by Amy Green
And then it happened. Ian flew into a high speed, jumped as if he were going over a hurdle, and shifted. It took the space of an eye-blink and moved as smoothly as falling water. His body rippled in the air, and a wolf landed in the snow, its big paws skidding briefly before it shook its coat and began to run again. It didn’t look back, and in seconds it had vanished into the trees.
Anna realized that the breath had left her lungs, and she was standing there with her mouth open. That had been, without question, the most amazing sight she had ever seen in her life. And from her years of study, she knew it was the rarest.
Because one of the most well-known facts about shifters was that they did not let humans watch them shift. It was so rare that the shifting process was almost completely undocumented, due to how few humans had actually witnessed it. For most shifters, the book had said, only his mate will ever see such a private, sacred thing in his lifetime.
And Ian had just shown her. He’d annoyed her and teased her and nearly run off, but then, without any fanfare, he’d given her the gift of letting her see something he’d likely shown to no one else in his life. Something she could have studied him for years without expecting. Something that only his mate might see.
And then he’d vanished.
Amazed, she walked back to the car and got in, settling herself to wait.
A knock on the window woke her up. Anna startled awake, realizing that the sun had dipped almost completely behind the horizon of the mountains, leaving the shadows long and cold, turning dusky blue over the white of the snow.
She turned and stared. Ian stood outside her window. He’d put on his boxers and jeans, and nothing else. He was bent over, one arm braced on the car, looking in at her, half a smile on his face. She could see a muscled expanse of chest, his flat stomach, the curl of ink over his shoulder.
His green eyes caught hers, held them.
Anna rubbed her eyes and turned the key in the ignition, then she rolled down the window. “Are you done?” she asked him.
“I told you I’d be back,” Ian said, still leaning over, looking in at her.
She could see the smooth, bulky line of his biceps, the taut skin on the inside of his forearm, and she turned away. “Okay,” she said, disappointed that she hadn’t been awake to see him come back, to see him shift from wolf back into man. Naked man. “Are you going to get in, or are you going to stand there in the snow? I want to get to Shifter Falls before it’s too late.”
“Sure,” Ian said. He finally pushed off her window and stood up, putting her on level with his flat, muscled stomach, the indent of his belly button, the happy trail of dark hair leading down into his jeans. The lines of muscle over his hips, leading downward, made her so momentarily stupid she couldn’t remember anything at all.
Then he walked around the car, picked up his clothes from the pile he’d left on the ground, and got in next to her. “Ready,” he said, practically chipper. “Let’s go.”
Anna rubbed her forehead and rolled up her window, then turned the car and got back on the road toward the highway. “Do you feel better?” she asked him.
“Much better,” he said. “And I won’t need dinner. I ate.”
She was silent for a minute. He twisted in his seat, putting on his shoes and his socks, maneuvering his big, long, muscled legs in the small space of the car. He was still shirtless. When he bent to tie his shoes, she could see the wolf tattoo move, and she could see the Donovan mark on the back of his neck, just above the muscles of his shoulders and his back. Good God, he was… No, she wasn’t going to think about how gorgeous her research subject was. She was not.
“Okay, so, here’s the plan,” she said as they got back on the highway and started driving the last stretch to Shifter Falls. “We get into Shifter Falls, and I’ll drop you off at your place. Then I’ll find a motel, and—”
“Wait, wait,” Ian said. He had put his white t-shirt back on and was holding his gray flannel button-down, but he paused, looking at her. “You are not going to a motel.”
“Of course I am,” Anna said in her best no-nonsense voice. “It’s the only solution. I’ll take a room for the three weeks and work from there.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Ian, I don’t—”
“You said you’d play by my rules,” he said. His voice was low, cold, impossible to argue with. “You said you’d follow my lead. I know the Falls, and you don’t. This is my lead.”
“What could possibly be wrong with staying at a motel?”
