I smiled against his lips. “Bram.”
“Yes?”
“Does what just happened mean we’re mated?” I asked, already knowing the answer thanks to his demon side.
You are in luck, said the demon. She is smarter than you.
Bram cleared his throat. “Yes. Do you understand what all that entails?”
It is moments like this I wonder how it is your line hasn’t died out. You are far from alpha.
I nearly laughed, sympathizing greatly with what it must be like for Bram to live with a voice in his head all the time. It was a lot like what I lived with—hearing, seeing, and feeling all that I did. “It means I’m technically your wife and you’re my husband.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
Tell her what she means to us. I am the root of all evil but even I know when a woman needs to hear her worth.
It was hard to keep from laughing. “Bram.”
He took a deep breath. “Yes?”
“I thought I’d come here and find information on my parents. I wasn’t expecting to find a husband.”
“My apologies,” he said, making a move to put me down.
I put my hands on his broad shoulders and grinned seductively. “I forgot to mention that I’m totally and completely fine with the outcome.”
“Truly?” he asked, wonder in his voice. “It is not too much or too soon for you?”
“I know it should be, but it feels right,” I confessed.
Explain that is because we are her true mate. Her destined one.
Bram took a deep breath, but the words never found their way to his lips.
I gave him a quick kiss.
Tell her, his demon pressed.
He kept ignoring it.
Tell her! it shouted. Tell her what she means to us and for how long we have desired her.
He locked gazes with me. “Marcy, I have something I need to share with you. Something you may find off-putting.”
“I’m kind of an odd duck. There isn’t much I find off-putting,” I said.
With a nod, he started to speak only to stop. Then he tried again with the same result. Finally, he exhaled deeply. “I have much love for you.”
Well, that works too, I guess. Your delivery could use some work, Van Helsing.
It took all I had to keep from laughing outright. Instead, I touched his cheek and then his lower lip. “Thank you.”
Bram began to move in and out of me once again, slowly at first.
When I realized he was ready for round two, my eyes widened. “Bram?”
“I want more,” he responded.
I pointed to the chair. “Sit.”
He did and it left me straddling his lap.
It was my turn to lead and lead I did. I moved on him, drawing pleasure from him while giving it in return as well. Our bodies were so in sync with one another’s that we were climaxing within minutes.
Once we were done, I eased off him and he caught my hips.
“Stay,” he said, before he noticed my bandaged hand was bleeding again. He closed his eyes, lowering his head somewhat. “I should have seen to your needs.”
“You did,” I said. “Twice. Let’s get dressed, go upstairs, and you can see to them again.”
His lips quirked. “You are very strange.”
“But you love that about me,” I returned.
He snapped me to him, kissing me thoroughly. “Yes. I do.”
“Bram, before I forget, which I tend to forget a lot,” I said, still on his lap. “Barend wanted me to tell you that you’re not the one who needs to be forgiven. And you’re not the one who was wrong. Then there was something about swords and hearts but it’s hard to focus when I’m on you and I’m staring at your chest. I really do want to lick you all over.”
Bram stood fast and I fell to the floor with a thud.
His eyes widened as he scooped me up into his arms. “I’m sorry!”
Hysterical laughter burst free from me and I pushed to get down.
He let me.
I kept laughing as I adjusted my bloody skirt and went for the shirt on the back of the chair. I removed the tattered, torn crocheted top and set it on the table. I then eased on the shirt, but in place of buttoning it, I simply tied it under my breasts. “All right, Van Helsing, take me upstairs and fix my hand. Then, you can tell me all about your brothers.”
He tucked himself into his pants and fastened them. He then yanked off what remained of his torn undershirt. He came to me and took my hands in his. He drew them to his chest. “Wife, there are things about my past…things I cannot change that are unpleasant to speak of.”
“And one of these things is something that happened with your brothers?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Bram, by chance did you have a hand in their deaths?” I asked.
Surprise filled his face. Then he nodded slightly. “Yes. I am who killed them.”
That is not the truth, Van Helsing, said his demon. I am who slaughtered your brothers and your father. They tried to kill you. It was self-defense, but you will never see it that way. You will forever wish they killed me and, in turn, you. But had they, you would not have a daughter. And you would not have Marcy—our mate, and perhaps, if we are lucky, the future mother of more of our offspring.
Barend’s words suddenly made sense. If they’d tried to kill Bram and he, or rather, his demon, reacted, resulting in their deaths, the guilt from that all had to have weighed on Bram for years. Knowing as much, my heart ached for him. I did the only thing I could think to do.
I hugged him.
He wrapped his arms around me as I rested my head to his chiseled chest.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bram
Bram held Marcy to him, doing his best to come to grips with the idea that she was well and truly his. That he was a married man. Like her, he’d not started the night with the thought he’d find himself mated.
For the best, said the demon. You would have only screwed it up by overthinking.
Marcy snickered as she continued to hug him.
Unsure what had amused her, Bram stared down at the top of her head. “Marcy?”
