“I forgot how much I love chocolate,” Winter admitted.
Fox chuckled and put another bite of cake on the fork for Winter. The vampire was fucking crafty, but it didn’t matter, because it worked. Fox was calm and distracted.
“Did anyone mention to you where they heard this prophecy?” Winter asked, but Fox was shaking his head before he finished his question. What he’d told Winter was everything he’d heard and knew since encountering the other vampires outside of work.
“No one mentioned a witch named Zelda?”
“Oh, God no,” Fox said on a gasp. Fox’s blood ran cold at just the mention of the witch’s name. Zelda was involved in this? Fuck his initial plan to get to the bottom of this mess with Winter. He needed to run far and fast. He’d find a cave and just hide there for the rest of his life.
Winter straightened in his chair, eyebrows jumping. “You know Zelda?”
“Fuck, no! I mean, not personally. I’ve heard of her. Everyone’s heard of her. She’s known as Zelda the troublemaker. Zelda the meddler.”
“That sounds like her,” Winter muttered under his breath as he relaxed in the desk chair again. “But she’s a real witch?”
“Definitely. Very powerful. Why? Do you know her?”
The vampire shook his head a little absently as if his mind had drifted off somewhere else. “No, but she’s friends with one of my brothers and my father. They’re trying to get in contact with her now to get to the bottom of this prophecy nonsense.”
“If the prophecy came from Zelda, it would explain why this Damon is so confident that he can destroy your family. Zelda is really powerful. She’s been around for centuries and knows everything.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Winter grumbled.
Fox got the impression Winter didn’t exactly believe him, and that was okay. Zelda broke the mold when it came to witches. No other witch was as old, as far as he knew, and the rumors were that her powers were limitless. He didn’t know what was truth and what was pure fantasy when it came to Zelda, but it didn’t matter. When his mother had spoken of her, one message always came out—stay the fuck away from her.
That was exactly what Fox wanted to do, but it was looking less and less likely now.
“You said something earlier that confuses me…” Winter started.
Fox forced a laugh to keep from crawling under the bed to hide. “Was it my offer to wash your back in the shower? The offer still stands.”
The vampire narrowed his bright-blue eyes at Fox.
“You called your magic a joke,” Winter continued, and Fox’s mood officially went from bad to worse. Logically, he knew Winter wasn’t trying to pull open every ugly memory and drag out every fear, but he was doing a damn good job of hitting the main ones.
With his appetite gone, he got up and placed the last half of the cake on the dresser before returning to his place on the bed. “My magic is a joke.”
“But you’re a witch,” Winter pressed. He made that statement as if it were supposed to answer all the questions to life.
“It’s not like we’re born with a wand, a pointy hat, and a book of spells. Shifters are lucky. They’ve got a pack to teach them how to be werewolves. Vampires have clans. You have other vampires to teach you how to vamp.”
Winter glared at him, but Fox ignored it. The whole idea of being a witch without magic left him wanting to scream at the stars. How could he be tossed aside so easily? How could he be so fucking worthless? He wasn’t stupid. He’d work hard, study hard, and do whatever it took to be the best witch he could possibly be. It wasn’t like he was asking to learn to rearrange the heavens. Basic spells, little protection wards. Just enough so he didn’t feel like a waste of skin.
But no one wanted to teach him.
Sitting on the bed with his back pressed to the pillow, he drew up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. “Witches…we don’t figure out that we have any power until we’re about sixteen or eighteen. And then you’ve got to find a witch to apprentice under and pray he or she doesn’t fucking kill you for the hell of it.”
“How do you know what you know about witches?”
“My mom.” Fox’s voice dropped to near a whisper. “She was a witch. She told me lots of stories when I was growing up.”
“She couldn’t teach you?”
Fox shook his head. “She died when I was eighteen. Cancer. We didn’t figure out that I was going to take after her until I was seventeen. By then, she was so weak. I learned only a few things. Little things. Like the locks.”
“I’m sorry,” Winter murmured. He reached out and placed his hand over Fox’s foot for a second, squeezing. It was such a small gesture, but Fox was surprised by how much it helped to push back old pains. Melanie Turner had also warned her son to stay away from vampires, but he wanted to believe she would have liked Winter.