Free A Demon's Wrath: Part I (Peachville High Demons) by Sarra Cannon

dagger pierced my skin.
    He leaned forward, his breath hot against my ear.
“You have spirit,” he said. “With training you
could be a true warrior like your brother.”
    “Don’t you dare speak of him,” I
said.
    “Your brother isn’t dead,” he
whispered.
    I kicked against the ground, but wasn’t
strong enough to pull myself from his grip. I grabbed his arm,
sending what was left of my magic through my hands and into his body.
He should have frozen like a statue, but instead, a tiny layer of ice
frosted over his clothing, then melted in an instant.
    “Kill me if you must,” I said. “But
don’t tell me lies.”
    “It’s not a lie.”
    “I saw him die,” I said. “I felt
him ripped from me.”
    The demon loosened his grip and I scrambled to my
feet, my hands going to my new wound. It burned so deeply, I felt
feverish and ill.
    “Not dead,” he said. “Merely
taken from this world.”
    I shook my head, not believing him.
    “Impossible,” I said. “Portal
magic has been dead for centuries. There’s no way to leave this
world.”
    “It’s been rediscovered,” he
said. He sheathed his dagger in a strip of leather at his waist.
    I charged him, but he shifted. I lost my balance
and stumbled against a tree. I didn’t have the power for this
kind of fight anymore. Without Aerden, I was nothing. Weak and
helpless.
    Even after ten years, I was broken without him.
    I leaned my head against the tree, my throat
constricting and my eyes hot with anger.
    “Why, then?” I asked. “Why did
you take him?”
    The demon appeared behind me and I braced myself
for pain as he reached out. But instead of hurting me, he placed a
comforting hand on my back. I looked up, confused.
    Compassion softened his dark eyes.
    “I told you, I am not your enemy,” he
said.
    “Then why were you there on the day my
brother was taken?” I asked.
    “I didn’t take your brother,” he
said. “But I know who did.”

She’s My Future
    The Human World – Present Day

    Behind me, something moved in the woods at the
outer edge of the clearing.
    I stood, expecting to see my brother. Instead, it
was Lea who emerged from the darkness.
    “What are you doing way out here?” she
asked. She’d taken her hair down and it flowed like black silk
down her back.
    “Just thinking of the past,” I said.
“Do you remember the day we first met Andros?”
    Lea smiled. “I remember he kicked our
asses,” she said. “He could have killed us both if he’d
wanted.”
    I shook my head. “If it wasn’t for
him, I wonder if I ever would have found out the truth about what
happened to Aerden,” I said. “If you hadn’t found
those black roses—”
    “You were never going to stop searching for
the truth,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “Even if you’d
never met Andros that day. Losing your brother changed you. Once it
happened, there was never any real path back to the demon I used to
know. Believe me, I searched.”
    She said it with a laugh, but her pain was still
obvious, even after all these years.
    “I never meant to hurt you,” I said,
the golden locket heavy in my pocket.
    Lea kicked at a cluster of crushed stones. “I
know,” she said.
    But she didn’t know. All this time, I had
kept my promise to Aerden. I had never told Lea that the heart stone
I gave her on the day of our engagement was not my truth.
    It was his.
    My truth belonged to someone else. My heart was
destined for another. It always had been.
    Lea turned and brushed at her cheeks. She was so
tough and hard these days, but I knew better. I knew that once upon a
time, she had been soft and beautiful and full of hope.
    I felt partially responsible for how drastically
she had changed in the past hundred years.
    What would our life had been like if Aerden had
never been taken? What would she have been like?
    I sighed and reached into my pocket. I curled my
fist around the golden case, rubbing its smooth surface between my
fingers. There was something I’d been