Chapter 20 #2
Fox shook his head, so Winter shoved the cookie into his mouth and ushered Fox into the living room. He got the man settled on the couch with the TV turned on to something mindless with the volume low. Fox lay with his head in Winter’s lap while Winter quickly called Marcus.
The nice thing about talking to Marcus on the phone was that it was almost always guaranteed to be a quick call. Marcus was brusque and businesslike when it came to protecting the family. There was no gray area to him.
Well, at least not until Ethan entered his life. The young man had an interesting way of complicating things for Marcus, which was usually for the better.
Marcus accepted the news that Damon had plotted to have Winter steal Fox and that he was relying on Fox’s presence to destroy the family.
His oldest brother grunted. “Do you think that’s true? Are you worried about him?”
Winter looked down at Fox, his fingers threading through his hair. He didn’t need to think about the answer. “No, I’m not.”
“We’ll find the witch and make her give us the answers we need. Keep him close. We’ll talk more soon.” And then Marcus ended the call.
A smile lifted one corner of his mouth as he placed the phone on the empty cushion to his left. Keeping Fox close to him was not going to be a problem.
“Why aren’t you worried about me?” Fox asked softly.
“You could hear him?” Winter asked in surprise.
Fox snorted. “Marcus talks loud and authoritative. It carries.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t. It’s a fair question. I’m wondering the same thing.”
It was strange. When he looked at the situation logically with the eyes of an outsider, it made sense for him to be skeptical of Fox.
Maybe this was all a ploy to get Winter to lower his guard, to get valuable insider information on all of the Variks so they could be killed.
He’d uncovered far darker and more twisted plots than that in his time. Why couldn’t that be the case now?
Because of Fox.
The witch wasn’t a liar or a deceiver. All his thoughts and emotions were clearly written across his face. He frequently said the first thing that crossed his mind. There was no coyness or subterfuge to him. The man was the world’s worst choice for a spy.
And Winter loved his openness. Too much of his life from the moment of him becoming a vampire had been about false facades, lies, evil plots, and assassination attempts. Vampires just didn’t play well together. Not to mention hiding all of his own mother’s attempts to kill her children.
“Because I know you. You wouldn’t hurt me or my family,” Winter said with full confidence. He had no doubts about Fox. He’d put himself in danger to get to the truth tonight. He’d risked his life to protect Winter.
“But Damon thinks I’ll destroy your family from within. If I stay with you—”
“You’re not going anywhere. Damon is an idiot. I’m sure the ‘disarm’ the prophecy talks about is my ghost curse. No one knows about that except you, me, and Aiden.”
Fox sighed softly, but he didn’t relax as Winter had hoped.
“Can I ask you something personal?” Fox said suddenly.
“Of course.”
Fox turned his head a little so he could see Winter from the corner of his eyes, a mocking smirk on his lips. Winter didn’t exactly volunteer a lot of personal information, but he hadn’t shut down any of Fox’s queries as far as he could remember.
“Tonight, it wasn’t your first fight like that,” Fox started slowly.
He’d turned his gaze back toward the TV, but he wasn’t watching it.
Winter had a feeling he was replaying the blood bath in his mind.
“You moved…geez…there are ninjas in the world who would be envious of your skills. It was awesome and scary.”
“I don’t want to scare you.”
Fox shook his head. “I don’t think it could be helped. Any sane person would be a little scared, and last I checked, I still had a few of my marbles.”
“Definitely.”
“But you didn’t hesitate. Not once.”
“Hesitating means you could have been hurt or even killed. Hesitating means dying or something happening to my brothers. I can’t afford to hesitate.”
“Does it bother you?”
The question stopped him. His brothers often asked after him following a fight or when they knew he’d done something to protect them, but it was always focused on that last fight.
This felt so much bigger. Like it was the same question he’d seen in Aiden’s eyes over the past years, but the man hadn’t given voice to it just yet.
“I’m tired of it all,” Winter softly admitted.
“I don’t want to be the person who’s covered in the blood of people who want to hurt my family.
I don’t want to spend my time stalking them and digging up dirt, threatening them if they even look the wrong way at the Variks.
I feel like the blood of all the dead has soaked into my soul, and I really am the monster they say I am.
There are nights I can’t even look in the mirror.