She glanced up. “Yes?”
“Let’s go tend to your hand,” he said, wanting to tell her so much more, but not knowing where to begin. “Elis and Austin have gone in search of the evil that dared to enter the estate—though I’m unsure how it managed to do so. Maria and her coven see to the wards themselves. There is no way it could cross the barrier to the grounds unless—”
He stopped short of saying what he was thinking.
That the evil came attached to another. One the grounds would not see as an enemy. Worry for Dana slashed through him and he stepped back from Marcy fast. “Come! I must get you to safety and then find Dana and Jeffrey. She’s in danger.”
Van Helsing! snapped the demon with an urgency that shocked him. I do not think Dana is who brought it.
“Who else could have possibly brought it?” demanded Bram before realizing that to Marcy he was talking to himself.
She slinked away from him, her eyes wide as she covered her mouth with her injured hand. “Me. I did. It came with me.”
“Marcy?” asked Bram. “What do you mean?”
“The evil thing got in here because of me, Bram. Your demon is right,” she said.
Bram and the demon stood there in stunned silence. How had she known what his demon had said to him?
The claiming, said the demon. It has gifted her the ability to hear me when I speak to you.
Bram stiffened. “Marcy?”
She nodded. “He’s right. I can hear him. But, Bram, that isn’t important. What is important is that I’m the reason the evil came here. I have to go. I’ll lead it away.”
“You will do no such thing,” he said quickly. “You are nothing but love and light. How could you think it came attached to you?”
“Because it’s been invading my dreams for weeks now,” she said, teari
ng up. “The dreams I have with you in them—it’s been coming into those. Tonight it, and whoever else was with it, was here because it was mystically attached to me. My guess is that it then opened a door, if you will, for whatever else showed. Evidently, I had two stowaways. Burgess and the dark entity. I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said, meaning every word of it. “I believe you were targeted by it because of who you are to me. Ager taunted me before Elis and Austin went after him. He warned me that he’d had his associate stalk you on the dream plane. This is my fault. Not yours.”
The color leeched from her face and fear radiated from her so intensely that Bram had trouble controlling the urge to want to kill things.
“W-what did you say?” Marcy questioned.
“Which part?” he asked, baffled.
She began to shake, and he tried to comfort her, but she backed away from him more. “You said a name. Say it again.”
“Ager?”
“Ohmygod,” she said, looking as if she was going to be ill.
“Marcy?”
“Bram…my last name,” she returned.
He nodded. “Dotter, yes. I am so sorry that I’ve been no help in finding information on your family but, Marcy, I can recall no Dotters ever residing in Grimm Cove, even briefly.”
She lowered her gaze and responded almost trancelike. “Dana didn’t tell you my birth parents’ surname?”
“I assumed it was Dotter—the same as yours,” said Bram.
“No,” she whispered. “That’s my adoptive family’s last name. My birth certificate has my biological parents’ last name.”
“Which is?” he asked.
“Holmwood.”
Positive he’d heard her wrong, he cocked his head to the side. “Come again?”
She kept staring off as if her mind was spinning with too many thoughts to leave her focused on the present conversation. “Holmwood. My name at birth was Marcy Holmwood. My father’s name is listed as Arthur and my mother’s name is—”
“Fiona,” he said, as the realization that Arthur and the Nightshade Fae had a child and that child was now a grown woman. One standing before him, scared out of her mind. One who was nothing like her mother or her clan of Fae had been—evil. One who was now and would forever be his wife. “Marcy, I knew your parents.”
She kept looking off at nothing as tears slid down her cheeks. “But there isn’t any information on them back with all the other birth and resident records from the year I was born.”
“Darling, did you hear me?” he asked, easing closer.
She didn’t shy away this time.
“I said I knew your parents. At one time, your father and I were very close friends. There was a falling-out and, in the end, before things could be mended, he and your mother passed away.”
Slowly, she looked at him as if finally hearing him. “They’re dead?”
He tensed and then nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
“H-how?”
“Seward, Harker, and I have always believed Ager was behind their death,” confessed Bram. “But we knew nothing of you. I knew Arthur had returned to Grimm Cove for a short period while I was away, but I did not know he had a child. I’m sorry.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “Ager killed them?”
“I believe so, yes.”
She lifted her head and squared her shoulders. “Do you have any files on Ager in the vaults? Something that has his picture in it maybe?”
“Marcy?” he asked, unsure why she was asking as much.
“Please, Bram. I need to know more.”
Give her what she requires, said the demon.
“Thank you,” replied Marcy, and Bram knew it was directed at his demon.
It was strange to think someone else could hear the demon. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about it all.
Bram glanced at the door, debating on taking her from the vaults or giving in to her request for files on the necromancer. Something on the floor caught his eye. He hadn’t recalled seeing it when he’d first entered the room. Then again, his focus had been singular at the time.
He went to the door and froze when he got a better look at what the object on the floor was.
A rosary.
