She turned confused eyes to him, the menu in her hand. “Huh?”
“Food, Eve.”
Her gaze drifted back to her sculpture. “Anything.”
He grasped her upper arm when she walked past him and removed the menu. “You need to calm down. Tonight we get the scroll. We cannot afford any mistakes.”
Like mist, the confusion in her eyes dissipated. She glowered. “And you wonder why I’m nervous.”
“It will be okay, I promise.” He let her go and studied the menu. “I have a replacement scroll, so that should settle your sense of righteousness.”
“How is that possible? There’s only one.”
He looked up, gave her a bland stare.
“Jesus, ask a stupid question,” she huffed. “You probably just conjured one up—it doesn’t matter anyway. The scroll belongs to your world. It’s more important to save your realm than us keeping it locked in a glass box.”
She headed for the covered sculpture and tugged the sheet from the massive form.
Females! After giving him a hard time aboutstealingthe parchment, now she did a complete turnaround and gave him the big, A-Okay.
Watching her, Reynner made his call and ordered their food, but she seemed to have already forgotten him, her attention on the giant male sculpture. She ran her hand down its metal thigh and fiddled with a strip there.
His entire body tensed. Dammit, it’s just a freaking statue!
He took a deep breath and shut down his increasing possessiveness. Him and her couldn’t happen. To keep his thoughts off her, he parked his ass down on her only decent stool and perused her sketches.
She drew with a delicate hand, but the hard, massive, metal sculptures themselves held an alluring appeal. A lot like her. Fragile, but wired with a steely, determined core.
He picked up the working diagram of the horse she’d given him. The ribbons of interweaving metal and the solid core layer all worked out in the illustration. Then he studied the one of her friend, the dark-haired female, Brenna.
Reynner knew it was her because of the face Eve had added in for the nude sculpture. She’d included crossed eyes and a gap-toothed grin, instead of leaving it blank like the others. The caricature of her friend made him smile.
The doorbell buzzed.
“I’ll get it,” he said. A quick psychic scan confirmed it was their meal.
Reynner paid the delivery boy then set the bags on the worktable, cleared a space, and laid out cartons of food. The savory aroma of soy and peppers with hints of ginger drenched the studio as he strolled over to her. “Take a break.”
“In a sec. I want to finish this,” she said absently, attaching a metal strip to the sculpture’s midriff and slowly sliding her palm over the piece almost in a caress.
His irritation gave way to fascination when the thing just bent in her hand and she molded it into the shape she wanted. Intrigued, he ran a finger over the strip and found it hot, but not uncomfortable to touch.
Frowning, Reynner studied her expression while she worked. No, no indication the high temperature hurt her. Still, she was human...it should be painful.
“Eve, what exactly did you do to this metal?”
Her startled gaze flew to him. A light flush swept over her cheekbones.
When he saw how his question bothered her, he softened his tone. “Eve?”
Her hands tensed on the metal she held. “I guess it was only a matter of time before you found out. The accident also left me with an ability to heat things like metal.”
Reynner stared at her, stunned. It wasn’t what he’d expected. “What intensity—I mean, what heat level are we talking here?”
“I don’t know, just hot enough to soften and bend metal. Usually, I solder or melt heavier pieces in the kiln.” She pointed to the small oven-like structure in the corner of the room. “That just takes too much out of me.”
He seized her hands and examined her palms.
