The third one slowed down enough that I could see what he was doing, and my breath hitched. With every rotation around Timur, the dosed-up human slashed him with a blade. Timur roared when the man sliced his leg behind his knee, making him stumble. I flinched as I watched the blood well up and pour down his flank. The two magical beings kept him so preoccupied he couldn’t focus on battling the third one. One used an invisible force field to herd Timur where he wanted him to go, and the other used fire, though it didn’t have the scent of hellfire. When the human got another slice in, I decided I could no longer stand back and watch.
When the human made a move to slash again, I rushed forward. Lunging, I kicked out a leg as he circled Timur. Responding swiftly to my attack, he almost managed to knock me down, but I swung wildly, and the edge of my stun-gun hit him. Turning in less than the blink of an eye, he darted his arm out to slap me. I wasn’t fast enough to dodge his swinging arm, but I stepped away, and he punched my shoulder. I yelped in pain and jerked my arm up, pushing the stun-gun forward until it hit his flesh. The scent of burnt hair and sizzling skin hit my nose.
The man dropped like a ton of bricks. The others watched with matching looks of curious amusement playing on their faces, giving Timur the time he needed to regain his focus and attack. Timur knocked one against the wall and swiped at the other with his claws. The threats neutralized, Timur breathed heavily and looked over at me.
His flank was bleeding badly, which surprised me since they typically healed quickly. When he didn’t immediately shift back to his human form, my anxiety grew. His eyelids drooped, and he swayed, stumbling forward. His back legs dropped, and he flopped onto the ground.
“Timur!” I rushed forward to reassure myself he was alive. He watched me warily, growling. I took a step back, showing my hands in a surrendering fashion. He needed help. “I need to go find you some help.”
I bit my lip. I wanted to leave him with some better protection, but there was no one around here that I could trust. His attackers wouldn’t be moving anytime soon, but Timur wouldn’t be able to use my stun-gun in this form, anyway. Plus, he had his claws to protect him.
He growled again, peeling his lips back from his top teeth and nipping at my shirt. I had a feeling he didn’t want me to leave him, but I couldn’t let him die.
I shook my head. “I promise I’ll find you some help.” I glanced at him one more time when he snarled at me. Undeterred, I headed in the direction that he’d been taking us. The hallway started to look familiar, and soon I recognized the exit to Tess’s garden.
Bursting through the door, I looked around, realizing I probably shouldn’t have made such a grand entrance. I didn’t see anyone, but there was a lot of greenery where people could hide. I clutched my stun-gun, breathing as quietly as I could. Olezka and I had been attacked in these gardens before. There was a weak spot in the wall, which was where the Lower Fae got in before. Now that I thought about it, it could have been orchestrated by Key.
A rustling came from my left, and I turned to see the silhouette of a male I would know anywhere.
“Olezka!” I rushed forward as he turned toward me. Fear dumped into my veins as one burning eye stared back at me.
Oh, no.
Chapter 22
Ana
Key decided he’d had enough of having a guest living rent-free and started pulling me into his little experiments. It typically consisted of him drawing my blood and threatening Sixx’s life if I didn’t cooperate. I asked him many times what he planned to do with my blood, but he always gave me an enigmatic smile and ignored my question. I made it my goal to find out as much information as I could from my new ally, though.
Axel proved to be an endless well of knowledge. Apparently, he’d worked with Key for a couple of years. He started out working in Key’s fighting rings, though he glazed over his involvement in those. He then gained Key’s trust enough to begin working in Key’s operations. Considering how willingly he joined my side, so eager to betray Key, I was hesitant to trust him.
In the end, all of the information he supplied matched up with what I’d experienced thus far. Key had been using Nova’s resources without Erebus’s knowledge for a long time, offering to take control of the business when it seemed to be falling far behind its competitors, which consisted of other pharmaceutical companies. Once he started to gain a little more control, he brought in Alastor. Axel didn’t know a lot about Alastor’s background or much about the happenings inside the Veil, but he had plenty of knowledge about how Key operated in the human realm.
I didn’t know what Key was doing with my blood, but I knew it wasn’t good. During my most recent session, Key asked me to amp up my Lure while Alastor drew my blood. Key struggled to maintain his composure; he wouldn’t look directly at me and kept his fists clenched as if to stop himself from reaching out and touching me. Alastor, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed at all. He watched with rapt interest but not with uncontrollable desire; greed was emblazoned in his eyes, and his gaze was laser-focused on the blood pumping through my veins. There was something seriously wrong with that fae. He terrified me on a whole different level than Key.
Holding a piece of cotton to the injection site, which was unnecessary since I healed quicker than most, I took the familiar path that routed from the testing labs through the hall that led to the circular room. The wooden door that opened to the Midnight Forest, as I had come to call it, beckoned me.
Sixx and I rarely hung out with other people because of the secrets we both lived with, and sometimes it was easier that way. But I’d enjoyed my position as a bartender and interacting with people. I enjoyed the movement and the excitement of it. Here, everything was so stationary. It was sad that I looked forward to these moments when I got to sneak away.
