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

“Thank you for waking,” his grandfather said. Neither of them truly spoke, but there was an understanding of words between them. “Your father is worried. He hasn’t heard much from you.”


“I’ve been occupied.” Mateo gestured for his grandfather to see with him. “I made new friends. They will interest you.”


The pair looked over the darkened hotel room. Through their spirit eyes they could see, not only the sleeping Mukua’poan, but their puha as well, beside them and inside them simultaneously.


“Ah, yes.” Mateo’s grandfather smiled. “I have sensed their kind before, though they walk outside our territory. Men with souls clothed in animal skins. Interesting, as you said. Why did they come here?”


“Curiosity. Fear. They think the furries want their power.”


“A reasonable fear. One I expressed to you before your first trip.”


Chapter 44