She should hate him for that, but she didn’t. She shouldn’t love him, but she did.

And that was why love was a strength and a weakness. Because at that very moment she felt incredibly emboldened, like she could conquer and accomplish anything, yet it was her love for him that was holding her back. Making her doubt her own purpose and the inherent risks. She could not let doubt take over.

This morning she would give Griffin a choice: help her reach the Source without complaint or asking her to turn back, or return to the mainland and let her do what she must. Regardless of his decision, she would hunt for her people’s cure. Either way, it would likely be the end of them.

First, however, she would bring him under the water with her. To feel close to him one last time in the presence of his element.

Leaving the spray on, she climbed out of the tub and stepped from the bathroom.

The outer door to their room was ajar and the long, kinked cord between the phone and the receiver stretched from the nightstand all the way to the front porch. Griffin was outside, shirtless, shorts back on, his ass against the railing, sunlight on his back. The receiver was to his ear. He was already pale, but when his unfocused eyes cleared and he finally noticed her standing in the middle of the room, soaking wet and naked, his olive skin lost even more color.

“I understand,” he mumbled into the phone. “I have to go.”

He came back inside, shutting out most of the light in the room when the door closed behind him. Going to the nightstand, he replaced the receiver on the cradle. Far too slowly.

Her heart felt like it had dropped into her feet, and she couldn’t say why. “Who was that?”

His fingers dragged off the phone and he finally looked at her, taking his sweet time to answer. “The premier’s been murdered.”

All air punched out of her chest, but did not result in flame. “What?”

“His wife found him dead. Couple of hours ago. Throat slit.”

Her hand flew to her neck in sympathetic horror. “My god. Who did it? Why?”

“Aaron said it was one of their own. Someone who didn’t want to pay his debts. That’s all I know.”

“Is Aaron the new premier?”

He rubbed at his chin, then scratched fingers up and down his cheek. The gesture unsettled her even more.

“Ah, no,” he said haltingly. “The other delegates haven’t voted a new one in yet. They’re . . . waiting.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Voting is usually immediate. I’ve been through two other premiers.” She bent to pick up her shirt and saw only the tatters of the tank top he’d ripped apart last night, so she threw on his black T-shirt instead, pulling the bottom tight around her waist and tying it in a knot. Snagging her jeans from the floor, shoving her legs into them and yanking up the zipper, a sudden realization hit her with the speed and pain of a bullet. “Wait a second.”

She looked up to find Griffin staring at her. Guilt made a single line of his eyebrows and she felt like the Queen had reached down from the sky and snatched the earth from under Keko’s feet. “I didn’t hear the phone ring.”

“You were in the shower.” It was nearly a whisper.

Though she couldn’t move, her voice jumped up a couple of notches. “But I didn’t hear the phone ring.”

“It did.” The words came out of his mouth sounding sticky-dry.

“How’d they know where to find you?”

He swallowed and it looked like it hurt. He even winced.

“How the fuck did they know where to find you?”

The curse emphasized the rage of blood in her ears and the crackle of the fire building underneath her skin. The last of the water from her shower evaporated, encasing her in wrath-induced vapor.

“Because I called the premier. Last night. When you went out.”

Her blood turned to thousands of tiny knives, scraping her raw from the inside. It was like the treeman had come for her again and she was running for her life, unable to catch the breath that would give her flame.

“Why?”

His blink was a beat too long. “To confront him about sending an earth elemental to attack you.”

The sweet ash and smoke from inside her body crept up onto her tongue, begging to be released. “And why would you ever think that the head of the Senatus would come after me? Why would he even know where I was?”

When he didn’t answer, she took a Chimeran breath and spit fire into her hand. It was an involuntary reaction, that thing she’d tried to explain to Griffin years ago, when Makaha had used fire to express frustration and Griffin had read it as an attack.

“Talk,” she said. “And don’t fucking lie to me. You’ve already been caught. They sent you, didn’t they? They sent you and you’ve been lying to my face this whole time.”

“No.” He came for her, arms raised as if to touch her face, his expression a fake seriousness that did nothing but mock her. “That’s not what—”

“No more lies!” she screamed, the fire leaping from her hand. She snapped it back before it could hit the bed and do any damage, but her control was weak under the pressure of growing rage, and the odor of singed polyester clung to the air.

“Fine.” He was the Ofarian leader now, all glower, his body set like a statue. “No more lies. Let me explain.”

“Explain that the Senatus ordered you to stop me from going for the Source? Explain that you fucking lied to me about it? Over and over again? Explain that all this”—she waved her unlit arm at the bed, the sheets rumpled and twisted from the writhing of their bodies—“was to get me to turn away and satisfy them?”

“That’s not true.”

She laughed bitterly. “Which part?”

“The last part.”

She wasn’t dumb enough to fall again for the emotion in his eyes. “Bullshit!” He turned his face away from the blast of heat her word threw at him. When the heat died his eyelids flipped up, and there was such torture dancing across his brown irises. Oh, he was good. A real goddamn actor.

“The Senatus didn’t send me,” he said, his voice far too even. “I volunteered. And yes, I came to stop you. But you already knew that. I never lied about that.”

The word “Senatus” sent an uncharacteristic icy shiver across her skin. “They promised you a seat if you brought me in. Didn’t they?”

“Yes. They did.” And by the way he answered without pause or expression, she knew he was telling the truth. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

“No, you didn’t want me to find out, period.”

“It was me or them coming after you, Keko. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it be them.”

“Why you? And do not feed me some rancid meat story about how you care so much for me you didn’t want to see me hurt.”

He rolled his lips inward, slowly shaking his head. “I didn’t want to see you dead. If the premier’s team hunted you, you would’ve run twice as hard to get away. You would’ve found a way to get to the Source, I have no doubt about that. And when you got there, the Children would’ve had free rein to kill you. They said exactly that. I wasn’t going to just stand there and let that happen. Not when I knew, deep down, that you would’ve paused for me. If anyone had a chance to get you to turn back and remain alive, it would’ve been me.”

She felt like a worse fool than the day her kapu affair and her broken heart had been revealed to Bane and the chief. “Why do the Children care so much?”

He had the nerve to step closer. She blew more fire up her arm, the whole thing one giant, beautiful flame. She didn’t care, as long as the traitor stayed away.

Griffin stopped and raised his palms. “Keko. The Fire Source is part of the earth. If it’s disturbed, it has the power to move tectonic plates, make volcanoes erupt, cause massive earthquakes.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t believe that. There’s nothing in the legends or history that talk about that kind of destruction.”