Page 33 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Silver

Coming down from the shower, I run my hand along the wooden railing that runs the length of the stairs.

Being in the manor is like being in another era.

Everything looks like a scene out of Downton Abbey.

Other than that, I’m the main character, and none of the men living beneath its roof are gentlemen. At one time, they were, perhaps.

The scent of food cooking invades my nose long before I enter the kitchen. Jasper diligently moves from one pot to the next, humming some long-forgotten tune softly.

I watch him as I slide onto a stool at the island bar. He flips the steak in the pan before tipping it toward him, then uses a spoon to bathe it in the sizzling butter cooking beneath it.

My stomach grumbles as I lick my lips. “That looks delicious.”

He startles slightly before turning around and flashing me a devilish grin. “To you, maybe.”

“You eat food, right? Occasionally?” I note the second steak that’s already resting on a bamboo cutting board off to his right as I ask.

“We do. We can tolerate it, though it doesn’t satisfy the craving for blood. It is an old pastime we partake of.”

I snort. “Pastime.”

He turns off the heat and moves the steak next to the other on the cutting board to rest before turning back toward me.

“When you’re as old as we are and don’t need to do such tedious tasks, you’ll find you forget them altogether.

I don’t think I’ve eaten food in well over a year until I had coffee with you. ”

“Speaking of, did the drugs not affect you?”

His eyes fill with something he doesn’t speak to life as I watch him seem to fight with something he’d rather not tell me. “Let’s talk about that over dinner, shall we?”

He leads me over to the table, where he also sits. I hadn’t heard Milly come in, but when I turned my attention back toward the kitchen, she was plating our dinner.

Jasper pours us both healthy glasses of wine, and once Milly has our food in front of us, she exits as soundlessly as she’d entered.

Even though the food smells delicious, knots wind through my stomach as I watch Jasper for any signs that he’s angry about how I behaved. I was drugged, sure, but I was less than ladylike, and I know it’s hard enough for them to resist my blood when I’m not offering it drunkenly to them.

“I’m sorry about everything that happened,” I offer.

His red eyes narrow as they turn murderous. “None of this was your fault.”

“I know that I’m just?—”

“Do not apologize to me again.” The command is curt and has me sitting straighter in my chair.

“I’m sorry that I was too lax with your security.”

I laugh. “Like you could’ve known some psychopath dosed the coffee.”

There’s a beat of silence that I use to my advantage to get my thoughts and worries straight before I open my mouth again.

“It wasn’t Karen, was it?”

“I have no answer for you yet on that front.”

I swallow. Lifting my fork, I spear the steak, using my knife to slide through the tender meat as my mind works over the last few weeks.

My life has turned upside down.

I have a business back home that’s probably on fire right now because I’ve been unreachable, but that doesn’t feel like a problem I need to focus on. Not anymore.

“What do you know?” I ask shakily, popping a bite of steak into my mouth—the flavors dance on my tongue, salty and rich. The butter complements the tang of the medium-rare meat, and I moan as I close my eyes.

Jasper clears his throat rather huskily. “I know if you do that again, we won’t finish this meal.”

My grin spreads across my lips as I open my eyes to look over at him. Still, there are visages of the drugs someone slipped me looming in the dark edges of my body, waiting for adrenaline to flood me so it can ride the high right back to chaos.

“This is very good.”

“I’m glad you like it. I haven’t cooked for a very long time.”

“Well, you haven’t lost your touch.”

He nods his head in thanks, grabbing his glass to drink from.

I notice he hasn’t touched his food, but I leave it alone. We’ve had a trying couple of days.

“I need to have access to the outside world,” I pipe up, knowing I’ve caught him off guard when his brows furrow.

“For?”

“Work? I run a successful brokerage in the city, but I fear the two I’ve left in charge aren’t that bright. It’s been nearly two weeks since I last contacted them, and my cell phone has no reception. I worry about what’s happening in my absence.”

“And that’s the only reason?” he prods.

I try to figure out his meaning by dissecting his tone, but fail.

“Yes. Why else would you think I’d ask?”

He shrugs, but the way he looks down at his food immediately sends another wave of worry tangles through my belly.

“Jasper, I’m always honest with you.”

“Well, I wondered if you left someone behind. Someone we took you from.”

I snort a laugh, sipping a mouthful of wine to calm my racing nerves. “Like you cared?”

“I didn’t… before.”

“Before?”

He sighs. “When you were just a potential key to the curse that would get tossed right back out the door, what mattered if you went missing for a few days? But now… you’re more, Silver.

Now that I know that, I feel guilty. I hate what this process could do to you.

You must leave everything and everyone you love behind for us. ”

It’s hard to swallow my sauteed veggies as a lump of emotion forms in my throat. I hadn’t thought of that at all.

