"I'm not moping!" Ethan snapped at him.
Aiden snorted before tipping the bottle back to his lips. "Could have fooled me. Anyway, where is the little human?"
"She's in her room, and you're to stay away from her," Ethan warned.
"I think it's only right that I meet my future sister-in-law."
"That most likely won't happen."
Aiden stared at him before leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Well when you're not being such an obstinate ass, you'll realize that not only will it happen, but it has to happen."
Ethan glowered at him as he took another sip of whiskey. "Not if she doesn't want it to."
"Ethan..."
"No!" he barked. "Like I've told Isabelle, back off on this."
Aiden's cheerful demeanor vanished, his forest green eyes were steely as he relentlessly held Ethan's gaze. Ian slid into the chair next to him, grabbed a glass and poured himself some whiskey. "You smell different," Ian commented.
"I killed a man," he admitted. "And I'll do it again if it means keeping her safe."
"So Isabelle said," Aiden replied.
"Do I smell like a landfill?" he inquired.
"No, nothing that bad but it's definitely different, maybe like overripe fruit," Isabelle answered. "It's nowhere near as repugnant as the smell that was coming off of the vampires that attacked us at the hotel or the ones that are with Tristan."
That was a relief; the last thing he wanted was to smell that bad to his siblings. "That's good to know."
"What about her friends?" Ian asked.
"What about them?" Ethan muttered.
"Are we going to allow them to keep their memories?"
"She'll hate me if I take them away," Ethan told him. "And I won't mess with her mind and I won't allow any of you to do so either. She has to know the truth if she's going to stay safe."
"At this point they all do," Stefan said. "We can't continue to warp their thoughts to our bidding in order to keep them here. We may fry their minds if we do it too often. I don't think they'll be a threat to us, they seem to really care for Emma, and will help to keep her safe. I don't think they'll say anything."
"If they become a threat to us?" Aiden asked.
"I'll kill them myself," Stefan said flatly.
Ethan remained silent as he thought over those words. "Even if she hates me after, if they somehow become a threat to her I'll kill them too, but I do believe they'll keep our secret and do whatever it takes to keep her alive."
"If you two are confident of that then I'll trust your judgment," Ian said. "Have you talked to dad yet?"
"No, why?" Ethan asked.
"Because if anyone knows what you're going through, it's him."
"Yeah, I guess, but I don't want to involve him or mom. They're thousands of miles away; worrying them isn't going to do anyone any good."
"They would be on the first plane here if they knew," Isabelle said as she and Stefan settled into the other chairs.
"And that's the last thing I want to happen. There's danger here, the two of you shouldn't even be here," he said to Aiden and Ian. "You haven't even hit maturity yet."
"Well one of us hasn't," Ian said and shoved Aiden's shoulder. Aiden scowled back at him and flipped him the finger.
"You did?" Isabelle demanded. "When?"
"Last month," Ian answered. "I figured I'd wait until summer break to tell everyone."
"Well congratulations," Isabelle said and squeezed his hand.
"I guess that would be the term for it," Ian said with a smile before turning his attention back to Ethan. "But we're more help than you think, and we're not going anywhere, so get that thought out of your head. You know we're stronger than young vampires, even before we reach maturity."
"If something happens to you..."
"Mom will kick your ass and it's a win-win for us all," Aiden broke in with a laugh.
"We may need even more help than just you two though," Stefan said. "There are quite a few of them, and although they are young and less powerful, they're also driven by their thirst for blood and their need for death. They'll be volatile and unpredictable."
"My parents won't be brought into this, I won't take the chance of them being hurt," Ethan said. "And we can't tell The Stooges without my parents somehow finding out about it. They're not exactly good at keeping secrets."
"That they're not," Aiden agreed.
"I wasn't talking about your parents," Stefan said.
"Who then?" Isabelle asked.
"Brian."
Even Ethan felt his eyebrows shoot up at that one. "Didn't you tell him you'd kill him if you saw him again?" Aiden inquired.
"I told him that if he found me again I'd kill him, but this time I'll be finding him," Stefan replied.
"Potato, Potahto," Ian said.
Stefan leaned back in his chair. "He's the strongest vampire I know, other than myself." His gaze slid over Ethan and Ian before turning to Isabelle and taking hold of her hand. "Though I do believe there is more power inside all of you than we've yet to see, I'm not willing to put any of you in harm's way on a belief though."
"What even makes you think that?" Aiden inquired.
"The fact that you can so readily identify a killing vampire by their smell, even before you hit maturity. The fact that Ethan's eyes have taken on a hue the likes of which I've never seen in my two hundred and sixty-eight years of existence. The first vampire was born but there's no record of what they could do, there's also only about a hundred born vampires in existence now. We have no idea what you might be capable of under extreme duress, but I can tell you that having your mate threatened will bring it out of you. We also don't know what it might do to one of you after, if you're able to tap reserves of power we've never seen before, would you be able to let it go? Or would it destroy you?"
Ethan appreciated the fact that Stefan didn't look at him as he spoke, but he knew that his words were directed at him. "I'd definitely say those eyes lend some credibility to your theory," Ian said.
