Page 68 of The Midnight Order
She nods, holding her hand out as I drop the tin into it. “Thank you. I’ll try just about anything.”
“You’re most welcome.”
She makes it to the door before turning back, eyeing me as she seems to decide whether to speak again. “How long have you been together, you and Asher?”
“Well, JaspermadeAsher in 1862. We got closer over the fifty years that followed. We’ve been together around a hundredyears, give or take a few. There were a few rough years where we were more friends than lovers. The 1920s got hairy.”
I realize I’m blabbing and being more open with her than I usually am with anyone, and zip my lips closed.
Silver, however, looks consumed with intrigue. “I still can’t wrap my mind around any of this.”
“It takes some getting used to.”
There’s an awkwardness between us for a moment before she lifts the tin in her hand, smiling awkwardly. “Thanks for this.”
“Sleep well,” I tell her as she exits the lab, shutting the door behind her.
Scrubbing my face, I let out a groan at myself.
“Alright, back to work,” I mutter, shoving everyone and everything to the back of my mind, other than figuring out the question of who Silver is and where she comes from.
Which is better than focusing on the alluring creature currently brewing herself lavender tea. A mistake on my part because lavender is my favorite scent in the world, and now for at least a day, her blood is going to be tinged with the shit.
Letting my forehead fall and hit the icy surface of the lab table, I growl.
In all my stumbling and bumbling after finding her in the hall, I forgot to ask her about her nightmares.
Fuck.
Chapter 18
Lowell
Her tossingand turning is incessant. She doesn’t sleep talk, which would be helpful and let us into what hell she’s suffering. She cries out in little strangled moans now and again, however.
I find her struggle unsettling.
Recalling what the others told me, I get up from my chair and cross the room, sliding into bed beside her and looking for the best way to soothe her deeper into sleep, where the nightmares can’t reach.
She’s on her back, her body on top of the covers as if she’d fallen asleep unwittingly. The scent of lavender wafts from her breath and beneath her skin, likely from the cup on her nightstand, and I wonder who gave it to her.
Probably Corvin.
A whimper rips from her throat, and she turns into me.
Instinctively, as if I were made to do so, I wrap an arm around her and pull her to me, shushing her softly as I tuck her into my body.
I fit around her like a glove, and she snuggles into me, a soft moan leaving her throat as she slides a hand up my chest.
“There you go, little lamb,” I whisper, “I’ve got you.”
This seems to rouse her as she gasps and pulls away from me, looking up with sleep-filled eyes as her heart speeds. “Lowell, what are you doing in here?”
“Keeping away the demons,” I reply without thinking. It feels like that’s what I’m doing.
“What?” she breathes.
“You fight your sleep. You cry out and toss and turn. You said I couldn’t sing to you, but the others suggested I hold you to help you sleep.” I hate that I sound like I’m explaining myself, but I got caught in her room again, which she doesn’t seem thrilled about.
