couple of months after she passed away. I missed her so much, and I didn’t know how to stop, how to move on. I thought if I learned magic, it might bring me closer to her. I could make her proud of me and still have that part of her with me.”
“It’s understandable. Your mom was amazing. She was a big part of your life. But you know she was proud of you even without magic, right?”
Fox shrugged one shoulder, his eyes locked on a cookie he was turning over between his fingers. “A couple of months after her death, I was clinging to anything to keep her close to me.” Fox paused and shoved the cookie into his mouth. He nudged Winter and nodded his head toward the other nightstand. “Drink your blood before it gets warm.”
Winter smiled. “Cold or warm, blood is blood.” But he still picked up his glass and downed half the contents. He was happy Fox didn’t seem to be bothered by it.
“There’s a little-known and little-used network out there for witches to find each other. Different from SpellIt. Sort of like an old-fashioned phone tree.” He paused and took a drink of his milk, then snuggled closer to Winter. He placed his arm around Fox’s shoulders, pulling him in tighter so that his head was resting on his chest. “You’ve got a couple of contacts who you can reach out to and they can reach a few contacts and so on. If you work at it long enough, you can get in contact with whomever you’re looking for. Well, supposedly. But like I said, witches don’t play well with each other. I think some are friends, but it’s pretty rare.”
“How does the next generation get trained if they don’t play well together?”
“I think usually it’s one of the parents. But there are a lot fewer of us than there are vampires or werewolves.”
“So, I’m holding a rare gem.”
Fox snorted. “I doubt a witch who can’t do magic is all that rare, but yeah, I guess. I found Cheryl Watkins’s name on the network contact list my mom had among her things. She was in Washington, not too far from where I was living. Taking what money I had, I packed up my things and drove to her place in the middle of nowhere. I begged her for three days to train me. On the fourth day, she finally relented and agreed to train me.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming?”
“A big one. I was with her for four months, and it was hell. Most of the time, I was just her slave. I cleaned, cooked, and ran errands for her. The few times she bothered to teach me anything, I got hurt. If she cooked something for me to eat, I ended up with food poisoning.” Fox huffed a bitter laugh. “It took me four months to figure out that she was actually trying to kill me. I practically crawled out of her place one morning while she was still asleep. I was covered in bruises, cuts, and burns. I struggled to eat more than chicken broth and plain fruit for the first couple of weeks, my stomach was so fucked up. She’s the reason I moved to Colorado. I didn’t think she’d come after me, but I didn’t want to risk being too close.”
“And this is the bitch we’re going to see tomorrow? This woman who tortured you?” Winter demanded through clenched teeth.
“Yeah. You can see why I didn’t immediately volunteer her name. She wasn’t exactly helpful when I talked to her years ago, so I’m not sure how helpful she’s going to be now.”
Winter’s arms tightened around Fox as pure, dark rage burned through him. How the hell was he supposed to get through this meeting without killing her? He wanted to drive there right this second and rip her head off. How could anyone try to hurt someone as sweet and kind as Fox?
“Winter,” Fox said in a warning tone. “You can’t attack her. She might be a total bitch, but she’s also very powerful. She can hurt you. Even with your powers, she can hurt you.”
“Maybe.”
“We also need any information she might have to save your family.”
Winter growled with frustration. This woman did not deserve to live. Part of him didn’t give a shit about what she might know.
“I’ll consider it.”
Fox reached over and pinched one of Winter’s nipples. A loud yelp broke from Winter’s lips, and he