Page 35 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Jasper

Silver walks beside me; the only sound between us is the rustling of our feet on the damp, dew-covered earth. Today was a lot to process, even for me, so I allow her the space and silence to process everything she heard.

When her pseudo-aunt’s house emerges before us, she stops. Her hands raise to her hips as she gazes at the structure. “I don’t even feel like I should be here right now.”

“Why?”

“Because of everything. Because of Soliel and all the secrets she was keeping. Because of everything that’s transpired between all of us. Because of everything.”

I clear my throat. “I know, but we don’t know how much of everything we’ve been feeling is drug-induced.”

She scoffs. “Come off it. It can’t be.”

Turning her to face me, I keep my hands on her shoulders as I pin her with a no-nonsense stare. “How did you feel about Lowell earlier?”

“I—” she shifts, biting her lower lip.

“I know how it sounded. Your screams carry, Sweet Silver.”

I can hear a beautiful rouge filling her perfect cheeks. “I think I forgot that even if a door is closed in the manor, there’s no actual privacy.”

I grin. “That’s beside the point. How did you feel ?”

“Alive. Addicted. Enthralled.”

“Stop right there. You see all the words you used?”

She drops her gaze from mine. “We do this right, then?”

“We do this right.”

“I’ll leave you here.”

She slinks her hand into mine and gives me a shake of her head. “Come in for a bit?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She leads me up the steps, and I flick my hand to open the lock.

“I’ll never get used to any of you doing that.”

“There’s magic in partaking in blood. It’s imbued in us. Though drinking synthetically doesn’t afford us much power.”

“Will I have magic if I… When I… You know?”

“You will. Drinking from the very magical vein that animates someone comes at a cost: eternity. But it gives you great strength, speed, and magic. It’s a curse in its own right.”

“I know.”

She flicks the lights on in the newly finished living room and gasps when she looks around.

Asher and Corvin had finished decorating yesterday, but we hadn’t had time to tell Silver, let alone show her.

“It’s so good. God, I could hire all of you.” Her big smile falls as one of her realities clashes with another.

I reach for her hand. “We’ll connect you to the real world so you can check on things with work.”

She squeezes my hand. “I honestly don’t know if I want to go back or speak to them ever again. So much has changed since I drove into this creepy ass town.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Getting kidnapped by four hard-headed vampires will do that to you.”

“Thank them for all their hard work, will you?”

I incline my head. “I will pass along the message.”

She and I sit on the couch for a while, discussing our pasts and learning to understand one another better.

When I finally bid her goodnight, it was hard to leave. Her presence has a firm grip on me and won’t let go.

When I pass Lowell on my way back to the manor, I clap him on the shoulder and keep moving, knowing he won’t be home tonight.

The oldest Thorngray Vampire is enthralled in his own right, and it would take much more than a drug to cure him.

I’m not even looking or paying attention to my steps when approaching the manor again.

My mind is whirling with thoughts of leaving Silver behind.

Even while I know she’s under Lowell’s watchful eye, I don’t want to go home without her looming presence filling the manor that will feel emptier when I enter.

Asher wasn’t kidding when he said she threatened to leave behind memories so strong that we’ll never recover in her absence.

When I feel a nauseating wave of something zap through my body, I finally become alert, snapping my attention to the surrounding grounds, my eyes narrowing as I scan the tree line just in time to see a flash of blonde hair moving like a wisp on the wind.

“What the…”

A gnawing in my stomach settles in. Absently, I run my hand over it, taking off at full speed to chase what I saw.

The scent of the breeze is unmistakable.

The feeling of unease curling into my gut is remarkable.

I am at a loss.

When I’m confident that whatever it was has moved away, I race back to the manor.

I run into Asher first, and for the first time in centuries, I can’t breathe. It’s like everything is pressing down on me at once. It’s as if my world as I know it is coming to an end.

“What’s going on?” Asher holds me up. “Jasper! Look at me!”

My frantic eyes catch his. “She was here. In the woods. She’s watching us.”

“Who?”

“Valentina!” I breathe out right as Corvin walks into the room, his iPad in hand.

He stops dead. “What did you just say?” His voice is deadly, his lip curling over his fangs.

Asher looks between us, dropping his hands away from my shoulders. “That can’t be. She’s dead. We helped burn her body.”

“I don’t know how to explain it. I saw her. Well, I saw her hair.”

Ashen white like the first snowfall, Valentina had the most beautiful blonde hair I’d ever seen.

“I chased her through the woods. Her scent was…”—I swallow—“It was her.”

“Family member of hers?” Asher asks Corvin, turning away from me altogether, clearly thinking me deluded.

“Could be. The only way to tell truly would be through testing. But the way Jasper tells it, whoever it was didn’t want to be caught. Unless…”

“Unless what?” I press, knocking Asher out of my way to face Corvin.

“Unless she’s haunting us. With the curse so close to lifting, she might be re-animated somehow?” His theory is more like a question than a conjecture.

“A ghost? That’s your all-knowing opinion?”

“Fuck you. I’m not all-knowing. And if we exist, why can’t ghosts?”

