Rebel Wolf (Shifter Falls Book 1) (6 page)

A
nna woke early
. The day outside her window was crisp and cold, the snow that had come yesterday finished, a thin, dry layer of white on the ground. She rolled over in bed, remembering where she was, and what had happened yesterday. Remembering the man who was somewhere outside her bedroom door.

She looked down at herself. She was still wearing Ian’s shirt—it was big enough to wear as a nightshirt, ending halfway down her thighs. It was soft and worn, and though she hadn’t wanted to admit it to his face, it smelled like him. Even to her human senses, she could tell it was his. She liked it.

She couldn’t afford to think that way, though. She was here for business, and he’d agreed to get started this morning. She heard soft movement in the apartment outside her door, and she caught a faint whiff of the divine smell of coffee.

She got up, pulled on jeans, and zipped up a hoodie sweatshirt over the t-shirt. She tied her hair back in a ponytail and opened her door.

The apartment was quiet, peaceful in the morning light. Coffee brewed in the kitchen, and Anna spied a fresh loaf of bread, some fruit, some hard boiled eggs on a plate. The coffeemaker rumbled as it did its thing.

“You’re up.”

She turned to see Ian sitting on the sill of the big window in the living room. He had been looking out of it, down over the street, but now he was looking at her. He wore a black t-shirt and a black pair of cotton drawstring pants. His feet were bare, and one long, muscled leg was propped up on the sill, his muscled arm slung over the knee. She could see the edge of his wolf tattoo emerging from the sleeve of the shirt. His hair was mussed, and the scruff on his jaw was a dark shadow, the short beard framing his mouth. His green eyes looked steadily at her, unreadable. He was relaxed and tousled and so utterly gorgeous she couldn’t say anything for a minute.

I saw him naked yesterday,
she thought, the memory of what he’d looked like coming unbidden into her mind.
I watched him turn into a wolf.

She swallowed. “I see coffee brewing.”

“Help yourself.”

“Do werewolves drink coffee?”

That made him smile, the picture heart-stopping. “Sometimes. This morning, we do. When we’ve just gotten out of prison.”

Right. She’d actually forgotten that for a minute. “How was your first night?”

“In my own bed? In my own place? Without a hundred other guys shouting and smelling the place up?” He smiled again. “Pretty good.”

“I’m glad,” she said. She walked to the kitchen and pulled out two mugs, since he wasn’t holding one. “It looks like Nolan’s wife made good on her promise and stocked your kitchen.”

“She takes good care of me,” Ian said. “Not that I deserve it.”

“I don’t know about that,” Anna said. The coffee smelled like heaven. “People seem to like you in Shifter Falls. You led me to believe otherwise.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “You have a way with drunk grizzly bears, at least.”

“You haven’t met my brothers,” Ian said.

“Are they anything like you?” Anna asked, crossing the room and handing him his steaming coffee cup.

“Sure,” Ian said. “They’re exactly like me.” He flashed her a look. “Just not as good-looking.”

“You’re flirting,” she said, her throat dry. “You’re not supposed to do that, remember?”

“I told you, I don’t flirt, I observe,” Ian replied. “My brothers really aren’t as good-looking as me. You’ll see.”

She took a sip from her own cup. “You think I’m going to meet them?”

“I guarantee it,” he said. “All three of them know I’m here by now. At least one of them will come find me. Maybe all of them.”

“Do you think they’ll try something?”

“To kill me, you mean?” He sipped his coffee and frowned, as if pondering this question was something he did every day. “Probably not today. But soon.”

“Why not today?”

He blinked at her. “You feeling bloodthirsty or something?”

“I’ve never had three of my brothers out to kill me before. I guess I just don’t know the protocol.”

Ian turned and looked back out the window, staring over the street. “They’ll want to scare me first, see if one of them can turn my loyalty. I’m still a Donovan brother, and I’ve never shown an interest in becoming alpha. If I throw my lot in behind one of the others, then I’m more use alive than dead.”

It all sounded so primitive, Anna could hardly believe she was still in modern Colorado, with the human world just a few hours away. “Would you do that?” she asked him.

