The Hero and the Hidden Royal - Renae Kaye Page 0,1
hospital trips. Being invisible around his parents meant they bumped into him a lot, or into the furniture he’d inadvertently disappeared. The crunch for Derek had come when he’d been startled by his mother, which caused the large knife he was holding to turn invisible, and Derek had accidentally stabbed himself in the arm.
He’d nearly died because he hadn’t realized he was bleeding so badly until the blood began appearing on the floor. And then because he was scared he was bleeding to death, he couldn’t calm down enough to appear so they could check the wound.
At the hospital it was even worse. The doctor found it difficult to know what to do, even though he was used to the various superpowers displayed by those referred to as “supos” in the underground Municipal community. The doctor couldn’t examine Derek, the nurses couldn’t find his veins to put an IV in, people kept yelling which raised his anxiety even further, and it was only when his mother, in a stroke of genius, held up the biggest needle and syringe that she could find, that Derek finally fainted and became visible. They had to keep him sedated for his entire stay.
In his small apartment there were no people barging in without warning and no sudden loud noises. Derek kept the insect population at a minimum which helped with any unexpected visitors with six, eight, or more legs, and if something did scurry across the floor, there was no one to give the suddenly empty space exasperated looks.
Derek, like many supos before him, worked for the Municipal, a company with a long history of supporting the Royals from North Abarra and South Abarra—two small but prosperous countries nestled between France and Spain that had split five hundred years ago due to an ancient family feud. Most members of the Abarran royal families were born with some sort of superpower and therefore had special needs that had to be catered for. Being a Royal and having powers meant you needed specialized staff members who had been vetted thoroughly and didn’t get upset when their employer had bank robbers tied up in their dressing rooms or came home again with singe marks on their pants.
The Municipal did a lot more than simply recommend staff, but as a front to a legitimate business, the employment agency angle was a good one. They specialized in finding jobs for community members who had powers they weren’t supposed to use. The job they’d found for Derek was very boring and very boring, not to mention boring. He was like Gandalf, searching for mentions on the One Ring in the dusty basements of Gondor.
Fine. So really he was in charge of archiving ancient texts and artifacts pertaining to both Abarran royal families, as well as researching and cataloging the various family trees. His own family tree was in there: Derek Alejandro Carson, son of Margaret (Peggy) Florence Carson, nee Marine, and Frederick Alejandro Carson. Peggy’s parents were listed as Rosemary Brown and Jorge Marine, and Rosemary’s mother as Mary. The information box for Rosemary’s father was blank apart from one word—Unknown.
It was Derek’s job to try to track down these unknowns. His great-grandfather was obviously a member of the royal family, but the actual individual hadn’t been identified. Rosemary never knew, for her mother had only told her they’d been “abandoned” by the man. Derek’s research was leaning toward the Northern branch of the Abarrans, focusing in on the ducal seat of Roses, since his grandmother had been named Rosemary. His work involved a lot of old dusty books, archived microfiche sheets, and computer searches—nothing he needed to be visible for.
Amazingly Derek had managed to get a driver’s license, but invisible drivers tended to freak out the other drivers. Derek was pulled over more times than he could count. Each time, someone from the Municipal would have to explain that Derek was actually sitting in the car, yes he was legal, no he wasn’t breaking the law that said you weren’t supposed to use your superpower unless you were a part of the royal family. It caused lots of anxiety all around.
That time he nearly hit a dog and turned the entire car invisible isn’t worth mentioning at all, apart from it being one of the reasons Derek liked to walk to and from work. His third-floor apartment in Dulibre, which straddled the border of North and South Abarra, was a thirty-minute walk away from the Municipal’s office.
Derek met Sam