Page 106 of The Midnight Order
“I’ll tell the others. Now, we should probably get you some food since you slept all day long, lazy bones.”
She licks her lips, and my heart trips over its next beat.
I’ll remember the gazebo the rest of my life, and I know she will, too.
That one moment shared between us is enough to have me ready to go to the stake as a happy male.
She reaches up and grabs either side of my mask, tugging. The magic keeping it in place holds it steady, and pain sears the edges of my jaw.
I hiss.
“Sorry, I just thought it was worth a shot. I want to see all of you; I’m so impatient for it.”
“I don’t know that you ever will, Sweet Silver.” I lean down and softly press my lips to hers.
“You really don’t think he’ll come around and be able to test me to unlock the curse?”
I shrug one shoulder, turning us and leading her downstairs to the kitchen. “It’s not just the testing he needs to complete. We all have to love you and be willing to share you as well.”
“I forgot that part.”
“Mmm. It’s a complicated curse, for four complicated vampires.”
“I’d like to find the bitch who did this to you and kill her.”
“Well, that’ll be hard to do. She’s already dead.”
Silver stops on the last step and turns toward me. “She is? You’d have thought the curse would’ve died with her.”
I shove my hands in my pockets, leaning against the banister. “That’s what Lowell thought, too. He thought he would free us of her magic. Instead, it locked the curse in place.”
“God. The guilt he must carry.”
“Heavy is the burden on the one who wears the crown,” I recite as we head into the kitchen together.
Silver greets Milly and slides onto a stool.
I drop onto the one beside her.
“I have a feeling you shoulder a lot with him. And you’re a good friend for doing so,” she says, leaning over and kissing my cheek.
I capture her chin and hold her hostage. My lips take hers in a savage kiss that could burn the kitchen down if I allowed it the air to do so.
I pull back. “He’s not my friend. It’s much deeper than that.”
“I know, but I was just trying to articulate it.”
I smile, searching her eyes for any bits of the women who came before her, the ones who did us wrong and turned this coven upside down.
Coming up short, I kiss the tip of her nose.
Milly puts a plate down in front of her, and Silver turns her attention away from me.
I’m as sad as a puppy who just got his ball taken away, but I sigh and allow her to eat her food.
“The X5 has been prepared for your trip, Master Jasper.”
“See,” Silver says with a mouthful of food, “that’s why I thought you were the leader of the coven.”