Ethan scowled at him and drank the rest of his whiskey again. "You're all a little too obsessed with my fucking eyes."
"And you're a little too nonchalant about it," Stefan said. "There's power in you, in all of you, and if you allow it to get out of control we could all be in peril."
Ethan simply held Stefan's unwavering gaze. There was nothing he could say to that, he knew it was the truth, knew that he was walking a fine line between man and monster right now. He had no words for Stefan so he simply refilled his drink and leaned back in the chair.
"Can you get in touch with Brian?" Isabelle inquired.
"Yes."
"You've kept in touch since we last saw him?"
Stefan shook his head. "No, but I'll be able to track him down."
"I thought you didn't trust him," Ian said.
"I don't, but..."
"I do," Isabelle interrupted. "He's lethal, don't get me wrong, but I really don't believe he's a threat to us."
"I have to agree with her," Ethan said and finished off his drink. "He's not going to team up with them against us."
"How do you know that?" Aiden asked.
"Because he doesn't kill indiscriminately, he kills to gain power but not because it's what he thrives on, and he only kills those that have killed humans."
"We're not the kind of vampires he goes after," Stefan said. "He's trying to punish the ones that destroyed his life by murdering vampires that kill. It's not simply just to gain power."
Aiden stared at all of them before finishing off his beer and dropping the bottle on the table. "Yeah, ok," he muttered. "And he is powerful."
"Do you think he'll come?" Isabelle asked.
"Brian's never turned down a fight before, but I don't know, maybe he's changed," Stefan said.
"Get in touch with him," Ethan said. His gaze drifted toward the doorway of the house as he sensed Emma's approach. "But if he arrives here and it turns out that he is different, and he
is a threat, especially to Emma, you won't have to worry about killing him Stefan, because I'll do it myself. She's coming."
Ethan rose to his feet as Emma appeared in the open doorway. She froze when she spotted them, her eyes scanned rapidly over them before landing upon him. He heard the increased beat of her heart as her forehead furrowed and she frowned at him. He despised the fact that she had to see him in such a state but though he'd tried to get them back to normal, he'd lost all control over the color of his eyes. He was slipping, he knew that, but he would do whatever it took to keep her safe, even from himself.
Emma couldn't tear her eyes away from Ethan's strangely colored ones as he moved around his brothers to approach her. She could smell the whiskey on him even before he stopped in front of her. There was something about him, other than being one of the living non-dead, that frightened her. It had nothing to do with the eerie color of his eyes, or the fact that she'd never seen him drink so early in the day, and everything to do with the desperate air she sensed surrounding him. An air that seemed to strangely ease as he took hold of her hands.
His eyes turned back to their beautiful emerald color so fast that it stole the breath from her. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and yet there was such desolation and loneliness surrounding him that it tugged at her heart. "Are you ok?" she whispered.
"I'm fine," he assured her.
"Ethan..."
"Come meet my brothers." He tugged lightly on her hand, drawing her forward when all she wanted was to talk with him and make sure that something wasn't wrong. Her eyes were drawn to the two large men sitting in the chairs near Isabelle and Stefan. Jill was going to be tripping over herself when she saw these two, Emma decided as they rose to their impressive heights. "This is Aiden and Ian."
"Nice to meet you," Emma said.
They were both sporting crooked grins as they stared at her before exchanging a glance with each other. "Nice to meet you too," Aiden said and extended his hand to her.
Emma hesitated before taking hold of it. Beside her, Ethan stiffened, his body pressed closer against hers and Aiden hastily released her hand. Ian nodded toward her but he didn't offer her his hand and his eyes never left Ethan. Emma frowned as she glanced at the group of large, imposing men gathered around her. Men that could tear her head off and use it as a volleyball if they so chose.
Trepidation trickled down her spine and though she knew he was no different than them, she instinctively moved closer to Ethan. He rested his hand in the small of her back. "We were just talking about Tristan," Ethan informed her.
"I'm sorry. I know this wasn't exactly the vacation you were planning on," Emma apologized to Aiden and Ian.
Aiden laughed and ran a hand through his black hair. It was impossible not to know that the three of them were brothers, she realized as she looked at them. They were similar in appearance and had the same almost carefree air about them, or at least they all had before things with Tristan had started. Her gaze slid up to Ethan standing rigidly by her side. There was nothing carefree about him anymore, not like there had been when she'd first met him. Stress radiated from him, even when he looked down at her and smiled.
"We've experienced worse and we're always willing to help. Our siblings are always trying to get us into trouble," Ian said. "But we usually end up saving their ass's."
"Like hell," Isabelle muttered as Ethan frowned at him. Ian simply grinned at them in return.
"I don't want to see anyone get hurt," Emma said as she glanced over the people gathered around her.
"No one is going to get hurt," Ethan promised. "And believe me these two can handle themselves."
"Like I said, we'll be pulling their ass's out of the fire," Ian insisted.
"I'm going to kick your ass if you keep it up," Isabelle told him.
Aiden and Ian laughed but Emma remained uneasy as her gaze traveled over them. How could she possibly ask them to risk their lives, for her?
