Chapter 11
Holly
Inhale – ease the stretch.
Exhale – push deeper into the stretch.
A slow, easy pattern. A familiar set of movements.
Another sun salute. Right into her favorite: downward dog.
Inner peace, tranquility, stability. Holly technically didn’t have a sun to salute since the rains continued unabated – they were a calm mist this morning – but the balcony had been covered in tarps by palace staff so she could continue her yoga out here.
The rain was actually pretty nice. Rain yoga was definitely underrated.
Holly didn’t have a big problem with her anxiety anymore, but the movements were still a source of comfort for her.
If anything, it was more comforting now that it didn’t serve a purpose to fight back against her wild emotions.
Like a teddy bear who used to stand guard against monsters in the night but now was only a reminder of a different time in childhood.
She blew out a breath and stepped back, lifting her head up-
-and squawked when she came face to face with Romival who was kneeling in front of her, watching her movements with undisguised curiosity. She fell out of her half-plank, hitting the ground with an unattractive grunt.
“Apologies,” he said, cocking his head. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your dance.”
“No, it’s good.” She sighed, pushing herself up into a seated position. “It’s all right. You just surprised me is all. I know you said you’d be here early, but I didn’t expect you this early.”
She blinked, finally getting a good look at him. He was wearing pink today. A very pale, flesh toned pink. A suspiciously familiar pink.
Her eyes narrowed on the robe. “Is that…?”
Romival grinned, running his pink hand down the fabric. “I’m not sure that the shade is perfect, but it’s at least close. I’ll get it perfect eventually.”
Holly bit her lips, unsure what to say as her heart fluttered in her chest. She knew he was fascinated by her color changes, but she didn’t think he liked them enough to wear them. To change his skin color into them.
And he looked incredible all in pink. Like a piece of candy that she wanted to lick up and down and from all angles. His long hair was braided back across his scalp into a loose ponytail today. He looked even more wizardly than usual.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” He asked, tilting his head curiously.
She gave him a quick smile, nodding her head. “Yeah. You’re fine. I’m just a scaredy-cat.”
“What is a scaredy-cat?”
“A cat. It’s an animal. Like this big. It’s a tiny predator that’s easily spooked.”
He looked thoughtfully at her hands making the approximate shape of a cat before grunting. “As you say. There is time for questions later. For now, I’m afraid I interrupted. Please, continue your dance. We can start with our schedule once you’re finished.”
Holly laughed. “It’s not a dance. It’s yoga.”
“It looks like a dance. A very slow dance, perhaps, but still a dance.”
Holly shook her head, about to ask what looked dance-like about yoga, but she stopped herself.
The domini style of dancing was basically fighting.
Either a solo demonstration of skills or, when partnered, something like a grappling session.
It wasn’t violent or anything, but the whole point seemed to be to not touch your partner.
That was so opposite to what Holly considered dancing that watching it always seemed more like a freestyle martial arts demonstration. Yoga, similarly, didn’t look like a dance to her, but she could understand why it would to someone who equated battle forms with dance.
“It’s stretching,” she said, crossing her arm over her chest and holding it in demonstration. “It’s meant to relax and move the body and stretch the joints.”
“I see,” he said, watching as she stretched the other arm, just to feel even. The interested gleam in his eye was becoming familiar to her. It seemed there was no topic that Romival wasn’t excited to learn about.
“Do you want me to show you?” She offered, smiling.
A grin stretched his features. “I would like that very much.”
“Hold on. I have extra mats in case one of the girls wants to join me.” She jumped up and half-jogged back to her room.
When she came back, mat rolled up in her arms, she had to stop dead. Her tongue was suddenly too fat in her mouth, and she forgot how to breathe.
Romival was shirtless.
It was the first time she had seen him reveal so much skin.
She had assumed, since Romival was so lean in comparison to the others, that meant that his body was slimmer. Sure, he was strong, but domini at baseline were stronger than her. She really didn’t have a reference range for what was considered weak by their standards.
However, without the robe that was now folded beside her wrap, she realized that her imagination had done Romival a serious disservice.
Beneath his robes, he was wearing tight, form-fitting pants that stopped halfway down his calf and hung low on his hips.
