Coldstorm (Heart of a Vampire, Book 7) (34 page)

He shook his head, whimpered, then yipped, as if to say he'd be on her side.

Oliver reached the edge. Stared down at them. He grunted and jumped.

Anca grabbed the wolf, rolling them both out of the way. Instead of them, Oliver heavily landed only on the end of the silver chain.

The wolf jerked his head back, managing to get the chain partially off. Against her better judgment, Anca listened to her instincts, telling her that he might be of help. Besides, if he stayed there, trapped in the chain, he'd likely end up collateral damage.

She released him.

The damn wolf used her lap as a springboard. He sailed through the air and crashed into Oliver's chest. Ripping with sharp claws, Jake latched his jaws on the soft underside of Oliver's throat and sank his teeth in deep.

Screaming, Oliver punched at the wolf, but Jake locked his jaws. Blood dribbled down the
beng's
shirt. Yet none of it slowed him.

Anca jumped to her feet and attacked, combining her efforts with the wolf. She slashed and hacked at Oliver's ankles, finally bringing him to his knees with a crash.

On the other side of the room, Leo screamed.

Anca glanced over to find the kid had returned to the dais, and his fight with Eliza. The girl was pinning him to the wooden platform, gleefully cutting his bared stomach with one of his own knives.

Leo continued fighting, a trained warrior to his core, thanks to his betrayed clan. But his movements were faltering. Crazed blind rage could only take one so far.

The wolf let go of Oliver's throat and yipped at Anca, jerking his head toward Leo and Eliza as if to say,
Go help him
. Then Jake launched himself at the giant once more, forcing the
beng
down onto the floor. The wolf's claws sliced through Oliver's clothes, his skin.

Anca jumped onto the dais. "Leave Leo alone. If you want a fight, you can get one from me. And I guarantee I'll be taking you down."

With a vicious smirk, Eliza plunged Leo's dagger into his stomach. She drew back and blasted him with powerful magic.

The backlash was agonizing over Anca's skin.

Leo fell silent and limp.

Eliza rushed Anca almost too quickly to block. The girl's clawed nails slashed over Anca's wrist as she swung her
saif
.

Her
tată's
magic repelled the evil in the child.

With a short scream, her eyes narrowed and Eliza danced farther back. "Defeated and becoming my pet, or seeing you dead." The child shrugged. "Either way this'll be great fun." Her light giggles sent a shiver tickling Anca's spine.

But she realized something. Just as she used her looks and apparent youth to make others underestimate her, so too did this girl.

Eliza enjoyed playing the part of a laughing, smiling and quite insane child. She used it to unsettle her opponents. To catch them off guard.

"Kill me? Not likely," Anca replied. "And it'll be impossible to control me."

"We'll see," Eliza said, a flicker of knowledge—almost agreement—in the girl's expression.

"I killed your siren. Your sipher is almost out of stolen magic. How do you honestly expect to control me?" Anca punctuated her question with the blade of her sword, cutting into the girl's upper arm.

She pulled the force of the hit at the last second, her mind screaming that she could not harm a child. A pit of horror opened in her gut knowing she'd have no choice.

It was Eliza, or Anca and those she was here to protect.

The hesitation cost her.

Eliza's intense magic pummeled her. Broke Anca's concentration. Another wave, harder, shoved her across the dais. Her feet slipped on the edge. She tumbled onto the ground. A couple brick-like hits to her sternum and Anca found her lungs resisting breath.

The girl followed with slow steps, hitting Anca with her frighteningly strong power, over and over.

Shoved back yet again, Anca came up against the prone form of the wolf, Jake. She barely saw Oliver's blow before he hit the side of her head. Drove her to the ground.

With a smirk, Eliza said, "You won't get away. My people are legion."

Anca spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and pushed herself back up to her feet, clenching the hilt of her sword.

She took a deep, sharply painful breath and replied, "I doubt that."

M
att and Robby raced from the tunnel into a long cavern blocked by brick walls and wooden doors.

Shouting, then a long, shrill scream, came from the only open doorway, to the far left. They rushed inside a narrowly stretching room decorated by tortured captives chained to silk covered walls.

