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

“What did you mean about his ‘order’?” Kuhma asked.


“Avian,” Mateo replied, coming back closer to their group so everyone could hear him. “He’s a bird, she’s a mammal. Granted, she’s one that could’ve ripped him to shreds like a real coyote with a duck, but there’s one universal signal among animals and furries: if I’m bigger than you, or trying to be, back the fuck off.”


Dazi nodded. He made a mental note of that. From what he had observed today, Dazi surmised that fake-skins followed the unspoken laws of animals more than they did the general rules of human society. Oddly enough, he figured this meant he would be safer reacting with his bestial reflexes than his human suspicions. He closed his eyes and silenced the outside world, or did his best to, at least.


Chapter 24