Page 31 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Corvin

The microscope lens presses coldly around my eye as I watch little cells dance on the film, my eyes blurring in and out as I try to focus on the damn thing.

Fuck, I’m tired.

Asher’s come and gone multiple times, and I’m waiting for him to send in the big guns—Lowell—to force me to sleep, but I’m not ready for the moment Silver traipses through the door with a knowing smirk on her face.

“Good afternoon,” she says.

Shit, is it afternoon?

I look at my watch, noting the time but also realizing the date. I’ve been in here for four days.

“Hey,” I grumble, turning back to the microscope, where her blood dances with the agent I mixed it with so I could see the cells better.

“What are you up to in here? I hear you haven’t been out in a few days, not even to eat.”

I realize that point when her sweet scent wafts up my nose as she leans close, causing thirst to burn up my throat.

“Silver, could you back up? I don’t want you to compromise the slide.”

She scoffs. “The slide? I presume I’m the one on the slide. Aren’t I? Or are you so hungry that you don’t want me close?”

I growl.

My patience is fragile, being that I’m so exhausted and hungry, but I don’t think I realized it until she entered the lab.

“Please, let me work.” I sound like an addict chasing his next high.

As if Silver realizes the same thing, she grabs my arm and turns me, tugging me away from the microscope. She leads me to the rolling chair in front of my computer and plops me down.

My body aches as it relaxes, but I try to stand again, and Silver cuts me off by dropping her body over my lap. “Now,” she says. “A few people told me you won’t leave this lab. You’re burning the candle at both ends, and it will come to a head soon. Trust me, I know. I’ve done it many times over.”

The idea that she understands me on this level is something I relish for a moment before I realize how hard I’ve grown beneath her.

My body knows what it wants even when my mind wants to remain in the lab, wrapped up in slides and blood results. “I need to finish this. I’m so close.”

“It’ll be there tomorrow.”

“But what if I missed something?” I argue, sounding more unhinged than I realized I’d become over the last four days.

“It’ll be there tomorrow. Now, will you come with me to the dining room? Or do you want me to get Asher?”

“I want to keep working!” I snarl, my hands gripping her hips to tug her off of me, when she wraps her arms around me, and they feel as if they weigh a thousand pounds. As if she’s holding me hostage.

“Silver,” I breathe, and she leans in.

“I could feed you, Corvin. I know you don’t love to drink from me, but if you’re too hungry to wait…”

Am I dreaming?

I have the distinct feeling I’m going to rouse on the floor of this lab any moment now. There’s no way Silver is offering herself to me on a platter.

But when her nose brushes mine, the touch causing a tingle to ripple through my body like a gong, I know she’s really here.

“Don’t tempt a monster,” I tell her, my words choked under hunger as she plays a dangerous game with me.

“You’re not a monster, Corvin. And if you are, what does that make me?”

Her.

The very reason I’m in the lab is that I am burning the proverbial candle at both ends. To discover who she truly is and why Soliel had her hooks in her.

They’re not blood-related. I’ve reviewed those blood results and reran them multiple times.

Why did Soliel lure her here?

Who is Silver?

“You should get Asher for me.” I choke out through the burning in my throat.

“I can.” Her lips over mine are driving me wild, and I’m ready for her to leave when she presses them against mine briefly, setting into motion a frenzy, the likes of which I haven’t felt for a very long time.

She moans and slips her hands into my hair as I turn my head and deepen the kiss, licking, sucking, and tasting every inch of her sinful mouth.

She’s ramped to the highest degree, and I don’t know who got her to this level, but I’ll thank them later for the gift.

My hands explore her hips, moving around to her ass and squeezing as she glides her pelvis back and forth over my erection through my scrubs and her tiny shorts.

It’s what breaks the spell. “Silver.”

If I let this go too far, the hunger will get the better of me.

“Corvin,” she breathes, and if I were standing, it would’ve buckled my knees.

Unable to help myself, I nudge my face into the crook of her neck. She elongates it and gives me more canvas.

Running my nose against the column, I breathe her in deeply, memorizing her scent.

“We’re not supposed to drink from the vein. Other than for testing,” I admit to her.

I realize she likely doesn’t know this since the two of us have fed directly from her vein before, but I feel the need to give her all the facts.

“I won’t tell.”

Three words that will be my undoing.

Three words that won’t save my life if Lowell finds out.

Before good sense can take over or logic can win, I sink my fangs into her throat, losing the battle of wills to her sweet-scented blood.

The moment it rushes my mouth, I realize the reason for her odd state.

Pulling back, I hiss. “How much caffeine have you had this morning?”

