Royal Affliction (The Anti-Princess Saga) (27 page)

“Oh, uh, hello.  Is Clifton there?” the female caller asked.

A loud snore from the next room told me that he was still sleeping.  “I’m sorry but he is still asleep.  Can I take a message?”

“May I ask who I am talking to?”

“Uh…”  I paused while silently regretting that I had answered the phone in the first place.  “My name is Tessa.  I am, uh, Clifton’s girlfriend.”  I wasn’t sure that I should have told her that.

“Oh, ok.  I am sorry to be a bother, but would you mind waking him please.  It is kind of important that I speak with him.”

The woman sounded pleasant enough, so I did as she asked.  “Sure, just one moment.”

I poked at Clifton’s face.  “Clifton, wake up,” I said trying to stir him but not wake up Kafkus in the process.

He finally opened his eyes and looked up at me.  “What?”  It came out rude but, since I had just woke him up, I let it slide.

“You have a phone call.”

He looked a little confused, as if he hardly ever received them.  “From who?”

“I don’t know, some lady.  I didn’t ask.  She wanted me to wake you so it must be important.”

He hopped up and was gone in a flash.

I stayed behind and silently wondered if I should have just let the phone ring.  I felt a twinge of jealously. 
Who was this woman that was calling my man? 
I squeaked in surprise as Kafkus pulled me back onto the bed, as I thought he was still asleep.

“Don’t be jealous, it doesn’t flatter you,” he said with a yawn.

I giggled.  That was what I had told him when he had been jealous of Clifton at their first meeting.  He even used my improper, human-adapted grammar.  “I can’t help it.  I’m supposed to be the only woman in his life.”

“Ahem.”

“And in yours.”

He got out of bed and turned back at me.  “You will always be the only woman for me, Quartessa.  You always have been.”

I smiled at him, silently wishing that I could say the same to him.  He frowned, knowing what I had just thought.  “You know, this reading my mind thing has its downfalls.”

“Yes, well…even though you cannot say that I am the only man for you, I know how you feel about me, and I love that.  Most men have no idea what their lover is thinking most of the time.  I take pride in knowing.  It makes us closer, or at least, I think it does?”

I stared into his shimmering aquamarine eyes, they were sad.  “There are no secrets between us, Kafkus.  You can anticipate my every need, my every desire.  I think that it does make us closer.  And even though I cannot read your thoughts, as I stare into your eyes now, it feels like I can.”

He placed his welcoming hand on my cheek and I closed my eyes and rubbed my face against it.  He slightly trembled.

“What?”

“You make me nervous, Princess.”

“Why do I make you nervous?”

“When you look at me as you are doing now, I know, without listening to your thoughts, that you truly love me.”

“And why does that make you nervous?”  I would think that knowing how I felt would make him happy, not distressed.

“I do not know, maybe because I have always wanted you to look at me that way.  And now that you do…I am afraid that it will not last, like it is too good to be true.”

I understood.  He had waited countless years for me to feel the same way for him that he had felt about me.  He was now afraid that my love for him might fade away, leaving him back where he had started: alone.

“Kafkus, when I made you my Zezka I didn’t enter into it lightly.  I knew that I was making a commitment to you as I did with Clifton.  Though I share myself between you, you both have my whole heart, and that will never change.”

“You are too good to be true.”

Clifton reentered the room looking completely dumbfounded.

“Who was on the phone?”

He just stared at me.  “My…mother.”

Chapter Eleven

“What?  I thought she was dead.  You told me she was dead.”  I’m sure that I sounded a bit hysterical, but I couldn’t help it.  My head was swimming with this new information that just couldn’t be true.

“I thought she was too.”  His voice was distant.  “I remember the scene so vividly, the blood, the gore.”

“But why is she contacting you now, after all these years of supposedly being dead?”

“She wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone.  She wants to see me today, and my new girlfriend.”

“Did you tell her who I was?  I do not think that she will want to meet me when she finds out that I am the daughter of the man that she deserted.”

“No, I didn’t tell her that part, and I don’t know if I should.  Please say you’ll come.  I don’t think I can face the woman who staged her own death just to get away from her only child.”  Tears welled up in his eyes.  “Please say that you will come?”

I was hesitant to say yes, but I couldn’t say no.  He needed me to do this with him.  He needed my love and support.  “Where are we meeting her?”

Though he still looked traumatized by the return of his mother, he looked grateful at the fact that I was coming with him.  He even managed to smile, if only for a split-second.  “She is staying at the Embassy suites in town.  She wants us to meet her there at noon.”

I looked back at Kafkus.  “Would you mind if we went alone?”  I knew that Clifton wanted just me to accompany him on this venture into his past, even though he didn’t say it.

“This is a personal matter, and I think that Clifton is fit enough to protect you for this trip.  It will give me and Quino time to train anyway.”

“Take Kyle with you please.  I know that he is human, but I have a hunch that he might be feeling a bit left out.  It would be nice of you to include him.”

He nodded in agreement and then left the room.  I sat down on the bed, taking time to fully comprehend what had just happened.

Drina was alive, but how was it possible?  Why did she pretend to be dead for so long?  Should I tell my father that the love of his life was still alive?  My head was swimming with questions that I couldn’t answer.

It looked like there was a lot going on in Clifton’s mind too.  This news had come as much as a shock to him as it did to me, probably more seeing as it was
his
mother.  “What are you thinking about?”  At the moment I wished that I could read his mind like Kafkus could mine.

