title: Passion's Pride
author: Silverrain, Mahogany
description: The Maya jaguar shifters have lived in the Sonoran Desert of Sonora, Mexico, for hundreds of years away from human eyes. However, their home is threatened by the building of a food and bakery manufacturing plant in Alamos, Sonora, owned by Groupo Susteno, a corporation that Rosa Carrillo, head of the Carrillo Cartel in Chihuahua, Mexico is a board member. She and her twin brother, Javier plan to use it as front for drug trafficking into the United States. It will make the quiet, colonial town of Alamos, Sonora, one of the safest tourist spots, just as dangerous as Chihuahua, with its high murder count. Alejandro Aapo Cadmael of the La Avana jaguar shifter tribe, is the son of King Gabor Cadmael, who is training him to lead the tribe and help him choose a worthy queen. Alejandro has other plans though, he prefers to hang around the music and art loving humans in Alamos, and play his guitar. Regina Hightower is a human conservationist from Tucson, AZ who has a special ability to communicate with animals. When she arrives in Novajoa, Sonora on her way to Alamos for the ten day Alfonzo Tirado Arts and Music Festival, she gets more than she bargains for when a luggage mix up puts her in danger with three drug coyotes who work for the Carrillo Cartel. They think she has stolen five million dollars in cash from them.When Alejandro has a premonition of Regina's fight with the drug coyotes from thirty miles away, he rushes to Novajoa to save her. Regina is holding her own, even breaking the nose of one of the drug coyotes, until one of the men holds a gun to her head. When Alejandro knocks the man out cold, saving Regina, he takes her on the run to keep her safe from the cartel and they fall in love. However, when Alejandro's father dies in a shootout with the cartel enforcers and mercenaries, it forces Alejandro to become the new king. Now that Alejandro is a king, Regina doesn't feel she would make a worthy queen. With the help of an unlikely ally, can this reluctant jaguar king lead his people, protect his homeland and make Regina, a human, his queen?