Why hadn’t I thought of that?

Perhaps because the company is all I have to fall back on. Sure, I have friends and associates here and there, but I have nothing tangible in my life.

Nothing that feels like them.

“I don’t have anyone back home. I have nothing, if I’m honest.”

“I find that so hard to believe. Look at you.” He sits back in his chair, setting his hand on the table as he peruses his eyes over my body.

My nipples harden, gooseflesh causing them to press against my shirt.

“My work was my bedfellow. I didn’t let anyone in. Ever. I don’t really know why. I just never felt the pull to do so.” I only have a few bites of food left, but I can’t stomach another one. Pushing the plate away from me, I grab my wine glass.

Jasper leans over, filling it again for me, and his spiced scent wafts up my nose, calling forward a dangerous side of me I’ve let run wild whilst here in the manor.

“I can understand that. I was that way for a very long time. In fact, I’d say I was like that until the day I saw you.” His gaze bounces back toward mine, and I feel breathless, caught in it. Like I’m floating in a thick morning fog, nothing but a speck in his atmosphere.

“Well, then I’d say we’re perfect for one another.”

The tension between us grows thicker, and that’s when Milly flounces through the room, whistling some tune and breaking the moment between us.

I clear my throat. My eyes feel heavy from the wine, and my body likewise.

“I’d like to show you something if you’re up to it,” Jasper says, eyeing Milly with darkened eyes.

“Of course. I have nothing better to do.” I wince at how my words came out, but Jasper seems none the wiser as he stands and offers his hand.

If I were ever to rejoin the modern world, I’d never be able to date anyone again. The Thorngray Vampires have set the bar too high.

Way too fucking high.

Jasper unlocks a door before us, hesitating after the lock gives way. I don’t understand what’s beyond it, but whatever it is, he doesn’t know if he should show me.

“No one’s ever been in this room, apart from members of the order. The only reason I’m bringing you here is to show you… warn you what this life looks like. What triggering that dormant gene inside of you looks like. We didn’t have time to know, to see. You deserve that chance.”

My heart is beating wildly, and I swallow in anticipation.

Jasper turns the handle. Every subsequent move he makes feels like he’s in slow motion.

The room is dark, but as we step in, cases in front of us and to the left and right illuminate as if triggered by our presence. The walls surrounding us are paneled wood, reminding me of a past era. It looks like a museum—a shrine to another time.

“What is this?” I whisper, forgetting him at my side as I step toward the closest case.

Inside lies a uniform. It’s moth-eaten and bears the scars of some distant war. There are medals on its lapel. So many medals.

“That’s Corvin’s uniform from the war.”

I recall Corvin regaling me with his tales of life as a soldier in the Revolutionary War.

Looking down at the clothing he’d warn when he was human… Fuck, it does something to me.

I know they’re old. They’ve said as much and proved it to me. Seeing the evidence of that life lived before is mind-boggling.

Stepping to my left, I begin a trek around the room.

Relics from other wars are proudly displayed, each case illuminating as I wander close to whatever sensors trigger them.

I stop, hovering over one case as I spy a collection of photographs.

It’s Asher. Not only Asher, but also with all sorts of people: musicians, women, and Corvin.

“The Roaring Twenties,” Jasper says, and I hear the smirk in his tone before looking up to see his lips spread up his face. “He loved that era. This entire case is dedicated to that decade.”

Emotion burns in my chest as I watch ghosts fill his eyes. “Jasper, why did you bring me here?”

He sighs, turning away as he meanders through the room. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turns back, eyeing me with his brows furrowed. “Even if you’re the key, Silver. Who would I be if I damned you to a life like this? Who would we be?”

“Jasper, I?—”

He shakes his head, and I bite my tongue.

“This might look like such a magical thing to you. But we’ve lived so many lifetimes, Lowell, especially.

I’ve fought in battles that should have killed me, loved women I killed for sustenance when it came down to it, and lived long past my expiration date.

I don’t want this for anyone. The more I get to know you, the more I get to be near you; I wholeheartedly don’t want this for you. ”

I don’t know what to say. I move closer. When I stop before him, I grab his hand, squeezing.

“I appreciate that more than you know. And I will consider all…”—I turn and look over the room before turning back—“this,” I finish.

“That’s all I ask.”

When he leans down, resting his forehead against mine, it feels as if the same drugs from this afternoon surge through me. It’s not until his lips meet mine that I realize it’s not drugs. It’s him.

He has this effect on me.

This is also something I must consider while considering my gene.

Because it’s becoming more apparent that once triggered, I’ll be the next member of the Midnight Order.

And to join the order, one must be sure.