Drowning in Fire

by Hanna Martine

  He started to raise his hands, but she snapped out a sword of flame in warning and he lowered them.

  “I told you,” he said. “There are no others.”

  “I can think and run at the same time, and I came to the conclusion that you’re lying. The only reason you’d be here is for the Senatus.”

  “Or you.” His response came so quickly.

  “Or the Senatus,” she repeated.

  He shook his head at the ground, his hands resting on his hips. His body was the complete opposite of hers: loose and unafraid. Unaffected. She refused to be taken in by that. He wasn’t going to get her to lower her guard.

  “Three years,” he said to the dirt. His dark hair was shiny with sweat and rain.

  Then those brown eyes flipped up to hers under the canopy of his furrowed brow. That look—the way he looked—made her suck in a breath. Made her fire actually falter on her fingers.

  “Three years you had my phone number and you never called. I thought you hated me, and when I first saw you in that garage in Colorado I thought I’d been right. And then there was something else. I saw the truth deep in your eyes. I saw in your eyes what I heard in your voice when you finally did call me days ago. That, Keko, that is why I’m here.”

  For a split second she was tempted to let the fire go. Instead she touched her palms together as if in Primary prayer, spreading the flame between her hands.

  Griffin watched her, but not in fear. Respect maybe, but not fear. She didn’t know which she wanted more.

  He said, “You think all you’re worth is what you can prove to others. I came after you to tell you that I think you’re worth much more.”

  “This is all I have left.”

  “Bullshit.” Griffin lifted his arms, let them slap to his sides. “Do I look like I came from the Senatus? Wouldn’t I have an army behind me?”

  She peered over his shoulder again. Still no movement among the trees. No shapes of soldiers.

  “If they wanted you,” he said, “they’d come for you. Make no mistake about that. They wouldn’t send just me. Think about it.”

  She did, and then she lowered one arm, letting the flame on it die a green death.

  “I’m thirsty,” he added with more than a little exasperation. “Can I have a drink?”

  Her throat tightened in a similar want. She licked her lips.

  “I’ll need magic,” he said, then waited for her to give a shallow nod of permission.

  The Ofarian language was still as gorgeous as she remembered, all flowing words that ended too soon. She cringed, hating this reaction. Despising even more how she watched with wonder him using his magic.

  The air around his head started to dim and shimmer and coalesce. He was taking moisture from it. Whipping it together to form droplets, churning it into a little spout high above the ground and aiming it toward his mouth. Dropping back his head and opening his mouth, the floating funnel of glistening water poured itself inside. It trickled out of the seam of his lips and trailed down his chin. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “I’m worried about you,” he said. “I’m already tired of this chase. I’m tired of being scared for you.”

  “You’re not scared.”

  She stared hungrily at the empty space in the air where the water had been.

  “I’m not?” His thick eyebrows lifted. “I left my people for the first time ever and crossed an ocean to talk you down from the ledge, knowing I’m the only one who could do it. There’s a tad bit of fear there, yeah.”

  That didn’t affect her. Nope. Not at all. “You can’t stop me. You’ll try, but it won’t work.”

  He threw a pointed glance at her hand. The one she thought still owned fire. The one that no longer did.

  Her lips parted, ready to take in another Chimeran breath.

  Griffin came closer, his shoes silent on the ground, his presence consuming. “Are you thirsty?”

  She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, forgetting to rekindle the fire at the mention of a drink.

  “It’s a simple question, Keko. No underlying objective.”

  So why was he staring at her mouth?

  “There’s a stream—” she began, but Ofarian words overlapped hers. That beautiful water language drowning her out. Pulling her under.

  Griffin’s image went blurry as the air in front of her swirled, then shifted to a sheet of undulating water hovering at eye level. It rolled into itself, forming a long, liquid thread that danced and glistened before her. The sight of it made her stomach tighten and her throat clench in need.

  “Open wide,” he murmured.

  Standing at least six feet away, after a long chase across brutally uneven Hawaiian land, and he still had the energy to tilt the magic water toward her. Still had the ability to do things to her with his voice. It was just water, but it was also so much more. There was so much in his offer. So much in her acceptance.

  She wanted to fight her thirst—told herself to fight it. The next stream was somewhere around here, and this was the windward side of the Big Island where rain was aplenty, but in the end her body’s need won out. The weakness she’d been ignoring all morning craved attention. Maybe fire didn’t need water, but Keko’s body did.

  Keeping watchful eyes on Griffin, she parted her lips. Tilted back her head. When the first cool drops hit her tongue, her eyelids started to flutter and she had to force them open. She gulped down the water, lifting her hands below her chin to cup and drink even more.

  The way Griffin watched her reminded her of their very first meeting that day in the airport parking garage. Outward watchfulness, a carefully constructed shell that hid a machine of assessment and calculation and . . . desire.

  She quickly severed that line of thought, snapping her jaw shut against the water. It splashed on her chin and chest and she stepped away, almost tripping on a root in her rush.

  “Better?”

