fucking busy with their own mates.
Jerking the door open, Winter had to admit that he was mildly surprised to find Marcus on the other side. His older brother smirked at his foul expression.
“I wanted to catch you before you became preoccupied,” Marcus said.
“Don’t you have a cute twinky vampire who needs you?” Winter grumbled.
“I do, so this won’t take long. There was something I wanted to ask you.” His brother stepped away from the bedroom doorway and walked over to the hallway banister, looking on the main foyer and the elegant winding staircase. Winter glared at his back for only a second and then closed the door and joined Marcus. While all his brothers had the power to be annoying, Marcus usually didn’t do things just to be a nuisance. He usually had a very good reason for doing anything.
“What’s on your mind?”
Marcus placed both his hands on the banister and frowned, his eyes seeming to stare off at some distant point. “Tonight…when you spoke of seeing the ghosts…”
“Are you sure this is a road you want to go down right now?”
His lips pressed together in a hard line for a second, seeming to think about what Winter was asking. They could all use a break, but not Marcus. He faced things head on. Always. “Did I make it worse?”
“What?” Winter gasped. Of all the things he’d expected out of his brother’s mouth, that was not it.
“Did my requests make it worse for you? I turned you into the family executioner and spy. You used your powers constantly to help protect the family. I asked you to do that for us. Did this make the voices and the ghosts worse?”
Winter was floored by the flurry of questions as well as the guilt burning in Marcus’s watery eyes.
“No!” he said sharply and then repeated with a little less shock in his voice. “No, Marcus. Using my powers or not, the ghosts would have always been there. Nothing could change that for me except for Fox.”
“But the ghosts of the dead…those that you killed to protect our family…”
Winter shrugged. “I won’t lie and say they were particularly happy about suddenly being dead.” He flashed Marcus a smile, but his brother’s mood didn’t lighten. “But not one of them was surprised by it. They attacked our family, plotted against us. Everyone who did that knew what the risk was. The Varik Boogeyman would come after them. Their ghosts didn’t generally hang around me. There was no point.”
“I’m sorry. I took advantage of you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did. You were so damn good at it, and you never complained. It was just easy for me to hand it off to you. With everything…it was one less thing for me to worry about because I always knew you’d handle it. I should have taken more time to consider what it was doing to you. I’m sorry.”
Marcus’s pained words went a long way to healing old wounds and frustrations. He reached up and placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder, squeezing. “I knew deep down that I could always come to you and say that I couldn’t do it anymore. I always knew that you’d take that responsibility off my shoulders if I asked. The guilt is on me as well for never saying anything.”
“That changes now. We’re spreading things around, rebalancing things.” Winter started to argue but Marcus held up an authoritative hand. “You have a mate now who needs your attention. You can’t go out every night risking your life. He’s a good guy and deserves better than that.”
Winter laughed and gave Marcus’s shoulder a little shove before releasing it. “Okay, you might have a point. We’ll work something out. We need to keep an eye on Aiden and watch his back.”
“He will be protected.” Marcus nodded thoughtfully and smirked at Winter. “Go see to your witch. I need to check on my fledgling.” Winter started to walk toward the bedroom when Marcus’s voice stopped him one last time. “And if Fox doesn’t want to wait around for you to wake up tonight, you can tell him that the wolves are usually running around during the day.”
Winter grinned at his brother. “I bet you can’t wait for everyone to get out of your house.”
Marcus said the one thing he’d never expected from his brother. “A full house is a house full of love.”
And he was right.
Winter slipped into the bedroom to find Fox lying on top of the sheets with a towel wrapped around his