by Marie Harte
Dean chuckled, and even Burke choked on a laugh.
She had mere moments to see Grady naked, however, because as soon as he shucked his underwear he went down on all fours, and she had to lean over the table to watch. He seemed to shimmer, his tanned flesh growing brighter and then softer as skin became fur, joints realigned and a tail formed. His eyes, as they stared at her, turned a brighter gold, the pupils slitted in what appeared to be a cat-like face. It seemed to take forever, but in mere seconds Grady had disappeared, replaced by a mature male cougar.
Rachel forgot to breathe as she stared at a freaking cat person, one of her aunt’s favorite Shifters in the many tales she liked to share. Rachel didn’t know what to say, and could scarcely believe what she was seeing.
“He’s real,” Burke said softly. “Go ahead and touch him. He won’t bite.”
Rachel stood slowly and walked around the table to…Grady? His tail swooshed along the floor where he sat waiting, his eyes unblinking. She glanced again to Burke, afraid and excited and disbelieving all at once.
Burke pushed back his chair and crouched with her in front of Grady. He lifted her hand and placed it on Grady’s head. “Go ahead, honey. Feel him. It’s Grady in there. We’re feline Shifters, catamounts. Better known as cougars or pumas.” He pressed his warm hand over hers, pushing her fingers along Grady’s soft coat.
“Oh my God.” She stared at their hands, then at Grady’s half-closed eyes. When he began to purr, her gaze shot back to Burke. “You did that. After…when we…at the alley. You purred.”
“I did.” Burke caressed her hand before letting go. “I was very content.”
His sexy drawl gained her body’s immediate response, and Grady tensed under her hand. She immediately stilled, unnerved when Dean approached and stood behind her, boxing her in.
“You see, Rachel, it’s like this,” Burke began, licking his lips as he stared at her. “You and Charlotte are a lot alike. Neither of you cast a scent. Or at least, you don’t unless you’re aroused. And at least three times since you’ve been here you’ve set me off like a rocket. You accused me of taking advantage of you in that alley to get Charlotte’s land. Honey, I hate to break it to you, but I’m helpless when you’re turned on.”
Grady nodded, an odd sight, seeing a big cat nod in agreement.
“We all are,” Dean added. “It’s been so long since we’ve had a female feline.”
Rachel swallowed around a dry throat. All this talk of turning her on was doing just that. Grady pushed his head under her hand, forcing her to stroke between his ears and under his chin.
“Cut it out.” Burke pushed his huge head away. “Quit rubbing all over her. She’s mi—” He broke off just as he glanced back at her. “Sorry. Grady can get a tad possessive.”
Behind her Dean snorted.
“What did you mean before when you talked about marking a female?” She wanted to know, as much as she didn’t want to know.
Dean answered. “Marking a female means you accept her as one of your own, as part of a pride or clan, a family unit. Shifters are born, not made. So marking is very, very rare. But every now and then, an Ac-taw like you comes around. A person who can choose her beast.”
“My inner beast,” Rachel said, remembering her aunt’s words.
“Yes. That inner beast is your animal soul calling out to you. That you can choose from any you encounter speaks to your power over the totem. That and the fact you project no scent. You’re a very powerful woman, Rachel. And we would be honored to mark you as ours.”
She couldn’t explain the rush she felt hearing that, but she still didn’t understand. “As yours? What exactly does that mean?” Had they marked Maggie, too? But Maggie was married to Joel, so maybe it wasn’t a sexual thing.
Burke helped her to her feet and settled her back in her chair. She watched in awe as Grady stretched and changed back, then dressed again.
“A mark is a sign of belonging.” Dean sat next to her. “We—” he paused to motion to his brothers, “—are each marked as part of this pride, a group of Shifters led by catamounts. Joel and Maggie are marked as ours too, though they’re not cats. Marking isn’t the same as mating or joining.”
“Huh?”
Burke shook his head. “Dean, you’re making a muck of it. Let me explain.” He turned to Rachel. “A mark is a subtle scent other Shifters can smell. It lets everyone know who’s loyal to whom. Though in Cougar Falls, all the clans pretty much have an affinity to the town. Our pride is the most diverse, because we don’t care what breed of Shifter we accept.
