The Cougar's Trade by Holley Trent

heads-up.”
    “Wait—one more thing. The thing Miss Miles told me to check up on.”
    Hank stared across the bed at her. She sat with her knees curled up under her chin once more and raised her eyebrows.
    “You mean about their road-tripping?”
    “Yeah. You don’t have to worry about any imminent Nicky snatches because their whole crew is riding out to Tulsa for a double wedding, I think they said. Should be gone four or five days.”
    “I pity the fools who’d marry any of them.”
    “They’re not all bad. Just…well…some—no, well, the vast majority of them. Okay. All of them.”
    Hank wasn’t going to argue that. The Foye brothers had always had a hands-off policy when it came to Coyote women. Mason had slipped up with Jill in a moment of weakness. “Thanks for keeping your ears open. Go on home and get some sleep.”
    “Did I do good?”
    Hank laughed. “Yeah, you did. You’d better show up to work on time tomorrow, though. I’m not getting between you and Mom’s anger, so you’d better be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, too. She said something about moving the herd.”
    “Ten-four.” Darnell disconnected.
    Hank set the phone on the dresser and let out a breath. “I guess Darnell fancies himself to be a special agent.”
    “Like Inspector Gadget or Perry the Platypus?”
    He chuckled and rubbed his eyes. “Shit, probably a mix of the two.” Knowing Darnell, he probably really had gone out and found himself a secondhand trench coat and a fedora, or at least a trilby. It wasn’t like he had any hobbies besides drinking and catting around—literally—so he probably had himself a damn good time playing the snoop.
    Hank returned to his spot on the bed and tucked himself back in. He lay on his back, looking at the bumps his feet made under the covers. “Think you’ll be able to get back to sleep?”
    “I don’t know. That was a pretty full waking.”
    “Cougars don’t tend to suffer from insomnia.”
    “Even at night? Aren’t cats nocturnal hunters?”
    “I can’t speak for most cats. Were-cougars this far north don’t hunt much in general. Jungle cats do. It’s harder here with so much natural competition.”
    “The Coyotes?”
    “And the occasional Wolf. Yeah. Our inner cats assume that the human part of us will get us fed eventually, and they will fast unless they have no choice but to hunt.”
    “You’re not in control when you’re in your cougar form?”
    “Depends. It’s kind of like talking to yourself. You kind of have two consciences, one man and one beast, and they’re always arguing. Usually, they entwine and act harmoniously in whichever shape we take, but sometimes one is louder than the other.”
    His cat was doing a damn fine job of scratching its way to the surface at the moment.
Shut up and let me get closer to her
, it thought.
    “Must be busy in your head,” she said softly, as if just saying the words would break him.
    Shit
. She was going to have to learn to be a lot more assertive, and fast, or he’d never be able to take her anywhere Cougars would be. They’d question him about her, wonder why she was so passive.
    “It can be. It’s just something you get used to from the time you start shifting at puberty. It’s gradual. Doesn’t slam into you all at once.”
    “Still must be scary, knowing your body is going through such changes and dreading that first time you shift.” She rolled onto her right side, face half-buried in the thick pillow so only one bright eye was exposed. “Does it hurt?”
    “Shifting?” He shrugged and fluffed the pillow under his head. “I remember I used to think it did, but I think we all learn to compartmentalize the pain. Plus, the more we do it, the faster we are at it.”
    “Do you heal faster than the rest of us?”
    “If we shift, yeah. The cells repair themselves in between one form and the next, but that’s assuming our beast halves are cooperative. Sometimes we can argue ourselves out of shifting. Shifting