He didn’t turn, didn’t look at her. “Never,” he said, his voice flat.

“So you will make a move to become alpha.”

“Never,” he said, and then he turned and looked at her again. “Puts me in an interesting position, doesn’t it?”

“If you don’t want to team up with your brothers, and you don’t want to be alpha, then what do you want?” Anna asked him. “Why are you here? Why did you come to Shifter Falls at all?”

“This is my blood,” he said. “This is my pack. Shifter Falls is my place. I lived homeless for years, and I’m done with it. Where else am I supposed to go?”

Anna didn’t have an answer for that.

“No one rules me,” Ian Donovan said, his voice a low, quiet rumble, determined and strong. “I don’t follow orders from anyone. No one forces me from my home. No one makes me run. I answer to myself, and my wolf. I refuse to turn tail and run from my brothers. From anyone. If I want to stay here, I stay. It’s my decision, and mine alone.”

Anna watched him, mesmerized.

“I hated my father,” he continued, “but there’s no denying who I am. I’m a Donovan, and this is Donovan land. I want to live here, to hunt, to run as my wolf, to live free as our kind have always lived. To find a mate if I can. To follow my instincts instead of rules. I lived in a cage for a year, and now I’m out.” He leveled his hypnotic green gaze at her. “
You
got me out. I owe you for that. But now that I’m free, Anna, I plan to stay free. If I die for it, it doesn’t matter. I’d rather die on my own terms, at the hands of my own blood, then live a life on the run and die at the hands of others.”

Anna thought of her own life. Boxed in—jobs, family, school, money. Her friends were starting to get married, have kids, get mortgages and car payments. It was supposed to be what she wanted. It was what everyone had told her to want, including her mother and her sister. And until now, she’d played along. “Shifters have fascinated me all my life,” she said.

Ian watched her, listening.

“I’ve never really understood why,” she said. “Humans… we see shifters as so far beneath us. Halfway to animals. We pretend like they don’t exist, like they don’t matter. We avoid places like Shifter Falls, as if our human ways are so much better. But I’ve always wondered if that was really true. Part of me has always wanted to see the world the way you do.”

“It isn’t easy,” Ian said quietly. “It’s the hardest way there is.”

“I don’t want easy,” Anna said. “I don’t think I ever have. My ex…” She swallowed, unwilling to think about Daniel, about the two years she’d wasted on him. “He used to call me Nerd Girl. It was supposed to be a joke, but he said it all the time. When I told him the idea for this project, he laughed at me—he actually laughed. He told me that what he liked about me was that I was so sweet and safe. He acted like he had all the answers.” She looked away, past him out the window, still angry just thinking about it. “He was sleeping with someone else for two months before I found out about it. I had to hear it from one of his friends.”

Ian was listening, absorbing every word. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Cheating is punishable in the shifter world. Even my father, who had the blackest heart there is, never cheated. Because to us, a man who cheats on his mate is not given respect. It isn’t considered his due.”

The moment stretched, and she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to lean in and feel his mouth on hers, the soft warmth of his lips, the scratch of his beard. She wanted to taste him. She wondered what it would be like, to be with a man who thought of women like that. She was starting to think it would be very, very good.

Ian cleared his throat. “You said you wanted to work this morning,” he said. “We should get to work.”

A
nna retreated
to her room to get her laptop, her notebooks and pens. She felt her cheeks flaming. She’d never admitted those things to anyone before. But he hadn’t seemed to mind.

She came back out into the living room just as Ian’s bedroom door opened. He had changed into jeans and a dark green long-sleeved shirt that fit his muscled torso perfectly, though his feet were still bare. He’d also put on a necklace of thin leather that disappeared into the front of his shirt. Anna wondered what it was. He hadn’t worn the necklace in prison.

She put all of her things on the coffee table and sat on the couch, pulling out her most important papers. “Like I said, we need to start with an interview,” she said.

Ian took his seat on the window seat again. She realized he probably felt safest when he had a view of the street. “Shoot,” he said. He’d picked up an apple from the bowl in the kitchen, and he took a bite.

