d where they’re coming from.
“I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” It’s the truth. I have no plans of telling anyone about what I saw in the woods. If I did, people would think I was insane.
She smiles. “Thank you. You don’t know how much we appreciate this.”
Foster glares at me. “Yeah, if she keeps her word.” His eyes have returned to their normal shade of sky blue, but his gaze is still piercing.
“Foster,” Gabe warns in a cold tone. “I trust that Skylin will keep her word, and you will, too.”
“Why should we trust her?” Easton asks his dad. “We don’t even know her.”
“But your mother and I knew her parents, and they’ve kept our secret for decades.” Gabe hangs up his jacket on a nearby coatrack, walks into the room, and then sinks into a chair with his shoulders slumped. “Scott, Skylin’s father, was the man who rescued me from the hunters.” He rubs his hand across his head. “He saved my life and was—is the most trustworthy person I know. Her mother is equally as trustworthy, and I have no doubt that their daughter is the same way.”
The room grows so quiet I can hear the embers in the fire hissing.
“I trust her,” Holden utters from beside me.
“Me, too,” Max says with his eyes trained on me.
“I really don’t know her.” Porter shrugs. “However, she let the whole eyeballs-in-the-fridge thing drop pretty easily, even though I could tell she was freaked out by it.”
“And the screaming last night,” Max adds. “She didn’t question that too much.”
Yeah, speaking of which, I really want to find out what that was because I’m starting to question if it was because Easton was pranked.
“Maybe she’s insane then.” Easton smirks at me as he reclines back in the chair with his hands tucked behind his head.
I’ve seriously had enough of his crap, and with the day I’ve had …
Anger bursts through like a zap of lightning.
“You know, you’ve smirked at me so many times that, at this point, I’m actually starting to wonder if it’s just how your face looks. Perhaps you did it so many times that your lips just got stuck in that stupid position. Well, either that or you secretly want to look like the Cheshire Cat. Which, if you do, good job. You’re almost there.” I bite down on my tongue to stop myself from saying anything else.
Easton’s brows lift to his hairline in surprise while Max chokes on a laugh, and Emaline grins.
“Good job.” She smiles at me, leaving confusion twirling in my mind.
She’s glad I basically told Easton to fuck off?
“He’ll be easier to deal with now that you’ve pushed back,” Max whispers, leaning toward me.
“You know what, maybe you’re not half bad,” Easton confirms Max’s words.
Foster gives Easton the hardest look ever, but Easton ignores it, grinning at me.
“Why don’t you come sit down?” Emaline takes a seat on the sofa again. “I’m sure you have questions.”
I make my way into the room and sit down on an empty sofa, feeling as though I’m going to need as much breathing room as possible. But Max and Holden take a seat on either side of me, so there goes that plan. They sit really close to me, too. So close I can feel heat emitting from their bodies, seeping through the fabric of my wet clothes.
Instead of saying something, everyone remains silent, as if waiting for me to speak first.
I pick at my fingernails, trying to figure out what to say next. “Gabe said you’re elemental protectors and that you are wind, fire, water, and ice … But I’m not really sure what that means. Well, not completely anyway.”
They all look to Gabe to answer.
He scrubs his hand across his jawline. “Well, to put it simply, it basically means we’re able to control the elements. So, for instance, I can control water and channel my powers from it. So, every spell I cast has to be directly related to the water element. Same with fire, ice, and wind.”
“Oh …” Wow, that was so not what I was expecting. Honestly, I thought he was going to say they were witches or something—it’s what it looked like. “So, what were those rays of light you were shooting out of your hands and into Foster? Because I sort of noticed the color of them matched your eyes.”