A Kiss Of Shadows   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

One woman had these cat-green eyes that seemed to glow out of the picture. Skin colors that no human has, like green, blue. Three of them had more… parts than a human would have, but not like it was a deformity, like it was just part of the way they looked."

I was impressed. Impressed that she'd noticed and put it together in her head. If we could save her, get her away from him, she'd make it. "What did he say about Naomi?"

"That she was part sidhe. He really got off on that, if the women were part sidhe. He called them his royal whores."

"Why fey women?" Jeremy asked.

"He never said," Frances answered.

"I think it had something to do with the ritual," Naomi said.

We all turned to her. Jeremy and I asked in unison, "What ritual?"

"The first night he took me to the apartment he's rented. The bedroom has mirrored walls and this huge circular bed. The floor was this beautiful gleaming wood with a Persian carpet under the bed. Everything seemed to glow. When I climbed up on the bed, I felt something, like I'd walked through a ghost. I didn't know what it was that first night, but one night I slipped on the rug, and underneath was a double circle set into the wood of the floor with symbols in a band around the circle. I realized the bed was the center of the circle. I didn't recognize the symbols, but I knew enough to know it was a circle of power, a place to work magic."

"Did he ever do anything in the bed that seemed like ritual magic?" I asked.

"Nothing that I recognized. We just had sex, lots of it."

"Was there anything that was the same every time?" Jeremy asked.

She shook her head. "No."

"Was the sex always in this apartment?" Jeremy asked.

"No, sometimes we met at a hotel."

That surprised me. "Is there anything he does in the apartment inside the circle that he doesn't do anywhere else?"

She blushed bright red. "It's the only place he brings other men."

"Other men to have sex with him?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, with me." She looked up at us, as if waiting for the cry of horror, or maybe whore. Whatever she saw reassured her. We all knew how to give good blank face when we needed it. Besides, a little group sex seemed tame after knowing that he showed pictures of his lovers to his wife, with details. That was a new one. Group sex had been around a lot longer than Polaroids.

"Was it always the same men?" Jeremy asked.

She shook her head. "No, but they knew each other. I mean, it wasn't like he brought in strangers off the street.