SOUL MATES (Angels and Demons Book 3) Read Free Page A

feel heavy again as she concentrated too hard on Joanna and on her need to reach her. But the moment she stopped trying, it was as if she just soared.
    Stiles could feel the pain that sliced through Dylan with that memory. Remembering Sam—how he’d been hurt by the gargoyles when he’d been stolen from her—and then remembering one of the first times she and Wyatt shared intimacy so soon after his death…it was hard for her. Again, Stiles wanted to go to her, but he knew his presence was the last thing she’d want right now. He loved her enough to give her that space despite the pain that was eating him up at his inability to help her.
    Dylan hesitated at the door, her hand on the knob. Stiles watched as she gathered her emotions, her thought still so filled with the past. And then she pushed the door open and immediately his name was on her lips.
    “This isn’t right.”
    Stiles landed silently on the porch behind her. Dylan was in the doorway as though she was afraid to fully enter the building for some reason. He moved up behind her and peeked around her shoulder.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “It shouldn’t look like this.”
    Stiles frowned, not quite sure what she meant. But then he remembered a small detail from her memory— and then the building exploded into flames —that made it all too clear. The place should have been a pile of ash. Instead, the inside of the house looked almost exactly as it did the last time Stiles had walked through this door.
    He moved around Dylan and walked into the main room—a large living room/kitchen combo. There were teacups on the table and plates in a rack on the kitchen counter, all absent of dust, dirt, or any other sign of passing time. It was as if someone had just cleaned the kitchen and walked away, leaving it in pristine condition.
    “How is this possible?”
    Stiles touched the counter top and felt a vibration that seemed to come from the molecules themselves.
    “This shouldn’t be,” Dylan insisted. “The house was bombarded with fireballs. There should be nothing here but ashes. When I saw the roof still intact, I thought windows…but this?”
    “It’s the box.”
    Dylan cautiously moved into the room, coming up behind Stiles. Hesitation in her touch, she pressed her fingertips to the countertop as he had. He turned just in time to watch her eyes widen, to watch her response to the vibration deep in the wood and plastic and laminate that made up the countertop.
    Her eyes moved to the back of the house and Stiles nodded. She was drawn to it from that little touch. She made her way across the living room, her eyes moving over and lingering on the couch for a second. As she looked, Stiles could see a scene play itself out in her head:
    “You let us teach you so that you have the knowledge you need to make the right choices.”
    “Teach me what?”
    Joanna’s smile touched her eyes this time. It made them dance, reminding Dylan a little of Wyatt in the few lighthearted moments they had shared. “To be an angel,” she said.
    Dylan shook her head. “I’m not an angel. I’m a freak of nature. An abomination.”
    “No.” Joanna came to her and cradled her face in her hands the way Davida often did when she knew Dylan was particularly upset. “You are a child of God.”
    “I was created in a lab.”
    “But you were created.” Joanna stroked her cheek lightly. “Only God has the power to create. And he does not make abominations.”
    Tears burned in the back of Dylan’s throat. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “All of this is too much. How could God have created me? Why? So that I could be caught in this tug of war?”
    “So that you could make the choice that will end this war.”
    “And if I make the wrong choice?”
    Joanna stroked Dylan’s cheek again, the amusement gone from her eyes.
    “Make sure you don’t.”
    Despite everything Joanna did, she had been the first to reassure Dylan that she was a gift from God. Even Stiles