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

saw my brother," I said, the vision
of him in chains bringing new pain to the surface. I tightened my
jaw, anger and agony running through my body. "He was shackled
and bleeding, kneeling in a field of black roses."
    Lea’s mother gasped and turned away. The
king’s head snapped toward his wife, but the look on his face
was one of warning rather than comfort. It struck me as odd, and I
wondered if I was wrong to tell them everything I had seen. I felt
separated from them, as if they were keeping a great secret.
    But I had to tell them. If they knew more than
they were telling me, then they were our best hope for finding
Aerden’s killers and bringing them to justice.
    "Some kind of bright light hovered in the air
in front of him. It was almost like a shimmering waterfall, but it
was oval and perfectly formed," I said.
    "An emerald light?" my mother asked. She
clutched her robes in her fists.
    I met her eyes. She definitely knew something
about this light. I could see it in her face. In all their faces.
    "No," I said, not taking my eyes from
her. "A sapphire blue light, as bright and clear as the garden
of lillies in your back yard."
    She swallowed, her lips trembling, betraying the
importance of the light. She turned to my father, her eyes filled
with rage and terror.
    He held his palm up, silencing her before she had
a chance to say another word.
    The others stood stone-still. I saw fear in their
eyes. Even the eyes of the King of the North.
    "What else?" my father asked when he’d
found his voice again.
    "A woman," I said. "I couldn’t
see her face or her form. She wore a hood of blue velvet over her
head. She appeared inside the portal. Then, a flash of something that
looked like the insignia of a dragon on a man’s coat. That was
when Aerden seemed to look straight at me. He said my name and then
he was just gone."
    I lowered my head, tears flowing from somewhere
deep inside my soul. The pain and regret in my brother’s voice
would haunt me forever.
    "That’s how I knew this wasn’t a
vision of the future," I said. "Because he knew I was there
with him. He was trying to tell me something, but he never got the
chance. Whoever they were, they killed him. I felt him ripped from me
as if he’d been cut from my own flesh."
    I cried out and struggled to my feet. I wanted to
ask them what they knew. I wanted to demand the truth from them all.
    But the moment I stood, a darkness washed over me.
I fell to the marble floor, unable to control the seizure that
hammered its way through my body.
    When it stopped, my mother’s face appeared
above me, stained with tears and lined with worry. She stroked my
forehead, then lifted her eyes to my father.
    "It was them, wasn’t it?" she
asked him. "What have we done?"
    That was the last thing I heard before the pain
dragged me under its dark curtain.

If Given A Choice
    When I awoke, Lea was sitting by my side. Her head
rested against the blanket covering my legs and her hand lay
stretched out toward mine.
    I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry and
cracked. My tongue seemed to be permanently stuck to the roof of my
mouth.
    I lifted my head, pushing up on the bed with my
arms. Some of my strength had returned, but I still felt less.
Diminished, somehow. Would I ever be whole again? Or would I spend
the rest of my life as half of a demon, eternally missing my
brother’s presence at my side?
    Lea woke, her dark eyes searching mine.
    Her lower lip trembled and she reached for my
hand. “Denaer, how are you feeling?”
    An impossible question. “I feel broken,”
I said, my voice rough as the rocky shore of the Sea of Glass.
    Lea stood and walked to a cart that held water,
cheese, fruit and breads that smelled freshly made. She poured a
glass of water and brought it to me. “Here, this will help,”
she said.
    I drank it down, then asked for more.
    “How long have I been asleep?” I
cursed myself for being too weak to stay conscious. With every moment
that passed, Aerden’s