Chapter 7

A few moments passed as I watched him regain himself, his body near but not daring to touch me, even with his gaze. Finally, he took his hand off the wall and stepped back a healthy distance from me. The shadows restarted their swirling around him, the apathetic exterior of his expression yet again plastered on his face.

"I believe I have something of yours."

In those long minutes of terse silence, I was more than surprised to find that Azriel would choose those words to cut it with. To be completely honest, I was struggling to believe he was still here, considering what had just happened, what he had shown me. But, I suppose, this was Azriel. Cool, calm, utterly collected, and without fail, never one to not go through with a mission. It appeared my brother had trained him well.

"What?" I breathed, still keeping my eyes on him, on the shadows that curled around the crisp lines of his body like whispering clouds. Tracking each movement, I watched as the spymaster reached down to the inside of his jacket, his hand hidden beneath the smooth folds of the Illyrian leather until it reappeared grasping a small, bronze box with rounded edges, swirling Hijazi strokes engraved on the front of it.

It was my sigara box.

Instinctively I thrust my body forward, almost tripping over myself as my hand snaked to seize it from him, my dry mouth already tasting the sweet-smelling clove smoke. But where my sigaras once were, only air remained as Azriel swept his hand away, thrusting the box far up above my head, his face not so much smug as it was unyielding.

"Not that easy, I'm afraid." his teasing words a juxtaposition to his solemn tone, tilting his head. "Before we got sidetracked-" he paused, the darkness of the memory clouding his eyes almost too quickly for me to notice. "I came here to offer you a deal."
"Now that's just cruel," I purred, my eyes still set squarely on the box. "But not cruel enough, I'm afraid."

How much time would my own darkness give me to take the box and run before he was able to follow me?

"I've made it very clear exactly what I have-rather, what I don't have- to offer you, darling. Despite how enticing your incentive may be, it won't change a single fucking thing." I eased my head back against the wall, reassuming my seductive, half-lidded gaze, tucking my arms so the shaking of my hands would be somewhat concealed.

Gods, thinking of the way the smoke would taste against my lips almost made me fall to the ground and start kissing his boots.

Azriel's face gave away nothing at my words, his eyes noting my indifference as he twirled the box between his scarred fingers, and clearly not giving a damn. A cruel apathy marred the prettiness of his marble-hewn face as he took several more steps back, regaining his own position against the other side of the alley wall.

"How would you suggest I be sufficiently cruel to you then, Diana?" He looked up at me from the box, a silent challenge in his eyes. Flipping the lid open, he proffered a single sigara from the box and let it sit effortlessly between his fingers. I could barely stop my own sharp exhale as the cloves began to perfume the air thickly, the scent threatening to take away my delicately managed front.

"Perhaps I should just," he let the sigara dangle dangerously beneath his fingers, his grasp no longer deceptively loose. "Drop them." The sigara fell fast as he let it go, soundlessly landing into the cobblestones. Even in the darkness of the alley, I could see the greasy sheen washing over the ground. The smell already was indicative enough, the piss, shit, and vomit filled scent of it familiar and yet still not appreciated at all.

It doesn't matter though, if I just-

My mind was at war over the soiled sigara, every impulse inside me screaming to drop to the floor for a single breath of the smoke in my lungs. But I managed to drag my gaze from the ground and try my best to train it on his face. I could not let him break me.

"No?" Azriel's smile was merciless. "And to think I was so looking forward to see you be your own little lapdog. Ah, what a shame." He popped another out of the box, once again letting his fingers curve around it. Body sliding off the wall, he and his shadows moved effortlessly until there was less than a foot between us.

"If you no longer desire these." He surveyed the sigara, nostrils flaring as he brought it close, close, closer. "Then I don't see why these should go to waste." And with his final word, he pushed the sigara between his lips and ignite with less than a thought, the scent increasing ten-fold as the flames let the potency of the herbs fully reveal themselves.

Finally, he lowered the box down near my chest, and popped the lid open. I could have sworn drool dripped down my face as the sheer smell of the sigaras perfumed the alley's stale air. Greedily, I crammed my fingers in the box, withdrawing one with shaking fingers.

"Thankyouthankyou," the words blurred together as I lifted the sigara to my lips and willed a small spark to burn the end of it and release the blissful feeling of the drug within it. Closing my eyes, I leaned back against the wall, the anticipation of the release almost too much for me to bear.

But it did not come.

"Motherfucker," My lips fumbled to form the word with the smoke held clumsily between them. Reluctantly, I let my eyes hold a half-lidded gaze on Azriel's fingers, which were now firmly clamping the end of the sigara, stopping any chance for the damned thing to ignite.

"You," the spy singer drawled, his words intimate but his body not daring to come closer to me, "are a terrible negotiator." His hand grasped the sigara even harder, threatening to pull it from my mouth. "You never heard my end of the deal."

Shit. He was right. Even with the smoke unlit, the flavor of it seeping into my mouth gave a much-needed clarity to the fact that I might have just signed my life off to the shadowsinger. But it started to fade as the pure need of the clove-scented smoke devoured me whole, rending any logical thought in my head obsolete. Drawing my eyes from the painful sight of the unlit sigara to his gaze, I didn't even mask the sheer exhaustion in my voice.

"What do you want?" A coolness was once again starting to fall over me, the alley darkening despite the blistering sun that reigned above us. I could feel my knees begin to buckle, the heavy weight of my eyelids as they drooped.

"I want you," his voice faded into the background, the echoes of it ringing out in my head like pealing bells. "To sleep."

The sigara fell from my lips almost as fast as my unconscious body slumped into his arms.