Prince of my Panties (Royal Package 2)

But her focus remains fixed on the rapidly growing pile of wood in the pit and the dreamy smile lifting one corner of her mouth firmly in place.

Jeffrey turns to me, worry in his eyes. His lips move, but I can’t make sense of the words. I shake my head and lift my arm, pointing at the woman in the chair. Jeffrey winces subtly and turns back to the man with a sigh.

This time, I’m able to make out part of the sentence, “Yes…so sorry… Is…anyone else?”

Anyone else?

We don’t need to look for someone else, she’s right there!

Willing a deeper breath into my lungs, I dig my nails into my palms until the pain helps me focus enough to speak. “I’m s-sorry. I d-didn’t hear what you said before.” I meet the happy man’s now much sadder gaze. “But that’s d-definitely the woman I m-met eighteen years ago.” I nod toward Kaula, but I don’t look her way, afraid I’ll spiral out again if I do. “Would it be p-p-possible for me to speak with her? I have so m-many questions.”

“Like I was telling your friend, we can try,” the man says, propping his hands on his hips as he shakes his head. “But my grandmother hasn’t been well for a long time. Her body is still strong, but her mind…” His forehead furrows. “The doctors say it’s Alzheimer’s, but I’m not so sure. She had a bad fall about five years ago. Hasn’t been the same since.”

Every organ in my body sinks like a stone. “I’m so s-sorry,” I murmur. It’s the right thing to say, and I am sorry.

Sorry for this man. Sorry for Kaula. Sorry for myself.

I’m no expert on degenerative brain diseases, but I’m betting the chances are slim to none that an Alzheimer’s patient will remember the events of a single day nearly twenty years ago.

“There are days when she doesn’t know who I am,” Kaula’s grandson says, reading my thoughts, or maybe just my crestfallen expression. “But it sounds like you had a pretty…unique experience with her, so she might remember.”

“She k-kidnapped me,” I say, figuring it bears repeating, even if Jeffrey’s already told him this part while I was having my meltdown. “It w-wasn’t unique, it was t-terrifying.”

The man crosses his arms over his chest, the warmth in his gaze fading a degree or two. “Listen, I don’t know what happened. I was at university around that time. But Mami has always been a good person, a drabarni, a healer witch. All she ever wanted to do was help people.” He shrugs his thick shoulders. “She must have truly believed you were in danger and needed her help in some way.”

“I was only s-seven and I was scared, so I d-don’t remember everything,” I say. “But she w-warned me about a curse on my family and made predictions about the f-f-future. All of them have c-come true.”

He frowns. “Well…there you go. I know it’s hard for outsiders to understand, but if you’d been raised the way we are, you wouldn’t doubt that some people have special powers. I’ve seen drabarni predictions come true too many times to doubt it.”

“And what about curses?” Jeffrey asks. “Do you believe in those, too?”

The man chews the corner of his mouth as he tips his head to one side. “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to know what’s a curse and what’s karma. People who do bad things tend to get theirs sooner or later, right?”

“My family did bad things. In the p-past,” I say, my throat going tight. “Is karma passed d-down? Can it just happen to k-kill people on their twenty-sixth birthday?”

The change in the man’s expression is instant and profound.

Recognition flickers in his eyes, and a second later he steps back, subtly crossing himself as he mutters, “So you’re…” He shivers and his breath rushes out. “Of course, you are. I should have known.” He makes a circular motion with one hand in front of his face before pointing at mine. “You look just like the stamps. What’s it like to have your picture on a stamp?”

I blink. “A little strange, but I d-don’t go to the post office very often.”

“Right. Who does these days?” He takes another step back, almost as if he’s afraid curses are catching. “So…yeah, your family definitely did some bad things, but…” He swallows, glancing over his shoulder before he turns back and lowers his voice. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but our people had nothing to do with that. Not directly anyway.”

“Right.” Jeffrey explains what we learned from Dika in Rue. “But she wouldn’t say much about the curse. She told us to find Kaula and talk to her about it, that she was our best chance to see if there’s anything we can do.”

I add, “I’ll be twenty-six in a f-few months.”