Can’t face myself. I don’t want to be the person who does these violent things.
I don’t want to be the person that everyone is terrified of or that people make up scary stories about.
I want…I want to be the person you used to see me as. Or at least I thought you did.”
Fox quickly sat up and turned on the couch so that he was facing Winter, one of his legs bent in front of him. “What do you mean?”
“When we met, I thought you hadn’t been told the stories about me.
I thought you believed I was just a normal guy…
vampire…who had an interesting home and liked to play video games and loved to kiss you.
When it was just us, I felt normal. I felt like I didn’t have this horrible past. The Vampire Boogeyman. The Angel of Death. I was just Winter.”
“You are Winter to me.” Fox reached out and touched a lock of Winter’s black hair before brushing it behind his ear. “Damon and his idiots were happy to tell me scary Winter Varik stories, but they were hoping to frighten the shit out of me.”
“Why didn’t they work?”
Fox blushed and Winter wanted to kiss him all over again.
“You mean other than the fact that you’re sexy as hell?
” Winter glared at him, and Fox chuckled softly.
“I swear I don’t have a crazy death wish.
The guys I’ve sort of dated have been normal, boring guys.
But you’ve got to remember that you’ve proved them all wrong time and again. ”
“How? Tonight was proof that I live up to the stories.”
Fox shrugged. “They were going to kill you and your family. What choice did they leave you? But what about at Damon’s?
You pointed out that it would have been so much easier for you to just kill me at Damon’s than bring me along.
Hell, why didn’t you kill me when you woke up that next day when I broke out of the handcuffs? The Boogeyman wouldn’t have hesitated.”
Winter frowned. “I don’t just kill to kill.”
Fox touched his hair again and then his cheek, each one seeming to soothe old wounds across Winter’s heart. “Even though it feels that way sometimes. Do your brothers ever do these things?”
“Yes,” Winter answered quickly. “We’ve all risked our lives for each other, gotten our hands bloody. If I’d asked any one of them, they wouldn’t have hesitated to join us tonight. It’s…”
“It’s a bigger risk for them. They don’t have your ability,” Fox supplied.
“Yes. And I’m good at this.” Winter forced himself to meet Fox’s questioning gaze.
He needed to say this out loud for both of them.
“As much as I don’t want to be that monster they label me as, there are a lot of times that I love it.
I’m good at what I do. I’m good at protecting my family.
My reputation is scary, but it also works to keep my brothers safe. I want them to stay safe.”
“The same way you kept me safe tonight.”
Fox slowly crawled into Winter’s lap, positioning himself so that they were facing each other, his arms looped around Winter’s shoulders.
“Thank you for protecting me tonight.” Fox leaned in and gently kissed Winter’s lips.
His eyes fell closed and Winter sank into Fox’s tender touch.
He was supposed to be comforting Fox as he dealt with everything he’d witnessed, but Fox was the one who was healing Winter inside and out.
A sigh left Winter’s parted lips and he gently held Fox, trying to be mindful of the bruise and cut on his back.
This man, he was becoming so much to him in so short a time.
Too short. It was like he was getting pulled in by the tide, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight it.
Or maybe he just didn’t want to fight it.
Fox had given him a much bigger gift than simply silencing the ghosts.
He was giving him hope. When Damon was finally destroyed and his family was safe, Winter had thought he’d end his own life.
His job of protecting his family would be done and he’d earned his rest. He’d finally achieve what his own prophecy foretold—silence divine.
But now, he wanted to see what kind of life he could live with Fox holding his hand.
He wanted to wake each night to Fox’s smiling face and listen to his thoughts on movies, video games, politics, and any crazy thing that crossed his mind.
He wanted to laugh in the kitchen. And he wanted to make love to this man over and over again.
Was this how it started with his brothers? They had fallen, one after another. It seemed as if they’d all fought it in their own way. But Winter didn’t want to fight it. He wanted to embrace Fox and all they could have together.
Except there was still the prophecy and Damon.
They had to figure all that out.
But not tonight. They’d fought hard, gotten good information, and escaped with their lives. They’d earned some rest.
“It’s late,” Winter announced suddenly. “We should go to bed. We’ll be thinking clearer tomorrow night. Make some new plans.”