URIEL: The Price (The Airel Saga, Book 6) (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) by Aaron Patterson, Chris White Read Free Book Online Page B

been built beginning to change.
    Michael sat up. “What’s wrong? You have a funny look on your face.”
    “Do you not feel the earth groan?”
    Michael knit his brows together. “No. I don’t feel the earth groaning. What’s going on?”
    “I am not sure.” Kreios went to the bookshelf on the far wall, slid a wooden panel aside, and turned on the display that was hidden there.
    Michael whistled. “I see you did keep the cool stuff to yourself.”
    CNN flashed a banner across the bottom of the screen, and the announcer—a woman with a perfect complexion and long, dark hair—read her notes with a practiced voice.
    “An earthquake surpassing a magnitude of twenty on the Richter scale that has occurred in the Pacific Ocean is predicted to set off a series of events such as we have never before seen in the recorded history of mankind. The series of tsunamis over the next few days may, in fact, be global. The president has declared a state of emergency. Everyone in the flood zones is encouraged to stay calm. We urge you not to panic.”
    The broadcast cut to a map of the world with large areas in red marked as the flood zones. Michael swore.
    Kreios muttered a prayer to El. Many millions would die. “We are running out of time.”

CHAPTER XI
    Arabia, 788 B.C.
    KREIOS WAS FORCED TO look on from a distance as his brother Zedkiel was beheaded by a tusked demon in the darkest shadows. He descended vengeance at the leading edge of his mind. The shadow of a figure took up his kinsman’s sword and stole away.
    Kreios touched down near Zedkiel’s body. The tusked monster snorted at him, obviously unsure what to do next. Kreios made up its mind for it. He roared in anger at the tusked vermin, daring it to come try him. It ran off, searching for easier prey.
    Kreios breathed, eyes wide as he knelt at Zedkiel’s place of mortality.
    He was gone.
    The angel wept looking around for someone to kill.
    * * *
    QUIEL ARRIVED AT KE’ELEI via the horseshoe-shaped mountaintops that overlooked it. The battle below was a pitiful sight. What angelic forces had managed to muster themselves was no match for the legions of the Brotherhood arrayed against them. Those who belonged to El badly needed an equalizing force, something to give them half a chance.
    Qiel thought about the liar Anael.
    Qiel sought recompense more than anything else. He held out hope that his mother was not dead. It wasn’t a simple revenge that he wanted most. It was more complicated than that because while he hated Anael for taking her from him, he reserved some of that hatred for Uriel herself. She had not kept him from the worst evil he had ever known, and yet she had kept him from any usable warning about it. Why did you allow this to happen to me, Mother? Why? He had never felt so unsupported and isolated.
    But these thoughts dissipated quickly, and then he beheld the storm of red lightning in the valley below. His eyes told a corner’s worth of the story, and instinct illuminated for him the rest of the page.
    That is Anael. His hour has come.
    Qiel knew how dangerous it was to allow these thoughts to inch past the gates of his mind, but his heart couldn’t bear the torture any longer. He, therefore, released his thoughts into fury, unlocking those gates, throwing them open wide. He roared stirring his gift into thunder and flood.
    Now would come monsters.
    And real terror.
    * * *
    Elsewhere
    MY DREAMS CONTINUED AS I moved in the far corners of my consciousness—or whatever it was I was doing. I walked along the seashore. I could see an expanse of colorful sands, the surf pounding along the boundary on one side, lush forests rising upward on the other.
    “She?”
    “Airel.”
    I had so many questions. I blurted them all out in my mind by the thousands in an instant. “Was that place—the ruins?”
    “They are just a glimpse of your life.”
    I wondered what that was supposed to mean. “My life?” I asked, but there was only silence as I walked along