After all this time, this was it: Anna had her very own werewolf to interview, all to herself. She looked over her list of questions. “I’d like to start with a broad analysis,” she said. “And I’d like to go over societal attitudes, and how the structure of shifter society differs from the structure of human society, and how those two structures are at odds in the larger realm of context.”

Ian looked at her. His green shirt made his eyes even more vivid, which was completely unfair. “I have no idea what the fuck that means,” he said, “and none of that shit is going to keep you alive. Instead, I’m going to teach you how to kill me.”

Anna blinked down at her papers. “I don’t—”

“Do you know how to kill a werewolf?” Ian asked.

She pressed her lips together and gave him a glare, reluctantly giving in. “I’ve read that a silver bullet does it,” she said.

He nodded. “That’s true. But it only works on the wolf.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the man and the wolf die differently. A regular bullet can kill the human. Only a silver bullet can kill the wolf.” He took another bite of his apple. “Do you know how to shoot?”

“A little.” Her older cousin had taken her to the shooting range a few times before she left for college, because he wanted her to be able to take care of herself. “But I don’t own a gun.”

“Neither do I,” Ian said. “No need. Silver bullets are hard to come by—they have to be pure to work, and most people who claim to sell them mix the silver with other metals. So if you want to defend yourself from a wolf, you have to know how.”

Anna sighed and leaned back on the couch. “Okay, how?”

“Here’s your lesson in how to kill a shifter,” Ian said. “You writing this down?”

“No, because it isn’t supposed to be part of my research.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, and then he started listing the ways she could kill him. “Knives are best,” he said. “We bleed out, both human and wolf, and we can’t recover from it. So if you can get close enough and dig in with the right blade, you can kill us. If you’re that close, and your knife is that good, and you aren’t already dead, then beheading is obviously your best bet.”

“Obviously,” Anna said.

“If you can’t get close enough for a knife, then bullets are a good second option. You can’t kill the wolf with the bullet if it isn’t silver, but you can put a hurt on him, get to him before he heals. You have to hit him enough times that he can’t kill you when you get close.”

“This is disturbing,” Anna protested. “I have no plans to either shoot or behead anyone, thanks.”

“Quiet,” Ian said. “None of this is in your textbooks, by the way, so pay attention. We don’t get diseases, animal or man, and poison doesn’t work on us, so that’s out.” He held up his apple. “This apple could be full of rat poison, and I wouldn’t even know. So don’t fucking bother.”

“Noted,” Anna said.

But her sarcasm went over Ian’s head. “Broken bones heal fast, because of our power to shift, so you can’t even hit us with a car or throw us down the stairs. To kill us takes violence. Blood. Every time. You can break the man’s neck, but you have to do it quick and with a lot of strength in order to kill him. Again, it won’t kill the wolf, but if you’re close enough to the damn wolf, you should put a knife in him quick, or he’ll rip your head off.” He looked at her. “You understand? To kill the wolf, you have to get close enough to look in his eyes, close enough for him to kill you first. There’s no other way.”

“And this has been scientifically tested?” Anna asked.

“You think it hasn’t?” Ian said. “Humans have been killing us for centuries, starting with the hunters in the eighteen hundreds. They came across the plains and killed our wolves every way they could think of. In the twentieth century, the scientists got hold of us. There were a lot of tests on shifters who were never seen again. So, yeah, one thing they know for sure about shifters is how the hell we die.” He stood up, crossed the room, and pulled something from a drawer in a table next to the door. “So, since you know what to do now if a shifter attacks you, this is yours.”

He tossed something long and black at her. Startled, Anna caught it, and realized it was a large hunting knife in a black leather holder. She unsnapped the clasp, tugged the handle, and looked at the lethal blade as it slid from the leather. It was a true hunting knife, one of the best ones she’d ever seen.

She shouldn’t carry this. She was a university student, not a hunter. She had no need for a weapon like this.

But she remembered those two grizzly bears last night. Massive, dangerous, out of control. What would she do if one of them—or something else—decided she was a target?

She looked up to see Ian watching her, assessing her reaction. “This won’t work on a grizzly bear,” she said.

