What Are They Eating

Are you hungry? I’m afraid you’ll remain so even after Squirrel Circus 😆 There isn’t a lot of food in this story. We have Jyran who’s a squirrel shifter, and squirrels misplace about 75% of the nuts and seeds they gather before they get to eat them. It’s true.

But Gideon is a wolf shifter, so there’s a little hope there, right? And he owns a nightclub where he has a fellow wolf shifter working as a cook, so there is food, it’s just they seldom get around to eating it.
In true squirrel fashion, Jyran likes nuts…

Humans couldn’t smell him and know what he was. They didn’t want to kill him because he liked nuts. Damn, he wanted nuts.
He got up and checked the mini bar. No nuts. He’d moved them. Tiptoeing over to the dresser, he opened the top drawer and stared at the empty space in the corner next to his slacks. Hmm. Had he moved them to the bathroom? Had he put them in the bathroom cabinet? Yes, he had! He silently opened the bathroom door and opened the cabinet. Nope.
Rubbing his forehead, he went to the shoe rack where he had several pairs of dress shoes in different shades of black and brown. Pushed into the toe of his favorite pair of dark brown monk strap shoes was a bag of cashew nuts. He stared at the bag. Where had he put the peanuts?
It didn’t matter. He’d find them later and put them somewhere where he could find them more easily.

Jyran lives with his best friend, Adara, who is a vampire. There is a scene when she eats, but I wasn’t planning on including it. Blood is blood, right?

But for context here, squirrels are hunted and often attacked by other shifters, but while Gideon jokes about smoked squirrel sandwiches, the most important thing is nuts… at least if you’re a squirrel.

Adara stared at him. “What do you mean?”
He sighed and grabbed a shirt from the closet. He might be a shifter, but he preferred to be dressed. “If you’re gonna take down a bear or a pack of wolves, you need to plan. A squirrel? They walk past me on the sidewalk and pounce. It doesn’t take any planning. It’s no big deal to them. I’m the appetizer before they get to the main course. No one would attack a bear who used to work for you to get to me. It’s too much work.”
He reached for a pair of plum pants. He could pull off a plum-colored three-piece suit. Grinning, he pulled the pants off the shelf and frowned as a bag of peanuts fell to the floor. Oh, nice. But had he put them there? He couldn’t remember touching the plum-colored suit in weeks, except when he moved it from his suitcase to the shelf. He must have, though.
“It would hurt me greatly if they got to you.” The panic shining in Adara’s eyes made him pause.
“Oh, thank you, babe. I’d be devastated if something happened to you, too.”
“No.” She was in front of him in a blink of an eye. “I don’t only mean I would mourn you—which I would. It would wreck me to lose you. I mean, you’re the one who keeps everything afloat. I know you hate moving around. I know you hate the planning, the double-checking, the triple-checking, the phone calls, the bookings, and so on, but without you, I’d get nowhere. If someone wanted to sabotage me, all they’d have to do would be to get to you.”
Jyran stared. “What?”

When they finally get around to eating more than nuts, it’s sandwiches.

Jyran said goodbye, placed the phone on the table and put on the shirt before reaching for the phone again. Before he could call Justin to make sure he was okay, Gideon pushed a sandwich with ham and cheese into his hand.
“I’ll get the coffee started, but you have to eat before you do anything else.”
Jyran wanted to inform him he’d survived fine without him for the last six years, but Gideon was right. He had to eat. He should have eaten yesterday, but he was too busy throwing a fit.
As he crammed the last of the sandwich into his mouth, he scrolled to Justin’s number and hit call. One signal after the other rang through, and Jyran reached for his underwear, well aware of Gideon watching his every move. He swallowed, so he’d be able to speak when Justin picked up.
The sound of a call connecting had him straightening, then, “Jyran?”

Squirrel Circus

squirrelcircus

Can you forgive being rejected by your mate?

For as long as Jyran Pechman can remember, he’s dreamed about finding his soulmate. As a child, he lost his family, and he’s been moving around ever since. He hates it, and he wants nothing more than to have a home. A mate. A place to belong.

Gideon Everett might have dreamed about the day he’d find his mate, but his mate was never an unorganized, nut-hoarding squirrel shifter in those dreams. Wolves eat squirrels, so when Jyran walks into Gideon’s bar, he throws him out and tells him he wants nothing to do with him. He has a reputation to think about, and he will not be known as the wolf who mated a squirrel.

Being rejected hurts more than Jyran ever imagined, and he swears never to set foot in Gideon’s bar again. After the initial shock, Gideon is almost sure he made the right decision. Almost. What if he made the wrong decision? Now when he knows his mate is out there, can he live on as if they’ve never met, or does he have to … ugh … apologize?

Release day: January 21st

Preorder: JMS