Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (41 page)

Another click barely proceeded the force of bullets slamming into me.
They were imperfect and lodged into the outskirts of my chest. The
person shooting couldn’t seem to aim right. There should have
been pain, but all I felt was an uncomfortable pressure. My eyes were
trying to focus on Julianne’s slumping body.

I stood there stupidly instead of falling down. This wasn’t
happening. This couldn’t happen.

“Julianne?” Sound croaked out of me.

Lungs coughed and liquid leapt up. One arm jerked up slowly to swipe
it away. A dark blot smeared across my ruined shirt. Part of my mind
absently analyzed it. I was bleeding. Years of experience with fist
to face connections taught me all about blood.

I looked down at Julianne. Her eyelids barely twitched as more shots
rang out and impacts slammed into me. One skimmed off the side of my
head, a fresh trail of pain and bone flaking with it.

Everything hurt, but in a passively detached manner that almost put
my body and mind in completely different locations. The other man
cursed about how I hadn’t keeled over. Instead of responding to
him I sluggishly moved one foot forward towards Julianne.

“Added proof that you’re a foul Hidden abomination. I’ve
known it since the first time I saw you.” He said. My head
slowly turned to look at the other figure.

My face tried to scrunch up in confusion, but all the muscles were
screaming in pain. His face was visible but didn’t make much
sense. There was a single pair of almost milk-white eyes. Hair was
completely gone. The left side of his face seemed to be branded by a
small cross.

“And you should all have been killed.” He sneered.

What was he saying about an abomination? I stared at the ground that
seemed too far away for someone who had been shot so many times. That
sounded like a monster, but no more than this vampire was. He had
shot Julianne so easily. My mind was trying to flip that internal
switch and fight for her, to press him back, but was coming up empty.

“I wonder what your weakness is.” The other man said. I
struggled to remember his name. Janns? Mister Janns?

“Why?” I croaked out the question and wiped away another
bubble of blood.

“I’ll tell you after your last bit of life bleeds out.”
He spoke with an arrogance I could do nothing about.

The next few bullets hit my legs. They buckled and everything took on
a new level of pain. This was worse than the fight against Francis,
worse than my first against Janns and the other partial vampire.

All I could properly focus on as gravity and a broken
body pulled me downward was Julianne’s bewildered face. Maybe I
wore the same look she had. We shared a disbelief that things had
turned out so horribly wrong. Hadn’t she planned to run her
bar, to go wolf sooner or later and share her time with Stacy?

There were snarls further out that sounded too far away.
No one was close enough to do anything. Julianne’s eyes shook
from the loss of blood.

“
I’ll never know what she saw in you.
Pathetic. You could never be a Second.” The male kept ranting
and nothing made sense. There were more shots, but they were off the
mark. I slowly followed Julianne’s eyes across the dirt. She
stared at the dead humans dressed in Western Sector armor.

“
First I’ll kill you, then I’ll leave
your desecrated remains as a p
resent to her. She’s dead
anyway, you’re both dead.” There was a sound of metal
being tossed into bark. “The Tribunal can’t let her
survive the change.”

Julianne’s lips were moving and her eyes slowly honed in on
mine. The wound to my head was leaking blood all over. Droplets
splashed across the view of our crumpled bodies. I unfurled a tiny
bit of my mind, trying desperately to reach out and hear her. My
boss, my bartender, my landlord. Just thirty feet away. Such a small
stretch.

“No, that’s too good. I’ll have to tear you into
smaller pieces and ship them to her for holidays. I’ll even
C.O.D them! Hah, she can pay for the pieces of her dead lover.”
He kept babbling. His hatred was the kind that built up over months,
years even, but I had only seen him once before.

Julianne’s lips still moved slowly. Light cast from the looming
forest fire made it seem like her entire body was turning red.
Tactile feedback reached across to sense the vibrations from her
broken words. It was difficult to make out her words from among
Mister Janns’ ranting.

“Protect Kahina. Protect her.” Julianne tried hard to
stop shaking and focus on me. Her words were broken mumbles. “If
you break my girl’s heart again I’ll put your balls in a
jar myself.”

