Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (30 page)

For the rest of the trip, I didn’t say anything. At this point,
it seemed to be the wisest choice made all day. An hour later, well
past the first rays of dawn, we met with the gaudy sign for Caesars
Junction.

“I can’t believe you know where this is,” I said.

“You’d be surprised. I get around.” Candy
responded. I tried not to think of an alternate meaning for that.
Something about my pause must have set her off. “If a man
sleeps with a ton of women, they call him a stud, but if a woman does
it, she’s a slut, right?”

“That’s a question, and there’s a price for that.”
I tried for a joke in reply. It was either that or give her the locks
and keys speech. A key that opens multiple locks is a good key, but a
lock that opens for any key isn’t a very good lock. The fact
that I managed not to say anything should count in my favor.

“Cute.” The blonde elf didn’t seem amused.

I sighed. “Well, I don’t know you well enough to call you
a slut, and if it was just a physical thing, then, believe it or not,
I get it.”

“Sure. You’re a guy after all.” She waved my
comment off.

“I should probably warn you that my ex is rather possessive,”
I said. This ‘guy’ hadn’t been with more than a
dozen women in his life.

“How possessive?” Candy asked with a half smile. She
seemed excited at the prospect.

“Well, she’s a partial vampire,” I answered.

“Hasn’t completed the change?”

“No.”

“Then you may have as many opportunities as you want in the
future. Opportunities to ask me for all sorts of things.” The
way she tossed it out there so casually sent a chill down the back of
my spine. If Kahina didn’t make it then there would be no
issues with jealousy. What a frightening thought.

“I guess,” I said.

“Which way from here?” She asked. We had made a deal for
her to talk to Evan first.

I fumbled around in my jacket that had been disrobed in the shuffle
and found the lipstick tube. Inside was the hair from Evan’s
head. Candy watched intently as I closed my eyes for a moment and
connected.

“Woods are west from here. Then once we’re inside the
local pack should find us.” I hoped someone would be roaming
around to find me. Stacy and Julianne wouldn’t let me wander
around without some help, right?

“Sounds like a plan.” She turned the car west and headed
for the woods at the edge of town.

“Not sure how far north he is. I had some problems tracking
last time.” I said.

“What sort of problems?” Candy asked.

“Not sure. Thought I was getting closer, then he seemed to slip
away.”

“Really? That’s interesting.”

“It’s frustrating.” I had wasted days trying to
catch up to Evan.

“I thought I took care of all those frustrations.”
Somehow everything I said turned into innuendo with Candy. She had
certainly reduced my frustration level. I felt great, but even more
tired than I did after leaving Kahina’s. Was that last night?
Had I slept since then? My internal clock was all kinds of messed up.

Candy found us a place to park the car. We got out and she put the
car alarm back on.

“Hold on.” She took off both shoes and set them on the
ground. Then stepped up to the side of the woods.

“What are you doing?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Are you sure you want to ask that?”

“Don’t I have some left over positive karma? I thought I
did a pretty good job there.” Better than that other elf at
least. That should score me some points.

“You’ll owe me.” Candy laughed. “It’s
simple enough. I’m following the traditions. These aren’t
my woods, but it belonged to someone once. They’re weak, but
there are signs if you know how to look.”

I scanned the area trying to figure out what signs she was talking
about. Nothing showed itself to my untrained eyes. Maybe it wasn’t
an issue of being trained or not. Elves could see things that the
rest of us only guessed at. It was almost like trying to see in
infrared without the aid of technology.

Candy stood up and didn’t put her shoes back on. She showed no
signs of discomfort. If anything the elf looked thrilled by the
prospect of going to play in the woods. My shoes stayed firmly where
they belonged.

“I think there’s a place to drive up somewhere around
here. Like an old logger’s path of some sort.” I
remembered the path from the last trip.

She looked disgusted but nodded. “They’d be for trade
supplies too.”

“What?” I asked.

“If this is an older colony, then the same path would have been
used for horses and carts to bring in trade goods from other clans.”
She was talking about some old practice that didn’t make any
sense to me. It was likely tied to hundreds of years ago when we
first migrated over to the Western sector.

