Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (31 page)

I fell right onto the car which naturally triggered the alarm. It
only served to make the headache worse as my mind retreated into the
rest of my body. The noise bounced off of every solid object in the
area, causing my back to twitch with irritation. My palm pressed into
an eyeball to try and relieve pressure. Julianne was shouting behind
me.

“What?!” I tried to yell past a headache and car alarm
that ganged up to attack me.

Julianne said something again.

“What?!”

“What the hell did you do?” She was a lot closer, with
the helmet in her hands.

“I don’t know.” I don’t think she heard my
response over the alarm. Julianne pulled at an arm and I followed the
tug.

She got us situated awkwardly on her motorcycle. I limply hung on
while we drove away from the car’s whine. The motorcycle was as
loud as the car alarm, but nowhere near as piercing. A few minutes
later Julianne had us at the edge of a tiny road framed by dozens of
warning signs.

Julianne pulled off to the side and stopped the motorcycle. I was
thankful. The idea of going down the bumpy back road on a two-wheeler
was more than I could take. Both feet firmly planted themselves on
the ground, but my knees didn’t give the same effort. I knelt
to the ground, relieved that my first motorcycle ride in years didn’t
end poorly.

“What happened back there?” Julianne didn’t even
give me a few minutes to gather my thoughts and figure it out myself.

“Connection broke,” I said.

“That’s not normal, right?” She responded. I hadn’t
told her how it works, but she had seen it in action numerous times,
she had a feel for it by now.

“No.”

“If I’d known you moving back to town would turn into
such a cluster fuck I would have evicted you.” Julianne glared
at me.

“You like me too much for that.” I weakly joked.

She didn’t joke back.

“Sit tight, I’ll make a call and get a truck up here.
We’ll take it in from here and see if we can find Evan and
solve this. I don’t want Daniel in my business anymore. And
Charlie has made it pretty clear that all my extra business
activities have come under heavy fire.” She said while tapping
a foot angrily.

“Who?” I asked.

“Charlie? My accountant?” Julianne looked at me with a
perplexed expression.

“Oh. Yeah. I got a similar sort of message.” I said.

“What kind?”

“If I go home, everything goes up in a fire.”

“What?” The skin around her eyes twitched in anger. She
flung out a foot at me but was too short to make it the entire
distance. Soon she had a cell phone out and started yelling at
someone on the other end.

Julianne’s order of concerns went from her income, to pack, to
friends. Maybe Stacy was above that, maybe Kahina too from the way
they staged an intervention at her house before letting me deal with
Evan. No wonder she was mad at me, here I was screwing up all of
them.

I couldn’t hear the car alarm anymore, but any chance I had of
linking to Candy using the car’s presence was gone. Not that I
wanted to have her swing a knife at me again. Was she the same as
Evan in that regard? Could she feel me as I closed in? Evan had and
knelt to wait for me.

Evan wasn’t a full Speaker, and Candy had implied she was the
real deal. Was that the difference?

She certainly wasn’t trying to find the logging road. If she
had then it would have been reasonably swift. Julianne had driven
there in maybe ten minutes from where the car had been parked. Was
Candy trying to get to Evan first? To prevent him from telling me
what I was? Was that why she made me promise to let her meet him? It
had to be. I got up and started jogging down the logging path.

“Jay!” Julianne barked at me while alternating from her
phone conversation. “Jay, what the hell are you doing?”

“We’re losing ground!” Candy had a lengthy lead.
She couldn’t get to Evan first. I had to know why there was
considerable pressure around what I was.

Kahina had started something years ago during that first blood draw.
It caused her to go crazy, like a sort of thick red ambrosia. Candy
and Evan, both elves, knew something. Something that no other elf I
had tracked knew or felt. Then Daniel’s armed escort saying I
needed to be tested.

Julianne was yelling after me, then cursed and started down the path.

Everything was related. Evan had the answers. Arnold Regious no
longer mattered to me. If I knew what I was then perhaps some of my
own problems would be solved. If I got there first she couldn’t
stop me from getting my answers.

Ten minutes later and my energy reserves were already gone. I’d
been run ragged by various activities back to back. Damn Candy, she
probably wore me out on purpose. Sneaky.

