Grimm Consequences by Kate Serine Page B

risk her again.”
    Benedict nodded. “Very well then. I will tell you where you can find your love, and if you can free her, I will grant your wish. But know this, Maximus—Demetrius has no intention of letting her go.”
    I met and held his gaze. “Neither do I.”

Chapter 10
    I parked my car a few blocks away from the cemetery and made my way toward the crematorium on foot, keeping to the shadows cast by the trees and ostentatious monuments erected by some of the most prominent names in Chicago’s history. Leave it to Demetrius to choose a location rife with drama and grandiosity.
    I could feel the restless souls milling about in the darkness, their slumber disturbed by the presence of so many Reapers. A woman in Victorian garb wandered toward me, her eyes nothing more than empty black sockets. Her expression was vacant as she turned toward me, met my gaze, and then vanished. She was lost in more ways than one.
    My senses began to prickle with apprehension the closer I drew to the limestone building where Demetrius was keeping Tess. There would be guards positioned at every door, sentinels against the forces of darkness that might try to intrude upon the trials of penance when the soul being punished was at its most vulnerable. It wasn’t just other Reapers that I had to worry about attacking.
    Not for the first time since I’d left the car, I wished that Trish had loaned me something more akin to Tess’s normal black attire. With the moonlight flooding every open space, I might as well have been barging in with sirens blaring and guns blazing. It was nothing short of a miracle that I’d made it into the center of the cemetery without encountering one of my brethren—or something else equally as deadly.
    Or maybe that was the plan.
    I felt the attack coming a split second before a massive fist took a swing at me. I dodged just in time to avoid the hammerlike blow, and pivoted around to block another one, landing an uppercut of my own that took my attacker by surprise. A man his size sure as shit wasn’t used to getting his clock cleaned by a woman—let alone a woman who was barely five feet tall and the same woman whose soul he’d helped to abduct.
    â€œWell, hello there, Junior,” I drawled, giving him a cocky grin. “I think you and I have a score to settle.”
    His eyes went wide with confusion. I took advantage of his bewilderment to fall back on the ol’ standby of nailing him in the junk. He groaned with pain and doubled over, clutching his crotch, but his expression quickly morphed from agony to fury. He made a sloppy grab for me, but I easily dodged, grabbing his outstretched arm and bringing my elbow down on his. The bone snapped with a sickening crunch, sending him to his knees with an agonized cry.
    â€œI’ll fucking kill you,” he snarled.
    â€œI don’t think so,” I retorted, driving my fist into his chest, my Reaper’s soul giving Tess’s body the ability to penetrate Junior’s weakened human form. “Not tonight.”
    His gaze snapped down to his chest, then back up at me. “Stop, stop, stop! I’m sorry, man,” he said in a rush. “I’m so fucking sorry! I had to beat the shit out of you earlier tonight or that bastard Demetrius was going to kill my family. I have a wife, man—a kid. They’re human. Demetrius was going to unleash that fucking Jabberwocky on ’em! I didn’t have any choice. Don’t, man! Please!”
    My fist closed around his soul, the temptation to rip it from his body, his human construct, almost more than I could resist. I wanted to tear it out of him, reduce it to cinders and ashes. But I hesitated, my newly rediscovered conscience annoyingly inconvenient. I squeezed, grinding my teeth, torn between ending him and showing him mercy. “Where is she?” I demanded. “Is she in the crematorium?”
    Junior nodded, not able to