A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“Are the two of you having sex with the princess at the same time?”

“No.” Frost fought not to frown. We were lucky the reporter hadn’t asked if they slept together with me. Because that we did. The fey sleep in big puppy piles. It’s not always about sex; sometimes it’s about safety and comfort.

Frost stepped back to the wall, stiff and unhappy. The reporters were yelling even more sexual questions at him. Madeline helped us out. “I think our Killing Frost is a little shy at the mike, boys and girls. Let’s pick on someone else.”

So they did.

They yelled out names and questions to the men. One or two of the guards onstage had never been paraded in front of the media at all. I wasn’t certain that Adair or Hawthorne had ever seen a television or a movie. They were in full-plate mail, though Adair’s looked like it was formed of gold and copper, and Hawthorne’s was a rich crimson, a color no metal had ever been. Adair’s was metal; Hawthorne’s just looked like metal, though I couldn’t say what it was made out of. Something magical. They had both chosen to keep their helmets on. Adair, I believe, because the queen had shorn his hair as a punishment for trying to refuse my bed. Hawthorne’s hair still fell in thick black-green waves to his ankles. I had no idea why he kept his helmet on. They must have been roasting in front of this many electric lights, but having decided to wear the helmets, they’d wear them until they fainted. Well, Adair would. I didn’t know even that much about Hawthorne. They knew what a camera was because the queen was fond of her Polaroid, but beyond that and indoor plumbing, technology was a stranger to them. I wondered how they felt about being thrown to the lions. Their faces would show nothing. They were the Queen’s Ravens, they knew how to hide what they felt.

Thankfully, no one yelled their names, probably because no one knew who they were.

Madeline finally picked a question, and a victim for them. “Brad, you had a question for Rhys.”

The reporter stood up a little taller, and most of the others sat down like disappointed flowers. “Rhys, how was it being a real detective in Los Angeles?”

Rhys was on the far end near the edge of the dais. He was the shortest of the purebred sidhe, only five and a half feet tall. His white curls fell to his waist, capped with a cream-colored fedora with a slightly darker band. The trench coat he wore over his suit matched the hat. He looked like a cross between an old-time detective with better fashion sense, a male stripper, and a pirate.