Jaguar at the Portal — Aimee Easterling

She's fleeing from her past. He's hunting for his future.

When her five older brothers fall into a life of crime, Ixchel loses her parents in a drive-by shooting at the age of eighteen. For the next decade, the young woman works hard to create a refuge for herself far from the dangers of the outside world. She lands a veterinary degree, opens up her own practice, and settles into a life filled with animals instead of people. Little does Ixchel know that her cocoon of safety is about to be invaded from an unexpected source.

Finn may be the only were-jaguar currently in existence. After spending his childhood in feline form, the shifter thinks nothing of stealing rare artifacts from mundane humans in order to make a living. But when he stumbles across the rumor linking an ancient Mexican jaguar-god to an archaeological site not far from Ixchel's practice, the shifter can't resist searching for clues to his heritage...clues that turn into a gunshot wound and a trip to the nearest veterinarian in search of illicit stitches.

It sounds like a classic case of boy-meets-girl, boy-holds-girl-up-at-knife-point, boy-and-girl-fall-in-love. But Finn's shooter is hot on the couple's trail, and the two also find themselves saddled with a petulant and increasingly powerful god who demands their help to break a two-thousand-year-old curse. As a result, what should be a honeymoon-like jaunt through the ruins of pre-Columbian Mexico turns into an action-packed chase through moonlit forests and across crumbling pyramids.

In the end, each member of the unlikely pair must make a decision that will change their lives forever. Will Ixchel allow herself to be drawn back into the criminal underworld that killed her parents? And will Finn overcome his lone-cat tendencies in time to admit Ixchel into his confidence? The vet and the were-jaguar had better figure it out fast because if the two don't learn to work together, they'll soon lose the game that has turned into a struggle for survival.