Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different) Read Online Free Page A

that would have freaked her out a lot more, but now it almost made sense. Her mother had always claimed her hometown was hard to find but always right where you needed it to be. Maybe it had been more than a nostalgic turn of phrase.
    “I’ll see you soon, Grand-mère. Now I can find the way. I couldn’t before.”
    “You weren’t ready. And neither was he.”
    Up until now, things had been relatively linear and sensible for a dream, but suddenly Cara found herself naked, swaddled under furs, and getting freaky with the most gorgeous specimen of masculinity she’d ever seen or dreamed.
    Since it was a dream, she got a bird’s-eye look, which she couldn’t have if this had been real.
    Long, straight black hair, bronze skin, the cheekbones of doom. He looked pure First Nations, only his eyes, instead of the dark brown she’d have expected, were amber.
    Body of a god.
    And oh my, cock of a wild stallion and the strength to just pick her up and toss her onto her back so he could sink that cock into her hard and fast. It was a claiming, but she was opening to him, rising to meet him, claiming him right back.
    She arched, stiffened, cried out…
    And woke to an empty bed, clutching a pillow that still smelled like Phil. She was wet, her nipples almost painfully hard, but she buried her face in the pillow and wept.
    For Phil and what they’d had.
    For what they hadn’t had.
    For the doubts she’d never dared to express about their future, about the sense that much as she loved her calm, gentle, geeky accountant, they were growing apart. That the routine she thought she’d craved wasn’t going to work for her.
    If she had expressed those doubts, would Phil still be alive? He’d been waiting for her outside an all-night diner when the carjacker got him. They’d planned to meet after her shift for a four a.m. breakfast since they’d been on different schedules that week. If he’d been single, he’d have been safe in bed.
    She wouldn’t have the burden of guilt, of knowing that if she hadn’t lingered a few minutes too long after her shift, Phil wouldn’t have been waiting near the diner alone.
    And she wouldn’t need to feel so wretched she felt closer to her dream lover than she now did to her dead fiancé.

Chapter Five
    “So if duals and shamans are both children of Trickster, how come we’re probably the only two dual shamans in the world? You’d think there’d be more of us, including butt-loads of coyote dual shamans.”
    Jack cocked his head at his distant cousin. Raised in the US as a human, Rafe Benedict was still learning how to be a dual. Discovering he was something even more complicated than a dual raised as a human had left him semipermanently boggled. The confusion made Rafe Mr. Cranky Cat sometimes, with everyone except his partners Elissa and Jude, and their baby Jocelyn. But his odd perspective meant he asked excellent questions.
    It beat having Ben asking the same questions over and over again. Little brother wasn’t dumb, but he just couldn’t wrap his head around magic.
    “Well, there might be three of us. We won’t know about your daughter for a long time.”
    “Maybe even Trickster doesn’t want too many of us around? Scared we’ll take over?”
    “Maybe scared of me,” Jack said, puffing himself up a little. Even with his furside in, he could do that. “You, not so much yet. You’re a great guy and a halfway decent cougar, but you’re pathetic as a shaman.”
    Predictably, Rafe smacked him. He deserved it.
    Jack poked at him. “You didn’t even have a healing crisis.”
    “I was too busy dodging bullets to notice it.” He poked back. “Besides, Grand-mère says you didn’t have one either. Must be a cat thing.”
    “I’ll show you cat thing.”
    Jack started to let his cougarside out. Rafe took the time to slip out of his clothes.
    Despite pausing to undress, Rafe was fully in cat form before Jack was. Rafe had some aspects of being a cougar down pat. He changed as