From Scratch_An M/M Paranormal Romance Mystery Read online

  "Yes. I understand. My step-mom and step-brother are bat shifters. I'm not stupid."

  "The stupid part remains to be seen. Just don't leave him alone like that. He's never been blind before. Never shifted. He can't until you guys mate properly. I'll be in the back if you need me, Lake."

  Lake nodded, but even the gesture was drowned out by his mate's deep sigh.

  As his mate guided him, he whispered, "I take it you have a twin."

  "Yeah. His name's Happy. We're kinda protective of each other."

  "Just kinda, huh?"

  "I'm Lake."

  "Bryson."

  A door squeaked open. The sound bounced off several objects, including another person. Lake moved closer to Bryson.

  "Who do we have here?" The stranger's voice sounded sensual as if that one question was the start of getting into Lake's pants.

  "Lake, this is my step-brother, Renfield. He owns the bar." Bryson's arm tightened around Lake's waist when a chair slid across the floor. Lake hummed when he heard rubber soles squeak across the tile floor. And then a finger lifted his chin as if the brother had a right to touch him.

  "Did you find your mate, little bat?"

  Lake narrowed his eyes. "Yes. And you're not him so don't touch me."

  The finger disappeared, and the sensual voice chuckled. "You have fire. I like that."

  Bryson snorted out a laugh. "I'm his mate."

  Renfield made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. "Bad timing, isn't it?"

  "It is what it is, man. And we need your first aid kit."

  "First drawer on the right. I'm gonna go cover for you."

  "You don't have to do that. Just give me fifteen minutes, and I'll be back on the floor."

  Renfield sucked in a breath, and then he made a sound in the back of his throat as if he disapproved. "He'll stay blind until you bond properly, Bryson."

  "I fucking know that. I grew up in the same house you did, remember. Why the hell is everyone assuming I'm ignorant of all that just because I'm human? It's starting to piss me off."

  "Someone needs to get a grip."

  "Fuck you, man."

  If Renfield took offense, it wasn't in his tone. "My guest bedroom is free. Or you can let him meet our mothers. I mean, they'd only be a little bit embarrassing and tell about that time you showed your prick to Missy Donovan at school."

  Brock chuckled. "Asshole. Get out and leave us alone."

  A silence fell over them that grew uncomfortable for reasons Lake couldn't understand, which had his nerves pinging. He cleared his throat to fill the spaces the lack of noise created and not because he needed too. When that didn't help, and they just stood there as if frozen to the spot, he hummed, keeping the sound just above a whisper, taking in the room around him once again.

  Once he understood where the desk was, he pulled out of Bryson's hold and moved around it. He felt around the desk with his good hand, pulling open the drawer Renfield had mentioned. Just as he was about to feel around inside the drawer, Bryson's body heat covered him from behind.

  "Let me."

  Lake nodded and let Bryson guide him.

  "The chair is directly behind you. It rolls, though. So be careful.”

  Lake sat down, and then the uncomfortable silence enveloped them again.

  He heard some rustling around as if Bryson had to look in the very back of the drawer for the kit. Honestly, Lake didn't get how they were going to fix his wrist anyway. His shifter genetics would allow it to heal on its own after a day or so. He didn't think he broke it. He'd broken his collarbone when he was eight years old once, and it took a couple of weeks to heal. He remembered his shoulder swelling a bit. His wrist hurt, but it wasn't plumping up. At least not yet.

  Whatever, though. He got to spend time with Bryson. Maybe they'd even start speaking to each other soon.

  A drawer closed and then something hollow hit the top of the desk. It sounded like metal, and it rattled with discontent.

  Bryson knelt in front of him, leaning against Lake's knees. Warm hands took his injured wrist, gently holding it steady. "I'm going to bandage it."

  "Okay." Callused fingers stroked across Lake's palm as if Bryson needed that one singular touch. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "Um...what did your brother mean by bad timing?"

  Bryson sighed. "I just got out of a long-term relationship."

