“To humanize myself. I read somewhere that if you’re ever in a hostage situation, you should try to humanize yourself to your captor.”
“You aren’t in the human world anymore, Sixx.”
“No, I’m certainly not,” I mumbled as the unexplained heat in my body flushed away to an empty feeling.
“Cyril.”
“What?”
“My name is Cyril. I’m guessing my master didn’t put you in here just to tempt me to feed.” Cyril moved back to his side of the cell but glared at me like being thrown into his space was my fault. My choice.
“What do you mean by feed? Are you a vampire?” I touched my neck unconsciously, feeling the spot where Effie bit me a couple of months earlier, though it felt like years had passed.
Cyril barked a laugh. “Humans. Since the modernization of entertainment, you have romanticized vampires. In reality, their bites aren’t sexy, and they don’t cause that flood between your legs.” Cyril had a look of mischief on his face, but it didn’t stop my cheeks from burning. “Oh, you must be for the hunt; a blushing virgin. They do love to chase after your kind.”
Affronted, I glared at him. “I’m not a virgin, and I’m certainly not here for their hunt,” I said, my anger growing. Just because someone preferred to keep their sex life private didn’t make them a virgin or a prude. I didn’t judge others for flaunting their sexuality. I shouldn’t be judged for wanting to keep mine private.
“Then why are you here?”
“Prisoner of war?” I offered.
Cyril barked a laugh at that. “Alright, Seis. Keep your secrets for now.”
I snorted in disbelief because somehow, I doubted we would learn to trust each other. Even so, I fell asleep without meaning to, ignoring the dangerous creature with whom I shared a cell.
****
“You’re wrong!” I practically shouted.
“I’m not wrong, you are,” Cyril claimed resolutely, standing tall at an impressive height. Though in his defense, most humans and all paras were taller than me.
“No way. They had better chemistry and would have made a better couple,” I argued, defending the actions of my favorite fictional characters in The Vampire Diaries show I watched with Ana.
“He betrayed her too many times. How could she ever trust him?”
I opened my mouth and then shut it. He did have a point. I narrowed my eyes. “You win this time.”
Cyril looked way too pleased about that. Then again, he had won most of our arguments based on popular media. My best guesstimate placed us in this cell together for the past three days. The first day, the guard didn’t bring me food. The next day, a stale piece of bread was tossed my way. Conversely, Cyril always received healthy plates of food three times a day like clockwork. Yesterday, he shared his rations with me. Since then, we’d fallen into a strange sort of rhythm together.
Even though we shared food, we were hesitant to trust one another with knowledge about ourselves. Cyril knew I was human and that I had been aware of the paranormal community before coming here. Surprisingly, he admitted this world was not his. Born in my world, he considered it home and was only here now because he was brought by his master.
We forged a hesitant, peculiar friendship. I learned that Cyril called me Seis because he had a Hispanic heritage and grew up in a Hispanic community. While he had a sharp sense of humor, it seemed to cover for something much darker. We unintentionally coordinated our sleeping schedules so that when he slept, I remained awake and vice versa. From what I observed, his dreams were never pleasant.
“No, Seis, I did not win. We will not win until we are both free from our prisons.”
“I’d be happy to be out of this one,” I said drily.
“Do not fret, human. Your usefulness has only begun.” Key’s voice slithered over me, and terror crept back into my veins. I might not have felt safe in here with Cyril, but at least, I wasn’t afraid of him with the same desperation as Key.
My muscles clenched in anger, and I refused to look at him.
“Get up, human. You are needed,” he snarled.
Cyril stood. “What are you doing here?”
Key ignored Cyril. Instead, he kept his focus on me. “Get up.”
Without conscious thought, my body moved of its own accord, bending to the will of his word. Key stood back with a smug smile as the guard opened the door and I stiffly walked out. Key gripped my throat tightly as I passed, and I whimpered.
“I need information, and you are going to give it to me.”
