Earlier, at sunrise, Griffin had reached for her, sliding a hand over the bare skin on her hip. It was still astonishing to her that he could fuck her with such biting passion and then touch her with such tenderness. She hoped that he would continue to astonish her for a very, very long time.

“Who do you want to win?” he’d asked.

She’d just looked at him, confused. “It’s not about what I want.”

“Ah.” His favorite word, when it came to things Chimeran. His brow furrowed. “So all that you said last night about worthiness and weakness doesn’t apply here?”

“They both want to lead the clan. They have to prove themselves to the people. They aren’t being judged on what they don’t have, or something out of their control. They’re being measured by their actual abilities. Makes perfect sense to me.”

He sat up, flinging aside the blanket they’d used when they finally passed out naked under the stars—because she couldn’t yet stand to be enclosed after having endured being Within. The early morning light was very kind to his body.

“Makaha is at a distinct disadvantage against Bane,” he said.

“Seemed to do just fine against you.” Keko poked him. “You just don’t want him to win because he kicked your ass.”

He snorted. “Anything I might say in my defense would come off as weak to you, I’m sure. But yes, he did kick my ass.”

Later, with Griffin standing next to her on the grass, they watched Makaha defeat Bane.

The valley roared its approval over Makaha’s valiant fight and his ability to overcome. The clan swarmed around their new ali’i as Keko went to her brother.

Bane stood tall and strong despite looking like he wanted to collapse to the ground in fatigue and disappointment. She wanted to hug him—a strange, non-Chimeran urge—but knew she could not. Not ever, not without hurting him. So she said, “I’m proud of you.”

Breathing heavily, he bowed with two fists across his chest.

Then she went to Makaha. The people parted to let her through. The ali’i’s chest pumped with the last bits of adrenaline and a powerful air of dignity she hadn’t witnessed in him in years.

“It’s good to have you back, my friend,” she told him.

He pushed back his long, sweat-soaked hair. The smile he gave her was huge and honest and full of a happiness she’d never witnessed in an ali’i.

She found Griffin perched on top of a picnic table, his feet set on the bench, twirling a long yellow flower between his palms.

“That’s who you wanted to win,” he said as she fit her body between his knees.

“Maybe.” She glanced all around, taking in her valley. Her home.

He set down the flower and turned serious. “I have to go back. To San Francisco.”

She nodded, but it must have come too slowly or she must have done a crappy job of disguising her disappointment, because he quickly added, “I’m not leaving you.”

“I know. I know you aren’t.”

“I have to get back to my people. Gwen said things are getting testy, probably the worst they’ve ever been. I’m going to have a fight on my hands.”

“Shit, really?”

He nodded, lips tightly pressed together. “I owe the Ofarians an explanation for my absence. They need to know what’s happened with you and the Chimerans and the Senatus straight from me, and it needs to be sooner rather than later. And I really, really want to see Henry.”

“Griffin, you don’t have to explain. You’re a leader.”

“And now you are, too.” He swept a hand over her hair and her scalp tingled. “I’m coming back. In fact I’m sort of looking forward to sleeping with you on the dirt again. Unless you want to find us an actual bed while I’m away.”

He meant it to be funny, but it struck hard in her heart, mixing with all the things she still needed to tell him. All the things she’d been straightening out in her head.

“What is it?” he asked, because he was starting to know her so well.

“Can I drive you to the Hilo airport?”

“You want to be my chauffeur again? Talk about coming full circle.”

That pulled a small smile out of her. “I’m still going to make you carry your own bag. But I want to take you someplace else first. And, yes, I’m driving.”

Several hours later, after speeding northwest along the coastal highway straightaways and swerving daringly around the turns, she pulled the battered yellow Jeep into the gravel along the side of the road.

Griffin gaped at the scene out the windshield, motionless. Finally they climbed out and met in front of the car’s grille. They were back in the rainy part of Hawaii, and the water droplets made hollow splooshes on the car hood and quieter splashes in the puddles at their feet.

“What are we doing back here?” he asked.

Keko gazed up at the B and B in which more than their goals had changed. Boards had been hammered over the window and door of their former room. The sight of it made her throat tight.

Griffin finally noticed and gasped. “What happened? It was fine when I left.”

“My magic. It was too much, contained in too tight a space. It must’ve combusted and started a fire. I was watching. I saw you run off, and then the fire broke out. I ran back here, put it out, but it had already done some damage.” She shook her head and finally had to look away. “I did that. I didn’t mean to, but it’s someone’s business, someone’s life. And now it’s unusable because of me. But you know the worst part about it?”

“What?”

“I desperately want to make it up to the people who own this place. I want to help them, pay them back for what I did, but I can’t.”

Griffin took her arm and turned her to face him. “Sure you can.”

“No, I mean like I can’t.” She pointed a finger back down the highway, in the direction of the valley from which they’d come. “You see how we live. How little we have. Even if I wanted to pay for damages or a whole new B and B—which I do—I can’t because I literally don’t have a cent of my own.”

“Keko . . .” He ran a hand below his jaw and glanced out toward the ocean. “I can—”

“No, Griffin. Don’t even say it. I’m not taking your money. I’m not letting you step in and do this for me. I just can’t. And it has nothing to do with being Queen or whatever. You understand that, right?”

He did, because she saw it in the warmth of his eyes and the easy bob of his head. “Okay, so what are you thinking? Why did you really bring me here?”

She took a deep breath, felt the reassuring fire within. “To tell you that I want to come with you. To San Francisco.”

His eyes brightened, widened. “Yes. Yes. Absolutely come with me.”

She pressed a hand to the wet shirt on his chest. “Not solely to be with you. Like you, I have to be here for my people, so my going to the mainland can’t be forever.”

“I get that, sure. So what do you want to do?”

“I’m thinking”—she licked her lips and tasted the delicious water of her island, the stuff that would always, always remind her of Griffin and their days spent slugging through it—“that I want to ask for the Ofarians’ help.”

He opened his mouth, made some sort of odd sound, then finally got out, “What do you mean?”

“I am Chimeran Queen. I assumed and accepted the name only if I knew I could bring change for the better. You know how my people have been living. It is poverty. In this day and age, it is nothing more, and the clans on the other islands are the same way, maybe even worse off. Why does it have to be like that? I’m not saying we have to be rich and live in oceanfront condos on the Kohala Coast, but we have no prospects and no skills applicable to the real world. Ofarians do.”

He drew a sharp breath in realization, but she went on.

“I’ve been thinking about this ever since Aya brought me back from Within. How I was the first Secondary other than their own kind to see that realm. How Cat and now you have been the only Ofarians to visit the Chimeran valley. How no one knows anything about the Airs, or Sean and Michael, those spirit elementals who were with me in Colorado. How is this good? How can we possibly help each other if we’re peering at each other through teeny tiny holes?”