“My mother did once say my father was the handsomest man she had ever seen. Of all his children, I resembled him the most.” He looked very appealing, sitting naked on the bedding. The light cast a sheen on his skin that made me want to rub my hands all over him all over again. The curve of his knee drew my eye to the line of his thigh. He had a way of looking at me that meant he knew I knew he knew I was admiring him, and that he was perfectly happy to be admired. He was like Bee in that way: That people enjoyed looking at him gave him satisfaction.

“You’re sitting there hoping to tempt me back into bed, aren’t you? But if we want to dry out your clothes, I have to light a fire.” I glanced at the skin nailed over the window. “It will be dark soon, so I won’t make you stay out for long.”

“How can you dry out my clothes? To go outside, I must have something to wear.”

“You can wear the clothes I brought for Rory. They’ve dried out—”

“Rory?” The courting Vai who had sat patiently through many evenings at the boardinghouse while I flirted with customers had never spoken quite this sharply to me.

“One of my sire’s other children. The saber-toothed cat. You met him in the spirit world, at the hearth of the djelimuso Lucia Kante.”

He lifted his chin, gone a little prickly as if embarrassed he had revealed a spark of jealousy. “I remember the cats. The male is your half brother?”

“Yes. My sire can change form as he wishes.”

“I can guess the details.”

“I can understand why my sire would breed children in the spirit world. Not all of the predators in the Wild Hunt are his children, but at least some are, and he can bind all of us whenever he wishes, as he did Rory. But why did he want Tara Bell?”

“Perhaps he is one of those men who delight in knowing they can take a person who does not want them.”