Page 12 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Asher

Dragging her through the hall, her screams carry through the entire house. None of them are going to bother me.

It’s my time.

Even Corvin, with all his jealousy and brooding, will leave me to my devices with the alluring woman I now know as Silver.

What a fucking name.

“Let me go!” she seethes, trying to kick out of my hold.

I have both her ankles held firmly, so she achieves none of her feats.

Jasper steps into the hall as I pass, shaking his head at me before stepping back into his room.

I note the odd moment between the two, though.

They lock eyes, and some strange moment befalls them.

Corvin said his tests are in, and he’s ready to present them to us later, but I’ve been chomping at the bit to get my fangs near Silver, so I snatched her only a few hours after I heard him tell her.

Only a handful of times has a girl passed Corvin’s tests and made it to me.

Usually, he finds them incompatible, and then I don’t get to play with them.

It’s absurd, the situation that led us all here, cursed and in limbo, but such is life.

“Where are you taking me?” she asks, her voice finally devoid of its ire and filled with fear.

Dark and delectable fear.

The thing I feed on.

“You’ll find out.”

Her blue eyes turn rage-filled as I drop her ankles and yoke her up off the ground, tossing her over my shoulder as I head for the dungeon.

Where we can be alone.

Her anger spills over again, drowning her common sense as she trashes on my back with her tiny hands. “Put me down! Jasper!” she screams, her voice carrying nowhere. Not now that I’ve slammed the soundproof basement door behind me.

We descend the stairs and move through the gym.

I drop her in the middle of my play space, and she lands on her ass, her hands sprawling out to grasp the black floor.

She looks around before gazing up at me with her bewitching eyes. “What is this? Yo—you’re going to… rape me?”

I scoff, hissing only the way a vampiric male can. “What do you take me for?”

She stands, a little wobbly on her sore ankles from my dragging her through the house. “I don’t know… maybe a beast who just stole me in the middle of the night and took me down to his sex dungeon, all while he’s in nothing but the tightest boxers known to man?!”

I step into her, and she attempts to back up.

The rack I intend to hang her from bumps into her, and she sneers at the cold feel of the metal on her nearly bare skin.

She’s in a silk nightgown that comes to mid-thigh.

I’ll thank Jasper for the sight later. He’ll have gotten her the finest clothes for her stay at Thorngray.

Even if she’ll get thrown back.

Though he let us keep Soliel.

Maybe he’ll let us keep her, too.

Until she eventually ages and dies.

“I’m no beast, but I’m also no man,” I tell her, narrowing my eyes on her as I press her against the metal rack I made myself.

She grips a couple of its bars. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

I tsk at her. “Oh, love. I don’t want to hurt you. Well, maybe a little.” The undercurrent of my meaning flutters in my tone, and she opens her eyes, which she had closed in fear, looking at me.

“What do you want from me?” she asks.

“It’s not what I want, love. It’s what I want to give you.”

“Give me?” she whispers as I lift her wrist, securing it in a cuff above.

“Mm. If your blood calls to me, you’ve passed two tests. It means you’re my Predestinat.”

“Your what?” she asks, watching as I cuff her right hand to the rack.

“My Predestinat. My fated. The one who houses the blood that calls to me over all others.”

“You think I’m some beauty to your beast? That’s not… I’m not…” she’s sputtering, and I can’t say I don’t find it intriguing to watch her spin.

“You could be.” I lean in. “Trust me. You want to be.”

She swallows.

“Now,” running my nose over her soft throat, “shall we begin?”

“You’re going to drink my blood?” she asks, and her tone is laced with enough fear, appeasing my darker nature.

“I am going to taste it, yes. Drink it, no.”

“Right. You don’t drink from humans. The moral vampires; I forgot.”

A growl cuts off her sass as I step back into her, a flogger in my hand that I picked up and was about to hang back on the wall.

Likely Jasper’s doing.

He loves to punish himself but hates to clean up his messes.

“Don’t test me, love. I would love nothing more than to pierce your thin little vein with my fangs and hear the pop when it opens to me. I bet your blood is the sweetest I’ve ever tasted. I can smell it even now.”

She swallows audibly as I run my finger over her throat.

“How will you get my blood otherwise?” She cranes her neck, acting like she doesn’t want my hand on her.

She forgets I can hear her racing heart and smell her arousal.

She forgets I’m inhuman.

“I’ll drink from the vial Corvin gave me, of course. Only a taste.” My whispered words flit over her open lips as I hover close, looking down into her lust-riddled face.

This is part of our allure.

The call of the vampire to those less than.

The thing that reels our prey closer when they should back away.

“Only a taste,” she repeats.

“Why do I get the distinct feeling you want me to drink directly from you, love?” I tease my finger over her collarbone, and her breathing hitches.

“I didn’t say that…”

“You didn’t have to. I can hear the truth you keep silent in each beat of your heart.”

Her eyes roll back as I tease my hand beneath her silk nightgown, moving closer to her perky nipple that’s calling to me.

“What if I am your fated?” she asks.

“If you are my Predestinat, then your testing will go further. You’ll then need to see if you’re Jasper’s and if you’re Lowell’s.”

She shivers, and I smirk.

“Not a fan of Lowell’s, huh? I’m surprised. It’s usually me they don’t like.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s just… he was watching me. Just standing in my yard.”

“We’ve all been watching you, love. Look at you.” My hand finally finds her breast.

It’s full and soft, heavy, and Silver arches off the rack into my touch as I roll her hard nipple between my fingers.

Even with all the alluring draw that our presence brings to the situation, I don’t know if I’ve ever witnessed one of them so responsive to us.

