Feral by Sheri Whitefeather

lure her back to the club and become part of his strangely erotic life.
     
     
     
    In the middle of the night, Noah awakened in a state of confusion. He hadn’t dreamed since he was mortal. But he’d just had one that involved Jenny, and it wasn’t even sexual. He could’ve dealt with that. In fact, he would’ve welcomed it.
    This was something altogether different. In his dream, the magic stones the Seminole called sapiya had been hopping around on the ground and talking to him about Jenny.
    He frowned into the dark. According to their message, he was supposed to show Jenny the beast that was inside him, to let her know the truth. Only the stones didn’t explain their reasoning. They just kept insisting that he needed to do it.
    Of all fucking things.
    As a child, he’d been taught to respect the sapiya , because if you didn’t, they could turn on you, if they so desired, and create bad magic. The way Noah saw it, he was screwed either way.
    He stayed awake contemplating his dilemma, and by morning he was pacing his apartment like the caged hybrid he’d become.
    Agitated, he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.
    Twenty minutes later, he sat across from his accountant in the other man’s high-rise office. In this environment Coyote was Stanley Truxton, a young, clean-cut CPA. But he was actually a shapeshifter, the same as Noah. Only Coyote was a trickster who wore a fake mask at the club instead of shifting into his half-animal form.
    “What’s going on?” Coyote asked.
    Noah explained the details of his dream.
    “Wow. You’ve gotten yourself into quite a predicament. Are you going to do it?”
    “I don’t know. But what damned difference does it make when you go around spouting that the rumors are real and claiming to have proof?”
    “Don’t turn this around on me. You know darn well that I only do that to have a bit of fun. Besides, hardly anyone at the club takes anything I say seriously. Most of the groupies think I’m a dweeb.”
    “Because you are.”
    The accountant laughed. “Isn’t it a kick? A clever guy like me being a dweeb?”
    Noah rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know why I’m confiding in you.”
    “Who else are you going to talk to? A brainless werewolf or a flower-pollinating fairy? Or better yet, how about one of those snappy alligator shifters? Personally, I wouldn’t trust those creatures as far as I could throw them.”
    “Look who’s calling the kettle black.” The only thing Coyote didn’t screw around with was his clients’ money. But Noah had known him a long time, and they were friends. Or as friendly as two detached beings could be.
    “I wonder why the sapiya put you in a position like this?”
    Noah scowled. “Hell if I know. All I want is to have a raging affair with her, and now those stones are digging a grave in my mind.”
    Coyote sat back in his chair, a view of the city framed in the picture window behind him. “Maybe Jenny is supposed to save you.”
    “What?”
    “You know, like ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”
    “That’s the goddamn dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
    “Actually, it’s a lovely story. At the end Beauty saves Beast by telling him that she loves him.” Coyote waggled his fingers. “Then—poof—he turns back into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after.”
    If the other man didn’t already have such a scrawny little neck, Noah would’ve choked him. “I’m not a cursed prince, and this isn’t a fucking fairy tale.”
    “It was just a thought.”
    “Not to me.”
    Coyote tapped his chin. “What if the sapiya create bad magic for Jenny? What if they turn on her instead of you?”
    “Why would they do that?”
    “Why wouldn’t they? She was in your subconscious when they came rolling into your dream. She’s just as much a part of this as you are.”
    “Shit.” Noah wasn’t going to willingly let something bad happen to her, and since he couldn’t go back and undo that damned dream, he was