Page 106 of Thexan

I took one more step closer.

“You told me you care for me,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You said you wanted to be with me.”

“Yes.”

“You said you wanted to remain because of me, not just because of the bond.”

“Yes.”

“Then hear me when I say this. You don’t get to call abandonment protection because it sounds logical in your head.”

His breath changed.

Not much.

Enough.

The bond carried what his voice did not: fear, stripped of the discipline he usually wrapped around it.

“I would not abandon you,” he said.

“If you leave me for my own good, that is exactly what it is.”

His hand flexed once at his side and stayed there.

“I would ensure continued observation.”

“That makes it worse.”

He looked at me then with a flicker of something that might have been surprise if he were anyone else.

“Explain.”

“If you left but stayed close enough to watch, you would still be choosing distance while keeping yourself tied to me. You would be there, but not with me. You would see my life and refuse to stand in it. Do you really think that would hurt less?”

His gaze held mine, and for the first time since the conversation began, the answer did not come immediately.

Good.

I wanted him to feel the weight of it.

“I did not evaluate it in those terms,” he said.

“I know.”

“I evaluated threat exposure.”

“I know that too.”

His expression shifted in a way that made my chest ache despite my anger. “I was afraid.”

That stopped me because he said it.

The words did not come easily to him. They weren’t dressed up in strategy or assessment. He didn’t explain them away before they could stand on their own. He simply put them between us, bare and precise, and let me see the thing underneath everything else.