Coldstorm (Heart of a Vampire, Book 7) (25 page)

But it was over now.

And the depths of the chasm opening between them, a matching pit inside her, were startling in their enormity.

Though neither of them moved, distance grew.

Suddenly self conscious, Anca crossed her arms over her breasts and half turned away. The day lost all warmth, leaving only a lonely wind to whisper around her.

Matt's growl was soft, but empty. "You knew how I felt about
Judges
," he spat the last word. "Why would you lie about it? How could you hide such a thing? From me?"

Unable to deal with the pain trying to fill her, Anca called on centuries of training, of neutrality. She straightened and gave him a cold look devoid of the emotions and feelings rioting inside her. "Your King told me not to inform you."

And once she'd gotten to know Matt, she'd understood how he'd close her out, permanently, when he learned the truth. A fact that, as time had passed, she'd stopped thinking, worrying, over. Forgotten about with everything else happening, so swiftly, so unavoidably.

Matt's sneer was cutting. "Since when do you follow the orders of anyone but your damned Council?" His eyes turned impossibly hard, angry.

Gritting her teeth against the things stampeding through her, Anca struggled to close her feelings away. Otherwise, the apology on the tip of her tongue just might slip out.

She would not apologize for who she was. Nor did she like being on the defensive. Biting back the many things she wanted to say, but could not, she replied just as coldly, "It kept you close enough that I could investigate you, didn't it?" Never mind that she'd come to enjoy his company. Yearn for it. For him.

Matt's shocked, hurt expression nearly undid her. "Investigate me?"

"You have a traitor in the clan." She was forced to glance away before she broke down. Did something stupid. Like cry. "I owe you no allegiance, therefore I kept my secrets."

Să te ia dracu
. The devil take it all. She was a Judge, here for the Magic Council. Not for this man, no matter the things he made her feel. She'd forgotten that somewhere along the way. And this was what she got for it.

For letting her shields down. For coming to care about this man.

Anca desperately clenched at anything that didn't hurt. The numbness. The anger at anyone causing her to doubt herself.

His expression turned harsher. "All this time and you'd hide what you are? You'd let me—" He bit off his words.

Let him what? She yearned to know what he'd been about to say. Not that it mattered to her.

Not in the slightest.

Stiffening, he drew down a mantle of inner strength. His aura spat waves of anger. "You'd let me fuck you, knowing how I feel about your kind?"

"My kind?" She stood up. "My kind just saved you, your town, your people. But hey, we're all evil monsters, right?"

Shock crossed his face at the illogic of his statement.

She stared him down. "You really are an idiot, you know that?"

His eyes flared wide and she read the war between hatred and the possibility that had been rising between them. A connection now severed.

After a long, tense moment of silence, Anca said, "I'm getting dressed."

Matt didn't reply.

She moved behind a few bushy trees where she'd left her clothes hanging, and slipped them on. Her thoughts sinuously twisted and looped and knotted. Around things she didn't know how to deal with.

All she could do right now was block it out.

Force it away.

She gritted her teeth and straightened. There was nothing to say, except goodbye.

Anca strode back to the beach, ready to tell him she no longer needed his help.

Matt was gone.

He'd left her. Without another word.

Sinking a fang into her tongue, she concentrated on the pain—the coppery taste in her mouth hid lingering hints of male and whiskey—trying to convince herself that nothing else viciously hurt.

Certainly not a suddenly hollow spot in her chest.

She didn't need Matt.

She'd learned to not need anyone on the day she'd been forced to watch her young sister, and the last of her family, fully descend into the bloodlust of a child vampire.

The same day Anca broke her promise to protect and save the girl who'd once turned to her with love.

She knew why such memories, usually locked away tight, returned with such ferocity. The weakness rampaging through her from Matt's rejection held a touch of the same desperate agony she'd felt back then.

She hated the idea. That he could mean so much to her. It wasn't possible.

