Raintree: Sanctuary (Raintree 3)

“Uh-uh, mister. That’s not going to work with me.”

“I’m starving. What about you? After the workout we had last night…all night—” he tried using that cocky, aren’t-I-sexy? grin on her “—I need to rebuild my strength.”

Mercy grabbed Judah’s arm. “Answer my question. And so help me, you’d better tell me the truth.”

He didn’t try to veil his thoughts completely, allowing Mercy to momentarily use her empathic ability.

What is the truth between us? We have a child we can’t share. A life we can’t share. I have never wanted another woman the way I want you, have never known such pain or such pleasure. If it were within my power to change the way things are, I would. But I cannot betray my people.

Mercy jerked her hand away, her gaze glued to his face. “You lied to me. You are the Ansara Dranir.”

“Yes, I am, and Eve is an Ansara princess, heir to the throne. According to our great seer, Sidra Ansara, Eve was born for my people. That’s why I rescinded the ancient decree to kill all mixed-breed children—to protect my daughter.”

“No! Eve is my daughter. My baby. She’s a Raintree.” Eve’s words echoed inside Mercy’s head. I was born for the Ansara. “Only a few dozen Ansara were left alive after The Battle. Just how many Ansara are there now? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?”

“Don’t do this,” Judah told her. “It serves no purpose, and it changes nothing.”

“My God, how can you say that? The Raintree have believed that the Ansara were scattered over the earth and—no, no!”

She backed away from him, her eyes bright with fear. “I worried about how my giving birth to a half Ansara child would affect me, but when I saw no visible signs all these years, I assumed I was for the most part unaffected, but now…”

“You’re wondering how much if any Ansara there might be in you, since you gave birth to the Ansara Dranir’s child. I don’t know, but my guess is none. You seem to have remained totally Raintree.”

“But it’s possible I was somehow affected and I’m not aware of it. When a Raintree woman takes a human mate, he does not become Raintree, but when a woman gives birth to a Raintree child, she becomes Raintree. It stands to reason that when a woman gives birth to an Ansara child, especially the child of the Dranir, it would somehow change her.”

Mercy knew that she could no longer keep Eve’s paternity a secret. If she had even suspected that Judah was the Ansara Dranir, she would have gone to Dante and told him the truth years ago. Was it too late now? It couldn’t be coincidence that the Ansara Dranir had come to the sanctuary and saved her from one of his own. One of Cael’s followers had tried to kill her, but Judah had stopped him. Why? Not because he loved her.

“Cael wants to be Dranir,” Mercy said. “That’s why he intends to kill you. And Eve. He can’t allow your daughter to live, because even if she is half Raintree, she threatens his claim on the throne. My God, it all makes sense now. My child is at the center of an Ansara civil war.”

“Don’t do anything rash,” Judah said. “I swear to you that keeping Eve safe is my number one priority. I won’t let Cael hurt her.”

“You’ve brought this evil here to us!” Mercy screamed. “If you’d never come to the sanctuary, if you’d stayed away…”

“You would be dead,” Judah told her. “Greynell would have killed you.”

“Why did you stop him from killing me?”

Judah hesitated, a look of anguish in his cold, gray eyes. “No other Ansara has the right to kill you.”

Mercy couldn’t breathe. Her pulse pounded in her head, and for a millisecond she thought she might faint. “I understand. Dranir Judah had already claimed me as his kill.”

Sidonia’s screams echoed up the stairs, down the hall and through the open door to Mercy’s bedroom.

“Eve!” Mercy cried as she ran past Judah on her way out of the room.

Judah followed her down the backstairs. When they entered the kitchen, they instantly saw what had frightened Sidonia. Levitating several feet off the floor in the middle of the kitchen, Eve hung in midair, her mouth open, her little body stiff, and rotating slowly around and around. Her long, willowy hair floated straight up, parting in the back to reveal a glimpse of the blue crescent moon birthmark that branded her an Ansara. Her eyes faded from Raintree green to shimmering yellow-brown, then back to green. Soft, golden light twinkled on each of her fingertips.

Mercy rushed toward her daughter but couldn’t touch her. A barrier of some kind protected Eve, sealing her off completely from everything around her.

Judah shoved Mercy out of the way, and he, too, tried to breach the shield around Eve. “It’s impenetrable.”

“This has never happened to her before,” Mercy said. “Is Cael doing this? Are you doing it?”

“No, I don’t think this is Cael’s handiwork. And I swear to you that I’m not doing it.” He stared at their child, who was deep in the throes of some unknown type of transformation. “Maybe it has something to do with Sidra’s prophecy.”

Grabbing Judah’s arm, Mercy demanded, “What about the prophecy?”

“He’s trying to change her.” Sidonia pointed a bony finger at Judah. “He’s drawing the Raintree out of her. You see the way her eyes are going from green to gold.”