Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (14 page)

I chuckled a little but had no answer. There had been a time where
the worse the odds were, the more enjoyable it was. Imagined feelings
of crushing small armies had fueled a battle lust. All of it based on
my abilities. Ones that barely functioned against two untalented
partial vampires.

“Did your time away leave you empty? You used to live for
this.” Daniel tried again, anger turning into disappointment. I
didn’t answer and walked past the agent. Moments later I heard
his feet traveling away.

My cheek tucked inward. Days had passed in a haze. Kahina’s
claim. Unknown aspects of my abilities. Familiar faces that couldn’t
be remembered clearly. Important things had happened and I couldn’t
remember what. Had my near death experience changed who I was that
drastically?

Absently I scratched one arm and tried to figure out the next step.

For the next five days, I stayed sober. A record that hopefully would
never be repeated. I didn’t see Kahina or Daniel, and even
Julianne was scarce. I kept my routine of exercise, odd jobs, and
wandering the city. Some nights I would find myself on the far end
staring down the midnight highway. Other nights involved wandering
through parks and forests, trying for that sense that had called a
rabbit to me. The closest I came was a possum and two stray cats,
none of which actually got close enough to be conclusive. Maybe it
was a fluke that I managed that stuff in the forest. Or desperation
mixed with hunger.

Walking through a busy part of town was disconcerting. Sometimes I
forget how many humans there are in the world. My point of view had
me constantly running into others, wolves and vampires mostly.
Sometimes elves, those I met rarely stood around letting me ask
questions. Normal people, those without blazingly repressed
instincts, avoided me.

When I walked around town, people crossed the street to the far side.
Another reason to like non-humans. They didn’t all shy away.
I’m not the hugging sort, in fact, I rather enjoyed that
normals avoided me. But even naturally intimidating guys needed a
conversation now and then.

Day six brought me back to the bar as a simple patron. I wasn’t
one of those people who played sports every weekend. No city teams,
no Friday nights at the strip club, no shooting range or sparring
matches to unwind pressure. Just me, the bar counter, and whatever it
was that Julianne was able to slap together with a flick of her
hands.

I had been watching Julianne go through the motions to start up a
conversation for an hour. All the signs were there. Brief but worried
glances, momentary pauses, a half opened mouth that clamped shut
again.

“You alright?” Her question disturbed the personal time
between me and a magically refilling glass.

“I’m in a rut.” My glass was depressive and empty.

Julianne was sneaking me refills to butter me up for something.
Enough had shown up in front of me that it seemed magical. I did an
imaginary toast to my rapidly elevating bar tab before a drink.

“Go do something about it.” She offered.

“Like what? You aren't exactly giving me anything entertaining.
Rounds? Please, I used to find the big boys.” My talent made me
akin to a laser guided missile.

“Honestly? You’re not ready for real jobs.”
Julianne loaded up another few drinks which I eyed. My face slipped
into a goofy half-grin as I picked out my first victim.

“Why? I find things no problem. Found blond boy before Daniel
walked off with him. Found that list of houses you gave me. Doing
just fine.” My hands tightened around the glass. Only liquid
problem solver inside it prevented me from crushing the container in
irritation.

“I don’t know, Jeff, you feel off. It feels as if
something happened while you were gone. When you ran off you lost
something.”

Great, Daniel noticed, she noticed, I noticed. Even Kahina had said
something smelled off about me.

“I didn’t lose anything. Saved myself.”

“From what? You had a good thing going, a good job. Kept things
quiet and controlled when I asked, noisy when it was needed. Kahina
was there. What the fornication drove you away?” Julianne
asked. She had gotten me drunk enough that answering didn’t
seem to be a terrible idea. It should have, and part of my brain knew
it was, but the words slipped out anyway.

“It’s pretty straight forward. We had great sex as a warm
up, she went to bite me and turn me into a blood-bonded male.”
Me, eternal mate material, laughable. “Then she flipped out!”

My drink sloshed around for emphasis. A drink I hadn’t quite
emptied into my mouth. Instead it ended up on the counter in small
little cream and cinnamon colored patches.