“We mark by scent in a variety of ways. We marked Maggie and Joel over time, allowing small measures of our hormones to cover them. Completely painless and nonsexual, I promise you.”
“As if I’d make it with a bear,” Dean muttered.
“Bear?” Rachel’s mind felt sluggish. “But Maggie’s so small.”
“No. Maggie’s mostly human. Maggie has a touch of Ac-taw still in her that lets her see Cougar Falls when others can’t. Joel’s the bear.”
“Okay.” It was starting to make an odd kind of sense. Rachel stared at Grady, still trying to place him on the floor with whiskers and large teeth. He winked at her.
“Marking can be sexually done, but it doesn’t have to be. Joining is sex, pure and simple.” Burke stared hard at her and cleared his throat. “And then there’s mating.”
“As in Shifter marriage,” Grady explained. “It’s permanent and very spiritual. And the sex is to die for, or so I’ve heard.” His gaze wandered over her body suggestively, lingering on her breasts.
Rachel crossed her arms over her chest defensively, trying to protect her body from Grady, as well as her lust from growing out of control around the dangerous Chastells. Burke apparently read her discomfort because he shoved a hard elbow into Grady’s gut. Grady flashed long sharp teeth in what sounded like a hiss, but before they could distract her, Rachel pressed for more information.
“So you guys wanted to mark me? Why?”
Burke looked pained by the conversation but he answered her. “You haven’t chosen an animal soul yet, Rachel. And you’re so feline, it’s killing me. We would have you as one of us, to strengthen our clan.”
“And because you’re hot as hell,” Dean offered.
“Shut up, Dean.” Grady growled, rubbing his belly.
Rachel didn’t know what to think. “So, ah, there are other Shifter ‘clans,’ is that the right word?”
“Yeah. You met two of the silver fox clan today, Gerald and Ty, the sheriff. We have bears, catamounts—us—some eagle and raptor clans. And then there are the wolves.” The way Burke said “wolves” she knew they weren’t particularly well liked. “I fought a few of them in the alley earlier. And there’ve been wolves prowling around your place looking for the totem the past two weeks.”
“What?” Those hairy thugs were wolves? Funny, she’d have thought they’d look more polished and graceful.
“Yeah. The gray wolves really want to start a breeding town here. To that end, they used to pressure Charlotte a lot when she first moved here. My parents held them off, then we did when we took over.” Burke looked uncomfortable but he maintained eye contact. “Rachel, we did want, and still do, the land back that Charlotte owned. It was in our family for years before one of our idiot relatives lost it in a bet. But we’d never do anything to force you to sell. We kind of liked Charlotte near us. And we take pride in the fact that we were her protectors.”
“Just like we’re now your protectors,” Grady added quietly.
She felt their stares and glanced at Burke helplessly. He wasn’t the bad guy she’d first thought. He was a bona fide myth walking on two legs, or was that four, who wanted to protect her. Good Lord. What should she do about that?
“I want to help.” And she did. She hadn’t seen much, but she trusted what she’d seen, and she listened to her instincts. They hadn’t failed her yet, and had she heeded them in the first place, she never w
ould have married Jesse… Funny, but thoughts of him after what she’d seen didn’t matter much anymore.
“And we want to help you. What can we do, Rachel?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. My aunt didn’t tell me anything useful about the totem.”
“What did she say, exactly?” Burke asked.
Rachel flushed, distinctly remembering her aunt’s thoughts about what to do with Burke. “She told me to forget about my loser ex-husband, to find my inner beast, and …”
“And?” Burke’s gaze intensified.
“And to take my responsibility for the totem seriously.” As if she was going to tell him her aunt wanted them to marry after hot, wild sex. Embarrassing.
“Right.” Did Burke sound disappointed?
“What did she tell you?”
“To protect you and to help you in any way that I can.”
“So how do we do that?”
Grady held up a hand. “I think we should start with Rachel’s beast. You need to get in touch with yourself first. Charlotte was always preaching that to me.”
