“What do you think about having pizza for dinner?” Foster asks me as he rummages through the fridge in the small kitchen attached to the quaint living room.
The place we’re staying at is in the world of Enchantment, also known as the elemental enchanter world. The power that flows through it also pumps through my veins. The world consists of a total of about fifty acres with one home, a single story cabin with shutters and a wraparound porch. It’s the only house in this world, which sounds weird, but up until I opened a portal to it a handful of days ago, no one thought it existed anymore. Now we’re stuck here until I can obtain enough control over my powers to open up a secured portal or else we risk the god of darkness getting inside and getting ahold of me. So far, though, my powers are wonky at best and I haven’t been able to do it, even with Foster and Easton’s help.
We have opened up a few portals but we had to seal them back up because they weren’t secure. Luckily nothing managed to sneak through them, but I worry that I might eventually mess up and the god of darkness will get ahold of me, something that can never happen since I’m the power source for the elemental enchanter god, something I can still barely wrap my mind around. I mean, what am I exactly? Just power? Or am I actually a creature with blood pumping through my veins?
I glance down at my arm, at the veins mapping my skin. It seems like I’m as real as any other creature or person, but still—
“Sky?” Foster’s voice wrenches me from my thoughts.
I blink at him. “Huh?”
Concern creases between his brows. “I asked if pizza sounded good for dinner… Are you okay? You seem distracted.”
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “And pizza sounds good.”
He nods, still appearing worried, but doesn’t say anything and starts working on dinner. I debate whether or not I have enough energy to get up and help him. I know I should, but I’m exhausted.
Easton and I are currently lounging in the sofas with our feet kicked up on the coffee table. I’ve been practicing using my powers all day and I can’t find the energy to get off my ass.
“Bro, for the love of Gods, no more pizza,” Easton gripes with a dramatic groan.
“I wasn’t asking for your opinion,” Foster says in a clipped tone. “I was asking Sky.”
Easton and Foster, who are the youngest of the Porterson brothers, and are the same age as me, have been stuck in this world with me, for about a week and with each passing day, Foster is getting more impatient with East.
The two of them are twins but look and act completely unalike. Where Easton has chin-length blonde hair, silver eyes, and a sarcastic personality, Foster has short dark hair and lightning blue eyes that are similar to mine, but more vibrant in my opinion. Foster has a more serious personality than East, who’s constantly joking around. Their facial features are alike, though, they both have tattoos, and like to dress in dark colored clothing, but other than that, they’re pretty different. They argue a lot, but usually it’s in a sarcastic way. Lately, though, it’s been different. Foster is getting annoyed with East. And I didn’t arrive at this conclusion simply by observing them. I’ve felt Foster’s irritation leaking down the link I have with Foster, Easton, and their four brothers, Hunter, Holden, Max, and Porter, who I haven’t seen since we got stuck in this world. Not that it should bother me. I barely know them, yet I find myself missing them, which is so weird and confusing.
“What?” I ask when I notice Foster giving me a strange, almost disappointed look.
He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “So pizza sounds good to you?”
Why is he looking at me like that? “Yeah, pizza’s fine.” I start to get up. “I’ll help you cook it.”
He motions for me to sit back down. “I can put it in the oven. You need to rest. You’ve used your powers a lot today.”
“She has,” Easton agrees. Then his lips quirk with mischief. “You know what you need?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Whatever it is, I’m not doing it.”
His smirk broadens. “How can you dismiss my idea when you haven’t even heard it?”
I rotate in the sofa, bringing my knee up onto the cushion. “Because I’ve learned over the last week that when you smirk, you’re about to start trouble.”
He wipes the smirk off his face, but a sparkle remains evident in his silvery eyes. “What smirk?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “The smirk you just wiped off your face.”
He sweeps strands of his blond hair away from his forehead and bats his eyelashes innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Liar,” I accuse, but I’m struggling not to smile.
He typically has that effect on me, can annoy me to no end, yet I still find him amusing. Not that I’d ever admit that aloud. If I did, he’d probably tease me more than he already does.
He fakes a pout with his lip jutted out. “Wow, lightning eyes, you’re cruel.”
“I’d apologize if I actually thought you were hurt.”
His grin slips through. “I’m totally hurt.”
I resist an eye roll. “Yeah, that goofy smile on your face sure makes you look hurt.
He fakes being shocked, pressing a hand to his chest. “My grins aren’t goofy. They’re sexy.”
I roll my eyes so damn hard they just about get stuck in my head.
“You know what? Just for that.” His grin turns wicked then he reaches for me, as if he’s about to grab me, but then green light illuminates across his skin.
Water suddenly pours over my head, soaking my hair and shirt.
I let out a squeal. “Holy crap, that’s cold.”
He grins, totally entertained with himself. “Serves you right for calling my grins goofy.”
I wipe the water off my face with the back of my hand, but the water is already dripping to the sofa and soaking the cushion. “So that’s how you want to play, huh?” I put on a devious smirk.
His eyes glint with a dare as he reclines back in the sofa with his hands tucked behind his head. “Show me what you’ve got, badass.”
