Page 35 of Owned By Two

Then I extended my hand to Uhti.

“Well, I suppose you should show me around my new pad.”

He took my hand but used his other arm to push himself up onto his feet.

No doubt his weight was too much heavy for me and accepting my hand would have only succeeded in dragging me to the ground with him.

“Are you going to sign the contract?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. At least, not yet. But at least I can learn a little more about my father. He deserves that much, at least.”

“Very well,” Uhti said.

He raised my hand to his lips, kissed it, and then motioned towards the mansion. “Shall we?”

I took a deep breath, let it out, and marched back toward the mansion.

14

UHTI

It was amazingthe difference a single piece of information could make.

I watched as Lizzy’s expression melted from your anger and denial into one of, if not the opposite, then a stepping stone toward it — a general acceptance that perhaps not everything was as she had thought it was.

She walked slowly at my side as I took her from one room to another.

She nodded her head respectfully to the servants we passed as I explained each room, its purpose, and what her father had aimed for when he designed it.

She seemed more at home in the mansion than I ever had been.

The human style of architecture was completely different from that of my native species back home.

We integrated more with nature, hollowing out trees and rocks and mountains, and in turn provided them with nutrients as gifts for letting us reside within them.

Lizzy asked questions and I provided the answers — to the extent that I was capable of, at least.

She kept her questions predominantly on the mansion and its rooms and decidedly away from that of the subject of her father.

I supposed she wasn’t yet ready for that.

Still, it was a huge step in the right direction.

She didn’t once reach for the heirlooms on display and smash them to the ground.

Thathadto be progress!

Each time she stepped in front of me, running her fingers over the various book spines — books that I had begun to study under her father’s tutelage — she smiled in recollection of the various names.

She took them down, flipped them open, and ran her fingers over the ancient pages.

They were each first additions and had cost a fortune to locate, buy, and transport.

I ran my eyes over her soft smooth skin and how it glowed in a way her father’s never had and was completely absorbed by her smile whenever she flashed it upon an object or room to her liking.

I was grateful for her questions as they helped keep my mind off the one thing that kept attempting to force itself into the forefront of my mind…

Her.

---