This belief she grasped tightly and wrapped around her heart. She channeled it into a deeper, more frantic kiss, an almost frightening urgency to her motions. She let herself be ground into the rock at her back, not feeling any of her injuries, only feeling Griffin. Tasting him. Loving him.
His spirit was his own Source. His selflessness gave him a purpose she’d always found foreign but now accepted with a profound understanding. His fair, considerate concern for the well-being of anyone other than himself was a bottomless well that would never run dry. It was counter to the Chimerans’ way of life and it humbled her greatly. But it also gave her something to strive for, and a gift she could slowly feed to her own people.
Griffin pulled away, leaving her breathless not from the broken kiss, but from the depth of the emotion on his face. His hands slid up her arms and shoulders, and the Source fire traced his fingers’ path underneath her skin, making her shiver with awareness, kicking up the pleasure of his touch. Taking the flaps of her ripped T-shirt—his T-shirt—he parted them gently, exposing her chest but not her breasts.
The Source glowed, a tranquil spot of light, until Griffin bent his head and kissed her skin. Right over the gift he’d given to her people.
This time the Source did break free in a flash of blue-white. Keko gasped, but Griffin only smiled with his lips and hands on her as a cool sheen of Ofarian water trickled over her skin. Rising in equal challenge to the fire inside her. Claiming her.
Deep inside her mind and body, fire and water magic clashed together. They tangled briefly, a sexy tussle, then they found a way to interlock. To accommodate one another without losing what made their element unique and powerful.
When Griffin released her, his lips were moist with magic and his eyes were dark and filled with understanding, and she knew that he’d experienced exactly what she just had.
He took her mouth again with a deep groan, eliciting from her a bone-deep shiver, heightened by the dual, opposing bits of magic. Heightened by him. Indeed, the whole world seemed to vibrate.
And then the world actually did vibrate. Tiny stones somersaulted down on them from above. Nearby, the tree branches, covered with giant, waxy leaves, trembled. The ground shook under their feet.
Griffin shoved away the same moment Keko felt the rock shift at her back. Instantly she knew what it was. Instantly she knew that the Child of Earth had returned.
Keko knew no fear.
She spun toward the rock as it folded and clinked and rolled back in ways that seemed to dissolve and eat itself and transform all at the same time. Shoving Griffin behind her, she called Source fire to her hand, more than she’d ever dared before, ready for Nem’s newest attack.
But it was not Nem who appeared.
Keko watched, wide-eyed, as Aya’s familiar, diminutive human body and pale, streaming hair gradually replaced the elements of earth. When her transformation was complete, she merely stood there, taking in Griffin and Keko with sad green eyes.
Keko could feel Griffin behind her, his chest pressed to her back, the way his heart beat faster, the struggle of his lungs. He was afraid.
“I’ve come to demand punishment,” said the Daughter of Earth, her attention shifting solely to Griffin.
If Keko had held on to any doubt that Griffin had told her the absolute truth about his reasons for coming to Hawaii, she regretfully let it go now. Aya’s presence and demand confirmed everything.
Griffin asked, “Were any Primaries hurt?”
Aya briefly closed her eyes. “No.”
He pressed on. “And did the eruption cause any other damage that might put Primaries in danger?”
Aya’s glare hardened. “No. The new volcano, relatively small as it is, is far enough away from civilization to not have a direct effect, though it’s caused a slight sea level rise. But no loss of life, no.” She lifted a graceful hand. “That was not our agreement, Griffin, and you know it. The terms were for you to make sure the Source remained untouched or Keko is ours. The Father is aware of what’s happened and he demands retribution.”
“No. I won’t let you.” Griffin tried to push out from behind Keko, but she steeled her arms and legs and refused to let him pass on the narrow path. He took a breath as if to say something more, and Keko sensed he was about to tell Aya the true reason behind her quest. Then he went still, and she knew that he was holding true to his vow. Even though it killed him not to defend her.
Aya stepped closer, having to lift her chin to look up at Keko. Before, during their talks outside the Senatus gatherings, Aya had always seemed somewhat childlike. Now she was decidedly adult. Eerily composed. And perhaps a little regretful.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Aya said.
“Yes,” Keko replied, blinking back surprise but not letting down her guard.
“I don’t want you to be punished any more than Griffin does. I am trapped between my heart and my duty, but, in the end, my race and the Primaries we protect must come first.”
That didn’t make much sense to Keko, but behind her Griffin gasped. “You protect them?”
Aya nodded. “It’s why I wanted you to go after Keko. It’s why I wanted you on the Senatus. Because you and I, Griffin, we want more for the elementals and more for humanity than our races believe in, and I see in you many good things. I would’ve sided with you, and we could have made so many changes, but now you’ve destroyed your chance. And since Keko touched the Source, I have to take her Within.”
“She didn’t—” Griffin began.
Keko wouldn’t let him finish. She couldn’t allow him to sacrifice any more.
“The volcano was my doing,” Keko blurted, because it truly was, when it came down to it.
“There was a man,” Griffin growled, “a Son of Earth who attacked us twice and escaped through the earth both times. Did he tell you what happened on that island?”
Aya looked disturbed and mournful. “No. Nem never returned. We don’t believe he got away from the island before the volcano destroyed it. Not even a Child can survive something like that. He was . . .” She shook her head, trying to compose herself. “He wasn’t supposed to go after you, but something about him isn’t—wasn’t—right.”
“Am I being blamed for his death?” Keko asked.
The tension in Aya’s expression told her yes. Keko looked to the sky.
So the only two people alive who knew that Griffin had been the one to go down to the Source were standing right here. It was another secret she would make him carry. There was no way she would let him take the fall for her actions. There was no way she could allow herself to be more indebted to him than she already was.
A calm settled through her. Maybe this was what she’d known was coming when he’d kissed her. Maybe her mind had already realized her punishment and their separation were imminent, and it had to convince her heart that it must happen to protect them both.
This way, the Chimerans would never learn about the Queen’s treasure and the Source, and the afflicted’s secret would never get out. This was better, the only way.
Keko raised her hand, the one still rippling with the Source flame. She used it to tug aside the T-shirt so Aya could see what she bore, and part of the black fabric burned away before she willed the white fire to die. She pulled away from Griffin, away from his touch.
“A part of the Source is in me,” she told Aya. “I own the magic. And I will pay for it.”
Keko cast a long gaze over the valley, seeing each and every face of the Chimerans she’d healed. They had fire again. They could smile, and that brought her a profound sense of peace.
“I argued against death,” Aya said, “because you, Keko, changed me. Helped me to see the Aboveground world in a way I’d never imagined. I want you to know that you made me want to become human.”