Drowning in Fire Read online

  “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 t
he 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 the
y 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 . . .