Marked by Shadows: MM Paranormal Romance Mystery (A Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery Book 2)

by Lissa Kasey

  Alex squinted at him. “You do know bears are a thing, right? I mean, as long as you’re okay with gay men fantasizing about you.”

  I couldn’t help but grin at the somewhat comically startled look that appeared on Chad’s face. While I knew he was on the Ace spectrum, he was also a white, cis, hetero-romantic male.

  “You mean, like gay men would pay to see me sexy cosplay beefy guys?” Chad clarified, as though his brain had trouble processing the thought. His cosplay specialty did really translate to either big guys like Hellboy, or villains like Thanos from the Avengers, which had become his new obsession.

  “You would probably have an easier time finding subscribers to that, than I do,” I said. If I had a dollar for every time I’d been told I give gay men a bad name because I could look and act very feminine, I wouldn’t need to run my own business. Yet those same men watched my videos in droves. My audience also ran to a lot of women who loved the idea of gay men, but that one man had to be smaller and submissive. Perpetuated by manga and boy-love anime, there was a lot of that genre that had migrated to America and been reshaped by its giant culture of romance readers.

  It was a stereotype. I couldn’t change how I looked, other than to maybe cut my hair. Bulking up wasn’t of interest to me, and I would always be short. And honestly, I wasn’t all that unhappy with my body. Feeling okay in my own skin had been necessary while I’d done porn. I’d lost a little of that confidence when I’d given it up, but could see how brushing off the negative helped. Something else Alex had given me in the short time knowing him, a faith in myself.

  When it came to relationship dynamics, Alex and I reversed the typical roles. He was more submissive and shy, mostly due to lack of experience. I preferred being in control and admitted enjoying sex enough to be a bit aggressive about it. Teaching Alex to break free from societal norms of sex shaming was part of making us a couple. Together, just the two of us, he easily cast off the Southern Christian upbringing of sex for reproduction instead of pleasure. In time I hoped I wouldn’t have to prod him for sex and he would take the initiative. The ‘throw me against the wall’ sort of thing. But he wasn’t there yet, too worried about hurting me. However, when it came to seeing other people and their skewed world views, Alex was a pro.

  “I don’t know a lot of gay men,” Alex said. “At least not out ones, ‘cause you know, military,” he waved his hand. “But the handful I knew were all over either the older guy kink, beard, graying hair, or bears, big hairy men.” He looked at me, his eyes softening as they always did when turned in my direction. “Saves the pretty ones for me,” Alex said.

  “I’ve seen a lot of Thanos and Hellboy fan art that is sexy,” MaryAnn pointed out. “Would be easy to translate it into cosplay.”

  “I could imagine that,” Freya said, coming up behind us and putting a hand on Chad’s arm. “There are a handful of women who would love that as well. Washboard abs are a thing in media, but there’s a market for the real thing too.”

  Alex held out an empty plate for me. “You need to eat too,” he told me.

  I took the plate and followed his lead, filling it up with meat and veggies rather than carbs and chips. Chad and Freya were locked in intense conversation when Alex and I made our way to the dining room and the huge table. We found two seats together and sat down, Alex diving in right away. At least feeding him was easy.

  “This is fantastic,” Alex told me after a moment of chewing, marveling over the spices on the meat, and the authentic blends in the salsa.

  I filled a lettuce leaf with meat and fresh salsa, creating a sort of taco. “Grace is an amazing cook. She has degrees and everything, but didn’t like the high stress life of working in a restaurant. Here she has full control of the meals.”

  Nicole and Julie sat across from us, both waving my way. Both were blonde and pretty, in their late twenties. They could have been twins for how similar they were, and often cosplayed as a duo.

  Byrony and Melissa took the opposite end of the table. While I didn’t know either of them all that well, I pointed each of them out to Alex. Byrony with her red-gold mane, and startling blue eyes, not all that unlike mine, and Melissa, another brunet who was thin as a rail, but with cropped short hair and wide shoulders. I knew Melissa did a lot of cross-gender cosplays like myself, able to straddle the line enough to go either way. Byrony’s skill ran similar to Freya’s, sexy, curvy cosplay that was so spot on people begged for her time. Byrony was lucky enough to not have the typical freckles of being a redhead, meanwhile I’d been stuck with them my whole life, despite having only traces of red in my hair thanks to my Irish mother.