Other than her , of course.

And she’s the reason we’re here.

Cursed.

Growling, I remove my hand from beneath Silver’s gown.

“It’s time.” Marching over to the small fridge where I know Corvin stored the extra vial he took, for if his trial got to this point, I tug it open and remove it.

Silver’s eyes are on me as I chug the small amount of her blood back, and it’s as if she’s hanging on bated breath to know the results.

I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Her blood spills down my throat and into my belly, captivating not only every cell in my body but calling a snarl from my throat.

“Asher?” she sputters, and my name from her mouth does nothing for the burning in my throat.

“Fuck.” Grabbing my throat, I step backward, dropping the vial onto the ground.

It shatters.

“Asher?!” This time, worry is braided in her tone.

“Too good.” It’s all I get out before I feel the shift in my chest. In my entire body.

I lunge for her, landing over her, a hair’s breadth from her face. My hands grip the bars as I barely contain the need to rip her throat to pieces.

“You taste like nothing I’ve ever had the pleasure of savoring.”

My voice doesn’t even sound like me.

I sound deranged.

More than usual.

“You said you wouldn’t drink from me. Remember?” she whispers, but there’s the slightest bit of arousal seeping through the air like a current of electric humming through a wire.

“I did say that, Silver.”

Her pupils dilate at my saying her name.

“Just one more taste,” I tell myself, and a hazy look falls over Silver’s features.

“Are you supposed to drink from me?”

Hissing, I scrape my fang up her neck.

“Asher,” she whispers, and it no longer sounds like she’s pleading with me to stop. It sounds like a hopeful benediction.

An unholy snarl rips from my throat as I lose control for the first time since Valentina.

My teeth sink into Silver’s neck, and her sweet blood pours into my mouth after her vein bursts. Flavors as rich as caramel and butter rush my tastebuds like the first colors of fall.

I moan as her body oozes arousal, the scent of it permeating the air surrounding us.

“Asher! What the fuck are you doing?!”

It’s Corvin, and I know I should stop.

But I can’t.

Silver’s cries of pleasure call my body to respond. I lick her neck wound closed, grinding over her center with my hardness through both our clothes.

“Get out!” I growl to Corvin, turning on him with wild eyes to convey my message.

The hurt flashing through his eyes back at me isn’t something I can dwell on at the moment, however.

The door slams as I skim my hand beneath Silver’s nightgown, shoving her panties to the side to find her perfect center drenched from my bite.

“Sweet Silver, you’re soaked.”

“Please, touch me. More, please,” she begs, and I know the euphoria she’s swimming in because I know what a punch my venom packs.

Corvin would say to stop. To not push her while she’s under my influence, but how can I?

When the sounds she’s making are so sweet and perfect.

“Please, untie me.”

Her command gives me pause, but something about her is different, alluring as fuck.

I do as she’s asked to see what she’ll do next.

Will she run?

I love a chase.

Instead, she rubs her wrists, faltering a bit on her feet as she steps into me.

I steady her, holding onto her shoulders as I look down into her hazy eyes.

“What did I taste like?” she asks, throwing me off.

“What?”

“My blood. What did it taste like? Am I your…”

“My Predestinat? I think you are. You taste like fall. Like the sweetest caramel apple.”

Silver’s hands find my chest as she uses me to steady herself.

“Why did it feel so good?”

She’s still delirious. I can see it in her glassy eyes.

“Because my bite has venom, Sweet Silver.”

I lean down, my hand tipping her face upward as my lips graze hers, testing.

“I thought you were the scary one,” she whispers against my urgent lips. I brush back and forth, toying with the idea of pressing them to hers and seeing where she’ll take this.

“I am.”

“Asher Thorngray!” Jasper’s annoyed voice calls as light spills down the basement stairs. “Step away from her right now!”

I growl low in my throat as Silver clutches onto my shirt, not ready for our moment together to end.

Neither am I, Sweet Silver.

I take a step back, reluctantly.

“You know the rules, Asher. You’re not to drink from a human vein.”

Silver looks between us with worry on her face.

Is she worried about me? Or for what fight might break out between us that she could get caught in the middle of?

“I know,” I answer, hanging my head.

When we were cursed to live in this town and cursed to wear these masks, we made a vow to keep ourselves and this place safe. No more human blood.

Synthetic only.

I’ve always been the most impulsive of us, however.

“Silver, come.” Jasper puts his hand out toward her, and Silver hesitates. “I’ll deal with you later.” He turns his eyes on me.

Still, the scent of her arousal is palpable, and I wonder what the little minx will do.

Will she choose to stay in the dungeon with the darkest of us, or will she take the hand of her savior?

She steps closer to me, turning her back to my chest. “I told him he could. It’s not his fault.”

Is she defending me?

“Let’s go, Silver.” Jasper’s tone won’t be questioned, and yet, I have the distinct feeling that if anyone would question him, it would be this woman.

“I’m staying with Asher.”

I sneak a hand to her right side, out of sight, but she shifts back another step into me.

“I didn’t give you a choice in the matter,” Jasper quips. “Don’t think with your body, Silver. Let’s go.”

“With my body?”

“Even I can smell your arousal. It’s his bite that’s affecting you. You’ll feel differently about what just happened in the morning. Now, come.”

His hand, ever insistent, hangs in the air still.

And fuck me if his words don’t strike me right through the gut.

Silver turns and eyes me, and I see her apology written on her beautiful irises.

She turns and pulls away from me, walking over to Jasper as she leaves me standing in the dungeon alone, rejected and pissed off.

And I know just who I have to blame for this.

Corvin.