Of Royal Blood: Part One (Courting Magik Series Book 1)

by Michele Barrow-Belisle

  I spent the rest of the walk distracted and bothered by his visit.

  Mum was already awake when I returned.

  “Morning, love.” She beamed at me through crinkled eyes.

  “Hey, Mum.” I kissed the top of her head, then hugged her longer than I normally did. She'd never been comfortable with physical contact. I understood why better than most.

  “Where were you so early in the morning?”

  “Just, getting some air,” I lied, folding the envelope in half and sliding it deep into my coat pocket.

  “Where’s your sister?”

  “Don’t know. Saw her in the middle of the night, but not sure if she was just getting in, or just heading out.” No one ever knew with her.

  My mother sighed as she poured coffee for each of us. “I was thinking we ought to go shopping.”

  I arched a brow. “Win a lottery I don’t know about?”

  “You know full well which monies will be funding our purchases”—She pointed at me—“and I want to make sure you get something appropriate to wear to your interview.”

  “Well, hate to break it to you, but I don't think either of us can shop today. I have to watch Lincoln, and you have to open the store because Jeremy’s not scheduled ‘til later, and there’s no telling when Tina will turn up.

  My mother's face dropped as she cast her gaze toward the door where her five-year-old grandson slept. “Honestly, what is wrong with that girl?” she huffed, shuffling to his door to listen for sounds of rousing.

  “He’s dead to the world. Won't be up for another hour or two.”

  “Please don’t use that expression, Kat. Words have power—have I not told you that a million times already?”

  “At least.” I nodded, taking a sip of coffee.

  Her expression brightened. “Right, then. New plan. I'll call Mrs. Fitz to come by and watch the little one while we shop.”

  Typical. Tina's social life was never called into question. It was as if ditching your kid to go screw around with random guys ‘til all hours of the night was perfectly acceptable. But god forbid I refuse to let a man speak to me like I was beneath him. The fact that I was beneath him wasn’t the point.

  I slathered a thick layer of cream cheese onto a bagel and took a bite. “Know what?” I said around my mouthful, “I was thinking of meeting Hannah in town, since we have to go work on the theater set. So, why don't we skip the shopping, I'll call Jeremy to open the shoppe earlier, and you can hang out here with Lincoln ‘til he wakes up. If and when Tina ever shows, she can take over for you. And I'll help as soon as I'm back.”

  She was already shaking her head in protest. “Oh, no, I want you to get straight to prepping. There's a lot to learn before tomorrow.”

  Right. The Royal interview. My hand wandered to my pocket, to the letter hiding inside. The one that removed any and all opposition to at least trying to get this job, since a position at the palace came with an exorbitant salary. I'd have to show her the letter eventually. But she looked happier than I'd seen her in a long time this morning, and I couldn't bring myself to steal that.

  I took a few more sips of coffee and gave her the rest. “Better get going if I'm to get back in time to prep.”

  “Let me call Mrs. Fitz. I’ll drive you.”

  I was shaking my head no, but she waved me off and was on the phone to our neighbor before I could argue, so I gave up and went to get dressed.

  That was when I heard it… the voice, whispering from inside the wall.

  CHAPTER 3

  Only there was no voice.

  No one actually speaking. I searched the room. Justine hadn’t pranked me since we were kids. And I was fairly certain Lincoln was still sleeping. Plus, stealth attacks were not his thing. He was loud and knew how to make an entrance. Quiet, haunting whispers definitely weren’t in a five-year old’s wheelhouse.

  I stopped moving, listening hard, straining to hear it again.

  Nothing.

  It was just my name whispered on the wind, but it left a cold chill chasing down my spine. I brushed it off and tried not to pay too close attention to the fact that I’d been brushing off a lot of strange occurrences lately.