“Not sure where it comes out. I was tied up last time.” I
shrugged.

“I didn’t know you enjoyed that type of activity.”
It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Electricity running through me is a big turn on too.”
Being tied up was alright in limited amounts. Typically when I was
blissfully drunk after a job and Kahina was dragging me back for some
victory sex. She had joked that it kept me from getting lost on the
way home. I had never been sure if Kahina meant the being tied up, or
the idea of victory sex.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Great. I had given her
fuel for a crazy daydream.

“Any idea where this path is? I think he’s on the other
side.” I said.

“I’ll look. It’ll be easier on us if you wait here
a bit.” Candy wagged a finger at me and then turned around.

“I...” Then she ran off into the woods. “…uhh…sure.”
Not that I had a clue if she heard me or not. “I’ll stand
here and guard the car then.”

The car was locked with its alarm turned on. Candy didn’t even
do me the courtesy of leaving the keys so I could crawl into the back
seat and sleep. The dirt on the side of the road was tempting,
though. I settled myself down near one of the trees, careful not to
touch her car. Setting off the security system would do nothing but
annoy the daylights out of me.

I fiddled with the lipstick container and tried to figure it out.
There was no room for secret compartments or hidden messages. This
wasn’t anything rare or special. It was important to Evan
somehow or the item would never function as a link. Then there was
the hair and picture.

Why had Evan been allowed to provide a lipstick tube and a picture?
These items were personal which meant Evan had nothing else to let
go, or he had hoped that Julianne had a true tracker. Trackers were
rare, how had he known? I had been gone for years.

This Lord thing felt familiar. The more I tried to puzzle it out the
more my wrist itched. Each attempt at concentrating felt like being
on the verge of a revelation. Then fluttering birds or bugs would
distract me and I would forget the whole line of thinking.

History was clear on one point. There had been other races nearly two
thousand years ago. They were long gone. The big four races had
banded together and engaged in a worldwide Purge. Genocide. Here I
was. Not fitting into any specific box.

Vampires, even partially exposed ones, got groggy during the day. Not
me. I healed quickly. Elves didn’t heal any faster than a
normal human. Wolves shared some bonds but couldn’t track aside
from following scents. Daniel had said the Sector Trackers would all
use dreams.

Once again, I didn’t fit.

Constant confusion was getting exhausting. The last two days had worn
me down from nearly every angle. Before I really understood what was
happening my eyes closed and stopped opening back up. The silence
prevented circling thoughts from going any further.

Waking up was quite gentle compared to the last few times. There was
a tap at my shoulder and someone kept saying my name lightly.

“Jay. Wake up.” I must have snorted or something in
response. “Jay.”

It was bright outside, closer to noon. The person waking me up wasn’t
Candy, it was Julianne. She leaned over in a rather frightening
reversal of our normal height differences. At least she wasn’t
wearing something low cut this time. It was a vivid green shirt over
tan rolled up shorts.

“Hi.” I was disoriented. “You’re not an elf,”
I said. Probably not the best choice of words to start our
conversation with.

“What does that mean?” She asked. Julianne backed off to
let me stand up. A yawn and a stretch later things felt a lot better.
Still tired, but not as sore as I had been.

“Candy was here a moment ago.” I looked around slowly
trying to figure out what had happened.

“Why was she here?” Julianne held a motorcycle helmet in
one hand. Her arms crossed as she glared at me.

“She gave me a ride.” I wasn’t about to mention the
return ride.

“Uh huh. What about Kahina?”

“Kahina kind of kicked me out.” I scratched my head.

“Uh huh. Kahina kicked you out, you ran to Candy, and now
she’s,” The way she said it made me feel like I was in
trouble already. Maybe it was a guilty conscious. “here for
what reason?”

“Part of the deal. She gives me a ride north and keeps quiet
about it, then she meets Evan.” I tried not to wince.

Julianne stared at me then sighed. “Why were you sleeping?”

