“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 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.