Bluz: Culinary Creatures, #3

By L Eveland

No one cooks like Gaston, and I'm hungry like a wolf.

 

Eight years ago, I missed my chance to be with the love of my life. Now, Gaston is back in town to rescue his pack's troubled bar and grill, Bluz. He's keen to rekindle things between us, but I've still got the blues over how it all went down before.

Gaston's got a whole life out west full of fast cars, fancy dinners, and famous friends. He claims he's ready to settle down, and that his wolf has chosen me, but I'm just a country boy, a drifter. Gaston is refined and cultured. I don't fit into his elegant lifestyle, even if our nights together have been sizzling hot.

His wolf wants me, and I want him, but I'm running out of time to decide. Can I put our troubled past behind me before I lose him forever? Or will our relationship finally go up in smoke?

Bluz is a smoking hot and sticky sweet second chance MM romance between an anthropomorphic werewolf and a visually impaired blues singer. This third installment of the Culinary Creatures series can be read as a standalone, and features a delicious BBQ recipe for you to try at home!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grim Cat Press LLC
• Release date: Feb 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223222347

Book preview

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Copyright © 2023 by L Eveland

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact [e-mail].

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

NO GENERATIVE AI TRAINING USE. This author expressly prohibits using Bluz in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text, including without limitation, technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as Bluz. L Eveland reserves all rights to license all uses of Bluz for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

Author note: No AI was used in the production of Brimstone or its cover. This author supports living human artists.

Book Cover by Delaney Rain

1st edition 2023

Please report typos directly to [e-mail] or fill out this form.

If you're reading this, sit. Stay. Good human.

Contents

Special Thanks

Content & Trigger Warnings

Dear Monsterfuckers,

1.One

2.Two

3.Three

4.Four

5.Five

6.Six

7.Seven

8.Eight

9.Nine

10.Ten

11.Eleven

12.Twelve

13.Thirteen

14.Fourteen

15.Fifteen

16.Sixteen

17.Seventeen

18.Eighteen

19.Nineteen

20.Twenty

21.Twenty-One

22.Twenty-Two

23.Recipe: Pulled Pork

24.Teaser for Book 4

25.From the Author

26.Also by L Eveland

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A huge shout out to the superfans who help make projects like this one a reality: Jocelyn Adams, Jolie, Catherine Hale, Kim Franke, Charee Beatty, Caitlyn Colby, Taylor Kennedy, Sarah Rukhsana, D.R. Perry, S. Leigh Sparks, Lacey Sutton, and Kyleen Valleaux.

If you'd like to get early access to all my work, you can join the fun and get exclusive extra goodies on my Ream page. Ream is a subscription service similar to Patreon, but designed by readers for readers. Check out my page at: ReamStories.com/LEveland

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All efforts have been made to list content and trigger warnings below, as well as the kinks mentioned and displayed in the book. If you feel I missed something, please do not hesitate to reach out to me by email: [e-mail]

Content, Tropes, and Kinks in This Book:

MM romance

Explicit sex

Pansexual rep/coming out

Second chance romance

Dual point of view

Knotting

Fated mates

Improvised gags and restraints

A furry werewolf tail with a mind of its own

Snowballing

Felching

Cum/spit play

First times

Miscommunication (resolved quickly)

Poverty

Flooding/storm damage

Homelessness

Class difference

Best friends to lovers

Size difference

So much dirty talk

Sweet southern human and his gentleman werewolf

Progressive blindness/visual impairment of a main character

Brief mention of homophobic parents

Found family

Vers awakening

Demi human, Pan werewolf

Dialect Note

Greyson Boggs is a Kentucky boy who speaks the Appalachian dialect of English, which may be different from what you’re used to reading. The author, a native Appalachian, has chosen to preserve Grey’s unique voice and dialect by sometimes including grammatically incorrect constructions, contractions, and colorful idioms in Greyson’s POV chapters. This was done intentionally to allow Grey to tell his side of the story the way he wanted. (He was very insistent. Sorry, grammar nerds.)

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Dear Readers,

The Culinary Creatures series takes place in an alternate earth universe in which monsters evolved alongside humans. Humans make up only a small subset of Earth’s population and have since the beginning of time.

Other than small differences, such as the founding fathers being mostly minotaurs, werewolves, and tentacle monsters, and a brief disaster involving that time NASA experimented with sending werewolves to the moon, their world history is relatively similar to our own, albeit slightly more idealized.

This is an MM romance between an anthropomorphic werewolf and an old-fashioned country boy who sings the blues. Regional Appalachian dialect is used throughout. Please see the note on dialect for more information.

