Page 85 of Destined By Dragonblood
She set the roasting pan atop the stove and pulled the mitts free, placing them in a drawer. “My mother didn’t live through delivering me.”
A pang twinged my chest, and I rubbed absently at the ache, the knowledge of all I had missed out on due to selfishness. “Who was your father? And where is Joseph?”
“My bloodline, we’ll discuss over dinner. As for Grandfather, his heart gave out on him a few years after I was born. I don’t remember a single thing about the man Grandmother claimed to be a sweet, giving soul.”
I swallowed against another roar building deep inside me. Joseph and I had always been close. From day one, I’d felt affection for him even though he’d been far below my station.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured, not sure who I spoke to.
“Sorry I had to grow up without my mother or sorry you never got to meet her?” A hint of anger laced Primrose’s words, and she set the platter in the center of the small table set for…two.
“Both,” I murmured my answer looking at the table, eyebrows furrowing. “Were you expecting company?”
“Yes. You.” Without glancing my way, she returned to the kitchen counter for a bread basket. “There is still clothing in your closet and dresser. It’s all outdated, but it will cover your nakedness. Dress, and I will settle your overwhelmed and tumbling mind.”
I moved to obey, striding back the pitch-black hallway?—
My feet abruptly stopped.
Primrose had sensed my thoughts. She had also somehow known I approached.
“She has dragonblood gifts,” I rasped in the oppressing rock tunnel.
Yessss.
“Not possible.” I stared down the hallway that my other side’s abilities allowed me to see without illumination. “If the history of our species is correct, she shouldn’t even be alive.”
My inner beast remained silent.
Primrose held the answers but had clearly wished for me to clothe my body first.
Shaking my head, I continued on, letting myself through an old oak door. My bedroom hadn’t changed since I’d last been there, but as with the rest of the cavern I’d seen, it smelled of cleaning products, without a lick of dust on every surface—large bed frame, bed stands, and three bureaus.
As Primrose had said, clothing still hung in my closet, severely outdated but free of dust. The thought of wearing polyester against my skin again after decades of going without caused a grimace to twist my face.
I pulled open the largest bureau’s bottom drawer. Old jeans, worn and supple, lay piled unused and untouched since my days of playing at being a Greaser. While no fresh scent of laundry detergent clung to the threads, I found they fit as comfortably as they always had. Tight, white T-shirts along with a dozen other shirts lay in the drawer above. I pulled one on, the neck stretching from age.
Far from my usual attire, but I couldn’t blame anyone but myself for not coming prepared.
Barefoot, I made my way back to the kitchen. Dahlia might have shown our granddaughter how to cook, but she hadn’t taught her shit about manners. A chicken leg, half-devoured, lay on her plate along with a heaping pile of potatoes.
While chewing, she pointed at the empty chair across from her with her fork, and again, I found myself obeying, my gaze glued to her deadpan face as she swallowed.
I settled into the indicated chair but made no move to serve myself.
“What?” she asked without looking up from her plate.
“Primrose.” I tried her name out loud, expecting she had been named for the flowers I used to bring back to Dahlia from excursions beyond our cavern.
My granddaughter lifted her head, golden brown eyes eerily similar to my own piercing me.
“Who were your fathers?”
“French Canadian twins,” Primrose said while spearing a potato. “My mother met them while in town getting supplies with the truck one fall. She ended up staying with them for a week before returning home.”
“Do you know their names?”
“No, and she never told my grandmother more than that.”
