Drowning in Fire

PROLOGUE

Three years ago

KEKO

“I’m not a damn babysitter.”

Keko stomped after the Chimeran ali’i, her bare feet kicking aside old, brown leaves and crunching through patches of crispy April mountain snow. This was a shit assignment, one far below her well-deserved and hard-won position, and she’d growl at the retreating bare back of her uncle until he realized that.

“Chief, wait.”

He finally stopped, one big hand on the flap of his tent, his dusky shoulders sloping under the weight of a sigh. Slowly he turned around to face her, his black eyebrows, dusted with silver, rising with growing impatience. At least he wasn’t deaf. There was still a chance.

“Send Bane,” Keko demanded, moving as close to the ali’i as was allowed by clan law. “Or Makaha. I’m the general, for fuck’s sake.”

Someday, after she threw down the challenge and wrested the position of ali’i away from her uncle, she would delegate assignments appropriate to a Chimeran’s worthiness. Until that moment arrived, she would forever argue to get her way.

A gust of frigid Utah wind swept down the mountain and raced through the leafless spikes of the tightly packed stand of trees. Keko mentally reached deep inside her body, touching the heart of her fire magic, and turned up her inner heat. The ali’i did so as well, and wispy layers of steam lifted off the exposed skin of their torsos like wings.

“You’re impertinent is what you are,” he replied. He wasn’t that much taller than her, but there was a reason why he’d been ali’i for nearly two decades. The way he commanded respect with a simple stare was unmatched. She consistently tried to emulate it.

“And difficult,” he added. “But you’re also my second and you’re the most capable, the most skilled.”

Damn straight she was. “So—”

Chief lifted a hand, his palm a paler shade than the native Hawaiian tint to his skin. “The Senatus deliberated for a hell of a long time before finally agreeing to grant the new Ofarian leader an audience. There are reasons we’ve kept our distance from the water elementals, not the least of which being they are historically greedy, pompous, and want to control everything. There’s no one we trust more than you to shadow him his entire time here, make sure he doesn’t overstep his bounds.”

The flame inside her flared in frustration. “That’s babysitting.”

“It’s guarding,” he snapped, and she was forced to take a step back. Only for him would she do that. Chief drew himself up. “You will bring him to and from Senatus gatherings. You will explain to him the group’s procedures and history, what we do and don’t cover. You will keep him within range at all times and monitor any communications he has with his people.”

Yes, sir was on the tip of her tongue, but she just couldn’t bring it out.

“And you will report back to us everything he says or asks, and your answers. Tell us how he is different away from the meetings, if there are any contradictions to his behavior. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious. This is an evaluation period for him and his people before we consider giving them a seat around the bonfire.”

“Do I have permission to kick his ass if he falls out of line?”

Chief gave her a rare grin, one that pulled at the deep lines around his eyes. “And that’s exactly why we chose you to do this, Keko.”

She ran a hand up and down her bare arm, dragging little orange sparks in its wake. The mid-day sky looked heavy with snow. “What’s he like? What do you already know about him?”

Chief shifted, his big feet making new prints in the old snow. “A limited amount. He is new to the leadership, having been part of an overthrow of the Ofarian government two years ago. Only after he took over did he learn his former leaders had been hiding knowledge of other elementals’ existence.” Chief let out a huff of breath, bathing her in a wave of Chimeran heat. “He’s been pursuing contact with the Senatus for over a year. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. Determined. Very serious.”

“Great.” Keko rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a blast.” She waved a hand in the direction of the large olive-green tent she, her brother Bane, and the warrior Makaha shared. “So are we all supposed to cuddle up with this Ofarian at night and make him feel warm and snuggly so he spills his secrets?”

Chief snorted. “He’s Ofarian, which means he’s spoiled and arrogant. He’s taken a hotel room in town at the base of the mountain. You’ll be staying in a room next to his.”

“What?” She would miss sleeping in the night air, no matter how cold it was. Temperature didn’t mean much to her kind.

“I’m done arguing. It’s an order.” Stern brown eyes, the nearly black shade all Chimerans shared, nailed her in place. “Now go pick up Griffin Aames from the airport, get him to his hotel, and bring him to the gathering tonight.”

Chief disappeared into his tent, the flap snapping closed behind him.

Keko marched to her tent, grabbed her small, threadbare duffel of clothes and things, and started on the two-mile hike down to where they’d parked the car. Despite her reluctance over the assignment, at least she got to drive. There were only a few vehicles in the entire Chimeran valley back home and very little need for them, but she loved getting behind the wheel. It felt so free. So very modern. So outside her own culture.

Icy wind swirled through the open car windows as she sped for Salt Lake City. She’d tied her hair back, but long, black strands still whipped at her face. This was when she loved to leave Hawaii, to feel cold new climates like this. To strengthen her magic by having to use it at all times to keep warm.

The designated meeting spot, she’d been told, was a corner of the day-use parking garage under the light pole labeled 2E. She found it, swung into a parking place, and sat. When her knee started to bounce with impatience and her belly rumbled with hunger, she jumped out of the car to head over to the vending machines perched near the elevators. Another incredible thing her people didn’t have: food and drink at the drop of a coin.

A few steps away from the car she remembered the biggest rule about being seen outside of the Chimeran valley, especially in colder areas where Primaries lived: clothes.

With a growl she went back to the car and pulled out a pair of flimsy sandals with an uncomfortable strap between the toes and the lone sweatshirt she owned: a pilled gray zippered thing with “Minnesota Gophers” in cracked red and gold print across the front. At least she still had on the holey jeans with the frayed, wet hems, and one of the white tank tops she favored. Putting clothing on Chimeran skin was like scraping nails over silk. Not that she’d ever worn silk, but she’d seen pictures and had read descriptions of it in the old, dog-eared magazines that sometimes made it to the valley. The things she did for Primary comfort and Secondary secrecy . . .

Leaving the sweatshirt unzipped, she went to the vending machines and popped change into the slots, pulling out a bottle of Coke and potato chips. She’d eaten half the bag when a deep voice sounded behind her.

“You must be my ride.”

Turning around, she screwed off the Coke cap with a hiss. The guy who stood halfway between her and the car wore jeans and boots and a fitted black coat with all sorts of zippers and pockets. His hair was very short and nearly as dark as hers. Thick, straight, low-set eyebrows were the most prominent feature on his face and made him seem intense and serious.

She glanced around the otherwise empty garage corner. “Don’t think I am.”

He nudged his chin toward her car. “Two E,” he said. “Where I’m supposed to meet you. You must be Kekona.”

To trust him or not? He wasn’t anything like the pampered, self-important Ofarian she’d pictured. Not this militaristic-looking guy who couldn’t be more than a few years older than she.

The man stood impossibly straight, as though someone had shoved a pole up his ass. “You’re Secondary and I’m Griffin Aames.” There was absolutely no intonation to his voice.

Oh, this guy was going to be a bag of fun.

“And what brings you to the lovely state of Utah?” she asked.

He had a really good check on his emotions. Only a slight shift of his feet gave away his frustration. “For the Senatus gathering. Was there a secret code somewhere I missed?”

And just like that, the first spark of attraction lit an unexpected flame inside her. To be fair, it didn’t take much for her. For him though, there was nothing. Just a patient stare as he waited to be chauffeured to his fancy feather bed.