  Sauntering to my room I reach for the doorknob and froze. Hanging on the knob was a thin chain. One that didn’t belong to me, that I’d never seen before. With fingers still a bit shaky from the wired disembodied whisper, I lifted it off the knob, holding it up. A large ring dangled from the end. A wide silver band, set with a stunning gemstone in hues of green and turquois. Something far too grand for anyone in my household. As I examined it, the whispers started again. This time a chorus of voices, each whispering the same single name.

  Katriana.

  Letting out a small shriek. I spun around, nearly dropping the chain, and backed away slowly. But it wasn’t until I hit the wall and could go no further, that I realized…the voice…it was coming from the…the ring? How was that even possible?

  I started at it for a full minute, mouth gaping. A simple golden chain with a dangling ring. My finger grazed the surface of the stone. It flashed with a blinding light, then pulsed glowing stoplight-red. I sucked in sharp gasp. It fell from my hands to the floor, landing outside of Lincoln’s door. I stared at it, as if it were a live rattlesnake, ready to attack. Might as well have been. Unblinking, I watched the shimmering light dim and then vanish entirely and along with it, the hum of voices.

  “Kat, you ready?” Mum bustled past me.

  I grabbed the chain, whipping it up off the floor, and holding it away from me I hurried after her. “Um, what’s this? It’s not my birthday yet? So why the jewelry?” Weird freaky light-up jewelry.

  My mother frowned staring down at the chain dangling from my fingers, and she froze when she noticed the ring at the end. For a second it seemed like her face paled. “Where did you get that?”

  “It was just there, hanging on my door.” I pointed with my chin. “So wait. You mean…it’s not from you?”

  She narrowed her eyes, leaning in to inspect the pendant, then scoffed. “Of course not. Do I look like I’ve got time and money to burn over such nonsense?”

  There were only three adults in this tiny house of ours. And there was no doubt in my mind this hadn’t come from Justina. If not from Mum, then—

  “That’ll be Mrs. Fitz,” she said. “For the love of life Kat, put some clothes on.”

  I’d missed the gentle rap at the door, and I stayed rooted in place while mum greeted the neighbor, until her impatient urging for me to hurry.

  I dressed quickly, feeling hyper away of the ring, and for some reason, the Prince. Like the two were somehow intertwined. Which was even crazier. I made a mental note to talk to the Apothecarist about some relaxation tonics.

  “God’s beard, I haven’t got all day Kat! Are you ready to go or not?”

  I stared at the ring absently, muttered, “yeah I’m ready.” Then without thinking, and I couldn’t say why, I slipped it off the chain and onto my middle finger, letting the cool metal and weighty gemstone nestle against my skin.

  It felt weird. Like my skin had come alive, tingly, and a bit numb. None of which made a lick of sense, so it must have been just another of my imaginings. They had become more frequent lately, and I was still writing them off as stress.

  But as I followed my mother out to the car and paused as she gave Mrs. Fitz last minute instructions about Lincoln, my gaze caught a photo of my Grandmother. It was a photo I’d looked at multiple times as day for my entire life, but obviously had never really seen. For there, wrapped around my now-dead grandmother’s finger, was the exact ring wrapped around mine.

  ***

  My mother pulled the car up in front of a store in the Capital. There was what they called this central region of the island. It marked an invisible gateway into the massive opulence and wealth of the supreme upper class and eventually the hilltop estates of the Royal Family beyond it. We weren’t the kind of people who shopped here. Ever. In fact, with
the looks we were collecting by the fashionista men and women gawking as they passed by, our car wasn’t the sort of vehicle they saw here, either.

  My fingers rested on the handle. When I didn’t open the door quickly enough, my mother rolled her eyes. “What kind of a girl makes such a fuss over being gifted a large sum of money from a wealthy, handsome royal, who’s single, I might add?”

  As if that factored into any equation known to humankind. There were worlds of differences between us, in status and pretty much everything else. His relationship status was irrelevant, as irrelevant as his reasons for leaving the money in the first place. Soothe his guilty conscience, hush money, flaunting his wealth and power, didn’t matter which. I had no intention of accepting it.

