Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (22 page)

“You’ll heal, a damned sight quicker than I would,”
I said.

“Are you even listening to yourself? If Kahina bit you, where’s
the scar? If she tore into you like you say, where’s the
damage?” It wasn’t just her hand. It was how she pressed
all five fingers at me like I was some sort idiot.

“Or these other things I hear about you, wading through a pack
of wolves, Jay? As a human? You’d have some damage somewhere.”
Stacy ruled the room and kept on pushing over all my attempts to
speak. “I bet you don’t have a scar on you. I’ll
bet half of it is bullshit. You use our healing abilities as an
excuse to be a brute.”

“You about popped my head off with your slap. You’re the
one who needs a lesson in control.” I shifted my angry gaze to
Stacy.

“Just because someone can heal doesn’t mean you should be
violent.” This little woman with her dyed black hair and drab
clothes was seriously getting on my nerves.

“You slapped the hell out of me, Kahina bit me, but that
doesn’t mean I slammed her around.” I wasn’t that
guy. My path had crossed many an abusive scum and none of them were
likable.

“You did, Jay. You wouldn’t let me out of the room, you
kept demanding that I give it back but I couldn’t. It was gone,
I’d taken it all.” She hung her head in shame. Either it
was the greatest act I had ever seen or she was flat out lying.

One of us had problems.

“No, you chased me around,” I said. My body felt shaky
and wrist itched. The room was growing too hot for me.

“No, I didn’t, Jay.”

“Like hell.” I went to move past Stacy, but her hand held
firm. She wouldn’t let me to the other side of the room.

“If I was such a sensitive asshole about my blood, do you think
I’d let myself get into fights, ever?” If Kahina and I
had such a thing in our past, why did she even bother trying to get
back into my life? Maybe that was a question I should have asked
instead, but my mind wasn’t focused enough to argue properly.

Instead, I turned around and looked for something to prove my point
but only found scissors. This would hurt. I opened the scissors and
slid the blade across the inside of my palm. Julianne let out an
ignored protest. Stacy stood her ground between myself and Kahina,
like my sort of ex couldn’t take care of herself. I clenched
and unclenched my fist a few times to get the blood flowing freely,
then cupped my other hand under the drops.

“Let’s see how well you do, here it is, my blood, the
stuff you tried to rip from me.” I was barely thinking
coherently now.

“No?” I asked once I noticed Kahina hadn’t moved.
Her eyes were wide as she gazed unblinkingly at the pooling drops. My
palm hurt like hell from the blade’s sharpness. “Really?
After all this time, after how good you know it is, you don’t
want some? Better hurry, it’s fresh.”

“Not on my fucking carpet! Jay!” Julianne went supersonic
with outrage over her carpet of all things.

“Maybe I should give it to the comatose guy here, do elves
drink blood? Maybe that’s his twist.” I put my hands over
his mouth. He was the only one on my side and here I was about to
abuse his good nature. My silent partner in a room stacked against
me.

I used my elbow to lean Evan’s head backward. All my hard work
propping him up was lost. My eyes stayed on Kahina and watched for
any sign of her cracking. There was a lot of blood dripping, all of
it fresh.

The trembles of rage I had managed to keep contained turned into full
on shaking. Things went from one level of messed up to another. I
turned the hand cupping a small puddle of blood over into the elf’s
mouth.

“No!” Kahina leapt towards me.

She fumbled past Stacy. Her mind was too lost to use the insane speed
her nearly complete transformation would allow. That made the
situation all the worse for me. Kahina placed a lot of stock in my
blood and none in me. Stacy’s reactions allowed her to turn
around quickly and catch Kahina. Black hair quivered in the air as
Stacy struggled against the darker woman. Meanwhile, blood dripped
into Evan’s mouth.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I sneered and felt
completely justified. Kahina was framing me. Worse, her only reason
to try and get back into my life wasn’t even for me. It was for
blood. “See it going away? Not yours anymore. Not ever going to
be, even if you came clean now.”

Kahina whimpered, then grew frustrated.

