“They didn’t say another damn thing,” Fox continued around a mouthful of chocolate heaven. “One of them bashed me on the head, knocking me out. I woke up briefly, and I think I was on a private plane. But I was bound, gagged, and blindfolded. I passed out again. When I next woke up, I was in that room.”
“Fuck,” Winter whispered.
“Exactly.” Fox placed another bite of cake on the fork and held it out to Winter. The vampire gave a little shake of his head, and Fox delivered what had to be his best “don’t argue with me” look, because Winter obediently opened his mouth. Fox smiled when he fed the vampire the cake and was rewarded with a happy hum.
Oh yeah, Fox now had one new goal in life. Feed Winter things until he made that amazing noise. It was stupid and it was silly, but it made him feel better, more in control, if only for a second. And right then, with everything happening, he’d treasure that fucking second of peace and control.
“I don’t know how long I was there, but I had one visitor besides you. Tall guy with white hair cut short and really pale eyes.”
“Damon,” Winter said in a low, hard voice.
Fox shrugged. “He stood over me and smiled. And it wasn’t one of those nice, ‘Let’s be friends’ kind of smiles. More like an ‘I want to rip your spine out through your ass and chew on your soul’ kind of smile. He laughed and said I was going to help him destroy them all. The prophecy had promised it.”
Still standing next to Winter with the plate and fork in hand, Fox shivered. His stomach no longer wanted the cake. Hell, the only thing he wanted was to climb up into Winter’s lap and be held by the man. With Winter’s threats, Fox could understand it. He could sympathize. The vampire was trying to protect his family. If Fox had been given the chance, he would have done anything to save his mom. But cancer didn’t work like that.
But with Damon, killing Fox wasn’t about saving anyone. His death would have been just to amuse Damon. And there was zero doubt in his mind that Damon would make it a horrible, painful death.
It had been the only thing he could think about while he was held captive: Damon was going to kill him, and every second that ticked by was one second closer to that death.
“He didn’t say anything else?”
Fox shook his head slowly. Damon hadn’t been in the room with him for more than a minute at most, but it had been the longest sixty seconds of his life. The creature just felt evil to him. Everything about him felt evil, and it was like it soaked into Fox’s skin when he was in the same room as him.
“Winter, I…I’ve never hurt anyone before. My magic is a joke. I can do very little with it, and I would never use what I do have to hurt anyone. I’m-I’m just this nobody living in Colorado. I like hiking and camping and taking pictures of wildlife. Until a few days ago, I had a perfectly normal, boring life. I’ve got an apartment. I want to get a dog someday. Why would he think I would help him destroy anyone?” The words came out in a panicked blur until his voice broke at the end. His hands were shaking so badly, he was afraid he’d drop the damn cake.
To his surprise, Winter grabbed his hips and forced him to move back over to the bed. He sat down right across from the vampire with the plate and fork still in his hands. They were so close, their knees brushed against each other.
“He can’t make you hurt anyone you don’t want to,” Winter said firmly, staring deep into Fox’s eyes.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone!”
“I believe you.”
Fox could suddenly breathe again. There had been something about Damon’s voice, his excitement, that had convinced Fox he really would hurt someone simply because Damon had decreed it. But if Winter believed in him, then maybe it would be okay. He was still in control.
“Who are these people Damon wants destroyed?” Fox whispered, still trying to get his spiraling emotions under control.
“My family.”
“Winter, we just met. I don’t know your family. I have no reason to ever hurt them. I wouldn’t—”
“I know,” Winter interrupted calmly. “Give me another bite of that cake.”
Fox didn’t think. He cut off another bite of cake and fed it to the vampire. Tension oozed from his shoulders at that wonderful hum vibrating up Winter’s throat. He calmed and ate some more cake himself. His brain was a confused mess. One second he was worried about hurting Winter and his family and the next, he couldn’t decide what was more intimate—feeding Winter cake or eating from the same fork as him?