Sixx Saves the World: The Sidekick Chronicles Page 8

“A girl?” I felt an irrational stab of jealousy.

  Olezka barked a laugh before grabbing my hand and bringing it to his lips. “Do not fret, Sixx. I end up with you.”

  “Hardy-har-har.”

  “You asked. When I returned to the human realm after decades of war in the Veil, things had finally calmed down. I was a much different male then. I was still angry, so very angry,” Olezka said quietly as if reliving those memories. It hurt to hear him talk like that, but I had to remember everyone had a past. It wasn’t anything like mine, but his world was often very violent, and one had to snatch pleasure where they could.

  “I came here with Roman to escape our pasts, but we were both reckless, and it wasn’t long before Sentinel agents were called in. Asher was one of them. He saw potential in me and decided to bring me into the fold. But it felt all too familiar—being used again for my strength, my status. A girl was assigned to our recruitment team. There was an unspoken rule that teammates were off-limits. She and I had a fling, and Asher did not approve.”

  “I don’t approve,” I muttered under my breath.

  “That was years ago, Sixx. It was just as I said, a fling. But I wounded his pride and ego as our team leader. I was older than him and had seen more battle, so I sought to prove myself.”

  It was strange to hear about this side of him. I’d always thought of him as my great protector, though I knew there were those who feared him in the Veil and called him an assassin. Tess used to be one of those people. She wouldn’t even look at him for the longest time.

  But this Olezka was different. He sounded hurt but so defiant.

  “Wait, what did Roman do?”

  “Roman has chosen his own path,” Olezka said cryptically.

  Roman had always been there for me when I needed him. Olezka’s family took me in with no questions asked, which was strange since they seemed so closed off to others. Even Erebus didn’t seem to have the full realm of their loyalty and affection. But I knew so little of their daily lives.

  Granted, since I met Olezka, it didn’t feel like we ever had a moment to breathe.

  Olezka told me a little more about his background with Asher, admitting that during his training, Asher tried to make him look bad in front of the girl. But even after pestering him, he refused to say who she was.

  Once we returned to the safehouse, we packed a few essentials. Olezka grabbed a stack of prepaid credit cards off the counter, and we decided to head home. We were still a couple of states away from our destination, but he was eager to get me back into the Veil.

  I was eager to get back into our hometown for a completely different reason. I had an important errand to run.

  Chapter 12

  “Wow, I would say she’s a little angel when she sleeps, but is that… drool?”

  I slapped a hand in the direction of the voice that rudely interrupted my sleep. A deep bark sounded, and I groaned, lifting my arm to stretch.

  “Careful, Sixx, geez,” the voice said again.

  I peeked an eye open to see Roman staring at me from the doorway of Olezka’s house. Anubis bounced around behind him, barking and whimpering to get past. I looked at Olezka, who had me in his arms. I wiggled and pushed at his chest, wanting to get down. We’d been in the car almost nonstop for hours, other than a quick stop to get gas and food.

  He had to be sore because I was aching. Standing on my own two feet wouldn’t hurt me, even if I was exhausted. After a lot of persuading, I convinced Olezka to let me drive, giving him a much-needed break. But we switched back when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

  Once on my feet, Roman moved aside enough so Anubis had room to jump out, coming straight for me. It had been a while since I’d seen the little Xolo in his very human-realm self. His tongue lolled out with a big smile for Olezka and me. Olezka reached over and patted his companion’s head.

  “Come, we will rest for a couple of days. Then we need to be on our way back to the Veil,” he said, waiting for me to push Anubis off and walk into the house. Roman gave us a strange look, but Olezka spoke up. “I will explain later. For now, I would like to sleep with my mate in our bed.”

  Roman nodded, closing the door behind us and locking it. Olezka made good on his promise. We headed upstairs and got ready for bed.