“No code. You just have to get past me.” She lifted the Coke to her lips and took a swig, never taking her eyes off his.

A gust of wind barreled through the garage, opening one side of her sweatshirt and folding it back from her body.

Bingo. Griffin’s brown eyes—lighter than a Chimeran’s but still pretty dark—flicked to her chest. Flicked. Nothing more. She never wore one of those bra things—no Chimeran woman did—and she knew very well how she looked. The thin white tank top stretched over brown skin and even darker nipples. There wasn’t much of her to be left to the imagination, and modesty had never been one of her strong suits.

It had been a long time. For her, at least. Maybe a month since she’d had any sort of physical contact, let alone full-on sex. And right then she was looking at the most wonderful sort of challenge, wrapped up in an olive-skinned package: the guy she’d been tasked with shadowing for the next seven days. The Ofarian with the one-note expression whose business-only walls were so thick not even hard nipples could noticeably break through them. The very opposite of who she was. The water to her fire.

He was not Chimeran. He was kapu. Forbidden.

But then, wasn’t she supposed to find out things about him that he didn’t reveal to the Senatus? Sex always seemed to bring out the hidden, no matter who was involved. She was willing to bet Griffin Aames wasn’t any different. He was locked up so airtight she guessed that once those walls came down, there would be no stopping the onslaught of everything he’d tried to hold back. She couldn’t wait to discover what that was.

But that was enough teasing the unsuspecting Ofarian for one day, especially since they’d just met minutes ago. There was an art to seduction, to the chase, and applying it to someone who was not a Chimeran slathered on an extra layer of excitement. Getting around what her clan had declared to be kapu would be a fantastic, fun challenge. Keko folded closed the Gophers sweatshirt.

Griffin carried a structured black duffel with barely a travel scratch, and with a clearing of his throat, he swung it around to dangle off the back of one shoulder. He was an inch or two above six feet, not that much taller than her.

“I’m not carrying that for you,” she said.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and she found she liked the tiny movement of his thick eyebrows. It was easy to hide expression under those things, so when they actually twitched she knew there was something going on in his gorgeous head.

“Wasn’t expecting you to,” he replied.

“Good. Now that we’re clear on that.” She circled around him to get to the car, wondering the whole time—the whole ten seconds—if his eyes had tracked the back of her head . . . or her ass.

With one hand on the door handle and the other clutching her drink and potato chips, she swept a good long look around the parking garage. No one else was around.

“Where’d you come from?” she asked as he went around to the other side of the car, threw open the passenger side door, and tossed his bag in the backseat.

“San Francisco. But of course you already knew that.”

“I did.”

His door still open, he planted one hand on the top of it. “Where are you from?”

She laughed, because the Chimerans had never revealed their home to anyone not born with fire. “Nice try.”

When he shrugged, she found herself intrigued by the fluidity of his shoulders, how he’d suddenly broken out of his rigid mold. The straight face remained, however, along with the severe line of those eyebrows.

She folded her arms on top of the car. “How’d you know I was Secondary?”

Without hesitation, “Your signature. I can tell you have magic, that you’re not a Primary human. I can feel you.”

This man was infuriating, in the best possible way. She had no idea if he knew what his doublespeak implied or if he was doing it on purpose. And she found that she loved it, that ambiguity. So did the fire inside.

“Must be nice,” she said, overly casually. “I wish I had that.”

He cocked his head, looking genuinely interested. “Why?”

“So I can tell when I come across a Primary. I’d know who to avoid.”

He looked at her for a long, long moment before saying, “Right. Of course.”

He made no move to get into the car so she asked, “What do you mean by ‘signature’?”

His stance relaxed some as he considered her.

“You’re going to be asked a lot of questions while you’re here,” she added. “Might as well get used to it.”

Another few moments of consideration, then he inhaled and glanced around the garage. “Hard to explain. It’s a feeling in my head. Like a smell, but not really. I know you’re Secondary. I just don’t know what you can do.”

Time for a real test. Tilting back her head, throwing him a challenging smile, she asked, “What can you do?”

He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen once. “Adine? Yeah. Salt Lake City airport, parking garage, row 2E.” Griffin stood stock still. So did Keko, waiting. Intrigued. “You got ’em? Great, thanks.”

Hanging up the phone, he threw a look into the corner, where Keko had previously noticed the telltale black ceiling bubble of a security camera. She’d heard the Ofarians had some reach, some pretty impressive technological skills, but to access international airport security at such quick notice?

“Okay, then. If you’re looking for proof.” Griffin was looking straight at her, his body never so much as twitching, as foreign, whispered words escaped his barely parted lips. Movement to her right caught her eye.

A pile of gray, crunchy snow piled up against the side of the open parking garage melted without a touch, without heat. In a slow, glittering stream, it snaked its way toward her, rolling across the black asphalt and the yellow parking dividing lines. The water coiled around her legs, up toward her hips. Once, twice, a third time around her body. Reaching, reaching, but never quite touching. A brilliant dance of water and light in the cold grayness of the garage. Then the coil of magic water receded, sinking slowly back down to the dirty surface under her feet.

The word that came to mind was . . . sensual.

Her focus snapped back to Griffin Aames. Though his expression had not changed, she knew he was grinning. Deep down, this had pleased him.

“Now,” he said, so evenly she felt a distinct hum between her legs, “what can you do?”

Inhaling deeply, pulling up the fire from inside her body, she licked her lips, letting a roll of flame follow her tongue. Then she opened her mouth, showing him the spark that forever danced in the back of her throat. When she clamped her lips shut, swallowing down her magic, she gave him a look full of promise and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

• • •

That night, Keko paced along the outside perimeter of the cage of wind encircling the Senatus gathering. She could see into it—the three elemental Senatus delegates and Griffin sat on cheap lawn chairs around a bonfire—but heard nothing. The wind barrier erased their words.

Bane and Makaha took up positions at other points surrounding the gathering, though this deep in the pitch black mountains they were unlikely to be discovered. Aaron, the only air elemental in attendance other than the Senatus premier, leaned against a nearby tree, holding the soundproof wind cage in place.

As always, Aya, the self-proclaimed Daughter of Earth, was the only elemental of her mysterious race in attendance. The dainty Daughter perched gingerly on the edge of her chair, the fire that rose from the logs highlighting the unusually lovely golden tint to her skin and the pure white shock of her hair. The green of her eyes did not reflect the firelight at all. She said so little but she was always watching and listening, always alert, and her presence never failed to intrigue Keko.

The ali’i, shirtless and barefoot, lounged back in his chair. The Senatus premier wore a cowboy hat and a flannel coat lined with fleece, his deeply wrinkled eyes focused intently on Griffin, who had been speaking for a long while with stiff, controlled hand gestures. Puffs of cold, white air escaped from between his lips every time he opened them.

The Ofarian was incredibly easy to look at. Keko knew power and leadership when she saw it, and it turned her on more than it probably should have.

Their flirting—however subversive it had been—ceased that afternoon and evening as she’d performed her job and explained to Griffin how the Senatus worked. The order of speaking, the presentation of issues, how the premier was voted in on five-year intervals, among other things she found boring but which Griffin listened to with an attentive ear.

Now, inside the wind cage, an argument broke out. That much was plain by the tension in the four bodies and the vehement way Griffin was talking, his gestures getting bigger, his eyes blinking less.

