Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (32 page)

Human form, wolf form, vampires, elves, you got used to them to some
extent. But seeing a wolf in their halfway mode? Without getting into
a fight? It was nice to be in the audience for once.

“Get the edge so we can move a part big enough for the truck,”
Julianne said.

The wolf-man nodded. His face held the same patch of darker fur that
I had seen in these woods the last time. It was as good a
confirmation as any that he was the one that had followed me before.
Also the same one that had run back to tell their Alpha that I was
doing something weird.

Thomas headed over to the fallen log. His lip lifted to the side in
an almost perfect replica of a puzzled human face. A huge clawed hand
came out towards the log.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

Julianne shrugged. Her arms were crossed in confusion as she watched
her brother. Thomas’ hand fell through the log like it wasn’t
actually there.

I cursed.

“What is it?” She asked me.

“Someone’s messing with us.” I responded. That tree
was no tree. It was an illusion. Only elves could pull off such a
trick.

“What do you mean?” Julianne hadn’t quite caught on
yet. I jerked my head towards Thomas, where he was happily slashing
through a visual image of a log that wasn’t real.

“That’s here to delay us,” I said.

“Who’d want to do that? Evan wants to meet you, and the
only other elf in the area is Candy.” She managed to say the
name and attach a few pounds of guilt to it for good measure.

“Yeah.” I agreed.

“Isn’t she on your side or something?”

“Don’t know.” She was the type to honor the deal,
but beyond that? Who knows. All I had made Candy promise was a ride
to the forest and silence to her clan.

“Then we keep driving?” Julianne suggested. We loaded
back into the car, Julianne drove, and Thomas sat in the back. I got
into the passenger’s seat. The two of us in the small truck bed
would have been uncomfortable. Especially since he was easily bigger
than I was and that was saying something. Shotgun was better than
another hour curled up on the truck bed.

I glanced out the side mirror and watched the fake tree fade from
eyesight. It was a pretty good illusion. Though Julianne had mostly
kept me to people who had little in the way of clever tricks.

“Another one?” As soon as we lost sight of the one behind
us, a new one appeared further down the path. Julianne idled the
engine while Thomas got out and checked it. It was another fake.
Twenty minutes later we’d made it another six miles and found
six false trees.

Someone was unquestionably working to slow us down.

It was worth checking each one, though. Just driving through was a
terrible idea. As long as the downed trees kept being fake we’d
probably still make it to Evan before Candy.

As if proving me wrong, something connected hard with the truck. We
slammed into the unknown object with enough force to send me and
Julianne into the dashboard and steering wheel. There was a muffled
yelp from the back as Thomas’ solid form slid into the cab.
Vision blurred. One hand fumbled for the door in a struggle to get
out. Neither of us had a seat belt on. Julianne had the presence of
mind to shut off the engine and hop out. There was a small curl of
steam kicking up from under the hood of the truck.

We all got out and looked at the front of the car. The grill had
little bits of branches and leaves embedded in it. I toed out
carefully looking for the item I expected. There. To make sure I
landed a few solid kicks at the space I’d identified. A fucking
tree. A tree that was there, but we couldn’t see. It was clever
of whichever elf it was. After numerous fakes designed to get us used
to thinking the wrong way about things.

A quick scan for Evan was performed. He felt far to the north.
Tracking Candy was simple enough without a link. All that seemed to
matter was the possessive aspect. The sex had helped, but I’ll
be damned if I was going to screw everyone who owed Julianne a debt
to avoid needing a tangible item.

I couldn’t follow her as clearly without a personal object
nearby. All I got was a direction and nothing more. She was a lot
closer than Evan. So close that I detected a hint of almonds. Wait,
why did she smell of almonds? I hadn’t noticed that she had a
scent at all. When she was around it wasn’t my nose that gave
me sensory feedback.

“What is it, Jay?” Julianne asked.

“Huh?” I mumbled.

“You’re growling. If I didn’t know better I’d
swear you were pack.”

