When he turned back, Morgan silently came into his arms. She didn’t speak, so he didn’t, either, afraid to break this fragile truce between them. And then she began to cry.

He held her closer, wrapped in a protective hug. Her grief was a storm, and it sounded agonizing and hopeless to him, and went on until he worried she might be lost in it. “Hey. Hey. You’re safe, understand? Morgan!”

“No,” she said, and grabbed the inner edge of the gold collar around her neck. She pulled at it with sudden viciousness, and he winced as he saw it bite into her skin. “I’m trapped here, don’t you see it? Of course you don’t. All you can see are the pretty flowers and the beautiful rooms, but that’s just paint over something rotten. I’d rather die than lose my will and be one of them, Jess. I’m not afraid of dying!”

She meant it, and it stunned him. He kept holding her, not sure how thin the ice was he was standing on. “Do you want to tell me what scares you so badly?”

“They—” She seemed to want to answer, but he could feel the frustration, too. As if she couldn’t find the words. “I don’t think you’d understand.”

“Try.”

“They give us examinations,” she said then, and he felt her shudder from the memory. “Chart our monthly cycles. And when they think we are ready to conceive, they . . .”

His throat felt dry now and hot with anger. She was right: this was unfamiliar territory to him. He’d not grown up with sisters, and his mother had always been a distant visitor in his life. He had no real reference for these things. “They match you?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him. “When I ran away to see you, I avoided the day they’d marked out for me to be matched. But, Jess, I won’t be able to avoid that again now.”

“Then you can fight!” he told her. “You’ve never been afraid to fight!”

“I’ve seen what happens when you fight. My friend . . .” She took in a deep breath, held it, and let it out. “I’m sorry, Jess. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m just so angry. And frightened.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, which was a foolish thing to say, and from the look she gave him—half-grateful and half-pitying—she knew it.

“Don’t,” she said, and put her hand on his cheek. “Don’t. Just say you’ll be here for me now.”

“I will. I am.”

“Then kiss me.”

He did, and tasted tears and sweetness on her lips. It was a long, gentle kiss, and not entirely innocent of passion.

Morgan suddenly broke the kiss and put her forehead against his. The moment snapped him back to reality and it physically hurt inside, like something stabbing deep. She leaned back and her eyes met his and held, and it hurt worse. He didn’t move. They had a history of this, of finding each other and being torn apart by words or deeds, and he didn’t want it to happen. Not now. Not tonight.