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“No, I don’t believe you. You knew someone was going to…You came here to save me, didn’t you? But I don’t understand.” How would Judah have known her life was in danger? And why would he bother to come to the hills of North Carolina to save her, a Raintree princess?
“Why would I not save the mother of my child?”
“You didn’t know Eve existed. Not until you came here. Not until she introduced herself to you.”
“Why I came here is not important,” Judah said. “Not now. All that matters is the fact that you gave birth to my child and have kept her from me for six years. How could you have done that?”
Mercy laughed, the sound false and nervous. “Eve is my child. It doesn’t matter who her father is.” Oh, God, if only that were true. If only…
Judah growled, the sound as bestial as the man himself. No matter what, she could never allow herself to see him as anything other than what he was—an Ansara demon. It did not matter that even now, knowing him for who and what he was, she found herself drawn to him on a purely sexual level. He possessed a power over her that she could not deny. But she could—and would—resist.
Judah scanned Mercy from head to toe, his gaze appreciative and sensual.
“The protective spell you cast over Eve must be very powerful, one that takes a great deal of your strength to keep in place.”
Mercy shivered. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Eve. She is—”
“She is an Ansara.”
“Eve is a Raintree princess, the granddaughter of Dranir Michael, the daughter of Princess Mercy.”
“A rare and highly unique child,” Judah said. “There has been no mixing of the bloodlines for thousands of years, not since the first great battle when all Ansara and Raintree became sworn enemies. Any mixed-breed offspring have been disposed of before birth or as infants.”
“If there is one drop of decency in you, you will not claim her,” Mercy said. “If she is forced to choose between two heritages, it could destroy her. And you know, as well as I do, that your people would never accept her. They would try to kill her.”
Judah’s smile sent waves of terror through Mercy. “Then you admit that she is mine.”
“I admit nothing.”
Judah reached out and grabbed her by the back of her neck, his large hand clasping forcefully, his thick fingers threading through her hair. If she chose to do so, she could battle him here and now, both physically and mentally. But she had learned at a young age to choose her battles, to save her strength for the moments of greatest need. Standing her ground, neither resisting nor accepting his hold on her, Mercy faced her deadly enemy.
“When did you realize I was Ansara?” Judah asked.
“The moment I conceived your child,” she admitted.
His hold tightened as he brought her closer, then lowered his head until only a hairsbreadth separated his lips from hers. “That must have been the last time we had sex. If it had been before, any of the other times, you would have left me sooner.”
I didn’t leave you even then, the last time, when your seed took root within me and I knew that I would give birth to an Ansara. I stayed with you until you fell asleep, assisted by an ancient sleep spell that Sidonia had taught me. And when I knew you would not awaken for hours, I searched and found the mark of the Ansara on your neck, hidden by your long hair.
Judah brushed her lips with his. She sucked in a deep gulp of air.
“I knew you were Raintree from the moment I saw you,” he said. “I disregarded my better judgment, which told me to avoid you, that you were trouble. But I couldn’t resist you. You were the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.”
And I couldn’t resist you. I wanted you the way I’d never wanted another man. You were a stranger, and yet I gave myself to you.
I loved you.
Even now, Mercy found it difficult to admit the complete truth, because it was so heinous. The very thought that she had fallen in love with an Ansara was an abomination, a betrayal of her people, an unforgivable treachery.
And if Dante and Gideon ever learned that their beloved niece was half Ansara…
“You were a delightful amusement,” Judah told her, his breath hot against her lips. “But don’t think that I’ve given you a second thought in the past seven years. You were nothing to me then, and are nothing to me now. But Eve…”
Fear boiled fiercely within Mercy, a mother’s protective fear for her child. “The only way you can claim Eve is to kill me.”
“I could kill you as easily as I squash an insect beneath my feet.”
His words proclaimed indifference, but his actions spoke a different language. Judah took Mercy’s mouth in a possessive, conquering kiss that startled her and yet stirred to life the hunger she had known only for this man. She tried to resist him but found herself powerless. Not against his strength, but against her own need.
