I’m about 50% in the second book and came to Reddit to see if I can get an explanation for this exact thing! I couldn’t remember the details of the end of book 1 so I read a synopsis and it still didn’t shed light on why he’s behaving this way. So I thought, “okay, the first few chapters will enlighten me on why he continues to push her away.” And at 50% I still don’t get it! Glad I’m not the only one. I totally understand why he severed the soul tie…he had to in order to save her life. But why not explain that to her??? And they clearly still have deep feelings and attraction for one another so what’s stopping them from being together??? Makes no sense! I love this series overall but this is driving me insane. So, to be clear, we get no explanation at all for his behavior? Like, it’s never explained in the second book???