“Why would I ever help you?” I gritted out even as terror overwhelmed my senses and darkness crept into the corners of my eyes.
A dangerous glint flashed at me from his. “You don’t have a choice. Let’s see… What will bring them here? The Light fae King is growing restless, and I need something to entice Anastasia and your… mate,” Key said, disgusted.
“Nothing you do will bring them here. I refuse to help you.”
“Delightful.” Key moved quicker than I could blink, gripping my hair and yanking my head back, exposing my neck. “Do you think they would respond faster to an ear?” Key trailed his fingers over it as he spoke, and I shuddered in his hold. “Maybe a finger?” Key jerked his head at the other guard, who came over and grabbed my hand. I struggled in their hold until Key leaned close to me and whispered, “Maybe an eye?”
“If you hurt me, they’ll kill you,” I seethed.
What was the point of all of this, anyway? I had a feeling that even if I asked him, he wouldn’t tell me. He believed Ana was the lost princess. But why drag Olezka into it? Tess told me that Olezka was an assassin for Erebus, but that title didn’t fit the male I knew. Not the one with tender hands who held and took care of me.
“Hurting you would be a calculated risk, true. But let’s start small, shall we?” Key leaned in close.
Pulling out a wicked-looking blade, Key sliced off a hunk of my hair, nicking my cheek in the process. I hissed at the pain, but he merely laughed before shoving me back into the cell.
“I’ll be back for you soon, human,” Key promised before turning and disappearing down the darkened hallway.
I held my hand up to my cheek to press against the throbbing wound.
“Who is your mate, little Seis?” Cyril asked curiously. “I cannot imagine a Dark fae would step foot in Light fae territory for a minor feud. You are far more intriguing than I originally thought.”
I sighed. “I’m not sure why Key wants him, but my mate is Olezka Volkov. I don’t understand what he has to do with anything because it’s my friend Key is after. He thinks she’s the lost heir of the Light fae King.”
Cyril, who had a saucy comment about everything, stayed oddly quiet. For several minutes, I’d been staring outside our cell, terrified that Key would come back. I looked over at my cellmate, noticing the sickly pallor of his skin.
“My, my, Seis, you didn’t mention you had such powerful friends… but powerful enemies as well.”
“You know Key?”
“Oh, yes. He and my master go way back. I also know of the Black Dog Assassin and his twin brother. You’ve officially impressed me, Seis.”
Chapter 23
“I’m not sure if impressing you is a good thing or not, Cyril.”
“Oh, it’s never a good thing to impress a fae,” he admitted with a calculating smile. “I have a bit of information for you, but in exchange, I want a favor.”
Aunt Lola’s warning rang in my head. Girls, never, ever – no matter how desperate you are – agree to a favor for any type of fae. Owing them is dangerous.
My stomach knotted as I stared at Cyril and tried to figure out his end game. It probably wasn’t a good idea to agree to something when I didn’t know what he would ask for, especially since I didn’t know if the information he gave me would be useful or not. Though we’d formed a tentative friendship since I arrived in his cell, I still didn’t know him. I bit my lip.
“Information for inform
ation,” I counter-offered.
He shook his head. “No. The information I have is too great to pass off without anything in return.”
“And what do you want in return?”
“I have not yet decided.”
I bit my lip again. How bad could it be? I needed to trust someone here. I had to hope our budding friendship counted for something with him. “Okay. A favor for your help.”
I held out my hand for him to shake, and he took my hand in his, tightening his grip. His eyes darkened, and he pulled me closer to him. “Can I offer you a piece of advice, Seis?”
We had unspoken claims to the cell. Since the time he touched my leg on the first day, he stayed on his side and I stayed on mine. I gasped and tried to break free from his grasp, but he wrapped his arms around me and held me firmly in place.
“Don’t trust so easily,” he whispered in my ear before releasing me.
I stumbled backward and glared at him. “You’re a jerk.”
“Don’t mistake me for a nice guy. But that was a warning.”
“You said you knew the Black Dog assassin, his twin, and Key? How?”