“Hell, sorry.” I said.

She handed me a towel to clean up my own mess. Unfortunately the task
was trickier than I thought. Repeated near misses ensued. Failure
resulted in a depressed slump onto her counter. My head was getting
far too heavy to hold up.

“How exactly did she flip out, Jeff?”

“Eyes wild, fangs out, all the signs.” My brain was
having trouble linking the words together in correct order.

“You know that’s not unusual, Jeff. She’s been this
side of full vamp for years.” Julianne said.

“Sure, until you count that she basically started digging for
more.” I could still feel Kahina rooting in my neck with those
razors she called teeth.

“Shit.” The tiny bartender actually looked upset.

“Nope, only blood, blood, blood, blood.” I swung the
small nearly empty glass around in time to the word. “Blood.”
I clanked it down and waited for the magic trick where it was
refilled before my eyes.

“You sure she wasn’t just overly excited about the
blood?”

“Let’s say we needed a safety word, she became ravenous.”
I responded happily.

“Maybe she really wanted to turn you? That girl’s in love
bad.” Julianne shuffled around again while trying to find a
reasonable explanation.

“It wasn’t romance, it was hunger.” I shoved the
idea away along with a leftover glass. One of the many drunks around
me had forgotten to clean up after themselves upon leaving.

“For real?” She asked.

“Yep!” Which was about ten times beyond what should have
happened. Vampires rarely drank blood in public. Those ones never
lost control. Their existence as a race depended on keeping civil.

Blood was, in theory, good, but not mind-blowing.

“That’s a little excessive, isn’t it?” I
couldn’t tell if Julianne was talking about Kahina’s
behavior, or the amount of liquor I had gone through tonight. My
magical glass refilled though and that’s all that mattered.

“Did I mention she chased me around the room? If there had been
more sex involved I might have been down for it,” That’s
was a lie, I would, no might involved. “But there wasn’t.”

“What?”

“Like a damned bottled drink,” I was lost in my rambling.
“Chased me around screaming and going on about how I was
holding out on her. That I was the one, the best.”

“Jeff.” Julianne was trying to snap me out of it.

“That I was hers and she’d never let anyone else have me.
Ever.” I drank down the latest glass.

“Jeff!” A short Indian woman stamping her foot might be
cute to some. I was in a place beyond paying attention, though.

“Then I ran, freaked out and ran. Thought she was going to kill
me. Then I’d be gone, gone, gone.” I shook the still
empty glass around again in a pale echo of my blood, blood, blood
chant. “Gone.”

“Jay, Jeff.” Both my go by names, but Julianne seemed
calmer this time. She leaned over the counter to pull my hand and the
swinging glass down. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
God her hands were warm.

“It’s not exactly like I could file a report.”

“Why not?” The tiny bartender asked.

“Because I don’t exist in the eyes of the government, or
in the pack Alpha's eyes, or in the Tribunal or The Council. Fuck
‘em, it was easier to leave and hope she calmed down.”
Humans, wolves, vampires, and elves, each one having their own
version of a bureaucracy. It involved paper, registration, and being
tracked and scanned. “Once I left, it was easier to stay gone.”

“You could have told me sooner, I might have been able to do
something.”

“Oh yeah, what?” I over emphasized the question, my head
rebounding a little from the movement. Julianne stared at me for a
second and tried to puzzle out what to do. Good luck to her, four
years hadn’t done me any good. Kahina wasn’t high on my
list of people to get back into a relationship with. Not if she
planned on round two of trying to crack me open to get to the good
stuff.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll settle for a refill.” The glass had stopped
performing its magic somewhere during my rant. Julianne didn’t
give me a final round and stayed quiet the rest of the night. I
staggered out. They conspired to run me out of town, now they were
denying me alcohol. Sisters before Misters.

I made it halfway and passed out on the hood of someone’s car.
Strangely it was one of the most peaceful nights I had in a long
time. Even counting random visions of Kahina’s hungry red
irises staring out in the darkness.