Gaston appears in the two previous books in the series as the maître d’ at Brimstone. You don’t have to read Brimstone or Beefcakes to follow the events of Bluz, but you should if you want the full story!

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I tapped out a rhythm on my guitar, sitting against a chain length fence in the sweltering Kentucky summer heat. The worn black case sat open at my feet, the last of my change resting inside the velvet-lined interior. The perfume of car exhaust and asphalt baking in the morning sun filled the air.

Perfect weather for the blues.

No one was around as I counted out the beat, but they’d come. They always came. I couldn’t see them, but I’d hear their feet a’scuffling down the sidewalk, and I’d feel the air cool as shadows fell on me. The air would sweeten with cologne or sweat or perfume, and change would fall like sweet rain, enough to buy me dinner, a drink, and maybe a bed to sleep in.

At least, that’s how I hoped the day would go. And if not, at least I had Simon.

The old border collie huffed next to me, reminding me he was there, so I reached out to scratch his ears before plucking the strings. I plucked through a few random bars before settling on something low, slow, and dirty as the street corner I was sitting on.

I let the guitar do all the work until it felt right to add my voice. I wasn’t what you’d call a talented singer. My voice was too raw and scratchy, like an old record. The guitar had to carry me, but I was all right.

Footsteps crisscrossed in front of me, busy folk shuffling to places they didn’t want to be. I used the steady beat as my percussion, counting out a one, a two, a five-six-seven-eight while the guitar cried into the humid morning, conveying all the words I couldn’t.

I sang about the places I’d been from the deep dark hollers in rural Georgia to that summer I rode the rails all the way down to New Orleans. I sang about the south, about crawdads and creeks, collard greens and running from the law. The words came with no effort, shaken free from where they rattled around in my head with no pre-planned pattern. To call them lyrics would be a disservice to the great lyricists like Billie Holiday and BB King. Now that was talent. I was just some bum with a beat in his toes and the blues in his heart.

Change plunked into the guitar case on the regular, but I barely noticed once I got going, the clapping worth more to me than if someone had dropped a gold bar at my feet. Some folks’d argue that’s what was wrong with me. No business sense. I’d played the bar scene, had stages that catered to hundreds. Once upon a time, I thought that was what I wanted, the love and adoration of thousands. Instead, I’d learned all too late that the one person whose heart mattered the most to me was already out of reach.

Guess it’s true. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

So I played with my heart, and if that meant I had nowhere but a bench to lay my head at night, so be it.

Greyson?

My fingers fumbled on the strings, losing the beat. The notes in my head fell from the staff I’d been visualizing and the song ended on a terrible note.

That voice. It was a cool drink of water on a hot day, the bite of an olive at the bottom of a martini, the warm spice of a home cooked meal wafting on the air. Familiar and exotic at the same time.

It couldn’t be him—not after all these years—and yet if my heartache had a twin, he could be standing right in front of me.

Greyson Boggs, he insisted. "It is you!"

Shoes scuffed over the sidewalk, the kind with nice heels, the kind meant for funerals and dance floors.

Simon found his feet and let out a warning growl, fur hackled.

I placed my hand on the dog’s haunches, burying my fingers in his coarse fur, but it wasn’t Simon I spoke to.

Gaston? My voice came out wrong, cracked. Worn thin like a tire that’d seen too much road.

Hey, yeah. Damn, man. It’s good to see you. Do you… I mean, are you…

I smiled, trying to calm my racing mind and heart. This was real. He was here, right in front of me.

I stuck out my hand, and he took it in his, his skin warm and inviting. His werewolf claws scraped gently against the palm of my hand. Fingers coated in velvety fur closed around mine in a friendly greeting that felt like an exhale I hadn’t known I’d needed. Forgotten feelings fluttered in my chest, the flame on an old candle springing back to life.

I kept my tone casual as we traded grips. What are you doin’ in these parts, Gaston? I thought you were out in Hollywood at that big shot restaurant. Hellfire or somethin’.

Brimstone, he corrected. And yeah, I’m still working there. Just came back to see to some pack business. You know how it is.

I did, and the whole thing left me with a sour taste in my mouth. The pack was everything to a werewolf like Gaston. Humans like me, we’d always be secondary, and I’d never be able to stomach being second best to anybody when it came to Gaston. Call me selfish, but I wanted him all to myself.

Yeah, I said, slightly straining to get the word out. I bet.

His hand retreated into the foggy ether, but he didn’t walk away. So you’re still playing, huh? You’re good. I mean, you were always good, but damn. You’ve gotten better since I last heard you play.

