Hello and welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where writers from a wide range of genres share from their work in excerpts of ten sentences or less.

I’m sharing from Wild, Jacqui the Cat Mysteries #4. Jacqui, a cat shifter in a world that doesn’t believe in them, is trying to figure out how to make life in the ordinary world, with an ordinary boyfriend, work.

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Jacqui lifted one bare foot from the cold concrete patio and wriggled his toes, then the other. With September came the chill northern winds whipping down the Salish Sea, bringing in salty air from the harbor and a smoky smell of wood stoves burning all across the island.

Must shift.

Jacqui was excruciatingly careful about when and where and for how long he turned into Cat these days. He never appeared in daylight and kept to himself. Wyatt, in his well-meaning way, had attempted to relocate Cat, or Satan, as Wyatt called him, to the “wilds” of San Juan Island’s southern shore area. Jacqui had found his way home in a day or two, but hadn’t let Wyatt, or anyone else, see him in his feline form since. The villagers were out to get him, to cage him and maybe even put him down, just because he was half caracal and therefore a threat to the local ecology, or some such nonsense.

We’ll make it a quickie. Shift, explore the hood, check out the new cat, and be safely tucked under the covers before Wyatt notices we were gone.

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Wild: Jacqui the Cat Mysteries #4 coming soon! Blurb-in-progress-

Jacqui Corleone has finally met his fated mate (Newsflash: it’s Wyatt), but unlike a romance novel, reality has other plans. The dog men are back, and along with their slobber and bad manners they bring new danger to Jacqui’s life, and to Wyatt’s.  Jacqui meets other cat shifters for the first time and is tantalized by a glimpse into their strange new world.  Only cats aren’t much nicer than dogs, and soon Jacqui must choose if he’s going to run again, or stand and fight against an enemy more powerful than he ever imagined. And that’s saying a lot.