Free Fire Stones (The Fire Wars #2) by Kailin Gow

know.”
                “If you start to feel...whatever you're meant to feel...for Varun...” Chance turned away from me. “I won't hold you back. You must act with your heart. You owe me nothing. You must not feel trapped – as Vesta did. You know...she ran away with him? She didn't even say goodbye. She didn't even have the courage or the heart to tell me – so fearful was she of my wrathful response. If you find that you love him, Mac,” his eyes were gleaming with bright tears, “you must tell me. You must be honest with me. That is all that I ask.”
                “I won't leave you,” I whispered. “Not for anyone – my love, my only, my One...” I took him in my arms, whispering words of comfort into his ear. Yet my heart was heavy. I knew that deep down I had begun to feel for Varun whatever it was Vesta had felt for Neptune – a quiet, but pervasive longing deep within my breast. A longing I could resist, but not ignore. And if the only way to get to the stones was to get through Varun....well, let's say I didn't want to owe Varun any more favors.
                “If there's one person I'm afraid of,” whispered Chance, “if there's one person who can take you away from me, who can change you, it's him.”
                “You can trust me,” I said to him, pressing my lips against his jet-black hair. But , I wondered, could I trust myself?

 
     
    Chapter 9
     
                A s the days went on, time seemed to creep painfully slow. My days were a whirlwind of confusion. I spent more time than I cared to admit thinking about Chance – and Varun – my mind slowly traveling from one to the other. I felt it now, the connection that Chance had feared and Varun had so longed for, the connection that meant that Chance and Varun were both linked to my heart, as if by an invisible but undeniable thread. I couldn't live without one; I couldn't live without the other. No sooner had I begun to fantasize about Chance's dark hair, matted with sweat, the flame-like hardness of his eyes, than Varun's image would appear before me, his toned skin and taut muscles and long, silky blonde hair. I thought I was going insane. I couldn't concentrate on schoolwork; I couldn't concentrate on helping out at the hotel. I was like a girl possessed. Memories appeared before me – or rather, intersections of memory and fantasy – images of me and Vesta, curled up against Chance, basking in the heat of the flames, or else plunged into the writhing depths of the ocean with Varun, shivering with the cold of the ocean and yet able to breathe. Were these memories of Vesta's life – or fantasies of my own invention? I did not know. I could not know. All I knew was that my life was not my own any longer. Vesta had taken over me so completely that Mac Evers, the girl I had once been, seemed to have completely vanished. My body was in a constant state of tension and longing – fear and desire mixing together. Around every corner there could be another enemy, another attacker. Every step I took was fraught with danger. And yet I could smell Chance on me; I could sense Varun's presence around me – and I was captive to the longing that left me breathless.
                I did my best to avoid Varun. I couldn't think of him, I told myself. Not now. I couldn't allow myself to fall for him – not when I had promised Chance I wouldn't. But the restrictions I put on myself only made it harder: he was forbidden fruit, now. I would see Varun in the hallway, chatting with Haven, talking to her, his smile spreading so sweetly across his face, and I would want to melt, to run into his arms and kiss his salty lips forever. The first time I saw him in the lunchroom, the first time our eyes met since our last conversation, he smiled and nodded, and made as if to come over. He was as friendly and kind as he had been when I had first met him – and yet I found myself running away to