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When Sidonia came forward, intending to grab the child, the little girl lifted her arm and held her tiny hand in front of the old woman, who went deadly still, immobilized by magic.
Amazing. The child’s abilities were greatly advanced for one so young.
“You’re very powerful, little one,” Judah said. He had never known an Ansara or a Raintree to possess so much power at such a young age. “I don’t know of any five-year-olds capable of—”
“I’m six,” she told him, her shoulders straight, her head held high. A true princess.
“Hmm…But even at six, you are far more advanced than other Raintree children, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Yes. Because I am more than Raintree.”
“Are you indeed?” He glanced at the stricken expression on Sidonia’s partially frozen face and realized that not only had the girl immobilized the old woman’s limbs, she had rendered her temporarily mute.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” the little girl asked. When she smiled at him, Judah’s gut tightened. There was something strikingly familiar about her smile.
“I believe you’re Mercy Raintree’s child, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, his curiosity piqued by the child’s precocious nature. He sensed an unnatural strength in her…and a kinship that wasn’t possible.
She nodded again, her smile widening. “Yes, I know.”
This child could not possibly know who he was. He kept his true identity protected from all who were not Ansara. “If you know who I am, what is my name?”
“I don’t know your name,” she admitted.
Judah sighed inwardly, relieved that he had overestimated the child’s abilities and had been mistaken about the momentary sense of a familial bond. Oddly drawn to the little girl, he approached her, knelt on his haunches so that they were face-to-face and said, “My name is Judah.”
She held out her little hand.
He looked at her offered hand. Oddly enough, the thought of killing this child—Mercy’s child—saddened him. He would make sure her death was as quick and painless as Mercy’s.
He took her hand. An electrical current shot through Judah, unlike anything he had ever experienced. A raw, untamed power of recognition and possession.
“Hello, Daddy. I’m your daughter, Eve.”
An earsplitting scream shook the semi-dark bedroom as Mercy Raintree woke from her healing sleep.
THREE
The sound of her own scream resounded inside Mercy’s head, and for a split second she thought she was dreaming that her worst nightmare had come true. As the echoes of her terrified scream shivered all around her, remnants of a fear beyond bearing, she awoke to the reality of her nightmare. Her eyes opened and quickly adjusted to the semidarkness around her.
“Mommy!” Eve’s concerned cry prompted Mercy into immediate action. Telepathically, she called her child to her, and within seconds she rose from the bed and took her daughter into her protective embrace.
“What’s wrong, Mother?” Eve asked. “You mustn’t be afraid.”
The moment Mercy had prayed would never come was here, descending upon them like an evil plague from the depths of hell. Judah Ansara, a true prince of darkness, stood hovering over her and Eve, his icy gray eyes staring at her, questioning her, demanding answers.
“Sidonia?” Mercy said, fearing that Judah had disposed of her beloved nanny.
“Oh!” Eve gasped, then eased out of Mercy’s arms, turned and waved her hand.
Mercy followed her child’s line of vision to where Sidonia’s body came to life, having been released from its immobile state. “Eve, did you…?”
“I’m sorry, Mother, but Sidonia didn’t want me to meet my daddy. She tried to stop me from talking to him.”
Mercy’s gaze reconnected with Judah’s. Those cold eyes shimmered with hot anger.
