Luna
The ale is good—sharp, spiced, ancient in a way that feels like it’s been steeped in blood and secrets—but it’s not what makes my head float off my shoulders.
It’s Elias.
His hand left mine a few minutes ago.
I noticed the absence immediately—my skin cold where he’d been pressed against me.
I thought maybe he’d gotten bored, or distracted, or lazy.
All the things he pretends to be.
But then I feel it.
The weight of his palm on my thigh.
Warm, deliberate.
Not moving, just resting there like it belongs.
And maybe it does.
Maybe he always has.
It’s the slow glide of his thumb now, the way it circles just above the inside of my knee, the subtle pressure that makes my bones ache.
He’s doing something else, something wrong.
My heartbeat isn’t syncing with the rhythm of the room anymore.
It’s…off.
Stretching.
Like the moment is elongating, pulling taut around where his hand is.
A cocoon of warped time, woven just for us.
No one notices.
Not even Silas, who’s currently attempting to sing a very tragic rendition of a sea shanty about goat milk and love lost in the cliffs of Draymourn.
Elias doesn’t look at me.
Doesn’t smile or wink or act out like he usually does when he wants attention.
He keeps his expression dry, disinterested.
But I can feel his focus, the razor-sharp edges of it carving me open beneath the table.
My mouth goes dry.
I take a sip of ale and nearly choke because I can’t drink and breathe and pretend at the same time.
Not with him touching me like that.
Not when he’s using magic—his sloth, his gift, his damnation—to bend the seconds like thread, stretch this single graze into a lifetime of slow-burning torment.
He’s playing with me.
And I love it.
A new verse from Silas rises like a banshee call. "Oh the wench was wild, with hips so wide, she stole me coin and my soul inside—"
Elias leans slightly, his lips ghosting near my ear. He doesn’t speak out loud, but the bond hums like a wire struck deep.
"Keep drinking, little sin. The more relaxed you are, the easier it’ll be to get you upstairs without anyone noticing."
I glare at him. He grins. Barely. Just enough that I want to throw my tankard at his stupid face and kiss him at the same time.
"You’re going to break me," I shoot back through the bond, clenching my thighs around his wrist.
His chuckle brushes across my skin like silk dipped in sin.
"You’re already broken. You just haven’t let me put you back together yet."
I swear, the whole tavern could be burning down around us and I wouldn’t notice. I shift, and his fingers slide higher. Not enough. Just enough. My pulse stutters.
Across the table, Silas raises his mug like a toast.
“To the best ale in the realm and the worst audience I’ve ever sung for!”
Elias clinks his mug to mine, all fake solemnity. Then, to me alone: "One more drink, and I’ll make good on every filthy thing I’ve promised you."
I like him like this.
There’s a stillness to Elias that rarely surfaces—like the tides stilled just before the storm breaks. He’s not teasing. Not hiding behind sarcasm or bad jokes or the kind of smirk he wears like armor. He’s here, fully. Assertive. Focused. And gods help me, I want him more like this than anything else. It's rare. Beautiful. A glimpse of the man behind the mask he doesn’t even admit to wearing.
Silas leans across the table, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Round two? Or are we cutting you off, lovebirds?”
Elias doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t look at him.
“Yeah, bring more. Stronger if they’ve got it.”
That throws Silas for a loop. He blinks, eyes narrowing in that calculating way of his, but Elias plays it cool—lazily tilting his tankard back like he hasn’t just dismissed Silas with the casual precision of a blade to the ribs. Silas snorts, mutters something about lightweights, and gets up.
Now it’s just us.
The bond between us pulses like a second heartbeat, tugging me closer to him even as he stays exactly where he is. His fingers are back on my thigh, heavier now. He’s warm, solid, confident—and then—
Then he opens his mouth.
“I mean, if you wanted to take me upstairs, I wouldn’t stop you,”
he says, voice low, but too loud to be anything but intentional.
“Or hell, we could just do it right here under the table. I'm flexible.”
My jaw drops.
“What?”
I ask, blinking at him. Because there’s no way I heard that right.
Elias flashes a grin.
“C’mon, you’ve been undressing me with your eyes all night. I’m just trying to make your dreams come true, . Generous, aren’t I?”
Oh no.
“Oh no,”
I repeat, setting my tankard down before I throw it at his pretty, idiotic head.
“You were doing so well.”
“What?”
He leans back in the chair, arms crossed like he’s proud of himself.
