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.”