Page 90 of Rising Out of the Darkness (Divine Guardians Duology #1)

Declan

T he image of Elena’s smooth skin glistening in the moonlight flashed through my mind as I leaned back in my chair in our council room.

“I hadn’t realized that our strategy session was so enthralling it could make even the Lord of Shadows break out in smiles,” Fallon said from the other side of the table.

The heat of several eyes scalded my face, and I shifted my face back into a stoic calm. Liam and Killian snickered beside me, and Warren’s eyes narrowed into slits.

“Right.” I spoke sternly. “We now have found our mole. However, Elena made sure to end Brand’s life before we left the castle. I am hoping that’s where the leak ends, but we should remain cautious just in case.”

Several nodded around me, and Fallon shifted in his seat. “Bastard. I vetted that man myself. I should have seen past his calm facade to his slippery soul.”

“He fooled us all. I spoke with him the most over the years, and never once questioned anything suspicious.”

“Well, now we know he was a part of the Nightshades,” Warren grumbled, “and by the way, Edan has seized the castle and taken control while Alaric and Alastor have gone missing, I think it’s safe to say our assumptions were right about Edan as well.”

“Yes, I believe our next step is to collect as many Rebellion members as we can and bring them here once and for all. It’s time we start preparing for battle.”

The room fell silent. War was not something any of us wanted, but it was time we all faced the facts—these men weren’t going to stop without a fight.

One by one, they nodded agreement, as if they had come to the same conclusion as me.

“It’s settled then, Warren and I will begin the preparations and send out teams in the morning.”

“How about the elixir?” Warren inquired.

“Clara and Elena began to work on it today. I’ll have more information about it by the day’s end.”

Fallon chimed in, “Finding a way to release the suppression would give us the edge we need. Especially if we end up in battle.”

“Let’s reconvene at the end of the week,” I said. Everyone mumbled agreement and began to shuffle out of the room.

Fallon stopped me on my way out of the door. “It’s good to see you smile, Declan. Keir would have been so happy for you.” With a pat to my back, he stepped aside to give me some space. “I know it’s been difficult these past years, but he would be proud of how you kept fighting through it.”

“That means so much to me, Fallon, thank you.” My words rasped through the emotion lumped in my throat.

“Your brother was my best friend, and you know I’ve always thought of you as my little brother as well. You’ll always be apart of my family Dec.”

“Did Eloise come with you all? I haven’t seen her since after your brother…” He swallowed, the rest of the words tugged under by emotion.

“She did. She’s been helping new arrivals get set up. You should go find her, it’s been a long time. I know you two were close. I’m sure she would love to see a familiar face from happier times.”

Fallon grasped my hand in his and pulled me in for another embrace. “It’s good to have you home, brother.”

Elena

I t had been three excruciatingly long days.

From sunup to sundown, Clara and I had been working hard on combining the right ingredients to recreate Lenora’s elixir and find one that would release Declan from Alastor’s curse.

Clara thought that the two cures we needed might be more similar than we realized.

Unfortunately, everything we’d tried so far had failed, and the mark of the curse remained on Declan.

“It’s sweltering out here.” Clara wiped the sweat from her brow.

We woke up early to harvest some more herbs and flowers for more batches of elixirs we were working on.

Clara was right, this field was amazing.

Rows of every herb and flower as far as the eye could see.

It overwhelmed all my senses, reminding me of all the hours I spent working our small garden with my mother.

Every smell, sight and petal I touched was wrapped around in a memory of her.

“This should be enough to work for today.” I assessed our baskets full of herbs and blooms. “We should head back and get started.”

On our way back into town, I glanced to the side to see Nayla chatting with a girl, a little younger than her. I paused, taking in the similar umber skin and long, dark onyx hair. Clara’s shoulder bumped against mine as Nayla embraced the girl, both breaking out in tears.

“Is that…?”

“Yes,” Clara whispered. “Killian and Liam went out and got her sister last night. Things have gotten bad everywhere since…”

I nodded, knowing what she meant. Since we’d all disappeared.

“Nayla’s mother was worried about her safety. So Nayla sent a raven and had her brought to one of our extraction points—safe houses and areas around the kingdom where we can immediately get to people when they need our help.”

“Let’s give them some privacy,” I whispered, and Clara nodded as we both turned to go back to our workstation.

I wasn’t prepared for the sight that I stumbled upon, however.

Liam, Killian, and Declan all had their bare chests on display as they worked on constructing pieces of furniture under the heat of the sun.

I swore all of them must have been modeled after the gods themselves.

They shouldn’t be allowed to walk around shirtless. Accidents might happen.