I crept through the door and into the forest where I saw my only companion standing just inside the tear. The opened gate made me want to recoil. There was something unnatural about the magic around it. Usually, if Axel had just passed through it, it wasn’t as bad, but this time, it made my skin crawl. I assumed he’d been waiting on this side for some time.
“Took you long enough.”
I yawned, waving my hand at him. “If I had my choice, I’d already be through that portal and far from here.”
“You could just leave,” Axel taunted, stepping away from the tear with a flourish of his arm. He nodded his head toward it. I glared at him then glared at the opening. Once, I’d taken Axel up on his challenge. When Key found me on the other side, he simply leaned down and asked if I knew what happened to mated pairs when their mates died. It felt very much like his final warning.
I gave him a dark look. “Hardy-har-har.”
He just shrugged his shoulders. “I really don’t see what the problem is. She’s just a human.” Axel always said that. He called Sixx just a human, but there was something in his tone; something that told me there was more to his story than he let on.
“She’s not just a human, and we’ve already discussed that. Plus, you met her. How can you not love her?”
Axel gave me a bland look. He’d given her my warning. After I saw Olezka, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Even Axel looked a little confused, but he just shrugged his shoulders and waved one hand at me before taking off.
I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Olezka since I caught him walking with Key, and I wondered if he stopped swinging by because he caught my scent. I assumed Key was using him the same way he was using me – using our love for Sixx as our weakness.
“What information have you come to torture out of me today?” Axel asked, taking a seat on the lush grass beneath us. The bony, spindly branches created a sparse canopy above our heads. I moved to sit next to him and shivered. A strange chill hung around him like a bad aura.
“I wouldn’t call it torture.”
“I do.”
“Jeez, if you don’t want to spill, you didn’t have to agree to this.”
Axel got quiet. In this realm, the darkn
ess that slithered within him was constant like black tattoos that writhed right under his skin. It was strange and kind of unnerving to watch the first couple of times I was around him, but I slowly got used to it. He appeared horribly gaunt and pale in this world, which was bizarre because if he would syphon just a bit of magic, he would glow with health. I didn’t know why he resisted and tortured himself like this.
When I asked him, he claimed he was pushing himself to his limits. Never know when you might need it, he said.
“The wolves in the city are getting restless; they want more power, but they always do. The dark mages want unfiltered access to this realm so they can syphon until they burst with power, go wreak havoc, and then return for more. The vampires, which consists of a larger coven whom your captor just barely managed to rein in, decided they loved the idea of feeding on High Fae a little too much. But you already knew that.”
I should interject here and mention I did not know.
“The High Fae lose a bit of their power in the transition from their realm to ours, so vampires are just strong enough to overpower them in the human realm. Various paras are starting to hear about the limitless power of the gangs under his banner and are getting interested. Living in the human realm isn’t quite what it used to be. There are many who seek nothing but a quiet refuge away from the factions and warmongering that run rampant on the other side of the Veil.”
I took a moment to consider his comment that some paras considered the human realm a type of refuge, but I wasn’t so sure. Even Erebus wasn’t able to force his kingdom to fully accept the Lower Fae who lived among them as anything but that – lower. I’d rarely seen humans in the Dark Court, but I saw plenty of them in the Light and hoped Sixx never came across those poor, unfortunate souls. She would want to save them all.
I shook those thoughts away and pressed forward. “Any news on the Dark side of things?”
“Not from my contacts, but I’m sure something will come your way soon.” With a shake of his head, Axel slapped his hands on his knees and stood up. “Time for me to return to guard duty. You took longer than usual to get here.”
Staying seated on the ground, I watched as he disappeared through the portal. Axel explained it was located somewhere within a forest in the Dark Court’s lands, which was perhaps why I felt a strange sense of comfort. Even though the magic here didn’t thrum through me quite like the Light’s magic did, it had a calming presence.
I normally felt a little drained after Key and Alastor took blood, but this time, the lethargy seemed to last longer. I assumed it had something to do with them forcing me to keep my Lure up while they took their sample. Without making a conscious decision to do so, I laid back on the soft grass, and my eyes drifted shut.
Chapter 23
Ana
A soft, snuffling sound roused me from sleep, but it was the sharp snap of a branch close by that put me on high alert. I jerked up and searched the area, cursing myself for my folly. I’d fallen asleep after my conversation with Axel. I scrambled to my feet with every intention of running through the portal, but as I made my way to the door, I heard a vaguely familiar sound. I slowed and looked behind me.
“Anastasia?”
“You’re dead!” I screamed and lunged for Z, who was hurriedly shifting back to his human form. I couldn’t help the anger that filled me. While part of me understood he would do literally anything to protect Sixx, which I respected, he was also betraying his King and my mate. Even if he were stuck between a rock and a hard place, there was no excuse for doing what he did. It was entirely plausible that during the time Sixx and I had been separated, Olezka and Sixx may have found time to complete their bond. That felt unattainable for Erebus and me, so it was quite possible that a bit of jealousy fueled my rage as well.