Morning light woke me by baking one side of my face. Things swung
from content and relaxed to an angry attention demanding headache. I
grumbled the entire way back to my hideaway and opened the door.

Once inside I attempted to block out every shred of light in the
place. Getting back to sleep while things were intensely bright would
be hard to achieve. Hazily all I could remember was Julianne’s
words. Lost my edge? Left something behind?

Fine. I could do something about that. I would do something.
Something really clever.

In between naps and spurts of clearing out the carefully packed
storage room, I found some tools that could be used. I squirreled
away a bunch of silver, an absurd amount beyond what anyone in their
right mind would need. Entire factories were dedicated to recycling
and reusing this stuff, and it wasn’t cheap.

Could I rewind the clock? Go back to what I had been? Self assured,
strong, in charge of myself. Recovering that lost sense of self would
restore the status quo. The best solution available was beating
someone up. I had been rather good at it once upon a time. Extremely
good, with the right tools and things stacked in my favor.

One night I held it all, a girl, a job that was enjoyable, money,
home. Then true fear sent me packing. Coward. I had never run from a
fight. No, my job was to start them, fleeing had damaged my entire
self-perception.

First I needed to reawaken the possessive instinct that kept me aware
of everything around me. This stupid plan would blow up in my face if
I didn’t have that edge.

Staring out the back window wasn’t helping. Neither was trying
to massage a headache that still lingered. A cold shower had only
cleared a few cobwebs. My clothes were half dirty and the floor was
dusty from where I shuffled around.

Cleaning the apartment was useful. I went several steps further,
trimming my hair, sweeping the porch, putting piles of trash right
outside my front door. Each change restoring order to my world. It
took a good portion of the day but soon I was left with a nearly
pristine living space.

Mental clarity wasn’t as easy. My prior personality had been
built, one block at a time, over a decade. One moment had spun
through like a natural disaster and sent it all crashing down. How on
earth does a person shift their thought process around completely? No
one could undo the past.

Kahina’s blood madness, my abilities, Daniel’s search for
an elf, each item a puzzle piece. The center was still missing. I
would start with this Lord situation.

A modified set of gloves sat on a shelf. It was a nastier version of
the silver covered knuckles. Short, stocky claws made of mixed metals
for toughness. Leather hide wove around the metal molded into sharp
ridges. They pulled backwards so that a fist would slice, and a
backhand would rend. The underside was forged iron. Any angle of it
would cause an elf or wolf serious harm. My cross and sheer physical
presence would take care of the rest.

Picking them up irritated me, making the voice in my head growl.
Whispering that these sorts of parlor tricks were beneath me. It
would work, though. The gloves went into a jacket pocket. Only a
second was needed to slip them back on.

Next I needed a mission.

“Going to need a drink, but not my usual.” I told the
other girl behind the counter. She worked part time when Julianne was
out.

“Sure, whatcha looking for?”

“Don’t think it has a name, but I’ll tell you what
to do.” I described the drink from the nervous male elf that
showed up in the bar frequently. Luckily, only Julianne served
Umbrella Beer’s drinks. This bartender wouldn’t have any
clue what the combination meant.

She slipped it over and asked, “On your tab?”

“Sure.” I responded. She nodded and threw the numbers
into some little touch screen computer they picked up while I was
gone.

A few minutes later, me and the mixed drink were sitting at the
remote end of the bar, the same corner where the elf counted out
change every time. Not once had he paid with anything larger than a
quarter. Shame, he could save a lot of nervous counting by switching
to half dollars or those golden dollar coins.

I sat in the stool and held the drink.

This elf was my prey, I was going to find him, and beat the location
of Tattooed eyes out of him. She was clearly in charge, older, and
more knowledgeable. The chances of her being a Speaker, like the elf
who had called me a Lord, were pretty high.

Her tattooed eyes fluttered back into my brain. Tiny green dots of
ivy spiraling around the outsides, thin eyebrows, large dark glasses.
This drink wouldn’t link to her. It should, hopefully, in this
spot and with a hand on the counter where he spilled so much change,
link to him. I was holding his favorite drink after all, his
weakness.