Aaron sliced through the growing crowd, pushing up the steps and toward the doors. Aya followed, taking advantage of the space his people afforded him.

The church doors gave way under Aaron’s mighty push, and only after Aya tumbled in after him did he realize she’d followed. But if he meant to shout at her or kick her out, there was no time because Nancy was running down the back hall toward them, panic making her face white and her eyes impossibly wide.

It was then Aya heard the screaming.

A woman’s scream, a piercing wail that shot down from somewhere on the second floor. It never ended. Just kept running on a terrified, intensifying loop.

“Is that Hillary?” Aaron demanded of Nancy when she finally reached them.

Out of breath, Nancy replied, “Yes. Are the gates secured?”

Aaron nodded, ashen face turned to the stairs.

Footsteps pounded on the floor above, how many sets Aya couldn’t say. At least three, maybe more. An explosion of shouting and the distinct sounds of a fight, fists and kicks and more things breaking. It was a violent one that made the scene she’d witnessed earlier through the premier’s office door feel like a child’s temper tantrum. Men shouted and grunted, cried out in pain or in threat. She could make sense of none of it.

A million emotions sailed through the building, bombarding her, wreaking havoc with her human senses. None of them were good.

“The premier!” Aaron had his hand on the railing, one foot poised on the bottom step.

Nancy grabbed his arm, pulled him back. “Already dead. Hillary found him in his bathroom. Throat slit.”

Aya felt like the earth was taking her under while locked in this human body.

The fight upstairs rolled closer, the walls practically bowing out from the force of multiple bodies repeatedly striking them. The sounds were almost as deafening as the klaxon that still blared outside.

Then all of a sudden it stopped, the air charged with dread. There was a different struggle above, this one more focused, less intense. The muffled sounds of men’s terse voices drifted down.

Two males appeared at the top of the stairs, each clamping hard to one of Jason’s arms. Jason. Who was covered in blood.

By the time they got back to the B and B, the rain had started up again. A teasing spatter this time, thrown about in the wind. They walked side by side along the quiet road—the first time one of them had not led or been chased. They did not speak. Keko fought the urge to reach for his hand.

Griffin opened the door to their room, and this time the slow inward swing of the door didn’t scare her. Didn’t confuse her. Because she’d made her decision and got what she needed from him.

And now she just had him. For tonight, at least.

Still standing on the porch, she peered inside. “It’s nice. A bed and everything.” Her laugh was quiet and nervous, and she didn’t recognize the sound of it. Hated it, even. “Haven’t slept on one of those in a while.”

Slowly, so slowly, he pulled the key out of the lock and turned around to face her. She loved the way he moved, had loved it from the first moment she’d seen him in that parking garage. Loved it even more as she remembered how he’d selflessly vaulted himself off that rock to attack the treeman.

She’d gotten spooked when she’d stood in this exact spot earlier, weighted down by choices and feeling buried in her revived feelings for him. So she’d headed down to that bar, ordered two burgers to go, and sat down to have a good think. A small part of her had hoped he wouldn’t come looking for her.

But the vast majority of her was glad he did.

Brave Queen, she wanted him. In ways wholly different than she was used to. In ways that challenged her reasoning and her culture and the rules laid out by the Senatus. It felt okay to admit that now, standing there on a rainy porch in Hawaii with him staring expectantly at her. They’d each surrendered something. They’d each received something in return. They were going into tonight carrying a tenuous link of trust. It was something new for them, and like a bulky item of clothing she was unused to wearing, she was still shifting around in it, trying to get the fit right.

“When was the last time?” Under the sprinkle of rain his voice was as rich as coffee.

She blinked. “Sorry?”

As he quirked the tiniest of smiles, his expression turned soft and sublime. That was what she’d glimpsed in him years ago, that wonderful, brief moment when he’d told her he thought they should try to be together. She wanted more of that.

“The last time you slept in a bed,” he added.

A vision of crumpled hotel sheets, throw pillows kicked all over the floor, the bedspread stuffed somewhere in a corner, came to her with vivid clarity. “With you.”

A lift of those eyebrows. “Three years? And before that?”

“Never.”

“Never?”

“In my house, the one that Bane lives in now up on the bluff, I put in a hammock so I could sleep and feel the breeze all around me. When I lay in it I could see the whole Chimeran valley through the front door. I used to sneer down at the Common House, thankful I didn’t have to sleep on dirt and grass mats like them.” She ran her hand down the door jamb. “And then I was made to.”

He was still standing just inside the room, a hand on the doorknob, as she lingered out on the damp porch. Everything about him screamed an invitation to sex. It unnerved her, this role reversal. She should be the one beckoning him inside. She should be the one with the salacious glint in her eye. Shockingly, for the first time ever, she couldn’t deny enjoying being on the receiving end.

Griffin, the beautiful man, gave a gentle nod for her to enter. She did, and he softly shut the door behind her. The sound of the rain shifted from wet plops on wood to a light drum on the roof. The smell of cotton and cleaning disinfectant replaced that of the rain. Darkness enveloped them, the only light coming from the balcony sconces that shone through the lighter colored pattern pieces on the tropical-themed drapes. Yet she saw him—oh, how she saw him—standing there in the center of their rented, temporary world for however long they could keep it wrapped around themselves.

She would not think about what she didn’t or couldn’t have, but instead vowed to take joy in who and what she had with her now.

His hands were in his pockets, stretching the T-shirt across his flat abdomen. She went to him.

Not a lunge. Not a physical body throw. Not an attack. A careful, deliberate advancement.

She felt everything, listened to the song of every sensation. The rough nap of the throw rug beneath the soles of her feet. The steady pound of her heart. The pull of his stare as his eyes locked with hers, dark upon dark, matched in desire.

As she came to within inches of him, his body this incredible magnet to her senses, his absolute attention on her a sensual potion she was absorbing through her pores, nothing else existed in the whole world.

He removed his hands from his pockets, a soft shush of fabric.

She pressed him against the door. No, he was pulling her. It was impossible to tell. All she knew was that his hands—those things that wielded an element she’d been taught to hate, to fight—had closed around her waist, pulling up her tank top and sliding over her skin. All she knew was that their mouths were together again, and it was the slowest, softest, wettest kiss she’d ever experienced.

She’d never known that you could kiss like this. That the slower you did it, the more you wanted it. The more you wanted it, the deeper the need rooted in your system. And the deeper the need, the more desperate you felt to have him now. Only it was the holding back that made everything that much more brilliant.