Page 49 of The Midnight Order
“I asked Corvin, and he said I have to ask you,” I add when he turns and downs more liquor.
“To tell you that, I’d have to tell you what happened.”
“Alright.” I pull my nightgown back down, even as flutters in my center grow more insistent that they need tending. “I have time, and I know you do.”
He makes a noise in the back of his throat at my attempt at humor. “Her name was Valentina.”
Her?
“And she was a witch,” he says, and my heart nearly stops.
I’min the middle of Jasper’s bed, sitting as still as possible, so he won’t stop talking.
“We all fell in love with her. It wasn’t unheard of for a coven to share a woman, nor for coven members to fall for one another. It just so happens we had both scenarios in ours.”
I sit with rapt attention, allowing him to go on.
“Corvin and Asher formed a bond early in my bringing him into the coven. When Valentina came along, they both fell for her. Hard. The problem came down to sharing.”
“Asher and Corvin couldn’t share her?” I ask.
“Not so much that. Corvin couldn’t share Asher.”
“Ahh. I can see how that would pose a problem.”
“Valentina tried her hardest to bring us together, for a coven with a central bond, especially a witch, is strong. The thing was that the jealousy ran too deep. It was stronger than the bond we tried to forge.”
“What happened to her?”
Jasper eyes me.
“You said her namewasValentina.”
“Very astute of you.”
“Lowell lost his temper with Corvin, and Valentina stepped in the middle. His anger and pride ultimately led to her demise. With her dying breath, she cursed us.”
“To bond to one woman together.”
Jasper nods. “The masks were on our faces the next morning, marking us as equals. If we can’t find a central bond, love, and share her equally, we’re cursed to live this way.”
“So, when I asked if I could go home after this, and Asher asked if I would want to, it’s because…”
“To leave here, you have to love us.”
“Soliel?”
“She loved us in her own way, but she wasn’t our bond. I loved her as a friend and maybe even a sister, never like she ought to be.”
The sadness in his eyes tells of that love, and I reach for him.
He walks over and sits on the end of the bed, looking at me as I crawl over and sit beside him.
“Why me? Why did the wards let me in? You said the town has wards, right?”
“That’s the thing. Corvin thinks you were let in solely because you were Soliel’s bloodline, which was a loophole. He didn’t even want to test you. Not until Lowell became obsessed with you.”
“Lowell scares me.”