  While I admired her skill, I had never been a fan of her holier-than-thou attitude. She had always said a guy had no place in sexy cosplay, all while sharing pictures of her favorite guys in costumes. Of course the difference was the men she shared were all the ‘manly’ men type with endless abs and bulging necks. She had not been supportive of my return to cosplay. I had planned to avoid her most of this trip.

  Jonah patted my back as he passed to sit beside Byrony. Like me, Jonah was on the small and pretty side, and the only other male, beside Chad, in our group. He had actually been shifting into full modeling work. Someone had caught a glimpse of his delicate features perfectly carved into that burnt sienna skin of his, and his bedroom eyes, and decided he had to be seen everywhere. I was a little surprised he’d taken the time to join this retreat.

  It was interesting to note that I was the only Asian person in the group, though being only half Asian, did that count? Back home in Japan, entire sections of big cities were devoted to cosplay. It was either an all-in hobby, or nonexistent, but everyone knew what it was. In Ireland, it was completely the opposite, not really a thing, or even well known, but there were a handful of people with the interest. The USA had pockets of fans, and a large enough comic book industry to support a vast growth of cosplay, but the average American had either never heard of it, or only vaguely had an idea of what it was. Jonah was the only African-American guy I knew who cosplayed, though I had seen others. No one matched Jonah’s intensity. He was only a year older than me, but already making a name for himself. He had bigger aspirations than I ever did.

  “Hey Jonah,” I said. “I heard a rumor you were going to be on Next Top Model.”

  “Maybe,” Jonah said, sashaying his hips. “They know a good thing when they see one. And so do I. Micah, sugar, your man is fine,” he said looking over Alex.

  Alex’s cheeks immediately reddened and he almost choked on a mouthful of food. I patted his thigh and encouraged him to keep eating. “Alex isn’t used to the praise, but I agree.”

  Now that dark shadows no longer hollowed out his face, and he had several days of sleep and food, Alex was beginning to look healthy again. He would need more time to really put back on the weight he’d lost, but he was still a beautiful man. A mix of ethnicities that gave him fine cheekbones and skin a shade or two beyond tan, not quite sepia, but close. Alex’s hair, which could be described as an afro prior to the care he showed it now, gave away his own African American father, while still having that odd bleach blond edge to it, though it was completely natural in color. Alex was a fine mix of races, which fascinated me in a lot of ways. Like the way his skin looked against mine, or how plump his lips were when I kissed them, and his hair. I fucking loved his hair, even in its natural state, the body and life to it that I would never have in my own, and those intense deep brown eyes. Nothing seemed to change the way he looked at me. It was never a passing glance or sweep of casual acknowledgment. When that warm gaze fell on me it was filled with adoration, interest, and intensity.

  Alex stopped to stare at me. Heat flushed up his cheeks. “Um…”

  I gave him a sexy smile, leaning over to kiss the tip of his nose and run my hand over his beard.

  “No fair,” Alex grumbled. “Eating. You can’t look at me like you’re sexing me up while we’re eating.”

  “Later,” I promised him
, patting his thigh and going back to my food. I was going to be all over him later.

  “Much better than that giant dick Tim,” Melissa said.

  “Tim is Tim,” I defended my ex. He had gone with me once to a cosplay thing, but found it ‘childish’ and a ‘look-at-me-fest’ that meant he hadn’t understood the concept at all. Cosplay was about being seen. Not for who we were, but who we could become. It was more magic than simply putting on a costume and striking a pose. The work required was a whole level of crafting and acting, that most people would never understand.

  Jonah waved his hand dismissing the whole tangent of conversation. “We are going to be ghost hunting tonight. Looking for the white lady,” he said. “Will you join us?”

