Drowning in Fire (2 page)

Icy wind swirled through the open car windows as she sped for Salt Lake City. She’d tied her hair back, but long, black strands still whipped at her face. This was when she loved to leave Hawaii, to feel cold new climates like this. To strengthen her magic by having to use it at all times to keep warm.

The designated meeting spot, she’d been told, was a corner of the day-use parking garage under the light pole labeled
2E
. She found it, swung into a parking place, and sat. When her knee started to bounce with impatience and her belly rumbled with hunger, she jumped out of the car to head over to the vending machines perched near the elevators. Another incredible thing her people didn’t have: food and drink at the drop of a coin.

A few steps away from the car she remembered the biggest rule about being seen outside of the Chimeran valley, especially in colder areas where Primaries lived: clothes.

With a growl she went back to the car and pulled out a pair of flimsy sandals with an uncomfortable strap between the toes and the lone sweatshirt she owned: a pilled gray zippered thing with “Minnesota Gophers” in cracked red and gold print across the front. At least she still had on the holey jeans with the frayed, wet hems, and one of the white tank tops she favored. Putting clothing on Chimeran skin was like scraping nails over silk. Not that she’d ever worn silk, but she’d seen pictures and had read descriptions of it in the old, dog-eared magazines that sometimes made it to the valley. The things she did for Primary comfort and Secondary secrecy . . .

Leaving the sweatshirt unzipped, she went to the vending machines and popped change into the slots, pulling out a bottle of Coke and potato chips. She’d eaten half the bag when a deep voice sounded behind her.

“You must be my ride.”

Turning around, she screwed off the Coke cap with a hiss. The guy who stood halfway between her and the car wore jeans and boots and a fitted black coat with all sorts of zippers and pockets. His hair was very short and nearly as dark as hers. Thick, straight, low-set eyebrows were the most prominent feature on his face and made him seem intense and serious.

She glanced around the otherwise empty garage corner. “Don’t think I am.”

He nudged his chin toward her car. “Two E,” he said. “Where I’m supposed to meet you. You must be Kekona.”

To trust him or not? He wasn’t anything like the pampered, self-important Ofarian she’d pictured. Not this militaristic-looking guy who couldn’t be more than a few years older than she.

The man stood impossibly straight, as though someone had shoved a pole up his ass. “You’re Secondary and I’m Griffin Aames.” There was absolutely no intonation to his voice.

Oh, this guy was going to be a bag of fun.

“And what brings you to the lovely state of Utah?” she asked.

He had a really good check on his emotions. Only a slight shift of his feet gave away his frustration. “For the Senatus gathering. Was there a secret code somewhere I missed?”

And just like that, the first spark of attraction lit an unexpected flame inside her. To be fair, it didn’t take much for her. For him though, there was nothing. Just a patient stare as he waited to be chauffeured to his fancy feather bed.

“No code. You just have to get past me.” She lifted the Coke to her lips and took a swig, never taking her eyes off his.

A gust of wind barreled through the garage, opening one side of her sweatshirt and folding it back from her body.

Bingo. Griffin’s brown eyes—lighter than a Chimeran’s but still pretty dark—flicked to her chest. Flicked. Nothing more. She never wore one of those bra things—no Chimeran woman did—and she knew very well how she looked. The thin white tank top stretched over brown skin and even darker nipples. There wasn’t much of her to be left to the imagination, and modesty had never been one of her strong suits.

It had been a long time. For her, at least. Maybe a month since she’d had any sort of physical contact, let alone full-on sex. And right then she was looking at the most wonderful sort of challenge, wrapped up in an olive-skinned package: the guy she’d been tasked with shadowing for the next seven days. The Ofarian with the one-note expression whose business-only walls were so thick not even hard nipples could noticeably break through them. The very opposite of who she was. The water to her fire.

He was not Chimeran. He was
kapu
. Forbidden.

But then, wasn’t she supposed to find out things about him that he didn’t reveal to the Senatus? Sex always seemed to bring out the hidden, no matter who was involved. She was willing to bet Griffin Aames wasn’t any different. He was locked up so airtight she guessed that once those walls came down, there would be no stopping the onslaught of everything he’d tried to hold back. She couldn’t wait to discover what that was.