“It isn’t safe, that’s what. There’s only one motel in Shifter Falls, and no one in his right mind stays there. Not even wolves.” He thought about it. “Bears, maybe. But bears are crazy. One of those can break down your door in seconds, lock or no lock. You’ll be dead and probably raped by morning.”
Anna felt her jaw clench. “Then what do you suggest?” she said. “Where do I stay?”
He put on his flannel shirt. “With me.”
“I can’t do that,” she argued. “You’re my research subject. It’s totally inappropriate.”
“It’s totally the only way you’ll live long enough to write your paper,” he countered.
She was starting to feel a crazy panic in her throat, and she didn’t know why. “Look, Ian, maybe we started off wrong and you got the wrong idea, but—”
“Seriously?” he said. He twisted and grabbed his coat, then turned back to her. “Do you seriously think I’m making a move on you? I just got out of fucking prison. My father is dead and my brothers are going to try to kill me. My life is in pieces, not that there was ever much life for me to begin with. And you think I’m trying some smooth sex move on you?”
Well, that made her sound a little high on herself. “I didn’t say it was smooth,” she argued.
“Fuck.” Ian wrestled into his coat. “I’m trying to keep you alive,” he said. “My place is big. You’re not going to sleep with me, so don’t worry. I’m a wolf. I sleep alone unless I have a mate.”
Anna’s mouth snapped shut. She hadn’t known that. Shifter sleeping habits—there was nothing in the research about it. Nothing at all.
On the road ahead of them, a sign appeared: SCHAFFER FALLS, 30 MILES. It was easy to forget that Schaffer Falls was the town’s real name—Shifter Falls was only the nickname everyone gave it because the shifter population outnumbered the human one. Anna couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard someone use the place’s actual name.
On the sign, someone had spray painted two wolf eyes above the letters, and the words beneath: TURN AROUND NOW.
“You have to trust me,” Ian said. “This is my territory, my terrain. I may be Charlie’s bastard son, but I have pull here. I can protect you. You can’t protect yourself, Anna. So let me do it.”
“Okay,” Anna said softly. It was full dark now, and her headlights illuminated the road ahead. Snow was starting to come down again, a few thin flakes, and the cold wind buffeted the car. She was alone in the dark in a strange place, and the man next to her was the only familiar thing she knew. She was going to have to trust him. She had no choice.
She felt a pulse of fear, a quick jolt up her spine, making her sit up straighter in the driver’s seat, making her pulse race.
There was no going back now. She was in the Falls, for better or for worse.
And if Ian was to be believed, he might be the only ticket to her leaving alive.
5
Shifter Falls looked different, but it looked the same. Ian watched out the passenger window as the familiar streets passed by, the familiar signs, the familiar businesses. Some places were closed down, the windows boarded up. There’d been a fire at some point on a block in the south part of town, and while some of the businesses had rebuilt and reopened, others stayed dark. Black soot still marred many of the storefronts.
It was full dark, and as Ian gave Anna directions to his place he noted how few people were on the streets. A guy smoking a cigarette. A woman on a streetcorner.
An old lady in a laundromat, visible through the plate-glass window as she dozed in front of a washing machine. Shifter Falls had always been scary after dark, but now it was quiet, tense, as if everyone was waiting for trouble.
Ian lived in an apartment above a video rental store—which was, incredibly, still in business—and he directed Anna to park in the alley out back, so it would be easier to unload her car. They’d have to do it quickly, he knew, before vandals came out of the dark and took everything they could get their hands on.
He got out of the car as soon as she put it in park and walked to the building’s back door. He knocked sharply, banging with the side of his fist.
There was a minute’s pause and then the door nudged open, and Ian was presented with the business end of a shotgun. “What the fuck do you want?” a voice said from behind the door.
There was a gasp at Ian’s shoulder, and he realized Anna had gotten out of the car and was standing next to him. Her face had gone pale at the sight of the gun.
“Put it down, Nolan,” Ian said. “It’s me.”