“I thought you liked it when I said stupid shit. You keep letting me sleep in your bed, so I figured I’d upgrade the performance.”
“Upgrade?”
I echo, incredulous.
“To deluxe,”
he confirms, waggling his eyebrows.
“With optional tongue work and a very flexible spine.”
I groan, slumping against the table.
“You’re actually worse when you try to be smooth.”
“That’s unfair. I am exceptionally smooth.”
He points at me with exaggerated flair.
“You’re just flustered.”
“Elias.”
“Admit it. You're turned on.”
“You’re lucky I don’t set you on fire.”
“I mean, if that’s your thing—”
I slam my hand over his mouth.
“Stop talking.”
His eyes gleam over my fingers. Smug. Satisfied. Bastard.
He kisses my palm.
I yank my hand back like he’s bitten me—and maybe he has, in his own way. I’m hot, dizzy, completely off-kilter, and he’s sitting there like a smug disaster wrapped in sin and soft silver hair.
And I do want him. Gods, I want him more than I can say. But I also want to strangle him.
He shrugs.
“Guess that’s a no to under the table.”
"You were this close to being sexy," I say, holding my fingers apart by an inch, squinting through the ale-laced fog of disappointment. I sigh—loudly, dramatically—because if Elias is going to ruin a moment, I’m going to at least make him suffer through my critique.
“And then you opened your pretty little mouth.”
Elias raises a brow like he’s proud of that failure. Smirking like he didn’t just shatter the sharp, heated rhythm we had going with that ridiculous offer. His silver hair catches the firelight, casting shadows over those sharp cheekbones, those god-tier lashes, and the mouth that should be outlawed. And he knows it.
He leans forward, propping his chin in his hand, all sleepy menace and shameless delight.
“You say ‘pretty’ like it’s a curse.”
“It is,”
I mutter, snatching his tankard and taking a swig because I’m going to need it.
“You’re like a weaponized himbo. You sneak up on me with actual charm, make me think you might behave like an adult, and then—bam—full regression.”
He pretends to look wounded.
“Wow. Weaponized himbo? That’s a slur in some realms.”
“You’re not even trying to deny it.”
“Why would I? You’re into it. Admit it.”
I tilt my head.
“I was into it. Past tense. That ship has sunk. Heroically. In flames.”
Elias grins, wide and crooked, like he lives for being dragged and is already plotting his next disaster. His fingers graze mine like he hasn’t been completely eviscerated just now. He doesn’t even look at me when he links our hands again, doesn’t acknowledge it, just keeps that grin trained ahead like it’s nothing.
But it is something.
It always is, with him.
We fall into a quiet lull, the kind that simmers rather than stills. Around us, the tavern pulses—boots on floorboards, tankards slamming, someone yelling in a dialect I barely recognize. The Fangs Tooth feels like it’s been ripped out of time. The clothes, the manners, the way the women at the bar laugh like they’re about to eat someone alive. A place that exists outside of consequence, where Sins are remembered by name and feared just enough to be served first.
But it’s Elias who pulls me back in, always him. He shifts closer, leans so his mouth brushes my ear when he speaks, his voice low and lazy.
“You sure you’re not taking me upstairs tonight?”
I glance at him sidelong, lips twitching.
“You’re about to take yourself outside if you don’t shut up.”
His smile turns feral.
“Promises, promises.”
In all honesty, I do want to go upstairs with him.
The problem isn’t desire—it never has been. It’s the way Silas keeps glancing between us like he’s already halfway through drafting a song about it. It’s Riven’s gaze burning from across the room, unreadable but knowing. And Orin, quiet but ever-watching, would never say a word—but I’d feel it. The shift in the air. The change in proximity. The echo of absence where I used to be.
And Lucien… gods, Lucien would look at me like I’ve confirmed his worst fear. That I’m choosing favorites. That I’ll unravel the whole fucking structure of us for a few stolen hours in Elias’s bed.
I’m not that girl. I can’t be. But I want to be—for tonight. For him.
Elias is all lazy limbs and a wicked grin, his hand casually abandoned on my thigh like it belongs there. Which, unfortunately, it does. He hasn’t looked at me in a few minutes, like he’s giving me space to think, but I feel him tense just enough to notice when I shift.
He knows I’m spiraling.
“You thinking about how to ditch the rest of our cult so we can sin properly?”
he murmurs under his breath, voice so low I feel it rather than hear it.
My gaze flicks to him. His lashes are too pretty, his smile too smug. I roll my eyes, but he knows me better than I want to admit.
