Page 31 of The Midnight Order
“Your commanding officer or general or whatever they were called didn’t come looking for you?”
“Washington? No. Why would he? There were nearly three thousand of us. No one would’ve noticed my absence.”
“Washington?! As in,theGeorge Washington?”
He smirks. “General George Washington. Yes.”
“That’s insane! Sorry, I don’t mean to offend you or anything. It’s just… the life you must’ve lived. The things you’ve seen… I can’t fathom it all.”
“To me, it feels less spellbinding,” he admits, his eyes flicking away and filling with ghosts.
“Of course it does. You lived it.”
This has him looking at me with a quirked brow, but he says nothing about whatever makes him look at me as if I’m the odd one.
“So, how does one make a…”
“Vampire?” he finishes for me.
I nod.
“Well, our bite has venom, but our blood is the key. One must drink from the source, nearly drain them, and feed them their blood. The bite without the blood sharing isn’t effective.”
“So, someone wanted you to be like this…”
“Yes. Jasper.”
“Jasper?”
“Our… leader, for lack of a better term. At least, the one we follow currently.”
“The Midnight Order?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly is the Midnight Order?”
He sighs, his eyes shifting left as if trying to recall what he’s supposed to tell me and what’s off-limits. “We’re the original faction of vampires. The first coven, if you will. In this world, anyhow. In the old country, thousands of years ago, more covens were in operation. Jasper and Lowell got displaced during a voyage when the ship they were on wrecked. They landed here and did what they could to survive.”
“He killed you.”
My assessment has his face hardening, where it had softened slightly as our conversation progressed.
“How old is Jasper?” I ask him, wondering which one Jasper is to begin with, but I don’t want to press my luck by asking too many questions.
“That’s his story to tell. For now, though, story time is over. Lie down.”
I do as I’m told, and he leans over me and begins tucking me into bed, fitting the sheets and blankets beneath me as someone would a child.
“What is your name?” I ask him.
“Corvin.”
“Goodnight, Corvin.”
“Goodnight…”
“Silver.”