“A lot of things.”

“What should I wear?  I have never met the mother of someone that I was dating before.”

“I think….I think that you should wear your royal dress.”

“So, you do want her to know who I am.”  He hadn’t told her of me over the phone, yet he wanted me to wear something that would give it away as soon as she saw me.

He shrugged.  “She will find out eventually.  I think it might be better that she knows from the start.”

I couldn’t argue with his logic so I helped him pick out some nice clothes to wear and he was nice enough to fetch my golden gown from wherever he had hidden it.

When I entered the living room, I found Quino, Kafkus and Kyle sitting at the table eating cereal.

Quino looked up at me with milk dribbling down his chin.  “Kafkus told me the news.  What do you think your father will say when you tell him?”

“I don’t know if I should.  He believes her dead and maybe it is better that way.”

“You would willingly lie to your King?”

“I don’t want to.  Sometimes, it is better to omit things that can hurt people.  I would be saving him a lot of heartache if I chose not to tell him.”  I remembered the painful look in my father’s eyes when I had told him that Drina was dead.  I couldn’t bear to inflict that on him again.  “I haven’t decided either way, so don’t get all high and mighty on me, Quino.  I will hear what she has to say before I decide what to do.”

He looked annoyed, but bit his tongue.  He just went back to eating his cereal with a bitter look on his face.

I followed Clifton out to the car and tossed him my keys.  “You drive.  I am tired of being everyone’s taxi.”

He managed to smile through the obvious distress that he was feeling.  “I never got my license.  Since I never had enough money to get a car, I thought would be a waste of time.”  He tossed the keys back to me.

“So, you have never driven a car before, ever?”

He shook his head.  “I’ve never had to.  The bus takes me everywhere that I need to go.”

“Then how did we get back from Monterey?”  I knew that none of the others knew how to drive.

“Kafkus figured it out.”

I couldn’t believe that he had never driven before.  That was one of the first things I’d learned when I came here.  “Well, you can’t expect me to drive you around forever.”  I tossed the keys back to him.  “Today is as good as any to start.”  I resolutely positioned myself in the front passenger seat, not giving him a chance to argue.

He sat down in the driver’s seat, but made no attempt to do anything.

“Do you know how to start it?”

He put the key in the ignition and turned it.  The engine fired up.  “That’s all I know.  What do I do next?”

I suppressed a laugh.  It was weird teaching Clifton something that he should have been teaching me.  He grew up here after all.  “You fix the mirrors so that you can see out of them.”  He did that.  “Then you put your foot on the brake.”  He did that.  “Then you move this lever into the “R” position.”  He did that.  “Now, slowly let your foot off the brake while looking behind you for cars and pedestrians.”

He let off the gas too fast and had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car that was passing behind us.  He looked at me apologetically.

“It’s ok.  Just try again.”

He took a long deep breath, let it out, and backed out of the parking spot.

“Good, now put the lever in the “D” position and slowly let off the brake.”

He rode the brake while we were in the complex, finally pressing on the gas when we hit the street.

He drove well under the speed limit, causing cars to go around us.  Many of them flashed rude hand gestures as they passed.  I directed him around the city streets, as I didn’t want to traumatize him with the freeway just yet.  Other than driving slow, he did just fine.  And soon enough, we pulled into the parking lot of the Embassy suites hotel.  It took him three attempts to get in between the lines of a parking space, but finally we were parked.

We got out of the car and stared up at the hotel.  It was massive.  I grabbed his hand and we walked into the building together.

*******************

The lobby was full of people ranging from tourists to businessmen.  My glimmering gown attracted a fair amount of eyes mostly from the men, but I tried not to pay attention.

“What room is she in?”

“Room 513.”

In the elevator I hit the button for the 5th floor and I took a deep breath as the doors closed.

I hated these things.  I avoided them when I could, but I wasn’t going to ask Clifton to walk up five flights of stairs.  I groaned as the elevator did that maneuver that churned my stomach.

“Are you ok?”

“I will be fine once we get out of here.”  I shut my mouth quickly after speaking.  I felt like I should keep it closed until we got out of this confined space.  The doors swung open and I hastily made my exit.

“We could have taken the stairs.”

I glared at him, annoyed that I hadn’t asked beforehand.  “We can take the stairs on the way back.”

We stood in front of her room in complete silence for a moment.  And when he made no motion of knocking, I did it for him.

“Thank you.”

The door creaked open and a breathtakingly beautiful woman stood in the doorway.  Her hair was a soft, strawberry-blonde and fell in loose curls around her tan face.  Her eyes were like two shimmering pools of water illuminating on her face.  She was tall and skinny, wearing an evening gown that was as black as night.  If I didn’t know that she was Clifton’s mother, I would have placed her in her late thirties, though I had no way of knowing her real age.  She was my father’s first wife, but where his face showed signs of aging, hers did not.  I saw a lot of Clifton in her soft feminine face.

“Clifton?  Is it really you?”

“Yes, Drina, it is me.”  He obviously didn’t want to call her
mother
, and I couldn’t blame him after what she had done.

She looked taken aback at being called by her real name.  I wondered if she had been called
Drina
since she had left Kortis.  She recovered nicely, looking pleasant.  “Please, come in.”

She watched Clifton, as only a mother could, as he passed her.  When she saw me however, she gasped, looking horror struck.  She closed the door quickly behind us and locked the deadbolt.  She spun back around to stare at me again.  “You, you are his?”