“Yeah. So.” Dean paused. “You want us to mark you now or later? Maybe some lunch first for strength?”
“Dean.” Burke rolled his eyes. “Give her some room to breathe, okay? Rachel, it’s a lot to digest. How about we go for a walk and I’ll show you around? You can see Charlotte’s, I mean, your house from on top of the hill near the eastern cabins.”
Rachel nodded and stood. “Some air would be nice.” Looking at Grady and Dean, she clearly read their disappointment. But honestly, she didn’t know what to think about what she’d been told. Marking? Mating? Ac-taw that were real? And why couldn’t she stop thinking about what Burke would look like when he shifted? About how hard his muscles would be under her palm before his skin turned to fur?
Burke couldn’t help a quiet sigh of regret that Rachel hadn’t taken Dean up on his offer to mark her. Though her scent was tamped, his arousal kept building the longer he was around her. She just kept getting prettier every time he looked at her.
She’d taken their news well, so far that he could tell. The only glitch on this morning was the knowledge she’d been married. He’d bet the ranch her ex was the business partner she’d spoken of with bitterness. Some asshole who didn’t appreciate a woman like Rachel didn’t deserve her.
They walked outside along the spring, the deep grasses, wild flowers and honeybees a symphony of nature that couldn’t compare to Rachel’s feminine beauty.
“So you were married huh?” Dumb, Burke. Real dumb.
She frowned but nodded. “Three years. He cheated on me, I left, and he tried to bilk me out of our joint business assets and every dollar I’d broken my back to earn.”
“What a dick.”
She blinked at him and smiled, a genuine grin that made his heart pound with desire. “Truer words were never spoken.” They walked in silence a few moments before she said, “How about you? Ever married? Been heavily involved? It wasn’t Sarah Duncan was it?”
“Hell no.” Horrified at the thought, he caught her nasty chuckle. “Funny. No, it wasn’t Sarah. You blasted me for talking down to her, and maybe I deserved it. But that woman will not take no for an answer. She’s been bugging me for years.”
Rachel stared. “No kidding.”
He flushed, feeling stupid. “I like sex. It’s just that for me, it has to be with a person I care about.” So why did you take Rachel up against a wall? A woman you’d just met? He quickly hurried the topic. “I’ve never been married. Never found a woman I wanted to commit to. We Chastells marry for life. No infidelity, no divorce. Sounds corny, but we marry for love. Always have. And hopefully always will.”
“That sounds lovely.” Her voice was thick, and when he turned to her, he saw tears in her eyes. “I should have waited. Every instinct told me Jesse was wrong for me. Even Aunt Charlotte told me to forget about him. But I was lonely. My parents had just died and I felt so lost.”
He put an arm around her shoulders and they walked beside the stream. Being with her felt so right, as if he’d found the other half of himself long missing.
“I felt the same way when my parents died. Hell, they’d survived clan wars and a rash of poachers. Even land developers who made a real nuisance of themselves before I was born. And then they died in a stupid plane wreck.”
She squeezed his hand by her shoulder, and he squeezed back.
“I still miss the hell out of them,” he admitted. “Raising Grady and Dean through high school was a bitch, as I’m sure you can imagine.” He met her laughing gaze. “And the holidays are never the same. But I guess unlike you, I went in the other direction. Instead of looking for someone, I kind of hid back here at the ranch. I mean, who wants to find love when it can leave you in an instant?”
As soon as he said it, he realized he spoke the truth…and that he sounded like a complete, emotional asswipe.
Embarrassed, he turned her attention to an eagle cresting in the distance. But her touch on his face startled him into turning back to her.
“Burke?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” The kiss she gave him was nothing like anything he’d ever experienced. Full of promise, tenderness and affection, it pulled him deeper into the quagmire of emotion he didn’t want to feel for this woman, yet was helpless to deny.
Chapter Five
Rachel swore as she sneezed again. Damn, Aunt Charlotte might have dusted the attic at least once every ten years.
