Free Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) by Stephan Morse

spent roaming the streets. My hands
would be tucked into pockets for warmth. Often I didn't return home
until after sunrise, exhausted but pleased that only some things in
the city had changed.
    Occasionally, I caught Kahina quietly staring. Not enough to feel
oppressed, but reminded. Part of me was disturbed at being stalked
like a possession, the other part wondering exactly where we stood.
The strange routine broke when an angry redhead startled me out of
sleep.
    "Get up, you're coming with me." Fingers clenched in a
panic. I was vulnerable. Someone had invaded my sanctuary.
    "Who..." I couldn’t focus this early. "What's
going on?" Daniel's face was slowly clearing as my mind tried to
establish where I was.
    "I lost that damned elf again. He escaped custody two days after
we tracked him down." Upset Daniel worried me. There were
stories, that I may or may not have been involved in, where he went
Biblical when venting his anger.
    "Doesn't the Sector government have their own trackers?" I
slowly stood up and tried to regain control of my front room. Daniel
was pacing already.
    "They have two contracted, both of which are busy on other
cases. Neither one works as well as you do. They do some dreaming
babble." He said.
    "Get in line then. It's just a cold case." I responded
while fighting a yawn. Daniel didn't want the elf, he wanted the rich
kid related to him.
    "Not that easy, there's a lot riding on this one." He shook
his head.
    "Not for me, Daniel," Anything more for this case would
bring unwanted attention. "Nothing personal, I'm not getting
involved."
    "I'm doing this for you!" He snapped and grabbed at his
hair.
    "What?" I managed to maneuver myself between Daniel and the
doorway leading to my basement. He didn’t even care. Once I was
awake, the agent had taken to walking the far end of my top floor.
    "No, never mind. Forget I said anything," His words left me
confused. "You're going to have to come along."
    "What? Why?" My head felt foggy. What was he doing for me?
This? This what? The thoughts slipped out almost as soon as they
passed through. I braced myself using the wall and tried to reduce a
headache that had come out of nowhere.
    "Man, don't make me be an ass."
    "Then don't, case’s dead. Move on." It's hard being
polite to friends.
    "No can do, you and I need this."
    I thought about my belongings and the trouble that would occur from
leaving again. Daniel made it out like we would be absent awhile. My
mouth opened to start a stream of protests then Daniel cut me off.
    "Plus, you owe me big, always have, who keeps your name out of
the system?" He switched tactics abruptly.
    "That's how you're going to do this?" He just had to go for
the low blow and bring up my separation from the rest of the system.
It wasn't how I wanted to live.
    "It's for your own damn good, man." Anxiety drained from
his features. The hair pulling he engaged in settled down.
    "You're giving me shit choices," I said. He needed to leave
my house soon before things went downhill fast. Daniel was pressuring
me into a verbal corner and it was getting uncomfortable.
    "Good. Get some clothes in a bag and come outside, bring
whatever you have for weapons."
    "What the hell, weapons?"
    "The world’s not a friendly place, man, you know that."
He exited and I sighed with relief. Despite the media's control on
stories, things happened constantly. People went missing, violent
outbreaks, danger was an unadvertised constant. A set of knuckles,
cross, and spare clothes went into a duffle bag.
    The rest of my devices had to stay at home. Something had to stand
between my basement full of little trinkets and the would-be robbers.
I grabbed two different choke wires. One coated in acquired silver,
effective, but weak against anything other than a wolf. The other was
cheap iron, not as weak and good for snooty elves. Neither was
designed to kill first. Both were motivational assets that would
hopefully be pointless.
    My packed bag weighed hardly anything