It was clean, simple, with no room for confusion. The male was supposed to attract the female's attention by demonstrating his worth through displays of strength, skill, and prowess, and then he was supposed to wait for an invitation.
Only Pavel hadn't waited.
Pavel had asked permission to kiss her, which was a human thing, a courting thing, the kind of thing the heroes in her romance novels did. And then he'd kissed her like a human, slow and careful, and just like a stupid human, he hadn't mentioned it for five full days, pretending as if it had never happened.
He was so confusing. At times he was talking about the importance of preserving traditions, and at other times he was talking about integrating into the immortal society and adopting their traditions, which were heavily influenced by human customs.
Just a short time ago, he'd talked about taking the good parts of both, so maybe this was his version of doing that. He was taking the human kiss and the Kra-ell silence and combining them into something that made no sense and was driving her mad.
"If you keep sharpening that knife, there will be nothing left of the blade."
She had been so preoccupied with thoughts of him that she hadn't noticed him crossing over to her.
Drova looked up.
Pavel was standing in front of her with his gear bag over his shoulder and looking down at her with that maddening half-smile of his.
"You can never over-sharpen a blade," she said, and slid the knife back into its sheath. "But if you thin the edge too far, it does lose its rigidity. It rolls instead of cuts."
"So why keep at it?" he asked.
"Because the alternative is sitting here doing nothing, and I'm restless."
"I hear you." He sat down beside her on the bench.
The bench was long, and the only other person on it was Brody, who was sitting on her other side. There was plenty of room, and there was no reason for Pavel to sit so close that his thigh pressed against hers from hip to knee, the warmth of him bleeding through the fabric of their cargo pants.
He didn't shift to allow some space between them, and neither did she.
She told herself it was because moving over would have been an admission that he had such a profound effect on her, and that her whole awareness had narrowed down to the line where his leg met hers.
She stayed where she was and stared straight ahead at the opposite wall, where Bowen was explaining to another Guardian how the seals on the waterproof casings worked.
"Eight casings for five chests," she said, because she needed to say something that wasn't about Pavel's thigh, or his lips, or the kiss that he pretended had never happened. "Perhaps we should transport the Odus in them."
"They are spares," Pavel said. "In case some of them are defective."
"I know what they're for, but I also know that the Odus are super heavy, and I saw how they struggled underwater. They are not built for diving."
Pavel chuckled. "Neither are we, and here we are. I hate even dipping in a pool."
She laughed. "Yeah. Who would have thought that Kra-ell would volunteer for a mission that involved diving? I'm surprised that Kian is okay with that. I fully expect at least one of us to panic and surface."
He arched a brow. "Are you referring to yourself?"
"Of course not," she bristled. "I'm not terrified of deep water the way some Kra-ell are."
The way most Kra-ell were.
It was an instinct they were all fighting against. Their dense bodies didn't float, which was why they avoided any body of water that was more than hip deep. But they'd all trained with the scuba equipment and had learned that it wasn't as terrifying when proper gear compensated for natural limitations.
"Of course, you are not."
Was he mocking her? Or was it his attempt at complimenting her?
She turned her head to glare at him, but it was a mistake because his face was less than an inch away from hers and she could see the faint reddish cast over his eyes.
She gave him a questioning look.