For the past week and a half, Rachel had spent every morning with Burke trying to figure out how to find the totem and every evening sifting through more of Charlotte’s stuff. Moving in had been easy. Rachel had no furniture, just a bunch of clothes and toiletries she’d brought with her. She still rented a small storage facility back in Chicago full of books and odds and ends from her prior life.
As much as she regretted some things she’d done, Rachel didn’t regret a single minute spent in Cougar Falls. She absolutely loved the town. Though she’d returned her rental car to the airport and knew she needed to find her own transportation, she’d found it easier to ride into town with Burke when he stopped by, which was at least three times a day. She couldn’t help the jolt of lust, and what felt like growing affection, every time she saw him.
Thoughts of Jesse paled next to remembrances of Burke. Rachel could drown in Burke’s eyes, and never got tired of his broad, sexy grin. Much as she’d tried to forget it, she could still feel him pounding against her in that alleyway as if it had just happened. And several times she’d felt on fire, as if she’d die if he didn’t make love to her. Fortunately, she’d been in bed during those instances, and she’d taken care of the problem herself. She flushed, recalling how often she’d had to do that during her brief marriage. Another sign Jesse hadn’t been “The One”.
She had no doubt, however, that life with Burke would be nothing so tame. A man like Burke would want sex often, and he’d want it hot.
Shit. Again with the libido. She fanned her chest and then said to hell with it. She was alone and in her home. The sun had set. Who would see her up in her aunt’s windowless attic? Shrugging out of her oppressive shirt, she continued to clean the attic, looking for any sign of instruction pertaining to the totem.
During the past week, she’d learned more from Burke and his brothers, and Gerald as well. Though, as the lawyer had stated, he refused to answer any questions she had about the totem, he told her a lot about the town and its inhabitants. Gerald was a silver fox Shifter. A “wily bastard,” as Burke often pointed out, and a ladies’ man. Gerald had been a perfect gentleman with her, however. Maybe due to the hissing and rumbled warnings Burke sent the man anytime they ran into him.
Dean and Grady still voiced their worries that she’d choose another clan to bond with. And they made it plain they wanted her. Maybe it was a power thing with the totem. Yet the looks they gave her, the ones that spoke of carnal hungers they’d love to assuage, made her won
der just what kind of sexual practices the catamounts observed.
Burke seemed the possessive type, but she remembered the sexual vibes coming off of him and his brothers that day at his house. She shivered at the thought. Three men who looked like the Chastells and Rachel? Wow. She could just imagine taking them all on, and had used the inspiration to cool her jets a time or two.
The temperature rose and she shed her jeans. Though it had to be around fifty outside, the attic sweltered. Thoughts of sex with the Chastells didn’t help any either, and she told herself to flat-out stop it. Focus, Rachel. Sex is not one of your priorities right now. She couldn’t help her wicked conscience that added, But it should be.
Taking a deep breath, Rachel stood and crossed her arms over her chest, staring around her. “Okay, Aunt Charlotte, help me out here. How do I find your totem and take care of Cougar Falls?”
Several times during her visits into town she’d seen more of the hairy, unkempt wolf clan loitering around. They threatened with just their presence, and they always seemed to be near when she walked anywhere. Gerald had noticed just today and remarked on the fact. But she refused to say anything to Burke, afraid he’d stop taking her into town. And come on, not being able to sample any of Millie’s ice cream was just plain cruel.
She felt Burke’s urgency daily, and wanted to find the totem as much for the town as for him. According to Burke, the magic in the relic would keep the wolves away, and those “pesky humans”. How the heck a piece of old wood could hide an entire town from society she didn’t know. But she didn’t understand shifting either, and she’d seen it with her own two eyes.
Sighing, she looked behind several boxes, glad she’d batted down the cobwebs and dust balls earlier. Rachel found a box tucked behind an old mirror she hadn’t previously seen and dusted the grime off the top. The cardboard ripped as she opened it, and she stared inside at old pictures. Interesting stuff, but not now, not when she had a mission to fulfill. If only that damned totem would turn up. No one had seen it anywhere on Charlotte’s property. It had just vanished from its position in a shaded glen when Charlotte passed away. Very, very strange. And her aunt had ordered Burke to help Rachel find the thing.
