Page 1 of Rising Darkness

Chapter One

Lorn

The grimoire was blank.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the stark white pages that stared back at me.

“I don’t understand,” I said, skimming my fingers over the old paper.

“We’re going to figure this out Lorn, but we need to get the hell out of here first.” Jolon gently closed the leather cover and helped me off the ashen ground of the veil.

I hugged the book to my chest as the snarls from the hellhounds prowling beyond the gated wards of the Shadow Realm created a sickening melody. Giving them our backs, we headed for the exit, but I couldn’t help but flinch at the sound, remembering the way their razor-sharp teeth had ripped into my arms and legs. The pain still lingered like a ghost, though Kota had thoroughly healed every puncture wound and broken bone the second I was back in his arms.

I’d nearly died here trying to extract the grimoire, the Book of the Keepers, from the Shadow Realm; had nearly given my mates a stroke when I’d been attacked. And it wasblank.

The shock of it all had left me feeling cold and lifeless.

Jolon pulled me into his side and ran his hand up and down my arm to comfort me. Letting me lean on him, he led me away from the horrors I’d faced.

Crossing quickly in front of us, Syler stepped through the mausoleum that acted as the physical gate to the veil and helped me and Jolon cross back into the mortal plane, with Kota trailing silently behind us.

A snake we’d disturbed hissed and slithered quickly past, but I didn’t even jump. Not after what I had just experienced. Call me crazy, but nothing in the human world would scare me again after witnessing those macerated hellhounds.

“Lorn?” Dason called with a frantic, worried tone at the sound of our arrival.

“Dase!” His name came out as a cry, and Jolon released me so I could go to my other mate.

Scooping me up, Dason held me tightly against his chest.

“Fuck, you scared me,” he admitted, his face buried in my hair as a shuttered breath left his chest.

“She scared all of us,” Kota griped, but he didn’t direct the tinge of anger in his voice at me or the pack. Being stuck in the veil while I went into the Shadow Realm alone had to have been its own kind of hell, and witnessing me being torn apart had taken a toll. Knowing I was hurting, dying, and not being able to reach me. I would have been as shaken as my mates if the situation had been reversed.

The notion of them being in danger had me hugging Dason closer, grimoire and all, to breathe in the musk of his scent.

“You’re hogging our mate,” Axel whined good naturedly and pulled me into his arms as soon as Dason loosened his grip. I sighed into his hold, melting against his body as if I could fuse us together.

Chayton was next, soothing me gently and checking me for injuries once more before letting me stand on my own.

“You got the book,” Axel praised, trying to cut the tension that had settled over the group. It didn’t work.

“That’s a whole saga,” Kota said, and drove a hand into his messy hair to tame it back. Strands had come loose from the bun at the back of his head, falling around his face to frame his sharp jaw. It was a physical sign of his stress, a remnant of how many times he’d run his fingers through it while we’d been separated.

For a man who’d tried to keep distance between us emotionally, seeing just how much he cared about me was a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.

Dason had been pacing ever since he let me go, and my heart dropped when he turned angry, wild eyes onto Jolon, who crossed his arms and hardened his expression.

“I can’t believe you let her go into the Shadow Realm alone,” Dason growled, pointing a finger at Jolon in agitation.

Jolon bristled and faced Dase head on. “You think I wanted her in there, risking her life, any more than you did?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you want. I’m not a part of your pack and I’m not in your damn head. All I know is I’d never have allowed her to go.”

I narrowed my eyes on my bickering mates, tightening my hold on the grimoire as I watched their shoulders bulk with the spirit animals that lived just below the surface.

“Guys…” I tried to insert myself, but my low warning fell on deaf ears.

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