Cyril cocked his head to the side, assessing me. “I’m guessing you only know the surface of our world—both here and in the human realm, so let me give you the Cliff’s Notes version. My life before I landed in this cell was not much better. I had special talents that I used to survive, but after many long years, I chose to try something else. When I heard a tip on the street that there was an insane Light fae being funded by a Dark fae who would pay big dollars for blood – para blood – well, I couldn’t refuse.
“Unfortunately, tales of my reputation and prowess preceded me, and those two fae decided they could profit more by selling me into the fighting rings rather than merely settling for my blood. So when I went in to sell a bit of blood for what I thought would be easy cash, they drugged me and sold me to my Master.”
I thought back to what Olezka told me about the change he and Erebus had made for their kingdom. He admitted it was not peacefully won without bloodshed.
“My Light fae owner put me back into the underground fighting rings, which are run by Key in the human realm. Humans and paras alike pay exorbitant prices for ringside tickets or video clips to see fae face off against one another. Most fights end when one of the opponents is incapacitated, but there are more intense battles where the fights are to the death. Those cost more, but the payoff is bigger. I’ve won my fair share of fights, which made me a bit of a favorite to my owner.
“Luckily, I haven’t been pitted against the Black Dog assassin yet. He is ruthless, and none who fight him make it out alive. I don’t know what has happened to that creature to make him the way he is, but he has no sense of preservation. He fights viciously and kills without mercy. The humans pay good money to watch it.”
I shook my head, my mind swirling with all Cyril had divulged. “Wait – are you saying Olezka is the Black Dog Assassin? He’s been with me; he certainly hasn’t been in any fighting rings. There’s no way he would –”
“Olezka is the twin. Black Dog is his brother, Illarion. I’ve been involved in death cage fights for almost a year now, and I’ve heard plenty of tales of those two.”
“How long have you been imprisoned here?”
“I arrived not long before you did, and I’ve been here almost a week. My owner came to this side of the Veil to attend a meeting about something or another, but since I’ve tried to escape before, they decided this would be my humble abode. Recently, I’ve been on strike, refusing to feed and getting weaker every day. I thought you might have been sent here to entice me out of it.”
My brows pinched as I eyed him. He told me he wasn’t a vampire, which meant he wasn’t after my blood. If not blood, what could I possibly do to entice him? Shelving those thoughts, for now, my mind raced on to the other things he said.
I now had a name for Olezka’s twin – Illarion, known as the Black Dog Assassin. Why was he fighting in the rings? Why was Key running what sounded like a very lucrative business in the human realm? Surely, human money didn’t mean anything here. Even so, Key had proven that he wanted power. Was he trying to establish wealth and power in both worlds?
“Why do you fight? Why don’t you just stop?”
“Because my only other option is death.”
Suddenly, his words from earlier clicked into place. “Wait – did you say you were offered money to sell your blood?”
Cyril narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s with that look, Seis?”
How could I be so stupidly blind?
“I think I just figured out who’s been producing a wildly addictive drug back in the human realm.”
Any time I tried to think about my time at Nova, my head exploded with a migraine so intense I saw stars. Even so, I tried to recall if I’d ever seen Key there. With his distinctive features and dark aura, he would have been hard to forget. I remembered Doug, the chemist I worked with. I recalled seeing Doug talking to another man in hushed whispers, but that man’s image kept slipping away.
“Why can’t I remember?” I mumbled, frustrated when the memories fell through my fingers like sand through an hourglass. I suddenly remembered Doug calling the faceless man Key, and the pain intensified to a mind-numbing degree. Memories that had been buried deep in my mind came flooding forward.
“Seis?” Cyril called out to me, but I was lost.
I gripped my head as lost memories started to resurface. Key used me. He drugged me at Nova and erased my memories of his human glamour that he used while he worked there. His human glamour didn’t look anything like his true self. I recalled him dragging me to a cell and administering the drug because I got too close to the truth.
