Chapter 13

Kalen raised an eyebrow.

Dad whirled around to face me, a raised spoon covered in the dark roux dripping onto the floor and waving sternly towards my face. “Noémie!” He scolded. 

“It’s not a bad weird.” I insisted. “It’s just…..weird.”

It was more weird that I could smell it. The smell itself was comforting. Trying to process this experience is what was abnormal to me. I've never experienced this before. From what I’ve been told, I’m not supposed to. 

“How reassuring.” Kalen drawled. 

“You still can't say something like that. That's extremely rude and…….” My dad paused, eyes slowly shifting towards the prince. The prince ignored the stares, his gaze roaming around my home boredly.

I glanced between the two, confused with what was happening. “Is there something wrong, dad?” 

He shook his head, “No, no.” A nervous grin crawled onto his face as his attention turned back to me. He opened his mouth, quickly closing it when nothing came out. As I impatiently waited for him to say something, noticing that Kalen was now eyeing my dad weirdly, Dad finally opened his mouth again. “Noémie,” He began, clearing his throat. “Why don’t you show Kalen around while I watch the pot?”

That beats standing around doing nothing.

“Okay!”

I motioned for Kalen to follow me out the kitchen. He did without too much fuss, wandering behind me as I began to prattle on about my home. 

He listens as I motioned towards the couch in the living room. “This couch is very comfy. Papa and I have our spots on the couch. My brothers and dad don't really care where they sit.” I explained, “Since you're a guest, if you promise not to tell, I can let you in on where the best place to sit is.”

He stared, “It's a couch.”

“I know.” I huffed. Crossing my arms over my chest, I continued to grumble. “I just said that.”

A flash of amusement crossed his face before it settled back to its original stoicness. He gave the couch another glance as he spoke. “I think I'll be fine.”

I shrug, “If you say so. I'll be here if you ever change your mind. Promise.” Since I didn’t really get a response from him I moved on, gesturing towards the huge TV that was mounted on the wall. “You should be able to watch whatever you want on the TV. The only one that really uses it is my brother, Antonio.” I explained, “Have you met him yet?”

“No.”

“He's funny!” I continued, “But he's also a TV hog. Just let my dad or papa know if he starts hogging the TV.”

“He sounds annoying.”

“You know, Joaquin says that about him all the time!”  

“Joaquin?”

“He's my other brother.” I explained, “Antonio and Joaquin are twins.” 

Sensing that he didn’t seem to care too much to continue with the conversation about my brothers, I decided to continue on with the tour. I quickly swept through the bottom floor, mentioning the back door to the garden was in the kitchen and showing him the room door to my fathers room, before continuing upstairs. I briefly showed him my brothers and I rooms, letting him take a quick peek into mine since he asked.

I didn’t get why he only asked to see mine, but I didn’t see any harm.

“And here's your room!” I presented happily. “I hope you like it.”

 I had a hand in decorating his room and I think we did pretty good. Since none of us knew how long he was going to be staying here for, I suggested that we make his room look as similar to his other room as possible.

Dad has mentioned that Kalen prefers solitude. He likes to spend time alone in his room on days when he’s not busy with other royal things. Assuming that his room is one of his safe spaces, I suggested that instead of doing something new, we should decorate into something he’s used to and prefers.

My fathers agreed.

If he didn’t like it, we could always tailor it towards his taste later.

I watched as the prince eyed the dark walls and furniture.  “Looks like my old room.”

“We thought you would like that better.”

He grumbled, “This will do.”

I beamed happily at his words. It may not be a full blown compliment, but I could already tell coming from him that it was a lot. I turned around, ready to leave him to properly explore his room before I stopped. 

I could hear my fathers voices in my head. Nagging if I apologized for rudely blurting out about his smell earlier. I know even though it doesn’t look like he was offended by it, my fathers would be persistent in making me apologize. 

I turned back around. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

He tore his gaze away from the black out curtains that hung from the window. The prince didn’t say anything for a moment, his gaze piercing through my fidgety form. After a few long, antagonizing seconds, Kalen spoke. “Your dad told me that you haven’t gained any were abilities.”

“I can heal a bit better than non-were’s, but that's about it.” I answered honestly, “I wasn’t close enough to you to be able to smell your scent.”

“My scent?” Kalen mused to himself. “What do you think I smell like?”

“Grapes.”

“Grapes?”

“Yeah. Well, no.” I frowned. I pondered silently, trying to wrack my brain on a proper answer to give the prince. He did smell like grapes. But it was different. Almost sweeter than what I was used to. “Sweet grapes.” 

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course there is!” I insisted, “It's probably purple grapes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Purple grapes are the sweet ones. Green grapes are sour.” I explained stubbornly. “Have you never eaten a grape before? Everyone knows that.”  

“Right.”