Drowning in Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

never forget it, as long as he lived.
    “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