But that was enough teasing the unsuspecting Ofarian for one day, especially since they’d just met minutes ago. There was an art to seduction, to the chase, and applying it to someone who was not a Chimeran slathered on an extra layer of excitement. Getting around what her clan had declared to be
kapu
would be a fantastic, fun challenge. Keko folded closed the Gophers sweatshirt.

Griffin carried a structured black duffel with barely a travel scratch, and with a clearing of his throat, he swung it around to dangle off the back of one shoulder. He was an inch or two above six feet, not that much taller than her.

“I’m not carrying that for you,” she said.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and she found she liked the tiny movement of his thick eyebrows. It was easy to hide expression under those things, so when they actually twitched she knew there was something going on in his gorgeous head.

“Wasn’t expecting you to,” he replied.

“Good. Now that we’re clear on that.” She circled around him to get to the car, wondering the whole time—the whole ten seconds—if his eyes had tracked the back of her head . . . or her ass.

With one hand on the door handle and the other clutching her drink and potato chips, she swept a good long look around the parking garage. No one else was around.

“Where’d you come from?” she asked as he went around to the other side of the car, threw open the passenger side door, and tossed his bag in the backseat.

“San Francisco. But of course you already knew that.”

“I did.”

His door still open, he planted one hand on the top of it. “Where are you from?”

She laughed, because the Chimerans had never revealed their home to anyone not born with fire. “Nice try.”

When he shrugged, she found herself intrigued by the fluidity of his shoulders, how he’d suddenly broken out of his rigid mold. The straight face remained, however, along with the severe line of those eyebrows.

She folded her arms on top of the car. “How’d you know I was Secondary?”

Without hesitation, “Your signature. I can tell you have magic, that you’re not a Primary human. I can feel you.”

This man was infuriating, in the best possible way. She had no idea if he knew what his doublespeak implied or if he was doing it on purpose. And she found that she loved it, that ambiguity. So did the fire inside.

“Must be nice,” she said, overly casually. “I wish I had that.”

He cocked his head, looking genuinely interested. “Why?”

“So I can tell when I come across a Primary. I’d know who to avoid.”

He looked at her for a long, long moment before saying, “Right. Of course.”

He made no move to get into the car so she asked, “What do you mean by ‘signature’?”

His stance relaxed some as he considered her.

“You’re going to be asked a lot of questions while you’re here,” she added. “Might as well get used to it.”

Another few moments of consideration, then he inhaled and glanced around the garage. “Hard to explain. It’s a feeling in my head. Like a smell, but not really. I know you’re Secondary. I just don’t know what you can do.”

Time for a real test. Tilting back her head, throwing him a challenging smile, she asked, “What can you do?”

He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen once. “Adine? Yeah. Salt Lake City airport, parking garage, row 2E.” Griffin stood stock still. So did Keko, waiting. Intrigued. “You got ’em? Great, thanks.”

Hanging up the phone, he threw a look into the corner, where Keko had previously noticed the telltale black ceiling bubble of a security camera. She’d heard the Ofarians had some reach, some pretty impressive technological skills, but to access international airport security at such quick notice?

“Okay, then. If you’re looking for proof.” Griffin was looking straight at her, his body never so much as twitching, as foreign, whispered words escaped his barely parted lips. Movement to her right caught her eye.

A pile of gray, crunchy snow piled up against the side of the open parking garage melted without a touch, without heat. In a slow, glittering stream, it snaked its way toward her, rolling across the black asphalt and the yellow parking dividing lines. The water coiled around her legs, up toward her hips. Once, twice, a third time around her body. Reaching, reaching, but never quite touching. A brilliant dance of water and light in the cold grayness of the garage. Then the coil of magic water receded, sinking slowly back down to the dirty surface under her feet.

The word that came to mind was . . . sensual.

Her focus snapped back to Griffin Aames. Though his expression had not changed, she knew he was grinning. Deep down, this had pleased him.

