Drowning in Fire Page 4

  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 dest
royed. 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.