Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One

by Marissa Farrar

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE CHANGE OF motion of the warm, furry body she lay upon woke Autumn. She couldn’t believe she’d managed to sleep, and not only that, she’d not fallen off. The wolf’s run was so smooth she’d not even been dislodged from between his huge shoulders.

  The two wolves drew to a halt. Dawn had arrived, and between the expanse of tree trunks, in the burgeoning light, peeped the start of a small town. Simple, single-story wooden homesteads, with wide open front yards, lined a dirt road. The hour was still early and none of the lights in the homes were on, with the exception of a few porch lights.

  Chogan sat down on his haunches. Finally, Autumn was able to make out the color of the wolf’s fur—a beautiful russet red which caught the gleam of the early morning sunlight. He turned his big head to take her in, his eyes shining golden yellow.

  Blake followed suit, sitting down slowly so she slid down his back, her feet planting on the ground. Her legs were numb and tingly, suffering from pins and needles from riding on Blake’s back for so long. Immediately, she felt the loss of his body heat, the bite of the morning air even cooler than Chicago. They must have come farther north, crossed the state line into Wisconsin, or even Minnesota.

  Blake swung his head to her and nudged her away, his wet nose pushing into her palm. Those intelligent amber eyes connected with hers, speaking to her without needing to say a word.

  They’d arrived at the reservation, and now they needed to change back to men.

  Autumn retreated, standing slightly behind a tree. She used the trunk as support for her still weak legs, moss and bark flaking beneath her fingertips.

  Her eyes widened as she watched the two wolves. She couldn’t imagine a time when she would not find this to be utterly amazing and horrifying all at the same time. The thing happening before her eyes wasn’t even supposed to exist—a thing of myths and fairy tales, but she couldn’t deny what was right in front of her.

  The two wolves moved apart, giving each other some space.

  Their bodies tensed, Blake’s fur trembled, rippling like water. A low growl issued from deep within his barrel chest and he lowered his head as the roar turned into a howl. The mournful sound travelled miles across the forest. She imagined if anyone in the town heard it, they wouldn’t be getting back to sleep that morning.

  Before her eyes, they began to shift back, fur melting away to reveal human nut-brown skin. The shape and lengths of their limbs morphed, bones shattering and reforming with agonizing howls of pain from Blake. Chogan seemed to suffer the agony in silence, though Autumn felt sure the process didn’t hurt any less.

  Their long snouts shrank and flattened to their faces, the jaws full of teeth vanishing. Ears rolled down to become flush with their skulls.

  Finally, they stood back up, both men again.

  Both naked.

  Autumn gulped and averted her eyes. As much as she thought she’d never get used seeing them shift, she also thought the regular bouts of nakedness would not be something she’d become blasé to. Of course, it helped that both men were gorgeous—Blake with his huge bulk of muscle and swirls of tattoos, Chogan leaner, but still cut, with his smooth, darker brown skin and long black hair. She didn’t think she’d ever been present with two specimens of more perfect male beauty.

  Neither man seemed conscious of their nakedness.

  “Welcome to Big Lake Reservation,” Chogan said.

  She gave an uncertain smile. “Thanks.” She turned to Blake. His face was a schooled mask, hiding, she suspected, the myriad of emotions churning through him.

  “Wait here,” said Chogan to his cousin. “People are used to seeing me in this town, but I think you might cause a bit of a stir.”

  Especially stark naked! Autumn thought, but didn’t say.

  Chogan ducked down low and ran between the trees, heading out into the town. He stayed close to the parked cars and garden fences, seeking as much coverage as possible. Whatever Autumn had thought about the no-clothes thing, he obviously realized it wasn’t normal behavior to run through the streets as naked as the day he was born. He vanished from view.

  “Are you all right?” asked Blake, snatching her attention from his cousin.

  She couldn’t look at him, heat glowing in her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she said, keeping her eyes trailed on the ground. It was one thing taking in the sight of him when his attention was elsewhere. It was something else looking him in the face, full frontal.

  “I realize this has been a lot to take in.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’ve been chased, shot at, and rode around on a giant wolf. This is just a normal working day for me.” She risked lifting her eyes to his.

  He cracked a smile. “That’s good to hear. I wouldn’t have wanted to frighten you.”

  “Takes a lot more than that,” she smiled back. “Where’s Chogan gone?”

