“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?
He gives a slight nod. “I do. Our taste is heightened. Good food is amazing. Bad food will turn off your appetite for weeks. You learn to be very particular about what you consume, but one of the finest things in life is enjoying a good meal, accompanied by good alcohol, and then maybe a cigar.”
“And then blood.”
He tilts his head as he studies me through the smoke, eyes drifting over my nose, my mouth. “Food is for enjoyment. But it doesn’t keep us alive. Blood does.”
“But you enjoy…it.”
“That’s an understatement. And you enjoy it, too.” He takes the cigar from his mouth and places it in the ashtray. “Amethyst was scared of you today, and she doesn’t get that easily spooked. Guess there’s something about you that made her want to run the other way.”
“I was nice,” I say softly.
“Nice,” he says with a dry laugh, fishing his keys out of his pocket. “None of this is about being nice. You smelled her. I know you did because I used to smell her too. Candied ginger, sweet things, like her blood. Correct?”
I don’t say anything, all the pleasant buzz from the cigar disappearing like the wavering smoke.
“You didn’t just want a taste of her, you wanted to feed. It’s your bloodlust, the final stage, it’s just a lot more tempered than I thought it would be. Guess that’s what happens when you’re only half a monster.”
He flips the blade open on his Swiss Army knife, and I watch with wide eyes as he brings it up to his neck, making a swift and vicious cut along his skin. Blood rushes to the surface, filling the air with his scent that hits me so hard it nearly knocks me off-balance, then it spills over, soaking the collar of his white shirt in red.
I’m horrified.