Page 43 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Silver

The door before me is thick, but I glare at it with pinched brows, as if sheer willpower will allow me to see through its wood.

After everything got well out of hand in the lab last night, I spent the night with Asher and Corvin, and they doted on my every need, even giving me two mind-blowing orgasms to boot.

We were too wired to sleep, so I discussed everything going through my head, all the possible scenarios, to which Asher met my worries with facts: if I would just open the box and start going through it, I’d know more.

He’s not wrong.

So, I agreed to come today and review the next file. Corvin also agreed to meet me here. But only Jasper stands beside me.

“You sure you’re ready?” Jasper asks me again, hovering the key near the lock.

“I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready for everything coming for me, honestly. I still have to forge ahead, though.”

Sadness pours through his eyes. Sadness that I don’t have time to explore.

“Where is?—”

“Here! Sorry! I had some vials of blood that I wanted to get started in the electrophoresis machine.”

Jasper and I share a look as Corvin halts next to my side.

“What does this electrophoresis machine do exactly?” I ask.

“Oh, don’t get him going.” Jasper’s mutter is met with Corvin’s wide smile. None of them must ask him what anything in his lab does; even more evidently, he loves to be asked.

I might’ve opened a can of worms that I can’t get the lid back on by asking.

“It separates DNA.”

One of my brows lifts with concern. “Do I want my DNA separated?”

Corvin’s smile contorts as he snorts. “You do if you want me to study it further. It just lets me inspect the sequencing.”

I nod as if I know what that means and return to the door. I’d asked Corvin to be present today because he’s one of the order I feel can compartmentalize the best.

He’ll be able to examine the evidence in the box I found and separate emotion from the equation.

“When you’re done, lock up.” Jasper hands Corvin the key.

“Will do.”

Jasper drops a soft kiss on my forehead and breathes me in, and I do likewise before he takes off toward his study.

“Whatever we find in the box doesn’t define you, Silver,” Corvin offers.

“Thanks for the pep talk, Coach.”

He grins. “Sometimes, I can see why you and Asher get along so well, you know?” Pressing the key into the lock, he turns it.

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.” I follow him inside.

The lights flick on in the room as we walk through.

The box sits on a table in the back corner. Its lone presence gives the room an eerie and foreboding vibe.

There’s a desk lamp to the left of the box, and Corvin clicks it on, pulling out a wooden chair for me to sit on before doing the same for himself.

For a moment, we stare at the box.

The brown stain on the lid seems to grow—breathe even—as I stare at it.

Corvin opens his mouth to say something I’m sure is uplifting and encouraging, but I swear I can’t take another word of encouragement.

I sit forward, cutting off his words, and rip the lid off.

There.

The Band-Aid is off.

Leaning over, I find the file that reads ‘Birth Record’ still sitting there .

Moving my gaze to the file behind it, I run over the next one.

Letter of Custody.

Custody?

Turning toward Corvin, I bid him to grab and open the file with a pleading look. But, of course, he’s not in my mind to know which one I’m eyeballing.

“Are we going in order, then?” he asks softly.

I nod. “I think we should.”

“Alright, then.” He grabs the very file that makes my heart race harder in my chest and opens it.

His eyes scan over a few papers before he hands them to me. “I think you’re going to want to read this in private.”

He stands, but I quickly grasp onto his wrist. “Don’t leave.” My eyes lock on his. “Please.”

He slowly sits, nodding.

There are several documents at the front. One is just a paper with a bunch of legal jargon of the time, claiming Soliel Dormund as my legal guardian. The other is the petition to change my last name to Dormund.

The paper behind it, however, catches my breath in the back of my throat. Tears prick my eyes as I run over the hand-scrawled name at the bottom.

Edith Tenebris

“Edith,” I breathe, running my fingertip over it. “My mother?”

“One would presume. Yes. She’s the one who also signed the document, signing your custody over to Soliel.