He had tall boots, but had removed them, obviously seeing that she was barefoot so naturally assuming he should do the same.
And since his skin camouflaged to the pink, it was almost like he was fully nude.
She could admire every hard, muscular line of his body.
He wasn’t buff like other domini. Instead, he was lean and coiled tight, like a whip.
He turned to face her as she stepped back outside, his ponytail pulled over his shoulder so he could braid the loose hair into a single plait.
Full frontal almost nudity gave her a look at the positively massive bulge he had in his pants.
She wasn’t entirely sure that was natural.
Maybe codpieces were in vogue because that couldn’t be him.
Except it jumped at the sight of her like it was real. Holy shit, he was big.
“What purpose does the mat serve? Is there a chance we might fall?” He asked as she stared, stupefied by his glory.
“What?” She asked unintelligently.
The smartest man on Turv smirked, pleased that he had struck her dumb. He walked – swaggered – over to her. Fully confident. His proximity did nothing to jump start her brain. Though it did jump start other parts of her.
“Shall I?” He asked, taking the mat from her even though she hadn’t responded. She didn’t think she could respond. Her brain was nonfunctional.
She whimpered, jealous that the mat got to be held to his thick, tightly coiled chest. His smirk widened as he turned to spread his mat near hers. Doing so made him bend down and she nearly drooled from the sight of his tight ass as he spent just a bit too long setting it up exactly perfect.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” she mumbled, amazed the words were intelligible.
He smirked over his shoulder as he stood slowly. Deliberately. “Of course, I am. Now, show me your dance, vi Vakara. I wish to learn.”
He said he wanted to learn like it was a sexual act.
A shiver spread over her body as she returned to her mat.
He mirrored her position, grinning at her as his upper body began to turn gray, matching the dreary day around them.
It looked good, mixing with the pink at his lower body, the two colors blurring together in an ombre effect around his waist.
“Er, first up is the sun salute,” she said, suddenly nervous. She had shown people how to do yoga before. She wasn’t an instructor or anything, but she had done it for so long that she understood the basic principles.
But it was the first time she had her mat next to a super hot guy who was looking at her like instructing and learning was his love language. She wouldn’t even be surprised if that were true.
“Why is it called a sun salute?” He asked, looking out over the rain-soaked canopy.
“The original religion yoga came from considered the sun the source of all life.”
“Not exactly untrue, scientifically speaking,” he inclined his head.
She smiled. “Yeah. So, it’s a way of greeting the sun.”
He frowned. “I don’t need to be a follower of this religion, do I? I don’t wish to insult your beliefs accidentally or through negligence.”
Holly laughed, shaking her head. “No. I don’t really follow the faith either, but the movements and the patterns are good for general health and balance and help with meditation. So, we start like this, standing up and proud, back straight.”
Romival followed along with her instruction as she slowly walked him through a cycle of the sun salute – first on one leg, then the other.
She wasn’t surprised that he was an attentive student or that he learned so quickly.
She showed him once and he easily kept up with the next.
He didn’t even fight her on the breathing like a lot of newbies did.
He wasn’t as flexible as her, but that wasn’t a surprise seeing as how she had been doing these exercises for years and he had more bulk to move, but he flowed between each position with ease, not a single muscle twitching out of place or even a moment of imbalance.
He looked like he had been doing yoga for months rather than minutes.
“This is quite relaxing,” he admitted after their fourth sun salute. “I can see how a warrior could use this to sharpen his mind and keep his body limber.”
“Well, there’s more if you’re interested.”
“Yes, please. Teach me more.” He looked eager.
So, she took him through the warrior poses.
Then through some back stretches. She showed him cow and cat and butterfly – explaining each animal as she told him the English names.
She only knew a few of their proper Sanskrit names so it was easier to just tell him the English ones.
She showed him bridge and plow pose. He remarked with approval on the latter, his eyes gleaming with interest. She fell out of it with an uncoordinated plop that made him grin.
“Shut up and go into corpse pose,” she muttered as he laughed.
“Corpse pose.” He mimicked her position – laying flat with palms up. “To remind a warrior what awaits him without vigilance and training?”