Between States

The year is 1863. Caleb Chilson is a private in the Confederate Army, currently camped in the Virginian woods. Most of his time is spent on picket duty, on the lookout for a Yankee attack. But when the moon is full, he manages to slip away from the encampment and into the woods to become something a little less than human. Imagine his surprise when he meets another werecat like himself. The only difference? Brance Brenneman wears a Yankee uniform.

Wounded and hurt, Brance is a loner by nature, gruff and grumbling, who doesn't want anything to do with Caleb...at first. The younger bobcat prevails, and starts to win Brance over, until they turn human again and find themselves on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Contains the stories:

Under a Confederate Moon-Bitten as a teen, Caleb now suffers through a painful transformation from human to bobcat a few days each month. As a bobcat, he leaves behind his camp and fellow soldiers to explore the night. But a gunshot and the bright scent of fresh blood draws him to a clearing where he learns he isn't the only one of his kind.

Beneath a Yankee Sky-Brance and Caleb leave the war to forge a new life in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. But trappers near their camp are hunting bobcats, and they don't much care if Brance and Caleb are "in the fur" only part of the time. Brance finds his peaceful existence shattered, and he has to fight to defend the life-and the bobcat, the man-he's come to love.

A More Perfect Union-Brance has gone into hiding with his lover, Caleb. Deserters intent on keeping to themselves, they find a nice, sparse acre of land where they can finally settle down. Life falls into domesticated routine for both the brooding Yank and the excitable Rebel. Together they struggle to create a more perfect union forged of love and their shared shapeshifting secret. But the discovery of another bobcat encroaching on their territory threatens to destroy what they've worked so hard to attain.