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

Dazi realized he was being left behind and hurried to join his friends, who were already admiring the fan art. Some pieces looked like doodles from a middle schooler’s notebook, others were as realistic as photographs. What struck Dazi was how many were titled along the lines of “Self-Portrait.” Besides wearing fursuits or similar costumes, this was how people showed the world what they wanted to be. Dazi wished he had paid more attention in that art panel the day before. He felt inspired, yet inadequate compared to the works surrounding him.


Chapter 35