He vehemently shook his head but she wasn’t buying it. “Wait a sec—”
“You come to Hawaii to bring me back and then you’ll finally get your seat around the bonfire. Meanwhile, since you’re nowhere near the mainland and the murder couldn’t be traced to you, you hire this other rebel air elemental to off the premier. Since the Senatus is waiting on word of your success with me to admit you, they decide to postpone the election of a new premier.”
His jaw clenched. “I thought you learned your lesson about jumping to conclusions. At least that’s what you told me. You’re paranoid and grasping for any explanation now. That’s so fucking ridiculous.”
She let out an ugly laugh. “Is it? Pardon me while I jump to a few more conclusions. How goddamn convenient for you, this timing. You’ll show up at the next gathering having saved the day—no, wait, the whole entire world—and they’ll have to be stupid not to vote you premier. Ta-da. You get everything you’ve ever wanted.”
His chest pumped hard. “Not everything, Keko.”
“And the killer part?” She choked on her voice, trying to stamp down the rising tears. “I told you my people’s biggest weakness. Are you dying to exploit that?”
“You need to calm down.” He stepped closer to her fire. “I swore on my stars. That secret stays in here.” He tapped his forehead.
Flame crackled between them, the ball in her hand jumping and dancing.
“I never should’ve picked you up at the airport.” Seconds later she realized she’d whispered it, but no amount of fire could burn the sentence from existence.
His shoulders dipped, his head sagging to one side. “It would’ve happened anyway. You and me. Don’t you see that? Don’t you get what’s between us?”
That snapped her focus and anger back into place. “It was a mistake. All of it.”
“You don’t mean that. Keko, I’ve lied to you, yes. But I think you really know that I won’t turn you over to them. It’s just easier for you to be angry, to react to surprise. It’s your nature and I get that, but you’re thinking crazy. Listen to my words, to all that I’ve just told you right here, right now in this room. Because that is the truth.”
“What are you going to do? Pray tell, oh mighty Ofarian leader. Tell me how you plan to heal my people and win their favor without ever disturbing the Source. Tell me how you’ll get that Senatus seat and be voted premier, and everyone will gaze up at you in admiration. Tell me, oh fabulous Griffin, how you plan to trick me into never being able to let you go for the rest of my life. How you plan to conquer and trap my heart, but never let yours go.”
“Keko . . .”
He reached for her then. For her face, where her flames didn’t touch. He wasn’t scared, didn’t remotely flinch. And that scared her.
She stumbled backward, out of his reach. “God, I hate you. I hate you so much.”
She had to get away from him. Immediately. Only one option remained.
Gathering all her fire—everything that she held in her palm and every little spark from deep inside her—she let it build and smolder, a great balloon of heat that turned her skin to shimmering white-hot red, like metal buried in coals.
Fear finally came to Griffin’s expression and he backed away, but it was too late. Keko released her magic—a blast from a furnace, an invisible cloud of heat. It slammed into him, flipped his body backward, sent him sprawling. Keko let him lie there. No movement from his twisted limbs. She went over, toed his shoulder to roll his body onto his back, and saw that his chest still moved. The lights of consciousness, however, were completely out. Good.
She swallowed, looking down at his slack jaw and jelly limbs. “I’m leaving now,” she said. “And I can’t have you following me. Can’t have you stopping me. This time, it’s really over.”
Before she could change her mind, she sprinted from the B and B, pausing only for a second at the bottom of the porch steps to consider her direction. Griffin knew the location of the Fire Source. So did she, and she’d need a boat to get there. Hilo was by far the biggest place to grab a charter on this side of the island, and that’s where Griffin would expect her to go.
So she fled the opposite way.
When she’d made it up the steep, windy slope, she felt a profound tug on her conscience. Stopping, she turned around to see the B and B, a hundred yards below, nestled in a vee of green land. As she stood there, the door to their room banged open and Griffin stumbled out. Shirtless, holding his head and weaving on his feet, he leaned heavily against the railing. At this distance she couldn’t make out his face, but she saw his head swing around. Looking for her. Quickly she ducked behind a tree. What was the range on his damn Ofarian bloodhound senses?
I can always feel you.
Her lungs suddenly felt clogged, like she’d been the one hit with that blast of heat. Running now might draw his attention, so she slid to the ground and carefully peeked around the trunk. Griffin stomped down the porch steps and took off on a wobbly jog toward Hilo.
Keko waited until he was out of sight . . . but waited for what? He was gone and she still couldn’t move from that spot. Slowly coming to stand next to the tree trunk, she gazed down at the B and B, seeing the ghosts of her and Griffin walking in last night, and then both of them running away. Alone. Separate.
A strange movement in the window caught her eye. A flicker of yellow and orange, when the room had been done in greens and blues, and the drapes white. Then she smelled it. Smoke. The fluttering gold in the window dimmed as black smoke leaked out from underneath the door.
No. No, no, no!
She’d thrown too much magic, too much heat, at Griffin, and it had lingered. Festered. Ignited.
Merciful Queen, that wasn’t what she’d intended at all. It wasn’t what she wanted! The Source still pulled her out to sea, but her legs brought her back to the B and B, sprinting as fast as she’d ever run.
The smoke coming out of the room thickened, the dance of flames in the window taller, larger. She flung open the door and inhaled—a Chimeran breath of the greatest kind. The fire and smoke instantly obeyed, swirling back into her body. She took it all back in, every last flame of her mistake. For once, the fire tasted awful.
She stood there in the doorway, looking down at the charred black oval on the wood floor where Griffin had once lain, and the ashen, teetering remnants of the table that had been placed beneath the window. The bottom half of the drapes were gone, the ends now jagged and crisp with black.
Hand to her mouth, she whipped around and fled back into the hills to the northwest, guilt making her feet impossibly heavy.
SEVENTEEN
The Airs refused to let Aya leave until the funeral was over. She sat on the steps of the false church, arms wrapped around her knees, the cold air trying to bite through the impenetrable grass suit. The freeze barraged her face, however, and the sting of it pulled tears from her eyes.
Real tears. Human tears.
The wind shifted, bringing with it the stench of the funeral pyre being lit on the far end of the compound. When it was over, they would name a new leader. Though she hoped it would be Aaron, there were no guarantees. And she, as a Senatus delegate, was required to remain here until she’d been given the name of the new appointee.
Did it really matter? Aya longed to escape out to open space, to dive into the earth and search for Nem, to confront him about what he’d done to Keko and Griffin. To forget about what she’d witnessed here, and how she could have ever found someone like Jason so compelling.