“I don’t want to make this worse,”
I whisper, and I hate how small that truth feels on my tongue.
Elias’s expression doesn’t change, but I feel his grip on my thigh tighten slightly—just enough to make my pulse stutter. He doesn’t mock me. Doesn’t give me a joke to fill the silence. He just leans in, lips nearly brushing my ear, and says.
“Then let me fix it.”
“What do you mean?”
He straightens and stretches—full, lazy, absolutely exaggerated like a cat in a sunbeam—then turns toward the bar with an almost-too-loud groan.
“Gods, I’m drunk. I think I’m gonna puke. Someone’s gonna have to hold my hair back.”
Silas cackles from across the room, mid-chorus of whatever song he’s massacring.
“Please don’t die in the toilet again! It was traumatizing.”
“One time,”
Elias mutters dramatically, pushing away from the table, swaying slightly on purpose. He lingers a beat longer—just long enough to catch my eye.
The bond pulses once between us. A private pull. Come with me.
And then he’s gone, staggering through the crowd toward the back corridor like a man on a mission to disgrace himself publicly.
Silas leans in.
“You should check on him,”
he says, trying to sound helpful and failing miserably at hiding the grin playing on his lips.
“I really shouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t want him to choke on his own shame.”
I glance around. Lucien is deep in conversation with Orin, who’s studying a piece of parchment with furrowed brows. Riven hasn’t moved, his eyes half-lidded in that I-see-everything silence he wears like armor.
I sigh, push back my chair, and murmur.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t ruin the plumbing.”
Silas salutes me with his ale.
“You’re a hero.”
But as I follow Elias through the crowd, slipping into the darkened hall behind the bar, I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like a girl chasing heat. Like I’m ready to lose myself—for a night, maybe longer—to the man who’s waiting for me at the top of the stairs.
And if anyone asks?
He really did look like he was going to puke.
I don’t see him in the hallway, but the bond between us is magnetic, a pull that coils down my spine and tightens behind my ribs with every step. The tavern’s noise fades behind me, swallowed by the creaking hush of wood and torchlight. One door. Closed. Waiting. I don’t knock.
It swings open like it’s been listening for me.
Then Elias is there—no smirk, no slow approach. Just movement, swift and sharp. He grabs my wrist, yanks me inside, and before I can blink, I’m pressed against the door, his body crowding mine, hands braced above my head. His mouth is a whisper from mine. And all I can think is—oh.
“You moved,”
I breathe, caught somewhere between shock and laughter. “Fast.”
“You say that like I’m not in my prime,”
he mutters, but his voice is husky, rougher than usual. He’s not joking. Not now.
This version of Elias—the one who moves with purpose instead of sarcasm—is a rare, deadly thing.
His breath brushes my lips.
“So, are you going to say something smart, or just keep staring at my mouth like you want to sit on it?”
It short-circuits my brain. I panic. I flounder.
“I was going to,”
I murmur.
“but then you shoved me against a door like a fantasy, and now my brain is just… tits and dragons.”
His eyes blink.
“Tits and—what?”
“Shut up. I panicked.”
“No, no, dragons?”
He laughs, real and wrecked, dropping his forehead to my shoulder with a groan.
“I finally go full seduction and that’s your internal monologue?”
“You’re the one who started it with your face,”
I mutter, biting back a grin.
His knee nudges between mine, parting them just slightly, not enough to break me open but enough to make me feel like I already have. My heart's thudding against my ribs, and he hasn’t even touched me yet—not really.
I tilt my chin up.
“You’re drunk.”
“Drunk on you,”
he whispers, and even he cringes.
“Shit. Shit. I didn’t mean that—”
Too late. It’s already out there. Floating between us like the worst line in the worst tavern song ever written.
“Are you quoting yourself?”
I blink up at him, trying not to laugh.
“Because that sounds suspiciously like something Silas would say while doing finger guns.”
“Don’t insult me. I’d never do finger guns.”
“You just fingered my dignity into oblivion.”
He lets out a broken, embarrassed laugh and drops his forehead to my shoulder.
“This is why I don’t do sexy. My brain short-circuits. My cock takes over. He’s got no social skills, . He doesn’t know how to talk to women.”
I curl my fingers into the hem of his shirt, tugging him closer.
“You were doing so good too. All that broody intensity back there—very hot. Ten out of ten. And then—”
“—I said drunk on you.”
His groan is muffled against my neck. “End me.”
“I might.”
My hand slides up his chest, nails grazing over his heart.