Power buzzed under my skin, leaching into the ground beneath me and morphing into something different. When my normally white-blue electricity flared, it was tinted with black, sparking and forking in every direction.
“Anastasia! Stop!” Z yelled, holding out his hands, unashamed of his nakedness, but all I saw was seething black hatred.
The idea of him betraying both Sixx and Erebus pushed me over the edge.
“Traitor!”
“Traitor? What the hell are you talking about?” he snapped, dodging my attack with an impressive tuck and roll. He hid behind a bone-white tree, but half of his bare back was still visible. “I am not the traitor; you are! I should kill you where you stand for what you allowed to happen to Sixx!”
Wait, what?
With my brows pinched, I lowered my arms. “What are you talking about?”
“We know that the knife she was stabbed with was poisoned. Why didn’t you warn her?” Olezka accused, stepping out from behind the tree to face me.
He was a fearsomely large predator, to begin with, but here, in his element, within his Court, he was terrifyingly monstrous. He was naked from his recent shift, and I had to concentrate on not looking below his chest. How Sixx found him so alluring was baffling. Don’t get me wrong; he was a handsome creature but in a brutal, harsh way. Especially here where his hellhound and rarog features were more prominent.
“How could I have? He would have killed her!”
“You think I am naïve enough not to have figured out your keywords? You must have one to warn of impending danger. Maybe if you’d done that, we could have acted faster,” Z said, calming down a bit. He narrowed his flaming eyes at me. “What are you doing in the middle of Coille gun chrìoch?”
“Middle of what?”
“This forest.” Z’s back straightened, and his entire body bristled like a dog preparing to warn its owner of something bad. He turned toward the tear behind me and peeled back his top lip. His gaze snapped to me. “You knew of these?”
“I mean, I’ve been gathering a bit of information from my stay with Key, but I stumbled upon this beauty all on my own. Key has someone watching it and keeping it safe,” I hedged.
Wouldn’t he already know this? If he’s working with Key, he would, right? Is this just more tricks?
A look of realization crossed his features. “The dark mage. The one you sent to Sixx.”
Fuck.
“You didn’t tell Key, did you? You know he’ll kill her if he thinks she knows about this.”
“Your lack of faith in my commitment to my mate is getting on my last nerve. It is only her love for you that keeps you breathing right now.”
“Try me, buddy. I could take you down in seconds,” I fumed, magic building in my veins.
He scoffed at me. Legit scoffed.
“Little Princess, I am much older and much more skilled than you. You would die against me. And of course, Sixx told me about him. She’s my mate. I had half a mind to caution her it was merely one of Key’s tricks.”
But it wasn’t a trick because I made sure to tell Axel to mention the word pickle.
“How do I know you being here isn’t another one of Key’s tricks? I know I saw you with him!”
“That was not me.”
“O-kay. I’m pretty sure none of your brothers look exactly like you.”
“Da, my twin brother.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m not falling for that old, tired, soap opera hat trick.”
Z just glared at me.
“He went missing many, many years ago. We do not speak about him since it is painful for us to lose a clan member, let alone a family member. And if you were partially responsible for losing Sixx, would you readily bring it up?”
Shame crept up my neck. His words rang true, but it still didn’t explain any of this. The fact that he was here now put Sixx at even greater risk. Who was protecting her?
“Look, Olezka – you have to leave. I don’t know how you found me, but you have to go. Now! Before you get Sixx killed.”
“She is safe, no thanks to you,” he snapped.
“But…”
Wait. Z said he wasn’t working with Key, but if that was the ca
se, how did he know about the poison? He wouldn’t have let me stand there this long with my head attached to my body if Sixx was dead. I knew that much. So… how did…?
“We discovered the poison. She has returned to the palace, and Erebus had her healed. In exchange, he asked me to return you to his side. I do this out of duty to him and the space you take in my mate’s heart, though you should know I do not have much love for you. You are headstrong and do not think your actions through, which puts those around you in danger not of their making. Just because you managed to skate by in the human realm doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing,” he chided.
I didn’t love being lectured by him, but I took his words to heart. I’d gone through life, thinking I was the baddest thing out there and had gotten Sixx and myself in and out of a lot of scrapes. But these last few months, a year now? Things had quickly spiraled out of control.
I tipped my chin up. I had information on the inner workings of Key’s operation, as long as I could trust Axel’s word. I tended to believe the dark mage. After all, I couldn’t imagine him relaying my message to Sixx exactly as I said it and still be working for Key. What would be the point?
I was trying to work through all of the angles as methodically as Sixx, but my attention was diverted when Z snapped out “Anastasia!” in a clipped tone.
“You can call me Ana, you know.”
Z just gave me a blank look. “This is not the time.”
“What do you want me to do? Did you ever think that maybe I can do more good here than I could with you?”
Z’s nostrils flared, and I swore I saw smoke. He closed his eyes for a moment before slowly opening them and looking at me. I wanted to laugh because it was very much a look that Sixx would give me. Guess she was rubbing off on him.
Sixx Saves the World: The Sidekick Chronicles Page 14
