“You know something, Honor?” he said, his voice as hard as his eyes. “I’ve listened to this crap from you since we were little kids, and I’m sick of it. I’m done. Understand? I don’t care if you turn me into a fucking popsicle or a giant ice cube or make the earth open up and swallow me whole, I’m not taking it anymore. Find someone else to shit on, because I’m through being your personal toilet!”

His words, his tone, his face all told her a story that made her stomach drop to her toes. “You think I would hurt you?” she whispered in disbelief.

He moved closer. She stepped back again, desperate to escape him, to escape that look, but her back hit the rounded cave wall, and she couldn’t go any farther. He leaned close and stared down at her with the worst expression she’d ever seen him wear. There was anger, yes, but beneath it was pain, real pain. To think that she was the cause of it made her feel sick.

His voice as gravelly as if he’d been swallowing rocks, he said, “You’ve been hurting me for years, Honor. And liking it. It wouldn’t surprise me if you took it one step further and did something permanent.”

“I would never,” she said, her voice small. “Beckett, I would never hurt you like that.”

He was breathing hard. His lips were thinned. He didn’t believe her. She didn’t know what to do or say to make him understand, to make him realize that what she’d said was true; she’d never hurt him. She’d rather die than see anything bad happen to him. To anyone in the colony, but especially him.

“Why do you hate me so much?” he asked abruptly.

“I . . . I don’t.” Honor swallowed. This close, he smelled amazing. His skin was golden and poreless, and there were beautiful flecks of yellow in his green eyes. Why did he have to look like an angel? Why couldn’t he have hair in his ears, bow legs, and bad breath?

Because he’s Ikati, that’s why, she sourly reminded herself. But even beyond that, Beckett was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him.

So she didn’t. She glanced away, hiding from his excruciating attention.

“Honor.”

“What.”

“Look at me.”

“You’re standing two inches away, Beckett. There’s nowhere I can look that doesn’t include having you there.”

His voice gentled. “Staring at my feet doesn’t count. Look at me.” He put a finger beneath her jaw, and tipped her head up so their eyes met. He didn’t take his hand away, and he didn’t say anything, he just looked at her. Looked into her, with curiosity and the sweetest boyishness, a lovely vulnerability she never, ever saw in him. His anger had gone, and now he looked . . . open. Waiting.

For what?

Her gaze dropped to his lips. She imagined kissing him, what it might feel like—what he might taste like—and then, to her eternal horror, blood rushed to her cheeks.

She closed her eyes, hiding. Hands down, this was the most embarrassing moment of her life. The most embarrassing but also unexpectedly the best, because Beckett stroked his thumb lightly over her face, caressing the flame of heat on her skin, sending the most wonderful shivers coursing down her spine.

Then she wondered if this was how every girl felt when Beckett touched her, and her anger flared anew. She opened her eyes and glared at him.

“Okay. You want to know why I hate you, Beckett? Because you’re indiscriminate. We’re all interchangeable to you. Two legs, two tits, all the right parts. You don’t care about any of the girls you have; you just care about getting your rocks off. And it doesn’t matter which hole you stick it in which day; as long as you can have your fun and be on your way with no strings attached, you’re happy. I hate you because you’re a shallow, selfish user.”

Take that, man whore!

“And you’re a joyless, man-hating bitch,” he shot back without hesitation. And it stung. Oh, it stung like a nest of angry hornets had been dumped on her head! But then he said, “But it never mattered to me.”

Okay . . . what?

“Um . . .”

“You think you’re so smart, Honor, let me ask you this: Why do you think I’m the only male in this colony beyond the age of twenty-five—besides Magnus—who isn’t mated?”

Honor smirked. “I think we’ve already established that your penis has a mind of its own. Your seed-spreading tendencies automatically preclude anything so mature as commitment.”

“Wrong,” he growled, leaning even closer. “And unfair. I don’t, as you so delicately put it, ‘spread my seed.’ You’ve never seen me with a female in Fever.”

Well . . . he had a point. He usually avoided females in their once-annual Fever period like the plague, even though all the other unmated males in the colony became horny as tomcats around a female at that time. Usually they were kept hidden from the rest of the colony, for their own protection, as well as the males’; inevitably, fights broke out because the males’ testosterone levels went off the charts.

“That speaks more to your commitment issues than anything else,” Honor countered. “God forbid you get saddled with a mate and offspring—”

“That’s not how it works with us, and you know it!” he roared. “We mate for life, because we’re bonded and in love, and we have children out of love, not spite or tricks or to trap one another! Why do you have to make it sound so meaningless?”

He shocked her into silence. She stared up at him openmouthed and wide-eyed, dimly aware of her fluttering heart and the pulse of heat surging between them, unable to look away from his face. His anger made her ashamed of herself, and so did his words, and suddenly her sister’s plea intruded into the stillness of her shock-addled brain.

I want you to tell Beckett how you feel about him, because I think there might be something there. If I have to be courageous, you do, too.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck!

Honor closed her eyes, gathered her courage, and said in a whisper, “I have to make it seem meaningless because it’s all I’ve ever wanted, and everything I’ll never have.”

Silence. The sound of his ragged breathing, and her own. Then his hands settled on both sides of her face, and Honor opened her eyes to find Beckett staring at her with something she would have sworn was hope, had she not known better. In a whisper to match hers, he said, “Why can’t you have it, Honor?”

No, those were not tears welling in her eyes! Stammering, wretched, she said, “B-because the p-person I want to have it w-with is . . . he’s . . .”

Beckett’s face was so close to hers. His eyes were pleading. “He’s what? Say it, Honor. Tell me.”

She felt her face screw up into an ugly grimace. Those hideous, traitorous tears spilled over her bottom lids and tracked down her hot cheeks. “He’s a whore!” she bawled, breaking. “And he broke my heart because he wants everyone else but me, and he’s been parading around like a peacock with his harem of hens since he was ten years old, and I hate him!”

The last part was shouted into Beckett’s face. Feeling as if she would die of mortification, Honor buried her face into her hands, sobbing.

Suddenly Beckett’s arms came around her. He squeezed her against the warm hardness of his chest. He stroked his hand down her back and, with a low chuckle, sighed into her ear, “Jesus Christ. It’s about fucking time, woman. You’re harder to crack than an atom.”

Huh?

Honor couldn’t respond coherently. She couldn’t even think coherently. So she just kept blubbering into his shirt, hoping this was all a terrible dream she would soon awaken from, her dignity magically intact.

Courage was so overrated.

Beckett’s chest expanded with his deep, slow inhalation. He nuzzled his nose into her hair and spoke in a low, soothing voice. “So. Picture the scene. Two children, a boy and a girl, playing an innocent game of Jacks. The boy is winning, until another little girl comes over and begins to watch. She keeps her distance, though, as she always does. And, as always when she appears, the little boy feels funny, like he’s being tickled all over, inside and out. He can’t concentrate, and soon he’s lost the game.