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