Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (34 page)

“Wait.” I lifted my shirt and displayed the makeshift
belt. Even after changing clothes at Kahina’s the chain loops
had stayed with me. My hands paused their fumbling as it occurred to
me that Candy hadn't cared about the iron during our earlier
adventures. How had she managed to get my pants off? Maybe I had
helped the elf a bit?

“What's that?” Thomas asked.

“Cold iron.” I handed the metal over to Thomas.

He nodded and wound the links around one hand. Julianne nodded next.
They both started a countdown. I closed both eyes and tried to extend
my senses. Their fingers started with three.

There was the vaguest sense of leaves being brushed aside. Fingers
scraping past each other as one slowly closed. We were down to two.

Julianne tensed near me and lifted her gun up with both hands. The
metal was warm and lightweight. Her breath came in short gulps and
there was a rapid rate to her pulse. Another of Thomas’ fingers
closed to reach one.

I opened my eyes and looked right at Thomas. His back twitched once,
twice, then the final finger closed downward. It was go time.

Thomas shot out from behind the tree. Julianne came out at the same
time, knowing her brother’s speed better than I. There was a
bang from her gun that startled me into motion. My feet launched off
towards Evan.

Our situation rapidly turned hectic. My head pulsed with a rush that
was either excitement or fear. A picture of our surroundings hit my
senses in flashes. Like static on a scrambled television channel,
everything came in clear bursts embedded in madness.

I felt an arrow flying through the air towards Thomas. It connected
with a tremendous amount of force, firmly lodging itself into Thomas’
chest. My brain didn’t have enough time to figure out if it was
a lung or heart. Hopefully neither. Wolves healed, but that kind of
shot was risky for any species.

Another swivel of motion betrayed the bow’s change in targets.
The string jerked as another shaft hurled through the air. Julianne
dodged behind a tree and an arrow chipped away at the bark. Her gun
felt lighter than before. Her scream of outrage rattled the woods.

“Hide!” I yelled.

A thoughtful hum of noise bounced off the fabric. The bow and guiding
arms shifted towards me with a lead for velocity and direction. I
pumped both legs trying for increased speed to outdistance his range.

Time slowed as the old elf’s fingers loosed. My hands flew out
to brace while I dived forward to the next tree. The face first slide
was poorly timed and Evan’s pal was skilled enough in adjusting
his shot. It zipped right over while I twisted to the side and
slammed into the ground. My teeth hurt and head rattled, but I
managed to scramble back to my feet and keep running.

The next arrow, one I was too dazed to feel coming, embedded into my
arm. I noticed the new addition as the pain caught up. Both eyes
started to water.

I had to escape. More arrows would be coming soon. Gunfire echoed
repeatedly, each one violating the entire area. Julianne was emptying
her entire clip. By the screaming, she’d gone mad. By the
footsteps, she was headed towards Thomas.

Numerous arrows flew in my direction. Each one slightly off the mark.
Distance and Julianne’s wild shots were helping. Chains rang
out and slammed into each other. I felt bodies slam into the ground
and someone cried out. Candy was close. There was no time to go back
and check on the siblings. The scent of almonds permeated the air.

Half blind fumbling and bouts of adrenaline helped me reach Evan. He
was right where my tracking had pointed. The elf was sitting up and
looked absolutely lost. Both ears drooped and his arms were listless.

I searched for a blade to draw blood forth. Another thought occurred
to me. A pained cry ground out between my clenched teeth. The arrow
lodged into my arm snapped and yanked out.

There was more than enough blood for Evan now. My arm hovered over
Evan’s mouth and I barely restrained myself from shoving his
face into my pit. With the free hand, I tilted Evan’s head back
and said a prayer.

Footsteps carefully tread the ground behind me. Slow paced. Calmer.
Softer. Almond scent carried with them.

“Candy?” I looked up. Where was the old cowboy with his
bow? She stood in the distance. Her face twisted.

“Jeff.” She said flatly. It was easy to forget due to her
beauty, that Candy was probably close to one hundred years old.
Decades of experience and resolution that I didn’t have. All of
it shone on her face.

“Why, Candy?” Why had she planted those illusions? I kept
hold of Evan and tried to get additional drops of blood into him.

