Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) Read Free Page A

To risk that
result again. She knew I was back and that was enough for Julianne.
Every thought of belonging shattered and I mentally snapped across
the distance back to my body.
    Senses shatter. Last glimpse of her face. Trail a finger down
her jawline. Feel her smile. Last touch of lips. I am drawn in even
as link falls. Eyesight returns.
    The aftereffects of a return trip were terrible. I could feel myself
winding back onto my frame. Those extra limbs settled down along my
back. Folding up and under each other. Tactile senses were on
overload giving feedback from everything around me.
    Creature down the bar feels cool wetness on calloused hands.
Pool balls slam into each other. Collisions crack spikes through air.
Heels tap concrete near front door. Voices chatter, too many voices.
Building walls alive with sound. Music thumps under everything.
Pulses realign to heavy noise.
    “Janne!” I was angry and using a nickname that would get
me punched. The others in the bar were either too polite to notice,
or knew better than to make eye contact.
    “What, Jay?” Which was an older name of mine.
    “The other one. Now. I’ll do it.”
    “Running already?” She asked. There was a mocking smile
on her face. Julianne had won whatever battle we were having.
    “Hell yes.” My head hurt.
    The phone behind the bar started ringing, the number that only those
close to Julianne knew. She eyed it for a moment and then pulled out
the other velvet pouch and tossed it at me. I felt for a moment at
what was inside, not a lock of hair certainly. Round, cylindrical,
hard. A lipstick container?
    “You’ll be coming back, right?”
    I nodded. It had been bad enough leaving the first time, leaving
again would be worse. Even after four years I never felt like I
belonged out there. Only here was close enough to call home, to call
mine.
    “Usual percentage of whatever you manage to bring back.”
    “How
much?” I asked.
    “Over ten.” Thousand, not a huge debt, but enough to make
someone’s night bad. Hell. I really wanted to ensure someone
else was having a worse night.
    “Done.”
    My percentage wouldn’t cover rent for the extra month she
promised. Julianne had been trying to sweeten the pot in order to
make me contact my almost, but not officially, ex-girlfriend. Because
four years of no interaction hadn’t been clear enough.
Vampires, even partial ones, didn’t track time the same as
normal people.
    Waiting around the bar or quibbling over the price of rent was no
longer an option. Distance, quick distance, was required at this
stage. Kahina, my ex, could cover ground a lot faster than I if she
felt inclined. Living with that kind of money meant she could have
someone drive her down here first thing.
    My surroundings were still overdosing tactical senses with feedback.
Bits of movement here. People rearranging in seats, sliding coins
into a machine. Beyond that, I felt Julianne’s words. “Yeah,
he just left.” Controlling my drunken swerve was difficult as I
sped for the door.
    Kahina would take thirty minutes if she was serious. That provided me
twenty to get clear. An unheeded voice nagged at me. Part of my mind
thought that avoidance wasn’t an answer, that perhaps we should
sit down, say hello, and catch up. Such a wonderful idea would never
occur to sober me. Maybe with a regular girl I could have done it,
but she was far from regular. Regular girls were human.
    The first stop was home. There was no use hiding where I lived from
her, and it was worth the trip. I wanted a little protection against
my ex’s anger if things went south. Getting home required
travel through a coded security gate. Numbers were easy for me. My
door was the third one down. I opened the front and received a rush
of cool air. The place was a tiny two-floor apartment. Up top was a
kitchen and living room that made sparse sound like an overstatement.
There was a couch, workout bench, and a privacy screen that ran along
ceiling hooks. There used