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“Are you insane?”

Skye actually blinked at the quiet venom in her words, at what she was sure was white-hot rage contorting her face.

Taly swung. And kept swinging.

Each impact split her knuckles wider, sent pain screaming up her arms. Her body wasn’t made for this. She couldn’t use aether to heal her wounds or harden her bones.

But she didn’t stop.Couldn’tstop.

Tears burned down her face, mixing with blood and sweat as she poured all the hurt, the anger, the confusion into every blow.

Her voiceshatteredfrom her throat, ragged and trembling with fury. “Have you absolutely no sense of self-preservation whatsoever?! Who in their right mind would everwantto bond with a time mage?!”

Skye caught her at the waist. He grunted as her magic slammed into his. “Someone who’s in love with one, idiot.”

Aethersnappedaround her like a vice, the sudden weight of it crushing in from all sides, choking off every spell before she could fling it free. She thrashed, but he was relentless, wrestling her back down until her back hit the ground.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and flipped him. “Bondmates share magic,idiot.” She brought her fist down, punching into the sand beside his head. “You should not want this. Not me, not the bond—”

He kicked her off. She landed in a roll that carried her back to her feet.

He immediately swept her legs, dropping her flat.

Sand sprayed as he grappled for her arms and legs, aether burning bright as he smothered the rest of her magic—until all she could do was thrash, then tremble, then go still.

Skye held his body above hers, his breathing jagged. His lips were smeared with blood, but his gaze was steady.Daringher to struggle. To fight back.

She snapped her teeth in a last act of defiance, the rage draining out of her no matter how desperately she grasped for it.

He’d won.

This time, there would be no second chances.

And this—this—was his prize.

Her fury, spent.

Her defiance, broken.

Now, finally, she was out of ways to keep him out.

Chapter 54

“Where you go, I go.”

Taly gave a small, horrible little laugh. “You don’t know what the hell you’re saying.”

But Skye just said it again, slowly. “Whereyougo,Igo.”

Her head dropped to the sand. She stared up at him, chest heaving, eyes stinging—with sweat, with tears, maybe both. “I wanted you to have a way out.”

His brows rose.

“We’re going to spend our entire lives running, and if you ever wanted a way out, for whatever reason…” She had to swallow against the tightness in her throat. “I wanted to believe there was a version of this story where you got to live. Reallylive. But that’s never going to happen now because you made yourself into something people hate almost as much as they hate me.”

Silence filled the hall, enough that she could hear her own heart cracking. She closed her eyes against the truth—that she was the one who ruined him. He’d destroyed his future to protect hers.

Skye’s grip on her wrists tightened. “Look at me,” he demanded softly.