The gun lowered, the door swung open, and Nolan, Ian’s landlord, stared out at him. He was fiftyish, with gray hair, dark eyes, and a pointed nose. At the sight of Ian, he broke into a grin. “Well, I’ll be fucked!” he said.
“Language, man,” Ian said. “There’s a lady present. This is Anna.” He looked at Anna. “This is Nolan, my landlord. He lives in the downstairs apartment, behind the store.”
“Hi,” Anna said shakily.
“Sorry about the gun,” Nolan said, running his gaze up and down Anna in surprised amazement. “It’s habit around here. But you’ll be glad I have it once you’re living upstairs.” He turned to Ian. “A woman?” he said, as if Anna wasn’t standing right there. “And not a mate, or my senses are off.”
“She’s with me,” Ian said calmly. “That’s all you need to know. Now, it’s cold, I just got out of prison, and I’d like to get into my place.”
Nolan’s face broke into a grin again, and he put the shotgun down, leaning it against the wall of the corridor. “Ian Donovan is back,” he said. “Son of a gun.”
“Son of something,” Ian mumbled. He walked back to Anna’s car. “Let’s carry as much upstairs as we can,” he said to her. “We’ll do another trip.”
Nolan helped, and in a few quick trips they had all of Anna’s things dumped inside the door of Ian’s apartment. Ian walked inside, looking around, smelling the musty smell of a place unused for a year. “Thanks for keeping it for me,” he said to Nolan. “I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Nolan said. “I’m just glad you’re back early. I’ll have my wife make a trip to the store and stock up your fridge. Laundry is in the basement, just like before.”
Anna was standing by the door, looking lost, so Ian said to her, “Nolan is a fox shifter. One of the only ones.”
Anna’s blue gaze went to Nolan’s face, and he could tell she saw it. The wide forehead, the pointed nose. Nolan wasn’t a redhead, but he really did look a little bit like a fox.
The older man stood straighter under Anna’s gaze. “That’s what I am,” he told her proudly. “Crazy like one too.” He tapped his temple. “I can defend myself, but it sure is good to have the big dog back.”
“The big dog?” Anna asked.
“Oh, hell,” Ian said.
“A Donovan dog,” Nolan said to Anna. “Don’t matter that there’s three other brothers. With Ian here, no one bothers this place. No one even tries.”
“Okay,” Ian said before Nolan could go on and on. He didn’t need to be reminded of his screwed-up lineage. “We need to unpack. We’ll talk to you later.”
“You two kids have fun,” Nolan said, winking.
When he’d left, Ian roamed the apartment, going from room to room. The apartment was huge—a big kitchen, a wide-open living space, a spacious bathroom, and two big bedrooms. Nolan insisted that Ian, as a Donovan, was due the best apartment in the building for next to no rent. Ian had used almost none of the space when he’d lived here before, since he’d rarely been home. He’d usually been out either training or fighting.
He watched Anna shrug her coat off and look around on her own. She’d gone quiet since they’d arrived, and he could tell she was taking it all in. She was cradling her elbows, her arms crossed over her stomach, her hair tumbling down the back of her sweater.
He’d never had a woman in this place before. His wolf liked it, liked her scent in his space. Shut up, he told his wolf. She doesn’t like us. This is just temporary. Just something to keep her safe.
“This is my bedroom,” he said, indicating the room that still had messed-up bedding and piles of his clothes in it, left from a year ago. “You can use this one.” He walked her to the spare bedroom, which had a smaller bed and a dresser with no other furniture. The window overlooked the street, and the faint noise of traffic wafted up.
“Okay,” Anna said. “Thanks.” She turned to grab one of her bags.
“You want a shower or something?” he said. “Something to eat?”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes looking into his. Shit, he could stare at them all day. “That sounds good,” she admitted.
“Okay. Take a shower, and we’ll go get something.”
“You said you wouldn’t need dinner,” she pointed out.
“No, but you do. I’ll show you a good place down the street.”
