Luna
They’re trying to distract me.
Silas is on his third joke about how he once seduced a basilisk in the Vale of Teeth—which, frankly, I hope is a lie—and Elias is leaned dramatically across the table, doing an impression of Orin brooding. It's bad. So bad it’s somehow brilliant.
And I’m laughing. I hate that I’m laughing.
Because they’re not just teasing. They’re trying to anchor me. Trying to keep my mind off Lucien storming off like a storm bottled in a man’s body. Trying to keep me present, so I don’t spiral into trying to solve a future none of us are ready for.
I give them an A for effort.
A for absolutely-fucking-hopeless.
Silas nudges my knee with his.
“If you’re not going to drink that,”
he says, pointing to the tankard in front of me with a tilt of his head.
“I will. Waste is a crime. A mortal sin, if you will.”
“You’re a mortal sin,” I mutter.
He beams.
“Flattery. Keep it coming, Binder.”
But it isn’t until Elias rises to his feet and stretches—like a cat that knows it’s being watched—that the heat behind my ribs stirs into something sharper.
“Wine?”
he offers lazily, eyes meeting mine for a beat too long. His voice lowers just enough that I feel it, not hear it. The good kind. The kind that stains your tongue purple and your thighs pink.
He smirks, and ambles off into the crush of festival-goers with his usual brand of too-slow saunter that somehow still makes people get out of his way.
And I try to go back to the chaos Silas is spinning about soulbound carrots or whatever nonsense he’s now pretending is sacred Hollow lore.
But then I see her.
At first, it’s just a flicker of color—silver and silk and the kind of confidence that doesn’t need to be earned. She leans in close to Elias at the vendor’s stall, one hand brushing his arm. Her smile is rehearsed, her gaze direct, and I can see the way her hips angle toward him.
It shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t.
But the blood in my veins coils. Tightens.
Elias, for his part, is playing it cool. He tilts his head, says something I can’t hear. But he doesn’t step back. Doesn’t shrug her off.
And I feel it.
A shift in the bond.
Nothing loud. Nothing overt. Just... a hesitation. The kind that makes a whisper sound like a scream.
Silas must feel it too, because he goes quiet mid-sentence. I glance at him, and for once, his smile is gone.
“She’s going to regret that,”
he says softly, and for a moment, he doesn’t sound like the clown. He sounds like the chaos underneath.
“I’m not—”
I start, but the lie won’t finish.
I am jealous. I am furious. And I shouldn’t be. I know Elias loves me. I know what we are. What we’ve done. What we mean. But that doesn’t quiet the part of me that wants to walk across that square and see if my magic can singe silk and skin.
Silas leans in, voice low.
“You want me to go distract him?”
I don’t answer.
Because Elias is turning now. Back toward us. But the woman leans forward, fingers grazing his wrist—and I see it. That smile on his lips. That smile he gives me.
I stand.
Silas doesn’t stop me. He just sighs, finishes my drink in one swallow, and mutters.
“Gods help her.”
I move through the crowd like it’s parting for me. Because it is. I don’t use magic. I don’t have to. The bond is alive under my skin, and it wants. It wants Elias’s attention. It wants that woman gone. It wants to make a point.
And when I reach them—when Elias sees me, really sees me—he freezes.
She doesn’t.
She turns, all pleasant surprise and honeyed voice.
“Oh, is this your—?”
“She’s mine,”
Elias says, quick, sharp, not bothering to smile.
“, this is... I didn’t get her name.”
The woman flushes, clearly realizing the mistake, but I don’t look at her. I look at Elias.
And I push.
Not with words.
Not with touch.
With the bond.
Say something stupid, I whisper through it. Say something only I would understand.
His mouth quirks, almost instantly.
“Well,”
he says slowly.
“you missed your chance. This festival’s about to get a whole lot more naked.”
I roll my eyes. But the fury cools. Just a little.
Yet the woman—gods bless her stupid, irredeemably clueless soul—doesn’t back off.
She smiles again. Wide. Toothy. Either oblivious or suicidal.
“I was just telling Elias he should come dance. There’s a troupe setting up by the—”
“He won’t,”
I cut in, voice soft as velvet dragged across a blade. My gaze doesn't leave her.
“He has two left feet. And no rhythm.”
Elias coughs behind me. “Rude.”
