Mateo, a jaguar nagual descended from Mayan shamans, attends the Northern Nevada Con-fur-ence furry convention to hide in plain sight. Who will look twice at a long, black tail and inhuman yellow eyes when there are neon huskies and dancing dragons around? There Mateo meets Dazi, a mountain lion skin-walker who is at the con with friends from his Shoshone-Paiute reservation. They want to find out if the furries are close to stumbling across their tribe of shifters. When these two big cats rub up against each other, their cultures collide in a way neither Mateo nor Dazi could predict. But Mateo has trouble being entirely human around his alluring new companion, and Dazi puts his tribe at risk when he reveals their secrets to an outsider. Can Mateo and Dazi overcome their natural secretive and bestial instincts to find their purr-fect ending?

Beasts Like Us

Mateo shook his head. “Never mind, I’ll ask you when you’re human again.” He snatched up his clothes and the rest of his food and hurried into the bathroom. His sheet drooped in the back, so Dazi could see the patch of fur above his tail. The more Dazi got used to it, the cuter it seemed. He purred, allowed himself one last stretch and roll on the floor, then focused on returning to his human skin.


The first thing he did was reply to Kesi’s text. Mostly talked about him. He is trustworthy, from what I’ve seen. We’re coming back now. You three can get to know him, and leave the rest of the tribe to me.What, exactly, he was going to do about the rest of the tribe, he didn’t know yet. He did know that the responsibility was his, and because of that, he would determine Mateo’s immediate future. If he couldn’t do something, it meant harsh punishment for both of them.


“I hope I know what I’m doing…”  4


Chapter 13