There was no response, which was as telling as an admission. Gabriel brushed past her, pounded up the steps and down the hall, and shoved open the door to Anne’s room. What he saw made his stomach twist in an unpleasant knot. Anne was beneath a man, her slim pale legs spread. A broad-shouldered man with black hair was mounting her with noisy enthusiasm. Gabriel couldn’t see Anne’s face, but she was giving encouraging mewling sounds. His sounds. They belonged to him.

Madame slid to a stop behind him. “It’s just business,” she said. “No sense letting her laze around all day.”

“Dispense with him or I will,” Gabriel told her. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was so angry, but Anne was his. She and his opium and absinthe were all intertwined in his mind, and he loved his pipe and his drink, loved the pleasure she gave him while his mind sharpened and his body floated, while he stretched and strained to achieve an escape from mortality.

Stepping into the hall, Gabriel wiped at the cold sweat on his forehead, struggling to ignore the pervasive nausea clawing at his innards. He knew his human body was addicted to the alcohol, the opium, and the absinthe, and he felt no remorse for that, just merely resented the inconvenient symptoms of withdrawal. Leaning against the wall, he waited. It was a mere jaw-locking, bile-producing three minutes later that a man brushed past him, cursing while Madame offered him three girls in compensation for the one he’d lost.

Gabriel didn’t even glance at the man, that irritated, whining voice familiar, yet not enough for him to care, to look up, to connect the pieces that floated around his agonized, sloshing brain. He was amazed that Madame had carried out his demand to get rid of Anne’s unexpected client, but then again, Gabriel spent an obscene amount of money in her establishment monthly. He was a preferred client.

Anne appeared at the door, clad in a dressing gown, rich auburn hair spilling over her shoulders, green eyes wide and full of tears. “Are you angry with me?” she asked, voice trembling, anxiety palpable. “Madame said it was what you wanted, that you wished to watch, but I didn’t know it was . . .”

Anger was a pale description for the depth of what he felt, but he found it wasn’t directed at Anne. She was a simple woman, and she had always aspired to please him. Madame was manipulative, and Anne not bright enough to see her obvious lies. It startled him to recognize he retained such a well of compassion.

Yet he still was disgusted at what he had seen, so he cut her off by saying roughly, “Just get my drink.” He pushed past her, stripping off his coat and tossing it on the chair at her vanity table.