The last part came out muted, but it sounded like something she would
say. I was probably filling in a lot of the blanks myself. Julianne
was barely hanging onto life. She had given me a mission, though.
Things were always so much simpler when someone gave me a goal.

My left hand moved to the ground, struggling for leverage. The arm
quivered with weakness and there wasn’t enough strength to
force myself up on that alone. The problem didn’t stop me
completely. Mister Janns give an uneasy laugh at my efforts.

“I don’t think so.” He emphasized his statement by
flickering with vampiric speed and kicking me in the side. The impact
flipped me further away from Julianne. “I should never have
bothered with human weapons, they’re pathetic.”

I groaned and tried to roll back over. My senses retreated from
Julianne, and for a moment I felt each footstep he took. Each one
compressing dirt on the ground as his weight shifted from side to
side.

“Still hanging on are you? I should have done this from the
start.” Janns came over and lifted me upwards by the head. His
strength was incredible. Dead weight pulled at my body. Feet weakly
spun, trying to touch down on firm ground. Another groan escaped me
and my arms weakly tried to lift up. A freshly formed scab at my side
ripped. I was healing faster than expected, but not enough.

“Ready to die? You promise to tell God I was a good boy,
right?” Mister Janns started to lift one arm up and away.
“Goodbye, abomination.”

While he was speaking, my arms struggled to reach his face. As his
reached back to an apex I lunged to plant both my thumbs into his eye
sockets. From there it was a simple effort to squeeze with what
little strength remained. It was impossible to feel my face, but I
hoped it was terrifying.

“How, HOW are you still alive?” The partial vampire
dropped me and yanked away. His eyes were pulps from my brief
contact.

I fell to the ground with a fresh wave of pain and started laughing.
It came out more like a choked sob.

“Bleed to death then, I’ll still win.” Then with
another limping rush of incredible speed Mister Janns was gone.

I was alive which was another sign of being inhuman. Bullets had
ripped through me, luckily none had been explosive tips or there
would be chunks missing. No one answered my cries for help.
Julianne’s face was rapidly losing her remaining color.

Huffing, I attempted to traverse the distance. Both arms burned with
strain from pulling. My abs clenched painfully. Babyish crawling
barely helped me close the gap. Gunfire still spilled out in dying
bursts. Flames had slowly succumbed to intense rainfall. The ground
was cold, and Julianne’s eyes were fluttering. Each time they
opened I found the strength to pull myself another yard.

The last few feet towards her were the hardest. Her eyes had a
distant glazed look about them. Every so often they would come
together and focus. I almost slipped in the puddled blood forming
under her.

“Janny.” Speaking was much easier. In that short
distance, my body had already started healing. This was unfair. I was
getting better while she died in front of me.

“Janny, stay with me.” I reached out and patted lightly
on the side of her cheek. Her eyes swung back into focus for a moment
and she smiled.

“I was wrong you know.” Her words stuttered.

“About what?” Nearly all the other noises had vanished,
even the crackling of burning trees was gone. My voice felt like a
violation of the growing silence.“Not all men are assholes.”

“I think I’m an asshole.” I tried to laugh but
ended up blubbering myself.

She gave a weak laugh. The quick motion of her chest brought a moment
of pain to her eyes. “Jay.”

“I’m here.” I said slowly.

“Kahina’s worth it.” Hell. This woman was dying and
the only thought on her mind was making sure Kahina and I stayed
together.

“We were good together. Remember, Janny? You told me that.”
I hung my head.

Julianne didn’t respond and her eyes completely lost focus. My
fingers were unsteady as I put them to her neck. The only pulse I
could feel was the pounding of my own blood in my ears. A moment
later my hand shifted to hover over her mouth, checking for a breath
of air.

I couldn’t tell. My body was numb, completely and utterly numb.
There should be shooting pain, but there wasn’t. That couldn’t
be a good sign, but at least there was still movement. Julianne
couldn’t say the same.

“Janny.” My voice was louder than I expected, sadder. Not
something I was used to feeling. “Janny, you can’t be
dead.”