“Tired.” Worn. No clue what to do. Three fights in the
last two days. A nagging sensation of forgetting important facts.

Julianne shook her head back and forth slowly then sighed. “You’re
a moron.”

“Can we find Evan and clear this up?” I couldn’t
argue with her. My idiocy with regards to females was rapidly
becoming the stuff of legend. Dealing with women wasn’t some
magic skill that got easier as time went on. Not for me.

“Fine by me, the weed eater completely buttoned up after you
were out of sight,” Julianne said.

“Weird,” I responded. Evan had been perfectly fine
talking to others, hadn’t he?

“You’re telling me, he’s got some sort of fixation
on helping you, but anyone else isn’t worth notice.” She
shot me a questioning look. My hands came up in defense.

“No clue,” I said.

“Is this tied to that Lord shit you were babbling about back at
my house?” Julianne asked.

I didn’t answer. Julianne was tapping her foot in irritation.
Her facial expression seemed to indicate she was seconds away from
hitting me repeatedly with her helmet.

“Not going to tell me?” She said.

“No.” Given my way, no one would hear that title applied
to me ever again.

“This better be a once off sort of thing, Jay, or I may have to
fire you.”

I groaned in response. It was hard to tell if that was a joke or not
with Julianne. “What will I do with my stuff?”

“Move. You’ll be lucky if you get the deposit back.”
She waved the helmet around. Sometimes I forgot Julianne was also
technically my landlord. A brief memory of the weight bench melding
into the kitchen counter told me that I would be lucky if I wasn’t
charged for reconstruction. It was yet another thing to thank Kahina
for.

“So, do you want to wait for Candy?” Julianne’s
tone of voice told me what I should answer.

“I could check, see if she’s lost.”

“You got something of hers?”

“A car?” A few love bites, hours of memories. Never tried
that before but maybe it’d work. Never tried a lot of stuff
that seemed to be working anyway, maybe it was time to expand my
tricks. Of course, the car had an alarm so maybe I’d only
pretend to touch it.

“You could leave her a note and head off.”

“No, I made a deal,” I said.

“Like that’s stopped you from breaking promises in the
past.”

I looked at her and tried to figure out what the hell that meant. Was
this about the jobs I didn’t quite complete? Sometimes I failed
in the past, but I hadn’t deliberately screwed anything up
since my return.

“Never mind, do your thing and let’s go.” She
looked mad but turned away to a motorcycle I hadn’t seen. I
hope she didn’t expect us both to fit on that.

With one hand carefully placed right above the car, I tried to switch
my mind around to tracking Candy. I flipped through everything I knew
about her. Her as a person. In addition to our conversations which
constantly seemed to be about two different topics. In addition, she
had a little birthmark on her lower left back. My senses unfurled and
leapt towards the woods.

It was easy to think of her as mine, however briefly, after this
morning. Possessiveness was a given for most guys right after sex.

Trees went by, they nearly vibrated with the after image of life
energy. Why the hell had she gone so far into the woods? This was
like twenty miles. How long had I been asleep? How fast could she go
in the forest? My mind swung over the woods and got closer. Then
closer. I could see her body dashing at a breakneck speed through the
trees.

One moment it would look like she slipped then her foot would slam
down and launch her even further. She found purchase that I could
never hope to in the dense wilderness. I followed, but she kept
running. Her gaze would look back every so often then focus on the
journey.

The entire time she was headed away.

Around me, the same pressure that had been present when I was viewing
Candy in her bedroom seemed to suffuse the area. It made it hard to
catch up. Traveling along in her wake felt like swimming through
syrup. Seeing her face was also difficult.

She stopped, spun and slashed at the air as if attacking an unseen
foe. There was no one following her that I knew of. Really the only
person in the wilderness was me.

“No!” Candy yelled, there was more, but that was all I
made out in the jumble of tactile sensation. A moment later my
concentration shattered and I slumped forward. It felt like I was
suddenly forced to switch my focus to an object less than two inches
away from my face. Dull thumping started in both ears.