Page 21 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Corvin

The noise that came out of Asher before he dusted debris off his pants and left was one I know all too well.

He’s going to need a minute to come back to his gentlemanly senses, so I’m giving him berth to do so.

After buttoning my slacks, I look down to find Silver grinning as she slides her panties over her sensitive center.

I try not to dwell on how seeing her come for us hadn’t bothered me one bit, but I’m failing.

I help her off her knees, and she eyes the door Asher slammed on his way out with concern.

“He’s upset. We should go find him.”

“I will soon. He needs to calm down before anyone can go near him. Trust me.”

“I didn’t mean to cause all this. I swear, usually I’m not even like this… I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

“Venom has gotten into you. The effects will wear off, eventually.”

She removes her ripped leggings and deposits them in her trash can.

Her panties are made of silk and are dark green. The back of them has the drying evidence of Asher’s release, and my cock swells in my slacks again.

Fuck.

Why things with Silver are so much more real and overwhelming than they were with Valentina, I’ll never know. But she’s more.

I’ve never once worried that Asher loved or desired her more. Never once wanted to rip his hands from her flesh. If anything, I wanted him to sink inside her and come down her throat while he filled her.

It’s unnatural; this feeling.

It has me off-kilter, if I’m honest.

Silver stands at the island in her kitchen, panting as she leans over it, both of her hands white-knuckling the edge.

“Hey.” I move behind her, crowding her back as I lean over her. “You alright?”

“I don’t want to come between you two. Shit, I don’t want to ruin some ancient relationship. What you two have is older than I am!”

I laugh, and she turns in my arms.

Her blue eyes are glassy with unshed tears, and I hope they don’t fall.

They’ll make me murderous.

“Hey, you’re not ruining anything.”

The first tear falls down her cheek, and I hiss at it. Reaching up, I wipe it away.

“He’s so upset. I know he started it, but I’m sure he didn’t know how he’d feel until he was in the throes… now he’s hurt, and I don’t want him hurt. I don’t want any of you hurt. I don’t want any of this.”

Her words about Asher have respect growing in me towards her, but the way she denied wanting anything to do with us makes anger swell and overtake it.

“You didn’t want what just happened? We don’t want you doing anything you don’t want to, Silver…”

“No!” She cuts my words off. “I wanted what just happened so much. I don’t even have the words to tell you how much. If I’m honest, I wanted more.” Her teeth sink into her lip, and I brush my thumb over her chin.

“So did I.” The admittance startles us both, but I let it settle between us anyhow.

“You did?” she whispers.

I nod. “I wanted you to sink onto his cock so I could watch him fill you up and stretch you…”

“This isn’t helping,” she whines, grinning at me as I break into a laugh.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t understand any of this. Asher said I should stop trying to make sense of everything and just live in the moment, but then I feel guilty for doing that.”

“I understand that. But you need to know that if you ever utter the word stop toward any of us, it all ceases, Silver. We’ll do nothing you don’t want.”

She tugs my shirt and rises on her tiptoes before meeting my lips with hers in a kiss that’s entirely different from the one we shared before.

This one’s heartfelt and warming.

“I want more,” she whispers. “So much more. And I don’t know what that means to admit it.”

“It makes you ours.”

Her cerulean eyes bolt to mine. “I hate how those words make me feel.”

I twirl a lock of her hair around my finger. “How do they make you feel?”

“Safe. Cared for. Two things I always wanted to make myself feel without the help of any man.”

“And now you have four men.”

Her lips curve up. “I do, don’t I?”

“I think he’s right, you know?”

“How so?”

“You should just see where this takes you.”

“On one condition,” she counters.

I tuck her hair behind her ear, letting my touch curl around the edge as I drop it away. “What’s that?”

“That you do the same.”

My heart skips. A deal with her would undermine every belief I’ve held onto for so many years. It would shatter every shred of the old me as I work toward learning the new me—the me where I no longer belong only to Asher Thorngray.

“Deal.” I hold my hand between us, and she shakes it immediately.

And just like that, a deal is struck.

I lean down and capture her lips again, her kiss feeling easy and freeing as we move in tandem. My hands find her ass, cupping as she moans into my mouth.

I break away with great effort. “I need to go find him.”

“I’ll come with you. Just let me get some pants.” She pushes away from me, heading for the bedroom, but I capture her arm and pull her back.

Her back hits my chest as I lean down and whisper, “No. I need to do this. He doesn’t understand how he’s feeling. And besides, you have cum on your ass. I think you could use a nice long bath.”

