Page 34 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Asher

Lowell looks as if he’s going to rip the throats out of every resident of Blackmoore.

Not that I blame him. Part of me would rather be back at the manor with Corvin.

I know he’s reeling because of what happened, but he’s going to bury himself in work and analyze her blood to find the specific blend of drugs used to get to us. It’s what he does.

Jasper urged me to keep Lowell on a tight leash as he made Silver dinner and got the drugs flushed from her system.

Her heated gaze flashes through my mind. How she looked at the piercings in my dick like she wanted to taste them. How her teeth sank into her bottom lip hard enough to draw her sweet blood.

“Will you focus? I can feel your energy from here,” Lowell grumbles, pushing inside the coffee shop with enough fervor to rip the door off its hinges.

“Good evening,” Karen says, turning away from wiping down the counter behind her.

Her eyes grow worried as she takes in the state of Lowell.

“Nothing good about this evening, Karen.” My smirk is thin-lipped as I stuff my hands in my pockets.

It’s best to let Lowell do whatever he’s going to and then clean up the mess.

“You served Jasper and Silver earlier today?” Lowell asks her, his tone murderous.

“I did, yes. Only a few hours ago, matter of fact.” Karen’s eyes look up at the analog clock on the wall.

“And you made the coffee that you served them?” he prods.

I hear Karen’s next swallow. Her eyes flick toward me, but I nod to urge her on.

“I did. What’s this about, sire? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Lowell hisses, leaping over the counter at Karen.

She backs away as quickly as he’d moved, but he’s far older.

Pinning her to the counter, Lowell glares down at her.

The sound of leaking milk, knocked over from the scuffle, is the only sound in the coffee shop as I turn and flip the sign on the door to ‘Closed’.

“It’s about the drugs in my girl’s system. It’s about how we thought she would be safe here in Blackmoore, amongst our people, amongst my children.”

While Lowell sired quite a lot of the town, I’m to blame for most of their immortality. But because Jasper is Lowell’s, and I’m Jasper’s…

“Drugs?” Karen asks, and even I can hear the truth in her question.

“Drugs. Fed into her system. The only place she was today, besides the manor, was here.”

“Sire, I would never… I know nothing about any drugs. Is she okay?” Her concern is genuine, but Lowell is angry enough to end her just for being near Silver.

I note how he called her his girl. Jasper is already worried about how attached Lowell is growing to Silver when we know he won’t complete the testing with her.

He’s more crazed with Silver than he’s ever been before.

“She’s telling the truth,” I add when Lowell leans close to Karen’s throat.

My words cut off her whimper.

I step closer. “You can feel it as well as I can.”

“Leave. You’re closed for the time being.” Lowell backs up to give her a berth.

“What are you going to do?” Karen asks, and I shake my head at her audacity.

“We’re going to search every product, cup, and crevice. Somehow, Silver left here with drugs in her system,” I answer when I know Lowell isn’t going to.

Karen gives us both a curt nod before heading toward the exit. She turns back, pinning her eyes to Lowell’s. “I would never hurt her. You have to know that. No matter what you find here. It wasn’t me.”

Lowell snarls, and Karen’s hurried steps reflect the tone of the threat given.

For the next hour, Lowell and I taste, sniff, and scour through everything in the coffee shop until it’s a fucking disaster. Karen’s going to be pissed when she gets back to open tomorrow.

I’m discouraged that we won’t solve who drugged Silver when Lowell pops up from behind the counter with a snarl and crazed red eyes, holding a pump bottle of pumpkin syrup. “This is it!”

“You’re sure?” I ask, my undead heart beating wildly in its off-kilter way.

“Yes.”

I sigh, dropping the bags of sugar I’d been ripping open to the floor.

“Why do you look like my discovery has solved nothing?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering if it’s better to speak to Jasper before speaking to life about my every thought.

Lowell lives on the edge of sanity, as a rule. I don’t want to rile him up if it’s unnecessary.

“No reason.”

“Do you have something to say?” he presses.

I consider the words trying to burn a hole in the back of my tongue, and I shake my head. “Nothing more than what you’re thinking. Who the hell dosed the syrup if Karen didn’t?”

Lowell eyes the bottle as if it were his mortal enemy before slamming it onto the counter. Some contents spill out and splash onto the speckled countertop. “That’s what we need to find out.”

When I stroll into his office, I see Jasper swirling blood in his glass, staring into the blazing fire in the hearth.

“What a fucking day.” I sigh, grabbing a glass to pour bourbon into from the drink cart before making my way over and plopping down beside him.

He doesn’t say a word, only nods in agreement.

“You don’t come here unless you have something to say,” he mutters, sipping from his glass.

I notice the way his lip curls up as he swallows the blood down, as if it tastes like cigarette ash.

Silver’s slowly becoming the only thing we long to taste around here, which will become another issue once she’s moved on.

I ponder every dark thought swirling through my mind. I’ll need to cull it later in the basement and take a long sip from my crystal glass.

“Tell me,” he whispers.

“The drugs were in the pumpkin syrup in the shop.”

“So Lowell said.” He turns on me in his chair, his red eyes seeming darker tonight.

I bite my cheek. “We don’t know how long it was there.”

Jasper stares at me for a long moment before closing his eyes and growling. “We don’t know how long she’s been under the influence, but that is what you’re getting at.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck!” Standing, he tosses his drink into the fire. The shatter shouldn’t shock me, but I still stiffen at the sound.