  It had been years since she’d heard that tone in his voice. That ravaged, hoarse quality he’d used when he told her he’d never stop wanting her.

  She shook her head, rattling out her anger and wits from deep inside, pushing them to the forefront. She would not be swayed by whatever it was Griffin Aames was trying to use on her. Her purpose was far, far more important than sex. Greater than any lovers’ past.

  “Yeah.” She would not say thank you. “This was not a victory.”

  He let out a half laugh and shoved a hand into his short hair. Whenever he’d met with the Senatus during that week they’d spent together, he’d arrived around the bonfire carefully groomed. Even when he’d come to “rescue” her in Colorado, wearing full-on soldier gear and a scowl, he’d looked like a million dollars. Now, with that vest pulled over his bare chest, sweat and rain and streaks of dirt making lines across his olive skin, his hair poking up at overlapping angles . . . he looked like a billion.

  “Never claimed any victory,” he said. “You just looked thirsty.”

  She glanced in the direction of where she believed the Queen’s prayer to be hidden. “I’m going now.”

  Lips pursed, hands coming to those slim hips, he nodded. “And I’m following.”

  She released a growl of frustration to the billowing sky.

  “You know I will, Keko.”

  Yes, she did know. Her panic was a living thing now, swimming throughout her body, slashing at her gut, pulling out her worry. Griffin couldn’t follow her. She couldn’t risk him ever finding out about the Chimeran disease, not when he was shadowboxing, looking for the perfect way into the Senatus. Not when it put her people at a serious disadvantage against his.

  She couldn’t risk being this close to him again, not when her heart and soul were so raw, when she was at her lowest point.

  But . . . this was her land. Maybe if she let him get a little closer—if she let him
think she’d given in, that she was softening to him, willing to be swayed—he’d get sloppy. Then she’d lose him so fast he’d never be able to track her.

  She tightened the strap of her pack that ran diagonally between her breasts. “I’m not slowing down for you.”

  “Don’t expect you to.”

  And then he smiled.

  • • •

  Griffin woke up because of the warmth on his face. When he’d fallen asleep stretched out on the wet grass, legs crossed at the ankles, hands tucked into his armpits, he’d been cold but determined to suck it up. Unwilling to give Keko any sort of ammunition against him.

  As his eyes cracked open, he stared into the dancing flames of a small fire built only a few feet away. Its heat coated his pebbled skin and he resisted groaning in relief. On the other side of the fire, just beyond its circle of light, was Keko.

  She sat on her heels, her back to him, head bowed toward the hands in her lap. Perfectly still. The fire and her presence confused him.

  She easily could have taken off while he slept. She’d been the first to fall into sleep, her body tucked into a nest of tree roots, curled away from his sight. Only when he knew she was out did he let himself rest, knowing he could wake himself up after a few hours. And here she still was.

  Silently, he came up to his elbows.

  She hadn’t spoken to him all day as she’d set a blistering pace northwest toward the coast. But then, he hadn’t asked anything of her, just stared at her back, trying to figure her out. They’d stopped when the light died.

  Now he looked at her back again, only under entirely different circumstances. It was quiet here, calm. Every now and then the fire would flare, sending light to graze her back in a loving stroke. Her white tank top was one of those that looped around her neck, exposing her defined delts and lats. Her long black hair was pulled over one shoulder. She wore jean shorts that made her ass look like a denim-covered heart. The shape of her, motionless for once, was intoxicating.

  The way the firelight played across her skin made him think that he could see the magic inside her.

  She was whispering something, the hush of it mixing with the breeze. It was another language, spoken so softly, and in a gentle tone that he’d never associated with Kekona Kalani. He longed for Gwen to sit at his side and translate for him. Just as quickly he changed his mind, because this moment of solemnity and peace was so unique and mesmerizing that he wanted to enjoy it for what it was. The puzzle was part of the appeal.

  The whispers stopped. Keko’s head lifted slightly, her gaze going into the trees and brush.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She didn’t jump, which told him she’d likely already known he was awake. Her hands slid to the ground near her hips and she looked over her shoulder at him, her hair swinging in shadow, nearly touching her waist.

  “For the fire,” he clarified.

  “You were shivering.” Flat tone, flat eyes.

  He wasn’t fooled by her act of generosity. She would still try to lose him. She’d make him think she was acquiescing by having him tag along, maybe even try to seduce him so he’d nearly die from orgasm, go all moony-eyed, and then she’d disappear. He knew those games and wouldn’t fall for them. But he didn’t have Adine’s little toy anymore, and he had to keep her as close as possible for as long as possible. Let her think him dumb and malleable, if in the end it gave him an advantage. If it allowed him to keep a close eye on her.

  She slid her legs out from under her body and sat perpendicular to the fire, hands wrapped around her knees. Great stars, her legs were long, that caramel skin such a gorgeous color.

  “What were you doing?” he asked.

  “Praying.”

  He didn’t know what surprised him more. The fact she’d answered so quickly, or the nature of her answer itself. “To whom?”

  She looked confused. “The Queen. Of course.”

