Page 40 of The Midnight Order
The one thing I love over all else.
Asher.
“I’d just like a little more time to trace her lineage down. You said I could do that with her, and her bloodlines are very interesting. They seem to stop with her and…”
Jasper cuts me off by lifting a hand. “I’ve heard enough. Sounds to me like you’re stalling because you sense something. You’ve done this before. We’ve been down this road before, Corvin. I’ve seen that sign.”
I scoff at his joke, rolling my eyes and shifting in the chair.
“You’ll call a meeting and tell everyone to be there. All your findings are to be relayed to the order, and I meanallof them.” He eyes me sternly, and I swallow.
Jasper is my maker, the one who gave me his blood from his veins. I can’t disobey a direct order from him anymore than I can disobey Lowell, our sire.
“When do you want to meet?”
“Tomorrow. Let the girl sleep. She is sleeping now, right?” His eyes narrow as he looks at me with concern.
“Yes, she’s sleeping. Why wouldn’t she be?”
Shrugging, he swivels in his chair. “I just know you were in her room all day, so I wondered if she was still in one piece.”
“We were binge-watching a television show together,” I say reluctantly, knowing the reaction I’m about to receive.
“Excuse me?Youwere what?”
Sighing, I close my eyes as I rally all my strength. “Just don’t.”
“Hey, I’m not judging. I’ve been saying you need to slow down and take a break for years.”
They all have been.
While I’m the town doctor, and I’m needed more than one would think in a town of vampires, I’m also the one who synthesizes all the blood, makes the blends to said blood, and I work on the curse as much as physically possible.
Trying to break us free of its grasp has been my top priority since I landed us in this predicament.
“I don’t have time for such things with all I have on my plate.”
His lips purse, and he stands and makes us both a drink, handing me one as he leans against the front of the desk, looking down at me with hisseriousface. “Let her in.”
“What… I…”
“Corvin, let her in. Don’t dwell on the fucking past and the curse and all the bullshit. Don’t even factor Asher into it at all, either. Let. Her. In.”
Not factoring Asher into anything in my life makes no earthly sense to me when he’s such an integral part of who I am.
As if he knows what I’m thinking, he says, “If this is going to work, you need your own relationship with her outside of what you and Asher share. There’s no other way to look at it. Cultivate something with her and let her in.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Stop looking like you’re not listening.”
I begrudgingly agree to try my hardest before shutting down the lab and telling the others that we have a meeting tomorrow to review Silver’s results.
When I peek in her room, she’s in the middle of the bed in a robe, her hair damp from a shower, eating straight out of a tub of ice cream.
For a hostage, she looks well taken care of.
She spies me and waves me in. “Hey! You’re just in time! There was a shooting on the ranch!”
