Many thanks to author Devyn Quinn for providing four signed copies of her new shapeshifter romance, Soul of the Wildcat, for me to give away!

With the wild vibe of Kate Douglas’s Wolf Tales and Lora Leigh’s Breed series, award-winning author Devyn Quinn’s Soul of the Wildcat makes shapeshifter magic.

Wreathed in mists that are older than time, the mountain sanctuary of Jesse Clawfoot is threatened, and an ancient magic transforms him into a cougar. Ferocious. Powerful. On the prowl and lethally silent—until his instincts compel him to hunt for a mate, one who will help keep his people from extinction. His keen senses lead him to Dakoda Jenkins, whose beauty and compelling sensuality awaken his deepest lust and most ardent desire. Once aroused, Jesse must lure her to his hidden lair…and unleash her wildest passion…

Don’t forget to read the excerpt from Soul of the Wildcat at this end of the post!

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“Hmph. Didn’t we already have that talk about no other cats on the blog, wild or not?!” -Chaos

Chapter 1
Binoculars pressed to her eyes, Dakoda Jenkins watched the cougar pace the confines of its cage. Sinew and muscle strained as the cat fought against captivity. Blood chilling screeches poured over dangerously bared fangs.

Her breath caught at the raw beauty and power exuded by the large, tawny, long-tailed feline. By the size of it, the sleek cat was a male. The sound of the cougar’s roars rippled across her ears. A hot flush prickled her skin as her heart sped up, filling her mouth with a sultry tang. A slow trickle of heat pooled inside her core. Something about the cougar’s enraged power drew her in, exposing and then scraping her nerves raw.

Heart missing a beat, Dakoda shifted her focus toward two men working around the cougar. Awe turned to anger. There were times when her job sucked.

Today was one of those days.

Dressed identically in faded jeans, flannel shirts, leather jackets and military style hiking boots, they were in the process of loading the cougar’s pen onto a travois fashioned between two pack horses. It didn’t take an expert to recognize both men were clearly accustomed to surviving in the harsh mountainous terrain.

Swallowing thickly, Dakoda lowered her binoculars before glancing toward her partner. Watching the lustrous cat fight so valiantly for its freedom was painful to watch. The strain of keeping still, of not rushing to defend the cougar, made her teeth ache. “Is that really what I think it is?” she whispered in a hushed, low tone.

Lowering his own specs, Ranger Gregory Zerbe nodded. “What you are seeing is the real thing, the puma concolor cougar.” He took a longer look, barely suppressing the low whistle slipping past his lips. “Magnificent. It’s a perfect specimen in every way.”

Dakoda carefully slid her binoculars back into their protective case. She didn’t want to look again. The sight made her sick. “Then it is true. The Eastern cougar is making a comeback in these mountains.” A little thrill went through her at the thought. This was much more than she’d ever bargained for when she’d signed on as a Ranger Cadet working in North Carolina’s South Mountains State Park.

A recent graduate of the program, this was her first assignment as a full fledged State Park Ranger. She’d worked hard to be assigned to resource and protection management, primarily what veterans like Gregory Zerbe called the P-patrol. P stood for poachers; those idiotic assholes who preyed on the land’s natural resources with the intent to destroy.

Zerbe made another affirmative motion with his head. “Reports of the cougar’s presence have been coming in since the Wildlife Resources Commission sent in a team to verify the cougar’s reemergence from extinction a couple of years ago. Thanks to their findings, the even more land outside the state park’s holdings is now earmarked by the government to be preserved.”

Back and legs cramped from squatting behind the heavy foliage shielding them from the cougar thieves, Dakoda mentally willed herself to overcome the discomfort and remain rooted in place. One false move would blow everything.
If those animal-snatching bastards managed to take off on horseback, there would be no way to follow them on foot.

“That must make the local natives happy,” she commented in an attempt to take her mind off her discomfort. The territory directly abutting the state park belonged to the Tlvdatsi, a tribe of the Cherokee Nation. Though she’d never personally encountered any of the Indians on her patrols, she was aware the natives guarded their land and its boundaries very closely. Fiercely proud and protective of their heritage, they were not inclined to let strangers onto their property. The reservation was closed to outsiders, but even those safeguards didn’t stop those determined to commit illegal acts from trespassing.

You can read the rest of this unedited excerpt at Devyn’s website!