  Mum’s hand twisted round the steering wheel as she continued, “And if that’s not ridiculous enough, then doesn’t leap at the opportunity to spend every dime of it.”

  I gave her a look. A look that said, you already know the answer to that question.

  “I’m not letting you back out of this. Your interview at the palace is tomorrow. And you must be dressed appropriately if they’re even to consider you for hire. Now. Off you go. Get out there and spend some royal cash.” She winked at me with her left eye. Her right side could no longer move.

  With a sigh, I scanned the street, already bustling with commerce. The island of Britannia was made up of only a handful of townships, each of which surrounded Westingham, the center of the island inhabited by the Royal family and within that, the palace, Château de Valois. The closer one drove to the center, the more wealth and opulence flowed. Right now, we were just on the outskirts of Westingham in the Capital, so everyone here either had money or had married into it.

  The buildings themselves were works of art, but all I could focus on were the sneering faces of the rude insolent people turning their noses up at our rust-bucket car. Paint peeled from the hood, giving the appearance of a blistering sunburn. And the dents we couldn't afford to have pounded out, marred every side.

  “Do I need to get out of the car and drag you out?” She threatened.

  I shook my head. If I could do nothing else, I would protect my mother from their cruelty. People like that were never kind to people like us. They were shallow and vain, and I couldn’t bear her facing their looks of shock and horror as they saw her scars. She was better than all of them combined. And despite our complicated relationship, and my abhorrence of sharing the sidewalk with them, I’d do it to shield her from their callous stares.

  “No need,” I muttered, opening the car door. “I’m going.”

  She nodded her approval. “And you’re certain Hannah’s still meeting you?”

  “Mum, you do know I’m not five anymore, and haven’t been for seventeen years now. The fact that I still live at home doesn’t mean I need babysitting.”

  She frowned a little and winced. “It’s not that Kat. It’s just…well, you know how I feel about this time of the year.”

  “Samhain. I know,” I said on a sigh. The Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year. The shadowed half. It was a silly superstition she’d held onto with biblical strength. But it was the night Tina came home from Court and told us she’d been fired in one breath, and that she was pregnant in the next. And, it was the night our lives went to hell seven years ago, when Dad died.

  My mother blamed the calendar.

  I blamed myself.

  I gave her a small smile. “See you after dinner, unless Tina flakes, again. Or the locals have me arrested for loitering.”

  I knew Mum would be at the donut shoppe until late this evening again. But at least my sister would be with her, unless she found another guy to take off with, leaving us to put Lincoln to bed and read all the bedtime stories. Which, honestly, I did anyway. Lincoln was the cutest, with his little headful of tousled dark curls, and endless asking, “why.” But sometimes, I wasn't sure if Tina felt the same way we did. His gaze was intense. Even Dad teased that he had the devil's eyes. And Mum had always called him little Diablo. But Tina, while she adored him, there was something else in her eyes when she looked at her little boy, and I had yet to figure out what.

  “Now, Kat.” Mom put a disfigured hand on my arm. My burned arm. I flinched. “Stop looking so sour about all of this,” she said. “Remember where being so disagreeable got your sister.”

  Disgraced, penniless, branded a traitor to the crown, and left to singlehandedly raise her fatherless infant. I wasn’t my sister. I’d never be so reckless. Mum thought Tina’s dismissal had to do with backtalking to the queen. I knew it had more to do with her sleeping with the king.

  Mother continued, “Lots of these folks visit the palace.” She nodded toward a woman in a hat who looked like a peacock had come to roost on the top. “I know you and that smart mouth of yours. You mustn’t be cheeky at Court. Or here in town. It won’t get you anywhere in this world. You know it as well as I.”

  As long as it got me anywhere but here. That was the singular thought running through my head, and the one thought I’d never share with her. My mother had given so much to this place. It had taken her smooth flawless skin and turned it into something wrinkled, scarred, disfigured. She would always be beautiful to me, but others who didn’t know her before refused to see past her imperfections. And while she cared little for what people whispered when her back was turned, I resented the fact that the donut shoppe had stolen that from her. We’d all lost so much that day.

