SOUL MATES (Angels and Demons Book 3) Read Online Free

ran her hand over the top of the wood, she saw a future that was different from other images she’d been given. This future was bright—a happy place where humans got along with one another. There were tensions, as she imagined there had been back when Lucifer decided he was done with humanity, but nothing that couldn’t be worked out one way or another. There was technology, medicine, people fighting to help humans live longer and more productive lives. There were leaders who truly understood what the people needed. There was no need, no desperation, and no pain. It was an ideal world, the kind of place she had always known humans were capable of if they were simply given the chance.
    This was a world she was meant to lead humanity toward. This was the world Lucifer was meant to create and had failed. She could even see where Lucifer had lost control, where he had become complacent and lazy, where he hadn’t interfered when he should have. She could even see that it wasn’t Lucifer’s mistake. It was God’s.
    Lucifer was tasked with watching over humanity and keeping them on the path to contentment. He was to offer relief and guidance where needed, but not interfere with freewill. Humans had to choose for themselves what paths to take and what fate to follow. Lucifer couldn’t change that. But Lucifer didn’t have freewill. Each time he reached a crossroads in his guidance, it was God who guided him and instructed him on what he should do and how he should do it. It was God who chose not to interfere when humans began to fall off the path of contentment. It was God who directed his angels to allow humans to make their own choices. And it was God who realized that humans had wandered too far, and that they had made mistakes in their choices.
    It suddenly made so much sense to her. She had always wondered how a group of angels without freewill could suddenly rebel against the one who controlled them, the one who told them how to think, how to act and how to be. And now she knew.
    Lucifer never really chose to wage war against the humans. He was ordered to.
    This was why—
    Darkness suddenly invaded Dylan’s mind. She felt another presence. She felt the pressure, the anger and the hatred of a demon infuse itself inside of her; she felt it invade her soul. It wanted to hurt—to hurt her, to hurt humans and to hurt the angels. It wanted to make them all pay. It wanted it more than it wanted freedom from this world—more than it had ever wanted anything. And it was filled with a great intelligence, a logic that should have made it possible to overcome the insanity she felt controlling all its thought and emotion. This soul was in so much pain.
    Tears filled Dylan’s eyes. Her heart broke for this demon.
    No!
    She ran her hands slowly over the box one last time, and then released it. She stepped back, vaguely aware of Stiles screaming something at her—of Stiles holding his sword high in the air, ready to strike.
    She waved her hand and Stiles’ sword disappeared.
    “We can help you,” she said, her eyes moving blindly around the room. “We can help you cross over and help you find the ones you love.”
    No! You have to pay.
    “It’s wrong, what’s happened to your soul. But it can be fixed.”
    The only thing that can fix it is power. Only control of humanity can make this right.
    “You don’t want that. I can feel your light. It’s still there, deep down, your humanity is still intact. You still believe in hope. You still believe in goodness.”
    We believe in making all of you pay for what you did to us. It is because of you that we are stuck here and that we suffer every second of every minute. And you have to pay.
    Dylan slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
    She closed her eyes and blew. The demon began to panic as its hold on her body began to give way. She felt him—she knew it was a man, a man called Jack James—grabbing on to anything and everything it could, like a drowning