Chapter 6 · If I Tell You Everything Before the Bond

"If I tell you everything before the bond closes, the council can rip it out of my head through the shared dream channel."

"Then let them hear me ask." I stepped closer, even with the tide-core shaking under my boots. "Why did you erase my name from the Warden records?"

Ronan's face barely changed.

A hard blink. One muscle jumping beside his cheek.

Enough.

"You did," I whispered.

"I was trying to break the tracking chain."

"You erased me."

"I hid you."

"You made me a nobody." My laugh came out thin and sharp. "You let the whole city watch you reject me like I was some desperate stranger."

His jaw tightened. "If they believed you mattered to me, they'd use you to get to me."

"So you made sure I hated you?"

"I needed you alive."

"You needed me far away."

The control room shuddered.

Ronan caught my wrist before I lost my balance. His fingers locked around me, hot and hard. The heat of his palm soaked through my sleeve.

"I needed you to hate me enough to run," he said.

"I didn't run."

"No." His eyes dropped to my mouth for half a second.