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 would 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.