But it was time he sorted through some of that baggage. If anyone was going to help him with that, he was glad it was Fox. Logic argued that he probably should have said something to his brothers years ago, but it was too difficult and painful. They had their own baggage to deal with when it came to their mother, the topic way too painful.
Winter turned off the water, quickly dried off, and wrapped a towel around his waist before wandering into the bedroom. The lights were turned down low, but he stopped to find Fox sitting up against the pillows on one side. On the nightstand closest to Fox, there was a glass of milk and a small plate with a couple of cookies. On the opposite nightstand, Winter found a glass of blood and a matching plate of cookies.
Winter could only stare at it, a lump forming in his throat. “A midnight snack?” he asked, trying to make light of it when all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and hold Fox until the world ended around them.
“When I was having a bad night, my mom would cuddle with me while we ate milk and cookies. She’d said that even when the world looked its darkest, there was still milk and cookies. Everything would get better from there. And she was always right.”
“I think I love your mom.”
Fox laughed and nodded. “She was pretty great.”
Blinking back stupid tears, Winter turned and grabbed a pair of boxer briefs from the dresser. He tossed the towel into the bathroom and pulled them on before sliding into bed beside Fox.
“Not wearing mine anymore?” Fox teased.
“I think everything down there could use a little breathing room.”
Fox snickered, but his light mood faded quickly. “I went looking for Cheryl Watkins because I missed my mom,” he said suddenly. “It was only a 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.”