“So everything with each of us… all that’s happened…”

“I could be wrong, Jasper. But we have to consider the possibility that she could’ve been drugged this entire time. We’d be doing us and her a disservice. You know she loves that fucking pumpkin latte Karen makes. We’ve all tasted it in her blood.”

He turns on me. “So, we could all have been dosed as well?”

Shit. I hadn’t considered that.

I nod.

“We have to start the entire process over. Get me Corvin. I want all of our blood tested for traces of drugs before we begin.”

“On it.” I stand and head for the door. Turning back, I take a deep breath. “It could all be real. Don’t get discouraged.”

“Get Corvin. And Ash,”

“Yeah?”

“Watch Lowell like a hawk. He won’t let this go until whoever did this is hanging from the town clock tower. You know that as well as I do. Don’t let this eat him alive.”

I sigh. “I’ll handle it.”

Walking out of his office, I realize that’s easier said than done. Even after all these years together, none of us possesses the ability to keep Lowell out of his own way.

If he can’t find out who did this to Silver, he’s going to self-destruct.

When I walk in, Corvin is poring over paperwork at his desk in the room's corner. I try to do so as laid back as possible, so he doesn’t get alerted too soon to the distress building in my chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, standing immediately.

Shaking my head, I round his desk and kiss the tip of his nose. “Good evening to you, too.”

“Something’s wrong. Your energy’s off. What’s happened? Is it Silver? Is she alright?”

He tries to push past me, but I catch his wrist, turning to look at him. His eyes are frantic, and his heart rate races through my ears as if it’s mine.

He truly cares for her.

That’s if he’s not still drunk on her blood.

“Sit,” I tell him softly.

“Ash, if it’s something bad, just tell me. Please, don’t drag this out.”

I sigh. “Will you not be hardheaded for once?”

Rolling his eyes, he takes a seat in his chair. I lean against his desk, making sure our legs touch. Having some point of contact between us will keep me sane.

Keep me strong.

“The drugs were in the pumpkin syrup. Karen didn’t do it that much, I know. What we don’t know is who did it.”

“The syrup…” The cogs in his eyes turn, and they’re nearly visible to me as I watch his glorious brain work through the problem. “She’s been drinking that since she got to town, hasn’t she? She told Jasper as much… Fuck, has she been drugged this entire time?”

“We don’t know.”

“Goddamnit!” Standing, he lifts his chair and tosses it across the room. Beakers shatter to the floor, their contents fizzling on the linoleum. “I knew it was all too good to be true!”

Usually, he’s the smarter of us, the one that can remain level-headed through all the bullshit.

But when it comes to his heart and his feelings, he’s more untamed and feral.

“Hey!” I grab him by the shoulders, turning him toward me. “We don’t know when the syrup was dosed. Until we know more and re-test, we need to keep our heads.”

His answering smirk breaks through the rage in the room. “And you’re the one thinking clearly now?”

“I had my meltdown already, thank you very much.”

He laughs and shakes his head, and I know he’s back in reality with me.

“Wait, re-test?” he asks, finally catching on to what I said.

“Jasper wants you to test all of our blood to ensure we’re clean of drugs, and then he wants to re-test Silver. Start fresh.”

“Fuck’s sake.” He scrubs his face as he turns away from me. “And if she doesn’t want to? She could hear this news and run away from us. She’s going to think that it’s the drugs that have had her acting out of her norm, Ash.”

“Well, then we?—”

“I’ll re-test.”

We both turn to look as Silver’s voice of reason breaks through the room. She steps closer, her eyes clearer than when I saw her earlier in the shower.

“Jasper just told me what you guys found. I’ll re-test. I need to know.” Her voice wavers, and the urge to go to her is intense.

Being one of us who should have none of her blood in my body at this point, I see that as a good sign that she is the key. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, however, so I keep my mouth shut.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Jasper says, stepping into the lab behind her. “Not this time.”

Silver looks between us, waiting for any disagreement.

When she doesn’t find any, she bites her lower lip. “I start with Corvin again?”

Corvin clears his throat. “We’ll give the drugs some time to exit your system, and then I’ll test us all to ensure we’re all drug-free. Until then, you should probably…”

“Go home,” I finish for him. Silver’s eyes flicker with sadness. “You’re safer there while all of us get this shit out of our system. Plus, you won’t be alone.”

She smiles a bit serenely. “Lowell will be watching.”

I nod. “He will be.”

“I’ll walk you,” Jasper says, touching her shoulder.

“What about my bloodwork? What about my being a Tenebris? That’s real, right?” she asks, grasping at straws. Her eyes plead with Corvin to confirm or deny, and I hear his stuttering breath as he tries to find the words.

“That’s real. I went over those reports multiple times. There were no errors.”

“But I might not be the key to the curse?”

Corvin clears his throat. “Correct.”

Silver’s breathing stutters, and I know it breaks every heart in the room. Jasper turns her toward the door and leads her out.

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” I whisper. Corvin grabs my hand, and I tug away from him. “I’ll be in the basement.”

“I’ll be here.”

I’m left reeling as I hear Silver’s footsteps leave the grounds. She might not be the answer to our problems, but she’ll leave one hell of a ghost behind in her wake if she isn’t.