  I was overjoyed to find my clothes. It felt like forever since I’d seen my stuff. This time, when we went through the Veil, I would be prepared. I planned on packing a bag full of my clothes. And tomorrow, once we woke up and faced another day, I would set up plans to get myself armed again. I refused to return to the Veil helpless.

  ****

  “You’re being overprotective.”

  “Nyet.”

  “Yes!” I snapped back.

  “Please fucking return to the Veil. I thought I missed the chaos in this house. It turns out I missed the peace and quiet. At least when I fight with Anubis, his bark doesn’t turn into a screech,” Roman groaned from the other room. I narrowed my eyes in his direction. Roman sat in the living room on the couch, watching TV with the volume on mute so he could listen to our fight.

  “I do not screech!” I screeched.

  “We do not know where Key is, and I do not understand why you insist on doing this without me. I will go with you,” Olezka repeated.

  “No.” I didn’t know how to explain to him that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get what I needed if he was there. I couldn’t stop thinking about when Ana, Lola, and I first went to purchase SOL, or shit out of luck as my stun-gun was affectionately named. The weapons dealer often worked with humans who knew about paras even though we weren’t supposed to know about their world. I didn’t think he would appreciate me bringing one of their policing paras into his shop.

  Plus, Olezka already told me he had plans to meet up with Sasha, the Sentinel agent he worked with in the city. He wanted to make sure there had been no more sightings or reports about the fighting rings in our absence. I worried that Dreamscape was still being pumped into the streets, even more so now that Key had changed the formula to allow him to control those under its influence.

  How he managed that scared me, and it was even worse when I recalled his desire to control Cyril and his sister, both of whom used their entire beings to control others.

  If Olezka attended that meeting with Sasha, I would have an opening. I’d learned my lesson about sneaking off without telling people. It only led to danger, which was ironic since I refused to bring the muscle with me on this one. But my gut said if I brought Olezka, my dealer would be too spooked to give me what I needed.

  I bit my lip. When I heard a chuckle from the other room, an idea sparked.

  “You have to meet up with Sasha and find out if Key has been spotted in this realm recently. While you’re doing that, I can take Anubis with me.”

  Olezka’s lips turned down, and he stared over to where his brother and dog sat.

  “You even told me before that he can protect me, and I saw him in the Veil. I know how ferocious he can be,” I tried to convince him.

  “Roman and Anubis or no deal.”

  “Hey! I didn’t ask to be part of this. I have my own shit to do!” Roman called from the other room.

  Olezka said a whole laundry list of Russian words to his brother, who responded in kind. They were both annoyed. Finally, once they both said what they wanted to, and too quickly for my still learning brain to understand, they went quiet.

  “Roman will take you.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” I grumbled. “Anubis is more than enough extra protection. If you’ll recall, I was surviving this world for many, many years before you came along.”

  “Nyet. You were helping Ana navigate our world. Things are different now. Roman will go.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but I understood his hesitation. It seemed as though every time he let me out of his sight, I was stolen out from under him.

  My safety meant their safety. Not to mention that right now, I couldn’t rely on the magi
c that Ana had instilled in me years prior. Nor could I trust the bond between Olezka and me since no one could tell me how long it would stave off the poison that was trying to kill me, slowly and silently.

  I wondered where the poison came from. Did King Malcolm administer it as a safeguard in case I escaped? We needed to not only find out what I was poisoned with but find who and why they did it.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll take Roman.”

  “I still have plans today!” Roman called from the other room. I rolled my eyes while Olezka smiled.

  “Thank you, zhizn' moya. It will not always be like this.” Olezka reached up, brushing his thumb over my cheekbone and leaning down.

  My eyelids fluttered shut as butterflies burst to life in my stomach. It seemed so silly to get this excited every time he kissed me because he did it often. But it did. He made me feel that way.

  “I know.”

  Olezka brushed his lips against mine, and I pushed myself closer, gripping the back of his neck to pull him closer to me. He wrapped his arm around my waist.

  “Get a room, you two. Actually, don’t. Then we’ll never get to leave,” Roman said.

