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When he finally stopped laughing, his expression turned more serious as he placed a hand on my cheek. "I know what you did there, and I understand. But one day we will have to talk about this."
I gulped and nodded. I leaned up to kiss him this time, an apology of sorts. I prepared myself for him pulling out of me and leaving. He did pull out of me, but he rolled us over so I came to rest on his chest.
"Tell me about you," he demanded.
This time I didn't pretend to not understand his question. It wasn't easy to talk about, but I decided he deserved this much. "I was a real estateagent before the Cryons came."
"What is a real estate agent?"
"A person who helps others to find a home and buy it," I explained.
"That sounds nice, you must have helped a lot of people."
"Not as many as I wished." I chuckled self-deprecatingly. "But I made some decent money."
"You had to work for a living? You didn't have a male to take care of you?" There was something sharp in his tone that told me that his question held more meaning than the words implied.
"No, I didn't," I confessed. "Is that how it is on your planet? The mentake careof the women?"
At that he chuckled again. "Only in figure of speech. Most merrilies are perfectly capable of handling themselves, but vra, a male will always protect and provide for their merrily." He must have sensed more questions from me, as he elaborated, "Every subject in the Pandraxian Empire has a calling, males and merrilies. For some merrilies it's the raising of our young, but for many others it's a job that fulfills them."
That sounded nice and comforting.
"Is this real estate job your calling?"
I shrugged against his chest. "It was a means to support myself. I liked it, if that is what you're asking."
But a calling? mymind queried. "But no, it wasn't mycalling. It was an easy job though, I didn't want to take on student loans to—" I halted, realizing he probably didn't know what that meant. "Go into debt to study for years for another job."
"What would you have liked to do?"
Nobody had ever asked me this question, least of all me and it left me wondering.
"I don't know," I finally said. "I never really thought about it. The state took me from my abusive parents when I was little, but not little enough to be adoptable. I grew up in foster care, my grades weren't good enough for scholarships and I just wanted out and to live on my own. So when I saw an advertisement one day for a real estate school and realized how little it cost compared to college, that's what I did. I took out a credit and enrolled, while still in the foster care system until I had my license and sold my first house. I used my commission to put money down on my apartment and moved out."
I realized this was the longest I had ever talked about myself and the first time anybody had ever asked me these kinds of questions. Especially as interested as Garth seemed to be. And I also realized that he probably didn't understand half of the words I had just said. Before he could ask, I threw a question athim. "What about you?" I used the moment of silence to move to a safer subject. "Have you always wanted to be a… lord protector?"
Even to me my question sounded ridiculous, lord protector was probably an inherited title, like the title "lord" implied.
"Vra, I was born to be one. My father was one, his father before him, and so on. My family has ruled Astrionis for as long as we have been keeping track of time. It's in my blood."
That sounded nice. I almost envied him having a purpose in life like this.
"Is Astrionis a planet?"
"Astrionis is many planets," he replied, making my head swim.
"How many planets?"
"Right now? Nine, but we are in the middle of expanding to create another colony on RX2."
Nine planets? Almost ten? I had suspected he was a powerful man because of his title, but it sounded like he was responsible for billions of people, maybe trillions, considering Earth had boasted a few billion before the Cryons' arrival.
"That is a lot of responsibility," I mused. "How did you find time to come to… visit the Cryons?"
Adeep sigh from him shifted his chest. "I didn't want to. It's part of my job though. And after finding you"—he leaned his head up and kissed my forehead—"I'm actually, for the first time, glad for it."
"Me too," I confessed, shivering at the thought of what would have happened to me, had it not been him whom I had been given as a gift to.