"I uh... I have to take a shower," she said.
Ethan almost grabbed hold of her when she stepped away from him. He sensed a change in her demeanor that made her seem even more distant than she'd been since discovering what he was. He forced himself to let her go though, being overbearing wasn't the way to get her to come back to him, if she ever came back to him.
He fisted his hands at his sides; he could feel the hunger within him blazing back to life as his attention returned to his siblings. Ian tilted his head to the side to study him; Aiden shook his head and turned away.
"You know what really sucks," Aiden said as he twisted the top off another beer.
"What?" Isabelle asked.
Aiden flipped the cap away as he turned to face them. "When the two of you finally do get laid you turn into raving lunatics."
Isabelle stuck her tongue out at him while Ethan glowered at him. He stormed around the table, slid back into the chair and poured himself another whiskey.
***
Emma turned away from the window when she heard the door open. The sun had already begun to set, its rays spread across the sky in a colorful array that had held her captive for the past five minutes. Ethan was in the doorway, his hair stood out in spikes around his head, and his eyes still had that strange red hue to them.
"Is there anything you need?" he inquired.
You, the thought blazed through her mind but she clamped her mouth shut before she could blurt it out.
"I'm good," she said instead. "Jill and Mandy..."
"They're playing cards with everyone else."
"Oh."
"Would you like to join them?"
There were a thousand things she would like to do right now but joining the others for a game of cards wasn't one of them. She couldn't tear her eyes away from him as he remained standing in her doorway. He looked torn between walking away and coming to her. "Not right now."
He bowed his head and stepped away. The broken air surrounding him was more than she could stand. "Ethan." He stopped and turned back to face her. The hope in his eyes caused tears to burn in hers. "Are you ok?"
He forced a smile to his face. "I'm fine."
She couldn't shake the feeling that he was lying to her though. "Would you tell me if something was wrong, something more than the obvious? You've already kept something from me, and I can understand why, but please don't do it again and don't lie to me. I don't know if I could take that."
His eyes searched her face as he stared at her; finally, he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "I won't keep anything from you anymore Emma, but there are some things that I would prefer not to burden you with."
A small snort of laughter escaped her. "Look at everything I've burdened you with. Your life is in jeopardy because of me. Please tell me what is going on with you."
"You could never be a burden Emma, not to me, and I will kill Tristan."
She flinched at the straightforward way he said that he was going to kill Tristan. The idea of it seemed not to affect him in anyway. What had she gotten herself into with all of this? Walking over to the bed, she slumped onto it. She lifted her head to look at him as he leaned against the door.
"And you're ok with that?" she whispered.
"I'm ok with anything that keeps you safe."
"This is all so much. My best friends are playing cards with vampire siblings; the man I thought I was falling in love with is talking about killing my ex as if it's the same thing as ordering fast food."
Ethan did a double take as those words spilled from her lips. "You thought you were falling in love with me?"
She frowned as she lifted her head to look up at him. He had stepped away from the door; his eyes had turned back to their normal green hue. There was a look on his face that made her feel as if she were the most cherished and priceless jewel in the world. She'd never thought a man could look at her like that, with so much hope and... love?
Yes, that was what was radiating from his eyes. "I did," she breathed, unable to tear her gaze away
from him.
"And now?"
"And now, where do I fit into all of this? Your world isn't mine Ethan. Your world is something I can't even begin to understand. How could I possibly allow myself to love you when I'm not sure what would become of me?" He rapidly moved across the room and knelt before her. Taking her hands into his, he held them against his chest as he looked into her eyes that were swimming with tears. "I don't belong..."
"You belong with me," he said vehemently. "My world is not a dismal one; there is love and laughter in it. My family..."
"What of my family?"
He released her hands and slid his fingers across her face to her hair. He brushed it back as he moved closer to her; he needed to touch her, to feel her. It was the only thing that made the monster that had been growing within him subside. "There are things we will figure out Emma, if you become like me, you can keep seeing them for at least a few years without question and then we can work on changing memories..."
"They're my parents," she interrupted. "I can't mess with their minds like that."
"Emma," he groaned. It was all right there, right before him. The hope that she could love him, that she would agree to be with him was growing so vigorously within him that he didn't know what he would do if it was ripped away from him again. "I love you." Her mouth parted as she gazed at him in awe. "I will love you for an eternity. If you tell me to leave, I will, but if there's any chance that you will allow me to stay there is something else that you must know about me, about my kind."
She searched his face as he continued to kneel before her. There was something in his demeanor that made her think that she wasn't going to like what he had to say. But she was the one insisting on full disclosure. "What is it?"
The bed indented as he sat beside her. His body emitted heat that warmed her to the tips of her toes; her skin began to tingle as his arm brushed against hers. It was the strangest sensation to be afraid of someone and yet so unbelievably attracted to them at the same time. No, she wasn't afraid of him, that wasn't the right word. She was wary of him, unnerved by what he was and the world that he existed in, but she knew he would never harm her in anyway.
"There's something about vampires that is unique only to us," he told her.
Untamed (Vampire Awakenings, Book 3) Page 21