“Do you want to be ali’i?” he asked, because she wouldn’t respect him beating around the bush.

The answer came without pause. “Yes.”

“So you’ll eventually have to fight your uncle.”

She shrugged. “To get where I am now, I had to fight my best friend, Makaha. I fought my brother.”

“What was that like, fighting your brother?”

“My older brother. Bane means ‘long-awaited child,’ if that tells you anything about how my parents viewed him.” With a rare glance down, her finger ticked at the edge of the bed sheet. “I’ve been fighting my whole life.”

“Ah.”

Looking up, she smiled, and the realization over how much he was going to miss that sight gouged a hole in his chest.

“The first time I beat two boys at once. Makaha had taken this slingshot I’d made, and when I tried to get it back Bane came over. They taunted me in front of my parents, in front of a lot of people. That’s when my fire came out for the very first time. I laid them both out with my fists and finished them off with flame. I knew then that I’d be general someday.”

Griffin smiled and laughed. Both happening simultaneously for the first time in years. Thanks to Kekona Kalani.

“Are you and your brother close?” he asked.

She seemed perplexed by the question. “As close as family is supposed to be.” Which answered nothing . . . and a lot at the same time. “Bane and I share parents, but Makaha is my dearest friend. My brother in much more than blood.”

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.