Page 103 of The Midnight Order
I sigh, dropping my head as guilt takes full possession of me. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a gut reaction. We have to share you, and I’m fine with sharing you, Silver. It was just thinking of me not being the first of us to have you in that way?—”
“Oh.”
I snap my eyes up tentatively. “Are you mad I claimed you?”
She clears her throat, the lovely rouge returning to her cheeks. “No. Not… no.”
“What does my being a Tenebris mean for your coven?” she asks, and the question’s weight nearly knocks me breathless.
“I don’t think any of us know just yet. We’ll figure that out as we go, I guess.”
She nods, biting her bottom lip. I suddenly wonder what that lip would taste like.
I clear my throat, subsequently clearing my brain of such useless thoughts. It’s a slippery slope to give cravings too much thought. They grow and grow, and then they rule you.
I can’t go back to who I was before.
After the cave.
I refuse to.
“You should get back under the covers. It’ll be dawn soon. You need to sleep.”
“Eh, I can sleep when I’m dead.”
She realizes what she’s said and immediately apologizes. Her embarrassment is enough leverage for me to coax her back beneath the covers beside me.
For the longest time, I thought she would ask another question or ask me to finish the story. I never actually told her, but she didn’t.
She lies on my chest, her hand moving over the many scars there, until her body finally relaxes, and her breathing deepens and evens out.
I turn my face and kiss her forehead, breathing in her sweet scent as I close my eyes and try to warn the nightmares to stay away from me.
Not that they ever listen.
“Goodnight, little lamb,” I whisper.
I flick my eyes to the ceiling, fully intending to slip away after I know she’s sleeping deeply, but I feel my eyes droop, and the heavy weight of sleep paralyzes me as I give over to its power.
“Lord Thorngray,” King Strixx says as I enter.
There’s a nude lady of the court at his feet, fawning over him, with her head resting delicately on his knee. He’s petting her as if she’s only a stray animal he must show attention to.
“King Strixx,” I reply, bowing deeply before straightening.
“You’ve had word from your parents on the matter of this year’s crops?”
I grit my teeth as he mentions the women that will become his new harem as if they’re no more than a bushel of food. It fills my body with a flood of anger.
“I have. They said the crop is good, and you’ll have a delivery by the end of the week.”
My parents have been in business, supplying human women to the sitting king, since before I was born. They keep the kingpliant and satiated until their harem falls ill or dies of blood loss.
This is the fastest the king’s killed his harem that I know of, and it shows such a disregard for human life that it makes me angry..
All life is precious, but I’m the only one who sees things this way.
I know better than to speak on the matter, too.
