Page 25 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Silver

As long as I’ve been aware, I’ve had the last name Dormund—Silver Dormund, niece of Soliel Dormund, the previous two living heirs in the tragic Dormund family. And while I know the family line was tragic, I never knew what ended it.

Everything has always been fuzzy.

For years, I worried I had some illness. I overextended my insurance and paid out of pocket for scans, but nothing was ever wrong with me.

All the tests always came back inconclusive.

Tenebris.

The name rings through my head like a fucking gong.

I’m not a Dormund.

I’m a Tenebris.

I’m not a human.

I’m a vampire.

“I’ve been waiting my entire life to meet you,” Lowell says softly. “Even before there was the curse, there was this ache in me that longed for a familiar. Someone who could understand me, who I am, and where I came from.”

“I don’t know who I am or where I came from, so I don’t know how much solace I can offer you.”

He cups my face, and the meaning of the gesture sinks through me. The warmth that’s absent from his touch is still grazing my soul. “We will get your memories back. Asher knows someone skilled at removing glamours, and then we’ll move forward with activating your gene.”

“Glamour?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Someone took your memories and made you a hostage in your own body. You would’ve lived centuries as a thirty-year-old, confused human who wasn’t a human at all. It was cruel.”

“Someone did this to me?” Of course, it makes perfect sense now that he’s saying it. They’ve mentioned multiple times that they can take my memories and drop me back into my world as if nothing happened.

Why didn’t I think of that?

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you were dealing with the news that you’re a vampire?

My mind is too loud, and I shake my head to rid the thoughts roaring through it.

“Someone did, and we’re not only going to get your memories back, but we’re going to find out who did it and why.”

His assured tone causes my back to straighten with confidence.

And then his face changes, a mournful, glum disposition filling his red eyes. “I’m so sorry about Soliel. I miss her every day. I didn’t mean to?—”

I shake my head. I’m not ready to hear the details.

It’s too fresh.

“I can’t.”

He gives a subtle nod.

“Lowell?” I say, shivering as the wind rips through the trees, its icy fingers stabbing through the thin fabric of my clothes. “Take me back to the manor?”

He gives me his arm to slip mine through, and we wander through the woods toward home, or what feels like is becoming my home.

There’s so much turmoil within me that I don’t know which way is up.

And I can’t sit still even when I’m back in the manor, showered and in my silk pajamas.

I pace the floor with restless energy and thoughts, keeping me awake before I decide I can’t take anymore. I pad down the hall, knocking on doors until I hear Corvin say, “Come in.”

He and Asher are lying on their bed, the television roaring about current events at the end before Asher mutes the sound.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Asher says, and Corvin smacks him as if they had already discussed how he’s behaving and he was breaking some rule.

I find it endearing that he’s his typical self. I crawl toward them from the bottom of the bed and continue my path until I’m between them at the head.

I turn over and lie down, sighing when their fragrances mingle. Their mixed scents remind me of darker, filthier times before I knew anything I learned today.

“I can’t sleep,” I say sheepishly.

“Mm, I think we got that much,” Asher says, and Corvin clears his throat.

They look so comfortable, besides the masks covering half of their faces.

Asher is in tight boxer briefs that fall to mid-thigh and no shirt. He’s covered in tattoos, and his muscles look like the gods formed them.

Corvin is in gray sleep pants that should be illegal in all states and shirtless. Although he has only a few tattoos that appear meaningful, his body is equally beautiful and sculpted.

“Do you want me to make you some tea?” Corvin asks, and while I know it would help, I don’t want to go to sleep yet.

Not with so much on my mind.

It’ll just overwhelm me again in the morning.

“No. Thank you.”

“Do you want to talk?” he counters.

“No.”

Asher chuckles, moving in for the kill as he inches a hand over the edge of my thigh. “Do you want us to help you relax another way?”

It seems ridiculous, the thought of doing anything sexual while my life is falling apart at the seams, but I can’t make myself say no.

I can’t even form my lips around the letter N to get the word started in my mouth.

“I don’t hear a no, do you, love?” Asher taunts, and I realize he’s talking to Corvin, which makes my blood heat.

The thought of their established relationship and connection makes me feel a surge of emotion, and I don’t know why.

“I didn’t hear a no either,” Corvin adds, moving down my body and hovering his face over my center as he grips either side of my sleep shorts.

His eyes look up at me through his mask, and his chestnut hair falls over the top edge of it.

Asher’s lips brush my ear, and my nipples bead and rub against my silk top. “Lift your bottom for him. Let us make you feel good. That is what you came in here for, isn’t it?”

Is it?

I indeed had a restless energy stirring in me that wouldn’t cease, but had I known all along what would quell it?

These two are the hot air that feeds a storm, so coming here might have been a mistake.

Although maybe once I’ve come, I can fall into an easy, dreamless sleep.

One can only hope.

I lift my bottom off the king-size bed, and Corvin tugs down my silk shorts.

I’d forgone panties after my shower, longing to feel the material slide over the clean-shaven feel of my sex.

Now, I know it was a good idea.

The way Corvin runs his eyes over my apex makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

“He’s hungry for you,” Asher whispers, urging me to lie back on the pillows.

I do so reluctantly as Corvin spreads my thighs until they’re lying lax as far as they’ll go.

He doesn’t toy with me.

The vampire doctor uses his thick tongue to spread my folds and twirl around my clit.

“Oh,” I moan, and Asher’s dark chuckle tickles my ear.

“Oh, just wait. If you’re a good girl, he’ll dose your pussy with venom, and you’ll have the ride of your life.”

