by Linda Howard
Once again shielding herself and ending their mental connection, Mercy jerked free and turned away from him. “I want you to leave as soon as possible. You can’t stay. If the others find out you’re here, you won’t be safe.”
“You can’t protect Eve now without my help,” Judah said.
She whirled back around. “Then go after your brother and…and do whatever you need to do to protect our daughter. I don’t understand why you didn’t kill him just now.”
“Because he wasn’t alone,” Judah said. “I could have easily dispensed with the three he had with him, but…” He hesitated, as if uncertain whether or not to share the information with her. “There were ten others—a tiny band of Ansara who are loyal to my brother—nearby, waiting for Cael to summon them. If I had challenged him to a death-fight, I would have been at a distinct disadvantage.”
“I could have called for help,” Mercy said, then gasped when the absurd reality of the situation hit her. “If I had called in the Raintree who are here at the Sanctuary, you would have been the enemy to them as well as to your brother.”
“I had no desire to be a lone man against a small group of Ansara on one side and Raintree on the other.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We keep Eve safe.”
ELEVEN
Cael and his small band of Ansara warriors arrived at the private compound in a rural area off Interstate 40, between Asheville and the Raintree sanctuary, well before sunset. While the others ate and drank and screwed, psyching themselves up for the battle that was only days away, Cael closed himself off in his private quarters and contemplated his next move. He had leased this property over two years ago, once he had decided on a date for the Ansara attack on the Raintree home place. Slowly, cautiously, secretly, he had combed the world in search of renegade Ansara who would be willing to do his bidding and fight at his side on the chosen day. His army now exceeded a hundred warriors, small in comparison to the number Judah commanded, but adequate for the attack Cael had planned. By Saturday, they would all have arrived here at this secluded retreat, armed and ready for battle.
The element of surprise was essential to the success of his strategy. He would lead an army of Ansara warriors against a handful of visiting Raintree and the lone guardian, Princess Mercy, the Keeper of the Sanctuary. On the day of the summer solstice. Before other Raintree could be summoned, word would already have reached Terrebonne, and all the Ansara warriors would have no choice but to join Cael in the final great battle between the two warring clans. This time the Ansara would be the victors, and they would decimate the Raintree. He would personally kill Judah and his bastard child, Eve; then he would see to it that every Raintree on earth was put to death.
He would rule supreme. His people would hail him as the conquering hero. The Ungifted would become the Ansaras’ slaves and be forced to worship at his feet.
Thoughts of the future were indeed sweet. Victory. Annihilation of the Raintree. Judah slaughtered. The subjugation of mankind.
I will be a true god.
But only when Judah is dead.
Cael cursed loudly as he rammed psychic bolts through the wall, venting his frustration over years of waiting to claim what was rightfully his.
Keeping Judah in the dark about the exact date he planned to strike the sanctuary was vital to his success. His brother might suspect him of treason and probably knew he intended to go to war with the Raintree on his own timetable, but without actual proof, Judah couldn’t bring him before the council and demand his execution.
How auspicious that divine providence had provided such a perfect distraction—little Eve Raintree—to keep his brother’s mind occupied. Judah was the possessive, protective type. A little too noble for Cael’s taste. Like his mother, Seana, that insipid empath their father had chosen as his Dranira, Judah was weak. He chose the old Ansara methods in dealing with others only when all else failed. He was far more businessman than warrior.
Liar! Cael’s inner voice taunted. You wish that Judah was not a true Ansara warrior, but our father trained him well in all things. A Dranir had to be a warrior, a businessman, a true leader capable of judging and executing.
No matter. His brother might be a worthy opponent in combat, but he, Prince Cael, would prove himself superior.
Stay where you are, with your Raintree bitch, and guard little Eve day and night, dear brother. Concentrate solely on keeping her safe from me. And all the while you neglect matters on Terrebonne, I will be assembling my army and spreading anarchy among the Ansara.
We strike the sanctuary on Alban Heruin, when the sun is most powerful and I, too, will be filled with my ultimate strength. I will kill your child and your woman first, so I can have the pleasure of seeing you watch them die. And then I will kill you.
“You can’t allow him to stay here!” Sidonia shouted. “No good will come of it.”
“He needs to be here to protect Eve,” Mercy explained.
“If he’s going to kill his brother anyway, why doesn’t he just go ahead and do it?”
“Lower your voice. Eve might overhear you.”
Sidonia snorted. “Not likely. She’s too wrapped up in spending time with her daddy to be eavesdropping.”
Keeping her voice low and calm, Mercy said, “Cael has a group of friends who guard his back, so until Cael issues Judah a one-on-one challenge, which Judah believes will happen soon, the wisest course is for Judah not to hunt his brother down.”
“For all you know he’s playing you for a fool. Again.” Sidonia’s gaze met Mercy’s. “This could be some sort of ploy to ingratiate himself with you, to show himself in a favorable light, when all he’s doing is buying time to bond with Eve so that when he decides to take her away, she’ll go with him willingly.”
“Judah is bonding with Eve. And he does plan to take her from me,” Mercy said. “But his hatred for his brother and Cael’s threats to Eve are real. I know it.”