“You can’t know.” She didn’t even shake her
head. As if we had moved beyond a simple ‘no’.

“Can’t know what?” I set Evan’s head down
carefully and stood. My eyes were set to full on angry bouncer mode.
This was the face I used when collecting from low lives and thugs.
Five years ago I could break weaker men with this glare alone.

“What you are.” Candy actually looked away first. I tried
not to grin happily.

“Why can’t I know what I am, Candy? Why does that matter?
Do you need another
fucking
,” I emphasized that part.
“favor so I can get a real answer?”

“No amount of fucking-” She returned the snide tone, but
her voice sounded distorted, “-would make me tell you. It’s
dangerous.”

“Does this have to do with Arnold?” Was there a link?

“Who is Arnold?” She actually pulled her head back in
confusion. That threw me off. Quickly my mind put things together. If
she wasn’t here about Arnold than it was my fault, like always,
causing issues.

“Then it’s me, why can’t I know?” I said.

She shook her head but kept her lips buttoned. Part of me couldn’t
help but to admire how cute it looked. Every other ounce of her
stance screamed anger and desperation.

“Why, Candy?” I’d gotten extremely close. She never
once showed a sign of backing up, or looking at me. Her focus passed
right through my body. “Why can’t I know?”

Candy stayed silent. Damn it, Julianne, you said to try asking. I had
asked the elf three times and still got nothing. No one else was here
to help me and Evan. Julianne and her brother were missing in action.

The silence broke when Evan shouted. Candy’s form fell apart
like shattering glass. I turned to look at Evan. Candy straddled his
chest, with both hands covering his eyes. Her lips moved in a silent
whisper while small sparks of light shot out of her own orbs.

“No!” He yelled again, bucking weakly under Candy. It
sounded distorted like Candy had earlier. “No! Lord, help me!”
Evan’s voice came out in a cry for help. My help.

I ran at her. My dive met with air and I face planted into the dirt.
More illusions.

“Evan!” I yelled, trying to find the source of his cries.
Drumbeats started in my head. Their pounding demanded I defend what
had been claimed.

“Answer me!” I fumbled about, swinging both arms as if
wading through a pool. Hopefully, one of these wild swings would
connect with anything. Evan’s voice grew further away while his
words slurred together.

Auditory senses weren’t enough. I had another way to solve
this. A single moment of concentration was needed. There, he was to
the right against a tree base. I dove, trusting what I could feel
instead of what I could see and connected. For a second time today
Candy screamed my name but for an entirely different reason.

The illusions hiding her from vision shattered. Candy spilled to the
ground under me, she raised one hand and shoved dirt into my eyes.
Her knee followed up with a switch kick to my pelvis.

Winded, blinded, I curled into a fetal position and tried to suck in
air. Evan was calling out again and I was unable to concentrate on
feeling, or seeing anything. Blurred flickers of color proceeded
brighter bursts like fireworks.

I managed to stand up by using the tree trunk. The landscape looked
like two rainbows were fornicating five feet away. Wondrous pain
occupied my thoughts. Both ears rang, gut clenched spastically, and
nothing was in focus.

Candy was yelling at Evan. I could hear the words being shouted like
waves breaking on a shore. A roaring sound of anger and frustration
answered back. Evan’s voice was the sound of trees groaning in
a thunderstorm. They spoke in with wild words that nearly made sense.

Candy was denying me an answer from Evan as well, by taking away
something? His eyes? How did that make sense?

Another set of colors popped into existence. This time streaked with
an angry red tint overlaying what would have been a bright rainbow.
Evan’s voice yelled back, his words sounding harsher but no
less wild than Candy’s. I gained enough control to rip off the
jacket and mop my face.

When I could see again, the world had gone mad. Colors kept popping
like little bombs of paint going off. There were false copies of Evan
and Candy both running around. Yelling saturated the area so
intensely I could feel the vibrations of the landscape.

An image of Candy ran towards me with a large tree branch. Yelling
echoed as I tried to block the swinging branch. The actual attack
came from a completely different direction, connecting firmly with my
exposed ribcage.

