Page 50 of The Midnight Order (The Thorngray Vampires Duet #1)

Corvin

Asher quickly unties Silver, and she sits up. I don’t like how quickly she’s breathing, so I swiftly pull her onto my lap, wrapping my arms around her.

“Hey, it’s ok.” Running my hands over her back, I relish her warmth but worry about the chills moving through her. “Look at me.”

Her hazy eyes find mine. “What you’re feeling is normal. We shouldn’t have said those things while you were in subspace.”

“What?” she squeaks.

I clear her sweat-slicked forehead of the hair sticking to it.

“It’s the space you were in with Asher while he was…

dominating you. You were floating, existing with him in a space where you could let go of everything.

It’s tricky to come down. We shouldn’t have laid such heavy emotions on you before we took care of you. It wasn’t fair of us.”

“I’m okay. It was overwhelming all at once. It felt so… dense.”

Kissing her forehead, I hear Asher turn the shower on to prepare it for Silver. “Come. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

I help her into the shower, getting undressed as I step in behind her.

Asher lingers beneath one of the three sprayers in our shower, looking every bit the dark vampire god he is. Water drips off his brow as he stares at Silver before pulling her toward him.

His hands run down her back, and I hang back and watch the exchange. “You did so well.”

“I did?” Her voice is shaky and lacking some of her typical Silver confidence, but I know it’s because she’s seeking his approval after what transpired. I’ve been there many more times than I’d like to admit.

“You were such a good girl for me. How do you feel? Are you sore anywhere I need to give extra attention to?”

I hear her swallow as his hands tip her head back, his eyes inspecting her throat where beautiful purple bruises are pulling to the surface of her alabaster skin.

“I need to be gentler with you.”

“You say that, but you look turned on by the marks,” Silver says, recognizing the look in his eyes as his pupils dilate.

“You have no idea,” I add, chuckling and leaning over her shoulder.

“I don’t want you to be gentle.” Her whispered words have both of us freezing. “I want everything from all of you. You take on everything that comes with me in stride. I love both of you, and I know I’ll only fall more the closer that we get. Don’t hold back with me.”

“But your neck—” Asher says, thumbing over the bruising.

“I’ll wear it honorably. After all, I earned it.”

This makes the beautiful, tortured vampire I’m madly in love with grin, his eyes lighting with fire as he pulls Silver under the water and crashes his lips to hers.

“What did we ever do to deserve you?” he asks.

“Hmm, survived a curse until I wandered home where I belonged to save you?”

“Well, when you put it that way, I might spank you for keeping us waiting for so long.”

Their banter continues as I grab the shampoo we specifically bought and put in here for Silver, squeezing some into my hand before I work it into her hair.

She moans, tipping her head back toward me. “Oh, that feels good.”

“Aftercare will become your favorite part of being a good girl for Sir. Trust me,” I tell her, kissing her cheek as I turn her toward the sprayer, her back pressing against Asher’s chest.

Silver’s sleepy eyes open, tracking me hazily. “I have so many favorite things. I’m starting a list of them. They’re amassing at such a rapid pace.”

One of Silver’s knees tries to give out, and Asher captures her. “We’d better get this one to bed soon.”

I laugh, soaping up the loofa before cleaning her slowly, only prolonging the haze she’s floating in.

“Have you ever seen such a beautifully wicked thing before?” Asher asks me.

Silver smiles as I wash her and get the soap out of the loofah. “No. I haven’t.” Capturing her lips, I kiss her, spreading her pouty lips and teasing her with my tongue.

She moans, giving as good as she gets.

Asher helps Silver out of the shower, and I stay beneath the spray, letting the heat work into my undead flesh as I hear him wrestling her into clothes and pleading with her to drink the water he got her.

When he returns to the shower, I’m leaning against the shower wall, water cascading down my body that’s still vibrating with energy from watching Asher and Silver. “Tell me you’re alright with what I said.”

“What?! What did you say?” His hands explore my torso, teasing, testing.

Dominating always leaves him in a delirious state, just like it leaves whoever has submitted to him.

I turn around, and he drops his hands, his fierce eyes pinned to mine.

“I told her we loved her. I took that from you. I didn’t mean to. I hope you’re not upset with me. That wasn’t mine to give away.”

“Corvin—”

“No. Let me apologize, you pig-headed man. I overstepped, and?—”

His hand wraps around my throat, and my sick heart pounds off-beat in my chest.

Fuck.

“Shut up!” he growls, enlivening the subordinate inside me, my knees begging to kneel, to crawl to him.

“You did nothing wrong. You know how I am. It would’ve taken a lot for me to admit.

I love her. Fuck, I love her so much. But you know I wouldn’t have been able to say it aloud or realized it if you hadn’t done it for me.

It’s why I love you. You know what I need and when I need it.

You always put my needs ahead of your own, even when Valentina?—”

“Don’t say her fucking name.” Disgust crawls up my throat before he squeezes tighter, cutting off my words.

“Even when Valentina was becoming an issue, driving a wedge between us, and I couldn’t see it, you knew what needed to be done.”