“You know it’ll be just as fast to wait right?” She
huffed.

“Beats waiting. Your bike okay?” I had to feel like
something useful was being done.

“I rolled it behind a tree, one of the guys will take it to my
grandfather’s.”

“How long you been dealing with Evan?” I asked.

Julianne shoved both hands into her pockets and shrugged. “Two
years?”

“Good client?” I asked while doing my best to walk a
straight line. My head was still fuzzy and trying to work through
numerous problems.

“Until a few months ago, sure.” She said. That timing
made no sense.

“Why the picture and lipstick? Why not the usual?” I
asked.

“He seemed desperate. Evan claimed he didn’t have
anything else to repay me with except the shirt off his back, and I
didn’t want that.” She said. The elf’s shirt had
been rather ratty looking. Being dragged around by Julianne and
Daniel probably didn’t help.

“But those items wouldn't work for whoever was doing my old
job, would they?” I asked.

“Not really. The scent was solid but doesn’t stick like
hair does. Then again hair doesn’t exactly last long, tends to
give me a time limit on my good graces.” How long before she
made you pay up, or sent someone out to find you.

“I was glad you came back, figured I could finally stop paying
second rate people, but…” But I had shut myself indoors
for a few weeks and crawled into drinks.

“Sorry.” I was too.

“The upside is after Francis, I’m sure I can find some
use for you.” She smiled briefly. Julianne wasn’t looking
up at me and instead seemed focused on the distance.

“I thought I was the bad guy here?” I said. Julianne had
been pissed off at me a moment ago.

“If you blow up my apartments, then you’re fired.”
She paused. “Or if you hit Stacy again.”

“Look I’m…”

“Sorry, I’m sure. Both of us should’ve known
better, you’re like a wolf in that regard, if pushed too far
when someone nips at you, you give the same treatment back. It’s
not pleasant, but it’s true anyway. I knew that slap wouldn’t
break you.” She was so factual about it.

“Rung for a while,” I said.

“That’s what you get for being such an arrogant jerk.”

“I thought I’d always been one.” Maybe I shouldn’t
be joking about this. The arrogant jerk factor must have been part of
my whole self-possessed mentality that had given me an edge.

“No. Confident perhaps, easy to rile up, eager to prove
yourself.” Julianne scratched her chin momentarily and looked
uncomfortable.

“Really?”

There was a honk of noise in the distance. Julianne turned, a
run-down pickup was gradually traversing the broken path towards us.
She waved and ran towards it, leaving me to try and figure out
exactly what I’d been like back then. I stepped out of the way
as a truck, loaded with Julianne in the back, wheeled up.

“Someone order a round trip?” The voice sounded familiar.

“Me?” I questioned. This must be the ride that Julianne
had called in for us.

“Alright, this time you get a deluxe ride. No tie downs, no
blindfolds, no electric shocks! The whole package I tell you.”
The male driving the truck was shouting out the passenger window at
me.

“Probably not a good breakfast on the other side either,”
Julianne said from her perch in the truck’s bed. I looked at
her, then loaded myself into the back. It sunk a little under the
weight before the suspension caught up.

“How much did they tell you?” I asked Julianne, pointedly
ignoring the other man in the front.

“Oh, bits and pieces. Wait until I tell Kahina how good a
woodsman you are.” She was smiling now.

I ignored the commentary and focused on important topics.

“You don’t have those blindfolds still do you? I could
use a nap.” And reprieve from Julianne taunting me. She was
definitely in a mood. Either because she was with some wolf pack
member, or because she was enjoying harassing me.

“Missing them already?” The joker from the driver’s
seat had a grin in his voice.

“I want sleep,” I said.

“Alright. It’ll take a few hours to get out there.”
Julianne patted me like some five-year-old and then turned to chat
through the window into the cab of the truck. I grunted and rolled up
my jacket in hopes that it would serve as a pillow.

The best part about sleep, good sleep, is that time zips by and I
would feel great at the other end of it. This occasion was met with
no great feeling and time did not zip by. It drug both feet and
tripped repeatedly. My brain kept whirling around the events of the
last few weeks trying to make sense of it all. Evan had some serious
explaining to do.