The ali’i was the first to jump up and stomp through the wind barrier. Keko couldn’t look away from Griffin, who’d risen to his feet with a powerful grace. Right then and there she knew he was a fighter, some sort of soldier. A different kind of warrior than a Chimeran, but a warrior nonetheless.

As Chief grabbed Keko’s arm and spun her away, she saw the premier and Aya approaching Griffin in a calm manner.

“The Ofarians are making aggressive moves to integrate into the Primary human world.” The inner fire raked at Chief’s voice, making it gritty and rasping.

Keko blinked, not sure she understood his anger. “And?”

“He thinks we should do the same. Rather than hiding out in our own little worlds, he wants us to figure out ways to inch the Secondary world into the Primary. And if he gains a seat in the Senatus, that will be his main objective.”

A brief, alien cold swept through Keko. The various Chimeran clans spread all over the Hawaiian Islands had always been deliberately separate from the humans. The Queen had decreed that necessary over a thousand years ago when she split off from the other Polynesian immigrants. And now this Ofarian, this water elemental, wanted to shatter that by forcing all Secondaries to follow his people’s lead?

“Why?” she asked.

Chief wiped his mouth and let out a short, bitter laugh. “Because they have nothing. The magic they once peddled to the Primaries is gone now, along with all the money it used to bring in. They go to Primary schools and are taking jobs in Primary businesses because they have to. Griffin says it’s starting to work for them but I don’t know. It’s dangerous. So, so dangerous . . .”

Keko agreed.

Yet she’d always embraced danger.

Looking over Chief’s shoulder she saw that Griffin was alone now, gazing into the fire and dragging a slow hand between his ear and chin. She could hear the crackle and pop of the flame-consumed logs now, which meant Aaron had dropped the wind barrier.

“I want to know more about his motives,” Chief told her, his voice dropping. “I want to know everything. You know what to do.”

Just then Griffin looked up and caught her staring. She didn’t look away.

Oh, she knew exactly what to do. And only a small fraction of it involved listening.

She nodded. Pure business, all general. “Yes, sir.”

As the Chimerans and air elementals split off for their respective camps, and Aya did that silent thing where she melted back into the night shadows and disappeared without a trace, Keko pulled the car keys from her jeans pocket and jangled them.

“Let’s go,” she called to Griffin. He looked at her for a drawn-out moment before finally turning his back on the fire and following her.

Griffin was silent the whole ride back to the hotel. On the way to their rooms that were next to each other but not connected, the only sounds were his boots on the carpet and the rasp of fabric as he took off his jacket. She waited while he drew out his keycard and slipped it into the lock. When it blinked green, he pushed open the door, then froze. Turning his head he said to her, “Come in. I want to talk to you.”

The ali’i’s orders were but a niggle in the back of her mind, a mere fly compared to the volcanic rumble the sound of Griffin’s command strummed inside her. But she played it cool and sauntered past him. The door clicked shut behind her.

She’d barely made it into the little hall opposite the bathroom when Griffin grabbed her shoulder from behind, spun her around, and pinned her against the wall with a straight arm. Then his elbow bent and his body closed in.

Queen help her, she felt herself go wet, felt her whole body get switched on. Rough sex was how it was done in the Chimeran stronghold, and, as their general, it was the way she demanded it when she chose a partner.

“You’re not just my driver, not just my tourist guide,” he murmured, getting closer and closer until all she could see was his face. “You’re their spy.”

Keko arched her back, pushing her torso away from the wall and into his hand.

For a second his desire was betrayed in the flash of his brown eyes, but then his fingers dug deep and hard into her shoulder.

“You’re supposed to tell them everything I say and do,” he ground out. “Aren’t you?”

The pulse between her legs was crazy now. The fire inside her raged. She could barely control the pace of her breath or the sexual itch scratching its way through her body.

“Well, thank the Queen you know,” she said. “Now we can just get to the fucking.”

Beneath those thick eyebrows his eyes widened, glowing with lust. His desire had its own color, and there was nothing he could do to disguise it or paint over it.

The moment caused his grip to slacken and Keko took advantage of it. Lunging. A forearm across his chest, she shoved him against the opposite wall. That second of surprise on his face was wonderful and sexy and a powerful turn-on.

Then she smashed her mouth against his.

Resistance lasted barely a breath, then he groaned—a great release of sound and pent-up energy that made his whole body shudder—and he was kissing her back with such force she felt it in the jump and shiver of her inner fire.

A water elemental—kapu, forbidden—was making her feel this way, and that made the whole thing all the more taboo, all the more sweet. He had no fire magic, yet he was burning, his lips and tongue and pressure made of heat and power.

Suddenly the contact broke and she was left reeling, empty. Griffin had taken hold of both her shoulders and had pushed her away, off of him. Her eyelids fluttered open to find his expression a swirl of confusion and base lust. His chest pumped almost violently. He looked stripped out of his skin, a completely different man from the stiff, serious, focused Ofarian she’d gathered from the airport. And he had no idea what to do with that, how to react.

Keko’s lips curled up in triumph.

She lifted her hands and coiled her fingers around his wrists. Slowly, deliberately, holding his eyes with hers, she dragged his hands off the curves of her bare shoulders, sliding them over the ridge of her collarbone and down to her breasts. No bra, of course, just the thin layer of the worn white cotton tank top. She filled his big hands perfectly.

Griffin sagged, an unfettered low groan escaping his lips. Though he caught and righted himself, she’d seen it. She’d witnessed the crack in his exterior, the way this contact had freed him. She loved that almost as much as the way he was pressing his hands to her. Grabbing her with dire need. Dragging his palms over her hard nipples.

He was no longer looking into her eyes, but at her chest, at the way he was touching her. His bottom lip dropped open, and it was way too full and inviting to keep her coherent.

“Kekona,” he whispered, yanking down the strap of her tank top to expose one breast. His eyes snapped back up to hers. “Now look what you started.”

She was used to starting things. Back home, as general, that’s how clan rule laid it out. If she wanted to sleep with someone, she had to approach them and make the offer. Of course they could refuse, but she was used to being the aggressor, the pursuer. She loved it. That power had come with her high status, which she’d fought so long and hard for.

So when Griffin yanked her closer, a claiming hand sliding around her back to spin her toward the bed, she went into immediate general mode. This was her scene, her beginning.

But just because she liked the way he’d reacted when she’d smashed open his shell, she would let him think he had the better of her. For a second. Maybe two.

When he’d gotten her close to the bed, the hand around her back moving swiftly to her ass, she wrapped a foot around his ankle, slapped an arm around his shoulders, and used his shock to whip him around and throw his larger body onto the bed. He landed with a great bounce on the mattress, his limbs going tense in defense for a brief moment, then slackening as he watched her smile wickedly.

Hands on hips, she jutted her chin at his jeans and boots. “Take them off.”

He came up on his elbows. “I don’t take orders. I give them.”

“Funny, so do I. Tell you what, maybe I’ll give you a turn.”

No smile. Just a frenzied stripping. That Mediterranean skin covered all of him evenly. Born with it then, no sun lines to indicate he had any sort of time outdoors. Pity. She would have liked to trace a line between dark and darker skin with her tongue. Maybe she’d make one up in her mind and do it anyway.

She was right about him being a fighter. The hardness of his body and the lean lines of his muscles gave it away.

