Page 90 of The Midnight Order
Silver’s cries grow louder, and I spot Corvin in the open door.
I shake my head subtly, and he moves back into the hall’s shadows as I watch Lowell with rapt attention, so he does nothing untoward.
“I’m so sorry, Lowell,” she whispers, reaching for him.
He jerks backward, reeling from the offered touch. “It’s not your fault. But it’s the reason I can never test your bond. Ihaven’t had a drop of human blood since I escaped that coven. I will never drink from another human, and I will never let my blood spill for someone else. Ever again.”
She nods. “I understand.”
So do we, unfortunately.
He’s not the reason we’re all cursed, but he’s the reason we’ll never have it lifted.
Some days, I feel so much animosity toward him, and those days, I avoid the manor like the plague because he doesn’t need my bullshit piled onto his own.
I sigh, letting my eyes cast away from them now that the truth lies bare in the room like a weighted smog.
“We can walk you home,” I offer to Silver, and it takes a moment for her to register my words.
“What? But I’m… Lowell, he has to—” She gives Lowell a look as he flicks his eyes away from her and backs up, his demeanor going from rigid to downright homicidal.
“This was a mistake. Bringing you here was wrong; we apologize for doing so. Thinking he was ready so soon after what happened with Soliel was wrong of us,” I tell her, and Lowell growls as he storms out of the room. “And then, with everything we found out about your lineage?—”
“What about my lineage?” She turns on me, stepping closer.
Her eyes are clear of emotion, bright, and curious as Corvin steps out of the shadows again.
There’s sadness etched on his face, and I know it will be another century to get him under control now that he’s let someone in.
Let Silver in.
“Your great aunt wasn’t your blood relative,” Corvin states, and she turns around to face him.
Standing sideways, she looks between the two of us. “And when were you going to tell me? After you were done fucking my mouth and every other hole you could fit your cock into?”
She stabs the question in Corvin’s direction, and I shift in my seat at the news that anything of the sort happened between them. I’ve never known the male to go that far with a potential key.
Not since Valentina.
Not since the dawn of this fucking curse.
Corvin winces as her words land their jab. “We didn’t think it was important information because you had to get past Lowell, and no one does.”
Sadness wavers on Silver’s face again.
“And what else did my blood reveal?” she asks me, but I nod toward Corvin, letting her know just who’s in charge of all things laboratory.
He swallows, giving me a look I can’t quite read, almost like he has information he’s yet to share with even me.
“Out with it!” I growl, sitting forward and leaning my elbows on my desk as I stare him down in anticipation.
“Your bloodline traces back to a vampire lineage thought lost to history—one that was very powerful.”
My interest piques, and I stare him down to egg him on.
“And? I’m not a vampire, so that can’t be right.”
“Well, vampirism didn’t use to be what it is now. It wasn’t always vampires turning humans to expand their bloodline. It was inherited, passed down through generations through the genes.”
