Page 11 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Corvin

The first few moments on the bed with Silver feel odd. Asher is chomping at the bit to be let at her, and I technically could allow him his time with her, but the jealous side of me, who can’t let that happen, tells me to hold him off even longer.

One would think I’d be over this by now, this insistent need to control my surroundings and keep Asher all to myself, especially when it’s the root of why we’re cursed.

“Have you ever watched this?” she asks me.

“I honestly didn’t know we had cable.” I turn to look at her, and a smirk plays at her lips, the likes of which I’d love to keep on her face until it grows wrinkled and weathered.

I chastise myself for the thought and turn back to the screen.

She settles back into the bed, pulling the covers to her chin. “I know what you mean. Do you know I don’t think I’ve watched television in years? Probably ten. Sad, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it’s sad. You likely live a life too full of culture to glue yourself to a machine and tune the world out.”

Her sigh seems sad, but I keep staring at the cowboys on the backs of horses as they try to lasso a steer into a chute for vaccinations.

“No. Nothing like that. I was working. Always working.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? You were building a life for yourself, building an empire.”

I realize I don’t know what she does, and I could be speaking out of school entirely once I learn her profession.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a real estate broker. Top one in New York City, and sure, like you said, I’ve built an empire, but for what?

I haven’t lived. I have spent none of the money on anything I wanted to.

That’s what this was for, this trip. I was going to do something for myself and renovate Great Aunt Soliel’s house. Now, that plan’s gone to shit…”

“I don’t think it needs to go to complete shit,” I blurt without thinking.

Jasper isn’t the coven leader, but he’s the one we listen to more often than not, and therefore, everything comes down to his say-so, but it’s too late to turn back now.

She turns into me, her eyes growing hopeful. “You think I can still fix the house up, I mean, while I’m being tested , of course?”

I’ve lived a long time, and I know she’s trying to bait me into giving her an inch so that she can take a mile, but I can’t help but give it to her.

“I don’t see why not. I’ll speak to Jasper on your behalf.”

“On my behalf,” she says playfully. “Sorry, I love the way you all speak. It’s like you’re from another time.”

I open my mouth to tell her we are from another time, but realization travels over her features, and she smiles apologetically.

“Will I ever get used to the fact that you’re over two hundred years old?”

“Probably not.”

She shivers and pulls the covers up further. “It’s so cold in this damn house.”

“The manor is very drafty. Repairs are needed here, too. Maybe while you’re at it, you can talk Jasper into fixing this place up,” I joke.

“I know you’re kidding, but don’t get me too intrigued because I will. Then we’ll both be in trouble because I’ve always wanted to fix and flip houses.”

“I don’t think you could flip this house. It’s rather heavy.”

My joke doesn’t land. Silver glares at me as if I’ve grown five heads.

“I didn’t know vampires had a sense of humor.” A slight smirk spreads on her face.

Unthinkingly, I lift my index finger and run it beneath her chin, tipping her face upward.

Her next expelled breath is as soft as a butterfly’s wings, and a twinge starts in my stomach and travels lower.

“You didn’t know we existed, though. So, in all fairness, I don’t think you know much about us at all.” My thumb passes over her chin as her pupils constrict and then blow wide.

“I’d like to,” she breathes, her answer barely louder than a whisper.

“You’d like to what?”

“Know you.” She clears her throat, shifting away from my touch. “Get to know you, I mean.”

“Would you?”

She’s intriguing, and I’d like to damn her for it.

Typically, any of them that test well and could be the key don’t call to me, meaning they go no further than my lab before their minds are wiped and they are sent on their way.

Silver, however, I knew was going to be an issue the moment I saw her in the coffee shop.

Her scent, her presence, is so fucking alluring, so beguiling. Even I, the most closed-off member of the order, have issues keeping my mind clear when I’m near her.

And I don’t like it.

“You’re telling me she’s done, but that you want to keep her away from Asher? You know he’s next. This won’t be another Valentina situation all over again, is it? Because I can’t take it, Corvin.” Jasper scrubs his hand down his face, looking at me in disbelief.

History is repeating itself, and it either means she’s the one or that we’re damned to be cursed forever.

Either prospect doesn’t bode well for me, the male in love with one of his order members.

Silver, while intriguing, is a problem for me.

She stands to take away the one thing I’ve relied on for centuries.

The one thing I love over all else.

Asher.

“I’d just like a little more time to trace her lineage down. You said I could do that with her, and her bloodlines are very interesting. They seem to stop with her and…”

Jasper cuts me off by lifting a hand. “I’ve heard enough. Sounds to me like you’re stalling because you sense something. You’ve done this before. We’ve been down this road before, Corvin. I’ve seen that sign.”

