“I’m not talking to him,” Eve said. “I promise.”
“Then how do you know that he’s sad?”
“I just know.” She placed her hand over her heart. “In here. The way I sometimes just know things. He needs you, Mother. Go to him.”
So here she was, sent off by her daughter on a quest of compassion. But when she found Judah, would he accept her comfort, or would he turn her away?
There was no point in wasting time taking useless routes that wouldn’t lead her to Judah. She used all her senses to home in on his location. Once she picked up on his presence, she followed the energy trail left by his powerful aura.
She found him alone and lost in his own thoughts, sitting on one of several stone boulders in an isolated clearing deep within the woods.
“Judah?”
He turned his head and looked at her, but said nothing.
She took several hesitant steps toward him. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Why are you here?”
“Eve sent me. She’s concerned about you. She said you were sad.”
“Go back to the house. Tell Eve that I’m fine.”
“But you’re not. Eve is right, something is wrong, and—”
Using a psychic thrust, Judah shoved Mercy backward, just enough to warn her off but not knock her down. She staggered for only a second.
“I get the message,” she told him.
“Then leave me alone.”
“Is it Cael? Has something happened? If you’ll tell me, I can help.”
“Leave me!” Judah shot up off the boulder, hell’s fury in his eyes. “I don’t want you.” As he came toward her, he pinned her to the spot, and she didn’t try to break through the invisible bonds that kept her from moving. “I don’t need you. Damn you, Mercy Raintree!”
Judah grabbed her shoulders and shook her as frustration and anger and passion drove him hard. She felt what he felt and realized that he hated her for making him care.
“My poor Judah.”
He clutched her face between his open palms and ravaged her with a possessive kiss. Swept up by the passion neither of them could deny, Mercy surrendered herself. Heart. Mind. Body.
And soul.
FIFTEEN
Sunday, 11:08 a.m.
The Summer Solstice
Eve bounced onto the foot of Mercy’s bed and whispered loudly, “I’ve been up for hours, Mommy. Are you and Daddy going to sleep all day?”
Mercy’s eyes flew open. Startled by her daughter’s cheerful greeting, she woke from a deep, sated sleep. “Eve?”
Wiggling around, making her way up the bed to position herself between Mercy and Judah, Eve spoke a bit louder now that she had roused her mother. “Sidonia told me not to disturb you, but I got tired of waiting, so I sneaked up the back stairs when she wasn’t looking.”
“What the hell?” Judah cracked open one eye and then the other. “Eve?” He shot straight up in bed, exposing his naked chest.
As Mercy lifted herself into a sitting position, the sheet covering her slipped, and she suddenly remembered that she was as naked as Judah. She grabbed the edge of the sheet and yanked it up to cover her breasts.