That made Gabriel want to ask, very badly, just what Skulduggery had been if his physical instincts were so forgotten. He had obviously been human, but wasn't any longer. So what could he have turned into? With alternate realities, it could have been a great many things more than Gabriel might have considered.

But asking ran the risk of drawing attention back to the fact that Gabe wasn't human either, and Skulduggery might have asked in return--a question Gabe wasn't willing (or able) to answer directly.

So Gabe only smiled instead and took Skulduggery's hand, raising it to his own throat. He watched the other man's face as he swallowed, a few times and with decent timing in-between to give Skulduggery a chance to compare each one.