I scoff at his joke, rolling my eyes and shifting in the chair.

“You’ll call a meeting and tell everyone to be there. All your findings are to be relayed to the order, and I mean all of them.” He eyes me sternly, and I swallow.

Jasper is my maker, the one who gave me his blood from his veins. I can’t disobey a direct order from him anymore than I can disobey Lowell, our sire.

“When do you want to meet?”

“Tomorrow. Let the girl sleep. She is sleeping now, right?” His eyes narrow as he looks at me with concern.

“Yes, she’s sleeping. Why wouldn’t she be?”

Shrugging, he swivels in his chair. “I just know you were in her room all day, so I wondered if she was still in one piece.”

“We were binge-watching a television show together,” I say reluctantly, knowing the reaction I’m about to receive.

“Excuse me? You were what?”

Sighing, I close my eyes as I rally all my strength. “Just don’t.”

“Hey, I’m not judging. I’ve been saying you need to slow down and take a break for years.”

They all have been.

While I’m the town doctor, and I’m needed more than one would think in a town of vampires, I’m also the one who synthesizes all the blood, makes the blends to said blood, and I work on the curse as much as physically possible.

Trying to break us free of its grasp has been my top priority since I landed us in this predicament.

“I don’t have time for such things with all I have on my plate.”

His lips purse, and he stands and makes us both a drink, handing me one as he leans against the front of the desk, looking down at me with his serious face. “Let her in.”

“What… I…”

“Corvin, let her in. Don’t dwell on the fucking past and the curse and all the bullshit. Don’t even factor Asher into it at all, either. Let. Her. In.”

Not factoring Asher into anything in my life makes no earthly sense to me when he’s such an integral part of who I am.

As if he knows what I’m thinking, he says, “If this is going to work, you need your own relationship with her outside of what you and Asher share. There’s no other way to look at it. Cultivate something with her and let her in.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Stop looking like you’re not listening.”

I begrudgingly agree to try my hardest before shutting down the lab and telling the others that we have a meeting tomorrow to review Silver’s results.

When I peek in her room, she’s in the middle of the bed in a robe, her hair damp from a shower, eating straight out of a tub of ice cream.

For a hostage, she looks well taken care of.

She spies me and waves me in. “Hey! You’re just in time! There was a shooting on the ranch!”

“What?!” I exclaim, pushing the door open wide, forgetting everything warring in my chest and everything with Asher and bloodwork for once.

Plopping beside her, she absently offers me the rest of the ice cream, and I take it from her.

She never looks over at me, and I’m thankful.

She’d see me staring at her in awe of how easily she’s compassionate and accommodating to someone who inwardly hasn’t returned the favor.

“Thank you,” I tell her softly.

She smiles as she swivels her head at me. “I don’t think thanks are owed. It’s your ice cream, technically.”

“Still.”

“Where’d you go?” Her blue eyes bore into mine, and guilt builds in me.

“To tell Jasper that your test results are in.”

She swallows. “And?”

“And it’s Asher’s turn.”

She shifts on the bed, and the scent of fear wafts up my nostrils.

“Don’t worry; he won’t know until tomorrow.”

“So, we still have tonight?” she asks.

I take a spoonful of black cherry ice cream into my mouth. “We still have tonight.”

What I don’t tell her is that Asher is standing just beyond the door and heard every word I just said.

She climbs up to the head of the bed and pulls the covers back, patting the mattress beside her and beckoning me over.

I place the empty ice cream carton on the nightstand and kick my shoes off, sliding in next to her as she clicks the bedside light off and snuggles beneath the blankets.

I do the same.

A few moments pass before she moves closer.

“Today has been so nice. I know I’m a hostage, and this is fucked-up. What’s going on, and all, but it was such a nice day.”

“It was a nice day. I enjoyed myself.”

She scoffs. “Well, don’t say it like you’re surprised.”

“But I am surprised. I don’t suspect your testing will go past Asher; it never does, and we’ve been at this a long time, but I kind of wish it would.”

My admission hangs heavy between us before she mutes the television and turns on her side.

“Kind of?”

The space between us turns electric as I turn and look into her searching eyes.

There’s a period where I wonder if either of us is breathing. I don’t need to, but she surely does.

“Tell me about the curse. What exactly am I being tested for?” she whispers, breaking the spell between us.

“I don’t know if Jasper’s ready for you to know that yet.”

“But whatever it is, you’ve found it in me. For yourself, I mean.”

The implication that she’s the key to my portion of the curse sends shockwaves through my body because I hadn’t realized it myself.

“I have, yes.”

“Well, at least there’s that, I guess.” She snuggles closer to me, unmuting the television and leaving me with more questions than I’ve had in a very long time.

The one that’s nagging me is: does she want to be what we’re looking for?