After he’d toed off his boots and kicked away his jeans, he leaned back on the bed and crossed his legs at the ankles. With a leader’s confidence, he looked at her down his prone body, over the beautiful erection stretching up toward his belly. “You’ll have nothing to tell them,” he said, “unless you tell them about this. And you won’t.”

With a single step, her balance perfect, she climbed up and stood at the edge of the bed, her ankles bracketing his.

Whipping off her tank top, she said, “Don’t want you for your words.”

She thought that maybe that would coax out a smile, but any emotion he harbored came through the hot glitter of his eyes and the way they were fixated on the zipper of her jeans. He wasn’t giving a verbal order, but she sure as hell was going to obey.

When she ripped open her jeans and stepped out of them, letting him know that not only did she despise bras but that she hated underwear just as much, he made a wonderful garbled sound in the back of his throat. Stomach muscles clenching, he rolled up to sit and wrapped his hands around her calves.

“Great stars,” he breathed, his eyes roaming up her parted legs, across her abs and around her breasts. “You’re fucking amazing.”

Bending, she pushed at his shoulders, laying him flat again. The tension in her thighs was overwhelming as she lowered herself to straddle his hips, the pulsing, needy place in her body hovering just above his erection.

Taking him in hand, loving the contradiction between hard and smooth in her palm, she whispered, “I am totally telling them you said that.”

Desire rattled through her body, a crazy, driving demand that wanted absolutely nothing other than for him to be inside her. She fit herself to him, making the initial entrance, then took her time working her way down. At her first curl, that first undulation of her hips, his eyes shot open and his fingers dug into the crease between her thighs and hips. He stared at where they were joined, low grunts set in time with her thrusts.

Hands planted on his iron pecs, she rode him as he drove up into her. Nothing delicate about it. Nothing remotely soft about this kind of passion.

In the back of her mind she was thinking that it was too perfect, the way they found a rhythm that seemed to mutually satisfy. Their movements were in sync, two musicians meeting for the first time who struck faultless sound on the first notes of collaboration. Like they already knew each other.

The angle was superb, where he was hitting her inside. Her fire magic was begging to be let out, building and building alongside her orgasm.

Chimeran sex was full of fire. It was a battle of wills, of flame and heat, both inside and out. Fire intensified everything . . . but Griffin was no Chimeran, and even though he was water, she feared the unknown. She feared what her body might do to him. She feared hurting him.

She feared learning firsthand why sex between two different elementals was kapu.

As though just to prove her wrong, he drove into her harder, the slap of their bodies drowning out all other sound. That’s when she lost it, when she came with such speed and such a powerful storm that she had no time to rein in the inner fire that always paralleled her pleasure. Tiny licks of flame rolled behind her closed eyelids.

Griffin cried out and she opened her eyes to see him gritting his teeth. Chimerans loved the burst of intense heat that accompanied orgasm, considered it the ultimate satisfaction, but she could not tell if his expression was pain or pleasure. She tried to lift herself off him, to protect him from the heat that must have been immense for someone uninitiated, but he grabbed her so hard she bruised, and continued to pump her body down on his. Asking for more.

The grit of his teeth was not pain, but rather that look that men got when they loved the animal intensity of certain kinds of sex. He came with a series of groans, his whole body shaking. She took it all in, thinking that, out of all the people she’d slept with in her entire life, she’d never watched someone come with such breathtaking awe. She’d never been this fascinated. She’d never felt this satisfied.

Even after he opened his eyes and the movement of his chest leveled out, neither one of them moved. Not even a twitch. He was still inside her, her hands still planted on his chest.

“What just happened?” he murmured, and she knew he wasn’t just talking about the sex or about the heat of her fire magic.

Something unseen shimmered between them. Something . . .

He reached up as if to touch her face and an invisible force slapped clarity into her brain. She pushed herself away and rolled off the bed. This was a fuck. Nothing more. She’d seen a challenge in him, she’d needed as good a release as he did, and she went after him. Mission accomplished.

There was nothing more to it. He was water. She was fire. And she had her orders.

Head on straight now, she turned around to find Griffin still lying there, muscled arms folded behind his head, one dark-haired leg cocked up. Watching her. Utter relaxation made the lines of his body soften, and there was a quiet tilt to his mouth, a warmth in his eyes, that made him seem like a new man.

And then he began to talk.

• • •

GRIFFIN

“I can’t believe I’m here,” Griffin heard himself say to the magnificent, naked woman standing next to his hotel bed.

When Kekona cocked her head, a sheet of straight black hair slipped off her shoulder. She was frighteningly confident in her own skin. Extraordinarily sexy.

“In Utah at the Senatus?” she asked, all casual, like nothing mind-blowing had just happened between them. Like they hadn’t just fucked each other’s brains out. “Or in this room with me?”

“Technically, you are in my room with me.”

That could have been construed as a dismissal, but she didn’t bend to pick up her clothes. Made no move toward the door. For the first time in a very, very long while, Griffin had the urge to smile. Just an urge, though; it never quite poked through.

He crossed his arms behind his head. “Either,” he replied, marveling at his own truth. “Both.”

She smiled knowingly behind her obsidian eyes, those things that had flashed actual fire when she’d come. For the rest of his days, he’d never be able to get that image out of his memory. He didn’t think he’d ever want to.

In the back of his mind he registered that she’d spoken the word “Senatus,” that the organization of the elemental races was his true reason for being here, but the vision of Kekona standing there, looking like sex itself, erased pretty much all present thought.

Not an ounce of fat on her anywhere. Taut skin in an exotic caramel shade he guessed to be somewhere between Pacific Islander and Asian stretched over some seriously sick muscles. She was ridiculously strong. Phenomenally beautiful.

But the thing that got to him most was how nonchalant she was acting, how she’d so quickly and easily ducked out of his reaching hand. That touch had meant to tell her, however stupidly, that she’d cemented a permanent spot in his consciousness. It hadn’t meant to be claiming, but complimentary. She was looking down at him now like he’d waited on her in a restaurant. Didn’t she just have the same experience he had? Why wasn’t she completely out of her head like he was?

Oh. Right. Because it was clear that she’d had plenty of sex in her life, and he hadn’t slept with anyone in over two years. Because he’d been hung up on Gwen Carroway after the destruction of their arranged marriage when she’d fallen for someone else—a Primary, no less. Because he’d thought that Gwen was what he’d wanted and had taken his own sweet time getting over her, before realizing that falling for someone because you’d been told to by a bunch of scheming traitors wasn’t really falling for someone at all.

So he’d thrown himself into leading the Ofarians, rebuilding them, steering them into a new future. Work, work, work. Politics, politics, politics. No time for lovers. No desire for them, really. Until Kekona.

And what a shocker that had been.

Though he didn’t want her to leave—that realization making his body tense up all over again—he knew that eventually, soon, she would.

But she didn’t. Instead she came closer, causing his lungs to pick up pace. She sat on the edge of the bed and patted the rumpled bedspread. “Do you want to get a few things out of the way?”

He sat up, resisting the incessant urge to touch her. “Things. Like what?”

“Questions.”

Ah, business. “Ask away.”

She pursed her lips, a lovely, playful expression. “I meant do you have any for me after your first Senatus meeting, but I’ll bite.”

He had a ton of questions for her, none of which involved the Senatus.

“How’d you find us?” she asked.

