Cold Blood by T. Strange
Book 2 in the Bound to the Spirits series
General Release Date: 8th March 2022
Word Count: 86,043
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 350
GENRES:
BONDAGE AND BDSM,CONTEMPORARY,CRIME,EROTIC ROMANCE,GAY,GLBTQI,PARANORMAL,THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE
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Book Description
Ghost wards are failing. Mediums are vanishing. Someone—or something—is stirringup the ghosts of Toronto. It’s up to psychic medium Harlan Brand to find out why.
After defeating a serial killer who could control ghosts, psychic medium Harlan Brand is feeling much more confident in his abilities working for the Toronto Police Service with his partner, Hamilton, as they protect the city from dangerous spirits.
He is expanding his social circle, however reluctantly, to include the other police mediums and Morgan Vermeer, another graduate from the Centre—a school for training psychic children.
Harlan and his boyfriend, Charles Moore, are continuing to explore BDSM, their relationship and Charles’ strange ability to shield people from ghosts.
Hoping to find answers about Charles’ power and the serial killer, Harlan returns to the Centre only to find that one of its ghost wards—magical symbols that spirits can’t cross—is broken, and it’s a mystery as to how and why.
The calm and order that Harlan has been building up in his life are shattered when wards start failing across the city and mediums begin to disappear, including one of his new friends and a student from the Centre.
Someone—or something—is stirring up the ghosts of Toronto.
Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence and murder. It is best read as part of a series.
“How did you and Matthew meet?” Charles asked.
Harlan swallowed his mouthful. It was such a nice, normal question to ask when meeting someone—one that never would have occurred to him.
Matthew and Hamilton turned and smiled at each other, actually holding hands on top of the table. Even more surprising, it was Hamilton who’d reached for Matthew.
“I volunteer with a trans youth-mentoring program,” Hamilton said, which was news to Harlan. Harlan didn’t have much of a personal life, aside from Charles, and he’d kind of assumed, based on Hamilton’s silence, that his was the same. Apparently not.
“Oh, that’s fantastic! I donate to them.”
Hamilton glanced at Charles, then at Harlan. He grinned. “Holy shit, you didn’t tell him!” he crowed, slapping the table with one hand and startling Harlan and Matthew a little.
“Tell him…?” Harlan asked, his eyes bouncing between the other three men.
“About me. You didn’t tell him about me.”
“Oh! No, of course not! I assumed you told me that in confidence.”
Hamilton laughed, shaking his head. “I assumed you’d tell Charles!” He turned to Charles. “I’m trans.”
Harlan noticed that Matthew was completely focused on Charles, waiting for his reaction.
Charles grinned, half-standing and reaching across the table to give Hamilton a clap on the shoulder. “Hey, that’s awesome!” He sat down again. “I’m glad you trust me enough to tell me that.”
Hamilton nodded at him. “Still can’t believe you never told him. Good job, Brand.” He managed to make it sound both sincere and teasing at the same time.
“Matthew is Two-Spirit, not trans, but he goes there at least a few times a year to do a presentation about mental health and speak to the Indigenous youth. When we met, my mentee was Indigenous, and we met through him. She’s moved on, but we still keep in touch. Maybe one day I’ll even let you meet him, Brand. And you, Charles.”
“Do you have pictures?” Charles asked eagerly. Another normal question that Harlan never would have asked.
Hamilton whipped out his phone, quickly scrolled through and handed it to Charles.
Harlan could just see a picture of Hamilton standing with his hand resting on the shoulder of a smiling young woman.
“That’s Tabitha.” He took his phone back and scrolled again. “And this is my current youth, Hank.”
Harlan wanted to look through this unexpected window into Hamilton’s life while he could. He peered over Charles’ shoulder. This picture showed Hamilton with a tall young man who looked East Asian.
Hamilton and Charles happily chatted about Hamilton’s volunteer work for a while—the volunteer work Harlan had known nothing about, but that Charles had learned about within half an hour of talking to him in a non-life-or-death situation.
Harlan was happy to let the conversation flow over him without being forced to add to it.
He wasn’t sure how the topic of Charles’ ability had come up while they were eating. Matthew already seemed to know about it. Harlan liked Matthew, and clearly Hamilton trusted him—which was quite the feat—but he’d only just met the man, only found out that he existed a few days ago. He found himself feeling strangely protective of Charles’ as-far-as-he-knew-unique power.
“You’ve really never heard of anyone else with this ability?” Matthew asked.
Hamilton shrugged, and everyone’s gaze turned to Harlan.
He tried not to flinch, concentrating on chasing and pinning down a suddenly all-important grain of rice on his plate.
He’d spent the better part of two decades at the Centre. If anyone had asked him, before he’d met Charles, he would’ve said he knew every type of psychic ability there was—most of them from personal experience, some just from reading. Each gifted person’s ability was a little different, of course, but they tended to fall into broad categories—mediumship, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance, technology manipulation and pyrokinesis. There was a fair bit of overlap between the categories.
He’d never heard of an anti-ability like Charles’.
Pretending the single grain filled his mouth and kept him from talking, Harlan shook his head while he ‘chewed’ it.
“Have you asked anyone at the Centre for Psychic Education and Research here in Toronto?” Matthew suggested.
Hamilton choked a little, pointedly staring down at his plate and not looking at Harlan.
It was the Centre’s full name, but no one ever called it that.