“He can do that? I thought you had to bite—” My words cut off as Corvin’s tongue spears inside of me, and I lose all semblance of space and relativity.

“She likes that, love. Do it again.”

Corvin does as he’s told, fucking me with his tongue while all my worries melt away into the ether of tomorrow.

Asher’s hand slips under my top, toying with my hard nipples as I arch into Corvin’s mouth.

Corvin’s eyes flick up to mine as his hands smooth over the plains of my thighs, gripping and testing.

I don’t know what he’s looking for. Is it resistance he’s searching for? Hesitance?

Any sane woman would give some, I’m sure.

I mean, they’re monsters from stories I’ve known since childhood. Even when I don’t know who I am, I know what a vampire is.

But I reach down and lie my hands over his, giving him all the reassurance he needs, and he flattens his tongue as he tugs it from my entrance, lapping it over my clit.

The tingling of his mouth on me is overwhelming on an existential level. He’s had centuries to study the female body, and male, for that matter.

And it seems like he took extensive notes on the subjects.

Because it’s never felt like this.

“Does his tongue feel good, sweetheart?” Asher teases, snuggling his nose into the crook of my neck.

I nod, my mouth unable to form any words.

“Want to go higher?”

I don’t know if I can handle higher, but I’m willing to try, so again, I nod.

Asher and Corvin share a grin as Corvin’s eyes grow concerned.

“You’ll be able to stop, love. If not, I’ll stop you.”

His reassurance spikes through my heart as I sit up on my pillow a bit to watch what happens next. Corvin peels back from my center, and his fangs elongate, dripping with what I can only assume is venom.

When he plunges forward toward my apex again, Asher holds me down as the need to thrash overcomes me—the need to run.

“Corvin!” I scream.

His fangs pierce my sensitive flesh, missing anything vital but still causing a sting before the rush of venom laces through me.

My orgasm has me shattering, arched off the bed, crying out inconsolably as Asher nibbles my ear and flicks his tongue against it, his hands toying relentlessly with my nipples.

Before I know it, I’m building toward another, and I don’t know if I can handle it. Corvin’s bite is already gone, and I don’t think he even drank a drop of my blood. His bite was purely meant for my pleasure.

I can’t believe he would have the strength or even the desire to do that for me. Tears are forming in my eyes and blurring my vision.

His mouth is merciless, the flicks of his tongue unending, and I’m orgasming once more as he adds a finger inside me and allows me to ride it out on his hand.

“I think one more should suffice,” Asher tells Corvin, and Corvin pops up from my center with a feral look.

“If I taste her for another second, I’m going to lose it. I need more.”

I. Need. More.

Three words have my body begging for the same. Pleading.

“More,” I whisper through panted breaths.

“You want more? You want to fuck my mate?”

The way he said it has a bit of shame and guilt welling up in my chest, but Asher sheds that worry as he cups my face and takes my lips with his.

It’s a kiss of reassurance, much like I’d given Corvin with a graze of my hands against his.

“We have to learn to share if this is to work.”

I realize that, but I also remember him storming out of the house after our last encounter, and I don’t want him to get hurt again.

“Are you sure?” I whisper against his lips.

He nods. “Besides, no one said I wouldn’t be involved, sweetheart.”

That has my blood churning in my veins even harder.

What could it possibly mean?

Asher gets off the bed and draws Corvin with him.

For a long time, I watch them kiss, and then I watch as Asher sinks to his knees and takes Corvin’s cock into his mouth.

Corvin’s unforgiving, using both hands on Asher’s head to fuck into his mouth. Asher’s gagging as my hand slinks down to my center and rubs. Once. Twice.

“Fuck yourself. Two fingers,” Corvin strains, watching with crazed ruby eyes while moving Asher’s mouth on him.

The entire room is under his control, and it’s mesmerizing to be a part of.

I try to remember that I’m under the control of Corvin’s venom and that some of this might be venom-induced, but I was enjoying them before he dosed me, so I write it off.

Angling properly and opening my legs further, I slide two fingers inside my body, digging my heel into my sensitive clit as I writhe, my eyes never leaving the scene before me.

Until Corvin shoves Asher off him and whooshes through the room, causing a wind from his stealth. In the blink of an eye, he’s over me, his cock dripping with Asher’s spit as lubricant.

“Harder. Fuck yourself harder,” he grits out, watching the junction where I’m riding my hand with rapt attention.

I’ve caught the attention of a killer, and I’m just now realizing the gravity of that fact.

Asher gets behind Corvin, bending him over me, and I faintly hear the click of a bottle cap before he slides inside Corvin’s body, sheathing himself in his ass.

Corvin’s eyes soften but remain on me.

I desperately want him to sink inside me.

For the three of us to be connected.

As if he can hear my thoughts, he flicks his gaze up at me. “I can’t.”

I nod, doubling down my efforts with my hand as my orgasm is right around the bend again.

When I come, I scream their names, and then the door slams into the wall as it opens, and vampires are scrambling this way and that.

My heavy eyes snap open as my hand slides from my center.

“Lowell,” Asher warns as the unhinged Thorngray Vampire snarls.

“She is mine.”

“She’s ours,” Corvin counters.

“Oh yeah? Why didn’t you lay claim then? Why didn’t you fuck her?”

Corvin swallows, and Asher gives him a firm squeeze on his arm as Lowell reaches his hand for me.

“Come, little lamb. Let’s get you to bed.”

Goddamn me, I do.

I get off the bed and slide my hand into his.

In my post-orgasm haze, I can’t be held accountable for my actions.

At least, I don’t think so.

And I can’t deny how Lowell claiming me made my insides curl into a ball like a satisfied cat.

I should be committed.