I scrub my hands over my face as Lowell enters through the front door, looking feral as he heads toward the basement door before spying us and sussing out the energy in the room.

“What’s going on?”

“Why aren’t you standing guard outside Silver’s house?” I stammer, rushing him and grabbing the front of his shirt in a tight grip.

His answering snarl as he tosses me off him echoes through the room. I swear I hear the stone walls crack under its wake.

“You do not order me, child !”

Hissing from the crouch I’d landed in, I bare my fangs. Still, I know he’s right. It would take every ounce of strength I could muster, and some that I can’t, to get off my knees and face him.

He made me.

He owns me.

Lowell stalks nearer. Meanwhile, Asher and Corvin wait in the wings to see how this plays out.

“I wasn’t ordering you,” I finally tell him, my eyes downcast in subservience.

“Were you not? I will not be told what to do. I can no more stand there and scent her through the walls of that house than I can slit my own throat and end this tormented life.”

I swallow. “But I saw Valentina.”

Lowell stops moving and stops breathing. “Excuse me?”

Corvin steps forward and murmurs everything that happened before Lowell arrived home into his ear. All the while, I hope to remain topside long enough to figure out what I saw.

Long enough to feel Silver as her heart patters for me…

“She’s dead, Jasper. I thought we had already gone through this. It was so long ago…”

It isn’t until Asher bursts back through the front door that I realize he was ever gone. “He’s not lying. A distinct trace smell lingers on a few bushes and trees, as if it were placed there intentionally. It smells like… her.”

“It’s impossible!” Lowell snarls, turning on Asher like he’s the reason for his distress. “She’s dead. We watched her burn through the sockets of these fucking masks she cursed us with!” He knocks on the hollow cheekbone of his mask.

“I know. Corvin thinks maybe it’s her ghost?”

I swallow, finally able to stand now that Lowell’s anger is focused elsewhere. “What if it’s part of the curse?”

All eyes swing in my direction. “What if the closer we get, the more the curse pushes back? What if the curse fights back as we try to break it?”

“Could be. We’ve never been this close before,” Corvin says absently.

Lowell growls as he turns and paces. “Until we know what’s happening, I want eyes on Silver at all times. Jasper, you’ll take the first shift. I can’t take much more of her scent tonight.”

I nod, biting my cheek as I fight the urge to tell him we’ve already decided to keep eyes on her twenty-four-seven.

Lowell takes direct orders from no one, nor listens to those I dole out.

“If anyone sees anything, let me know. We play this smart. We play this right.” Lowell’s eyes bore into Corvin’s, and I watch the male swallow past a lump in his throat.

“I won’t fuck this up,” he tells Lowell, inclining his head in submission.

“See that you don’t.” With that, Lowell stalks off, slamming the basement door behind him in a huff.

I don’t give Corvin and Asher the time to scold me for my reckless behavior. I rush out of the manor and through the trees to post up against while Silver sleeps.

It’s not long before the monotony of the task has my brain traveling back in time to a simpler time, when I wasn’t cursed, when life was easier.

Thorngray Manor

1977

Valentina’s laugh filters down the hall as I stroll towards it. My footsteps are heavy, and I know they hear me coming.

Shoving my hands into my pants, the polyester feels silky against the top of my hand. I think soon, this era of clothing will become my least favorite.

Though I wasn’t too fond of the wool uniforms that used to make up my daily wardrobe.

Even thinking about the feel of the wool on my skin now causes goose bumps to race up my skin.

“There you are!” Valentina muses, turning and eyeing me.

There’s something white on her nose, and Asher is behind her, looking utterly smitten with whatever task they’re up to.

“Here I am.” Kissing her on either cheek, I lift a fingertip to wipe the frosting off her nose and pop it into my mouth.

She breathes out, and the breath is full of not only her scent but the smell of her growing arousal at my proximity.

“What are you two up to?” I ask, flicking my gaze back to Asher, who has a wide grin as he licks the wooden spoon she’s tasked him with holding.

“Making cupcakes for Corvin’s birthday. What does it look like?” she asks, stepping out of the way so I can see the state of emergency the kitchen is in.

“It looks like a mess.”

She shoves my shoulder, and a piece of her white-blonde hair falls across her face as she laughs. “Don’t be like that. We’ll clean it.”

“We rarely celebrate birthdays, V.” I’m not sure how Corvin will take the gesture, especially since he’s struggling with the idea of her being ours.

She shrugs. “Well, I want to celebrate him. I think it’ll put him in an amiable mood. Just because you guys are centuries-old vampires doesn’t mean you have to act like it. You’re all so… drab.”

I can’t help but smile when she turns and looks up at me, a perfect pout on her lips.

“Fine. But if he hates it, be it on your head.”

Now

I shake out of the memory at the sound of an owl hooting above. Locking eyes with it, we share a moment before it lifts and flies off into the night.

Valentina caused the curse and strife between the four of us.

I never knew if her actions were intentional, especially when they always seemed innocent. Her intent never seemed malicious, but it always resulted in a terrible outcome.

But my brain’s never been able to riddle out what she’d gain from doing so.

A scream rends the air, and a sickening feeling dances through my stomach as I freeze.

Silver.