Destiny Rising Read Online Free PDF

Bonnie’s bed, adorably happy with the flush of new love despite the seriousness of the situation. As Elena looked over at them, Zander murmured something in Bonnie’s ear and she blushed.
    Stefan joined Elena on her bed, taking her hand in his. Still, after a year, Elena felt a jolt of excitement move from her fingertips straight to her heart. Elena stared at him for a moment, looking for some indication of how upset he’d been the night before, a clue about whether he’d managed to talk to Damon yet, but there was nothing.
    “Okay, everybody,” Meredith said, running her thumb along the sharpened blade of her knife. “We know that Ethan is hiding—”
    “Wait,” Elena said. “There’s something I need to tell all of you.” Stefan’s eyes snapped to hers, hard and bright, and she realized she had been wrong about him being calm. The secret about Damon had him tightly strung.
    “Um,” she said, feeling uncharacteristically nervous. She remembered how they had all felt about the cold, didactic Guardians they had met in the Dark Dimensions, the ones who had stripped her of her Powers (painfully—she couldn’t forget how much it had hurt when they cut her Wings) and who had refused to bring Damon back from death. But she pushed her jaw out proudly, stubbornly, and kept going.
    “I just found out that I’m a Guardian,” she said flatly.
    There was a blank silence.
    Finally, Zander broke it. “A guardian of what?” he asked tentatively, glancing to Bonnie for clarification.
    Bonnie, frowning, waved one hand in the air in a grand, encompassing gesture. “Of everything, really,” she said vaguely. “If Elena means a Guardian Guardian.” She looked at Elena for confirmation, and Elena nodded. “They’re these awful women—at least they look like women—who are meant to keep things running in the universe the way they’re supposed to. I don’t really understand how Elena could be one, though. They don’t live here. It’s an alternate-dimension kind of thing. They’re not really people, I don’t think.” She turned to Elena, her face open and confused. “What do you mean, Elena?” she asked.
    Elena looked away from her, staring at the wall. The skin on her face felt like it was too tight, and her eyes were burning. “James—my history professor—knew my parents when they were in college. He was really close to them,” she told her friends, forcing herself to keep it together. “He told me that they agreed to have a child who would be a Guardian on Earth. He said I was supposed to be trained by the Guardians when I was twelve, but my parents didn’t want to hand me over.” Her voice shook a little, and she stared very hard at the Matisse print she had hung above her bed. Pressing her shoulder against Stefan’s, she took comfort in the solidity of his body next to hers, and didn’t look at anyone.
    Then Meredith was next to her, and her narrow hand took hold of Elena’s. In a moment, Bonnie had squeezed herself onto the bed as well and was gazing at Elena with wide, sympathetic brown eyes.
    “We’re on your side, you know that, Elena,” Meredith said calmly, and Bonnie nodded.
    “Velociraptor sisterhood, right?” she said, and Elena cracked a tiny smile at their old private joke. “If the Guardians take on one of us, they take on all of us. Even though they’re pretty scary. We’ll fend them off.”
    Elena gave a short, half-hysterical laugh. “Thanks,” she said. “Really. But I don’t think there’s any way to get out of this. I don’t even know what it means exactly, being a Guardian on Earth.”
    “Then that’s the first thing to find out,” Meredith said sensibly. “Alaric’s coming up to visit this weekend. He might know something, or at least be able to discover what the story is on Earthly Guardians.” Meredith’s more-or-less fiancé, Alaric, was working on a doctorate in paranormal studies, and the various contacts he had often came in handy.
    “We will