“You can’t know!” An invisible female voice
screamed. Candy’s words were tainted by the waterfall accent. I
was bewildered and kept one hand in front of my face, the other over
my wounded side. Her earlier blow had definitely cracked a rib.

“Lord!” Evan cried out. Numerous colors flared up
obscuring him from vision.

None of the history books or documentaries had ever shown a scene
quite like this. Elven abilities had never been described beyond a
mastery over the visual spectrum. Even the few actual elves I had
seen use their abilities didn’t come out like this. This was a
master with a paintbrush compared to children and their chalk.

One Evan leaped onto a distracted image of Candy. The projections
both collapsed. Another two dozen were dodging through trees. Each
visually real that it was difficult to separate what I felt from what
I saw.

I pressed my back to a tree and tried to figure out what to do.
Wading in there wouldn’t work out. There was no telling where
the real elves were amid the madness. Not without cutting out some
senses.

Both eyes shut to assist concentration by ignoring their illusions.
Evan’s distracting screams almost immediately shifted to
background noise. My fingers were grasping at tree bark. The simple
sensation of rough wood against my skin served as a starting point.

The two were struggling nearby. I opened my eyes again and the
assault wasn’t as bad. Both elves’ illusions had
dwindled. Those standing around wore slack-jawed faces devoid of real
emotion.

One wasn’t standing. Candy pinned Evan down with a knee in his
back. Both her hands cupped the male’s eyes as a scream came
forth. Her voice was loud enough that I could hear it. They were
still speaking in their elven tongue, elemental, primal, inhuman.

I limped over and tried to help.

Evan’s face dripped with sweat. Blurred images of the elf
trying to escape spun out in desperation. Both Evan’s and
Candy’s illusions were collapsing.

“No!” I closed the last bit of distance and weakly
tackled the female elf.

My assault connected, and probably hurt me more than her. Candy was
laughing, a delirious rush of excitement on her features as she
grinned wildly beneath me. No dirt to my face, no knee to the balls.

“It’s over, Jeff, it’s over. I’ve protected
us all!” She said.

“I will tell him.” Evan’s voice came from behind
me. I turned to look up at him. He was battered beyond his normally
disheveled look. His body was covered in forest debris and both eyes
were a milky white.

“You can’t! You’re bound.” Candy said.

“What did you do?” I growled at her. She didn’t
even flinch in response.

“I bound him!” Candy yelled. Her voice was no longer
under me. She had scrambled to a new location behind me and left an
illusion behind. “He can’t tell you what you are.”

“Why?” The version of Candy under me was a fake. An
illusion like everything else. Her helping me. Evan’s answers.

“She fears what our kind will do if they know.” Evan
gasped in the middle of his sentence.

“What?” I said.

“If they knew that you were a…” A flash of light
in his eyes sent Evan backward with a cry.

“A what? What, damn it? Elf, wolf, human, vampire? What am I?”
None of the above? He had been a few syllables away from telling me.
Once I knew, once I had that under control I could better understand
my abilities, right?

“He can’t tell you. I’ve bound him to save all our
lives.” Candy said.

“Nonsense. The knowledge alone will not hurt anyone. In a year
and a day, I will tell him.” Evan had recovered enough to
protest.

“We will see. This battle is mine, though.” Her voice
sounded amused by the phrasing. The image of Candy vanished into the
trees. I could feel her getting further and further away. She had
left me in the middle of the woods with an elf that couldn’t
answer the primary question I came for.

“Oh, shit. Julianne.” I tried to scramble to the
siblings. Multiple face plants into the dirt, an arrow, a tree branch
to the ribs and being kneed in the balls outmatched me.

“What is going on?” Evan asked.

“The other elf was shooting at us.” I ground the words
out. It took every ounce of concentration I had to stay on my feet.
My entire body was drooping.

“I will take care of it.” The male elf nodded and started
walking off. He kept one hand pressed out in front to carefully feel
his way through the woods. Evan walked like a blind man in the
familiar territory.

I leaned against the younger tree. The same one Evan himself had
rested at in my vision. Once again I had failed. My arm itched and
there wasn’t any strength left to scratch it. Slowly one foot
gave way, followed by the other and my body slumped to the ground.