“She needs to take it easy,” Foster intervenes, annoyance lacing his tone.
Easton winks at me. “The boss has spoken. Guess you can’t play anymore.”
I probably should sit back and take it easy, but I’m not about to let Easton win this one. I use Foster’s interruption to my advantage, moving to sit back in the sofa like I’m going to give up, but then at the last second, I dive toward Easton, using my power to form a snowball in the palm of my hand. Easton has zero time to react as I throw the snowball at his face.
He gapes at me with wide eyes. “Well, holy shit, I did not see that coming.” He wipes the snow off his face with the sleeve of his grey shirt. “You know what? I was right. You’re cruel.”
“Like you aren’t.” I give a pressing glance down at the wet spots that are on the front of my shirt. “If you can’t—”
Water rains down on me, drenching my hair and face.
“The wet T-shirt look is a really good look for you,” Easton says through his laughter. “You should seriously wear it all the time.” His frown falters as the rain briefly flickers on and off. “Fuck, my powers are acting up again. This place is seriously screwing with them.”
“I wonder why,” I say, wringing out the water from my hair.
He shrugs. “I’m not sure but Foster and I were talking and we think it might be because this world’s energy is linked to elemental enchanters’ powers, hence the reason why it’s been growing since you two arrived. But I also think that energy is having the opposite effect on my powers.” An unexpected grin rises on his face. “Not that I’m not a badass.” He snaps his fingers and rain begins to pour down on me again.
I narrow my eyes at him and throw another handful of snow at his face. Then I start to summon my power of wind, unsure what I’m going to do with it, but fully planning on doing something. But Easton effortlessly forms a rain cloud above my head that con
tinuously rains down on me, even when I scoot to the side.
As cold water drenches me from head to toe, the chill seeps into my bones, and my newfound elemental powers become harder to channel. Chattering and shivering, I attempt to summon my power of wind. When that doesn’t work, I try water. Again, nothing, so I move on to ice. Another fail. I don’t bother trying to channel my lightning or fire power—that seems a bit harsh to use on him. I also have darkness inside me, but yeah, I’m never going to touch that power.
Or well, I hope I don’t. But lately, with the nightmares I’ve been having…
I dropkick the worry from my head, not wanting to think about my reoccurring nightmares of darkness or my dreams of the Porterson brothers doing… strange things to me. Instead, I concentrate on getting Easton back. Since being freezing seems to have hindered my powers, I decide there’s only one way to get payback.
The human way.
Without warning, I dive across the room toward him, landing on his lap, and making the rain cloud glide right above him.
“What the hell?” Easton stammers as rain pours down on us.
I get situated in his lap, sitting sideways with my legs stretched out onto the sofa. “I’m not moving until you turn off the cloud.”
Grinning, he slants back, and a lazy smile spreads across his face. “I’m perfectly okay with this situation.”
Leave it to him to be okay with this. If there’s one thing East is good at it’s appearing comfortable in any situation. Although, I occasionally sense little flickers of emotions flowing off of him through the link, and that makes me wonder if he sometimes puts on a façade. Right now, though, that isn’t the case.
Grimacing, I rack my brain for another way to power kick his ass.
“You two are flooding the living room,” Foster says he opens up the pizza box.
I glance down at the floor and pull a whoopsie face at the sight of puddles drenching the hardwood.
“Maybe we should stop,” I tell East, blinking as a raindrop splatters across my head.
He shakes his head, strands of his wet hair falling into his eyes. “Nah, I’m perfectly fine with the floor getting wet. It’s not like I’ll clean it up.” When I narrow my eyes at him, the corners of his lips kick upward. “I’ll tell you what. If you declare that I’m the most sexy elemental protector ever, I’ll turn off the cloud.”
“Ha! No effing way.” I brush strands of my wet hair out of my eyes. “And you want to know why I won’t do that?” I smirk. “Because I’m not a liar.”
Okay, that might be a lie. East is sexy, but telling him that… Yeah, that’s never going to happen. If I did, it’d make his already inflated ego swell up more.
“Then I guess the living room is going to be a pond. That’s fine by me. I love water.” He mirrors my smirk.
What a little brat.
A brat that needs to be taught a lesson.
“Fine, if that’s the way you want to play.” I sit up, swinging a leg onto each side of him so I’m straddling him. Then, before he can react, I start tickling the crap out of him.
“What the hell!” he squeals, his muscles locking up. “Stop that!”
I keep on tickling him, tightening my legs against his waist when he tries to push me off his lap.
“Turn off the cloud and I will.”
“This is so cheating.” Laughing uncontrollably, he puts his hands on my waist and tries to pick me up. But I hitch an arm around the back of his neck and use my other hand to continue tickling him.
“Sky.” He can barely talk through his laughter. “Come on, stop it. I hate being tickled.” He tucks his arms against his sides, his face bright red, his eyes watery.
“And I hate being rained on,” I quip, moving my hand downward to tickle his thigh.
Tension suddenly ripples through his body and the rain abruptly stops. I start to smirk, but frown when I realize how in pain he looks, his lips set in a firm line, his muscles are all locked up, and his face is a bit pale.
