Page 16 of The Midnight Order
He backs away, crossing his heart as if it still beats regularly, and the promise means something.
“Hey, where’s Asher?” I ask him.
“Dungeon, per usual.” Something flashes through his eyes that I can’t read before he pushes into the kitchen.
I sigh as I head for the dungeons.
One never knows what they’ll find Asher doing down there, so when I get to the door separating me from whatever hellish thing he’s up to, I take a steadying breath.
Entering inside, the steady beat of techno music wraps around me as neon lights flash overhead.
Asher is in shorts and no shirt, jumping rope in the middle of the room.
To the left of us is a full gym we all use religiously. To the right is a sex dungeon Asher uses to torture not only Corvin but also outsiders during their testing.
“Hey,” he says, wiping his face with a towel as he turns the music down with a remote. “What’s up?”
“I, Uhh… I need you to keep yourself together tomorrow during testing.”
He knits his brows, taking long swigs from his water bottle. “Why wouldn’t I? You’ve never warned me like this before. Why now?”
Goddamn him, there’s hope blooming in his eyes, and I hadn’t meant to put it there.
“I just… She’s pretty, and there’s an aura about her. I don’t want another situation like…”
“Like the one that got us all cursed? Yeah, I think I understand that much.” His tone is dry as he shakes his head.
“I’ll be fine. If that’s all…” He turns the music back up, now louder than it was before.
I grit my teeth as I close the soundproof door and lean against it.
I did what I could.
I relayed my worries and Lowell’s, and now I just need tomorrow to go off without a hitch so we can send her back into the real world and move on with our lives.
Of course, it would be nice to share in Asher’s hope that she’s the key, but I gave up on that dream years ago. Fifty, to be exact.
Once I’m back in my office, I shut and lock the door, rounding my desk and plopping into my chair.
From the mini-fridge beneath my desk, I grab a bottle of O negative Cuisara and take a swig, forgoing heating it to ninety-eight degrees and blanching when the temperate liquid hits my stomach.
I’ll regret it later, but it takes the edge off for now.
Corvin synthesized blood early in our takeover of Blackmoore in the early 1800s. Then, our kind was common knowledge and hunted to near extinction. Cuisara is now the blood that sustains us and the entire town.
The blood and the warding were necessary to carry on life like average citizens—ones who didn’t die, but that’s beside the point.
Now, a company in town manufactures and distributes blood to our town and many like ours beyond the ley lines.
Chugging the bottle with my nose pinched, I toss the empty in the recycling bin and sit back in my chair. It creaks at the speed with which I moved, and I close my eyes as I cross an arm over them.
She dances through my brain like a beautiful nightmare. The way her dark hair blew in the wind. Her scent that carried down to my awaiting nose—her captivating blue eyes.
The more I’ve wound myself up since seeing her, the more I worry about Asher.
He’s the darker of us in the order, and because of that, I try to keep him on a tight leash. He’s why most of the town were turned in the first twenty years we were here.
He’s also the reason we’re cursed.