Oh, well, you know. I let go of Simon, who’d settled but was still on alert, and plucked a few strings. I been all around. Played jazz down in New Orleans for a bit. Busked in the Big Apple for a summer. Took a Greyhound bus up to Detroit and played there long enough to earn my fare back here. They say there ain’t no place like home, but home is where you make it, you know?

I feel that, he agreed, and I imagined him bobbing his head. Hey, I know this is kinda sudden, and feel free to say no if you’re busy, but you wouldn’t want to grab lunch or anything, would you?

I chuckled and strummed the guitar. Afraid I ain’t much for fancy dining these days, Casanova. I gotta sing for my supper.

My treat, he offered. For old time’s sake.

I hesitated, thinking hard as I played a few more notes. People often bought me food, setting it down next to me in greasy bags out of pity. I despised pity. I’d rather go hungry than be fed out of pity.

But Gaston wasn’t that type. At least, he didn’t use to be. People changed, and werewolves were no different.

Tell you what, I said, tapping the guitar. You can buy me lunch, but I ain’t letting you spend over twenty. And you gotta feed Simon, too.

Simon gave a happy bark, tail thumping against the sidewalk.

Deal, Gaston said.

Beaming, I fished the change out of the guitar case, neatly folding the bills before pocketing it all. Gaston waited patiently while I put the guitar to rest, slung the case over my shoulder, and fixed up Simon’s harness.

When I stood, gripping Simon’s harness handle firmly, Gaston asked, Do you want me to guide you to my car? It’s in the parking lot across the street.

That’d be fine, I said and did my best to hide how much I’d been hoping he’d offer his arm. Simon could escort me just fine, and I had my trusty cane, but I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to hold on to Gaston. Not on my life.

His furry knuckles bumped against mine, letting me know where he was. The butterflies in my stomach swooped low as I felt my way up a powerful forearm and a muscular bicep. The rest of him matched what I could feel. I was sure of it, even if I didn’t have enough vision left to verify it with my eyes. I didn’t need to because I could feel that he was built like a god, and I remembered it too. The image of how he’d looked the last time I saw him eight years ago was still burned into my mind, fresh as the morning sun.

Curb, he warned, just before we came to it. Watch your step.

We passed into the street, the sound of a bus idling loudly off to my right. The smell of sunshine on blacktop intensified briefly before Gaston warned me of another curb and I carefully stepped up. The radiant noise changed, becoming more claustrophobic. Taller buildings muffled the hiss of the bus’s air brake off to my right and left. Though I couldn’t make out more than a mosaic of blurry colors thanks to my left eye, I knew we were just a hop, skip, and a jump from downtown. I’d chosen the spot to be close enough to get foot traffic without having to deal with being run off by the cops. They wanted me to have a permit or something all the damn time, which I was pretty sure didn’t exist.

Hope you don’t mind fur on the back seat of your rental, I said as we walked down the sidewalk. Simon’s shedding pretty good.

Hope they don’t mind it in the front seat either, he quipped. In this humidity, even I’m shedding.

I grinned, casually moving my hand up his arm past the elbow to cop a sneaky feel of his muscular bicep. Must be pouring a lot of fancy wine at Brimstone to get guns like these, eh?

Gaston laughed. I do all right. Here we are. Can Simon ride with the harness on?

Yep. Long as it’s on, he knows he’s workin’.

The back door clicked open, and I scooted forward enough to pat smooth leather. The inside of Gaston’s rental smelled like pine, lemon, and leather. Damn good. Simon hopped up into the seat, panting, and Gaston opened my door for me, taking my guitar case when I offered it to him.

I’ll put this in the trunk, if that’s okay? he said.

That’d be just fine. I sat in the front seat and closed the door.

Behind me, Simon let out a whine.

None of that now, I muttered, buckling in. Don’t you go gettin’ jealous on me, Simon.

I was pretty sure dogs couldn’t roll their eyes, but Simon’s huff was about as close as it could get.

So, I said, when Gaston climbed in, where you takin’ us?

I was heading out to Bluz on business. Figure it’s as good a place as any for lunch.

I frowned at that. The Bluegrass Pack owned the little Bourbon and Barbeque joint over on Shelbyville Road, but I hadn’t been back there since…

Not since the night Gaston had told me he was leaving for L.A. The night everything changed and he broke my heart into a million little pieces. Did he even know? Probably not. I didn’t even think Gaston was gay. Just like me to fall for my hot, straight best friend.

But that was why they invented the blues, wasn’t it? Maybe I couldn’t cry about it, but the guitar? She could weep all night long for the both of us.

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