Thomas was looming behind me. Julianne was trying to follow my line
of sight. I didn’t even know what I was staring at. There was a
space next to one of the trees that my focus had settled on for the
last few minutes.

“What are you looking at?” She asked.

I had no clue but looking away was difficult. My mind was still
halfway tracking Candy. Thinking about how she had left me back at
the car and took off. Her face snarling at me as she ran through the
trees.

Worse, there was this overlapping feeling like I was touching
something far away. There was a sensation of uneven pressure against
the base of the tree that my eyes were on. I felt a curl of fingers
against wood that came with a slight tingle of energy. My hands
weren’t touching anything, though. The longer I stared, the
more alien the feelings became. Another example was my feet feeling
like they sunk freely into the dirt when my own shoes were still on.

Thomas started up a louder growl than I. A moment later he took off.
The unexpected action of his hulking form darting past me wasn’t
enough to break my intense stare. The state itself was essentially
secondary to the feelings echoing across my body.

There was a barely perceptible shift. Then I saw Candy peel away from
the tree I’d been staring at. Literally peel away, it felt like
she was walking through the soft leaves of some plant. Visually I
could see her drop bark and leaves then leap off like a deer through
the trees.

Had she been watching us? To see what?

“Holy shit,” Julianne muttered.

I nodded.

“I didn’t know elves could do that.” She looked at
me.

“Your brother?” I asked. He was lost in the brush. My
focus had been broken, but nothing stopped the sensations from coming
through. My feet finding purchase on the trunk of a tree. My hands
grabbing onto a branch and swinging forward. My heart beating faster
than it should as panic scattered coherent thought.

“He’s a big boy. You alright?” Julianne asked.

“No,” I answered. Tactile senses stopped overriding my
eyesight and the immediate area became visible again.

“No shit?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong, Janny.” No. I
knew. Everything was wrong.

“What do you mean?”

“I wish I knew.” I shook my head back and forth. Evan had
things we needed. All of us had to recover Arnold. Both of us needed
to get Daniel off of our backs. I was going to seriously reconsider
his friend status after this settled.

We managed to exercise what little mechanic skills were available by
the time Thomas came back. He sank down with a huff nearby while we
stared under the hood. From what I could tell he was winded.

“What do you think?” Julianne asked.

“It’s busted,” I answered her.

“You’re a useless man. Can’t fix a truck.”

The mess of wires and tubing leading between the different car pieces
was a nightmare. I figured out enough to see the radiator was bent
out of shape and that meant the cooling fan wouldn’t work. That
threw off belts and anything beyond that was out of my depth.

“Thomas! Get some pants on and get over here.” Julianne
snapped. I heard a sigh of frustration. It was half human, half
canine, wholly exasperated. Thomas joined us a few seconds later,
looking tired but human.

“How bad is it?” He asked.

“Not the worst wreck we’ve had, but I don’t think
it will run properly.” She answered.

He saddled up to the side of the engine and looked inside. I watched
him trace along the different parts and tilt his head around to get a
better angle.

“Might run, but who knows how many invisible trees she left
us.” Thomas hung his head.

“The elf was female?”

“Oh yeah. Once I caught the scent, it was all female.”
Thomas glanced sidelong at me. “Smelled like she’d spent
a little time with you there, big guy.”

I could feel Julianne glaring at me. “We took a ride up here
together.”

“I guess that could be it.” He didn’t sound
convinced. By the way he ignored me after that comment, either he
didn’t care or thought less of me for it. “Anyway, you’re
right, the truck’s not an option anymore.”

“So walking?” Julianne sounded depressed about it.

“Walking.” I agreed. Luckily I’d managed to get an
attempt at sleep in. It didn’t help the mental fatigue, but it
helped the physical exhaustion.

We manually cranked up the windows on the truck then locked it.
Thomas pointed out a cooler in the truck bed that I had pretty much
ignored.

“There’s some food in there.” He said.

“Brought a meal?” I asked.

“After last time? I know you don’t need it, I don’t,
but Tiny does.” He jerked a finger towards his sister.

