GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (49 page)

“It’s not like that.”

“I suppose the cancer story was a lie, too, and that you have all the makings of a sex god to impregnate these young girls.”

“No,” he said emphatically. “That part was true.
Almost.”

“
What is the truth
?” Diana asked, not shrinking from his apologetic gaze.

“The cancer part but not the castration.”

Diana got up and walked to the window. She wanted to scream but instead drew back the drapes and stared out into the
abyss.
A dark night in a dark world.
No lights, no moon. Maybe she was on another planet.
Mars, perhaps.
Or Venus.
Or a sick combination o
f both.

“Jesus. What a fool I am.”

“Yes, Jesus, who turned his back on me and cast me into hell.”

A slow bubbling concoction of shame and anger percolated inside. Lucier had been right all along
. S
he’d been hoodwinked by a sad story, by the intellectual brilliance of a madman. “Hell is what you made it, Edward.”

“Let me ask you, Diana. Could you love a man like me? Could you look beyond the abortion between my legs? Cou
ld you?”

He waited. When she didn’t respond, he said, “As I thought.”

She spun around to say something trite about love being in the eye of the beholder, but the words got lost in the sight before her. Edward Slater stood naked from the waist down, his pants draped
at
his feet. She gasped
and backed against the window.

“Shocking, isn’t it?” he said.

Tears flooded in her eyes. She managed to stagger to the bed before passing out.

* * * * *

H
is words echoed in her head from a far off place, becoming louder now, understandable. She had to rea
djust
to the time and place. When she did, she wanted to go back to th
e
never-never la
nd from which she had awakened.

“Again,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Diana heard his words and opened her eyes. Slater hovered over her.

“That was cruel,” he said.

He held a glass of water to her lips. She steadied his hand and sipped. It was the first time he let her touch him. He needn’t have worried about setting off a psychic connection.
He
pass
ed
nothing to her, n
ot even a blink of a vision. Where Edward Slater was concerned, she had lost her abilities. In fact, what she saw in the light of reality was far worse than any image he could ha
ve instilled through his touch.

“What have you done with Ernie?” she asked.

“He’s safe.
For now.”

She allowed herself a monumental sigh of relief.
He’s alive
. God had heard her prayer.
“What do you mean, for now? Where is he?”

“Being well taken care of.
We bound him at first, but he’s not now.”

Her high tumbled as reality sank in
. She had jeopardized the life of the man she loved by being
who she was―
Diana, Goddess of the Moon. “Let him go. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll be your goddamn goddess.”

“Now
see? That’s the kind of love I’m talking about. You’d do anything for
him,
even turn yourself into a love machine, wouldn’t you?”

Diana stared into Slater’s steel-gray eyes that once had radiated kindness and warmth but now projected a cold arrogance. “Yes,” she said, never flinching from his gaze.
“Even that.
Just let him go. He doesn’t know where we are. If I’m right, he couldn’t find this place with all the resources of the police department and the FBI put together. Please, Edward.”

“I can’t do that. He knows too much, knows who we all are. We’re not quite ready to
change locations
, although we may
soon
have to
.”

“He’ll never say anything as long as you have me. He’d never put my life in danger.”

Slater put the glass of water on the bedside table,
then
brushed a curl from Diana’s forehead. She steeled herself against shivering at his touch, but she failed miserably and
cringed.

Smiling, he said, “Do I disgust you that much?”

“No,” she lied, and bit back the
threaten
ing
nausea. Maybe this was a game after all, she reasoned, and playing was her way out. “You
did
fascinate me, Edward. Right from the beginning, even before I knew what you went through.
The richness of your mind, your philosophy.
Then, when I learned more about you, you became more fascinating. How you fought your way back to the living. I bought your story.” A tear escaped from the corner of
her eye. She didn’t know why.

“Yes, I knew
we shared
an intellectual bond,
and I think you were physically attracted to me
―
before you knew.”

“Intellectual
ly
, yes, but not physical
ly
, although I thought
…
think you’re an attractive man. I won’t lie to make you believe there was anything more. I’m in love with Ernie, and that will never change.”

“Pity.
You still fascinate me. From the first time we met. You’re unlike anyone, Diana.
Beautiful, intelligent, compassionate.
Of course, I realize when you learned about me, you felt sympathy, as did those few who knew. But
I could make you ecstatically happy.
I know how to do things that pleasure a woman in ways she can’t imagine.”

He gently caressed her cheek
, leaving a burning trail from his touch.

She took a deep breath and forced herself still. A cringe at that moment could ruin everything. “Let Ernie go first.”