  Olezka groaned but refused to part himself from me. “Roman, shut the fuck up,” he growled.

  “When he meets his mate, we can torture him like this,” I whispered.

  The air was practically sucked out of the room as both brothers became unnaturally quiet. I looked at them, curious about their strange reaction. Olezka’s features dropped with the heavy weight of his sorrow, and a hint of guilt flashed in his eyes. Roman’s lips twisted into an angry scowl while his eyes burned with mourning. My heart lurched.

  What fucked-up thing did I say to cause such a reaction?

  “I’m going to get dressed,” Roman clipped out before leaving the living room. Only after his footsteps quieted did I get the courage to open my mouth again.

  “Um…”

  “Nyet. It’s okay. He’ll be fine.”

  I opened my mouth again, but Olezka cut me off.

  “Sixx, do not ask.”

  “Okay.” I knew a closed door when I saw one. I couldn’t stop my thoughts, though. What had caused such a reaction from both of them? I didn’t doubt that Roman would kill to protect me or come on a stupid errand with me because his brother wanted to know I was safe, but I didn’t know him. He hated High Fae and only tolerated the Veil for his parents’ sake. Other than that, the man was a complete mystery.

  ****

  “My, my, my… Now I see why you didn’t want to bring my goody-two-shoes brother on this side of town. What are you up to, Sixx?”

  I rolled my eyes to the sky. It was a mild day, and I was absorbing every second of being normal; wearing human clothing, walking without worrying what fae I would run into or if the local wildlife wanted to eat me. Which I’d learned the hard way was a thing, hence why we traveled in covered wagons. Another of the finer things in life I’d taken for granted before traipsing on the other side of the Veil. Driving in a car with shocks, padded seats, and the smoothness of concrete instead of a rutted path versus bouncing on a wooden seat was one of the biggies.

  We weren’t necessarily on the bad side of the city, but it wasn’t great, either. We walked down a sidewalk lined with old storefronts interspersed with even older apartment complexes that had seen better days.

  An aged rickety sign with “Antiques” painted in faded, peeling white script swung in the slight breeze. I remembered the first time I’d seen that sign many years ago. At the same time, it felt like it had only been days. My life had just been turned upside down. I was scared of every little thing different. But back then, I was in high school where my biggest worry was keeping my grades steady until I graduated and entered college. Prom wasn’t even a blip on my radar. If anything, it was something I figured I should do simply for the experience. Lola passed away a couple of months after we visited this very antique shop. Afterward, the idea of parading into a lackluster decorated dance hall was no longer as appealing as it once was.

  Coming here was a mixture of scary but fun. We were testing how well I would do with my newfound ability to see through glamours in a city where paras coexisted seamlessly with humans. The antique shop was my final test.

  I stepped up to the glass door enshrouded by metal bars and pulled the handle. A cheery little bell tinkled as I opened the door. Roman grabbed it from me and indicated that I should go in first. After winning our final argument with Olezka, we left Anubis home on the grounds that he wouldn’t be allowed into the store. I hoped my purchase wouldn’t take too long, but I didn’t know if the same para owned the store. If it was someone new, it would take longer. The last owner took a solid hour to conjure my weapon of choice.

  The inside was vastly different from what I’d expected, both in memory as well as experience. I’d always thought of antique shops as organized chaos, but this was just chaos. As soon as you entered the shop, you’d find rocking chairs suspended from the ceiling so low it was possible you’d poke an eye out if you turned your head too quickly. Directly underneath the chairs were stacks – and I do mean stacks – of books. No real thought process went there. I saw copies of the Bible sandwiched between classics and cringey young adult novels that were popular when I was a teenager.

  The place was just one open room with stuff planted around the space wherever there was a horizontal surface. At the epicenter of the room was an old, scarred desk where a bored cashier stood. The teenager glanced up at us through multi-colored bangs that fell across half her face. Then she went back to flipping through a magazine. I’d visited the store several times since my first visit, but it had been almost two years since I’d been back. The last time I needed a weapon update, Ana had swung by to pick it up for me.