He retreated to his own room and sorted through his things while she took her shower. After a year in a cell, it was nice to own some shit, even if it was a few t-shirts and a few pairs of jeans. It wasn’t much, but it was his, and he could walk out of here whenever he felt like it. He wondered how long it would take him to get used to it.
He changed into fresh clothes, then took the white t-shirt he’d been wearing and knocked on her bedroom door. “Anna?”
She opened the door. She smelled like her shower, and had changed into jeans and a blue plaid button-down shirt that somehow looked feminine and sexy on her, Ian had no idea how. She seemed to have regained some of her composure. “What is it?” she asked. “I’m almost ready.”
“Wear this,” he said, holding the shirt out to her.
She looked at the shirt, which was still warm from his body, and then back up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You need to wear this,” he repeated.
“It’s your shirt.”
“Yes, it is.”
“And you want me to wear it?”
“You can put it on under that,” he said, indicating the shirt she wore. “No one will know the difference.”
She propped a hand on her hip, the reappearance of the stubborn, headstrong woman who had gotten him out of prison. “Are you going to explain to me why the heck you want me to wear your shirt?”
“Because it smells like me,” he explained.
“So?”
“So, you need to smell like me. Especially since we’re going outside. But really, you need to smell like me all the time. So you should wear one of my shirts at all times, even when you’re sleeping, just to be safe.”
“What the hell, Ian?” Anna said.
“Any shifter who meets you will know that you’re under my protection. No one will mess with you. We understand a lot through smell.”
He watched her open her mouth to protest, then close it again. The words going around in her head. This is inappropriate. This is weird. Yet she’d already seen enough of the Falls to believe that what he said was true.
But she couldn’t quite give in. She hated giving up control, Anna did. “So this is a shifter thing,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s better if you have my scent, trust me. Though really, the best way to make you smell like me is if we fuck. Your choice.”
He shouldn’t have said that. His wolf was close to the surface, and that was his wolf talking. And his wolf knew what it wanted. Had known from the first.
And it wasn’t just sex
, a quick jolt of relief. His wolf wanted something else.
Stop it. There are rules about that. She has to choose it. Choose us.
Still, his wolf had made him say the words, because it wanted to know what she would do. And now he’d said them, and the words hung there, between them.
Her cheeks went red, but she looked him in the eye. “Really?”
The moment drew out. His blood pulsed in his veins, and he found that he was deadly serious. He’d fuck her if she wanted him to, put his scent all over her in the most unmistakable way. On every part of her. His wolf smell on her skin. Her neck. Her breasts. Between her legs.
She should slap him for suggesting it. But instead she looked him in the eye, challenging him back. Her eyes lost focus and he caught a wave of arousal off of her, powerful and pure, and it hit his bloodstream like a drug. She was thinking about it. Thinking about him. Considering letting him do the things he wanted to do.
This is dangerous.
His wolf had been subdued during his year in prison, but being home, with a woman close by—with this woman close by—made it strong again. His wolf wanted to press her down on the bed and smell her skin. Taste it. If she wanted it. He imagined what her mouth tasted like, what it would feel like to have his fingers inside her, sliding over her wet skin. He imagined what she would taste like between her legs, how she would like it. How she would give in and arch her back and—
What do you want, Anna? Because if you want it, I’ll give it to you.
For a long, heavy moment, she wavered. Then she made a decision and snatched the shirt out of his hand. “This is primitive,” she snapped. “We’re not in the Dark Ages, you know. I’m not a piece of property.”
He had to catch his breath. He’d been so close. So close. “Just put it on,” he said, but she’d already slammed the door.
When she came back out of the bedroom, he knew she’d put the shirt on because he could smell his scent mixed with hers. He felt a possessive growl in his throat—it had been a long, long, time since he’d smelled anything so good. But she’d made her choice, and the moment was over. He tamed his wolf, put his coat on, and led her back out the door, down the street to get her dinner, trying to get a grip.
