"If something happens to you—"
"Mom will kick your ass, so it's a win-win for us all," Aiden broke in with a laugh.
"We may need 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. "Didn't you tell him you'd kill him if you saw him again?" Aiden inquired.
"I told him 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 one of the strongest vampires I know, other than myself." His gaze slid over Ethan and Ian before turning to Isabelle and taking her hand. "Though I do believe there’s 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."
"What makes you think that?" Aiden inquired.
"The fact you can identify a killing vampire by their smell even before you hit maturity. The fact you are far stronger than any turned vamp of your years would be. The first vampire was born, but there's no record of what they could do. There are also only about a hundred born vampires in existence. We have no idea what you might be capable of under extreme duress, but I can tell you 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 Stefan didn't look at him as he spoke, but he knew his words were directed at him. "I'd say Ethan’s 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 he was walking a fine line between man and monster right now. He had no words for Stefan, so he 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 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 who have killed humans."
"We're not the kind of vampires he goes after," Stefan said. "He's trying to punish the ones who destroyed his life by murdering vampires who kill. It's not simply to gain power."
Aiden stared at all of them before finishing off his beer and dropping the bottle on the table. "Yeah, okay," 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 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 as Emma appeared in the open doorway. She froze when she spotted them; her eyes scanned his family before landing on him. He heard the increased beat of her heart as her forehead furrowed and she frowned at him. He despised she had to see him in such a state, but though he tried to get them back to normal, he'd lost all control over the color of his eyes. He was slipping, 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 that she'd never seen him drink so early in the day, and everything to do with the desperate air she sensed around him. An air that eased when he took her hands.
His eyes turned back to their beautiful emerald color so fast it stole the breath from her. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and yet such desolation and loneliness surrounded him that it tugged at her heart.
"Are you okay?" she whispered.
"I'm fine,"