He saw no reason not to tell her. “The Board, the old system of Ofarian leadership, had been gathering clues about other Secondary races on Earth. Scattered sightings or unproven occurrences, some cryptic references, that kind of thing. When I took over, I followed the breadcrumbs they’d been hiding.” He folded his arms across the tops of his knees, knowing that the Senatus had been well aware of the Ofarians’ existence for years—maybe even decades—but had deliberately avoided approaching his kind.

“I already told the Senatus all this,” he added. Which meant that Kekona may have been the chief’s second, but she wasn’t privy to all the information her superior was. Interesting.

She didn’t respond. “After the Board fell, how’d you get to be leader?”

“Ah”—he scrubbed at his cheek—“by default? I didn’t know I wanted the position when I was elected, but they voted me in anyway. I’m a bit, um, controversial.”

Genuine surprise widened her almond eyes. “You didn’t want to be leader? And your people voted you in anyway?”

Griffin exhaled, remembering how Gwen had refused the new leadership position and nominated him instead. It wasn’t information he worried about sharing with the Senatus. Kekona would relay these words back to them tomorrow, and Griffin thought it might make him seem more humble. “Yes,” he said. Kekona seemed sincerely confused at that, which sparked his curiosity. “How is your chief chosen?”

“The ali’i, or chief, isn’t chosen. You fight for it. With this”—she lifted a fist—“and this.” She drew a short, sharp inhale, and then expelled a small flame onto her knuckles where it danced without effect or apparent pain. With another inhale, she sucked the fire back into her body. Griffin’s turn to marvel.

Kekona leaned closer. “So do you want the leadership now?”

A difficult question. The Senatus hadn’t asked him this much, about his history. Maybe it was time they knew—time they understood where he’d come from to better comprehend what he was fighting for. It would give her something to report back, and in the end it could work to his advantage.

Strangely, too, he wanted to speak to Kekona’s earnest expression.

“Yes and no,” he answered truthfully. “I could do without the actual command, but what I want is more important.”

“Better integration with the Primaries.”

He nodded, not remotely shocked she’d been told what he’d presented to the Senatus just hours ago. “That’s right.” Shifting on the bed, he realized they were both still naked, and that while he sort of wanted to cover up, she didn’t even seem to notice.

“But . . . why?”

This was what he hadn’t told the Senatus, at least not this version, in this way. He thought that the story might sound more convincing to them coming from her, told to her by Griffin in a private setting, rather than him blathering on to three other Secondaries who wore obvious cloaks of doubt and fear.

“In old Ofarian society,” he began, carefully choosing his words, “you were born into very specific classes. The ruling class, the working class, the soldier class . . . you can guess what I was.”

The way her eyes flicked appreciatively across his arms and legs made him burn like when she’d been touching him. “I can guess,” she said.

“I never had any choice in what I was to become. I had no dreams except for what was given to me. No skills other than what I was prepped for, what I’d been made to tend or grow.”

“Chimerans are kind of similar,” she said, and by the remark she’d made about having to battle for the position of ali’i, it made sense.

“When I was a teenager,” he went on, “I was tested, and then trained to be the sole protector of someone who, at the time, was one of our greatest assets: Gwen Carroway, our old Chairman’s daughter. It was all I knew up until two years ago—her and her protection. I was eventually made head of Ofarian security.”

Kekona blinked and shook her head, long strings of black hair swinging around her shoulders to brush the curves of her breasts. “I don’t understand. That wasn’t your dream?”

She may not have understood him, but he understood Kekona. Because she’d had to fight to be Chimeran general, she’d nursed her own dream from probably a very young age. She’d seen what she wanted, battled for it, and won.

“No,” he replied. “It wasn’t. But now my people have the chance to start over, to create dreams outside of Ofarian magic or structure, outside of the Secondary world. Opportunities I never had. I want that for every one of my people. I want that for all Secondaries.”

Her full mouth twisted and he knew he hadn’t sold her. That was okay. For now. Baby steps. Spying and manipulating was so much easier when it was done out in the open.

Kekona pulled her feet onto the bed and curled her legs to one side, getting more comfortable with him. He liked that. She was hard and muscular, a clear warrior, but there was a feminine gracefulness to her movements, and it made him hyper aware of her presence, still so close.

His hand was halfway across the space between them before he realized it. Too late. No turning back. But instead of going for her face again, which he sensed would make her back off, he fingered a piece of her glossy hair. She flinched but didn’t move away.

“It doesn’t catch fire?” he asked in wonder.

“Wouldn’t make much sense to be Chimeran if it did, would it?”

True. “It feels . . .” amazing.

“What?”

He shook his head, let her hair slide out of his palm, and rolled off the opposite side of the bed. He went to his bag, ripped it open with more force than was necessary, and pulled out a pair of gray flannel pants. When he looked up, her eyes were skating over him in obvious—and wonderful—approval.

A slow smile spread across her face as she pushed from the bed and sauntered toward him with powerful elegance. The woman knew how to command a room. She didn’t have to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him, soft and swift, and it was then he first tasted the zing of sweet smoke on her breath. It curled down his throat and made its home inside him, and he knew he was done for.

“Kekona,” he whispered, before he could stop himself.

Her head snapped back mockingly. “Yes? Griffin?”

No one had managed to unnerve him, to embarrass him, in years. He found that he liked it, this reminder that he was real and not untouchable. That he was someone other than a leader, a scapegoat, a man to be feared, admired, or hated.

He cleared his throat. “Anyone call you anything besides Kekona?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly, he felt very brave. “What can I call you then?”

With a lift of an eyebrow—arched and dramatic compared to his flat, thick ones—she nodded to the door that opened into the hallway. “On the other side of that, call me ‘general.’ But in here, ‘Keko.’”

Feeling victorious and electrified, he pushed his hands into the black silk of her hair and tilted her head back. To his delight, she let him. “So this is happening again?”

“Yes.” She nipped at his bottom lip. “I believe it will.”

• • •

The next night, Keko let him throw her onto the bed.

It had been another grueling night session with the Senatus around the bonfire in which he’d been asked to relay stories of successful Ofarian integration into Primary businesses and schools. The inquiries had planted hope, which, if he’d been smarter, he would have recognized as him having reached the apex before the crashing fall over the back side of the mountain. Because as soon as he concluded talking about an Ofarian man who used to do accounting for the old Board and had recently secured a job at a large Primary firm for equal pay and excellent retirement, the premier and the chief—Aya remaining oddly silent—dragged out example after example of times when the commingling had done more damage than good.

Instances that he knew far too well. Instances that had resulted in death. Twelve deaths to be exact.

So when Keko accompanied him back to his hotel room, his mood a murky, roiling cloud of frustration, he’d slammed her against the wall, his mouth claiming hers before she could speak. Spinning her around, he slid one hand down the front of her ratty, loose jeans and the other up her shirt. A smooth, willing piece of heaven, right in his grasp. His for now. She was grinning at him over her shoulder as he picked her up and tossed her onto the bed.

She gave him a wonderful fight, smiling with her jet eyes the whole time. Exactly what he’d been looking for. But in the end he let her win, because she seemed to like that. She seemed to get off on victory. When it had started he’d wanted a means through which to take out his annoyance and anger, but then as soon as he was inside her, it changed. He just wanted her, the driving velvet of her body, and the casual exchange of words and random thoughts directly after.

On the third night they didn’t even make it to the bed, doing it on the floor just inside the hotel door.

