"Ten minutes, Mara. Sign the covenant, or the harbor drowns with your name on the arrest order."
Council Auditor Celia Hart shoved the contract against my chest. The paper slapped my torn blouse, right over the raw spot where Ronan Vale had rejected me in front of half the city.
I caught it before it hit the floor.
"You people really love giving women impossible choices."
"You lost the right to complain when you exposed the missing funds on live television."
"I exposed stolen funds. There's a difference."
Celia's mouth tightened. "That difference won't save you when the gates fail."
Behind her, Ronan stood with two wardens at his back. His black coat was buttoned to the throat. His Warden ring was gone.
He'd taken it off before rejecting our bond. Like touching me would stain the metal.
My eyes dropped to his bare hand.
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
Then his face went cold again.
"Tell her the terms," he said.
My laugh came out sharp. "No. You tell me. You're the one who wants me chained to your flood room."
Celia slid one finger down the contract. "Ronan protects you from council arrest. You repair the tide gates under his authority. Your movements are restricted. Your work belongs to the city. Your body—"
"Try that sentence again."
Her eyes hardened. "Your life is bound to his until the gates stabilize."
"There it is." I held up the contract. "The pretty version."
"Sign."
"Give me gate access first. Full access. No council locks. No Warden escort."
Celia opened her mouth, but Ronan moved first.
His hand closed around my elbow. Heat soaked through my thin sleeve.
"You're in no position to bargain."
I looked down at his fingers. "Take your hand off me."
He didn't.
His thumb pressed into the inside of my arm. My wolf slammed against my ribs, furious and confused. His rejection should've cut the bond clean.
Instead, every breath near him dragged across the raw place under my skin.
"You want access?" Ronan asked. "You want to walk into a failing gate chamber after the council watched you accuse me of theft?"
"I want to see what you hid."
His grip tightened.
"Careful."
"What? You'll reject me again?"
The two wardens shifted behind him.
Celia glanced at the clock above the command room doors. "Eight minutes. If she refuses, arrest her."
"Go to hell," I said.
Celia gave me a smile with no warmth in it. "After you."
Ronan pulled me toward the command room.
I dug my heels into the stone floor. "I said I wanted gate access, not a private kidnapping."
"You got both."
"You locked the door."
The heavy iron doors slammed behind us. A bolt dropped on the other side.
I spun around. "Did you just lock me in?"
"The council wanted to drag you to the lower cells. This room is safer."
"Safer for who?"
"For you."
"Don't use that voice with me." I shoved the contract against his chest. "You don't get to reject me in front of every screen in Briarport and then decide what's good for me."
His jaw flexed. "You think I wanted that?"
"You took off your ring. You left my hand hanging in front of the whole city. It looked pretty deliberate."
"It was deliberate."
The words hit harder than they should've.
I stepped closer anyway. "Then say it again. Look at me and say you felt nothing."
His eyes dropped to my lips for half a second.
His shoulders stayed rigid, but his breath caught close to my face. I felt the heat of it against my skin.
"This isn't about what I feel."
"Coward."
I turned to shove past him.
He caught my wrist.
His thumb settled over my pulse. Warm skin. Steady pressure. Too familiar.
A hot, ugly spark tore through my chest.
His breathing changed.
I saw it. The tiny pause. The way his fingers went still around me.
"Let go," I said, quieter this time.
His gaze held mine. "You keep bleeding."
"That's not your problem."
"It becomes my problem if you collapse before signing."
"You mean before I give you legal control over me."
"I mean before the gates kill ten thousand people."
I yanked my wrist free. "Then open the gate controls. Let me fix them without your damn covenant."
Ronan turned toward the wall of brass levers and moon-glass screens. "The controls won't answer you."
"They answered me last night."
"They broke when you touched them."
"Because someone has been starving the tide system."
He stopped.
There. A crack in that perfect Warden mask.
I pointed at him. "You knew."
"I knew the funds were missing. I didn't know who took them."
"You signed every release order."
"I signed emergency repairs. The council approved the money."
"And you let them blame the engineers."
His eyes went flat. "I kept the gates running."
"You kept your title clean."
The room lurched.
Not an explosion. Something below us slammed into the foundation.
The brass levers rattled in their slots. A red line split across the nearest moon-glass screen, then broke into three pulsing marks.
Ronan crossed the room in two strides and seized the emergency crank.
"What are you doing?"
"Holding the west gate."
"You can't. The pressure is coming from underneath it."
"I know."
"Then stop forcing it shut!"
"If I release it, the harbor district floods."
I shoved past him and reached for the control panel.
His arm locked around my waist.
My back hit his chest. His coat scraped against my torn blouse, and heat closed around me from behind. He pinned me hard enough to stop me, not hard enough to hurt.
His mouth brushed the side of my hair.
"Don't touch it—"