I reached out, trying to find a connection, a purchase with my
powers, to feel if she still had her soul. My senses wouldn’t
respond. Any abilities I had were overtaxed trying to keep me alive
and mending.

Never once had I tried to locate Julianne like other people. Never
once had I thought of her as being so important to me, but she had
always been there. Before Kahina, before I left, and without question
after I returned. Ready to help, lending an ear, a place to stay. How
had I repaid her?

With failure.

A single car engine rumbled in the distance.

Everything surrounding me tingled with raindrops. A heavy storm had
started during the battle. It was only coincidence, but I wanted to
think it was the world’s way of sharing my grief.

“Jay? What’s going on? There was gunfire over here.”
It felt easier to move now, less stiff. Just in time for someone to
find us. “Did you get shot?”

If only I could share the healing with Julianne. A brief moment of
whatever I was would help her survive. I would plead and happily say
here are my freakish abilities, be better.

“Please don’t be dead. Please.” There were no
better words to say.

“Whose smell is that? It smells like…” The newest
visitor said.

“I think Julianne’s…” My voice trailed off.
I wasn’t even sure who I was talking to. Turning my head a
little revealed Thomas, Julianne’s brother. Hell. This would be
worse on him than it was on me.

“Oh no,” He said. Thomas shoved me out of the way in his
hurry to get to Julianne. He cradled her to his chest.

Other faces had started showing up in the trees, golden eyes that
started out distant and closed in. They were nearby but not intrusive
as if allowing Thomas room to grieve.

“Come on, sis, you’re saposta be pack soon. You can’t
die before that. We’re family. Don’t leave me too.”
Thomas said.

I didn’t know what to do. Thomas was blood, the pack would have
been her family in a very real sense. Me? I was a drunk who spent way
too much time at her bar.

“Don’t leave. Hold on, just a little longer.” He
muttered.

“Is she still alive?” My voice sounded foreign.

Thomas didn’t hear me, but someone else did.

“Perhaps. We will try to save her.” Their grandfather
stood past me, naked again, but I couldn’t bring myself to care
right now. “Put her down, Thomas.” His voice was hard,
and even though he was directly related, there wasn’t a hint of
the emotion he should be feeling.

Thomas’ head looked back up at his grandfather for a moment,
then tilted and he almost whimpered.

“Yes. I will try.” The older Alpha said before sighing
heavily as if bracing for what he must say next. “At worst,
she’ll die pack, we will hold her spirit with us.”

Thomas nodded then set Julianne down to the ground reverently. The
gathering of wolves padded forward. Most bore wounds of different
degrees. One was missing chunks of hair, another had lon
g
rivers of skin torn apart. More than a few seemed to be cradling a
paw. A fourth no longer had a tail along with patches of heavily
matted fur. Julianne’s body was lost in a jumble of fur.

“
Jay, what happened?” Another voice that
barely preceded the scent of peppermint. I looked at Kahina, she
glared at the three dead Sector agents. “Who did this to her?
Was it them?”

“
No,” I answered.

“
Who did it, Jay? Did you make them pay?”
Normally she played it cool or eager, sometimes angry, but this was
beyond all those things. Kahina’s face was thirsting for
vengeance.

“
Not yet,” I said.

“
Tell me who it was, I’ll find them, and we
can settle this together.” Kahina reached out towards me with
one hand. She seemed torn between the desire to be soft towards me
and a need to make someone pay.

“
Don’t think he’ll be worth much more
tonight.” Another voice closed in. Evan’s grandfather and
his western drawl had found the rest of us.

“
Why? He seems perfectly fine.” Kahina’s
sounded affronted. My blurring vision could barely make out her turn
towards the elf. I felt unsteady and woozy.

“
He was hurt worse than looks might say.”
The silver haired elf responded.

Kahina shifted her focus to me. She got closer and bent
at the knees to inspect me. Her hand lightly traced the wound on the
side of my head. For a brief moment, I felt the world as she did. The
shift of skin under fabric. Air laden with of metallic tastes. A sway
to her body as she trembled from the desire for blood.