  "Oh." Well, shit. That made Lake a rebound, and that wasn't a good thing when the rebound was a mate and in it for the long haul. "So you're not looking for a relationship?"

  "No."

  "Oh." Lake stomach ached at the bottom of his gut.

  "I just moved back in with my parents after a failed relationship. I'm getting my feet underneath me again." Something soft touched his wrist, wrapping around it.

  "Oh."

  "Look, I'm not saying no, okay. I'm just..." Bryson sighed. "I don't know what I'm saying."

  Well, Lake's life just got a lot more difficult and darker. He couldn't very well call his dads to drive him home. Well, he could, but it would suck major balls to have to do that.

  And he couldn't walk back through the secret passageway. Not with his lack of sight.

  Gods, he didn't know what to do other than to wait for Happy and Brannon to take him home.

  "Oh." That was the only word able to leave his lips. If he said anything else, tears would come with the words. No way was he crying in front of a mate who just rejected him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lake gripped his water glass in both hands as he sat at the bar. Bryson hadn't said two words to him since they came in from the back. A part of him thought maybe that was for the best. The other part of him wanted to make demands, but Lake didn't have it in him to push.

  Lake jumped and pulled his hand away when someone touched it.

  "I didn't mean to scare you." Bryson's deep voice traveled to his ears, warming him from the inside out like a reverse blanket. "I just wanted to explain myself."

  "No need." Lake fished around for his cup again. Bryson's warm palm covered the back of his hand. His fingers closed around Lake’s, guiding him to the cool cup.

  "No. I think you need to know about Alan."

  "I really don't think I do." And now that the ex-lover had a name, it would run through his mind like an obnoxious ghost. He had a sudden need to know what Alan looked like and he couldn't even say why.

  "We were together for six years. The last year and a half were strained. The love is still there. For me, anyway."

  Oh, dear gods. Lake sighed. "I understand. I won't push."

  "That's not why I told you. I felt you deserved—"

  "To have my nose shoved in your love for your ex. Yeah. I've figured that out already." Gods, the pit of his stomach burned with a fire that made him restless and needy all at the same time.

  The air around him moved until he felt Bryson’s breath on his cheek. "We just fucking met an hour ago. Don't you think it's a little too early to be jealous of someone I'm not even with anymore?"

  "Well, if we're telling each other about our past conquests, I've got a few. Where to start? My friend Jonathan and I fuck sometimes. It's not love or anything. Just fulfilling a need. And there was Victor. I liked him. He met his mate and moved out of Nirvana Orchards. Not sure where he ended up. Maybe here in the village. And then there was Neil. I think that was his name. It could have been Nick. It was a one-time thing. He was only visiting a friend inside the walls, so yeah. Should I go on?" Lake wanted out of there in a big way, but he couldn't leave until Happy or Brannon came to get him. By the gods, he didn't want to go home either. The last thing he wanted to do was face his dads while he was blind.

  For a human, Bryson's growl sounded way more like a predatory shifter. "You made your point."

  "Are you sure? I can keep going. You haven't heard about Charlie yet."

  "You gotta smart mouth, you know that?"

  Lake had never been accused of that before.
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  He didn't like to argue. Anger came to him quickly and sped away just as fast. He wasn't good at holding on to difficult emotions. Remaining on an even keel brought him comfort, and he liked having that one thing more than anything else. Comfort was easy to achieve under normal circumstances, but nothing about Bryson was normal.

  For one, he was human. That alone made things difficult simply because he'd want to take their bonding slowly and that wasn't something bat shifters did for obvious reasons.

  "Look. I said I wouldn't push and I won't. I'm not sure what more you want me to say."

  Bryson sighed. "I don't either."

  "If you want to say no, then say it and we'll both move on."

  "But you'll be blind for the rest of your life."

  Lake gave Bryson his best fake smile. He hoped he pulled it off but he probably just looked constipated. "Oh, don't worry about me. I'm already getting used to it."

  "Shit. This isn't at all how I wanted the conversation to go."