“No,” Ian agreed. “But it’ll hurt him. That’s the bear shifter’s weakness—he has no tolerance for pain. You stick that in him, especially somewhere sensitive, and ten to one he’ll retreat, maybe long enough for you to make an escape. And if you get close enough, and you need him dead, he’ll bleed out like the rest of us. Or you get him in the eyes.”

Anna swallowed. “You really think a bear is going to try to kill me?”

“They usually aren’t hostile,” Ian said. “They’re not pack animals, and they’re not political. They eat fish and berries, and they don’t hunt. They’re dangerous when they’re drunk, like you saw last night. They haven’t taken sides, but Charlie is dead, and I don’t know the terrain here as well as I used to. You need to be ready for anything.”

Anna looked at the knife again. Then she looked down at her sheets of questions, which looked so silly and useless. “Do you carry one of these?” she asked him.

“No,” Ian said. “Like I said, no need. A shifter can kill another shifter. My wolf can kill anything. Even one of those grizzlies last night—my wolf could have fought them. That’s why I keep telling you to stay close. Because your best defense against a shifter is me.”

He was the biggest man she’d ever seen. She’d seen him run, jump into the air and shift. She’d seen the banks of solid muscle on his back and chest, the ropes of muscle on his arms and legs. He was gorgeous and sexy and masculine, but she was starting to understand that his body, his speed and violence, was how he’d stayed alive this long, defending himself on the fringes of his pack.

Alone. Always alone.

She opened her mouth to say something, but there was a knock on the door. Ian obviously scented who was on the other side, because he said, “It’s the bears from last night.”

She remembered him telling the drunk grizzlies to sober up and come see him in the morning. This must be that visit. Anna put down her knife and stood.

Ian let in two men. They were as big as he was, and very different. One had dark brown hair and a shaggy beard, like you’d imagine a bear shifter would look. The other was Native American, with black hair cut slightly long and smooth, muscled brown skin.

The white, bearded shifter looked unmistakably hung over. He ran a hand through his hair and blinked at Ian. “I’m really sorry about last night, man,” he said. “We got out of control. I’m Edgerton Tucker, and this is my brother, Quinn.”

If Ian wondered how a white man and a Native American man were brothers, he didn’t ask. “You sobered up?” he asked them.

“Mostly.” Edgerton noticed Anna, standing in the living room watching them, and blinked at her, startled.

“This is Anna,” Ian said, giving his usual line. “She’s with me.”

“You were there last night,” Quinn said to her.

When she looked closely at Quinn’s eyes, she recognized them as the eyes of the larger, black grizzly from last night.
I’m starting to recognize shifters,
she thought. She raised a hand and waved politely. “Hello.”

“Did we scare you?” Edgerton asked her. “Shit, I’m sorry.” He turned back to Ian. “We’re really sorry.”

“What were you fighting about?” Ian asked.

The brothers exchanged a look that said despite their hangovers and their shared mission, they were still mad at each other. “It has to do with a woman,” Quinn said.

“Where is this woman?” Ian asked.

Edgerton explained. “She was with me, and then she dumped me for Quinn. And then she dumped Quinn and ran off.”

“And you’re both still drinking and fighting over her like a couple of idiots?” Ian asked them.

“Pretty much,” Quinn admitted.

“Fine,” Ian said. “Anna, grab your coat. We’re going to go see how much damage these two did. And they’re going to help clean it up.”

“You’ll talk to him for us, won’t you?” Edgerton said to Ian.

Ian paused, headed for the bedroom to grab his socks. “Talk to who?”

The brothers exchanged another glance. “Heath,” Quinn said.

Ian’s eyebrows shot up. “My brother?”

Edgerton flinched. “It was his bar we were in when we started fighting. We wrecked a lot of stuff.”

Ian glanced at Anna, and she saw the angry confusion in his eyes. “My brother owns a bar?”

“He bought it a few months ago,” Quinn supplied. “He lives in it, too. His apartment is above the place. We did a lot of damage. He might be mad. That’s why we came here, man. You have to put in a word for us.”

“Fuck,” Ian said. He sighed. “You two wait here. Anna, get your knife. I’m putting on my damn shoes. I guess we have to go see my brother.”