  Alex tensed beside me, his gaze flicking up and darting around the room like he was looking for someone who wasn’t there. He had been more than thrilled about having a few days off from ghost tours.

  “We’re pretty tired from the drive,” I began, hoping for a chance to drag Alex off to the cabin without prancing around the dark trying to awaken things no one really understood.

  “But you know how to do this sort of thing. Call spirits and all that, right?” Julie prompted.

  “He does lockdowns a couple times a year,” Nicole said. “I’ve seen the videos. You often catch some scary stuff.”

  “On video sometimes.” Visual disturbances weren’t something I experienced, never had been. I was all audio or physical sensation. Alex, however, got full unexplained visuals. “I didn’t bring any equipment for that.”

  “We have digital recorders,” Jonah said. “And our phones.” He continued to study Alex, resting his face on his palm, elbow on the table, instead of eating. “Hey are you the Alex that posted those pictures in Micah’s group? The ones of the ghosts from the tour? Man, that one in the French Market was crazy clear.”

  “Yeah, those are mine,” Alex said. He had not been checking the group for comments, but a handful of technically inclined fans of the paranormal had enhanced his pictures. The one he’d taken from the French Market, showed what appeared to be a person, edges of a face visible, and the entire body defined until reaching the lower legs. The form appeared to be floating from the knee up. That picture had actually gone viral while Alex was away, featured on cable news shows about the paranormal, and dozens of YouTube vlogs. I had no answers, and knew Alex didn’t either.

  “Will you investigate with us?” Byrony asked.

  Freya joined the group, sitting at the head of the table and smiling at the group. “Micah and Alex had a long drive. I’m going to run them through a short tour of the house after dinner, and then they probably need some rest. Tomorrow is a busy day.”

  “Riding around going to quilt shops. That’s not busy,” Melissa pointed out. “I’d rather go ghost hunting. There’s a trail not far from here that has some scary stories. Make-out-point sort of bullshit. I’d love to see that.”

  Alex swallowed hard, and I took his hand.

  “You don’t have to go with the group tomorrow,” Freya told Melissa smoothly. “But I know Micah and Alex will want to go.”

  “I’m all in for quilt shop tours,” Alex piped up, grasping the conversation right away. “No forests or spooky trails.”

  “Seems silly for a couple of ghost tour guides to be afraid of the paranormal,” Byrony said.

  “I’m just a guard,” Alex said. “To keep the human creeps away.”

  “And we are not working this week,” I added. “We are on holiday.” I put my foot down firmly on the idea of involving Alex or myself in anything paranormal. He’d been taken for an entire month. Home only a few days. I was not about to get aboard that train again.

  “Everyone eat,” Freya instructed. “Jonah, tell us about your upcoming reality TV debut.”

  And just that easily she turned the conversation away from us, for which I was grateful.

  Chapter 5

  After dinner Freya showed us around the house. The craft area being the most detailed overview. A giant table doubled as a cutting area, as well as a place to iron. Alex marveled over the handmade ironing boards since they were small, lightweight, and portable. “This is nice.”

  “Thank you,” Freya told him. “Easy enough to make with a few yards of fabric, batting, and a board from Home Depot.”

  “Cool,” Alex said, running his hand along the board.

  “I know you know how to use the long arm, Micah, so I won’t go into a lecture about it,” she said as we went through the layout of the craft space and pointed out the machine. Most people didn’t know what a long arm machine was. Freya’s was on the smaller end, having two rods to separate out the quilt as it stitched them together. I had seen machines that were fifteen feet wide. I was more interested in playing with the two mid-arms she had set up as I’d been eyeing getting one myself. Mid-arms looked more like wider sewing machines, often with a lot of stitch options and a very long neck. A lot of the newer versions had embroidery capabilities, which had always sort of annoyed me since I didn’t like the tight look of a machine embroidered piece and often did my own. Preference from childhood mostly.