A moment later, Harlan, Hamilton and Charles exchanged identical expressions of disbelief that none of them had thought of that. Harlan mentally kicked himself. Of course! How could he not have thought of that before? After he’d got over his strange unwillingness to talk about Charles’ ability to suppress ghosts around Harlan, he’d asked the other police mediums during their support group and they’d all agreed they’d never heard of a power like Charles’, and Harlan had left it at that. Well, if he were being honest, he’d never have told anyone but Hamilton about Charles’ power, but the other police mediums knew both that Harlan had got through a choking fogbank of ghosts and that he’d brought his boyfriend into the situation, so it hadn’t taken much for them to put two and two together and ask the right questions.
The Centre had all kinds of resources, including an extensive library with both modern studies and data and all kinds of historical documents about psychics. They also had connections to similar schools and facilities around the world. If anyone could help them with the mystery that was Charles, it would be the Centre.
Of course, there were reasons it hadn’t occurred to Harlan to ask anyone at the Centre for advice. He hadn’t been back since he’d begun his new life. He’d only spoken to Tom—the history teacher and student counsellor—a handful of times on the phone. He wanted to prove, to himself and to them, that he could live independently, that he didn’t need babysitting.
Even, apparently, when their help would have been useful.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Matthew chuckled.
“That’s a really good idea. Thank you.” Harlan’s already-high estimation of Matthew went up even more.
Matthew grinned, giving a little bow from the neck. “My pleasure. Sometimes all you need is a different perspective. Now. Who wants dessert?”
Harlan was stuffed—the meal had been amazing, as they’d all said more than once—but if the dessert was half as good, there was no way he could turn it down. All three of them raised their hands.
* * * *
Hamilton had taken Harlan home with him after work, but he got a ride back to his apartment from Charles.
“What did you think?” Charles asked, reaching between the seats to give Harlan’s thigh a fond squeeze.
“The food was so good. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that well in my life.”
Charles laughed. “I mean, I agree with you, and I think this means we need to go out for a nice dinner with them sometime, but that’s not what I meant.”
“You’re a good cook,” Harlan assured him.
“Eh. I can manage a few basic things, but nothing like that. I’d rather take them to a restaurant than try to match that.”
“I don’t think you have to match it.” Though Harlan wasn’t completely sure about that. Maybe it was yet another of those Obscure Adult Rules he was slowly picking up on.
Charles squeezed his leg again. “Thank you, and that’s very sweet of you, but I meant what did you think of Matthew?”
“Oh!” Harlan was glad the dim light in the car hid his blush. Of course that was what Charles had meant! “I like him.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’…”
“No! I— Maybe. Are you sure you don’t have any telepathic ability? You haven’t been holding out on me?” Harlan laughed nervously.
“Pretty sure. You still haven’t actually said what the ‘but’ is.”
“But…I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve heard about him! And Hamilton didn’t even tell me they live together! And,” he quickly added to lighten the mood, realizing he’d spoken a little more emphatically than he’d meant to, “Matthew calls him ‘Hamilton,’ too. Not ‘Curt.’”
Charles snorted. “That doesn’t really surprise me.” He gave Harlan a quick glance, sliding his hand down from Harlan’s thigh to his hand. He wrapped his short, powerful fingers gently around Harlan’s much longer, thinner ones. “It doesn’t really surprise you, does it? Hamilton keeping stuff—personal stuff—from you?”
“No.” Realizing he sounded like he was sulking, Harlan forced himself to continue. “It’s just…I thought we were past that. That he was really starting to open up to me. That we were starting to be—”
“Harlan, I think this is him opening up to you.”
Harlan blinked. “Well, yeah, I guess, but…” He threw up his hands in exasperation.
“He invited you over. For dinner. With his boyfriend. To their place,” Charles pointed out.
“He said Matthew insisted on meeting me.”
“I’m sure he did. It might even be one-hundred percent true, but that doesn’t change the outcome.”
“You’re too fucking good at this…people stuff!” But Harlan couldn’t help laughing at himself. “And I just suck at it. You’re right. I know you’re right.” He turned to give Charles a thoughtful glance. “It’s Sunday night.”
“It is,” Charles agreed.
“You don’t work tomorrow.” Normally Charles would have been at the club on a Sunday night, but he’d got someone to cover for him so he could make their dinner. Matthew, unlike the rest of them, worked a regular nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday week and his schedule was less flexible.
“Indeed I don’t.”
“Oh my God, stop torturing me. You know what I want!” Harlan laughed. “That’s my job, remember?”
He could just see Charles’ lopsided grin by the dashboard light.
“Of course I’ll spend the night.” Charles followed Harlan into his apartment.
They couldn’t play too hard because Harlan worked the next day, but Harlan pulled Charles down across his lap for a quick spanking, which left them both achingly hard. Charles sucked Harlan off, his dark eyes sparkling mischievously the whole time. They lay curled together on the bed, Harlan stroking Charles until he came with a hoarse shout.
Harlan was tired after the dinner, and he quickly started feeling sleepy. Charles relaxed against him and started snoring softly.
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T. Strange
T. Strange didn’t want to learn how to read, but literacy prevailed and she hasn’t stopped reading—or writing—since. She’s been published since 2013, and she writes M/M romance in multiple genres, including paranormal and BDSM. T.’s other interests include cross stitching, gardening, watching terrible horror movies, playing video games, and finding injured pigeons to rescue. Originally from White Rock, BC, she lives on the Canadian prairies, where she shares her home with her wife, cats, guinea pigs and other creatures of all shapes and sizes. She’s very easy to bribe with free food and drinks—especially wine.
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