Hello and welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where writers from a wide variety of genres share from their work in excerpts of ten sentences or fewer.  After several days of near 100 degree temperatures, I’m wrung out, and really wishing I could go somewhere else. But right now, that still seems like a faraway and unlikely dream. Thank goodness for fiction, and the stories that take us away and let us travel even when we’re stuck.  So let’s pop on up to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island and join Jacqui on his midnight prowl.

I’ve been sharing from the first chapter of my upcoming release, Wild, Jacqui the Cat Mysteries #4. In this scene, Jacqui in his cat form has encountered a mysterious stray, who doesn’t act like the other domestic cats he’s encountered before.

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Jacqui slinked up all stealthy-like, to get a good look before the ruffian fled in terror.

The strange cat seemed to be mesmerized by the front of Jacqui’s apartment building. Jacqui scanned it, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The nesting birds were all fast asleep. Ironically, because the neighborhood cats avoided the general area, the trees in front of Jacqui’s place had become a kind of bird refuge; a cruel trick of Mother Nature, designed to test his peaceful, non-bird killing human tendencies to the limit.

The cat turned, spotted Jacqui, and immediately went into a full, I’m-too-scared-to-run arch, accompanied by an ear-splitting yowl.

Relax, Jacqui thought at the beast, but if mind-to-mind communication existed between cats, he had yet to discover how it worked. Body language worked better, so he sat down and yawned.

The other cat remained locked in position, but at least it stopped screaming. Jacqui looked away, to give the poor thing an opportunity to flee.

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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 a new level of 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.