  I was not in any way a pro at free motion quilting, though I’d had a few classes. Ruler quilting was easy enough, but needed a larger machine than what I had, and I had to go pretty slow with the stitching. The two machines I had were an everyday machine, which I used for anything cotton, and a heavy-duty machine, which was more for heavier fabrics like denim, vinyl, and leather. A better machine might give me more reason to practice, but it was a big investment. I gave Alex a quilting overview on what they did before we moved on to the rest of the space.

  The long tables and comfortable chairs in the bright room, even with the sunset outside, made me itch to work on something. “I do ask that no one use any of the machines after ten p.m.,” Freya continued. “Though you could probably work in your cabin later.”

  “Micah will be sleeping,” Alex said. “We’ll both be sleeping regular hours while here.”

  I hoped that was the case, but didn’t try to correct him. Sometimes a retreat like this turned into late night sessions of costuming, or idea slinging. And if I couldn’t sleep, I would find something in our cabin to do, to stay close to Alex.

  The upstairs tour was fast. A hall of bedrooms and bathrooms, with a small sitting area. The house didn’t have a TV, but had Wi-Fi if someone needed to watch a movie on their computer.

  Twice Alex looked behind us as we moved around, a few times at his feet, and I wondered if he saw something. Perhaps even the ‘white lady’, but he said nothing, nor did his expression change. He was not alarmed, which I took to be good news. His sensitivity to the unseen was downright scary sometimes.

  “Can I get your measurements?” Freya asked me as we were wrapping up near her space and the back door which led to a path out to our cabin. The others were gathered in the entry, all talking in hushed chatter about their ghost hunting plan. “I have something I’ve been working on for you.”

  “Wow, really?” I asked. Freya’s costumes were legendary. I couldn’t imagine her taking the time to make something for me.

  “When you said you might be coming back to the trade, I thought, well I had an idea.” She smiled warmly at us.

  “Sure,” Alex answered for me. “What do you need from Micah?”

  Freya led us into her space and dug through a drawer until she found her tape measure and a pad of paper. “A few numbers to update. I have the old stuff, but I didn’t want to finalize anything until I knew if there was a change.”

  I stood with my arms spread out as she took measurements, and watched Alex. He was starting to droop. He might come across as having endless energy, but he was still recovering from severe malnutrition. Feeding him wasn’t enough. He needed rest. It was one of the reasons I’d wanted to bring him along on this trip, as we would spend a lot of days working on sewing projects or exploring shops instead of running around the city of New Orleans with a bunch of tourists,
seeking ghosts.

  “Your cat is beautiful,” Alex said.

  Freya glanced up, and then spotted the picture of her cat, Precious, on the wall. “Yeah, Precious the princess.”

  I had never met Precious as she had crossed the Rainbow Bridge before I’d met Freya, but I knew the cat had spent almost twenty years as Freya’s partner in crime. There were even a handful of cosplays which Precious had ridden along, adding to the mythology of Freya’s namesake.

  “You’ve lost some weight,” Freya said to me.

  “We’re working on that,” Alex told her. I actually hadn’t realized he’d noticed, but of course he had. He always seemed to pick up on those little things no one else did.

  The month he’d been gone had been a struggle in a lot of ways. Keeping busy meant no time for food. Or at least no motivation for it. “I eat when Alex eats.”

  She patted my shoulder, knowing a lot more secrets about me than most anyone I knew.

  “I’m fine, I promise,” I said. I had not relapsed, and having Alex close helped with that internal thrum of anxiety that always had me on edge. “I’m looking forward to a few easy days of sewing and fabric shopping.”

  “He is a bit of a hoarder,” Alex pointed out like he was divulging top secret information. “For fabric, mostly.” His face scrunched up in thought for a few seconds before he added, “And crafts.”

  “Sounds like everything is normal then.” Freya finished up my measurements. “Escape while you can. The longer you stay, the more they will bug you to join in.” I could hear the group moving around the house asking the white lady questions. They had turned the lights off upstairs as soon as we’d left that floor.

  “Is there a white lady?” Alex asked.

  Freya held out her arms. “I’m a white lady, aren’t I?”