Ojbect by Viola Grace Read Free Book Online

Minister of Trade.”
    “I am, but greeting and entertaining my guests is part and parcel of striking a deal.”
    He offered his arm, and she put her hand in it again.
    She cleared her throat. “Where are we going now?”
    “To the gallery. To understand my people, you need to know where we came from. My family managed to keep all of our portraits going back a thousand years. We will begin at the beginning and work out way to the present day.”
    Yimra was in the hallway, and Bella could only shrug helplessly as they passed her. She was stuck going with her boss wherever he was leading her, and it appeared he was heading for his past. Dinner would have to wait.
    Lord Akking had a tension in his arm. He was obviously nervous about where they were going.
    They were back in his private wing of the manor, and this time, they passed his bedroom and headed for a large set of double doors that looked like they protected something important.
    He took a deep breath, and the doors opened for them. “Keep in mind, this was our past. We are different now.”
    “What do you do with children who are throwbacks?”
    He made a face. “It rarely happens, but if it does, they are given gene therapies to make them blend in with our people.”
    They made their way to the far side of the gallery without looking at the portraits on the walls. The shadows shrouded them.
    “We are beginning with the statuary. The Kloa were fierce, intelligent and had eyes that could stare through the souls of their enemies.”
    Lord Akking showed her the first of the statues. The being was tall, fierce and appeared deadly. Spines jutted from the ancient’s hands, forearms and spine.
    “The spines were venomous?”
    Akking nodded. “Very. We still carry the venom, but now, it has been blended into our bloodstreams. You received antibodies for it on your trip here.”
    “Oh good. The spines on the penis had me a little worried. I was pretty sure I would have noticed that yesterday.”
    The next statue was a woman of the same design—spines and eyes that had a thousand-yard stare.
    “Are these relations of yours, Lord Akking?”
    “They are depictions of the first Lord and Lady Akking. This was their daughter.”
    He showed her the third statue and began leading her through his ancestry.
    When the changes in the appearance happened, clothing was adopted. It made sense. The spinal spikes would not have made clothing easy, and the thick skins made it unnecessary.
    Bella walked with him down the early stages of transformation into grace and beauty, but something changed in the portraits. The clothing became extreme, the hair colours were vivid and body modifications began to surface.
    Five hundred years of evolving vanity took a sudden turn when the clothing reverted to an almost puritan sensibility.
    The couples posed in the portraits, some with children, some without, took on a steady fashion sense. Elegant, but not extravagant.
    “That is the same style you tend to use in the manor.”
    Lord Akking smiled up at the image of his parents. “It is sensible and attractive. First, the Kloa changed their bodies, and then, they changed their priorities. The Face-to-Face Club tries to honour both.”
    Lord Akking’s mother had pale lavender hair, but her son had inherited her deep purple eyes. His father had raven hair, wide winged eyebrows and the same twist to his mouth that his son had.
    “Please, excuse me for a moment.” Bella trailed back and looked at the subtle changes in the facial features, feeling some relief that the stamp was blurring with time. In a few more generations, the Kloa would be unique, as the white class were. All it had taken was a little incursion by alien DNA, and the natural order had taken over.
    She returned to Lord Akking’s side, taking his arm and smiling up at him. “Thank you for the briefing on your history.”
    “There is nowhere here to take you out on a date, so this was as close as I could manage.”
    Bella stared