  Father had refused to leave. Instead he’d tried to battle the blaze that engulfed our donut shoppe himself. It was the third-degree burns over two thirds of his body that eventually claimed his life. Nothing was ever the same after that. I’d never liked donuts, but now I loathed them with a scathing passion, and my mother’s precious company by extension. She spoke of how fortunate we were that the trailer survived, to keep us from starving. She clung to it because of the memory of my father and the excitement they’d shared when they opened it all those years ago.

  I didn’t see it that way. Couldn’t. I wished with every cell in my body, that the damn donut truck had burned to the ground and died in Father’s place.

  Except, I’d never speak a wish like that aloud, because the difference between a wish and a curse was in the details. And the last time I’d cursed the donut shoppe and wished for it to burn, it had come true.

  It took my father’s life. It tried to take mine. I’d gotten away with a second-degree burn on my forearm, and the empty shell of the life I used to know. I kept my arm covered at all times, even in the sweltering heat of summer because seeing it repulsed me. And sometimes, I could still smell the sickeningly sweet stench of smoldering flesh. It would forever be linked in my mind with the smell of donuts.

  I watched my mother’s car drive off and disappear from sight as Hannah’s pink convertible squealed up to the curb.

  “Wanna ride, beautiful?” She lowered her shades and winked.

  “Just in time, as always.” I smiled. “Where would I be without you?” I hopped in, and we headed in the opposite direction from all of the trendy pricey dress stores, to the only place I ever shopped for clothes. Hannah’s closet. She was guaranteed to own something suitable for my interview at Chateau Valois.

  Thoughts of the palace brought thoughts of the prince. As Hannah squealed her tires, peeling down the street, I felt a ray of heat bloom across the back of my hand, exactly where Grandmother’s ring touched my skin.

  CHAPTER 4

  I held up the lavender dress, watching the soft cascades of sheer fabric nearly float as they moved. Elegant, formal, a beautiful shade and a flattering shape. Most of all, it looked expensive. Expensive enough to fool my mother into believing I’d purchased it from one of the boutiques outside of Westingham.

  “Look at the tag,” Hannah said, beaming proudly.

  “Oooh. French. That’s even better.” I laughed. “Promise I’ll take good care of it.”

&nb
sp; “I know you will. I’ll be there to make sure that you do, remember?” She held up the simple black dress she’d chosen for herself.

  Hannah had been my best friend since forever. She had an Irish accent that only came out when she was happy, and the requisite carrot-colored hair to go with it. I’d envied it when I was little, envied everything about her life, including the fact that she lived so much closer to Westingham than I did. Mostly though, I coveted her hair. With my Spanish and South African heritage, my hair was as far from red as it could possibly be. It was longer and wavier than hers now, which mean we now spent an equal amount of time suffering from hair envy.

  I adored spending time with her. While I had gone to college to become a teacher, she’d become a holistic healer. Though her abilities went so far beyond what was taught. She had a gift, and a large enough client base to afford to live on her own, between that and the odd shift helping out at the donut shoppe. If her flat were bigger, I’d worm my way in and refuse to leave—be her uninvited roomie for life. But it was tiny, with just enough space for one, and barely even that. Living alone was expensive. Hannah needed this palace job as much as I did.

  She lounged on the end of her bed, munching on a cruller, her traditional breakfast of champions, as I went over my notes before tomorrow’s interview at Britannia Court. Neither of us had to work at the donut shoppe today, so it was a lounging kind of morning, while we prepped.

  “I’m so stoked about our interviews, Kat. If we get this, things are finally going to change for us.”

  I admired her enthusiasm. Didn’t share it…but I admired it. Admired the hell out of her for managing to maintain it, in spite of everything. Her life wasn’t much shinier than mine, and yet, she saw glitter and sparkles and diamonds at every turn.