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“Solon,” Wolf says sharply, enough that Absolon meets his eyes. “I’m sorry. Wasn’t her fault.”
The ferocity in Absolon’s stare tempers only a little, turning cooler, calculated. “I know what you’re doing, Wolf. Don’t bother. Just make the drinks.”
Then he grabs my arm and pulls me away from the bar and toward the glass door into the cigar lounge. He opens the door with a skeleton key and practically throws me inside. I stumble a few feet before catching myself on the back of a leather armchair, making sure I give him the same wicked look he gave me earlier.
Of course, nothing bothers him.
“Sit,” he says to me, nodding at the chair.
“I feel more comfortable standing,” I tell him.
“Oh, really?” He shakes his head and walks past me to the walk-in humidor in the corner. Other than the humidor and the rows of old books along the walls, the décor is the same as in the main lounge, dark and lush. “You want to smoke a cigar standing up?” he says, before going into the humidor.
“Who said I’m smoking a cigar?” I yell after him.
He comes out holding two cigars and a cigar cutter, gesturing to the chair once more. “Sit,” he says, fishing a packet of matches out of his pocket. “Don’t make me ask again. The more obedient you are, the better it will be for you in the end.”
“Why?” I ask, but I plop down in the chair. I don’t know why I didn’t get the graceful end of the vampire bargain. Absolon and Wolf seem to glide with their movements.
“Why do you think?” he asks, sitting down across from me with all the elegance I lack. He cuts off the end of his cigar with an intimidating snap of the cutter’s sharp blades and sticks the end in his mouth, concentrating on lighting it. The flames put half his face in shadows, the furrow between his brows like a crevasse.
“Can’t you just snap your fingers to light things?” I ask him. “Wolf can.”
He glares up at me, cheeks going in and out as he draws the smoke from the cigar. Finally, he pulls it away, smoke falling from his lips. “I can,” he says. “But I consider that showing off.”
Then he holds the cigar between his teeth, the fangs nearly puncturing it, and reaches over and cuts the end off the other cigar, handing it to me. “Take it.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Oh, is that why your apartment smelled like several pounds of weed?” he says dryly.
The mention of my apartment, of weed, brings me into another state. I stare at Absolon for a moment and realize that I can’t afford to be stubborn anymore if I want to return to my old life. Obviously, there’s probably no chance I’ll get it back, but being alive brings chances, and being dead doesn’t.
“Fine,” I say, taking the cigar from him. I stick it in my mouth and wait while he lights another match. The flame dances at the end, but he’s watching me, so close.
“Inhale,” he says. “All the way into your lungs.”
I nearly choke on it. “That’s not how you smoke a cigar!” I tell him.
“Why not?”
I pull the cigar from my lips, feeling my skin buzz from it. “You’ll hurt your lungs. You’ll damage them. That’s how you get lung cancer. It’s not a cigarette. You hold it in your mouth and let it go and…”
I don’t like the little smile on his lips. “Lung damage?” he repeats. “We’re fucking vampires, Lenore. We’re immune. Breathe it all the way in.”
It feels so fucking wrong, but I do what he says because I’m curious. I inhale, the smoke thick and black, and I know I should be coughing like hell right now, and yet…it feels good. Smooth. It immediately relaxes me, hitting a bunch of pleasure spots at the back of my head, and I sink deeper into the chair, barely noticing when Wolf comes in and places the drinks on the table.
“She’s a quick learner,” Wolf comments, looking me over, impressed.
“She’s a lot of things,” Absolon muses. Then he gives Wolf a pointed look and Wolf leaves the room, closing the door behind us.
“What the hell is in that cigar?” I ask dreamily, admiring the look of it in my hand. So far, it’s better than any weed.
“Nothing particularly special,” he says. “It’s Cuban. But it affects us differently, especially when you smoke it the way that we do.”
Jeeze. The room starts to fill with clouds of our smoke and I feel like I’m sinking deeper and deeper, lost in the haze.
But however loose I feel, Absolon stays sharp, watching me with intention.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
At the mention of hunger, I clench my jaw. “For what?”
“You haven’t eaten food for a week.”
“I’ve been here a week?”
My god.
“Do you even eat food?” I ask him. Will I ever want to eat food again?
