Page 45 of Moonlit Thorns

He doesn’t look as though he’s slept. His hair isn’t styled to perfection. Rather, it’s falling down over his forehead and the sides of his head. His face is stubbled with dark hair, and his dark shirt is rumpled, along with his pants.

I’m not sure what to make from the look in his eyes. There’s some type of emotion simmering beneath the surface, but I can’t be sure what. As always, he’s an enigma.

“What happened?” My voice comes out in a croak, and it’s then I realize how dry my mouth is.

“There’s water on the bedside table.” Though he speaks, he doesn’t move a muscle.

I slowly turn and reach for the water with my hand that doesn’t have an IV in it, then bring the glass to my lips. It’s so refreshing that I want to guzzle the entire thing, but I refrain. Once I’ve returned the water to the table, I turn to Asher and repeat my earlier question. “What happened? Where am I?”

“In my bedroom.”

My eyes widen, and I do a quick mental inventory of my body. “Did we…” I don’t feel like I had sex last night, but who knows?

He scowls. “Unconscious women aren’t my thing.”

Unconscious? “I remember being in the basement of the manor and some kind of ceremony going on… and that’s it.”

“You passed out.”

“What? How? Why?” Is there something wrong with me?

He sighs. “What do you remember from last night?”

“I went and saw my mother. She wasn’t doing well, which just added to my shitty week, so I decided to go to Black Magic.” I don’t tell him I intended to pick up someone to make me forget him. “There was this guy who stopped to use the bathroom, and we started talking. He invited me to a party… it’s kind of blurry from there. I remember he took me to the manor, and then I just have this vision of a bunch of people in red cloaks and masks on and you…”

“Me what?” He arches an eyebrow.

“You were there… you passed a knife to someone who…”

“Did he buy you a drink?” he snarls.

It takes my brain a minute to catch up to the change of topic. “Yeah.”

Asher’s hands grip the armrests of the chair he’s sitting in so hard that the white of his knuckles bleeds through his olive skin.

His reaction has me more worried than ever. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“You allowed yourself to be picked up by Preston Wallace.”

That name doesn’t mean anything to me. “Who’s Preston Wallace?”

“A predator.”

A chill runs through my body, and I shiver. Asher’s gaze dips down to my chest where my nipples harden, and it’s then that I look down and realize I’m not wearing what I was last night.

“Where are my clothes? How am I in my pajamas?” I’m wearing one of my shorts and tank sets that I wear to bed. I hoist the blanket up far enough to cover my chest.

“When the doctor came, I had the nurse change your clothes. You vomited on your other ones when I got you back to my room.”

I blink a few times at him. “What doctor? Are you going to tell me what happened?” Panic flares, and I need to know exactly what happened last night.

He stands from the chair, and so slowly, he walks toward the bed while he speaks. “Preston drugged your drink and brought you to Midnight Manor to a private event that he knew you were not permitted to attend. When you passed out, he brought you into a back room to do God knows what. I intervened then brought you to my room and had the doctor come to make sure you’d be okay.”

I don’t know what to say to that, let alone how to feel about it. My brain is still sluggish, and it’s a lot of information to take in.

He reaches the side of the bed. That’s when I notice that the knuckles on his right hand, the one with the bear tattoo, are bloodied.

“What do you mean you intervened?”

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