I shrugged. “If you say so. I’m calling for that pizza now. I’d ask if you wanted anything, but I don’t think they carry merlot. Or plasma, for that matter.”
“Pity,” he said, and went to the next room to place his call so we wouldn’t be talking over each other.
The pizza arrived thirty-five minutes later, and was every bit as good as my appetite had insisted it would be. Rans watched me eat it with something between fascination and disgust, raising an eyebrow at the nearly orgasmic noises I was making.
He’d ended up leaving a message for Albigard, who wasn’t picking up his phone. I chafed at the delay in moving forward with finding out where Dad was and how I could get him back, but Rans convinced me to give it until evening, when Albigard was more likely to get the phone message.
After allowing me a scant hour for my late lunch to settle, he chivvied me into clothing suitable for a workout and dragged me to the downstairs family room.
“I can’t believe you hypnotized the homeowners to leave, and now you’re moving their furniture,” I said, trying not to stare as he pulled a large sofa off to the side with inhuman strength.
“It’s in my way,” he said with a faintly predatory smile that reminded me he’d said the same thing about my nightgown last night. I supposed that meant I should be glad he was moving the furniture instead of breaking it into pieces and tossing it aside.
“Now what?” I asked, looking at the empty space he’d cleared.
“Now,” he said, “You show me what all that yoga has done for your range of flexibility.” He reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a short dagger. “And afterward, I’ll show you how to use this.”
SEVEN
I STARED AT THE dark metal knife blade. “How the hell did you get that? You said you didn’t bring any weapons to Chicago—”
“Because my contact here could provide them,” he finished.
“Your contact arrested us on sight!” I said.
“And before he cut us loose, he added a few essentials to our luggage.” Rans tilted the blade back and forth beneath the family room’s overhead lights.
I examined it, still unable to wrap my head around the relationship between Rans and Albigard. “Why is it so tarnished?” I asked.
“It’s not,” he replied. “Iron blades are always that color.”
Iron? That was the second knife I’d seen in the past few days made of an unusual material.
“What is it with Fae and weird metals?” I asked, reaching a careful finger out to run along the flat of the blade.
Rans huffed a breath of amusement. “Silver for vampires. Salt for demons. Iron for Fae. Earth metals interfere with their magical core—their connection to Dhuinne.”
My brow furrowed. “So Albigard gave you weapons that could hurt him and the other Fae?”
“As I told you,” Rans said, removing the sheath that had nestled at the small of his back and sliding the knife into it, “Alby’s aims don’t really align with most of his people’s aims these days.”
“Apparently not.” I took a breath and let it go for now. “All right. So... yoga? I should warn you, I’m not used to having an audience.”
One corner of his mouth twitched up. “Who said anything about an audience?”
I raised both eyebrows as he set the sheathed knife and his cell phone aside before unbuttoning his shirt. He wore a dark tank top beneath, exposing the abstract tribal pattern of his tattoos against the pale skin of his right arm. His belt, shoes, and socks followed, and okay, yeah—I was totally staring now.
The look he shot me was mock-severe. “Focus, luv. Mirror me now—back to back.”
He guided me down into a sukhasana pose—vertebrae stacked, legs crossed, wrists resting on knees. I could feel him take up the same pose behind me, and a little flutter began low in my stomach as our bodies relaxed into each other, spine to spine. Our difference in height meant that the back of my head fit into the curve of his nape.
“You’re breathing,” I realized, feeling the expansion of his ribs fall into sync with my own steady in-and-out.
“It’s yoga,” he said, sounding amused. “Breathing is rather the point, isn’t it? Now, stop talking and match me.”
The muscles in his shoulders flexed, and I saw his arms stretch straight out to the sides in my peripheral vision. Entranced, I matched his movement, and cool fingers twined with mine. He used the light grip to lead me through a series of basic stretches. My body melted into his as he lifted our joined hands straight up, putting gentle traction on my spine until it popped and eased.
Next he stretched my body to first one side, then the other, opening my ribcage. A gentle side-to-side twist at the waist followed. Then he leaned forward into a modified child’s pose, bowed over his crossed legs, my spine arched over his as I leaned back to maintain the contact between us.
“Very nice,” he said as he straightened, releasing my wrists with a slow caress. “Now turn around.”
I almost didn’t want to. What we were doing shouldn’t feel so intimate. My body was giving itself over to him, leaning on his strength in a way that seemed at odds with my mind’s insistence on maintaining my distance... on protecting myself.
But he was already rearranging us face-to-face, helping me stretch into a forward bend, deepening it further with a steady pull on my wrists, which I returned, keeping us in balance. Gradually, the poses grew more challenging and complex, testing my range of movement and core fitness.
I already knew that Rans’ lean-muscled body held a startling strength, but I hadn’t appreciated before how effortlessly controlled that strength could be. He lay on his back beneath me, legs straight at a right angle to his body, supporting me in a perfect folding leaf posture above him. No part of
