Cael realized that he must speak, must react with outrage, lest suspicion fall immediately upon him. “Are you implying that someone on the council…?”

“I imply nothing.” Judah speared Cael with his deadly glare. “But rest assured, brother, that I will discover the identity of the person who sent Stein to do his dirty work, and when the time is right, I will have my revenge.” As Judah rubbed his bloody shoulder, a fresh red stain appeared on his shirt.

“My God, you’re still bleeding.” Claude went to Judah, his gaze thoroughly scanning Judah ’s big body for signs of other injuries.

“A few knife wounds. Nothing more,” Judah said. “Stein was a remarkable opponent. Whoever chose him, chose well. Only a handful of Ansara warriors have battle skills that equal mine. Stein came close.”

“No one has your level of abilities,” Councilman Bartholomew said, as he and the other council members surrounded Judah. “You are superior in every way.”

“If your battle with Stein was at dawn, why are you still bloody and disheveled?” Alexandria asked. “Couldn’t you have bathed and changed clothes before the meeting?”

Judah laughed, the sound deep, coarse and mirthless. “Once my men disposed of Stein’s body and the body of his accomplice, the whore Drusilla, I intended to bathe and make myself presentable, but a telephone call from the United States -from North Carolina -interrupted my plans. What I learned from the conversation required immediate action. I spoke directly with Varian, the head of the Ansara team assigned to monitor the Raintree sanctuary.”

The council members murmured loudly, and then elderly Councilwoman Sidra spoke for the others. “Tell us, my lord, was the call concerning the Raintree?”

Judah nodded; then again cast his gaze directly on Cael. “Your protégé, Greynell, is in North Carolina.”

“I swear to you-”

“Do not swear a lie!”

Cael trembled with fear, all the while hating himself for cowering in the wake of his brother’s fury. Squaring his shoulders and looking Judah directly in the eyes, Cael faced the Dranir’s wrath. He reminded himself that he was an equal, that he was the elder son and deserved to rule the Ansara, that the failure of his most recent plot to dethrone his brother did not mean that he was not destined to rule. Regardless of what Judah said or did, he could not stop the inevitable. Not now. It was too late.

“Did you know that Greynell had gone to North Carolina?” Judah demanded.

“I knew,” Cael admitted. “But I didn’t send him. He acted on his own.”

Judah growled. “And you know what his mission is, don’t you?”

Cael wished that he could destroy his brother here and now and be done with it. But he dared not act. When Judah died, his blood should not be on Cael’s hands.

“Yes, my lord, I know that some of the young warriors grow restless. They don’t want to wait to wage war on the Raintree. A few have taken it upon themselves to act now instead of waiting until you tell them the time is right.”

Judah swore vehemently. The windows shivered and cracked. Fireballs rained down from the ceiling. The marble floor beneath their feet shook, and the walls trembled.

Claude placed his meaty hand on Judah ’s shoulder and spoke softly to him. The shaking council chambers settled suddenly, the fires burning throughout the room died down, and the broken glass windowpanes jangled loudly as they fell out and hit the floor.

Judah breathed heavily. “Greynell is on a mission to penetrate the Raintree home place, their sanctuary.”

Cael swallowed hard.

“Who is his target?” Judah demanded.

Did he lie and swear he did not know? Or did he confess? Cael could feel Judah probing his mind, searching for a way to penetrate the barrier he barely managed to keep in place. If he himself were not so powerful, he could never withstand his brother’s brutal psychic force.

“Mercy Raintree.” Cael spoke the name with reverence. The woman might be a Raintree, but her abilities were legendary among the Ansara as well as her own people. She was the most powerful empath living today.

Judah ’s nostrils flared. “Mercy Raintree,” he said, his voice deadly calm and chillingly restrained, “is mine. I claimed her. She is my kill.”

Sunday, 9:15 a.m.

Sidonia busied herself with breakfast preparations as she did every morning, moving slowly about the big kitchen. Like the other rooms in the old house, the kitchen had been constructed two hundred years ago, when the Raintree first settled in the hills of North Carolina. Shortly after The Battle. Dante and Ancelin Raintree had claimed nine hundred and ninety-nine acres of wilderness, establishing a home place for the Raintree clan, a safe haven where they could recuperate and rebuild after the ravaging war with the Ansara. Over the years, the house had been remodeled numerous times, but some things never changed around here, such as honor, duty and the love of family.

The main house sat atop one of the foothills, surrounded by the forest, with spring-fed streams, ancient trees and an abundance of wildlife. Originally built of wood and rock, the house had been bricked a hundred years ago and wings added to the original structure. Two dozen cottages dotted the landscape within the boundaries of the safe haven, some occupied by relatives, many empty a good part of the time but kept ready for visiting members of the Raintree clan. Family was always welcome.

Sidonia, a distant relative of the royal family, had come to work for them when she’d been a girl of eighteen, brought into the household of Dranir Julian when his wife, Vivienne, was carrying their first child. Young Prince Michael had been an only child for many years, and he had bonded with Sidonia so much that she became like a second mother to him. It was only natural that when he grew to manhood, married and became a father, he chose her to be the nanny for his own children. And when her Michael and his beloved Catherine had been brutally murdered seventeen years ago, it had fallen to her to look after the royal siblings-Dante, Gideon and Mercy.

Dante now lived in Reno, Nevada, owned a gambling casino and was still single, despite knowing full well he was expected to produce an heir. As the Dranir, he oversaw the Raintree clan and handled the clan’s finances, having almost doubled the family’s vast wealth during the past ten years. His younger brother, Gideon, lived in Wilmington and worked as a police detective. Gideon, too, was single and had made it perfectly clear to one and all that he did not intend to marry and most certainly would never father a child. Mercy remained at the Sanctuary as its keeper. Like her great-aunt Gillian before her, Mercy had been born a powerful empath, and so it fell to her to be the family’s guardian, the caretaker of all things Raintree.

The nine hundred and ninety-nine acre refuge lay on a fault line, and whenever there were any shifts in the earth, any small tremors or minor earthquakes, those forces of nature simply spread out and went around the shielded sanctuary. But the Raintree absorbed the energy produced by the earth’s numerous little hiccups. Long ago, a triad of royal Raintrees had placed a cloak of protection about the land, and, yearly, Mercy and her brothers renewed that ancient spell on the day of the Vernal Equinox in early spring. Only someone possessing magic power equal to or greater than the Raintree royals could ever penetrate the invisible barrier that shielded the sanctuary from outsiders.

Sidonia shivered as she recalled the frightening tales of the Ansara and the legend of The Battle that had wiped the evil warrior clan from the face of the earth. All except a handful who had escaped, never to be heard from again.

Rolling out biscuit dough, Sidonia pretended not to see the small child tiptoeing into the room. Perhaps it was the weakness of approaching old age-after all, she was eighty-five now-but she loved this little girl with a devotion that was almost sinful. Princess Eve Raintree, a beautiful, charming, precocious imp, had stolen Sidonia’s heart the first moment she laid eyes on her. Princess Mercy had given birth at home, in her bedroom upstairs, only she and Sidonia present, as Mercy had wished. Her labor had been hard, but not difficult. Her child had come into the world a perfect specimen of feminine beauty, with her mother’s golden hair and delicate features. And with the be witching green Raintree eyes, a dominant hereditary characteristic that marked the ones who possessed such eyes as true Raintrees.