I clenched my fist. I would need to wash it out, and bind it as soon
as possible. Maybe it would heal as easily as Stacy seemed to think.
The pain didn’t matter, though, victory was mine.

Kahina’s face twisted for a moment then turned to a snarl. She
swung herself to the side and for the second time today Stacy went
flying. My now extremely ex-girlfriend dove for me. Her shoulder
collided with my stomach and knocked us over. There was a crack of
noise as my head slammed something behind me and the world went
fuzzy.

The world spun and my mind tried to get a grip on the sudden change.
The first thing I became aware of was a mewling sound and a tongue
licking along my palm’s inside. It didn’t hurt. There was
only pressure. Things came into focus slowly. Kahina was curled up
nearby with my hand at her mouth. She was licking the blood straight
from the wound where it slowly trickled. I jerked my hand in
momentary panic. She didn’t release it.

“Kahina, let go!” I tried to pull my hand away. She
locked her free arm around my elbow and kept me in position. My feet
scrambled to get under me but the more I pulled away the more she
tightened her grip.

There was a groan of noise to my left. It wasn’t female,
though. I looked around. Julianne and Stacy were standing back a ways
with an expression that bordered between uncertainty and fright. It
wasn’t directed towards Kahina.

They were looking at where the groaning noise had come from. Evan.

His lips were moving, but no audible words came out. I panicked. Evan
had answers. He had information. Kahina needed to return to her
senses and let me go. At this point, Evan was the only thing keeping
me here. My vision started spinning. Maybe all the blood loss in such
a short time was adding up.

“Kahina, let go, you damned crazy bitch.” I gave my arm a
jerk and pushed at her shoulder. She snarled and tried to get back to
the blood.

“Let go!” I caved to her pull and slammed the thin black
woman into the wall behind us. Her eyes crisscrossed as the house
shuddered a third time. One moment of confusion was enough to yank my
hand away.

I quickly stumbled to the elf. His chair ground against the carpet as
he was dragged across the room.

“Keep her the hell away from me unless you want this to get
worse,” I said. My hand stung again from moving Evan’s
chair.

There was a budding anger in the back of my brain. Everything spun
and the room felt dim. Something that was mine was being messed with.
It felt like I was being robbed and was frozen, completely unable to
prevent it.

I shook my head and tried to focus. My healthy hand shook the elf’s
face. Any traces of my blood that had dripped onto him were gone. I
must have gotten it all in his mouth. Julianne’s carpet was
safe.

Evan was mumbling in that weird language they had. It sounded like
the wind pitching itself through a long tunnel with waterfalls on
both sides. Some women loved it. I got annoyed when I couldn’t
understand them. Especially right now in the midst of all this other
madness.

“What the hell are you saying, Evan?” I put my hand over
his head and jostled. “Earth to Evan.”

I could hear Julianne and Stacy muttering to each other behind me.
They made soothing sounds to Kahina. She was sniffling. Evan kept on
muttering.

“Speak English.” I rolled his head around while getting
angrier. It was hard to focus. I had been violated. Been stolen from.
What was mine was in danger.

Evan’s eyes opened and stared intensely at nothing.”A
Lord calls. He calls.”

“What the hell do you mean by that? Evan, tell me what a Lord
is to you.” I said desperately. He slipped back into the other
words again. “Answer me, you worthless spawn of a weed!”

“He calls.” Evan’s eyes seemed to gain slight focus
once I stopped shaking his head.

“What are you doing here?” His eyes found mine and a look
of terror passed over him.

“You are one of their hunters, how did you find me? Who?”
He started panicking, bucking weakly against his restraints.

“You’re bound hard, Evan.” I leaned in close with
my damaged hand cradled. My vision was doubling up. “Now answer
the question.”

He was looking behind him, trying to figure out an escape route.
Evan’s eyes only got wider as time passed.

“Evan, why did you call me Lord?” I spat.

He turned back to me and locked eyes with an intense focus. There was
more muttering coming forth that didn’t make sense. Pressure
started to build in my mind. His form started to blur and shake. He
seemed to vanish. Then seemed to be waving from outside a window. But
it was my eyesight that told me these things. My feet were still firm
on the floor. The girls were still behind me talking. My hand was
still cradled. Vision lied. I reached out to where Evan should have
been and found purchase. Then shook.