On the fourth night of bonfires, the Senatus finally asked him about his story—the one he’d told Keko about growing up in the Ofarian classes, about how he and everyone else he knew had been wedged into lives they didn’t necessarily want.

It had taken her a few days to relay this information to her chief. Maybe she’d deciphered the growing tension in Griffin over their past few secretive nights together. Maybe she’d actually wanted to help him. But it was dangerous to think the latter, to take the fork in the road that veered toward the personal. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Griffin told the Senatus about his life up until the downfall of the Board, and the other elementals were more receptive than they’d ever been to his words—at least no outward arguments or raised voices. Griffin went back to the hotel jubilant, that small accomplishment stoking his desire. With a silent folding back of the covers, he invited Keko between the sheets for the very first time. He’d expected a laugh, maybe a roll of the eyes, but instead got a slow removal of her clothes, revealing the body he would never, ever get tired of looking at. When she slipped her feet under the top sheet and lay back, the contrast of her dusky skin against the pure, starched white was remarkable and lovely, the whole process achingly slow.

With an impatient lift of her brow, he got naked under her appraisal. She made him feel like a Chimeran—full of fire and the urge to use it.

He came down over her and immediately she grinned and tried to resist, to get a leg over him, to return to their games of the prior nights, wrestling for control. But with firm hands on her forearms, he pressed her into the bed. Not hard, but enough for her not to misread what he wanted, or did not want.

“Can I just be with you?” he whispered.

Beneath him she softened, but only a little. Enough to remind him that he was leaving Utah after the Senatus bonfire tomorrow and there wouldn’t be another night with her. Enough for him to know that he wanted to slow it down tonight and . . . memorize.

As he touched her—for the first time really touched her with care—he told her with words how much he loved the way she felt and looked, and the way she did things to him. When he finally pushed inside her and her Chimeran heat coated him, pulled him deeper in, he told her how much he loved that, too.

She didn’t respond with any verbal declarations, but he hadn’t expected her to. After they came, staring into each other’s eyes, and he rolled off her, she made no move to leave him or the bed. That was a first. And it would also be a last. He hated that thought.

She shifted onto her side to face him, and that said more than her unspoken words.

“Thank you for not trying to make a fight out of it,” he said.

Her lips rolled inward and he couldn’t tell if the expression was regret or uncertainty. “It’s just how it is with me.”

“I know.”

He stared as though seeing her for the first time. The mysteries of her people glittered around her. Her signature had made a comfortable home in his mind and being, nestling in good and tight. He would never forget it, as long as he lived.

“Do you want to be ali’i?” he asked, because she wouldn’t respect him beating around the bush.

The answer came without pause. “Yes.”

“So you’ll eventually have to fight your uncle.”

She shrugged. “To get where I am now, I had to fight my best friend, Makaha. I fought my brother.”

“What was that like, fighting your brother?”

“My older brother. Bane means ‘long-awaited child,’ if that tells you anything about how my parents viewed him.” With a rare glance down, her finger ticked at the edge of the bed sheet. “I’ve been fighting my whole life.”

“Ah.”

Looking up, she smiled, and the realization over how much he was going to miss that sight gouged a hole in his chest.

“The first time I beat two boys at once. Makaha had taken this slingshot I’d made, and when I tried to get it back Bane came over. They taunted me in front of my parents, in front of a lot of people. That’s when my fire came out for the very first time. I laid them both out with my fists and finished them off with flame. I knew then that I’d be general someday.”

Griffin smiled and laughed. Both happening simultaneously for the first time in years. Thanks to Kekona Kalani.

“Are you and your brother close?” he asked.

She seemed perplexed by the question. “As close as family is supposed to be.” Which answered nothing . . . and a lot at the same time. “Bane and I share parents, but Makaha is my dearest friend. My brother in much more than blood.”

They stared at each other, only a narrow strip of crinkled white dividing them. Neither moved to cross it.

They talked the rest of the night. Nothing serious, nothing about the Senatus. Just silly stories about them as kids learning how to fight, their favorite foods, how similar their parents were.

As the morning light outlined the thick hotel drapes, he took a deep breath and said, “You haven’t told them about us.” He didn’t have to define “them.”

For the first time since he’d met her, she seemed uncomfortable. “No.”

“Will you? When I’m gone?”

Keko licked her lips and glanced away. “No.”

He reached out then and pulled her into him, that hard body flush against his, her heat instantly enveloping him. He searched her face and found that a very different fire raged behind her eyes, one that had nothing to do with magic.

“There’s something here,” he murmured. “More than sex. Tell me I’m wrong.”

She stayed silent.

“Go on,” he urged. “Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

Unsure what to do with this incredible victory, he ran a hand down her smooth back and held her even tighter. “I don’t think I can just walk away from you. I want to see you again.”

She’d never paused this long before speaking. The woman owned every single word she ever said, and she never hesitated. So when she whispered, “I want that, too,” he nearly collapsed in happiness and relief.

He kissed her hard and then spouted off his phone number. “You got that? It’s my private phone. I want you to call me.”

She threw him the wry, cocky smile he’d grown to cherish and understand. “There’s one phone in the whole Chimeran stronghold. Phone sex might be a little difficult.”

It was her way of ending the connection—with a smart-ass remark—and he let her slide out of his embrace. The way she sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders all tense, bothered him, though.

“We can’t,” she said. “See each other again, I mean. Outside of the Senatus. I haven’t said anything to them because it isn’t allowed.”

A sour feeling churned in his stomach. “What isn’t?”

“Intermixing. Mating. Between the races. It’s a Senatus rule. And it’s kapu for Chimerans.”

“Kapu?”

“Taboo.”

Propelling himself off the bed, he whirled around to face her. “That’s fucking ridiculous.” As she bent down to snatch her jeans from the floor, he could see the words she wasn’t saying all bunched up in her spine. “What?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out so demanding, so cold.

“Just that”—she stamped into her jeans and pulled them up over her ass—“I never used to see anything wrong with it.” She lifted her eyes to his. “Until now.”

His feet ate up the space around the bed so fast he didn’t remember moving. He was on her, kissing her hot and tender, and the feel of her hands on his back sent him soaring. “I’m never going to stop wanting you,” he said against her mouth, and she replied with a sound so low in her throat it may have been her answering fire.

“We’ll take it slow,” he told her, pulling back and running fingers down her soft neck. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll get on the Senatus and we’ll figure it out. Change things.”

She nodded, stepping back, and he knew that she didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe either that he could do what he claimed, or that it would ever happen.

• • •

It wasn’t hard to avoid looking at Keko as the two of them hiked through the cold, black woods to the Senatus gathering. It was impossible, however, not to feel her.

Was she doing that on purpose? Sending him those knee-buckling waves of heat that managed to penetrate his heavy coat? They felt like the strokes of her hands—the way she’d touched him all last night into early this morning. Quieter, kinder than the Keko who’d picked him up at the airport.

A fire crackled low and unthreatening within a stone circle. The premier and Aaron sat at a picnic table, talking. Chief and Bane and Makaha huddled on the opposite side of the flames. Aya had not yet arrived, but Griffin assumed she would walk out of the deep shadows at any moment. She always arrived just as the proceedings began, which intrigued him and also made him slightly uncomfortable.