And at the far end, beneath glaring lights, Anca held her curved sword tight and parried a giant of a vampire's oversized bladed staff. The thick wooden polearm was a good five feet long tipped by a sharply glinting four foot blade. Both weapon and vampire were covered in blood. His? Anca's?

She moved with a weariness that spoke of waning energy, helped along by her wounds. But she parried again. Anca darted forward but the giant never gave her time to get inside his defenses.

He blocked her every swing and jab, his polearm always there to stop her strikes.

Fear and worry, rage at the daring of anyone stupid enough to try to harm what was
his,
fired Matt's blood.

Adrenaline filled him with strength.

His senses came alive with the need to protect.

He shoved Robby to a small dark corner near the door. "Stay away from the fight. Anyone comes after you, hide if you can. Run if you must. Got me?"

With a slow nod, the kid sank into a squat and wrapped his arms tight around his stomach, rocking a bit.

Matt didn't like leaving him, but the enemy lay on the other side of the room. As did Anca.

Protect.

Mate.

He wasn't certain of the last part, but he would keep the woman safe, even if it killed him.

Magic thrummed through the air. Anca stumbled closer to the giant. His bladed spear shallowly cut across her stomach. Matt couldn't make out the injury among so many others. Before he knew it, he was halfway down the stretching room.

Anca dodged out of the vampire's reach. Only to come up against a new threat.

Acid churned in Matt's gut at the creepy little girl. Blood stained her chin. Drenched the front of her frou-frou dress.

He ran faster, closing the distance. Magic pulsed over his skin like thousands of fiery biting ants.

Anca faced the child. Their expressions tightened. A battle of wills and magic clashed between them.

Matt jumped behind Anca and raised his borrowed sword, just in time to block the giant's strike at her unprotected back.

Metal clanged. Vibrations raced up Matt's arms numbingly.

The huge vampire grunted. Swung again.

Matt managed to block, but shockwaves raced up his arms again. This wasn't working.

Dropping the sword, he fell into a much more natural fighting stance—for him anyway—and settled his center. Behind him, Anca's breathing sped up. She mumbled something he couldn't hear, then moaned slightly.

The pressure of magic around her and the girl was a sphere shoving out at everyone else.

Then the biting power faded, overcome by a softer magic scented with cherry blossoms. The girl cried out.

Matt's giant opponent paled. Anger and fear sparked in the vampire's eyes. With an ear ringing bellow, he charged.

Gathering his strength, Matt tracked the vampire's steps and charged at the last second. He slapped the polearm to the side. Reached the giant. Attacked with fists and hard boots.

With each pained grunt from the vampire, Matt's strength grew. He pummeled the guy. A knee snapped and the giant screamed, falling to his knees.

The guy grabbed him, clamping Matt in a tight bear hold. Thick arms of pure muscle began to squeeze.

Matt slammed his forehead into the vampire's nose. The guy screamed again. The satisfying crunch didn't get Matt released, so he did it again.

The giant's grip loosened. Matt jerked his arms free and jabbed a fist into the guy's throat.

He let go, choking and gasping for air. But he still struggled to get up.

Anca cried out behind them.

Matt spun, finding the two females still about six feet apart, glaring at each other. The strain of their invisible fight was clear from Anca's sweat dotted brow, her white-knuckled fists.

The giant swatted Matt with a huge fist, sending him crashing to the side. Unable to get to his feet, he crawled to his Mistress. Swiftly nearing Anca, the vampire raised his long bladed staff to attack her unprotected back.

Protective fury surged. Matt flashed to the giant. He gripped the vampire's jaws in his hands, then twisted violently.

A crack of breaking bone snapped through the air. The polearm clattered to the wooden platform.

Matt let the giant drop to the floor. The creature's head rolled to the edge of the dais.

Fiery magic blasted through the room.

Taking a trembling step away from the child, Anca stumbled into Matt.

He grabbed her, held her steady.

The girl cried out harshly. She stared at her fallen guard, then swung a glare to Matt. Magic leapt around them, wild and uncontrolled. The girl knelt next to a body Matt slowly realized was Leo.

She touched his forehead. In a voice, loud and full of immense power, she commanded, "Obey. Rise. Come to me now."