  Blake sat on the ground, leaning back against the tree with one leg propped up, the position covering the particular area that kept catching her eye. She was relieved. At least now she could look at him—appreciate the thick breadth of his muscular thighs, hard stomach, and shoulders without thinking she was about to spontaneously combust. Just about.

  “He’s gone to get us some clothes. We can hardly walk around town like this.”

  Autumn pressed her lips together to repress a childish snigger.

  A rustle in the undergrowth caught their attention and Chogan reappeared between the trees, clothes bundled in his arms. “Stolen from clotheslines, I’m afraid.” He threw a pair of jeans and a t-shirt at Blake.

  Blake snatched them out of the air.

  He dressed, the items way too small for him—the length too short, almost exposing his stomach, his biceps busting out of the armholes. He couldn’t even get the jeans done up, though Autumn certainly appreciated the shape of his ass in the soft denim.

  He held his hands out either side of his body. “I look ridiculous. Couldn’t you have found anything larger?”

  “I wasn’t exactly in Bloomindales.”

  Blake narrowed his eyes in annoyance at his cousin, but put out a hand to Autumn. Surprised, she slipped her small palm into his much larger one.

  “Let’s do this, then,” he said.

  She didn’t miss the flicker of Chogan’s dark eyes down to their connected hands. She hoped he wasn’t going to cause any problems there. The last thing she wanted was to come between the two cousins, especially when they already seemed to foster a tenuous relationship.

  They ran at a jog down the street together, Blake and Autumn hand in hand, Chogan leading the way. Several blocks later, they passed a small grocery store on the corner and then reached a modest home. Like many of the others, with the exception of a number of trailers, the house was a single-story, white-washed, wooden building. Modest but tidy. Chogan walked up the path, toward the front door. Blake stopped at the gate, hesitating.

  Chogan stopped and turned back to him. “Everyone will be pleased to see you, you know.”

  “Yeah? I doubt that, somehow.”

  “Just because you gave up on us doesn’t mean we gave up on you.”

  Pain flicked across Blake’s strong face.

  What had happened? Autumn wondered. What would make him want to leave his home for such a totally different life?

  Chogan let himself into the house, Blake and Autumn lurking behind.

  “Uncle?” Chogan called through the open door.

  Movement stirred from the back of the property. “Chogan, is that you?”

  Autumn felt Blake stiffen beside her, heard his breath catch. In the short time she’d known him, she’d never seen him nervous or uncomfortable, not even when people shot at them and a helicopter chased them. Right now, tension radiated from him like body heat.

  “Yes, Uncle, it’s me. I’ve brought someone to visit.”

  An older man—in his sixties, Autumn guessed, though his face was lined with grooves and ridges deeper than she would have expected from someone
his age— approached Chogan, who still stood in the open doorway.

  The man’s eyes widened and he stared past his nephew, to where Autumn and Blake still waited a little farther down the path. “Blackened Hawk?”

  Autumn couldn’t help her surprised glance toward Blake.

  He smiled. “Hello, Father.”

  Tears welled in the older man’s eyes and he walked past Chogan, arms outstretched. He reached Blake and enveloped the much bigger man in a bear hug. He let go and stepped away, then reached out and took Blake’s cheeks and pulled his son’s face down toward him. He stared at him, eyes sparkling with amazement, and planted kisses on both of his cheeks.

  “My son. The spirits always told me you’d come back to me again.” He looked over his shoulder toward Chogan. “Thank you for bringing my boy back to me.”

  Blake pulled Autumn toward him. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, uncomfortable at being literally dragged into such an intimate moment. “Autumn, let me introduce Lakota Wolfcollar, my father.” He turned to the man in question. “Father, this is Doctor Autumn Anderson. She’s the reason I’m back.”

  His father’s eyes lit up. Blake must have quickly realized the misunderstanding. “Oh, no. Not like that. We’re not together.”

  Autumn tried to ignore the sinking sensation in her stomach. Did she actually want to mean something more to him? No, of course not. He was not her type in the slightest. She almost laughed out loud at the thought. She’d barely dated, never mind had a type.

  “Whatever reason brought you home to me, I am thankful for it.” Lakota Wolfcollar turned to Autumn and nodded slowly at her. “So I thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a shy smile, though she wondered if he’d think differently after he’d heard their crazy story.

