Epilogue

Neither of us wanted to admit it, but a lot had changed since I'd returned from the veil. My senses had been activated and now I practiced working with wayward spirits that came through the morgue and worked to find more ways to be a strong seer. Bran did the same; he studied the notebook his mother had left daily and learned so many things he didn't know, and many things he wanted to forget.

"Justice, any news from the veil?" I asked. Once he'd gone there with me, he was now able to slip into the space between both worlds as easily as he could walk through a wall. The mark Bran had drawn on him remained, just in case he got into any trouble there.

"Nothing has changed. The wraith has started feeding on spirits again but there aren't as many of them that glow with power. I'm not sure if there are less of them or if he's consumed the few that were left," Justice said. He was at our house today, which was something else that had changed. He used to stay at the morgue, or somewhere else more than he was here. But now he preferred to be with us as often as he could.

"You didn't feel the pull to cross over?" Bran asked from where he sat at the kitchen table practicing an incantation he'd been studying.

"Not this time, but I stayed as far away as I could." He knelt and patted Buddy. "There was one strange thing though." He looked at me and for a moment I had to remind myself I was seeing his spirit and not who Justice was before he was killed.

"What was it?" I asked.

"Your ancestor was there."

"But she walked through the veil. I'd seen it just before I'd been pulled back to my body."

"I think she has the ability to walk between the two realities when she desires and without harm," Justice said.

"Is that possible?" I asked Bran.

"Jordan, I'm pretty sure there is nothing that's impossible," Bran said with a grin.

"That must be how she was able to deliver the vial to the wraith without it consuming her spirit. She'll be handy to have on that side of the barrier," I said. "Have you learned anything else about your mark?"

"There's a lot written about it, but in the journal it's more specific. Metatron's cube is tied to all the other symbols and uses them all so it's very powerful. I told you how it helps form a bridge from one reality to the next, but there's so much more." Bran's mark had gone back to being invisible. It seemed it would only appear when he needed to use its power, or maybe the marks had a sense for when it was time to activate. Either way we were all thankful for it. "I can make the mark you used more permanent if you'd like."

I thought about it a moment before responding. The marks had not always helped us and had been used against us in horrible ways. Plus, the fact Sophia had been used to collect more of them in order to gain more power made me leery of them. They seemed to corrupt anyone who used them—except Bran. "Not yet. If we need it to destroy the wraith then I'll consider it. But I like the idea of being able to use it when we need it." The mark had bound me to Bran in different ways than we already were, but it also helped me share his strength and some of his powers, something that could come in handy on the other side of the veil.

"I could go for a break, what do you think?" he said, and when our eyes met my breath sped up.

"You know I'm always ready for a break," I said, and ignored Justice rolling his eyes and faking a gag.

"I'll be back later. Come on, Buddy," Justice said as he led Buddy through the wall and to who knew where.

As soon as Justice was through the wall, I was straddling Bran where he still sat in one of the kitchen chairs. "Listening to you talk about the supernatural does strange things to me," I whispered, before licking his neck and grinding down on him. This was something else that had changed. Since I'd returned, I couldn't get enough of Bran physically. His touch alone made me want him constantly. The slight brush of a hand at work or the heat of him standing close to me were enough to make me shove him into the storage room at work more times than I could count.

"Oh yeah," Bran breathed out as he closed his eyes and enjoyed all the sensations. Our lips met and my tongue found his as we kissed until both of us needed to breathe, but I still couldn't completely back away from him and trailed my lips along to his ear.

"I'm going to suck you," I whispered, and as soon as the words left my mouth Bran was unbuttoning his pants and trying to slip them down. "Anxious?"

"Always," he said, and when he opened his eyes, the familiar fire was there. Love, lust, and want all rolled into one singular need. My mouth watered as I moved to my knees in front of him and slid his pants down just far enough to give me access.

"Keep your hands here," I said, and placed them around the back of the chair which forced his back to bow just enough to shove him closer to my mouth. A drop of moisture gathered at the tip as I slowly leaned down while holding his hips still. His taste on my tongue made it harder for me to control myself and instead of going slowly and teasing him like I wanted, I swallowed him down as much as I could and groaned.

He flinched back and shoved himself even deeper into my throat, but I didn't have it in me to care, and forced myself not to gag as I was lost in his taste and the scent I craved. "Oh god," he groaned, and I knew it wouldn't take long before he was ready to climax, so I hurried to pull my pants down enough to stroke my own straining hardness.

I tried to go slow and make it last but hard and fast felt too fucking good, and when he started to come it put me over the edge and I followed. Bran threw his head back as he panted with the last few bursts of his orgasm while I lay my head down on his thigh and wiped my mouth. "Every time I want to go slow and make it last, and every time I can't resist you."

He used his hand to tip up my chin enough to meet his eyes. "You make me want you more every fucking day, and there is no way I could have held off either. Why deny ourselves, we can just do it more often." He grinned at me before pulling me in for a kiss, and a taste.

Maybe we both realized every moment was precious, or maybe we knew we may not have more of these moments. But either way we were both on the same page and wanted to be together as much as we possibly could. Once we'd both cleaned up, we got right back to studying the journals that we hoped held more answers.

"It would be really helpful if you could just look at this journal," I said as I flipped through my family's. "You're a lot better at figuring out what's helpful than I am."

"Your family put that concealment spell there for a reason, and I'm willing to live with that. You're doing fine, and I trust you to share anything you find that could be helpful," Bran said as he flipped through his mother's journal which was now enclosed in a bubble of magic that only let him touch it but didn't allow any magic to penetrate and touch the book or allow the book to instigate any magic from within. "Want me to allow you to read this one?"

I held my hands out to him. "Nope, I'm good. I barely want to touch this one," I said, making him laugh.

"If there's something in here we can use to destroy the wraith, we'll find it. I just hope it's not too much stronger when that fight happens." He'd said this many times, and since he knew way more about how his abilities worked, I hoped for the same.

"We'll figure it out, and we'll be ready."

Justice walked through the wall then with Buddy. "Oh, thank god it was a quick one," he said, making us all laugh.

Things had changed so much for us all but with the four of us and Janis to help, we'd figure it out or die trying.

THE END