Page 27 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Jasper

Silver clings to my arm as we both hover near the end of Lowell’s bed. That he’s covered in a sheen of sweat has me worried, especially when he’s the one in charge of this shit show we call a life.

Silver’s shaking, but less now that Lowell has risen.

“How long have I been asleep?” Lowell brushes his hand through his hair before working sleep out of his eyes.

“It’s nearly dinner time,” I answer.

“Fuck. I haven’t slept in so fucking long. I didn’t mean to fall asleep in the first place,” he grumbles, tossing the covers back and getting off the bed.

“That’s my fault,” Silver admits softly. “I had him tell me a story after we got back from my place, and then we just fell asleep.”

I’m looking between the two of them, wondering if this is going to be more of an issue than I thought it was going to be as I catch Lowell’s eyes.

“It’s not your fault that I’m broken, little lamb.” Lowell tosses on a shirt, making his way toward the door.

He’ll disappear into the gym for hours now, like he always does after the nightmares find him.

“I haven’t heard you say her name for a very long time. Are you alright?” I ask him as he passes, grabbing his upper arm to halt him.

He shrugs out of my hold. “I’m fine.”

He’s out the door and down the hall before Silver can even blink, and I’m sighing heavily.

Tugging my hand through my dirty blond hair, I let my mind run in laps as I prepare for what might come: years of unhinged Lowell, while we try to rein him in.

“Who’s Ossana?” Silver asks.

I open my mouth to tell her it’s not my story to tell, and as if she knows it’s coming, she rolls her eyes. “Got it. I have to ask Lowell.”

I nod. “Things with him are… complicated.”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

“Last night… he was kind? He didn’t hurt you? I heard about the incident in Corvin and Asher’s room.” I ask her.

Boy, had I heard about it. The two had spared no detail when they told me what happened, too.

Silver’s cheeks heat, and she wrings her hands. “He was kind. He told me about himself, which I thought he never would. He also told me he’s the leader of your coven. You led me to believe?—”

I hold my hand up to halt her next words.

“I didn’t lead you to believe a thing. It’s easy to think that I’m the coven leader, solely because of how I behave, but make no mistake, it’s only because Lowell allows it.

I take point on a lot of things, but only because he doesn’t have the capacity for the small shit. ”

She nods, still wringing her hands. “Last night, I—” She shifts on her feet, and her pretty cheeks turn pink. “I don’t know how to say this, but I want it relayed to everyone in the coven.”

I try to ignore how well she’s coming around to the fact that we’re vampires and she’s living in a coven because it makes me feel like this might work, and she might never leave.

“Go on. Just speak plainly. I’ve had centuries to hone my communication skills; I won’t crucify you for speaking out of turn.”

“Alright.” She takes a deep breath. “Lowell has clarified that he wants to be the first one I… sleep with, and I agree with his request, so…” she trails off, her cheeks now an off shade of purple.

I step closer, tipping her chin up to look down into her sinful blue eyes. “Nothing about that should make you feel ashamed. Sex in this house isn’t stigmatized, nor will you be judged or looked down upon for any decisions you make about your body.”

Her pupils dilate the slightest bit as my words settle. “You’ll tell the others?”

“I’ll tell the others. Now, we should probably get you some food since you slept all day long, lazy bones.”

She licks her lips, and my heart trips over its next beat.

I’ll remember the gazebo the rest of my life, and I know she will, too.

That one moment shared between us is enough to have me ready to go to the stake as a happy male.

She reaches up and grabs either side of my mask, tugging. The magic keeping it in place holds it steady, and pain sears the edges of my jaw.

I hiss.

“Sorry, I just thought it was worth a shot. I want to see all of you; I’m so impatient for it.”

“I don’t know that you ever will, Sweet Silver.” I lean down and softly press my lips to hers.

“You really don’t think he’ll come around and be able to test me to unlock the curse?”

I shrug one shoulder, turning us and leading her downstairs to the kitchen. “It’s not just the testing he needs to complete. We all have to love you and be willing to share you as well.”

“I forgot that part.”

“Mmm. It’s a complicated curse, for four complicated vampires.”

“I’d like to find the bitch who did this to you and kill her.”

“Well, that’ll be hard to do. She’s already dead.”

Silver stops on the last step and turns toward me. “She is? You’d have thought the curse would’ve died with her.”

I shove my hands in my pockets, leaning against the banister. “That’s what Lowell thought, too. He thought he would free us of her magic. Instead, it locked the curse in place.”

“God. The guilt he must carry.”

“Heavy is the burden on the one who wears the crown,” I recite as we head into the kitchen together.

Silver greets Milly and slides onto a stool.

I drop onto the one beside her.

“I have a feeling you shoulder a lot with him. And you’re a good friend for doing so,” she says, leaning over and kissing my cheek.

I capture her chin and hold her hostage. My lips take hers in a savage kiss that could burn the kitchen down if I allowed it the air to do so.

I pull back. “He’s not my friend. It’s much deeper than that.”

“I know, but I was just trying to articulate it.”

I smile, searching her eyes for any bits of the women who came before her, the ones who did us wrong and turned this coven upside down.

Coming up short, I kiss the tip of her nose.

Milly puts a plate down in front of her, and Silver turns her attention away from me.