  He sat fully up. “The Queen who died when she found the Source. She became a deity after that.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her face just above the tips of the flames between them. “Yes.”

  “So what do you pray for?”

  Keko answered slowly. “What people usually do. What do you pray for, Griffin?”

  He sat cross-legged. “I don’t. We don’t. Ofarians give thanks and pay homage to the stars twice a year, but we don’t have a god or goddess that looks out for us. We don’t have religion.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Huh?”

  “What you just described. It’s religion. You believe the stars gave you your magic, right?”

  He swept a long, arching look across the sky that was slathered with twinkling lights. “Not exactly. Ofarians came from somewhere out there, somewhere else in the universe. Our magic came from our home world, but it’s the stars we can see as we stand here on Earth. So it’s the stars we acknowledge.”

  “You have rituals? Things you do and words you say that you believe make you stronger?”

  “Yes.”

  Her hands left her knees and slapped lightly back down. “It’s religion. Yours is less tangible, but no less a faith.”

  Now this was getting interesting. “Less tangible?”

  “Well, yeah. You worship something that doesn’t actually give you power, but a substitute.”

  “We don’t ‘worship’ the stars.”

  She acted like she hadn’t heard him. “But we worship the woman who gathered all the Chimerans together from all across Polynesia and New Zealand and Southeast Asia. She dreamed of the ‘land of raging fire’ and took us across the sea to find the wellspring of our power. Here. We owe her everything. She was real.” Another light slap to her knees. “Tangible.”

  “Huh. I’m not sure I follow you.”

  She flicked her eyes skyward. “We came from up there, too, you know.”

  Griffin couldn’t hide his surprise. “No. I didn’t know.” Still such little knowledge about the other elemental Secondaries. Did it frustrate the other races as much as it frustrated him?

  Pulling all her hair into one hand, she started to braid it. “In a meteor shower, the story goes. There was something in what came through the atmosphere, something that affected portions of the population in the South Pacific. Something that mixed with the fire magic that was already present in the Source, and it changed some of the people.”

  Absolutely fascinating, but Griffin couldn’t find his tongue to tell her so.

  Now Keko swung her legs around, too, sitting tall on her hips, her white tank top nearly glowing in the night. “That’s what the Queen did. She found all of us, scattered over hundreds of places and islands, and brought us together. Taught us how to use our magic. She only wanted what’s best for her kind. It’s why she searched for the Source in the first place, to make us all stronger.” Keko licked her lips. “It’s why I’ve asked her to bless my purpose now.”

  “And that purpose is . . . ?”

  She almost answered. Almost. Keko opened her mouth, took a short breath, then changed her mind, lips pressing shut.

  “You want to be a goddess,” Griffin said.

  Keko’s eyes glittered like black diamonds. “No.”

  “But you want to lead.”

  “You know I do.”

  With a hard pang he realized this was the easiest they’d spoken in three years, since the final time they’d been alone in that hotel room. Easiest, but also the hardest, because so much of what he’d told her was lies.

  Every time she brought up the Senatus and he had to deny its involvement, he felt an invisible knife gouge into his heart. And every time he had to pluck that knife out and ignore the doubt and pain welling in its place, because Keko’s life and safety—and the protection of the Source—was worth more than the truth at this point. He would deal with the truth later. When she could listen
and actually hear it.

  Picking up a stick, he poked at the fire. It flared more than his poking warranted, and when he glanced up he saw the flames reflected in her penetrating eyes.

  “So your Queen brought all the Chimerans to these islands. Did they make the great migration with the Primaries, when the other cultures settled here?”

  Another burst from the fire, this time without him touching it at all. “Someone read the tourist brochure.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Is that how it happened? Did you cross the ocean with them?”

  Again she lifted her eyes to the stars, as though consulting the objects he still wouldn’t name as deity, no matter what she said.

  “Is it some sort of secret?” he pressed.

  She lowered her chin. Met his eyes. And it took all his strength not to react to the intensity of her direct look, not to let her see the shiver that shook his spine.

  “No. I guess not,” she said. “No orders or kapu or anything like that.”

  “So . . .”

  She fidgeted with something on the ground, shot a blank look into the shadows, looked anywhere but at him. “So, yes. We came over with the Primaries.”

  Holy shit. He couldn’t hide his excitement. “You were at one time integrated with them. Lived together.”

  “That’s what the tales say, yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “What do you think happened? When we came here, so close to the Source, our magic increased. The Queen became more powerful. We scared them and separated ourselves.”

  It was a different time then, he told himself.

  “They made up stories about us. How we lived in volcanoes and made them spew ash and fire. How we demanded sacrifices. How we held power over the common people.”

  “Sounds a lot like some of the Hawaiian folktales.” Yeah, he’d read the tourist brochures, and anything else on old Hawaii he could get his hands on, once he learned where Keko lived.

  She looked half amused and half annoyed. “Or maybe the folktales sound like Chimeran history. Stories and legends are usually made up to try to explain real things that you don’t understand.”