Free Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different) by Teresa Noelle Roberts

loups-garous. Grand-mère and some of the other elders are trying to figure out which. Basically, either one is a magic-user who’s gone far into dark magic, enslaving an animal form for his own use, like a shell over their real bodies. Skinwalkers are corrupt shamans. Loups-garous are sorcerers who traffic with demons, but it’s the same notion.”
    “That kind of thing happen a lot around here?”
    “That’s the even spookier part. Most people can’t find this place unless they’re supposed to be here. We were outside the village boundaries, but the protections should have warned them off. And another thing?”
    She nodded, trying to hold all the bits of information in her head in hopes she could piece them into a coherent whole, or at least a usefully chaotic one.
    “They shouldn’t have been working together like that. They’re not a wolf pack. They just look like wolves. Someone got them organized, someone strong enough to organize either shamans or sorcerers. Shamans aren’t joiners, and sorcerers are too pigheaded for teamwork.”
    “Word.” They’d had one sorcerer on the force, in the paranormal crimes division. Great investigator, methodical, brave and something close to a genius, but he’d ended up quitting and becoming a PI because he couldn’t work as part of a team. And he’d been a good man. The not-so-good sorcerers were probably even less cooperative. “Any ideas?”
    “We’ll talk it over with Rafe and his family. Rafe was a cop in the States, and Jude and Elissa… Well, they don’t just think outside the box. They jump up and down on the box, use it for kindling and dig the ashes into the garden.”
    Which, she reflected, was a metaphor that could only exist in someplace like Couguar-Caché, with its strangely comfortable blend of eighteenth- and twenty-first century.
    Jack’s face contorted and he turned aside, racked with coughing. Suddenly he jumped up, ran to the door, opened it on an icy blast of air and, as far as Cara could tell, threw up.
    Concerned, she rose from the bed. As soon as she stood, a wave of dizziness struck. She sat down abruptly and called out, “You okay?”
    “Hairball,” he said when he could talk again.
    “Seriously?” It hadn’t taken too long to figure out Jack was a tease, and despite, or even because of, the dark mood, she wouldn’t put it past him to make up something absurd.
    “Seriously. Shifted too soon after grooming. I felt dirty after that fight. Still do, in fact.”
    “Me too,” she admitted. “I didn’t even touch those things, but I could use a bath.”
    “Me too, even after grooming. Of course we might have to share. Heating up water’s a lot of work this time of year.” He leaned closer.
    He’d dropped the blanket when he bolted for the door. Technically, he was dressed—at least, all the most interesting bits were covered—but the shredded jeans and exploded shirt exposed a lot of velvety bronze skin and sculpted muscle.
    Cara tried to look away.
    He gently but firmly pushed her face back toward him. “If you want to stare, stare. Lesson number two: denying harmless impulses makes good chaos turn bad.”
    “The trick is figuring out which impulses are harmless.”
    His hand was burning her face. She’d have a print of Jack’s hand on her jaw before long, from the heat of his touch.
    She moved his hand away with her own, the one where she still wore her engagement ring. She tried to focus on the ring. Phil had been dead less than six months. Her body might be ready to jump into something, but it was too soon. Wasn’t it?
    The contact surged through her like a jolt of electricity—a cliché, but it seemed appropriate. Every cell in Cara’s body went on alert. She heard distant music. Not angels singing, more like the bom-chicka-bom-bom soundtrack of a vintage porn movie, but it fit the erotic promise in that simple touch that, she suspected, hadn’t been intended to convey more than generic, instinctive