Excerpt:

Looking at the jackrabbit made Kammi’s mouth water as he thought about the meal he could make out of that creature. It had been far too long, a voice in his head nagged. No one ever took this long to find their spirit animal. Something was wrong, so he might as well eat and pack up and go home. Or at least just eat and rest a while. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but he longed for a good meal.
After another moment of hesitancy, Kammi pulled out his bow from where it was strapped to his back and plucked one arrow out of the bundle tied around his thigh. He lifted it and took aim. He squinted his eyes for focus and pulled the string back taut. He took a deep breath, and—
And something happened that Kammi could not describe. The rabbit grew. At first he thought that a larger animal had pounced on the rabbit and he let go of the arrow. It flew straight and true and Kammi heard a cry and he found himself staring at—he couldn’t describe exactly what it was.
The animal had the shape of a man but its face was—was—a jackrabbit. It had long ears growing from the top of its head and pads on the undersides of its feet. It was sitting down on the ground wincing in pain—its nose and muzzle were elongated and had whiskers—grasping at its thigh, which was bleeding around the arrow. It was covered in tawny brown and black speckled fur.
When it looked up, Kammi caught his breath. The eyes weren’t dumb like an animal’s, they were deep and dark and expressive and full of pain.
“Kammi,” the creature gasped, and Kammi realized, coupled with a quick glance at its groin, that it was male. He felt sick.
“You—you—” he stammered. “You—you’re my—my—”
“I am your shomin maj,” the creature said. He winced and his voice was laced with pain.
Kammi shook his head. “You’re a rabbit,” he said. “There’s no way this is right—and you’re male? What is this? There’s a mix-up, there is no way—”
“Kammi, please!” the creature begged. “We can’t stay here, I’ll explain everything, but we have to go, now—they’ll have heard me—”
“Heard you?” Kammi asked. “What are you… no, no, we’re not going anywhere until you tell me exactly—” His jaw dropped as something dawned on him. “Can all of you—do that? Look like humans?”
“I don’t look like a human,” the jackrabbit snapped. He winced again and tried to stand, but couldn’t. He grasped the base of the arrow and pulled.
Kammi felt a jolt of pain shoot through his thigh and he almost fell down in shock. “What—”
The jackrabbit was almost crying as he stood up and held his hand out. “We have to run,” he choked. “I was hiding from them and they’ll find me, and that can’t happen, I need to tell your people what has been—”
At that moment, there was a loud cry from their left, coming from behind the mound. It sounded like a war cry. Kammi spun and pulled another arrow up to his bow.
“Kammi, don’t—” the jackrabbit shouted and lunged forward, but Kammi let go just as a shape crossed over the horizon.
Something fell with a thud and rolled down toward them. Kammi looked down and saw—he didn’t know what it was. Below the waist it looked like a giant snake. Above there was the torso of a man, all covered with scales, right down to the fingertips and where the fingernails should be. Its face was flat, almost, and it had a large flap of skin behind its head which was spread out on the ground. It was a spirit animal. It had to be. Kommi looked up at the jackrabbit in confusion, and the jackrabbit was looking at the dead body in equal parts grimness and pain. “We have to hide,” he said. “Others will be coming, it’s too late for this one…”
“Wait, whose was it?” Kommi demanded.
The jackrabbit’s eyes were scanning the slope behind Kammi and suddenly they widened. “Duck!” he yelled, and he lunged forward and grabbed Kommi by the shoulders and pulled him down to the ground. Kommi heard a loud screech and then felt himself tumbling away down the slope. He caught himself on a bush and looked up for a moment to see a form that was blacked out by the sun standing over the jackrabbit and striking him. The jackrabbit was suddenly gone—or rather, Kommi realized, he had changed back into his animal form, and took off running as fast as he could with the injured leg.
“Loniik!” Kommi yelled. “Loniik!” He realized that he knew the jackrabbit’s name. Loniik. And he was in trouble.