I half hoped to be woken up by Candy hopping into the back of the
truck with us, but no such luck. Candy showing up would mean that
this wasn’t betrayal. Instead, Julianne and the joker driving
made terrible comments at each other. They were both dedicated to the
cause of making puns, dumb jokes about other pack members and who
knows what else.

Finally, sleep felt unachievable and I sat up.

“How was your nap, princess?” The mystery man inside the
cab said.

“Julianne would be a better princess,” I responded.

“I never saw myself as the princess,” Julianne answered.
“Anyway, that’d make you what, the knight, Jay? You don’t
seem like the dashing hero type.” Julianne couldn’t
resist.

“Maybe he’s the horse.” The driver helped out.

“A horse? Maybe a donkey. Mule?” Julianne went right
along with it. She waved one hand towards me and smiled.

“No. He’s not a good horse. They get eaten by the
monsters.” The other man said.

“Oh, right. Wouldn’t want that.”

“Besides, we’re not rescuing a princess.” The
driver said.

“I don’t know, proper clothes, fixing up his hair, might
be hard to tell. Some of those elves are downright feminine.”
Julianne said. I was regretting waking up. “What do you think,
Jay? We could put little ribbons in his hair for you?”

“Ribbons would sell the image.” The driver said.

“Oh yeah. I can totally see it.” Julianne put both hands
up in the air and seemed to gaze towards the heavens. She was yanking
my chain, right? “Yeah, you think you’re in trouble now,
wait until Kahina finds out you’ve left her for a
cross-dressing elf.”

The two of them had nearly identical grins on their faces. Though it
was hard to make out the other guy’s face. He was at least
keeping his eyes mostly on the road. We were in a forest and deer
could leap out at any moment.

“No?” Julianne looked happier than she had been in
awhile.

“Come on, man, if she dumps you I’m sure there are some
other vampire guys that would love your big slab of meat look. Just
grow fuzz on that face and bam, instant success. Everybody wants a
vampire loving up on them.” The driver said as the truck bumped
along through potholes.

I raised an eyebrow at Julianne. “Who is this guy again?”

“Oh. Thomas, meet Jay. Jay, Thomas. He’s my brother. He
used to have a beard.” Her phrasing implied I should remember
Thomas from somewhere. I didn’t.

“Julianne is kind of everyone’s little sister in the
pack, but I’m the only one related by blood, next to our
grandpa,” He said.

“That explains a few things,” I responded. They clearly
had been bouncing comments off each other for years. I didn’t
envy their family members having to deal with that growing up.

“We’re almost there. Only about two hours out.”
Julianne said. There was no choice but to listen to them making fun
of me for the next hour.

“Shit,” Thomas complained about something.

“What is it?” Julianne asked.

“Downed tree. Big one too.”

“How big?” She said.

“Big enough that I can’t see myself lifting it.”

“Big, strong guy like you, admitting you can’t lift a
simple tree?” Julianne remained in teasing mode. I must have
been getting the watered down version at the bar all these years.

“How long would the rest of it take to walk?” I asked.

“With you two? Another…” He paused for a bit.
“Forty miles or so? Hours easily, if we push it, maybe seven or
so?”

“I didn’t bring my hiking boots,” Julianne
complained.

I hopped out and looked at the tree in front of us. There was a
rather large log that looked like it had broken off most of its
branches on the way down. If you looked carefully the path of damage
could be seen from the side of the road. Somehow it managed to find
the perfect path between other trees and end up in our way.

“Can we carve it up?” I asked.

“Didn’t bring a saw.” Julianne sighed. We stared at
it for a little bit longer and tried to figure out what to do.

“Aren’t you a wolf?” I finally asked.

“Sure.” Thomas smiled.

“Use claws?” Why was I the one pointing this out?

“Duh. Hold on.” He vanished behind the truck for a
moment. There was a shuffle of movement.

“Your brother modest?” I asked Julianne.

“Nah, he only cares about the clothes,” Julianne said.
Sure enough, Thomas threw his clothes into the front of the truck. A
moment later and out came her brother in the half-wolf form. I
resisted an urge to reach out and feel what he was feeling. There
were no grounds for me to think of him in that manner anyway. It was
just impressive.