They glistened with sweat, and my mouth went dry when I felt the heat of Declan’s eyes on me. I didn’t even have to see him to feel the weight of his stare.

“ You’re blushing.” The deep timbre of his voice inside my head sent my heart racing. “ The question is…which one of us is making you blush?” he growled, causing me to jump. Clara eyed me inquisitively.

“ Liam, ” I deadpanned. Declan’s hammer collided with his thumb, causing a string of obscenities to fly from his mouth.

“ Wildfire, don’t make me come over there and show this entire damn city exactly who you belong to .”

I gasped, my back straightening from his words. “ You wouldn’t dare…”

At the same time, Warren came around the corner carrying more wood, and following behind him was Brietta carrying a pitcher of water. A devious smile stretched across Declan’s face.

“ I wouldn’t?” he inquired, sliding his thumb inside his mouth to clean away the blood. “ Just to be clear , I’d take you right here, right now in front of everyone… including your father.”

Inhaling my breath too sharply, I choked on my own saliva, causing tears to spring from my eyes. Oh, gods.

“Gods cannot save you now. Just me, love . Now, would you like to try that again?”

I nodded silently. “Only you, always you.”

“That’s right, Wildfire, you’re mine. Today, tomorrow… forever.”

A smirk spread across my face, and fire blossomed straight down to my core. Declan snorted aloud, knowing exactly how he affected me. Hells.

“You’re mind-speaking, aren’t you?” Clara’s face lit up.

“Umm, yes. It’s new.” I shrugged sheepishly.

“Well, thank all five gods it’s in your heads and we don’t have to hear it.” She tugged my arm. “Come on, Light Phoenix, we’ve got work to do.”

“ H ere, eat this.” Clara shoved a strawberry pastry in my face. “You look so pale, Lena. I think we should pause taking blood from you, Bri, and Declan for a few days, let you all replenish.”

“No.” I stared down at my bandaged fingers and then rubbed the dizziness away from my forehead. “We’ll be okay. I just need to remember to eat more.”

Clara placed her hands on her hips and shot me with a scowl. She knew we needed Empath blood for the elixirs, but she wasn’t happy about the toll it was taking on us. “Alright then, let’s test this out one more time.”

Blessedly, while everyone had been searching for Clara in the castle, Eloise had snagged her satchel from her room. Inside was Lenora’s list of ingredients and notes, Clara’s research notebook, as well as samples of bark from the gods’ tree.

Clara pulled a piece of the bark on the wooden counter between us, and we both held our breath as she dropped the elixir onto it. The violet liquid sizzled as it contacted the bark.

“Well, that’s new.” Clara’s eyebrows rose.

I swallowed as the darkness that tinged the bark began to fade away. Clara’s hand shot over her mouth and she began jumping up and down in excitement. “This is it! We’ve done it, Lena!”

My heart thundered against my chest as she used her arm to clear a space on our messy workstation and threw her notebook wide open.

“Argh!” she huffed, ruffling through the pages. “I should have made this connection before. Gods, how daft I’ve been.”

“Clara, what are you talking about?”

“Alastor. Fucking Alastor. He had me study different types of elixirs for relaxation, calming, dulling the mind. He said it was to help him sleep, but I think he found a way to use it to curse the land, and maybe it’s even part of the curse that has a hold of Declan.”

Stunned, I sat on the stool next to her as her fingers ran over the words on the page. “Ah ha!” She rushed over to the herbs, picked a few I couldn’t see and crushed them between her fingers before placing them in a bowl and pouring some of our elixir on top.

Once again it sizzled inside, but this time instead of violet, it turned into a deep mahogany.

“He’d often have bandaged fingertips,” she breathed. She poured the liquid into a vial and sealed it with a cork as she handed it to me.

“What do you mean?”

“I gave him tonics for warts, remember? I’m beginning to think he was pricking his fingers to use blood magic…

and I think that’s what’s been happening to the land, and maybe even the sickness that spread to those farmers.

The kind of curse that he uses on Declan takes a long-drawn-out ritual.

It’s very similar to Ascension and involves giving your blood back to the soil. ”

Her fingers scanned over the notes in her book before walked back towards me and extending her palm out. “Give me back Declan’s elixir, let me add one thing.”

I watched her crush a mixture of herbs, then sprinkled them into the vial. “Let’s see if this addition will help.”

I was still reeling from all the information about Alastor and the curse when she handed me back the vial, and I squeezed it securely in my hand.

“Let’s go find someone to test the elixir for the suppression dynamis on, then you can have Declan try this one.”

Before I could speak, she had latched onto my arm and tugged me out the door.