I’m as sad as a puppy who just got his ball taken away, but I sigh and allow her to eat her food.

“The X5 has been prepared for your trip, Master Jasper.”

“See,” Silver says with a mouthful of food, “that’s why I thought you were the leader of the coven.”

Milly gasps through her shock, dropping the towel she’d been folding to the ground. “That’s treasonous talk!”

I chuckle. “It’s alright, Milly. Thank you. Please tell Mark that I’ll need an extra set of clothing added to my bag. Something else has come up that I’ll need to handle while I’m gone.”

“Yes, Master Jasper.”

Silver eyes me, glee floating in her blue pools.

“She refers to all of us as Master. It’s respect.”

“Oh.”

There’s a moment of silence between us. Silver pops a bite of apple into her mouth from the pile of slices on her plate, her eyes locked on mine.

“Where are you going on your trip?” she asks.

“Out of the country for a stint. Research into you, and a business meeting that I’ve been putting off far too long.”

“I thought you couldn’t leave Blackmoore.”

“We don’t leave Blackmoore, but we can. It’s pertinent we stay within the wards, in case a potential key to the curse wanders through, but since I’m fairly certain that you’re that key, I can attend to some matters I’ve been putting off.”

There go her cheeks again.

I reach up and thumb through the beautiful coloring on them.

“Can I come? If you’re going to research me, I should be allowed to go.”

“I—” I don’t know how to answer. Of course, I’d jump at the chance to spend alone time with her; in fact, it’s almost expected that we all spend alone time with her to further our bonding along, but the thing is: Lowell.

“I don’t know how Lowell will feel about that. I know the other two won’t like it either, now that they’ve had a taste of you.”

Her cheeks’ coloring deepens, and I growl before I can stop it from spilling out.

Leaning forward, I capture her chin between my thumb and forefinger. “I need you to stop blushing before I do something I won’t be proud of.”

She exhales, and it smells faintly of the coffee she’s been chugging. “Half of me wants to know what you’ll do. Does that make me reckless?”

“Fuck no. It makes you perfect.”

She beams, and I capture her lips.

This time, it’s not a quick embrace.

She parts my lips with her coffee-flavored tongue, and the notes of the cinnamon toast she’d been eating dance on the tip of mine as she caresses it.

My hand slides into her hair.

Her breathing quickens.

She’s an addiction, and I don’t want to fight it.

“Shit,” I say as I feel hunger rise to the surface and my fangs descend.

I know my eyes have changed, and the veins on my neck have turned black. They’ll have changed on my face, too, but she can’t see that.

“Sorry.” I stand and breathe through the thirst that burns its way up my throat.

Fuck, when was the last time I ate?

I realize it was the last time I drank from Silver’s vein.

I don’t know if I’ve unknowingly been holding off on eating until I could have her sweet blood again, or if we’ve just been so busy that I forgot.

Still, I’m starving, and it doesn’t bode well for the tasty morsel who’s currently walking toward me with candy-scented blood teeming through her system.

“Stop!” I put a hand up, but she doesn’t listen. “Goddamn you, woman, don’t you ever behave?”

“Never. And I don’t plan on starting now.” She halts before me, lifting her wrist toward me.

I shake my head. “No. I have some blood in my office. I just need to get the hell away from you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she sneers.

I lose control as a breeze floods the kitchen, and her scent fills my nose.

I back her into the wall nearest the China hutch in the dining room, my entire body growing rigid with hunger.

“It is a compliment. Your blood is like the nectar of the gods to us, Silver.”

She tugs her dark hair to the side and offers me her throat.

“This is the second time you’ve offered me your vein, and I was strong enough to resist the first time. I fear I’m not this time, and I need you to leave this room and find one of the others to keep you away from me for a while. I need to get this thirst under control.”

“Jasper,” she whispers, and I’m tugged into the gravity of her, pulled toward her like I’m on cables and she holds the controls. “Eat. I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.” I snarl as I bare my fangs and take one more step across a line I know I shouldn’t.

Lowell forbade us from drinking human blood a long time ago. It’s why Corvin synthesized blood. It’s only allowed during testing, and only if another is present in the room.

There’s simply no going back, however.

I strike Silver’s throat, and she cries out in pain at first, and then as venom leaks into her as I feed, she wraps a leg around me, her moans filling the manor with vibrancy.

I lift her, and she wraps around me, her hands in my hair as I tug on her vein and let her sickly sweet blood flood my system.

I’m well past satisfied, but I want more.

I want it all.

Silver writhes over my hard length, however, and reality crashes back into me.

I don’t want her dead.

I want her beside me.

Beside us.

It gives me the power to pull back and sheathe my fangs.

I lean forward and suckle the last few drops of Silver’s blood before I lick over the wound.

“Fuck,” she breathes, delirious from venom and writhing in my arms.

“I need?—”

“I know what you need.” I walk her to the counter and set her down on it.

She tosses off her shirt and works her shorts to the floor, baring her perfect body to me.

Anyone can walk in, but anyone can also hear what we’re up to and steer clear.

Unless they’re coven members, in which case, they’re invited to join.

“Part these perfect thighs for me, Sweet Silver. Let me look at your perfect cunt.”