“You grind your teeth when you walk,” I mutter.
He shrugs.
“Still better than Silas.”
“Everyone is better than Silas.”
The woman laughs like she thinks she’s been invited into the conversation. I turn my head slowly—calm, calculated—and look her over.
She’s pretty. Delicate wrists. Long throat. Expensive perfume that doesn’t quite hide the nervousness rolling off her in waves. She’s someone used to being the center of gravity in a room full of lesser stars.
Unfortunately for her, I’m the fucking galaxy.
“I’m sure there are plenty of other dancers looking for company,”
I say, stepping slightly between them. Not touching her. But close enough she flinches.
“Try the fire-breathers. I hear they’re into danger.”
She stiffens. Finally gets it. She gives Elias one last hopeful smile—he doesn’t return it—and turns, heels clicking as she disappears into the crowd.
The moment she’s gone, I round on him.
“You were enjoying that.”
Elias raises his hands, wine sloshing slightly in one goblet.
“I didn’t even get her name.”
“You smiled.”
He steps closer, pressing the wine into my hand like a peace offering, but I don’t take it. He leans down instead, mouth near my ear, voice dipped in that lazy drawl that always sounds like he’s half-asleep or half-hard.
“You jealous, darling?”
“Wouldn’t you like that.”
He chuckles, and it’s low. Rough.
“Yeah. Actually. I would.”
My breath stutters, just for a second. Then I take the wine. Sip once. Slowly. Let him watch my mouth the whole time.
“I’m not the jealous type,”
I say, licking a drop from my lower lip.
“I’m the possessive one.”
“Hot,”
he says immediately.
“Deeply toxic, but hot.”
Behind us, Silas howls from the tavern steps.
“Are we doing a murder or just threatening one?”
“Always threatening,”
Elias mutters. Then to me, quieter.
“Unless you want it to be more.”
The bond between us is warm, sharp, coiling. He can feel it. The possessiveness. The stake I’ve driven into him that no one else can see—but he bleeds from it just the same.
I turn, leading him back toward the others.
And Elias, obedient for once, follows.
It’s low, quiet, not mocking—but it stokes something in me anyway. Not because of him. Not entirely.
Because he smiled.
He smiled back at her.
And I didn’t realize it then—too caught up in how her voice grated, how her perfume clung to him even after she left—but now it hits me full force. Like a backdraft. Like heat that’s been building behind my ribs for too long.
He smiled.
And the earth responds. The cobblestones beneath my boots hum with something primal, something I didn’t call but that answers me anyway. A beat, like a second heartbeat. Like footsteps shadowing my own.
I stop walking.
Silas notices first.
“Hey, you good?”
he asks, grinning like he’s about to say something wildly inappropriate. But his grin falters when the ground beneath him gives a shiver. “Uh…?”
The ground pulses again, like it’s alive. Like it’s breathing through me.
I glance down—and the veins of blackened rock stretching beneath the cobblestone flicker faintly red. A glow barely visible, but growing.
Elias looks at me then. Really looks. His smirk dies. “Shit,”
he says under his breath.
“You’re bleeding Wrath.”
“I’m not doing anything,”
I snap, except I am. I’m burning. And it’s not the girl. Not anymore. It’s the fury that I can’t control this. That I have this. That the world keeps handing me weapons and expects me to use them without ever telling me how.
Wrath curls in my palms like claws unsheathed. I clench my fists and try to breathe around it.
“Where’s Riven?”
I demand. My voice comes out lower. Rougher. Not my own.
Silas glances behind me. “He was—”
“I’m here.”
Riven’s voice cuts through everything. Deep. Grounding. A growl and a promise.
He steps forward, jaw tight, eyes already burning red around the edges.
“You’re pulling from me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s the problem,”
he says, coming to stand in front of me. He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t have to. His presence alone is a strike of flint against fire.
“It’s instinct. And instinct is chaos unless you learn to command it.”
“I don’t have time to learn.”
“Make time.”
His voice is ice and embers.
“Because this isn’t just you now. It’s all of us. You bleed Wrath, you bleed me. You bleed Sloth, you bleed Elias. You lose control, and we burn with you.”
The words hit. Too true. Too raw.
I close my eyes. Try to slow the pulse. To call the fury back from where it’s reaching into the ground like roots. It takes more than I want to admit. But eventually, the pulsing quiets. The earth stills.
