“How dare you twist my words like that!” A wave of shame washed over her, but she was powerless to move away from the phantom hand that moved over her flesh. She watched in fascination as his fingertip trailed along the cold metal bar, leaving corresponding trails of heat on her skin.
His insolent gaze traveled over her body, lingering on her breasts, just visible beneath the sheer fabric of her nightgown, before settling on the apex of her thighs. Heat suffused her core. She began to pant. With a smirk he released the bar and rose smoothly to his feet.
Ignoring her as if she didn’t exist, he walked away from the cell and turned his full attention to the other man. As he crossed the room, he cast a look of disdain around his shabby surroundings. Gone was the sexy purr. In its stead was a brisk, businesslike tone. “You know, Randy, you really are a useless, stupid creature.”
Suddenly her captor did indeed seem like a poor excuse of a man, as if the stranger’s derisive declaration had revealed something she’d never noticed before.
“Hey, c’mon…Why would you say something like that?” Randy huffed like a petulant child, then seemed to have second thoughts. He looked away from the other man’s piercing blue gaze, and swallowed audibly.
“The merchandise looks good,” the deep voice rumbled. “But our agreement was for six women. Now, either your memory fails you or you simply can’t count. Which is it?” He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“I, I–I’m sorry, Master. But, you see–”
“Enough. Your lack of discipline is of no concern to me, except for its impact on my bottom line.” The tall sex god sighed impatiently. “Very well. I’ll take the five. But rather than paying you the ninety grand we had agreed on, you’ll get sixty. Ah-ah-ah,” he said when Randy began to whine in earnest. “Your delivery came up short. My clients are serious about their toys. I’m afraid your incompetence comes at a price.”
“But how will I explain this–” he sputtered before straightening and recovering what was left of his dignity. “Of course, Master. Please forgive my ignorance.”
Electra listened intently, her thoughts running wild. Whoever this man was, he was powerful. Why else would their abductor call him ‘Master’? Were they sexually involved, she wondered?
The stranger glanced over his shoulder at her. “Oh, please. I wouldn’t touch him with someone else’s cock.” He chuckled at the wide-eyed, bewildered look on Electra’s face. “You’ll find that there is no hiding from me, Electra.”
Her eyes narrowed at the implication of his words. What are you going to do with us?
The corner of his mouth lifted. He nodded slowly. “Well, well. That remains to be seen.” His arrogant countenance returned abruptly as he declared, “But you’ll know soon enough. I can hardly wait.”
He popped his cuffs fastidiously and strode confidently back up the steps, issuing orders to Randy, who followed close behind. “I’ll be back to finalize the details and discuss next steps. Be ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
Interacting with him had taken its toll on her, and her eyelids began to droop. The soles of the tall man’s designer shoes clapped against the dilapidated wooden steps. He paused on the top step and turned his head to the side, treating her bleary eyes to a view of his chiseled profile. Before she sank into oblivion again, his smooth bass wrapped itself around her. “Your fate is in my hands. You’d do well to remember that.”
Chapter Eight
The air in the basement was thick and heavy. The walls seemed to pulse with an ominous energy, almost as if the room were inhaling and exhaling with a life of its own. The strange energy made the prospect of total darkness seem preferable to the current dim lighting that cast eerie shadows in every corner.
As Rain eased down the steps, the holding cell came into full view. Four of the five women slept peacefully on the concrete flooring in the cage. Their faces were relaxed in sleep, giving a false impression that they were blissfully unaware that their lives were in danger. One of the sleeping women stirred, opened her eyes, and looked right at Rain. With eyes still bleary from what was likely a drugged slumber, she smiled slightly at Rain and closed her eyes again.
Another of the women was fully awake, though. She was curled up in a far corner of the cell, rocking back and forth.
With a frown, Rain noticed something moving in her peripheral vision. A long black shadow was slowly taking form along the front edge of the cell. The form started out as a sheer black mist but gradually solidified, taking on the unmistakable silhouette of a man. He was exceptionally tall, with inky black hair that grew from a widow’s peak. Before he turned to face the cell, Rain noticed that the figure’s shockingly pale skin seemed almost luminous in the dim lighting.
The woman rocking herself in the corner abruptly stopped moving. She looked over her shoulder and didn’t seem at all surprised to see the dark figure standing there. She didn’t seem afraid, either, as she began slowly crawling toward him. When she was within about three feet of him, she sat back on her haunches and waited.
Rain watched what happened next as if in a trance, inexplicably unable to move or speak or intervene.
“Show me.” The voice was little more than a whisper. It had a tinny quality, as if it were being transmitted through a radio with poor signal reception.
The woman sat back on her bottom, leaning back on hands that were pressed flat on the floor behind her. Rain detected a barely perceptible nod of the stranger’s head, then the woman pulled her knees close to her chest and spread them wide, putting herself on full display.
“Oh yes, you’ll do nicely.”
He stepped forward and pressed his body against the cell bars, then reached up and gripped two of them. “Come here. Let’s see what you’ve learned.” The woman frowned slightly, as if confused, but didn’t move. “Now, now, you know I don’t like waiting.” The tinny voice dropped an octave. “You know how it displeases me.”
