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wasn’t saying all bunched up in her spine. “What?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out so demanding, so cold.
    “Just that”—she stamped into her jeans and pulled them up over her ass—“I never used to see anything wrong with it.” She lifted her eyes to his. “Until now.”
    His feet ate up the space around the bed so fast he didn’t remember moving. He was on her, kissing her hot and tender, and the feel of her hands on his back sent him soaring. “I’m never going to stop wanting you,” he said against her mouth, and she replied with a sound so low in her throat it may have been her answering fire.
    “We’ll take it slow,” he told her, pulling back and running fingers down her soft neck. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll get on the Senatus and we’ll figure it out. Change things.”
    She nodded, stepping back, and he knew that she didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe either that he could do what he claimed, or that it would ever happen.
     • • • 
    It wasn’t hard to avoid looking at Keko as the two of them hiked through the cold, black woods to the Senatus gathering. It was impossible, however, not to feel her.
    Was she doing that on purpose? Sending him those knee-buckling waves of heat that managed to penetrate his heavy coat? They felt like the strokes of her hands—the way she’d touched him all last night into early this morning. Quieter, kinder than the Keko who’d picked him up at the airport.
    A fire crackled low and unthreatening within a stone circle. The premier and Aaron sat at a picnic table, talking. Chief and Bane and Makaha huddled on the opposite side of the flames. Aya had not yet arrived, but Griffin assumed she would walk out of the deep shadows at any moment. She always arrived just as the proceedings began, which intrigued him and also made him slightly uncomfortable.
    He regarded the Chimerans with new eyes tonight, understanding them a little bit more. At least he knew now why Bane and Keko were so aloof to one another and why, even though she was his second, Chief always seemed to be watching her, assessing. Makaha was different, though. The shorter, stockier Chimeran warrior tracked Griffin with his black gaze. If he and Keko were as good friends as she claimed, it was possible the warrior could tell something was different about her. About how she and Griffin now acted around one another.
    As Griffin stepped into the Senatus circle, the chief and the premier broke away from their people to approach him. As predicted, Aya emerged seemingly from the atmosphere beyond, her wispy white hair shining and the flames making the golden skin on her face and neck glow with warmth. The rest of her body was covered by a beautiful and unsettling tangle of ever-shifting foliage. She leisurely walked out of the shadows, as though she’d just parked her car steps away, which Griffin knew couldn’t be true.
    Tonight, Griffin was going to tell them everything. Through Keko, he’d seen what chiseling away at cultural walls could do for understanding on a level above a formal meeting. Talking was the key. He would appeal to the hearts of the Senatus delegates.
    He was going to talk about Henry.
    The muffled chime of a cell phone broke the tense silence, and the premier pulled his out of an inner pocket. He looked at the screen and swore.
    “What?” Chief demanded, but the tone of his voice suggested he might already know.
    Griffin couldn’t name why his stomach suddenly dropped.
    The premier turned and snapped his fingers at Aaron, who was immediately on his own phone, mumbling into it as he turned away.
    “Where?” asked Chief.
    Yes, where? Griffin wanted to scream, because his gut was telling him something horrible was about to go down.
    “Where we thought,” the premier replied. “She’ll be stopped. Aaron’s sending Madeline right now.”
    “What’s going on?” Griffin was careful to keep his voice even, to not betray the sense of foreboding that had