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“Hey.” Exhaustion seeps into his tone, yet he smiles. “You’re awake.”
I can’t help smiling back. “So are you.”
He chuckles then sits up and lowers his feet to the floor. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was keeping an eye on you, and I guess I was more tired than I thought.”
“How long have I been out?” I wonder, sitting down beside him.
“A couple of days,” he says with a frown. “We were starting to get really worried about you.”
“A couple of days?” I shake my head, stunned. “I’ve been out for that long? What happened?” My heart slams against my chest. “Wait, is Easton okay?”
He nods, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “East’s fine. We’ve been taking turns keeping an eye on you. For a minute, we were worried that you…” He shakes his head. “You’re awake now, though, so everything’s okay.”
Is it, though? Because I’m not even sure what happened. Or where the hell we even are.
“Where are we?” I ask. “Because the last thing I remember is darkness reaching for me and your lips… and Easton’s hand in mine …” Warmth flows to my cheeks as I remember what it felt like to hold Easton’s hand while Foster kissed me. Power. I could feel both of their powers all the way through me. I still can if I really tune in with my body. “But anyway,” I clear my throat, hoping to god he can’t feel what I’m feeling now. “The last I can remember was darkness whispering to me, and I …” I shudder as coldness rolls over me. “Then I saw this blue light, and I think I passed out.”
“You did.” His gaze is relentless, as if he’s trying to see inside me. “I think it was because you exerted your powers so much.”
“Yeah, I know. That storm going on before I blacked out was intense,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.
“I’m not talking about the storm,” he says carefully. “I’m talking about the portal you—we created together. The portal that brought us here.”
My jaw drops. “We created a portal?”
He nods, molding his hand to my cheek. “You, Easton, and I did, and it was fucking amazing. No one has done that in a very long time.”
“Create a portal …? But I saw one in your living room, and you said you and Easton created a portal to the Underworld.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he says, his gaze never wavering from mine. “We created a portal that led to the world of Elemental Enchantment.”
I cock my head to the side. “We have our own world?”
He chuckles, his eyes lighting up. “We do. But like with Elemental, with the deaths of the gods and goddesses, as the elemental enchanters’ population dwindled, so did the size of Elemental Enchantment. From what I understand, portals stopped connecting to it,
and everyone just assumed it shrank into nonexistence, but apparently not.”
I shake my head in bafflement. “But then, how did we build a portal that leads to it, especially when I can’t even control my powers enough to turn off a damn storm?”
“Well, part of it was probably from that … kiss.” His gaze fleetingly drops to my lips. “I’m sorry that I did that. I just knew we needed a portal, and since darkness was messing with Easton’s powers, I thought maybe, if I could combine all of our powers, we could create one. I just never thought it’d be a portal that’d take us here.”
So, that’s why he kissed me? And he’s sorry about it?
“I’m not sorry I kissed you.” Uncertainty fills his eyes. “I just didn’t want it to be under those circumstances … I’ve … I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very long time.”
He’s wanted to kiss for a very long time? But he hasn’t even known me for that long.
I absentmindedly touch my fingertips to my lips, recalling how his lips felt against mine, how his power felt flowing me, how amazing Easton’s power felt pouring through me at the same time.
I feel so confused right now, and I’m not even sure why, other than I kind of liked kissing Foster while holding Easton’s hand, liked feeling both of their powers in me. It doesn’t seem like a normal way to feel though, to like having my first real kiss while I was holding some other guys hand. Maybe the situation is messing with my head. Or maybe it’s the altered link…
“There’s some other stuff I need to tell you,” he says, distracting me from my puzzling as hell thoughts. “And I don’t want to frighten you, but I don’t think lying to you right now is a good option. It’s better if you’re prepared for what lies ahead, okay?” He waits for me to nod then slides his hands down my face to my shoulders, finally resting them on my waist. “After we got here, my mom sent us a message through a secured magical signal and informed us that headquarters sent out a warning to her that the elemental god of darkness was at the school, specifically looking for you, but that he’s no longer there. No one knows why. And the hunters left, too, and left almost everyone unscathed. Thank the gods.” He lets out a shaky exhale. “He’s the one who broke down the protection spells around the school and created the portal so he and the hunters could get in. And like we suspected, he was the one who forced the headmistress to tell my mom it was safe for you to go back to school. No one’s sure how he got the hunters to join him, but it’s either from possession—which elemental protectors of darkness are really good at—or he promised them something in exchange for helping him. More than likely power.”
“Can he do that?”
“He can, but that doesn’t mean he will. He could just be using them because he needs help”—he appears torn—“getting ahold of you.”
I shake my head in denial. “No, there’s no way he could be after me. If he was, he could’ve taken me any time during my life. I was never protected until I went to live with you guys, so why wait until now?”
