Beverly Barton - Raintree - Santuary

“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 Raintree, 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.

Midnight. The witching hour. And Mercy was bewitched. Entranced by memories of a chance meeting seven years ago. She had never admitted to another soul how those exhilarating hours haunted her, how often, when she was alone at night, the image of Judah Ansara appeared to her. She had never hated anyone the way she hated him. Or loved anyone so deeply and passionately. In all this time, she hadn’t been able to reconcile her divided feelings. Love and hate. Fear and longing. Even now, she wanted him. Knowing he was an Ansara. Knowing that he didn’t love her, had never loved her. Knowing he planned to fight her-to the death-for Eve.

If only she hadn’t insisted on that vacation alone. One week, all to herself, without Dante and Gideon, without Raintree friends guarding her, out from under Sidonia’s watchful eye. Had that been too much to ask? Aunt Gillian had thought Mercy’s request quite reasonable. As the aged guardian of the sanctuary, she’d known only too well about the great demands on Mercy’s time and talents that lay ahead for her when she became the keeper of the home place.

A great empath herself, Gillian had gifted Mercy with the ability not to sense other people’s thoughts and emotions on a deep level while on her vacation. Like many other gifts, that one had a nine-day shelf-life.

And so Mercy had gone out into the world alone, ready to experience life without the curse of being bombarded by the thoughts and emotions of everyone around her. For those nine days, she wouldn’t be a Raintree princess. She wouldn’t be a talented empath. She could enjoy being young and pretty and unguarded.

Mercy had no way of knowing that with her abilities muted, she would be unable to recognize danger when it swept her off her feet. Literally. A waiter by the pool at the resort where she was vacationing had lost his footing and plunged into a guest, who in turn set off a chain reaction, sending tables, drinks, chairs and people flying. From out of nowhere, someone had swooped Mercy up into his arms, saving her from becoming one more domino-effect casualty.

Wearing a bikini for the first time in her life, Mercy had felt naked as her flesh had pressed against the overpoweringly masculine chest belonging to the man who had rescued her. After grabbing him around the neck and clinging to him, she had gazed into his eyes-as cold and gray as a winter sky. He hadn’t set her on her feet immediately, but had held her, smiling broadly, the warmth of his big, hard body heating her inside and out.