I exhale. Shaking.
And when I open my eyes again, Riven is still watching me. Elias is still beside me. And Silas—bless his idiot heart—is making a “phew”
motion like we all didn’t almost get swallowed whole by my tantrum.
But none of them move. Even after everything. Even when I could’ve leveled this village with a heartbeat I didn’t mean to have.
I crack my neck, a Riven move if there ever was one. He does it when he's holding too much fury in his shoulders and doesn't want to speak. I do it now because speaking would betray too much.
The ground might’ve stilled beneath my feet, but that anger—it hasn't gone anywhere. It's shifted. Turned inward. The kind of storm that doesn't shatter buildings but eats through steel from the inside. Silent corrosion.
Because the truth is, I’m not just angry about the girl.
I’m angry at myself.
For caring that he smiled.
For needing more than what we are.
I can’t stop thinking about the way Elias looked at her—light in his silver eyes, warmth in his grin. Not fake. Not forced. He didn’t look at her the way he looks at me. That, somehow, makes it worse.
Because I don’t know what this thing between us is. Not really.
We’re bonded. We sleep together. He says he loves me in the way Elias says everything—slightly unhinged, always half a joke—but I never know if he means it when he says it with that ridiculous grin on his face.
And the truth I don’t want to admit, the one Wrath keeps forcing into the light, is this:
I’m scared I’m not enough for him.
Not because I don’t burn for him. I do. God, I do. But because I’m shared. Fractioned. I give myself to all of them, and no matter how deep the bond runs, how sacred it feels in the dark, when it’s just us… the second daylight hits, I belong to more than one.
And maybe that’s fine. Maybe that’s who I am now. The Sin Binder. The center they orbit.
But I don’t know if he can handle that. Not really.
He’s had others. I've never asked how many. I've never wanted to know. But I can feel them sometimes—shadows in the way he touches me, ghosts behind the things he doesn’t say. I pretend I don’t notice. Pretend I don’t wonder if, when he closes his eyes, he’s thinking of someone else's laugh. Someone else's skin.
And if I asked?
If I looked him in the eye and demanded an answer—am I enough? Is what we have real, or just convenient?
Would he give me the truth?
Or worse… would he lie to spare me?
I dig my nails into my palms, hard enough to feel something sharp under the skin. I want the pain. I want the clarity. I want to stop thinking and just be—but every part of me is spiraling because this isn’t just about Elias.
It’s about all of them.
Riven. Silas. Elias. Even Lucien and Orin in their own impossible ways. I don’t just want them—I need them, and I’m terrified of what that makes me. Terrified that the second they realize how much of me is already theirs, they’ll decide it’s not enough. That I’m not enough.
Because how could I be, when I belong to too many and not fully to anyone?
Then Elias turns to me.
"Mind if I steal you?" he asks, already motioning for me to follow.
Silas gives me a look, the kind that says are you okay and you better tell me everything later all at once. Riven doesn’t look at me at all, but the way he steps back, the way his shoulders tense like he’s biting something back.
They drift into the crowd, and the weight of their absence hits me instantly. The noise of the festival—laughter, music, the warm smell of honey and spice—fades as Elias pulls me toward the edge of the square. To a shadowed nook between stalls, draped in half-torn banners and rustling silks.
He stops. Doesn’t touch me. Just stares. There's no joke. No smirk. No ridiculous pun about my hair or some crude innuendo he thinks I haven’t heard before. And that’s almost worse.
“I saw your face,”
he says finally. Quiet. Measured. Like he’s testing the ground between us, waiting for it to crack.
I swallow.
“Which one? I have a few.”
“Don’t,”
he says. A warning. Not sharp—but enough.
“I know that look. I’ve worn it.”
I cross my arms, but it’s flimsy defense.
“Then you should know better than to corner me about it.”
“I should,”
he agrees, then leans against the wall, staring up like the sky might save him.
“But here’s the thing, baby—I’m not good at watching you hurt. Even worse at pretending I don’t know why.”
His voice has dropped. There’s no slouch in his posture now, no lazy charm or theatrical laziness. This is Elias stripped of artifice—and it’s disarming. It’s real. It’s almost too much.
“I saw the girl,”
I murmur, the confession like gravel in my throat.