“Only two cups.” She moans and writhes on my cock, and even though I know it’s not real, I grip her hips as she does so before I dive back into her neck for testing purposes this time.

I suck a mouthful of her in as I hear the door open, swishing it around my mouth before I peel away from her vein with great effort.

Swallowing, I let the tang of drugs linger on my tongue, knowing it’s going to affect me as much as it is her, albeit less dramatically.

“Corvin, what have you done?” Jasper says, rushing to aid Silver, who lolls her head back onto his stomach, looking up at him with the same desperation in her eyes as when she walked in here.

“She was drugged,” I tell Jasper, lifting Silver and laying her carefully on the exam table in the middle of the room.

She moans as she slides her hand down her stomach, one destination in mind.

Jasper catches it with a hiss. “Drugged?”

I point at her. “Taste for yourself.”

There’s still blood oozing and dribbling down her throat, and Jasper hesitantly leans over and licks it up.

His eyes shoot to mine. “Who would’ve done this?”

“I don’t know. Where was she this morning?”

“With me. We went into town and had coffee.” The realization that someone got to her while she was in his care dawns in his eyes, and anger has his fangs descending. “I’ll handle this.”

I shake my head. “I think it’s best if Lowell handles this. And also her. I don’t have the strength to...”

“What kind of drug is it?” he asks.

“Can’t be too sure without a blood draw, which I’ll do before you take her to Lowell, but I suspect something like Ecstasy.”

“For what purpose?”

“I suspect so one of us would lose control and give over to bloodlust and kill her.”

“Leaving the curse unbroken.”

I nod.

“Take your blood, and I’ll get her to Lowell.”

Drawing labs takes time as we try to keep Silver from stripping naked and ravaging us whole, which in any other circumstance would be so fucking hot.

Right now, however, it’s making my job hell because I’m standing before my analyzer with a stiff cock and a thirst that won’t quit.

Jasper leaves with Silver, which calms some of the thirst her moans and writhing were causing. But when Asher bursts through the door after hearing what happened, I’m a second away from losing my fucking mind.

I rush him, pressing him against a wall and sinking my fangs into his throat.

He hisses, gripping onto the back of my head by my hair. “Fuck, I missed you too.”

I moan as his expert hand sinks beneath my scrubs and strokes me in quick motions that’ll have me coming in no time with his taste in my mouth and the last of the drugs filtering through my system.

“I heard you were a little on edge, love, but this… Fuck,” he groans.

I break from his neck, holding onto his shoulders as I shatter, my cock erupting and filling my scrubs.

Asher doesn’t relent. He keeps going, rolling my orgasm into the next one as I scream through it.

Before I know it, I’m on my knees, his cock in my mouth, and his hands on either side of my head, guiding me like I’m nothing but his little fuck toy to ruin.

When he spills down my throat, only some of the nagging thirst Silver called to the surface is sated.

Part of me wonders if she’s the missing piece of the puzzle we’ll always crave for completion now.

Even though I think I already know the answer.

“Good boy,” Asher says, and I pop off his dick and look up at him.

Some of his cum dribbles down my chin, and he captures it and stuffs it back into my mouth, dragging his coated finger down my tongue. “Don’t be wasteful.”

I suck his flavor off his finger, and he moans.

“Now, tell me what happened. I passed a very horny little Silver on my way here, and while I told her I wanted her to lure you out of the lab, I didn’t tell her to seduce you until you were mindless with hunger.”

“She was drugged. I guess I was, too, for that matter. I drank from her; that’s how I realized.”

I stand, realizing the mess I am, as I remove my scrubs and move to the corner of the room where an emergency shower stands.

Pulling the cord, I let the spray of water trickle over me as Asher leans against the exam table and takes me in, appreciating every bit of me with his hungry eyes.

“You drank from her,” he repeats, and I nod. “Are you alright? I know you don’t like to break the rules.”

“I’m not five, Asher. I’m fine. I think Lowell will forgive me because we wouldn’t have realized she was drugged otherwise.”

“I beg to differ, but I agree Lowell will forgive you. Things with Silver are going to have to be different.”

“How so?”

“It’s too hard to follow the rules with her. When it comes to Silver, the rulebook needs to be tossed out completely. I planned to bring it up at our next meeting.”

I swallow, still tasting her, even through the tang of Asher’s cum.

The shower turns off, and I pull the cord once more to wash the soap I’ve worked into my flesh off.

“Why would someone drug her?” he asks.

“I suspect so one of us would become so mindless we ended up killing her in the process of losing ourselves to bloodlust.”

“Someone wants our key out of play. Meaning someone’s watching us.”

I nod.

“Well, that just won’t suit. Get dressed, love. We have a traitor to find.”