My head exploded with pain, but I was in too deep to stop now. In this realm, he cornered me in the palace and locked me in his room where he…
Oh my God. I knew about his plan, but he erased it from my mind. He used his Lure magic to make me answer him and tell him things he never should have known. I felt sick to my stomach as I conjured up all of the information I’d unwittingly provided to him. Personal things like how far Olezka and I were into our mate bond. Not only about me but whether I knew if Ana was mated.
I groaned as I relived how he’d wiped my mind and I walked away as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t be trusted. Tears welled in my eyes. How weak I must be compared to my friends, to my mate. Without intending to, I revealed things that could hurt us all, simply because I was a weak human.
“Sixx, talk to me.”
“I’ve messed up everything.”
“I’m sure you haven’t. Take it easy.”
My legs shook when I tried to stand, and Cyril put his hands out to steady me. Just then, footsteps sounded down the hall.
Great, the last thing I need is another encounter with Key after just breaking his spell on my memories.
Lilting laughter filled the dungeon, but this time, it was Cyril who tensed. His reptilian gaze flicked to me. “Whatever you do, Sixx, do not draw attention to yourself.”
“What?” I shook my head in confusion, trying to clear it as memories clung to me. My shame grew. How would I ever be able to look Ana or Olezka in the eye again?
A woman’s voice tinkled down the dungeon corridor as lightly as if she were giving a lady’s garden tour. “And here is my prize. Oh, our King is too generous! He is trying to strengthen my little pet with a human!” she simpered. “You are still weak as ever, Cyril.”
“That I am, my lady.”
“Does the human not please you, Cyril? How about you, Jasper? Does she please you?”
Blinking, I turned to face the two newcomers, trying to take Cyril’s advice and not draw attention to myself. One was a red-headed beauty with a sharp nose with which she used to look down at us, exuding haughtiness and frivolity. She was accompanied by a man who was as tall as any other fae, but there was something almost sickly about him. Besides that, I didn’t like how he was gawking at me.
“If your incubus has no use for her, I can think of many ways she can please me.”
“You do have wicked tastes, my friend. I will find her owner, and we will see if you can buy her. She’s rather plain for a human, though.”
“No, she’s perfect for what I have in mind. I don’t care what the face looks like when all I want it for is to fill it with my cock or be face-down on the ground,” Jasper cackled cruelly. The fae woman next to him just laughed and patted his arm like that was a perfectly acceptable thing to say.
“I’m not for sale,” I gritted out.
They both laughed.
“Human, you have no right to speak, let alone think you have a choice in the matter.” The fae woman turned to Jasper and snickered delicately. “She sounds fresh. Are you sure you don’t want someone a little more broken in, my dear friend?” the redhead asked.
Jasper stepped closer to the bars, and the weak light from the torches cast a ghastly shade over his face. He was tall and rail-thin with limp, dirty blonde hair, and his features weren’t as delicate as the other fae I’d seen. The pallor of his skin was ghoulishly white, looking macabre and abnormal next to the lightly tanned fae next to him.
“I like them better this way. I can mold them to my needs.” He licked his thin lips as he gripped the bars to the cell door, thrusting as if he planned to take me right then and there.
I took a couple of stumbling steps back, away from the bars. Despite everything, I still couldn’t find the courage to snap at him like Ana or give him a death glare like I would Olezka. There was safety in reacting to people you knew.
He had an unnatural look in his eye that made my skin crawl. He talked about abusing me sexually, but something told me he would do even more horrible things that would make me wish I was dead.
“Come, let us find her owner. Surely, he brought her here to be sold or used. Anyone can be bought at the right price, isn’t that right, Cyril?”
Cyril didn’t answer, but I saw the anger and hatred flare in his eyes. After seeing this beautiful female and how abominably she treated him, I hated her too. I decided right then and there that I would take him with me when Olezka showed up to save me since there was no doubt in my mind he would come for me.
The Sidekick Chronicles: Sixx and the Fae Page 16