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

Tommo raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Narwhals?”


“Nah-hual,” Mateo corrected. “At least that’s how most people know them, if people know them at all. They’re sort of the Mesoamerican version of the skin-walker.”


Suddenly everyone tensed. Kuhma’s head darted side to side in miniscule movements, his ears twitching and his eyes looking at every person around them. Kesi bunched her shoulders defensively. Mateo’s heart sank. He wanted to tell them he wasn’t about to blow their cover, but there was no way to reassure them without digging himself further into this hole.


Chapter 14