  "If you only got everything you wanted, huh?" Oh, Lake was good at sarcasm. If only someone would pay him.

  Someone pressed against his back from behind and then a hand touched his shoulder. "Hey. You want to get out of here?"

  Lake pulled his hand out of Bryson’s hold and turned in Brannon’s direction.

  A chuckle escaped past Lake's lips, and some of the tension left his body. Never in his life did he think he'd be relieved to see Brannon but there it was working through him in stark clarity. "Oh my gods, thank you. Yes."

  "Is it that bad?" Brannon whispered in his ear.

  "Worse."

  Lake let go of his cup of water and stood from his perch on the stool. "See ya around, Bryson."

  He was a little proud of himself for the nonchalant way he said those words.

  "Lake." Bryson said his name as if he were begging. It would have been sexy under other circumstances, and maybe Lake would have stayed and tried harder to get to know Bryson better, but Lake was five seconds away from crying. No way was he doing that in front of Bryson.

  Lake raised his hand in the direction he thought Bryson was in and let Brannon lead him to the front door.

  As soon as the door swished closed behind them and he felt the cool air on his face, Lake let the tears take over. He pressed against Brannon, putting his free hand around his shoulders and pulled him closer.

  "Aw, man." Brannon pulled him to the left a few steps and then let go of his elbow to give him the comfort he demanded. "You need me to tell you he's a big jerk."

  Lake chuckled through his tears. "Yeah."

  "He's a big jerk, who will regret letting you go." Brannon rubbed circles on his back and sighed. "In all honesty, I don't know if he's a jerk or not. But the last part is true. He really will regret it, and it probably won't take him very long."

  "Thanks, Brannon."

  Lake sniffled, and that's when the smell of blood hit him. It was so strong he had to pull out of the hug and cover his nose.

  "What?"

  "Don't you smell that?"

  Brannon sniffed twice before he made a noise in the back of his throat. He moved away as if following the scent. When he finally stopped moving, he stood several yards away. Probably at the edge of the building.

  Lake jumped and stiffened when Brannon screamed.

  Lake’s tears, and the reason for them were forgotten.

  Lake reacted on instinct, following Brannon’s sound. Brannon’s breathed came in shallow puffs as if his lungs couldn’t take in air properly. He hugged Brannon. "What is it?"

  Brannon shook his head even as he buried his face in the crook of Lake's neck. "He...it’s…dead."

  Lake couldn't have heard that right. Or he misunderstood. "What do you mean?"

  The door to the bar opened and closed.

  "What's wrong, Lake?" Bryson's steps sounded heavy and sped up right after he asked the question.

  "Not sure. I smelled blood."

  "Are you both okay?"

  "Yes."

  Bryson never touched him, but he drew near enough that he could have. He swore and moved away. Lake heard Bryson shuffle around a few feet away. "Did either of you see anything?"

  "Well, I definitely didn't." Dumb question, considering Lake couldn't see because of Bryson.

  "What about your friend?"

  Brannon moved his head, probably looking in Bryson's direction. "I...no, not until I saw..." Brannon moved into Lake again. Tears wet the skin on Lake's neck.

  "Did you get closer to the body than you are right now?"

  Brannon mumbled against his skin. Lake didn't think Bryson heard him, so Lake answered for him. "No. Neither of us went anywhere except the front door to here."

  The sound of voices and feet crowded the spaces around them. Lake stiffened, not liking so many people around him with the smell of blood thick in the air. All the people clogged up his senses. Everything went haywire and an overwhelming need to protect his mate assaulted him.

  He settled a bit when he felt Bryson's hand on his arm. "Renfield, get everyone back inside." Bryson turned and whispered the comment to someone, obviously his brother.

  "What the hell is going on, man?" Renfield stood close enough to touch but thankfully didn’t.

  "Dead body."

  "Holy fuck! Who is it?"

  "Not a clue. I need everyone out of here. It’s an active crime scene now." Bryson sounded like a cop. Lake had a thousand questions running through his mind all vying for e qual attention. All were centered on Bryson’s past.