“Evan!” I was shouting. “Why did you call me Lord?”
The vision before me snapped away and the elf looked more panicked
than ever.

“No, not you, not you. It cannot be. You are merely a thug, a
minion, you are not one of them.” He was babbling. My mind was
functional enough to register the elf’s worry.

“I saw you, Evan, I saw you talking to me in the forest,
through that other body.” He was having a disconnection between
me in front of him, and my tracking spirit in the forest.

He blinked, then blinked again and the babbling only increased. From
the corner of my eye, I could see Kahina curled up. She looked
distraught over what had happened. Stacy was watching me and Evan as
much as she was watching Kahina.

“You need to run, you need to hide. It is not me they want, it
is you.” Evan said. “They want you. Run away, Lord, run
away, flee.” He kept going and I shook him again. His head
flopped back and forth while his body remained bound by iron.

I could see little sparks of color appear. His eyes rapidly turned
into a firework show as all sorts of hues flared up around us. Evan’s
eyes crossed again and he seemed to be looking elsewhere.

“Run away, run far away, to the woods, we can hide you. We will
take you away and shelter you. The old ways. We can flee and restore
what was lost.” He kept going on and on.

“No!” Kahina had regained enough of her senses to hear
what he was babbling. “You will not leave me, Jay! Don’t
leave!”

I turned around. Both Stacy and Julianne were holding Kahina back.
Her face was a wreck, but there wasn’t a spot of blood on her
except for two small dabs by either eye. My head throbbed and hearing
had started ringing. The doubled vision grew worse. Something
important hovered on the edge of my memory, but nothing made sense.

“Why, Kahina? You don’t want your meal to get away?”
My snide attitude felt like an afterthought as I tried to
concentrate.

“No, Jay, I love you, you’re mine, mine! Not his, no one
else’s!” Her babbling was getting similar to the elf’s.
I wasn’t sure I could take standing in the middle like this.

The drop of blood slid further down her face. Oh Hell. She was
crying. It had been a while since we were officially together, but
part of me still wanted to go to her, to help her. She was strong a
lot of the time. To see her breaking down was disturbing.

Vampires can’t fake crying blood.

Kahina made short surges across the floor as her strength and
desperation mounted. She was strong enough to overcome the other two
holding her. Evan rattled his restraints while mumbling the word
‘run’.

My next words were lost in a new bombardment of noise. Stacy’s
head jerked up to look at me for a brief moment. I wasn’t even
sure what I had said to Kahina.

The front room window shattered as something was tossed through. A
pop and hiss barely preempted smoke filling the room. Seconds later
the door was rammed open. Shouting threatened to destroy what was
left of my concentration. Multiple someones had invaded and they were
moving quickly. Their guns were heavy. I saw a Western Sector logo
through the smoke.

I didn’t react well. The sense of violation started to grow
increasingly, driving a need to protect what was mine. My mind had
failed to understand this maze my life had become. Being attacked
made things simpler. This was now a fight, something I should excel
at. Something I needed in order to vent the feelings that had piled
up inside me.

Kahina and the others were quick to move to the ground. The smoke
grenade that had been thrown inside probably had bits of silver mixed
with other particles. Enough to shut down most non-humans. My skin
twitched and rolled as I went into action.

They opened fire and it felt like I was being punched with tiny lead
tipped beanbags.

I dove for the couch and tipped it over. Hands knifed through the
cheap fabric covering the bottom. Fingers curled around the wooden
beams inside. Another few beanbag pellets connected. With a yell, I
propelled the three seat couch in front of me like a shield and
slammed into as many as I could. It felt good. There was a blow to
the side of my head that should have put me down but didn’t.

I wouldn’t let them take what was mine easily.

Things got choppy after that. Real life flashed by in a series of
still-life snapshots. One such picture was me throwing someone
through the window while smoke filled my vision. Angry snarls came
from behind me. Another flash and I was stepping out the broken
window of Julianne’s house.