  Bypassing the teenager, we picked our way through the antique shop, which really looked like a classed-up junkyard. It didn’t help that everything looked like it needed a solid dusting about two months prior. When we passed a wagon wheel leaning against a stack of ancient magazines, I paused to think. There was another cashier stand around there somewhere if I could just remember where it was. That was the one we needed.

  “Ella, why don’t you take a lunch break?” a smooth voice said from behind us. Roman and I turned to face the owner of the voice. A sensation like a phantom itch hit me. The fae in front of us was unbelievably stunning, but they usually were. The longer I looked at him, the more I was certain he wasn’t completely fae. Somehow, I felt like I knew him.

  Dressed in a tailored, all-black suit with inky black hair smoothed into a sleek style, he wore a single earring dangling from his left lobe. Dark eyes watched us carefully. His features hinted at an Asian heritage, but for some reason, my mind knew this wasn’t his true form.

  “How can I help you?” His gaze never faltered from mine, which struck me as odd because most paras would have looked right past me to Roman. This wasn’t any owner or crafter I’d ever met before. The one I normally worked with was a massive warlock who looked like he belonged in a tattoo parlor or chopping wood in the forest.

  “Is Wolfe here?”

  “Regrettably, no.”

  “Do you do custom work?” I asked, remembering the specific phrase that Lola had taught me all of those years ago.

  “I do.” He narrowed his gaze as if trying to place me.

  “Excellent. I have a very specific piece in mind. Would you be willing to take on the commission?”

  “Have you commissioned with us before?” he asked carefully.

  “Yes.”

  He nodded before turning on his heel and taking us farther into the shop, leading us to where I knew there was a small office where the negotiations would take place. It was a jarring experience the first time I did it. The office was circular; the ground was a stone that resembled brick but wasn’t, and a vast array of weapons lined the walls. Of course, that was when the glamour was down. Luckily for me, the new crafter didn’t keep the glamour up.

  The disgu
ised wooden door slammed shut behind us, and I turned to look at the heavy metal side that showed its true nature.

  “Do you have something specific in mind?” the man asked casually.

  “Yeah, a heavy-duty stun-gun, and if possible, an iron ring.”

  The crafter lifted a brow at me.

  “Just as a precaution,” I mumbled.

  “You must know that we don’t dabble with iron, but I can get the stun-gun prepared for you within a couple of hours.”

  “We’ll take the stun-gun,” Roman said, speaking up for the first time. “Can we return in a bit to pick it up?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know the payment, Sixx?” the crafter asked.

  Shock rippled through me when my name tumbled over his lips. How does he know my name? Did Wolfe tell him about the strange human with the stranger name who requested custom stun-guns?

  “What did you say your name was?” Roman asked, stepping a little closer to me as he picked up on my uncertainty.

  For the first time, the crafter took his disconcerting gaze off me and focused on Roman.

  “I didn’t.”

  ****

  After that ominous comment, I confirmed I was aware of the payment, and Roman ushered me out of the room. I’d never stayed inside the room when Wolfe was working and didn’t expect to with this crafter, either. Roman walked me out of the store and stared back at the building.

  “Strange people you know, Sixx.”

  “I don’t know-know him. He must be a new crafter.”

  “Well, do you mind staying here or in the car while I go run a quick errand?” Roman asked.

  I didn’t mind, considering I’d wanted to come here on my own anyway. I knew going to the Veil with iron was a massive no-no and would probably break one of their strictest laws, but having it in my possession would make me feel marginally better. And a piece so small would only be helpful to get me out of tight scrapes.

  “Yeah, keys?” I held out my hand.

  Roman reluctantly handed them over with a grimace. “Don’t take it for a joy ride.”

  “I would never.” Smiling at him, I remembered how Ana stole his motorcycle.