“Did I hurt you?” I ask, worried I somehow accidentally zapped an electric voltage through his body or something.
He offers me a tight smile. “Nah, I just hate losing.” He carefully picks me up, moves me to the side, then stands up. “I’ll be right back.” He jumps to his feet and hurries out of the room.
I scratch my head. Is he really that upset that he lost our little what I thought was a playful fight?
“Just ignore him,” Foster tells me, drawing my attention to him. He’s standing in the kitchen near the island and has a weird, worried look on his face. “He’s just having a tantrum because he lost.”
I lower my feet to the floor to stand up, but instantly pull my feet onto the cushion as water soaks through my socks. “Is it that big of a deal to him that he lost?”
Foster lifts a shoulder as he turns to put the pizza into the oven. “East may joke around about a lot of things, but he hates losing. Hunter and Porter are that way too.”
“What about you?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.
A smile plays at his lips as he turns around again and rests his arms on top of the counter. “What do you think?”
“Hmm…” I thrum my fingers against my lips. “Well, when I first met you, I totally would’ve guessed you were a sore loser. Now, I think you might be too sweet to be that competitive.”
Amusement plays at the corners of his lips. “You think I’m sweet?”
I lift my shoulders. “You are to me. Well, or you started to be after you found out what I am.”
An elemental enchanter, just like him. As far as we know, we’re the only two of our kind, which wouldn’t be so weird except our kind can only be intimate with each other. Which leaves Foster being the only person I can ever intimately be with. That isn’t completely awful—I like Foster a lot—but sometimes I wonder if we’ll end up together only because there’s no one else we can be with.
His amusement fizzles as guilt creeps through the link. “Sky, I’m sorry—”
I hold up my hand. “Stop apologizing. I didn’t mean anything by that. I was just stating a fact.” I lower my hand to my lap. “I know you never wanted to treat me the way you did when we first met and I’ve already forgiven you for what happened.”
How could I not after how he showed me that he’d been drawn to me way before I ever worked up the courage to talk to him? How he wished he could actually like me, but thought he couldn’t because he believed I was human.
He rubs his lips together then steps back from the island and heads toward me with an intense look on his face. But as he enters the living room, he halts, his gaze dropping to the puddle-covered floor.
“I guess I should clean this up before it ruins the floor.” He lifts a hand and his skin begins to crackle with blue sparks of lightning.
I push to my feet and wade over to him. “Can I help?”
“Let me take care of this, okay? You’ve used your powers a lot today. I think that’s why you were having such a hard time channeling them when you were battling it out with East.”
“I think it was partially because the water was making me cold.”
“A little bit of chilliness shouldn’t affect your powers.” Without drying up the floor, he lowers his hands and inches toward me, his feet splashing in the water. “Are you feeling okay?”
I nod, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I’m just a little bit tired.”
His head angles to the side. “That’s understandable, especially with how much you’ve used your powers over the last week, but…” A crease forms between his brows. “Have you been getting enough sleep or is nightmares of darkness still keeping you up?”
While Foster knows of my nightmares about darkness, I haven’t told him how bad they’ve gotten since we became stuck in this world. I swear every time I close my eyes, darkness is able to slip into the cracks of my mind. It frightens me how vivid the dreams are and how clear I can hear the voice of darkness whispering
to me. It’s part of the reason why I played down the nightmares when I told Foster about them, because I’m worried something might be wrong with me.
What I’m worried about is that maybe I’m weak and that darkness is starting to get to me.
Granted, there are a few times when darkness manages not to take over my nightmares. Those are the nights I dream of the Porterson brothers, but most of the time those dreams freak me out almost as much as my nightmares of darkness. Take the dream I had the other night about Hunter being a vampire and drinking my blood. It felt so real that I worry it could be. After all, I may have a dream seer ability, an ability that allows others to visit me in my dream and supposedly, I can visit other’s dreams as well, but I haven’t figure out how to do that just yet. The people and creatures that visit my dreams can’t touch me, but they can send messages and communicate with me, like the god of darkness has.
Back before we knew I was a power source and he was after me, I had dreams of him telling me he was coming after me. And then he did, which makes me worry that maybe my nightmares and dreams could be a form of omens or something. If that’s the case then does that mean Hunter really is a vampire and is going to drink my blood? The idea would seem impossible, but impossible is my life now, so…
But no one has ever mentioned Hunter being a vampire. Then again, no one will tell me what Porter is, always saying me he needs to be the one to do so. I could ask Foster about Hunter, although then I’d have to explain the dream I had, which would be beyond uncomfortable. And I honestly doubt he’d tell me since he won’t tell me about Porter.
“I’m fine.” I try to convince both him and myself. “I mean, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because I have a nightmare, but it’s not a big deal. And after a while, I go back to sleep.”
The frown remains on his face. “Maybe we need to do something about it.”
“Like what?”
“Like… I don’t know.” He wavers. “I’ll make sure to ask my mom about it when she checks in tonight. Maybe she knows a way to block out nightmares for a bit.”
Iridescent Chaos: (Enchanted Chaos, Book 3) Page 2