“But you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
He lifts his head, and the look in his eyes is feral and soft all at once—like he would let me destroy him, and thank me for the wreckage.
“I love you,”
he says, too low for anyone but me to hear, even in the silence of this room.
“Even when I’m a walking cringe compilation.”
I don’t need poetry. I don’t need perfect. I just need this—him, here, real, trembling slightly from everything he feels and can’t hide anymore.
“I know,”
I whisper, leaning in to kiss the corner of his smirk.
“And I love you too, you idiot.”
His breath catches.
“Does that mean I’m getting lucky?”
And instead of saying something sexy or smart or even vaguely alluring, I blurt—
“If you keep pressing me against things, I might develop a door kink.”
His silver eyes catch mine and something in them snaps.
“Gods, you’re going to ruin me,”
he murmurs, and his mouth dips to the edge of my throat like it belongs there.
And because I’m drunk, and flustered, and an absolute disaster when this much heat coils low in my belly—I say.
“If you want me to ruin you, you better tell me where you keep the warranty.”
His body jerks once—an aborted laugh? A groan? I have no idea—but he drops his head to my shoulder like I’ve just committed a war crime.
“I was this close to being hot,”
he mutters into my skin.
“Like—legitimately hot. Door slam, wall pin, forbidden tryst levels of hot.”
“I felt it,”
I whisper dramatically.
“I was tingling.”
“You were tingling,”
he echoes with mock betrayal, lifting his head and narrowing his eyes.
“And that’s what you chose to say?”
I try for a serious nod but the giggle escapes before I can stop it.
“There’s more where that came from. My entire sexual repertoire is puns and regret.”
He groans, head tilting back like he’s praying for strength from gods who long since abandoned him. Then he drops his gaze, slow and deliberate, back to mine—and the shift is real.
“Don’t tempt me, Binder.”
His voice dips dark and husky as he leans in again.
“Because I will fail you. Over and over. All night long.”
I open my mouth to respond, but he kisses me first.
And it’s not gentle. It's not cautious. It's Elias. Thorough. Hot. Tongue and teeth and hunger. One hand comes down from the door to cup my jaw, the other tangles in my hair, tilting me back to take more. I moan into his mouth, and that sound—that sound—makes him growl like he’s ready to throw me on the bed without another word.
Wait…There’s no bed.
There’s no anything except a single chair that looks more cursed than antique and a floor I wouldn’t let my worst enemy nap on. It’s sticky. There’s a smear of something unidentifiable next to a bootprint. My toes curl in my boots, and not in a good way.
“Oh gods,”
I whisper. “Elias.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s no bed.”
His fingers tighten on my waist.
“Don’t need one.”
I blink at him.
“What, you planning to fold me over the chair and pray it doesn’t collapse?”
“I mean... you say that like it’s not already Plan A.”
His grin is wolfish, but my eyes are locked on that grimy plank floor like it’s a death sentence.
“I am not laying down in that.”
I point down like the floor has personally offended me.
“I’ll get some kind of supernatural disease. Sticky floor disease.”
He laughs, low and rasped.
“Sticky floor disease. Real tragic. Did Silas give you that one?”
“I’m serious.”
I shove at his chest.
“My clothes will stick. My skin will absorb whatever’s down there.”
“Then I guess that leaves…”
He shifts, brackets my thighs with his hands, and starts lifting.
I flail immediately.
“No. No no no. Don’t you dare try to pick me up for—door sex.”
He pauses, lips twitching.
“You say that like it’s not the dream.”
“My back will hit that knob, you’ll drop me halfway through, and I’ll die of embarrassment. Naked. Cracked spine. Found by Orin.”
Elias loses it. Full snort-laugh.
“Okay, that—that’s the visual I needed.”
“I’m being serious, Elias.”
“So am I.”
He hikes me up anyway, and I wrap my legs around his waist on instinct—because the alternative is eating floor—and I hate how good this feels. His hands slide down to cup my ass, and it’s criminal, the way his grin sharpens like I’m a prize he’s already claimed.
“See?”
he murmurs.
“Perfect height.”
“Strength of a god, grace of a rhino,”
I mutter, but I’m breathless now, clinging to his shoulders, already drowning in the heat between us.
“No backs cracking tonight,”
he promises, dragging his lips along my jaw.
“Unless you ask nicely.”
“Oh my gods, Elias—”
He laughs again, and then he kisses me like he’s trying to make up for every terrible joke he’s ever made.
And somehow, I let him.