So his leaving was for the best. The ties that had, for such a short time, lit between them, now lay dull and lifeless.

She couldn't deal with this.

Not right now.

There was a job to do. People to protect. As she'd spent her life trying to accomplish. Always unable to fully assuage her guilt for failing those dearest her.

Anca walked back to camp, barely seeing the earth spirits, their movements slow, their magic dim, as if they too could feel the encompassing emotions trying to swallow her up.

Feelings she'd learned in the past to ignore. To push back until they faded.

Just as she'd do this time, until she could no longer feel the pain.

***

M
att strode through the forest, kicking at the rocks and sticks in his path. Without thought, he rubbed at his chest. Maddened, he wanted only to rampage, to decimate the trees around him, reduce them to splinters.

His mind replayed over and over, everything they'd just done, reminding him far too well how Anca fit perfectly in his arms. How she'd tasted of ambrosia. Being inside her had felt right. As if she was where he belonged.

Reality crashed down once more. The stinging buzz of a Judge's power continued to bite at his skin.

A damned Judge.

The spearing ache in his heart flared icily.

Why did she have to be the one thing he despised above all else?

He kicked another rock. It whizzed through the air, then ricocheted off a tree, leaving a patch of white in the bark.

How could she, and his King, have kept such a thing from him?

Shaking his head so hard his vertebrae popped, Matt strode faster, not caring his steps echoed with every thud of boots on dirt, with every crinkling leaf he destroyed.

She was a damn Judge.

His time as a vampire had taught him the horrors of the Arcaine. And their supposed officials, making Laws their executioners happily enforced.

She might look beautiful and innocent, but she'd surely killed. Many.

Perhaps countless.

How many of them hadn't deserved to die?

And investigating
him
? As if he'd ever betray someone. He'd never keep heartbreaking secrets to himself, either. He wouldn't lie just to get a job done.

The way she'd been acting since her arrival had been a ruse. Perhaps everything she'd told him had been lies. Including how the Council hadn't actually sanctioned the unforgiveable actions of Coronado or the other Judges gone Rogue in Spain.

In reality, Anca didn't care about anyone in town. She didn't care about the clan.

She sure as hell didn't care about him.

The little air in his lungs whooshed out and he couldn't draw in another breath. For a long moment, he struggled against crushing weight.

He had to get this under control. There was no time to be distracted by a damn
Judge
. She'd finish up her job, kill anyone else who got in her way, and leave as abruptly as she'd shown up. Days. A few weeks at the most. She'd be gone.

He'd never see her again.

So why didn't the thought bring comfort?

Anca was a Judge.

Therefore she was nothing to him.

After a few deep breaths, he managed to shove it all back enough to think. He grasped at gossamer strands of coherence, focusing on anything that didn't hurt.

Like his fury.

At the edge of the forest, the wind stirred, blocking him. The earth's magical spirits tried to push him back the way he'd come.

Tried to lead him back to
her
.

"I'm going home."

They circled him, bringing warmth, like a soothing hug.

Startled, he didn't move. His emotions mellowed. The rage dimmed, as if the spirits wanted to comfort and calm him.

Then it stopped, the air becoming nothing more than oxygen that let him pass. He continued on, unsure what to think, knowing only he couldn't stay here.

And yet, with a shocking clarity, he knew he'd never be able to forget the way she'd felt in his arms. Never forget her taste, wildness and heat.

Matt reached his truck and sighed wearily. Now wasn't the time to confront his King. Nor would Jordan allow Matt to help with the futile search.

Not when he was supposed to be helping the
Judge
.

A harsh growl crawled up his chest, caught in the back of his throat. He struggled internally, caught between duty and the repulsion he felt at even being near her at the moment.

He shoved it all into the deepest recesses of his thoughts—the same place where agony dwelled waiting to bring forth long ago memories of his friends, his family. His children. All of them slain by another of the Council's damned Judges.

Thankfully numb, almost deadened, Matt climbed into his SUV and drove home.

