“You just had breakfast, didn’t you?” Fox chuckled.
“Yes. I haven’t had a chance to brush my teeth.”
“Well, I appreciate how considerate you are.” Fox kissed his chin and turned to open the door to the pantry. He dug around for a moment and returned, slapping a small chocolate-chip cookie into Winter’s palm. “Eat that and I’ll be happy to kiss you.”
“Then I better hold on to this for a while. I need to get some work done first, and you’ve already proved that your distraction skills are too much for me.”
“Is this about Damon?” Fox grabbed the cereal mush off the counter and scraped it into the garbage disposal. After washing it away and cleaning out the bowl, he glided over to the pantry to get a box of cereal.
Winter was mesmerized by Fox’s movements throughout his kitchen. The witch had been there for a week, and he already went about the place as if he’d been living with Winter for years. But where Winter had thought such a thing would make him feel uncomfortable, he actually felt…relaxed. Happy. Fox looked comfortable. There was no hesitation; he never once looked over at Winter to seek permission before he did something.
No one outside of his family ever felt comfortable around him. No one.
To the world, he was a lethal force to be reckoned with. He was the Variks’ personal angel of death. He was the boogeyman of the vampire world. He was darkness, vengeance, and horror.
And he never wanted Fox to know about any of that. The dark image he portrayed for the rest of the world couldn’t touch Fox. He didn’t ever want the man to look at him differently. He couldn’t deal with the idea of Fox being afraid of him.
“Those are some dark thoughts,” Fox murmured, jerking Winter back to the present.
“Dark things need to be handled,” Winter replied, his hand closing carefully around the cookie. “You can relax and play video games. I’m going to work in my office for a while.”
A scoffing noise escaped Fox as he deftly grabbed the milk and added it to the cereal. “Oh, you’re not leaving me out of this. I’m in it up to my freaking eyeballs.”
“It would be better and safer if you just let me handle it. If I need some information from you, I’ll come to you.”
Winter swept out of the kitchen and marched to his office at the back of the loft, but it was done to the sound of Fox’s harsh laughter.
Sitting at his computer, he signed in and started to pull up the various security programs he had running on the loft as well as those protecting Rafe’s penthouse and Marcus’s house. He only activated the camera views when he suspected something was wrong. For now, he only checked to make sure there had been no trouble during the day, and everything was functioning as usual. The reassurance that his family was safe and protected helped to center him when everything about Fox was throwing him off balance.
He wasn’t working for too long before Fox plopped into the only other chair in the office, bowl of cereal in hand. Placing his feet up on the edge of the desk, Fox wiggled down on the chair until he was comfortable and started shoveling cereal into his mouth.
Winter glared around the monitor at him. “Comfortable?” he asked in the most irritated voice he could manage, which really wasn’t much when Fox was looking so damn smug.
“Eh. I should have brought the cereal and milk with me. This is gonna take more than one bowl. Somebody took a lot out of me when he woke up tonight.” Fox waggled his eyebrows at Winter, who ducked behind the monitors as his cheeks burned.
“You’re not helping me with this.”
Fox sighed dramatically. “Are we really going to have this argument?”
“No. There is no argument. You’re my prisoner. You’re going to do as I say. You will not get involved.”
Fox leaned to the side so he could glare at Winter around the stupid screen. “Not get involved? Do you even hear how ridiculous you’re being? I was involved the second some witch uttered my name in relation to this stupid prophecy. I was involved the night Damon had his people kidnap me. There is no de-volving me.”
“Uninvolving,” Winter corrected automatically, then stopped and sighed. That didn’t make sense either. “Extricating.”
“That either.” Fox waved his spoon in the air, the shiny silver catching and reflecting the light with each pass. “The point is that you can shove your prisoner nonsense up your ass along with your wannabe Dom attitude. That shit ain’t gonna work on me, Big Sexy.”
“Fox—”
“Nope. We’ve got two ways of doing this. One is that we work together to take out Damon and clear up this prophecy nonsense. The other is that you take down Damon and the prophecy alone while at the same time fighting me every step of the way.” Fox’s feet hit the hardwood floor with a pair of angry thumps, and he leaned close to the desk, his eyes narrowed. “Which one do you think is gonna get you laid faster?”