Her breathy little moan builds confidence in my chest, and I feel powerful when she grips the side of my leg for stability against her growing arousal. The scent is becoming stronger.

“I’ll see you back at the manor?” she asks.

I nudge her head to the side, running my nose along the column of her throat. “You will.”

“Bring him back to us,” she says, a seedy implication in her tone.

“I will, but be ready for the storm. When Asher Thorngray is upset, the world shudders around him.”

I find him in the dungeon, beating his fists into the punching bag, which looks like it’s about to give up and explode.

His shirt is off, and his muscles are fraught with tension as sweat beads over them.

“Ash,” I start, and he whips on me, rushing at me with deranged eyes.

“You!” His bare knuckles are bloody and busted, but already, his enhanced healing is covering them over as he attempts to keep them bloody.

He slams my back against the wall; his heaving breaths are the only sound in the space between us.

“Are you alright?”

“No. Yes. I’m fine.”

The punching bag makes a loud thud as it falls from the ceiling and rolls to the floor. I eye it over his shoulder.

“You sure about that?”

“That thing’s old. It was on its last leg.”

I purse my lips. “We both know that’s a lie. We just got that. Now, you always preach that honesty is the best policy. Tell me the truth.”

He sighs, leaning his forehead against mine.

“I don’t know what came over me. I watched how you handled the situation, and it was so fucking hot, and I loved every second, but then you looked at her so lovingly, and something in me snapped. I was so… worried. So…”

“Jealous,” I finish when he can’t seem to.

I don’t smile at knowing just how he feels. It’s an awful feeling to be jealous, and I don’t wish it on my worst enemy.

I’ve suffered at envy’s hands for years, unable to get free.

Something about Silver unlocked that incessant need to worry and ruminate on what could happen, and I don’t want us to have swapped spots.

Seems that it’s happened, though.

“You don’t want me to touch her?” I ask him, trying to get to the root of it.

“No. That’s not it. I wanted to stand by and watch you fuck her; it was like… the more emotional side of things got to me. I don’t want your growing fascination with her to overshadow what we have.”

His words have my heart hammering. Asher is private, even with me. He guards his heart and feelings with a wall of stone—one I’ve only been over a few times in the fifty years we’ve been together.

I cup either side of his face. “That’ll never happen, you brute. Even with as stubborn as you are, I’ll love you with everything that I have until death parts us.”

“You’ll need to love Silver, too. The curse demands that…”

“I know what the curse demands, but any love that grows for her won’t diminish or change what we have.”

“How is it that you’re so strong and certain now, when you were the opposite with Valentina?”

His hands on my hips make me very hyperaware of how my body has begun to thrum, and I swallow audibly.

“I don’t know. This feels different. Doesn’t it? It can’t be just me who feels it.”

He nods. “It does. Just don’t stop looking at me the way you looked at her.”

I shake my head, rolling my eyes in disbelief. “You’re being absurd.”

I realize I’m invalidating his feelings when he’d never do that to me, and I tug his face toward mine.

“I promise. Nothing will change between us.”

The kiss we share is heated, per usual, and is only broken up when Silver crashes into the room and takes in the state of us with a tinge to her cheeks and arousal leaking from her pores.

“Listen, you can’t let me come between you. Wait, that sounded dirty. You can’t let me spread… no. You know what I’m saying!” she finishes in a huff.

Her face is flushed, and her hair is in a messy, wet bun.

She rushed through her shower, and it looks like she ran here.

“Silver,” I start. “Did you run here?”

She eyes Asher as she ignores me entirely. “He loves you, and nothing I do can change that. Even I can see it, and I’m new here.”

Asher smirks at her flustered nature and winks at me as he crosses his arms.

“What the hell do you know, human?” he prods.

Silver rises to the occasion, growling as her eyes narrow.

“I know that nothing we did back at my house was wrong. I’ll grow to love both of you equally and in different ways.

There’ll be two loves separate from one another that also intersect at certain points.

Like roads that cross one another.” She’s rambling because Asher has stepped closer and backed her toward the door to the dungeon.

I grin as I watch his darker nature rear its adorable little head as I grow hard all over again.

I find it alarming and odd that I’m not more hurt or upset as I watch them, but I swat that worry away because I don’t have time to give to it tonight.

Not when there’s a lot more fun to be had between the three of us.

That is, until the door behind Silver bursts open, tossing her and Asher backward.

Asher captures her and keeps her on her feet, her back to his chest as he snarls.

I rush before her, crouching as my fangs descend in my mouth.

Lowell’s deranged eyes take in the state of us. “Where have you been, little lamb? I’ve been hunting you all day.”