“Tiny?” I’m fairly sure if I tried that nickname I
would end up castrated.

“Whatever, at least this way I don’t have to see rabbits
walk into your hands. That was unnerving. I appreciate needing to
eat, but there’s a difference when we hunt.”

“Why the about face?” I asked.

“My sister vouches for you, that’s a lot in my book.
You’re weird, but this situation with your friend has been
driving my grandfather crazy. I hear you’re trying to solve it
so you get a pass for now.” He was extremely talkative. I
wasn’t sure how to handle it.

Julianne was walking up from the other side of the truck. She had
pulled a jacket out of somewhere along with a small backpack. It
looked like it had a miniature tent on it.

“By your friend, he means Daniel. There’s been a lot of
extra pressure coming the pack's way because of him.” She said.

“You told me some of it.” It didn’t surprise me
that Daniel was being a monster in any way he could. He’d put
Julianne on notice, me on notice, and a lot of demand towards getting
Evan. All to get to Arnold Regious. Why? He was the heir to what? A
fortune?

“Well, it’s bad. If it keeps going, the pack may go into
isolation for a bit.” She sounded upset even uttering the
words.

Isolation was a government act where a pack under pressure could take
the property reserved to it and put all their people on that land. It
helped justify maintaining wooded areas. It was a safety measure for
humans and pack that let them cool down away from the normal
population.

It also put the entire area on high alert and drug in law
enforcement. People who weren’t pack and went inside the zone
often never made it out again. There had been around twenty isolation
events in the past one hundred years. Each one had a body count
associated.

“That bad?” I asked.

“That bad.” Thomas agreed.

“We need to find Arnold.” It felt like every few seconds
my goals shifted between finding Evan for myself, and finding Evan
for Arnold. It was just a matter of which issue came up first.

“Maybe you’ll have better luck getting it out of Evan
than we did,” Julianne said.

“You tried?”

“Tried being the key word. I don’t know what you and the
elf have going on, but I would have choked the shit out of that
weedbag if I thought it’d solve anything.” Julianne had a
tight grip on her jacket.

“He should answer me.” About a lot of things. If I sorted
out Arnold first, then we’d have all the time in the world to
talk about the other stuff.

“You were always good at answers.” She sounded proud.

“Except for Francis.” Thomas put a hand in the air to
count the point against me.

I flipped the lid next to me, someone had packed away a small army’s
worth of food. The water bottles were shoved in the bottom. Not a
drop of alcohol of course.

“Figured you two wouldn’t say no to some backup food.”
Thomas sounded proud of himself for predicting our need for food.

“Backup?” I asked.

“It took us a few days to find him last time, you don’t
think he’s going to be out and waiting for us, do you?”
He flipped suddenly to being upset. Thomas had every right, wolves
were master trackers by nature. Being eluded in their own woods was
downright insulting.

“Jay can track him.” Julianne brought up a good point.
Maybe it was time for a thorough search.

“Oh, really? I thought that was some bull that you’d made
up to sound impressive.”

“Nope. Jay’s a full-fledged tracker.” Julianne
responded to her brother’s doubt.

“Aren’t they rare?”

My hearing fled the area shortly after. A moment later I was back and
blinked a few times. It was hard to tell how long I’d been
gone, but the other two were clearly in different positions.
Julianne’s brother was only a few feet away staring at my face
intensely.

“Holy shit.” Thomas was the first to say anything.

“He’s back then? He always acts confused to use his
eyes.”

“Found Evan.” I tried to deviate the conversation away
from how closely Julianne watched me over the years.

“Where?” Thomas asked.

“North.” My head shook slowly trying to sort things out.
“With another elf, male.” In case they thought it was
Candy. “Definitely older.” Even my eyes could tell the
other one had been alive for a long time. His hair practically pure
white. That meant he was probably well into his second century.

“Evan has help?” Julianne asked.

“I guess.” I unwrapped a sandwich from the cooler.

“Fuck.” Thomas banged a hand against the side of the
truck. “That old man was scary enough the first time.”