Excerpt from Jaguar at the Portal
Your preorders spurred me to write fast, so Jaguar at the
Portal is currently at the copyeditor's and will go live within the next
couple of weeks! In the meantime, here's a (non-copyedited, possibly
typo-ridden) excerpt from the beginning, which is going to be part of the Paranormal Romance Blog Hop.
(Authors, click on the picture to see how you can join the tour.
Readers, click on the picture July 14 to read lots of great excerpts!)
***
Ixchel
always dreaded May 3, but not because she worried about growing old.
No, the twenty-seven year old was more afraid of never getting the
chance to see her next birthday than of sprouting gray hairs.
Which
meant she usually ended up running into doors on her birthday due to
excessive over-the-shoulder looking in search of brothers who had
every reason to wish her harm.
And, yet, nothing
bad has happened for the last nine years, Ixchel
reminded herself at dawn as she and Mr. Fuzzy set off for his morning
constitutional. The coddled spaniel had been in her charge for five
days now while his owner was on vacation, and the veterinarian had
quickly grown attached to the borrowed bundle of fur. She'd even
gotten to the point where she'd deemed the dog attentive enough to
run off-leash...assuming they set out the back way and stayed far
from any roads, that is.
Now
the dog bounded ahead just out of sight, and Ixchel hurried her steps
to catch up as she heard him begin to bark. It would be just her luck
if Mr. Fuzzy got skunked or otherwise ended up in trouble that would
make the vet look bad when his owner returned that afternoon. Nothing
like failing to take care of the mayor's dog to turn a newcomer to
the community into the county pariah.
Ixchel
wasn't terribly concerned, though. After all, Mr. Fuzzy liked to bark
at squirrels, birds, and even run-of-the-mill trees that the dog
thought were looking at him funny. So, most of the vet's attention
remained focused on self-chastisement. Today is just
another day, she told herself.
It's high time I got over my jitters.
Ahead,
Mr. Fuzzy came into view, his front paws resting on the trunk of a
spreading elm tree as he yapped up into the canopy. Treed
another butterfly, have you? Ixchel
thought with a grin. But she still did her best to bring the dog to
heel. "Here, boy!" the vet called, before craning her neck
to see what the spaniel had discovered.
Oh no.
This
couldn't be happening. Not in the safest place Ixchel could think of
in which to sink her roots. Her practice was rural enough that the
vet couldn't see any neighbors out either the front or the back
doors, but the building wasn't located deep in the back country. So
there really shouldn't have been a tremendous black feline crouched
on that branch. Maybe if Ixchel blinked, she'd realize that Mr. Fuzzy
had simply treed a raccoon.
Nope,
still there. Still a mountain-lion-sized cat whose fur seemed to suck
light out of the morning air due to the intensity of its blackness.
"Mr.
Fuzzy, let's go,"
the vet called, trying to keep her voice calm but instead hearing the
words emerge as a shriek. She wasn't sure what kind
of creature the huge black cat would turn out to be, yet she was
pretty sure the feline could eat her charge for dinner.
But
Mr. Fuzzy was too intent on the hunt to listen to his temporary
mistress, and the feline appeared to be growing annoyed at the
spaniel's persistent barking. So Ixchel stood frozen in place and
watched as the cat stalked down one of the spreading limbs. It was
now nearly at the trunk and only ten feet above the smaller animal's
head.
This can't be
happening!
Ixchel
told her feet that the smart thing to do would be to run away, with
or without the cuddly-but-not-overly-bright spaniel. Mr. Fuzzy was
only a dog, after all. And if the vet walked any closer, she would
likely be mauled by the sharp claws that she knew to be embedded in
the feline's dinner-plate paws.
But
Mr. Fuzzy was the closest thing Ixchel had to a friend at the moment.
And how sad is that?
Plus, she really didn't want to imagine the bad PR resulting from a
dog she was boarding being eaten by a cat. So, instead of following
her own advice, the vet instead found herself striding directly
toward the spaniel and lunging for his collar.
At
the same moment, the cat jumped down and landed lightly on its feet
mere inches from Ixchel and her borrowed pet. The beast's eyes were a
yellow more intense than Ixchel had ever seen on a living creature,
and they seemed to bore through her skin and into her soul.
Focus.
What did they say to do if you meet a mountain lion in the wild?
Stand tall and raise your arms so you looked bigger than you really
were, maybe. Or was that the recommended procedure for scaring off a
bear?
Neither
option seemed like a possibility when Mr. Fuzzy continued to think he
was a rottweiler trapped inside a lap dog's body. The canine lunged
forward, the feline hissed, and Ixchel found her disobedient feet
following directly after those of her charge.
Her
heart was beating so fast the vet thought she might pass out, but she
was somehow able to latch one hand into the spaniel's collar before
he could sink his teeth into the massive cat. Ixchel yanked Mr. Fuzzy
up into her arms, ignoring his yelp of annoyance at being manhandled,
then she forced herself to stand upright rather than turning and
running away.
The
vet fully expected to feel claws or teeth sinking into her skin at
any moment. But, instead, the tremendous feline merely stood his
ground and gazed directly into her face.
That makes no sense,
the vet thought inanely. Feral cats never look you in the
eye.
But
the cat was looking.
And he was so close that if Ixchel dropped the struggling Mr. Fuzzy,
she could have reached out and stroked the feline's fur.
Yep, I'm definitely
going into shock now.
"I'm
sorry we bothered you," Ixchel said in her best
soothe-the-terrifying-animal voice. "That was very rude of Mr.
Fuzzy, and I'm going to take him right home and put him on bread and
water. No doggie treats for him! You won't have to worry about either
of us bothering you ever again."
As
she spoke, the vet slowly backed away, her gaze still trained on the
wild animal that could so easily bite off her hand. And why
should he stop at a hand? The
words ran through her mind like a hamster in a wheel. The
cat's jaws are so huge he could probably consume my entire arm in one
gulp and have room for a hot-dog chaser.
Then,
so quickly that Ixchel almost didn't see him move, the cat turned and
loped off into the shadows beneath the trees. Immediately, Mr. Fuzzy
changed his tune from barking to face-licking, marring the vet's view
of the long black tail disappearing from view. And Ixchel remembered
how to breathe at last.
Could it really be
that simple? Could the feline actually be gone?
Lifting
the hand that she'd been using to pat the brave little spaniel in an
attempt to calm him, Ixchel fingered the cat charm strung around her
neck. Yes, birthdays weren't to be trusted. It was time to head back
to her practice and hope that nothing else terrible happened on this
third day of May.
***
Are you hooked? If so, Jaguar at the Portal is available for a limited time at 99 cents. Snag your copy now and it will be auto-delivered to your kindle when the book goes live. Thanks for all of your support!
