Free Embracing Eternity by Voirey Linger Page A

to endure this. He had to get them off before they consumed her.
    Gathering his strength, he sent a burst of energy through his body and shot a ball of power at the beasts.
    Stunned, they fell from him and began to writhe on the ground. One made a second lunge at Meela, falling just short as she leapt back.
    Evan increased the flow of power, until the little demons began to sizzle. Squeaks and screams came from them as the overload of pure angelic power ripped through them. Their red eyes glazed and their bodies began to still.
    Within minutes they were eerily quiet.
    “What did you do to them?” Meela’s voice trembled and her red eyes were wide with fear.
    “I’m not sure.” He’d wanted to blast the creatures away from her but something else had happened, something unintended.
    “They are…dead?” Meela knelt to touch one. The movement was hesitant, as if she expected it to jump up and attack her.
    The lesser demon’s body crumbled to nothing more than a pile of dust under her fingertips. The wind from the lake blew over them, dissolving the piles and carrying away the remains of the lesser like so much ash.
    “They are. You destroyed the demons.” Meela looked up and he could feel the burden of her fear redirected at him.
    It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.
    “Demons can’t be destroyed.” He barely choked the words out. They didn’t ring with truth, but instead fell like dying creatures from his lips.
    Demons were like angels, infinite beings, weren’t they? A shard of fear pierced him. The concept of mortality, of death and dying, had never occurred to him. If these little demons could be destroyed, what did that mean for the rest of them?
    “Perhaps these are not like us.” Her brow furrowed and her forked tongue flicked over her lips as she stared at the remnants of the lessers.
    “They are demons.”
    “But not the same kind of demon as me. They appeared. They had a beginning.”
    A beginning meant they were not infinite, and if they were not infinite, they could have an end as well. He pushed himself to his feet and moved to examine what was left of one creature. Touching one finger to the ash-like powder, he searched for any hint of a soul and found none.
    It was nothing but blackened dust, fine silt that drifted on the wind.
    He cocked his head to the side and glanced back at Meela. She stood beside one of the larger piles of demon ash, her eyes filled with fear as she scanned the grasses. Did she fear another attack? Had she, like he, suddenly realized the possibility of her own mortality?
    “I had not realized these creatures were so dangerous.” Evan stood and brushed the soil from his fingers. “Do they do this often?” The possibility that demons ate their own hadn’t occurred to him until now, but it would certainly make sense.
    “Sometimes. Demons don’t have angelic protection like humans, so if they can sneak in and steal a bit of power from us, they will. One or two aren’t usually a problem, but when there are larger groups they can be vicious.”
    “Is that the only threat they pose?”
    She shook her head and hugged her arms even tighter around her middle, looking for all the world like a shadow trying to fade into itself and vanish. “They act as spies. They watch the archdemons and Creation for Lucifer.”
    If any had escaped, they would bring Lucifer right to the island. Evan would have to disguise their presence here.
    He looked back at the last of the demon ash before him. Evan wasn’t sure what all of this meant, but he knew it was vital information. These were things angels had never known about the demons, important facts that could make a difference in how angels battled them and defended Creation.
    “The archangels need to know of this.” Ren needed to know too. In his heart, Evan knew this held the key to bringing Meela home.
    He just couldn’t figure out how.
    “You are leaving?”
    “Hmm?” He tore his attention away from the creature and turned