Not just any rosary either. One he’d not seen in over a hundred years, the last time being when it had been buried with his mother. Instinct left him bending fast, his intent to retrieve the rosary.
Bad idea, said the demon. It will not go as planned.
Remembering then what crosses did to his kind, Bram froze in place, still unable to believe what was before him. His mind raced with how it had come to be in the vault at all let alone on the floor near the door.
The same area that wind had come from not long ago. Wind that Marcy had attributed to the spirit of a woman.
“What’s wrong?” asked Marcy, appearing next to him. She bent as well and stared curiously at the rosary. She then laughed. “I think I understand why I’m seeing the woman in the long period dress now. I thought at first that she might be linked to the Van Helsing estate or somehow tied to the Proctor House, but I think she’s tied to the rosary.”
Bram closed his eyes, letting her words run over him.
Marcy retrieved the item and stood.
Bram rose to his full height as well, his hands sliding under hers as she cupped the rosary. “You believe she’s tied to this?”
“Yes,” said Marcy with a soft laugh. “When I saw it at an estate sale, I knew I had to buy it. I knew it didn’t belong there but for years I’ve never quite figured out where it did belong. The end table was easy. I knew that needed to go to Dana. But this piece has always baffled me. Strangely, I keep it in my bag at all times. In fact, the last time I saw it was in my bag back in the main library area. She must have brought it here. I’m not sure why though.”
“Marcy,” he said, lifting her hands slightly as he met her blue gaze. “This was my mother’s.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth formed an “O” before she gasped. “I think she knew…I think that she understood who we are to each other and that we were going to complete the claiming. She winked at me before she walked out.”
“You said she guided you to this vault?” he asked, his throat tight.
She nodded. “I trusted her, and she seemed to be working with Jack.”
“Who?”
“Here, hold this,” she said, dropping the rosary into his hands and rushing off toward the table.
Bram’s first reaction was to drop the rosary to avoid being burned. It wasn’t until he realized nothing was happening that he lifted it higher, examining it fully.
Why is it not burning us? asked the demon.
“Why isn’t what burning…oh my. I forgot about you being allergic to those,” said Marcy. “I’m sorry. Wait, it’s not harming you?”
Bram shook his head and held it out for her to see his palms were fine. “No.”
She tipped her head and then smiled wide. “When we mated, I got the gift of hearing your demon.”
“Pfft, some gift,” said Bram with a huff, sliding the rosary into the front pocket of his pants. “He is a curse. He never shuts up.”
“He’s precious,” said Marcy. “And I think when we mated I got the ability to hear him and you came out of it being able to hold that rosary without issue.”
Bram arched a brow. The woman was certifiable, but damn if his heart didn’t fill every time he looked at her.
She is perfect for us, said the demon.
“She truly is,” added Bram, earning him a smile from Marcy before she turned and went to her hands and knees on the floor near the table.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bram
At the sight of her backside being presented to him, Bram’s pants grew tight once more. He’d never tire of being in her. She’d been like entering paradise. When her magik had surged through him, it had felt as though he’d stepped through Marcy momentarily before slamming
into his body once more.
He should have guilt over claiming Arthur’s daughter but in truth, he was all out of guilt over his feelings for Marcy. She was his true mate. Fate had gifted her to him, and he wouldn’t spend another second worrying about what others thought.
She was his wife.
Period.
And if she kept bending over like that, she was about to see just how happy he was to be married to her. “Marcy, you are killing me here, darling.”
She lifted a hand, facing the other direction, putting up a finger indicating he needed to wait a moment.
He groaned.
“You’re fine and you’re already dead…kind of.”
The demon laughed.
Bram grunted.
Marcy picked then to wiggle slightly as she went through clippings and scrapbook pages that were strewn about on the floor.
Reaching down, he adjusted himself in a blatant manner before glancing around, hopeful the spirit of his mother wasn’t watching.
He really hoped she hadn’t been a spectator for the claiming.
While she is down there, we could always enjoy what is our honeymoon stage, said the demon in a suggestive way.
Bram nearly dismissed the idea, but Marcy wiggled more, communicating directly with his groin.
The next he knew, he was to her, going to his knees as well.
Marcy gasped as Bram wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her up slightly. “Bram?”
He kissed her ear and ran his hand over her covered breasts. “I tried to warn you.”
She patted his hand. “I have to show you something and then I have to tell you something else.”
Did she just dismiss our attempt to seduce her? asked the demon.
“She can hear you,” said Marcy. “And yes, I’m looking for what I found earlier, before we did the dirty together.”
Bram sighed, still holding her to him, his erection aching to return to paradise and do the dirty again. “Show me what you feel is so important.”
She had the audacity to laugh at his frustration. She then grabbed the scrapbook and opened it, tapping a page as she did. “Look. You know Jack already!”
Bram could easily see over her with their height difference and glanced at the page in question. When he spotted articles for the Whitechapel murders, his stomach dropped.
Spellcasting with a Chance of Spirits: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Romance Novel (Grimm Cove Book 3) Page 23