“I caused this curse,” I manage as he lets my throat go, my hands rubbing at the soreness. “It’s all my fault.”

“Technically, it’s Lowell’s fault. He finished it.”

“Yeah, but?—”

Asher shakes his head. “It wasn’t your fault. Besides, who cares? We’d have never met Silver if not for the curse.”

Taking a moment to wade through his logic, I find my insides uncoiling. “We love her,” I breathe.

“We do.”

“Both of us.”

He grins knowingly, and I’m so caught in its glow, not paying any attention to his traveling hand that grips my length, sliding to the tip, squeezing as my knees nearly buckle. “Ash.”

“Mmm, you always worry about my needs, our needs. Let me take care of yours, yeah?”

I nod as he drops to his knees, looking up at me with a gleam.

I love how he included Silver in what he said, but the burning fire in my chest overtakes me as his mouth slides over my cock.

My hands sink into his hair, taking control of my pleasure, shoving him down, pressing forward. He gags around me, and the dark speck in my soul is revitalized, feeding the tiny morsel it needed to grow like a spreading stain on a carpet.

“Gag on it again.” I slowly shove down his throat, fighting his throat’s resistance as my eyes roll back. “Fuck.”

Silver’s sitting on the couch in Asher’s lap sleepily.

Lowell woke us up from our collective nap turned stupor twenty minutes ago, telling me my machines were alarming.

After I realized some results were done, he assembled us all in the living room for a meeting, which seems like they’ll become a more regular thing now that Silver’s becoming a fixture in the order.

“Well?” Lowell asks, his hand rubbing over Silver’s leg, which she has thrown over his lap.

Jasper’s sitting in the recliner to my right, his eyes fixed on the scene on the couch.

“Well, I hacked into the human databases and ran the blood that we found in that syrup against any known samples given for either booking for their prison system or given freely for their obsession with ancestry and nothing. There wasn’t a match.”

Lowell visibly deflates, and Silver grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers. He gives her a tight smile.

“While we’re here, we should probably tell them about last night,” Asher says, giving me a look.

“Oh, right. Yeah, we should. Silver?”

She snaps to attention, seeming not to recall her brush-up in the woods with whatever spirit haunts the manor grounds until Asher summoned the reverie.

“We don’t need a detailed play-by-play; we heard it all,” Jasper says in a tortured tone, saying his back is probably bloody.

They know they can join anything with Silver. Still, Jasper has a thing about privacy, so he probably stayed away because I remained a spectator to allow Asher and Silver time to cultivate their relationship.

After all, we need that if we’re going to beat this curse. Not only that, but if we’re going to function healthily.

Lowell grins, squeezing Silver’s hand as her cheeks fill with her sinful blood.

“No, that’s not what we were going to tell you. I encountered something in the woods last night before the… festivities.” She nearly chokes out the last word, and Jasper laughs.

“Sorry.” He waves her on.

Lowell has gone rigid beneath her, his eyes turning deadly. “Encounter with what?”

“With whatever is out there. I didn’t understand what it said, but it said I was supposed to warn all of you.”

“Warn us about what?”

“She said everything was wrong. That she was wrong, and it was all wrong. Then she said, ‘ The closer they get to breaking the curse, the closer he gets. They need to be ready. ’ I don’t know what any of it means. It was so riddled.”

“Everything is wrong?”

Silver nods. “When I called her Valentina, she said she goes by many names. What could that mean?”

Lowell rolls his eyes. “I’m so fucking sick of this shit. Isn’t it enough we’re fucking cursed? At every turn, it just keeps getting shitter.”

“I don’t know how I know, but I don’t think she’ll be back. Her warning is delivered. It almost felt like knocking on the door of the curse unlocked some kind of… echo,” Silver tells us.

“I agree. Enough is enough,” Jasper says, getting up and leaving the room. “I’m going to bed.”

His door slams, and Lowell leans over and kisses Silver. “This isn’t your fault. Let him process.”

She looks between us as Lowell heads outside, shutting the door silently, like he knows Silver needs him to do so.

“What do we do from here?” she asks.

“We keep digging. When all else fails, we just keep going. That’s all there is to do. We move forward like we always do.”

She nods, looking up the stairs where Jasper disappeared.

“You want to go to him?” Asher whispers in her ear.

“I do. I know we just had an amazing time together, but I?—”

Asher cuts her off with a squeeze on her thigh. “Never explain yourself to any of us. You have to love us equally and us likewise. He’s hurting; he needs you. We’ll see you in the morning.”

Silver kisses Asher before coming to hug me goodnight.

I drop beside Asher on the couch, my hand landing on his thigh. “You’re very sweet with her.”

“She brings it out in me.”

“I love it.”

“Let’s go to bed; I’m exhausted.”

“You should be, you fiend.”

He stands and tugs me with him, leading me to our bedroom. While we’re still learning to adapt to having Silver in the order, I think all the pieces will fall into place soon.

Hopefully, once the curse is broken, nothing will change.

Things can only get better, right?