She got on her knees and moved closer to the bars, her eyes vacant and seemingly indifferent to the man’s intentions.
“Take it out,” he directed smoothly.
There was the sound of a zipper, then the rustle of fabric. He leaned into the bars and his hips began to move. Over the next ten minutes, the unmistakable sounds of vigorous oral sex were interrupted only by his strange voice giving occasional instructions. When he came, he clenched the bar with one hand and the back of her head with the other. He groaned in a prolonged climax that eventually had the woman’s arms flailing wildly, as if she were unable to separate herself from him or free her blocked airway.
Rain jerked around in alarm at the sound of footsteps approaching the door at the top of the stairs. She turned back to see how the dark figure would respond to the interruption, but he was gone and the young woman was once again huddled in the corner of the cell, rocking back and forth faster than before. Finally able to move, Rain backed away into the shadows.
The door to the basement opened and two men descended the steps to stand in front of the holding cell: a man with brown hair and an average build, and a handsome blond man. They seemed unaware of her presence as she listened to them discuss their plans; the five women were being sold as if they were no more than cattle. Maybe being invisible was one of her new powers, she thought with a tinge of sarcasm.
She watched as one of the women’s eyes fluttered softly. In the next moment, the woman was looking up at Rain through long, dark lashes. Her eyes were heavy-lidded from sleep, so much so that Rain wasn’t convinced the woman was really awake. When the captive woman closed her eyes, she had a faint smile on her face.
Rain had no idea where she was. She looked around the room in an effort to get her bearings. She’d known this was the right place, even before she’d seen the sleeping women. But she needed a specific location so she could go to the police. She had to rescue these women. She was their only hope.
The men were discussing moving them to a different location, but they didn’t go into specific
s. She had no idea if they would be sold to regional buyers or maybe even sent overseas. It wasn’t uncommon for women to be abducted and sold as sex slaves. Rain knew enough about human trafficking to know that women like this, who were abducted and kept in cages, were intended for only the most depraved buyers. If they were sent to Mexico she knew they would disappear and she would never be able to rescue them–and the knowledge of what they were surely enduring would haunt her forever.
“You dare to come here and try to interfere!?” The bellowing voice seemed to come from everywhere, reverberating all around her. In the interim, the blond man looked up and spotted her. It wasn’t his voice Rain was hearing, but somehow he was able to see her even though his companion couldn’t.
The pure evil of the shrill, disembodied voice made her skin crawl. She didn’t need to hear a verbal threat to feel threatened or to know with certainty that it was the same sinister stranger she had seen moments earlier.
Terror coursed through her, penetrating her bones down to the marrow. When she turned her attention back to the two men, the blond’s eyes were focused on something just over her shoulder. As his features tightened in alarm, she didn’t wait around to see who or what was there. She bolted toward the steps, running so fast she feared she would trip over her own feet.
The last thing she heard was a demonic laugh and the mysterious, shadow figure’s voice issuing a threat: “I hope you were paying attention just now. Because I’m coming for you, Rain.”
Rain bolted up out of a deep sleep in a cold sweat, her chest heaving. She jumped from the bed, barely making it to the bathroom in time before she threw up. It wasn’t until she felt her husband holding her hair back out of the way that she realized where she was and that she had company.
“I wish I could say this is because you’re pregnant, but I know you were having another vision. Tell me what you remember, darling.” Blaze’s voice was quietly concerned as he handed her a towel.
She held up a finger, silently indicating her need for time to collect herself. He helped her up from the floor and waited patiently as she splashed her face with cold water and brushed her teeth. She clutched the edge of the vanity and looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “We need to talk.”
He nodded and followed her back into the bedroom. He himself to the bed with his back against the headboard, then he held out his arms. She curled up against him with her head on his chest.
“This is much worse than we thought. I’ve never experienced the depth of pure evil that I felt in that vision. It wasn’t even like a regular vision where the details can become indistinct after I’ve been awake for a couple of minutes. I’m telling you, I was there. That man–that thing–is forever burned into my mind. The spirit that’s driving the man who’s abducting those women is powerful and…malevolent. He made one of the women suck him off, but she didn’t fight him; she didn’t even seem to know what was happening. It was like he was instructing her, and I don’t think it was the first time.”
“Shit. He’s training her. Are the other women still alive?”
“Yes, I saw five of them. One of them was the woman from my vision that night. She seemed to be able to see me. She may be gifted too. I don’t know.”
“Were you able to get a location?”
“I could tell they were caged in a basement. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but I couldn’t get a firm location. That’s the thing I hate about this gift; I can’t control it. And when I can’t control it, I can’t do anything about what I see. The guilt that goes with that is almost unbearable.”
“You’ve got to let that go. Guilt will only hinder us catching this guy.”
“Try telling my heart that,” she sighed. “The guy who abducted them looked like a regular Joe. The one who was buying them looked like he walked off of a GQ magazine. But there was something else down there. Something evil. Tall, black hair, with a really pronounced widow’s peak. I know this makes absolutely no sense.”
