“You may wish me dead, but you won’t kill me.” His cold stare pinned her to the spot. “And I won’t kill you. Not until I’ve fucked you again.”
TEN
Judah had spent the entire morning with Eve. Under Mercy’s supervision, of course. She had tried to stay in the background, at least part of the time, but she didn’t trust Judah enough to leave her daughter alone with him. Watching father and daughter together exposed her to a side of Judah that she hated to admit existed. In his fascination with and adoration of his child, Judah seemed no different than any Raintree father. He played games with Eve, read to her, ate a mid-morning snack of fruit, cheese and crackers with her, and watched as she tested several of her powers. He instructed her on how to channel her abilities and use them properly. He praised her when she succeeded, and when she failed, he told her that she simply needed more practice.
Kindness, patience and the ability to love were not traits she would ever have associated with Judah Ansara. Since she had fled from his bed that morning seven years ago, she had thought of him as a charmer, a seducer, an uncaring, unfeeling son of a bitch. She had hated him for being an Ansara, a clan she had been taught from childhood were the spawn of the devil.
“Let’s go on a picnic,” Eve insisted when Sidonia had inquired if “that man” would be staying for lunch.
“Eve, honey, I don’t think-” Mercy tried to object.
“A picnic is a great idea.” Judah winked at Eve. “Why don’t you and I raid the kitchen and put our picnic lunch together while your mother changes clothes.”
Mercy glanced down at her attire: neat navy gabardine trousers, a tan cotton sweater, and sensible navy loafers. What was wrong with what she was wearing?
As if reading her mind-God, had he?-Judah said, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in jeans or shorts?”
“Yeah, Mommy. Put on shorts like I’ve got on.”
“I’ll change before we leave.” Mercy recognized defeat and accepted it, at least on this one issue. “For now, I’ll go with y’all to kitchen and help fix our picnic lunch.” In her peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of Sidonia shaking her head disapprovingly.
Half an hour later, Mercy, in cut-off jeans and a red T-shirt, found herself sitting on an old quilt spread out under a huge oak tree in the middle of a nearby meadow. Not a single cloud marred the crisp blue sky. The afternoon June sun filtered through the tree branches, dappling golden shards of light around and over them.
Eve chattered away as she munched on her chicken salad sandwich and potato chips. Judah got a word in edgewise occasionally and seemed amused by his magpie daughter’s endless babble. Several times during the meal, Mercy noticed Judah checking his wristwatch. And when he thought she wasn’t looking, he stared at her. She pretended not to notice the way he was studying her.
After gobbling up two chocolate chip cookies and washing them down with milk from her thermos, Eve bounded up off the quilt and looked from Judah to Mercy. “I want to practice some more.” She ran several yards away and said, “Watch, Mother. Look at me, Daddy.”
Without waiting for permission, Eve concentrated very hard, and gradually her feet lifted off the ground a few inches. Then a foot. Two feet. Three feet.
“Be careful,” Mercy cautioned.
“Daddy, what’s this called?” Eve asked, spreading her arms and waving them up and down, as if they were wings.
“Levitation,” Judah replied as Eve rose a good ten feet off the ground.
“Oh, that’s right. Mother told me. Lev-i-ta-tion.”
Leaning forward, intending to intervene and catch Eve if she fell, Mercy held her breath. If only Eve weren’t so headstrong and adventurous.
“You’re overprotective.” Judah manacled Mercy’s wrist. “Let her have some fun. She just wants our attention and our approval.”
Mercy glowered at him. “Eve has been the center of my existence since the day she was born. But it’s my job as her mother to approve of appropriate behavior and disapprove of what’s inappropriate. And more than anything else, it is my duty to protect her, even if that means protecting her from herself.”
Judah grunted. “You’ve lived in fear that the Ansara in her would come out, haven’t you? Every time she’s acted up, been unruly, thrown a temper tantrum, you’ve wondered if it was a sign of the innate evil side of her nature-the Ansara in her.”
“I’m going higher,” Eve called. “Watch me. Watch me!”
When Eve levitated a good twenty feet in the air, Mercy jumped up and motioned to her daughter. “That’s high enough, sweetheart. That was great.” She clapped several times. “Now come back down.”
“Do I have to?” Eve asked. “This is fun.”
“Come down, and you and I will play a game,” Judah said.
Eve came sailing down, slowly and carefully, as if showing Mercy that she shouldn’t be concerned. The minute her feet hit the ground, Eve ran to Judah.
“What sort of game are we going to play?”
He eyed Mercy, his look daring her to interfere. “Have you ever played with fire?”
Eve snapped around and looked up at Mercy. “Mother says I’m too young to play with fire the way Uncle Dante does. She said when I’m older-”
“If one of your abilities is psychopyresis, the younger you learn to master that skill, the better,” Judah said directly to Eve as he laid his hand on Mercy’s shoulder. “My father began my lessons when I was seven.”
“Oh, please, Mommy, please,” Eve said. “Let Daddy give me lessons.”
Any decision she made might prove to be the wrong one. She couldn’t be certain that a negative response wouldn’t be based on her resentment toward Judah for intruding in their lives.
Mercy nodded. “All right. Just this once.” She glared at Judah. “You’ll have to stay in control at all times. When she was two-” Mercy hesitated to share this information with him but finally did “-Eve set the house on fire.”
Judah’s eyes widened in surprise; then he smiled. “She was capable of doing that when she was two?”
“I’m very gifted,” Eve said. “Mother says it’s ’cause I’m special.”
Judah beamed with fatherly pride as he placed his hands on Eve’s little shoulders. “Your mother’s right-you are special.” He grasped Eve’s hand. “Come on, let’s go over there by the pond and set off some fireworks. What do you say?”
Jiggling up and down with excitement, Eve grinned from ear to ear.
Despite having reservations, Mercy followed them to the pond. To watch. And to censure, if Judah allowed Eve to do anything truly dangerous…
Eve had exhausted herself practicing first one talent and then another, all under Judah’s supervision. He realized that what Mercy had feared was Eve revealing to him just how truly powerful she was. And there was now no doubt in his mind that his daughter possessed the potential to be the most powerful creature on earth, more powerful than any other Ansara or Raintree.
He glanced down at Eve as she lay curled in a fetal ball on the quilt, deep in a restorative sleep. A feeling like none he’d ever known welled up from deep inside him. This was his child. Beautiful, smart and talented to the extreme. And she had instantly recognized him as her father and accepted him into her life without question.
He recalled Sidra’s words: If you are to save your people, you must protect the child.
In that moment Judah realized that he would protect Eve for the sake of the Ansara, but more important, he would protect her because she was his child and he loved her.
He turned and gazed out over the meadow as he struggled to come to terms with what was happening to him. In his position as Dranir, he made instant life-and-death decisions without blinking an eye. His word was law. Like his father before him, he ruled supreme over his people. As a boy, he had known he would grow up to become the premiere Ansara, the most powerful member of the clan, the Dranir. He could be ruthless when the occasion called for it, but he believed he was always fair and just. He had lived his life by the Ansara code of honor, and had sworn his allegiance to his people the day he was crowned Dranir.