He'd simply ignore everything wrong at the moment.

The woman. The ghosts of his clan seeming to flock to him lately, morose spirits, with blank empty gazes that still managed to beg for help. To find them vengeance.

Help he hadn't been able to provide.

Matt forced himself to concentrate only on the here and now.

He'd go to the hospital. Get some work done. Check on his few patients. There were always things needing done there.

And work would blessedly relieve his mind of all the rest.

H
ours later, surrounded by the quiet night, Anca found herself once again far too restless.

Pacing the confines of her tent didn't keep her occupied enough to ignore the burning in her chest. At the back of her throat. Or the impulse to run after Matt and apologize for keeping the entire truth from him.

Instead, she grabbed some supplies and headed into town. She was in Arizona to get a job done, not moon over one of the local vampires. Even if he was the most enthralling man she'd ever had the misfortune to meet.

But this was for the best. If her heart hurt and her stomach twisted now, then it was a for the best that things hadn't gone further between them.

The forest stirred with the earth's spirits. They rose around her, and suddenly she was wrapped by Matt's masculine scent.

A heavy voice whispered on the wind, "
Hope. Love. Fate.
"

Shaking her head violently, Anca backed away and fled the trees, for the safer, silent town.

She parked at the diner. Going on nearly ten the lot was half empty. Though her stomach grumbled silently, Anca didn't go inside. She strode down the sidewalk, intent on checking the dump sites. One more time. They were the only leads she had at the moment.

Unfortunately.

But if she could just find something, anything, she'd be able to wrap this job up. Then, the only thing left would be helping the local Keeper cleanse the land. The earth, its spirits.

After that was done, there would be nothing, and no one, keeping her here.

She tracked the sites through town. After the third time finding the Rogue's trails, even colder and more faded then earlier, Anca hunched her shoulders and hurried faster to the next scene.

Still nothing.

It had probably been a false hope to think she'd find something new. But what else was there for her to do? Sit around and wait for the Rogues to kill again? That didn't help anyone, least of all her conscience.

She hit the next couple sites, both more recent. No clues jumped out at her, flashing in neon and calling her name. Nothing gave answers or pointed to where she should look next.

An almost anxious urgency pushed harder. Faster.

She had to find something and soon. Anca neared the next nearest scene, the one from the previous morning, seeming so long ago. It had held the clearest, most recent imprints.

Police tape remained to block the alleyway. Anca ducked beneath it and moved into the shadows between the buildings.

Still nothing new.

The anxiety flooding her, buzzing along her nerves, forced her even faster.

Everything inside, all the strange and painful things roiling inside her, refused to be ignored. Made her thoughts a confused jumble. A touch of panicky desperation plucked at her senses.

Where to go? The next closest scene? Or follow one of the two trails the Rogues had left, leading from this site. One had stopped at a dead end in the middle of town, on a busy street. The other had led her and Matt to the forest. The wolves.

She'd seen how well that worked out.

The clan vampires were currently combing the forest and massive cave system for signs of the Rogues. Anca didn't want to run into that mess. She worried her lower lip between her teeth, debating what to do. Which wasn't like her.

She made snap decisions, then acted on them.

Always.

It was what made her a successful Judge.

And one still alive.

Hemming and hawing, stuck in a minefield of confused thoughts and unable to settle on a course of action could easily get her killed if it happened at the wrong moment.

Goading herself with the danger of death or shame—she wasn't quite certain which would be worse—Anca settled on a decision.

Her stomach continued to twist acidically.

She picked up the magic of the Rogues and the trail leading to the center of town. Though she doubted anything would come of it, there was the slightest chance she might see something she'd missed earlier.

And if not, well, it was only a little out of the way of yet another scene of death. She tracked the faded, barely there silvery threads. From the corner of her vision, she spotted and ignored the flickering glow of a handful of earth spirits tagging along. They couldn’t tell her anything more than she could already see herself.