Grimm Tidings: Grimm's Circle, Book 6 Read Online Free PDF Page B

bad.” He bent down and fisted his hand in her belt, jerking her to her feet.
    “What the—you son of a bitch—”
    She went to smack his hands away and he caught her wrists. The moment his bare flesh touched hers, the world exploded around her. Stunned, she tore away from him and he let her.
    “What…”
    The word was lost. The world was lost. She couldn’t hear herself speak. Couldn’t hear herself scream. And scream she did. Long and loud. But the wind tore it away from her, like it never existed.
    She was foundering, faltering, falling.
    Sucking in her breath, she threw out her hands, desperate for something to cling to.
    The only thing she found was Jacob.
    He was there.
    He was solid.
    He was real.
    And he was warm, strong.
    In the rush of ice and wind and nothing and darkness, he was there, with his arms around her, his mouth by her temple and she thought maybe, just maybe, she heard him speaking. She couldn’t see him, but she knew it was him.
    “Jacob?”
    And this time, she heard her own voice…and his answer.
    “It’s time you see some things clearly, Celine. Well past time.”
     
     
    Will emerged from the darkness as Jacob and Celine disappeared.
    Sighing, he closed his eyes.
    He hoped he hadn’t been wrong to push Jacob as he had.
    He had already made a mistake with Celine, something he’d accepted over the past few years.
    He didn’t want to make another.
    Weary, he turned and studied the mess in the alley.
    “If you don’t clean it up, the police and reporters and everybody are going to have a field day.”
    He slanted a look at Mandy. She had a knack for finding him.
    Even though he’d left her, alone, at his home in Europe, she’d managed to track him. He’d known she would eventually develop the skill to teleport, but he hadn’t expected it to come to her as early as it had. It usually took a few decades to develop that skill—not a few years.
    Made it rather inconvenient for him—he couldn’t hide from her. Very often, he needed to.
    “If I do ‘clean it up’ as you say, then those who’ve been lost to the demons, their families will never know what happened, never have closure.” He’d done more than his share of cleaning up but he also knew sometimes that caused more problems than it was worth.
    Like with Celine…
    A hand touched his arm.
    Steeling himself to not let anything show, he looked at her, waited.
    “We both screwed up,” Mandy said quietly. “I’m the one who pushed you to bring her over. She just…she fought so hard.”
    “No. It was my error, not yours. Yes, she fought. She fought like a woman who wanted to make it back to her husband,” he corrected gently. “And I couldn’t give her that. But it was my mistake, not yours.”
    Sighing, he looked back at the mess of bodies littering the alley. “We’ll leave them. The families deserve to say good-bye.”
    “And the police will be looking for answers they have no chance of finding.”
    Will shrugged. “That is not my concern. They often have that very problem.”

Chapter Three
    The darkness, the ice, the nothingness, it lasted forever. Celine was certain of it. So certain of it that she wasn’t even sure anything else even existed anymore.
    And then…it ended.
    Her feet were on solid ground and she was gasping for air, clinging to Jacob, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his biceps, her head pressed against his chest while she waited for the spinning in her brain to stop.
    He stood there, as always, unaffected.
    And staring off into the distance when she finally managed to lift her head from his chest.
    “What…was…that?”
    “Do you remember your old life?”
    “ Remember ? Damn straight I remember. All I want is to get that life back .” I just want a chance to fix things…fix all of it. Apologize. Shit, the guilt was choking her. Guilt, grief, regret. “I want my life back,” she said again.
    “That life,” he murmured.
    As the darkness slowly receded, she stared at him