Rebel Wolf (Shifter Falls Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

when I was ten. I didn’t want to go to a foster home—they’d never find one for a shifter, anyway. So I packed a bag and lived on the streets for a while.”
    “Oh,” Anna said, the word tumbling out. Her stomach was clenching. “I’m sorry.”
    “It isn’t so hard for a wolf,” Ian said. “We don’t get cold, and when we’re hungry we can change and hunt. I stuck to small towns and the woods. I drifted back down into Colorado. I couldn’t quite stay away from Shifter Falls. When I was sixteen, I ran into my brother Devon in a bar, and he took me out back and tried to kill me.”
    “Why?”
    “Wolves are loners,” Ian said. “They’re territorial, and they don’t like competition. Devon wanted me gone. He figured if he didn’t kill me, one of these days I’d kill him.”
    “Would you?” she couldn’t help but ask.
    “What do you think?” he said.
    She glanced at him. “You just made it clear that I don’t know anything about you.”
    He was quiet for a second. “The answer is no,” he said finally. “Power isn’t my thing. I don’t get off on it. I have no plans to kill my brothers and take over the pack leadership. But they don’t know me, and they don’t trust me, and I’m blood. I don’t blame them.”
    “Okay,” she said.
    “You believe me?”
    “Sure I do.” When he didn’t say anything, she prompted him. “So Devon tried to kill you. He obviously didn’t succeed.”
    “No,” Ian said. He absently ran a hand up and down his jean-clad shin, agitated, and she caught a glimpse of his watch again. “I escaped. I stayed around the edges of the pack, never moving to the center of it. Charlie was into all kinds of shit. Drugs, guns, women. There’s a small pack in California, and a big pack in South Dakota, but other than that, his territory was fucking huge. No competition. Lots of money, lots of blood. Charlie offered to let me in more than once. He thought I was worthless shit, but I was still his blood, which he thought would buy my loyalty. He kept trying to tempt me with things—money, power, women.”
    “But you didn’t join,” Anna said.
    “No. I wasn’t interested in any of that. I just wanted to be left alone to live my life. I got tired of moving around all the time, so I got a place in Shifter Falls. Charlie knew I was there, of course—someone probably told him within five minutes of my showing up. He left me alone to see what I would do. I had to do something that showed everyone not to mess with me, so I started cage fighting. When I started to win, word got around that I wasn’t someone to fuck with. It was a sort of protection, so I kept doing it.
    “My brothers tried to drive me out. Nothing personal, but it’s second nature for us Donovans. Devon got in my face and made it clear he hated me, but he didn’t try to kill me again. Heath and I got in a fistfight, but I won. Brody actually tried to fucking talk to me, but I told him to fuck off, and he never tried again.”
    “You didn’t want to talk to him?” Anna asked.
    “Two of my brothers had tried to run me out of town by then,” Ian said shortly. “You think I was going to trust a third one?”
    “I guess not.” Anna bit her lip. She’d expected his life to be rough, but she hadn’t thought it would be this bad. What have I gotten myself into? She stared at the road, wondering.
    “You still want to come with me to the Falls?” Ian asked, as if reading her mind.
    “Of course I do,” she said automatically. “So you started fighting, right?”
    “A few years ago,” he said. “You ever seen a shifter cage fight?”
    Anna shook her head.
    Ian was quiet for a minute. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen,” he said, his voice low. “Nothing at all.”
    Anna blinked, trying to picture it. What did that mean? “Isn’t it dangerous?”
    “That’s the point.”
    “So why do it?”
    “Like I said, once I got a reputation as a fighter, it kept my brothers off my back. Plus the