  Not one question escaped. He purposefully trapped them all, not just because of the poor dead person feet away but also because he wasn’t sure if he wanted to get to know Bryson in even a small way if they weren’t going to bond.

  "Do you need me to call Rowena?" Renfield asked.

  "No, I texted her. She's on her way.” Bryson ran his hand down Lake’s back. The warmth of it felt like protection. “Can you take Lake and his friend into your office? Keep them there until I get a chance to talk to them."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bryson pulled on a pair of blue plastic gloves before entering the walkway beside the building. He wouldn’t call the space an alley as it wasn’t wide enough. Bryson turned, so his shoulder didn’t touch the logs of the building, which lay all neatly lined, one on top the other until they made up a proud stack, on the path’s right side. A line of overgrown brush made up the left. The area would only fit one at a time if one were walking on the worn, trampled dirt.

  He squatted down, looking at the shoe prints left behind and then at the shoes on the victim, who lay a couple of yards away. One shoe faced him, the treads were barely visible from his angle. “This isn’t his print. Might not mean anything, though.” The grass had deserted a six-inch-wide space one step at a time. So many people came through that the print could have been there before the victim entered the area, although it might have been minutes before, so either way, he wanted to talk to the person belonging to those shoes.

  “I’ll take a photo.” His mother clicked away with a camera, trying to get as much of the scene captured on film as possible.

  He stood and made his way past the victim, looking for more prints.

  He expected to find obvious signs of a scuffle. A disturbance in the dirt where shoes slid. Maybe even some blood evidence indicating the victim fought off his attacker before he fell. Nothing like that existed. The only blood splatter was from the killer lifting the knife to take another swing. Most of the castoff was on the wood siding of the building, which meant the killer had his back to it. It also meant the killer had blood splatter on his clothes.

  Bryson turned to the body. “You knew your killer.” The lack of a struggle might lend to that theory, but it wasn’t enough of a confirmation.

  Still, he had a gut feeling it was true.

  Bryson studied the man’s face. He had blond hair and brown eyes that looked like marbles, glassy and sightless. His young features didn’t tell Bryson crap about h
is age as he was surely a shifter and some of them stayed youthful looking even when they were middle-aged. Others aged about like humans. It depended on genetics more than anything else.

  If Bryson were to guess, he’d put the victim in his thirties even though he looked about ten years younger. Overestimating seemed a better approach in a murder case.

  Bryson sighed. Shit, he didn’t fucking know. Getting an approximate age, wasn’t a thing in the city. Even for a paranormal victim it still wasn’t an issue simply because the cops there didn’t know about paranormals, so Bryson had grown as ignorant as all of the other human cops, taking things at face value.

  He couldn’t do that in Fountain.

  Bryson focused on the victim’s hand and the way it lay beside him slack but open. Blood coated his palm. It was probably his own, but Bryson wouldn’t rule out the fact that it might be the killers.

  If Bryson’s gut instinct was correct, then the first stab came as a surprise. He had clutched at that first wound. The second wound happened so quickly the guy didn’t have enough time to fight him off.

  All the wounds save for one were placed in the man’s stomach. The killer tore at his flesh to the point his organs were exposed where the stabs had turned more to slices. The one, misplaced wound was probably the one that killed him.

  Bryson pointed to it when his mother stopped snapping pictures. Small town investigation meant not having a forensic unit, so the department had to do a lot of the collecting themselves. His mother and Lance would be out here for a while collecting as much as they could.

  “That’s the one that killed him, you think?” she asked and snapped a picture of it.

  “Think so, yeah. Autopsy report will tell us more. It looks deliberately placed.” Bryson ran his pinky around the stab wound’s edge. “Whoever gave him this one knew what they were aiming for.”

  “Okay, so the perp was angry. He stabbed the vic in the stomach in a fit of rage. He realizes what he’s done, so he stabs the vic in the heart to end things.” Rowena shook her head.