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

Chief Werama stepped out from behind his desk. He peered into Mateo’s face. “Your eyes didn’t change at all,” he remarked. “Interesting.”


My grandfather may have the same to say about you, if you two ever meet.


“Can you understand me?” the chief asked.


“I take it you cannot use human speech in this form?”


“Very interesting.” Chief Werama sat on his desk, surveying the jaguar before him. Though he kept a calm fa?ade, Mateo could smell his wariness. Dazi was barely hiding his own anxiety. His scent was sour with sweat.


Three nervous predatory animals gathered in a small room together, each one scared of the others. Terrific.


Chapter 51