Leo shuddered and began to stand, his movements awkward and stiff.

Before Matt caught himself, he'd taken a small step toward the powerful girl, even though her magic wasn't directed at him.

Then a sinking darkness twisted inside Matt.

Because shuffling footsteps headed their way as Robby also rose. And obeyed.

***

H
eart thudding, Anca moved to stop Robby as he clambered onto the raised dais.

He hissed at her. His blank, crimson eyes held nothing of the boy, only obedience for the command still snapping in the air with heavy magic.

Robby stopped at Leo's side. The two of them created a shield in front of Eliza.

Once more sounding like an innocent child, her voice ringing softly, the girl said, "Neither of you hesitate to destroy those of mine. Will you hurt these who are your own?" She stepped up behind the two guys and stood on her toes, laying her hands on the back of their necks.

Leo and Robby both shuddered at the touch.

Fury rising, Anca stepped forward. "Leave them alone."

"Why should I? Look at all you've stolen from me."

At her side, Matt growled. "From you? How about all the people you Rogues have murdered. What about everyone you've taken from us?"

Her reply chilled Anca further. "Triflings," Eliza said. "Most were weak. Should have been culled from the ranks immediately." The girl peeked around Robby, leaned against his side.

The boy tensed. Groaned softly.

With a glimmer in her eyes, Eliza sing-songed, "My commander lets me take care of them. 'Cause I'm so good at it." She glanced down at her dead lieutenant. Her expression hardened.

"What commander?" Anca asked.

The girl's eyes widened into owlish innocence. "
My
commander, of course, silly."

These Rogues were getting their orders from someone else?

But who? How? Why?

Different thoughts, things she'd heard the past year or so, revolved in her mind. Never quite connected. "Who is your commander?" Anca demanded.

The girl disappeared behind Robby and Leo. "Enough talk."

Before Anca could prepare herself, thick dark magic filled the room. It weighed heavily on all of her senses—a buzz in her ears, a cloying decay in her nose and throat, a cold chill along her skin.

Leo and Robby stared with the need to fight, to drink the blood of one's defeated enemy. A dark bloodlust Eliza was playing with, had unlocked inside them.

Matt told Anca harshly, "Don't kill either of them. Leave Leo to me, you subdue Robby."

"Keep an eye out for any tricks," Anca replied, focusing on the kids in front of Eliza, a good fifteen feet away.

She waited for the girl to order them to attack. It would be easier to split up Leo and Robby once they moved away from her.

Eliza whispered something in a language Anca couldn't place.

Leo's eyes widened. He tensed.

Robby abruptly turned, swinging to his side and facing the right.

Leo followed, turning to stare at Robby's back. Light glinted from a metal blade in Leo's hand. One of his daggers.

Eliza's girlish giggle echoed through the cavern. Plunged through Anca's soul.

Leo raised the blade and reached around Robby. Then he slashed his dagger across the boy's throat, as Eliza had done to his sister.

Robby tumbled to the ground, paling. His lifeblood pooled on the dais.

Matt howled in anguish and leapt at Leo.

For a long moment, Anca saw nothing but Robby, lying in the growing pool of his own blood.

Memories flashed. Her younger brothers and sisters. Tortured by evil mortals. Left dying this same exact way.

Fury spiked inside her like a fever. Rage and disbelief and pain flushed along her nerves. She jerked her gaze from the boy to Eliza.

The girl stood over Robby, staring at his crimson throat, licking her lips.

Anca tightened her grip on the hilt of her
saif
. Flashed to Eliza's side. "Hey, Mistress," she called.

Though she sounded nothing like Oliver, Eliza looked up.

"Surrender or die," Anca stated in a calm but deadly tone.

The girl smiled. "You think you know what's going on. But you know nothing. We are the winning side in this war. Your kind, the Magic Council, are nothing more than pets for the darkness."

At their feet, Robby gasped. He tried to speak but only a gurgle emerged.

Anca snapped.

She shoved all of her magic into her
tată's
sword and swung at the unprotected throat of her enemy. She ignored the fact this creature appeared to be a child.

There had been no innocence or youth inside of her for a very long while.