Sidonia nodded. “You’ve sensed this, and you are certain?”
“Yes.”
Knowing that Mercy would never lie to her about such a vitally important matter, Sidonia reluctantly agreed. “Very well. Keep him here, and somehow we’ll pass him off as a human visitor when the others ask. For now, you and he will stand against his brother. Then later, when the brother is no longer a threat, you’ll have to fight Judah to save Eve.”
“I know.”
“When that time comes, you’ll need Dante and Gideon.”
“Probably, but not now. Not yet.”
“When? You mustn’t wait until it’s too late.”
“Eve will know when Judah decides to take her. She’ll tell me when it’s time.”
Sidonia’s gaze held numerous questions.
“Eve can’t leave the sanctuary without my knowing in advance what is going to happen,” Mercy said.
Sidonia gasped. “No, tell me you didn’t!”
“I did. I had no choice.”
“But when did you do it? You would have needed another Raintree to help.”
“Eve helped me. When she was only hours old and completely dependent on me. I had no way of knowing if Judah would somehow realize I was carrying his child and come after me—either to kill her or take her. I used the old binding spell because I had no other choice. I had to be able to know at all times where Eve was.”
“If only you had told your brothers who your baby’s father was before she was born, we wouldn’t have to deal with him or his brother now. They would have hunted Judah down and killed him.” Sidonia squinted as she looked soulfully at Mercy. “You poor child. I know. I know. You loved him. You didn’t want him dead.”
“Enough! We’ve had this discussion too many times.”
“You still love him, don’t you?”
“Of course not!”
Sidonia grabbed Mercy’s arm. “What if he wanted you as well as Eve? Would you go with him?”
“Shut up! Stop talking nonsense.” Mercy stormed out of
the kitchen and through the house, stopping only when she reached the open front door and heard Eve’s laughter.
She eased open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. Twilight had settled in around the valley, a pinkish orange glow in the evening sky, a haze of translucent clouds hugging the mountains surrounding them. Out in the middle of the grassy green yard, Judah stood holding a glass jar, holes punched in the metal lid, and watched while Eve chased fireflies. Several little captives already blinked brightly inside the jar.
Eve zeroed in on another lightning bug and caught it between her cupped palms. “I got him! I got him!” She ran to Judah, who opened the jar’s lid a fraction, just enough so that Eve could drop her hostage into the glass prison.
When Eve sensed Mercy’s presence, she looked at her and smiled. “Daddy’s never caught lightning bugs before, not even when he was a little boy. I had to explain that I wouldn’t hurt them, and that after I see how many I can catch, I’ll let them all go free.”
“Well, I believe it’s emancipation time,” Mercy said. “It’s after eight. You need to take a bath before you go to bed, my little princess.”
“No, not yet. Please, just another hour.” Whining, Eve put her hands together in a prayer-like gesture. “Daddy and I are having so much fun.” She turned to Judah. “Aren’t we, Daddy? Tell her. Tell her that I don’t have to go to bed right now.”
Judah handed Eve the jar filled with fireflies. “Let them go.”
Eve tilted her head to one side and stared up at him. “I guess this means I have to do what Mother told me to do.”
He playfully ruffled her hair. “I guess it does.”
Once again, Judah’s actions showed him to be like any other father. How was it possible that an Ansara could be so similar to a Raintree? Perhaps Sidonia was right. Judah could be playing her for a fool, showing her what she wanted to see in him. A false impression.
Reluctantly, Eve unscrewed the lid and shook the jar gently, encouraging the lightning bugs to fly free. When the last one escaped, she walked up on the porch, handed the jar to Mercy and put on her sad face, the one she used to evoke pity.
Heaving a deep sigh, Eve said dramatically, “I’m ready to go—if I have to.”
Mercy barely managed not to smile. “Go inside and let Sidonia help you with your bath. I’ll be up later to kiss you good-night.”
“Daddy, too?”
“Yes,” Judah and Mercy replied simultaneously.
As soon as Eve went into the house, letting the screen door slam loudly behind her, Mercy set the empty Mason jar on the porch and stepped down into the yard. Judah looked up at the sky and the towering hills surrounding them, then settled his gaze on her.
“Nice evening,” he said. “It’s certainly peaceful here in these mountains. Don’t you ever get bored?”
“I stay busy,” she told him.
“Healing the bodies and hearts and minds of your fellow Raintree?”
“Yes, if and when I can. It’s my job as the Keeper of the Sanctuary to use my gifts as an empathic healer to help those who come to me.” Her gaze met his and held. “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you? You knew the day we met that I was the appointed one.”
“The moment I saw your eyes, I knew you were Raintree. I managed to see into your thoughts enough to learn you were a princess and that you were slated to become some sort of guardian,” Judah admitted. “I picked up only fragments of thought before I realized that, for the most part, your thoughts were shielded.”
“You used a shield, too. A powerful shield. I just didn’t realize it at the time,” she said. “I thought it strange that I couldn’t read you at all, that when I touched you, I sensed only that I could trust you. You blocked me completely and then sent me a deceptive message.”
“I did what was necessary in order to get what I wanted.”
“And you wanted me.”