He regarded the Chimerans with new eyes tonight, understanding them a little bit more. At least he knew now why Bane and Keko were so aloof to one another and why, even though she was his second, Chief always seemed to be watching her, assessing. Makaha was different, though. The shorter, stockier Chimeran warrior tracked Griffin with his black gaze. If he and Keko were as good friends as she claimed, it was possible the warrior could tell something was different about her. About how she and Griffin now acted around one another.

As Griffin stepped into the Senatus circle, the chief and the premier broke away from their people to approach him. As predicted, Aya emerged seemingly from the atmosphere beyond, her wispy white hair shining and the flames making the golden skin on her face and neck glow with warmth. The rest of her body was covered by a beautiful and unsettling tangle of ever-shifting foliage. She leisurely walked out of the shadows, as though she’d just parked her car steps away, which Griffin knew couldn’t be true.

Tonight, Griffin was going to tell them everything. Through Keko, he’d seen what chiseling away at cultural walls could do for understanding on a level above a formal meeting. Talking was the key. He would appeal to the hearts of the Senatus delegates.

He was going to talk about Henry.

The muffled chime of a cell phone broke the tense silence, and the premier pulled his out of an inner pocket. He looked at the screen and swore.

“What?” Chief demanded, but the tone of his voice suggested he might already know.

Griffin couldn’t name why his stomach suddenly dropped.

The premier turned and snapped his fingers at Aaron, who was immediately on his own phone, mumbling into it as he turned away.

“Where?” asked Chief.

Yes, where? Griffin wanted to scream, because his gut was telling him something horrible was about to go down.

“Where we thought,” the premier replied. “She’ll be stopped. Aaron’s sending Madeline right now.”

“What’s going on?” Griffin was careful to keep his voice even, to not betray the sense of foreboding that had suddenly crashed into the silent woods. Chief and the premier, after sharing a long, silent look, swiveled their heads to look at him. He noticed, with discomfort, that Aya’s eerily cool green eyes had been watching him the whole time.

“A Primary professor in Seattle,” the premier finally told Griffin, “seems to have gotten photographic proof of one my own.”

So that’s what that sick feeling was: familiarity.

“She’s been sitting on it for a while, gathering more information, writing a paper. But now she’s preparing to go wide. My people found it when she posted it online in draft form.”

“Stop her,” Chief growled.

The premier raised a stiff hand. “We will.”

All of the heat Keko had given Griffin fled in an icy gust. “How will you?”

The premier stood as tall as his slight stature would allow, the brim of his cowboy hat tilting back. “She’s respected in her field now,” he replied. “She won’t be tomorrow.”

Griffin’s tone took a dive into distaste and frustration. “How?”

Another wordless look between the chief and the premier.

“Tell him.” Aya’s voice was small and light, fitting to her appearance. But it carried a clear command, one that the other two elemental men heeded. Her white hair seemed to move without wind. She had yet to blink, that green stare shaking and unsettling Griffin even more.

With a sigh, the premier said, “The professor’s evidence will be destroyed. She will be discredited based on her current mental state.” He crossed his denim-and-flannel-clad arms. “My people have the power of . . . persuasion.”

Griffin wished for something to grab on to, but remained erect under sheer force of will. “Explain.”

“Go on.” Though Aya’s voice tinkled like bells on summer wind, there was a distinct melancholy to it. “Tell him.”

The premier ambled toward Griffin, the heels of his cowboy boots crunching on pebbles and snow. “If I’d wanted to,” he told Griffin, “the second you found my compound last year, I could’ve sent a sliver of air into your ear. Into your brain. I could’ve woven suggestion and thought into that air. I could’ve convinced you of anything I wanted. Made you forget what you saw or knew. Created something that wasn’t there. You get the idea. And when I pulled the air out, you never would’ve been the same.”

Griffin’s hands made cold fists against his thighs. “You fuck with Primary minds.”

“We preserve our existence.” Every one of the premier’s words sounded dragged through cold mud.

Great stars. Griffin reeled. “Is it permanent?”

Chief answered with a mighty rumble. “Permanent for them. Perfect for us.”

The statement was a bullet, tearing through flesh and bone, shredding Griffin’s heart. “How many?” Then, when no one answered, he shouted, “How many?”

The number twelve flashed quick and terrible through his own mind. Twelve deaths. Twelve sets of shackles clamping him to a former life.

“Since the Senatus began? Over the centuries?” The premier had the audacity to sound bored, and Griffin couldn’t help but be reminded of the former Ofarian Chairman—the one who used to give Griffin his orders. “Impossible to say. Hundreds, maybe? The dawn of technology changed everything. Made us work overtime.”

“No.” Griffin lunged forward.

The sudden movement sent the Chimerans into motion. Chief fell back against a wall of his warriors, Makaha on one side, a trickle of black smoke curling up from his lips, and Bane looming large on the other.

Keko, to Griffin’s dismay, fell in beside her brother. Her face was unreadable, but her stance was unmistakable. Defensive. Ready to attack. Standing with her people.

“No!” Griffin shouted again, the taint of old death making his muscles tight and his heart twist. “I oppose this.”

The premier scoffed. “You have no right to oppose anything. You have no voice here.”

Griffin flinched. Aaron pressed in tighter to his leader.

“What happens when the truth about us finally comes out?” Griffin started to pace. “And it will, make no mistake about that. You yourself mentioned technology, how hard it’s made things. What then? How will we be able to defend ourselves, our very existence, when the Primaries learn what we’ve been doing to them? Have you thought about that?”

Aya inhaled sharply, but said nothing.

Griffin’s focus darted between the Airs and the Chimerans. It had been years since he’d been in a physical fight, but the signs of an impending one would never leave his mind and he possessed strong muscle memory. The other elementals’ threats against him were quiet but present.

“The truth won’t ever come out.” Chief’s ribcage expanded and contracted. “That’s why we have the Senatus, to keep that kind of thing under control. Do you understand now why we can never integrate in the way and to the extent that you want?”

Oh, he understood. He knew now that it would take a hell of a lot more than stories about young Ofarian boys to turn the tides of this mess. He looked to Keko, but she was stone-faced. No, wait. There. A squint of her eyes—showing doubt in him, fear of his opinion, blind agreement with her chief—erased all the personal good that had been forged between them. It annihilated everything.

“Then I’m going to Seattle.” Griffin whirled on the premier. “I’m stopping this.”

The head air elemental let out a mocking laugh and swept his eyes up to the stars. “I’d forbid you to do that, but you’d never make it in time anyway.”

“I’m not part of you, remember?” Griffin snapped. “You can’t forbid a thing. And you can’t do this.”

Behind Griffin came the crunch of footsteps. “It’s already done,” Chief said, as though the finality of his tone was the end of this issue.

Like hell it was.

Griffin roared and spun on the Chimeran. Chief was standing there like a mountain, just waiting for Griffin to come after him with a new argument, but Makaha was moving, lunging for the chief’s side. Wait—no. The warrior was launching himself right at Griffin.

Fists like iron balls at his sides, thick legs pounding into dirty snow, Makaha’s bare chest expanded like a balloon. It filled with magic that singed Griffin’s Ofarian senses. The Chimeran warrior opened his mouth and a flame burned at the back of his dark throat.

A flame meant for Griffin. An attack.

A few years of sitting behind a desk or at the head of a conference table did not soften an Ofarian trained from toddling age to be a fighter. Griffin instantly snapped into his old self, the one he’d been conditioned to become and often wanted to leave behind. Fists meant nothing to this beast of a man coming after him. Even if Griffin had a gun, it would become ash in Makaha’s threatening fire.

