A Kiss of Shadows Read Online Free Page A

stared down into her lap, murmuring, “He calls them his trophies.”
    I had to ask. “Did he show these pictures to you, or did you find them?”
    She looked up, and her eyes were empty—no anger, no shame, empty. “He showed them to me. He likes . . . he likes to tell me about what he’s done with them. What each one is good at, better at than me.”
    I opened my mouth, closed it, because I couldn’t think of a single helpful thing to say. I was outraged for her sake, but it was Francis Norton that needed to be angry on behalf of Francis Norton. My anger might help us solve the immediate problem, but it wouldn’t make her strong again. If we could take the husband out of the picture, that wouldn’t heal all the damage he’d done. There was a lot more wrong with Francis than just a spell.
    Naomi touched her arm, comforting her. “That’s how she met me. She saw my picture, and then we just ran into each other one day. I caught her staring at me in a restaurant. He had woken her when he got home and told her what he’d done to me.” It was Naomi’s turn to look down into her lap, her hands lying upright and empty against her legs. “I had bruises showing.” She looked up, met my eyes. “Frances came over to my table. She rolled back her sleeve and showed me her bruises. Then she just said, ‘I’m his wife.’ And that was how we met.” She gave a shy smile at the last, the sort of smile you give when you’ve explained how you met your lover. A tender story to be related to others.
    I gave her blank eyes, but I wondered if the bond between them was more than just the abuse and the husband. If they were lovers, it could change how the healing was done. So often in mystical things the emotions have to be taken into account. Because love and hate have different energies, you work with them differently. We’d need to know exactly what the bond between the two women was before serious healing work was begun, but not today. Today we’d listen to what they wanted to tell us.
    â€œThat was very brave of you,” Teresa said. Her voice, like everything about her, was somehow soft and feminine with an underlying strength, like steel covered by silk. I’d always thought Teresa, though she’d never traveled farther south than Mexico, would have made an excellent Southern belle.
    Frances’s eyes flicked to her, then back to her lap, then up, and her mouth moved. It was almost a smile. That one small movement made me feel better about the woman. If she could begin to smile, begin to take pride in what strength she’d shown, then maybe she would be all right with time.
    Naomi squeezed her arm and gave her smile of pride and affection. Again, I got the impression that they were very close. “It was my salvation. From the moment that I met Frances, I started trying to break away from him. I don’t know how I allowed him to hurt me. I’m not like that. I mean, I’ve never, ever let a man abuse me.” Her face showed the shame she felt, as if she should have saved herself.
    Frances put her hand over the other woman’s hand, giving comfort as well as getting it.
    Naomi smiled at her, then turned puzzled eyes to us. “He’s like a drug. Once he’s touched you, you crave his touch. Not just him either. It’s like he wakens you sexually, until your body aches to be touched.” She looked down again. “I’ve never been so sexually aware of other people. It was embarrassing, and exciting, at first. Then he started to hurt me. At first it was just little things, tying me up, then . . . spanking.” She made herself look up, forced herself to meet our eyes. Such anger, as if defying us to think the worst of her. There was a great deal of strength here. How had this man tamed her? “He made the pain part of the pleasure, but then he started doing worse things. Things that just