“Very much.”
Why did he make his reply sound as if he were talking about the present and not the past? Even if he did want her now, he wanted only the use of her body, just as he had that night seven years ago.
No, that wasn’t the complete truth. He had wanted more than her body that night. He had wanted to take a Raintree princess’s innocence and make her fall in love with him. He had done both.
“Why didn’t you use protection that night?” Mercy asked.
His mouth curved upward in a sarcastic smirk. “Why didn’t you?”
“I could say that it was because I was young and stupid and got carried away with feelings I’d never experienced. But the truth is that when I knew I was going to spend the night with you, give myself to you…I tried to conjure up a temporary protection spell. Apparently it didn’t work.”
“Apparently.”
“So what’s your excuse?”
“I thought I was protected,” he admitted.
Her eyes widened. “You used a sexual protection spell, too?”
He nodded. “Sort of. A long-term gift that my cousin Claude and I have been exchanging since we were teenagers. It worked perfectly with Ansara and human women.”
“If we were both protected, then how—oh, my God! Sexual protection spells and gifts must not work when a Raintree mates with an Ansara.”
“At least not in our case,” Judah agreed.
“I don’t understand. They should have worked. We should have been protected.”
“The only explanation I can think of is that Eve was meant to be.”
“Are you saying you believe that a higher power ordained Eve’s conception?”
“It’s possible. Perhaps she was born for a specific reason.”
Judah sounded so certain, as if he knew something she didn’t. But that wasn’t possible, was it? He might be a talented Ansara, with many abilities, but he was not a seer who could look into the future.
“Did someone tell you that Eve was destined to—”
“No one knew about Eve’s existence, except for you and Sidonia, until three days ago. How could anyone have told me anything about her?”
“Yes, of course.”
“She’s an amazing child, our little Eve.”
When he stared at Mercy, visually stripping her bare as he so often did, she glanced away. “If by chance you encounter any other Raintree while you’re here, tell them your name is Judah Blackstone, and that you’re an old friend of mine from college. We’ve allowed visitors to come to the sanctuary before, friends of my family who needed the peace and solitude the home place offers. No one will question you further.”
“And if Eve tells someone that I’m her father, how will we handle that?”
“I’ll speak to her and explain that, for the present, we need to keep that fact our little secret.”
“Judah Blackstone, huh?”
“It’s as good a name as any.” She turned and headed toward the front porch steps. “I’m going up to say good-night to Eve. Are you coming with me?”
“Yes, I’m coming with you.” He followed her onto the porch and into the house. Once inside the foyer, he asked, “Did you have an old boyfriend named Blackstone? Do I need to be jealous?”
Taken off guard by his question, she snapped around and scowled at him.
Judah chuckled. “Don’t Raintree have a sense of humor?”
“I don’t see anything humorous in our relationship. You and I are enemies who find ourselves temporarily bound together in a common cause—to save our daughter. But once she is no longer in danger…” Mercy walked away from him, heading for the stairs.
He came up behind her and clutched her elbow. She stopped dead still but didn’t look back at him. Now, as in the past, his touch heated her blood, warming her as if a fire had been lit deep inside her. She tilted her head and glanced over her shoulder. He was too close, his chest brushing against her back.
He leaned his head low and whispered, “When Eve is no longer in danger, you know that you and I can’t share her. She will become either Ansara or R
aintree, the outcome decided by which of us kills the other. That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?”
“If you would swear to go away and leave us alone, to never contact Eve again, it wouldn’t have to end that way. Eve wouldn’t have to grow up knowing her mother killed her father.”
“Or that her father killed her mother.”
Mercy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Judah had no qualms about killing her to obtain custody of his child. If only she were as heartless. If only she could kill him without regrets.
“My sweet Mercy.” Judah snaked his arm around her waist and jerked her roughly against him, her back to his chest, her buttocks to his erection.
No, this couldn’t be. Fight your feelings, she told herself. Don’t succumb to the desire eating you alive, screaming inside you to give yourself to him.
“I find the fact that you are capable of both saving lives and taking them extremely exciting,” Judah told her, his breath hot on her neck. “You, my love, are quite the paradox, a healer and a warrior.” His lips grazed her neck with a series of seductive kisses. “You love me and you hate me. You want me to live and yet you are willing to kill me to save Eve.” His tongue replaced his lips as he painted a damp path from her collarbone to her ear.
Immobilized by her own need, Mercy closed her eyes, savoring this wicked man’s touch. His hand crept upward from the front of her waist to her breast. She shuddered as pure electrical sensation shot through her body. While he kneaded her breast through the barriers of her blouse and bra, his fingertips worked against her nipple.
Whimpering, Mercy rested the back of her head against his shoulder.
Put a stop to this now, the sensible part of her brain demanded. But the needs of her woman’s body overruled common sense.
While his tongue circled her ear, Judah drove his hand between Mercy’s thighs and stroked her intimately through the soft cotton of her slacks and panties. “You belong to me. I own you, Mercy Raintree. You’re mine.”
Mercy cried out, fighting his hypnotic hold over her and her own wanton needs.
Breaking free, she fled, running away from a temptation almost too powerful to deny.