“Now,” he said, so evenly she felt a distinct hum between her legs, “what can you do?”

Inhaling deeply, pulling up the fire from inside her body, she licked her lips, letting a roll of flame follow her tongue. Then she opened her mouth, showing him the spark that forever danced in the back of her throat. When she clamped her lips shut, swallowing down her magic, she gave him a look full of promise and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

 • • • 

That night, Keko paced along the outside perimeter of the cage of wind encircling the Senatus gathering. She could see into it—the three elemental Senatus delegates and Griffin sat on cheap lawn chairs around a bonfire—but heard nothing. The wind barrier erased their words.

Bane and Makaha took up positions at other points surrounding the gathering, though this deep in the pitch black mountains they were unlikely to be discovered. Aaron, the only air elemental in attendance other than the Senatus premier, leaned against a nearby tree, holding the soundproof wind cage in place.

As always, Aya, the self-proclaimed Daughter of Earth, was the only elemental of her mysterious race in attendance. The dainty Daughter perched gingerly on the edge of her chair, the fire that rose from the logs highlighting the unusually lovely golden tint to her skin and the pure white shock of her hair. The green of her eyes did not reflect the firelight at all. She said so little but she was always watching and listening, always alert, and her presence never failed to intrigue Keko.

The
ali’i
, shirtless and barefoot, lounged back in his chair. The Senatus premier wore a cowboy hat and a flannel coat lined with fleece, his deeply wrinkled eyes focused intently on Griffin, who had been speaking for a long while with stiff, controlled hand gestures. Puffs of cold, white air escaped from between his lips every time he opened them.

The Ofarian was incredibly easy to look at. Keko knew power and leadership when she saw it, and it turned her on more than it probably should have.

Their flirting—however subversive it had been—ceased that afternoon and evening as she’d performed her job and explained to Griffin how the Senatus worked. The order of speaking, the presentation of issues, how the premier was voted in on five-year intervals, among other things she found boring but which Griffin listened to with an attentive ear.

Now, inside the wind cage, an argument broke out. That much was plain by the tension in the four bodies and the vehement way Griffin was talking, his gestures getting bigger, his eyes blinking less.

The
ali’i
was the first to jump up and stomp through the wind barrier. Keko couldn’t look away from Griffin, who’d risen to his feet with a powerful grace. Right then and there she knew he was a fighter, some sort of soldier. A different kind of warrior than a Chimeran, but a warrior nonetheless.

As Chief grabbed Keko’s arm and spun her away, she saw the premier and Aya approaching Griffin in a calm manner.

“The Ofarians are making aggressive moves to integrate into the Primary human world.” The inner fire raked at Chief’s voice, making it gritty and rasping.

Keko blinked, not sure she understood his anger. “And?”

“He thinks we should do the same. Rather than hiding out in our own little worlds, he wants us to figure out ways to inch the Secondary world into the Primary. And if he gains a seat in the Senatus, that will be his main objective.”

A brief, alien cold swept through Keko. The various Chimeran clans spread all over the Hawaiian Islands had always been deliberately separate from the humans. The Queen had decreed that necessary over a thousand years ago when she split off from the other Polynesian immigrants. And now this Ofarian, this
water
elemental, wanted to shatter that by forcing all Secondaries to follow his people’s lead?

“Why?” she asked.

Chief wiped his mouth and let out a short, bitter laugh. “Because they have nothing. The magic they once peddled to the Primaries is gone now, along with all the money it used to bring in. They go to Primary schools and are taking jobs in Primary businesses because they have to. Griffin says it’s starting to work for them but I don’t know. It’s dangerous. So, so dangerous . . .”

Keko agreed.

Yet she’d always embraced danger.

Looking over Chief’s shoulder she saw that Griffin was alone now, gazing into the fire and dragging a slow hand between his ear and chin. She could hear the crackle and pop of the flame-consumed logs now, which meant Aaron had dropped the wind barrier.

“I want to know more about his motives,” Chief told her, his voice dropping. “I want to know everything. You know what to do.”