My heart sounds like a whomping in my ears as Corvin takes the file from me, leaving me with only the note from my mother.

Her name conjures no memory, but knowing I came from somewhere has me eager to learn more.

To know it all.

31 August1520

Dearest Soliel,

You are my oldest and dearest friend. As such, you are the only one I can trust. He is coming for her. You and I both know it. Her blood is owed to him, and I can’t let him have it, no matter what I promised initially. She’s my only child.

Therefore, I must trust you’ll know what to do and where to hide her. She can’t feed. She can’t see this world. If she is to live, she must do so far away from here. Far away from him.

Aurelias will not rest until he has her, and I know you will do anything to keep her safe. You are the most powerful witch that I know, Soliel. I know you can keep her safe. I know she will thrive in your custody.

Due to this predicament, I kindly request that you refrain from contacting me again. Otto and I will continue knowing that Silver is safe in your custody. Aurelias mustn’t know that she lives. If he does, she is as good as dead.

You have always been a guiding light and a shoulder to cry on. I know you will be the same for my daughter, even through whatever hardships you face in the future.

I love you, Soliel.

Never look for me.

Never let her feed.

Never show her this world.

Your friend, always.

Edith Tenebris

The paper is shaking when I finish reading. Tears streak down my face as my breathing is ragged and fast.

“What the hell is this?” I finally get out.

“A cry for help is what it looks like to me,” Corvin says after taking the letter from me and reading it thoroughly.

“Invisible ink was big back then, especially at court. Would you allow me to check for anything that could be hidden?” His feral red eyes turn on me, and I see the fascination in them growing.

It would make me angry, but I need him. I need answers.

“Don’t destroy it,” I plead.

“I would never.”

His hand reaches for mine, and I’m thankful when it connects. The touch grounds me as I look back at the box. There are plenty more files, and I was ready to dive into the box head-on when I arrived. Now, I feel emotionally drained.

“Let’s let this news settle, shall we?” Corvin says, putting the lid back on the box of mysteries for now.

“I think that’s best.”

“Someone’s after me?” I manage through all the emotions welling in my throat.

My soul feels raw, like it’s being raked over with a cheese grater.

“No. Someone was after you.”

“But he’s a witch…”

His finger dances over the date. August 31, 1520. It’s absurd that I could be that old when I feel…

Fuck, how old do I feel?

Everything in my memory is a blur, as if it’s been wiped.

I know my name, where my business is located, who I work with, and where I live, but I’m not sure when my last birthday was or how old I am. It’s like the integral parts of me are hidden.

“Witches are inherently human. Whoever this Aurelias is, he isn’t still alive, Silver.”

“So I could feed and trigger my gene?”

“In theory. If that’s what you choose.”

He sighs, looking at it sadly as his eyes look down at the paper. “You would’ve been around eighteen at the time she wrote this. You have no memories of her at all?”

“No. Nothing. Why wait? Why give me up at all at that point? Why not have me hide?”

“Vampirism is something you can’t fight if you’re aware of your genes. I’m certain if she let you in on the ruse, you would’ve complied the best you could, but the best way to keep you intact, gene dormant, was to?—”

“To keep the secret even from me,” I breathe.

He nods.

Surely, I should feel connected to the woman who poured over this page, who cried as she pleaded with her best friend to save her only child.

But I don’t.

Like that’s been taken from me, too.

“How am I still alive?” The question is asked more in astonishment than as a genuine question directed at Corvin.

“You’re suspended in waiting for transition. It’s not unheard of. Though I would’ve thought you would’ve petrified years ago.”

“Petrified?” I squeak.

“That’s a conversation for another day.”

I swallow audibly. “Good idea.”

“We need to show this to Lowell.”

Handing me the paper back, he stands and heads for the door. I take a moment to re-read each carefully thought-out word my mother wrote before eyeing the box once more.

Following Corvin, I stand and walk toward where he’s stopped, his hand hovering over the doorknob.

“Thank you for doing this with me.”