“And I saw you smile.”
He sighs. Long. Slow. “.”
“I know it was nothing,”
I rush, hating myself for sounding like this.
“But you smiled, Elias. You smiled at her and for a moment—just one—I wasn’t sure if I was any different.”
His head snaps down to meet my eyes. That molten silver is scorching now, stripped of mischief.
“You think you’re like her?”
I shrug, feeling stupid and small.
“I think I’m not your only choice.”
There’s a pause. Then he moves, fast and deliberate. One step. Two. He’s in front of me, but he doesn’t touch me. He cages me in with presence alone.
“,”
he says my name like it ruins him.
“You are not my choice. You are the consequence of every fucked-up decision I’ve made in my life finally doing something right.”
My heart lurches.
“I’m not good at this,”
he continues.
“I joke, I flirt, I say the wrong thing nine times out of ten. Hell, I’m probably doing it now. But I never once—not once—have looked at anyone and wished they were you.”
“Then why does it still feel like I’m fighting for your attention?”
I whisper.
He exhales, this time sharp, almost angry.
“Because I’m a fucking coward. Because I love you and that scares me more than anything.”
My breath catches.
“But if you’re asking if you’re enough?”
he leans in, voice breaking into something raw, something jagged.
“You’re too much. You’re all of it. I don’t look at you and wonder what else is out there. I look at you and wonder how I got this lucky before the world rips it away from me.”
I’m trembling. I don’t know when that started.
And finally, finally, he touches me. Just one hand. Brushing against my cheek. Tender. Steady. Real.
“I’m yours,”
he says.
“Fully. Even when I’m being a dumbass.”
I don’t trust myself to speak. I just step into him, bury my face in his chest, and let him hold me. Not possessively. Not with fire. Just—hold.
Maybe love isn’t about choosing. Maybe it’s about surrender. And I’m so goddamn tired of fighting.
His heartbeat under my ear is steady, warm, distracting. I should pull away, should remind myself we’re still in a village we don’t trust, at a festival we didn’t plan for, with danger slithering just beneath the surface. But gods, he feels good. He always does.
His arms tighten around me, and for a breath, I let myself pretend that this is enough. That the world will wait.
Then he ruins it.
“You know,”
Elias murmurs into my hair.
“this would be the perfect time to get naked.”
I freeze. My spine goes rigid against his chest.
I pull back, just far enough to glare at him. “Elias.”
“What?”
His grin is unapologetic, all teeth and dimples.
“I’m just saying—emotional intimacy? Check. Quiet corner? Check. Your body already pressed against mine? Double check. All the signs point to naked.”
“You are unbelievable,”
I mutter, shoving at his shoulder—but he doesn’t budge.
“Oh, I’m very believable,”
he says, voice dropping to that too-smooth cadence that always spells trouble.
“Believably hot. Believably ready. Believably yours.”
“You were this close,”
I say, holding my fingers a breath apart.
“This close to being romantic.”
He tilts his head, considering.
“So what you’re saying is… I need to wait until after the emotionally vulnerable part next time before suggesting sex?”
“I’m saying—”
I start, then stop, because what am I saying? That I want him to stop? Not a chance. That I want him to mean it less? Definitely not. That I want him to be someone else entirely? No. No, gods, no.
“You’re saying you love me,”
he says, too pleased with himself.
“I’m saying I will stab you with the tiny fork in my boot if you say one more word.”
“Hot.”
I shove him harder this time, and he laughs, finally stepping back, still watching me like I’m the only thing worth watching. There’s that look again. The one he only gives me. And suddenly, I don’t feel so foolish for needing to hear it out loud earlier.
The sound of the festival begins to creep back in, and with it, the others.
Elias gestures toward the crowd.
“Come on, chaos princess. If we stay hidden much longer, Silas is going to start juggling flaming barrels just to find us.”
I smirk.
“You say that like it wouldn’t be kind of entertaining.”
“Oh, it would be. Until he sets Riven’s coat on fire.”
I sigh. “Again?”
“Every damn time.”
As we step back toward the square, the magic threading the village feels… different. Not darker. Not yet. But the kind of shift that warns of something approaching. The calm before it curls its claws.
I press closer to Elias. He doesn’t make a joke this time. He just walks beside me. Quiet, solid, silver-eyed and ridiculous and mine.