Page 32 of Royal Rising

Mom: You need to tell me everything about Mathias!

She adds an emoji of wide eyes and big smile.

I tuck my phone in my pocket instead of answering. I don’t feel like thinking about Mathias right now. Last night was… nice…

Mathias is nice.

Am I old enough to settle withnice?

There’s no sense dwelling on this, or giving my mother any information because it was a date. Dinner.

A good-night kiss that was also nice.

I need a new descriptive.

Kalle is quiet when he comes back. No one would ever call him loquacious, but now he offers more grunts and growls than his usual monosyllabic answers.

“How’s Maggot?” I ask in a low voice as I follow him into the kitchen. The first time my dad took me to the castle gardens, the king came out to say hello. I was flustered and scared, because as wonderful and gracious a person as King Magnus is, he’s still a king and I was a five-year-old girl. So when my father introduced me and the king bent over to shake my hand, I stumbled on his name and out came King Maggot.

The king loved it and still insists on referring to himself as Maggot when I’m around.

Chase chats with Tyler by the sink and Skywalker has taken a quick break from the grill, and this is what will constitute alone time for me today.

“Good.” Kalle doesn’t look up from where he’s slapped a burger on the grill.

“Did you have a meeting with him?”

Kalle makes a garbled noise that sounds like one of his grunts got caught up with a word. I peer around him to look at his face. His expression is strange, one I’ve never seen before.

“What’s going on?” I demand. “You look weird.”

“You look weird,” Kalle counters dully.

I sigh. “A bad comeback will not distract me. What happened? Is there word of Daulton?”

How Kalle never knew his father’s secretary was such a slimeball is beyond me.

“What about him?” The strange expression is replaced by that look in his eyes that makes any drunk back down. I don’t much like angry Kalle, but any woman would agree he’s very attractive when he’s in a temper.

I don’t step back. I also do my best not to breathe deeply because lately, Kalle’s scent has been doing strange things to my insides. I’ve trained my insides not to react to anything Kalle, so I can’t understandwhy now? “Stella told me Daphne is back,” I tell him. “Alone.”

Hehumphs. “That didn’t last long.”

“Which is probably a good thing. Apparently, Silas is trying to come up with a reason not to give Daphne her job back, but he really needs another person in the coffee shop for the summer.”

Kalle grunts.

When he gets like this, I know there’s something wrong, and my first instinct is to try and chatter it out of him. Sometimes it works.

Sometimes he tells me in no uncertain terms to go away.

“Your father didn’t say anything about it?” I ask.

He flips the burger. “I didn’t ask.” His heavy sigh is audible even over the sizzle of the cooking meat. “And it’d be Dunc who’d know more. Or Spencer, if the castle is planning on pressing charges.”

“I’m not sure what you could press charges for.” I hand him a slice of cheese and a bun for his burger.

Kalle has a great smile—when it comes out—all white teeth and full lips, but when he’s mad and smiles, he ends up looking like a shark. “Spence could figure something out.”

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