His red eyes seem darker away from the desk lamp. How he’s standing in the door’s shadow gives him an eerie aura, too.

He leans down. “Of course, Silver. After all, you’re my Predestinat. I’d go to the ends of the world for you.”

Licking my lips, I lift on tiptoe to kiss his lips. The kiss is slow at first, meant only to comfort us after the bombshell of information we’ve just received, but it quickly gets out of hand.

Corvin angles toward me, his hands sliding into my hair. My grip on the paper tightens, but my other hand cups his face. His tongue seeks solace against mine, and I groan into the kiss hungrily.

“We have to stop. I can’t take advantage of your emotions like this, Silver. If I were a less gentlemanly, however…”

“Tell me. Tell me what you’d do if you weren’t a gentleman?”

“I’d bend you over one of these glass cases and fuck you over my memories.

Over our memories. Your breasts pressing into the glass.

Your ass waving with each deep thrust. My fangs sinking into your throat from behind.

When I was done with you, you’d be little more than another reverie in this fucking manor. ”

My next exhale is shaky. “I know I shouldn’t, not right now, but I want that. I’m so hungry for that.”

His deep chuckle is unnerving. “There’s a fine line between lust and hunger, and I hope you never discover it.”

The reminder that my gene could be activated by the innate hunger in my belly being satiated hangs between us as someone knocks on the door behind me.

I startle, but Corvin smirks as if he knows who it is.

“When you two are done, Lowell wants to talk to you,” Asher says, his tone implying he’d been there for the last few minutes and heard what Corvin told me.

Half of me wonders if it wasn’t said for both our benefit.

I turn and grab the door handle. I don’t exit before Corvin tugs the back of my shirt, his lips skimming my ear from behind.

“I’m just as hungry for you. I need you to know that.”

I groan as a deep throb thrums through my center, the likes of which will only grow louder if not abated.

When Corvin and I step back into the hall, light blinds us as the daylight outside our dim haven washes over us.

Corvin locks the door behind us and pockets the key, offering me his hand as he leads us downstairs.

“Where are we going?” I ask when he leads me toward the basement door.

I haven’t been down there since Asher’s first test, and the memories of it are only making the hunger between my thighs worse when there’s more to worry about than feeding it.

“Lowell can typically only be found in one place when he’s home, and that’s the dungeon.”

The idea that the sweet, yet insane, male I’ve had wrapped around me more than once in his bedroom only remains in the basement, has more questions boiling over, but I keep them at bay.

When the stairs spit us into the dark room with multi-colored lights swirling overhead, I find Lowell shirtless and covered in sweat.

I swallow a bit too loudly, and two of the men who were waiting for us to emerge chuckle low through the room as I scan my eyes over the specimen that is Lowell Thorngray.

He’s on a treadmill. His feet pound the tread as he doesn’t break stride.

“Tell me what you found. I could feel Silver’s distress through the fucking house like it was my own. I can’t take it any longer,” he demands, and his admission only serves to cause the thrum to deepen.

I shift on my feet, pressing my thighs together as I lift the paper in my right hand.

“A letter from my mother. It seems someone was after me. Soliel was the person my mother tasked with keeping me safe.”

At this, Lowell pulls the safety key out of the treadmill, and it cuts off. “Who the fuck was after you?”

“Someone named…” I look back down at the paper. “Aurelias?”

A guttural growl leaves Lowell as his hands tighten on either treadmill railing. The metal gives way and bows inward at the force of his grip.

“Do you know this Aurelias?” Jasper asks.

“I do. And I don’t know that we want to go toe-to-toe with him. Even over Silver.”

“Well.” Corvin snorts. “How can you go toe-to-toe with a ghost?”

“Aurelias isn’t dead, nor is any witch from his coven. Not that I’m aware of, anyhow.”

Lowell’s words stop my heart as all the red eyes in the room swing toward me.

I don’t know what I’m in for, but I have a feeling my life will never be the same.