indifferent way that things do when they’ve forgotten time. Water beads along the edges and falls in fat drops onto the dirt beside my cheek, pooling into a shallow divot where something with too many legs must’ve burrowed earlier. Everything smells like damp stone, wet bark, and whatever Theo’s cologne used to be before it was replaced by sweat and blood and whatever this realm has clung to him with.

It should be miserable. Itismiserable. But his body heat has soaked into me, and for the first time in hours, I’m not shivering.

Theo shifts again, careful this time, moving his arm so it’s no longer digging into the soft part of my stomach. He exhales through his nose like he’s about to say something dramatic, but then he just sighs.

“Am I crushing you?”

I let the question hang for a second, not because I’m trying to be difficult, but because I have to check. My ribs ache. My thighs are numb. But his weight has settled into something solid and steady, like the only thing keeping the world from pressing in.

“No,” I say eventually. “You’re just… heavy.”

“Flattering.”

“I meant emotionally.”

He snorts. “Nowthat’saccurate.”

One of the beetles flickers near my ear. I swat at it half-heartedly, too tired to care if it bites. There is a shelf, maybe, if you’re the size of a bear. Bits of shredded bark and clumped moss cling to the underside, and there's a little pile of bones tucked in the corner. They’re not fresh. Mostly bleached. Small.

“Whatever lived here,” I murmur, nodding toward them, “didn’t finish its meal.”

“Maybe it’s saving us for later,” he offers.

“Maybe we’re not worth the effort.”

He lets out a low hum against my collarbone, warm and slow like he's been holding onto it. “Speak for yourself.”

His curls are matted from rain and sweat, his jaw smudged with dirt. One eye is starting to bruise where that squirrel-demon thing clipped him with its tail. He still looks irritatingly good. Like someone carved danger into something you’d still kiss in the dark.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, voice quieter now.

I blink up at the jagged slats of root overhead. “Honestly? A sandwich.”

That gets a small laugh out of him. His chest shakes against mine.

“I was thinking grilled cheese,” I add. “The kind with three types of cheese and the outside’s all buttery and toasted.”

He sighs, rolling his head to the side so his mouth brushes against my shoulder when he talks. “I still don’t believe that’s real food.”

“You’re seriously gonna die thinking brunch is a conspiracy theory?”

“I’m not saying it’s notdelicious.I’m saying no one wakes up and decides to eat pancakes and liquor at noon unless society is collapsing.”

I grin. “You have no idea how much society’s already collapsed.”

“I was locked in a mirror dimension for two hundred years. I think I qualify as informed.”

“Then you should understand the appeal of mimosas.”

Another drop of water splashes near my head. Theo shifts slightly to shield me from the next one, not that it helps much.

He tilts his head, watching me, like I’m something worth inspecting now that I’ve stopped trying to crawl out from under him. “You always get like this after we run?”

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