Ofarian spilled from Griffin’s lips. He whipped out his magic, snagging every available bead of moisture from the air, the ground, his very skin, and slamming them all together in his palm.

At the same time, in clear view of everyone, Makaha’s ribcage collapsed, expelling the fire from within. Griffin could see it, the barrel of flame coming out from between Makaha’s lips. The Chimeran was going to fry Griffin alive, right in front of the entire Senatus . . . but this was not the way he would die, outnumbered with no magic or power to show for it.

He flung out his water at the exact moment Makaha let his fire loose. Chin tilted up, Makaha’s eyes raged in orange and gold. The warrior’s hand grabbed fire from his mouth, a brilliant, terrifying ball in his grasp.

Griffin aimed his spear of water for that hand holding the fireball. Aimed and struck. Makaha bellowed in surprise as Griffin extinguished the fire burning in the other man’s palm. Griffin instantly merged his water with the moisture on the Chimeran’s skin, taking it all under his control, binding it all together.

Then he twisted his magic.

With a roar of Ofarian words he switched the water to ice, encasing Makaha’s entire hand and making it splinter and freeze, all the way up to his elbow.

The Chimeran made burbling, sputtering, enraged sounds, his eyes bulging. More fire shot from his lips toward the sky, an anguished beacon. He screamed and stared down at his hand in terrified wonder, his whole arm shaking. He was trying to heat himself from the inside out, but Griffin’s hold was too strong.

At last, when Griffin felt like he’d made his point, when he’d killed the fire meant for him, he released his water.

Makaha’s face contorted as he inhaled again, tapping into his magic. Heat made a steaming glow of his body. The ice on his lower arm melted, splashing to the already muddy ground.

Underneath, Makaha’s hand had gone black.

A woman screamed, and Griffin thought that it might have been Keko, as she rushed to her friend’s side, her body a blur in the night. But then Bane dove through the bonfire, charging right through the flames, and took Griffin down to the dirt and wet, knocking out his wind. Pinned underneath the massive Chimeran, Griffin spit out rotted leaves and mud, and finally managed to get control of his breath.

The woman screamed again. Griffin swiveled his head and saw, with surprise, that the awful wail streamed from Aya. And that she was focused not on Makaha, but on Griffin.

The premier and Aaron came over, telling Bane he could ease off, that they could contain Griffin with the force of air. Bane refused, digging elbows and knees even harder into Griffin’s body.

Griffin’s head spun as he struggled, little stars dancing at the edges of his vision. But even in the chaos, he still found Makaha.

Keko knelt in front of him and the chief loomed behind his warrior. Both of her hands gripped Makaha’s black one, her whole body becoming an amber glow. But Griffin knew that not even Chimeran fire could bring back to life the flesh and muscle and half an arm he had destroyed.

• • •

Griffin didn’t run as he headed away from the Senatus circle a short time thereafter, so when the premier’s graveled shouts gave chase, they easily caught up to him.

“You are banned from the Senatus! You hear me? You and every Ofarian in existence!”

The trees shook their bare branches at Griffin as he passed. The winter wind howled in his ears and made a mockery of the warmth of his coat.

“You will never get support from us!” the premier continued to scream. “We will never listen to you! You are on your own!”

That was the sound of failure, that heavy pounding of his boots on the uneven ground, that jackhammer of his heart, that whiz and clatter of his brain as he tried to piece together all that had just happened and attempted to figure out how he’d been blamed as the party at fault.

He was almost to the edge of the forest, where Keko had parked the car she’d ferried him around in all week. It was unlocked and he wrenched open the door, removing his bag from the backseat. He’d hike out to the main road and hopefully thumb a ride back to the airport.

Someone was running through the trees at a steady, breakneck pace as though the cold and obstacles and dark meant nothing. As though she weren’t human.

Keko burst out of the tree line and charged right for Griffin. He was ready for her, ready for another attack, though he did not wish for one. She pulled up feet away, her breathing barely labored. “Makaha will lose his hand. Probably half his arm.”

Griffin could have sworn that tears glistened in her obsidian eyes, but then they were gone, leaving him to wonder what emotion was real and what was not, when it came to her.

“Yes. He probably will.” He had to swallow hard to get the words down.

Her rage came off her in pulsing, sour waves of heat. She was trembling, her hand shaking as she jabbed a finger into the trees. “What the fuck happened back there?”

He gasped. “I could ask the same of the premier. Or your chief. Or Makaha.”

She recoiled. “You attacked him!”

Icy wind raked through his jacket and clothing, scraping at his already chilled skin. “I what? No—”

“You are never allowed to use magic as offense during the Senatus.”

Griffin threw his bag to the ground. “Keko, I didn’t attack. Makaha did.”

“No. He didn’t—”

“I saw what was coming, what he was about to do to me, and I threw the ice as a defense.”

“Defense?” She laughed, that kind of hysterical laughter that often partnered with disbelief. With hatred.

“Fire was coming out of him. I saw it in his mouth. I saw it in his hand. He was coming for me, about to throw it at me. I will swear by it until the day I die.”

“He birthed fire to throw it into the sky. It’s a sign of frustration and warning among my people.”

“Well, maybe if you’d actually told me all that instead of fucking me, none of this would have happened.”

That hit home. She opened her mouth, her lips ready for a retort. Only there would be none because she knew he was right.

She slowly started to back away. “You destroyed him, Griffin,” she whispered, and her voice was broken again.

He cleared his throat. “He will live.”

But she was shaking her head. “You don’t understand.”

“So tell me this time!”

She glared. “He’s a defeated warrior now. Disfigured. Disgraced. When we take him back to the stronghold he will lose his warrior status. He will lose his home and have to go live in the Common House with all the others who are no longer worthy. He will serve everyone above him. He will have no sexual contact. He will lose his familial rights. And I will no longer be able to have any contact with my best friend.”

“Jesus.” The Primary invective came shockingly easy, the harsh whisper swirling between them. But she just stared at him. Challenged him. “Great stars, Keko, that’s barbaric. It’s medieval.”

“It’s Chimeran. It’s how it’s done.”

The wind tossed her loose hair around her head. Griffin took a brave chance, moving closer. “I think you know me better than this. It’s only been a few days, but I believe you know me. You know how much the Senatus means to me, how much you”—he licked his lips, cutting short that sentence. “Please understand my side, that I was protecting myself against an attack. Please. I’m asking you to take me back there and give me the opportunity to tell your chief that. To explain myself to the premier.”

The formal speak sounded insincere, even to his ears. It sounded like Griffin the politician, the leader. Not Griffin the Ofarian man.

Fire consumed her eyes, and it was dangerous and explosive. “You want me to take your side? To defend you?”

“I would like you to come with me as I explain my side. They won’t let me back in without you. I’m asking for your help.”

The silence between them grew more and more dense. “Nothing you can say to them will matter. Because to my people, Makaha no longer matters. It would be like speaking about a ghost.”

The loss in her eyes was too great to be measured. She was right. An apology wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone involved. Griffin would have to bear the regret on his own and figure out a new way to make things right.

“So it’s over?” He wasn’t talking about the Senatus.

Her expression was painfully blank. “Yes.”

Then she turned and disappeared back into the forest.