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“You can’t eat or drink things given to you by strangers.”
Randa rolled her eyes and drank her club soda. No. She definitely wasn’t intimidated by him anymore.
Kahn gave a growl of irritation. “You’re pointlessly defiant.”
“And you’re being an asshole again. Stop it or I’ll go back to not forgiving you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. (Stupid alligator shirt. She would not look at his arms.) “Did you forget someone is threatening you?”
Damn it, she was looking at his arms. “Saxon is hardly going to come to a singles mixer.”
“That human dickhead who was just bothering you, then. He could’ve given you that drink to drug you.”
“Ben? He didn’t give me this drink. He isn’t the bartender.”
“They could be in it together.”
“You’re paranoid.” Randa pronounced firmly. “I’m confident my five unwanted bodyguards will keep me safe from plotting humans. The bossy, scowl-y one promised they would.”
Kahn wasn’t pleased about having his own words tossed back in his face, but he didn’t grab the drink from her hand, either. He must’ve decided to pick his battles.
There was a beat of silence.
“So… you work at the police station?” He asked instead.
She squinted at him, wondering if Elementals could get drunk after all. “You know that I do.”
“I know that I know it. You said to ask women about their jobs, and so I am.” He sounded embarrassed, yet not ready to back down. “I was going to ask if you had any siblings, but that wasn’t part of the slideshow, so I didn’t know if it was allowed. I don’t want you to get upset and leave.”
He was making an effort to keep the conversation going.
Randa found she wasn’t opposed to that idea. “No, I don’t have siblings.” She tried to think of something innocuous to say about her family. “My parents were a Match, but they weren’t particularly loving. They both preferred to find other partners.”
Kahn’s jaw sagged in genuine shock. “Your parents bedded other people, after their Phazing?”
Well, that was a blunt way to put it, but… “Yes. I was the product of one of the few times they were together. Mostly, they just liked to hurt and avoid each other.” She smoothed a wrinkle from her dress. “I understand why you and the other Light Phases want Matches, but you should know that the unions don’t always end well.”
“Is that why you never changed your name to ‘Randa, of the Air House?’ Having a Match seemed temporary to you?”
“No, it wasn’t about Hekktor. I just never felt comfortable in the Air Kingdom. I didn’t want to claim it as home. Of course, the Stone Kingdom never felt much like home, either.” She was still searching for a home. “The only person I was ever close to was my grandmother Viola.”
“The one who hated Light Phases?”
“Just the ill-mannered ones.”
“That’s all of us.”
“Not everyone appreciates barbarians, I suppose.” Randa lifted a shoulder in a fatalistic shrug. “Grandmother believed in proper behavior, no matter the circumstances. Most of her life, she was headmistress of the Heart Stone Academy. I was raised there, while my parents were… occupied.”
“The finishing school? It was a fancy place fancy people sent their daughters to learn how to be fancier, right?” He looked her over. “Yeah, I can see you growing up in someplace like that.”
Randa immediately took offense. “I’m not fancy.”
Her outrage seemed to amuse him. Not in a mean way, but like he found her objection cute. “Sweetheart, you’re the fanciest woman I ever met.”
The sound of his chuckling was an aphrodisiac. Randa’s breath got strangled, and her cheeks felt hot, and her eyes started to burn, because she’d forgotten to blink. Every time he grinned at her, her body went into some kind of melting, liquefying seizure.
This wasn’t just noticing a handsome face or a muscular body. This was so much more than simple attraction. Was she lusting after Kahn, of the Light House?