“No,” Blaze sighed as he rubbed his temples. “It makes more sense than you realize. I had hoped you wouldn’t become involved, but it looks like you already are, one way or another. Did the figure identify itself?”
“No, but it seemed to know me. I have no idea what kind of spirit it was. I have never felt anything so evil. No wonder the bible says the devil comes as an angel of light. I mean, one of the guys could see me, I know that. He was gorgeous with light hair. I could tell he could hear the evil voice, too. If he has anything to do with the evil at work in that room, then he brought some seriously bad ju-ju with him, whether he intended to or not.”
He squeezed her hand harder than he meant to. “Should I be jealous of this gorgeous guy?”
“Yeah, guys who make me puke really turn me on,” she laughed. When she looked up at him his eyes had gone dark and so intense that she was forced to look away from him. “Blaze, I don’t think I’ve ever met a man as intense as you–in this…” She gestured helplessly as she struggled for the right word, “…dimension or any other.”
“You’d do well to remember that.”
Rain jerked her head back around staring at her husband. “He’s said that before to the woman from my vision. The blond man.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know how. I just know.”
“Judging by what you’ve said, I believe that could be a good sign. He’s likely buying them from a seller who intends to use them as sex slaves. In the grand scheme of things, that may buy us some time. Maybe they won’t be killed after all.”
“At least, not right away,” she said with disgust.
“This is about money. I know it sounds awful but, trust me, this guy’s more of a businessman, not a psycho serial killer.”
“Something was wrong, though. They talked about logistics, mainly. But it was like someone had placed an order and he had come up one short. I could tell the blond man wasn’t pleased.”
“Anything could have gone wrong. They could have just come up short, like you said, or someone might not have survived their ordeal in that basement. Or someone may have decided to sample the merchandise and things got out of hand. It could have been any number of things. Who knows. If they’re taken out of the country, it’s going to be damn near impossible to find them.”
“Great minds think alike,” she said irritably.
“Damn right. I like being this connected to you, Rain. I missed you.” He pulled her closer, holding her protectively against his chest. She could feel his heart beating in time with hers.
It was true, something profound had happened to change their world. Something was different. They were thinking and operating like one person rather than two separate entities.
He had more to tell her, but not tonight. There was so much more that she would need to know. For now, it was enough just to hold her. The love they’d lost sight of for far too long had not only been healed, it had been multiplied a thousand times over. And he would kill to keep it.
Chapter Nine
Before Electra opened her eyes, she knew she was in a new place. Everything was different: the soft scent of roses and vanilla; the luxurious bedding that felt like warm, welcoming arms embracing her. She forced her eyes open and sat up. Shoving her fingers through her mane of brown hair, she pushed the strands away from her face and looked around. She was still feeling the effects of being drugged the night before.
The room she found herself in was the height of opulence. Two words came to mind: wealth and elegance. The same two words that described the man from the basement the night before. At least, she thought it was the night before. But that was just an assumption on her part, and she could certainly be wrong.
A mental picture of the elegantly dressed, sensual man flashed to the front of her mind like an uninvited guest. How could such a gorgeous specimen of the male species be so…so disturbing? And how did he get mixed up with that creepy guy, Randy? Was it easy for him to find buyers for the women he bought from th
is Randy guy? Had Tall Blond and Gorgeous already sold her to someone else or had he kept her for himself? Where were the other women now? How on earth did this sort of thing work?
Antiques were perfectly placed around the room: the massive bed, a dresser, an armoire, and two wingchairs nestled in a corner with a tea table. There was even a chaise in front of the bay window. The space was so well done that it had to have been arranged by an interior designer. Fresh cut flowers had been placed on the dresser; their luscious aroma was a far cry from the musty stench in that basement. As much as she hated the fact that she was a prisoner, if she had to choose between the two locations this was hands-down the best option.
She eased out of the bed, looking around surreptitiously, as if she were a child doing something she knew she shouldn’t. She tiptoed over to the door, turning the knob but knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t going to open. “Well, a girl can try,” she said to herself and crossed the room to the bathroom.
The bathroom was huge, with a jetted tub and a separate shower. Mosaic tile adorned the walls of both areas. The swirled gray and white marble flooring blended perfectly with the burgundy, blue and gray tiles. An elegant toilet and bidet combo had its own private nook in the far corner. That was her first stop, then she ventured over to a mirror that covered one whole wall.
It was the first time she had seen her own face since her ordeal had begun. It was also the moment she noticed that, in addition to being moved to a new location, she’d been bathed and put into a clean nightgown. Hell, this wasn’t even a nightgown, it was lingerie: sheer cream silk and lace, delicate straps, with a hem at about mid-thigh. Suddenly fearful, she wrapped her arms around her torso and gulped. Shit! What else happened while she was unconscious? With some trepidation, she touched herself between her legs and released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. As far as she could tell, she hadn’t been defiled…at least, not yet.
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