A momentary frown crossed Slater’s face,
then
he smiled. “I haven’t told you how very beautiful you look tonight.” He ran a finger along her neckline. “Feminine. Ruffles suit you. You dress too simpl
y
, almost mannish
ly
,
with your jeans and man-tailored shirts. This is
definitely
more attractive.”

“If you want me,
release
Ernie. I’ll do anything you want
―
after I know he’s safe.”

Slater got up. His tone changed. “You’re not in a bargaining position.”

She couldn’t let
Lucier’s life slip away
. “I don’t love you, Edward, but I can learn. We have things in common. Like you
said,
an intellectual bond. We can develop our relationship into
something
more.”

“
Don’t
patronize
me, Diana,” Slater snapped. “I’m not a stupid man.”

“Then you know I’m not patronizing you. If you don’t let him go, you’ll
need
to drug me, because I
’ll never
do anything willingly. That would spoil what we could have.”

“
Our
drugs will make you
beg to do whatever we want
just to get your next fix
, and they
won’t affect the fetus. You
’ll forget all
about your cop lover
.”

His words instilled in Diana a fear she’d never known
. Her insides quaked at the thought
, because s
he
believed him
.

He sat next
to her on the bed.
“You
’ll want
to love me
, Diana
.
”
He
brushed his finger
back and forth inside
her bottom lip
. When she jerked her head away, he said,
“
You’ll need to.”

His gaze dropped from her eyes to her chest, and
started to unbutton the top button of her
dress
. She got up. “Sit, Diana
, and d
on’t move unless I tell you to.”

She stood defiant.

“Sit
,
”
he commanded in a stern tone she hadn’t heard before.

This wasn’t the time to start trouble, so she sat.

He unbuttoned the top of her dress and eyed
the
oversized bra.
“I see we
miscalculated
.”
He
slipped
the straps
off
her shoulders, and the bra fell
, exposing
her small breasts. He touched the tip of her nipple. “
Like a china doll, s
o
tiny.”

Diana thought back to
th
e
night in the cabin
and
what
that psychopath had
done
to her.
Put yourself in another place, Diana. Go to
your fantasy
tropical paradise, with the su
n soaking into your salty skin.

“No, dammit!
Not this time.” She pulled up her dress and slid off the bed. “Hook me on drugs. Do anything you want, but you’ll never
own
me. Not
until
you
release
Ernie. Let him go, and
I’ll be
yours.”

Slater
looked
as if he’d been slapped
, and
Diana saw the
conflicted, tortured being
whose
vulnerability
made her believe him in the first place.
But the man
was also a monster
―
a
twisted
Jekyll
and
Hyde.

“You’ll be who we want you to be,” he said
, his voice as calm and reasonable as if he were talking to a child
.
“Who
I
want you to be, because I’m the one who wanted you here.
Phillip too, but for different reasons.”
Slater
stood,
his eyes steady on her. “You’ll reproduce, willingly or not. In addition, you’ll provide eggs to be planted in surrogates. Your psychic abilities will pass to your offspring.
Not to all of them, of course, but surely to some.
”
He pinched her chin.
“
And you will be mine.”

Slater’s cold determination almost stopped Diana’s heart. She harnessed her voice from some place deep inside her
and quivered whe
n she spoke. “It doesn’t work that way. I didn’t inherit my gift from anyone.
I’m a
freak of nature. The percentage of
passing on
any ability I have
is infinitesimal.”

“Percentages change with volume.
”
Slater smirked
and left the room
.

Diana
shook
as he locked the door behind him.
Hurrying
to the bathroom
, she emptied her
stomach of t
he wonderful dinner she enjoyed
only
an hour before.

T
he Disciple

M
aia watched Seth sleep. He
passed out almost immediately.
She
didn’t know what kind of pills Anat gave her, but if she ever needed something to sleep, she wanted those. She
’d put two in
Seth
’s coffee
, just like Anat said, and hoped they
’
d keep him out for hours. Still, Maia couldn’t take any chances. After she removed his key ring, she fastened both
his
wrists to the bed with the pair of handcuffs he kept in the room. That’d teach Seth to practice kinky sex. The titillating thought caused a brief distraction
.

S
top
!
She couldn’t let the memory
of their lovemaking
keep her from the plan. Focusing, she cut off three pieces of masking tape, also supplied by Anat, and fastened them across Seth’s mouth. She fumbl
ed
to find the master key that would open most of the doors in the compound. Before she tried them, she ran back and kissed Seth’s cheek.