  BLAKE TOOK A deep breath. Stepping into this house was like stepping back in time. Almost ten years had passed since he’d been back here, and the place didn’t look much different. Fading family photographs in wooden frames that had been in the same positions years before, still covered the walls. His mother—noticeable among them because of her pale skin—him sitting on his father’s knee, and his sister, Tala, not much more than a toddler, held in their mother’s arms.

  His gut clenched. However forgiving his father might be about him walking out on all of their lives, his sister would not be so lenient. She’d only been fifteen when he left—already fiery and strong-willed—and he knew his abandonment had left her bitter. He’d tried to stay in contact, sent her letters and presents from wherever in the world he’d been stationed, but if she’d even opened them, he would have been surprised.

  “How is Tala?” he asked.

  His father smiled. “Same as ever. She’s a qualified nurse now, you know?”

  Blake smiled ruefully and shook his head. “No, I didn’t. She never answered any of my letters.”

  “She took it hard when you left.”

  “I figured she must have.”

  “You could have come back to visit us.”

  He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t.”

  He felt Autumn’s eyes on him, a curious glance. But he couldn’t go into that now. Especially not with Chogan sitting in the room with him. His cousin played a big part in him needing to leave the reservation. After what happened, he knew he’d not be able to continue any kind of day-to-day life with his cousin around. He was sure if he’d had to see Chogan every day, the day would have come when he’d snap and kill his cousin. And what would have happened then? A rift in the family that would have never healed.

  It had been either him or Chogan.

  “So speak to me now. Tell me what’s brought my only son home to me after all this time.” Then he seemed to remember himself. “But of course, you all must be thirsty. Hungry?” He eyed Blake’s ridiculously small clothing. “I assume you came here by wolf.”

  “Yes. We had no choice.”

  The older man motioned with his hand toward Chogan. “Go, make some tea and food for our guests.” Without a word, Chogan got to his feet and disappeared from the room, heading in the direction of the kitchen.

  Lakota leaned in and took both of Blake’s hands. How strange how he remembered his father to be such a big man, a man who would pick him up and swing him around. It made him sad to feel his touch, now leathery with older skin, though there was still strength to his hands. His father’s hair was much shorter, the gray that had previously only flicked at the temples now spread across eighty percent of his head. The thin-rimmed glasses were also a new addition. His face seemed slimmer, his cheekbones hollowed. Blake hoped he was taking things easy. Lakota Wolfcollar had been Tribal President when Blake had been a boy, but surely he must have retired by now?

  Blake’s feet were planted on the floor and he looked down at their clasped hands. “I barely know where to start.”

  “Just start at the beginning, my son. I assume the reason for you being here has to do with the disappearance of the other shifters. The reason we sent Chogan to find you.”

  He nodded and took a deep breath. “I’ve been working for the US government, though not quite in the capacity I told you. I’ve been working kind of off-the-record for a man called General Maxim Dumas. Dumas has somehow got wind of the existence of spirit shifters and has been trying to figure out a way of applying the strengths of a shifter to the normal human population.”

  “My gods.”

  “That’s not all. Autumn here was brought in to try to replicate the genetics of a shifter in human DNA.”

  He looked at Autumn and smiled. “A smart one.”

  She smiled back. “So they keep telling me.”

  His father chuckled and Blake wanted to kiss her for lightening the tension in the room. He continued, “She discovered something she wasn’t expecting. A drop of her blood was able to change human DNA into shifter DNA.”

  His father turned to her, the expression in his eyes one of awe. “So you’re one of them?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I wasn’t aware any of your kind was still around. You must be from a line of the originals, the people who first created our kind.”

  Blake frowned. “I didn’t know such people existed.”

  “They don’t. Or at least I didn’t think they did until now.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Autumn. “But I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Lakota dropped one of his son’s hands and reached out to hers, so all three were joined in a circle. He focused on her with intelligent brown eyes. “The story goes that thousands of years ago, people wanted to commune with the spirits. They strove to find ways in which to create a greater connection with the spirit world around us. In the end, a shaman was brought in. He conducted a spell using black magic, which gave certain individuals the ability to give others a gift, or a curse, however you want to look at it. The blood of those individuals gave others the ability to make a permanent connection with a spirit of an animal. Over hundreds of years, the ability of a spirit to connect to a human, so creating a spirit shifter, evolved. The spirits grew stronger and learned how to make their own connection to human souls willing to share their lives. The line of people who had originally been changed through the alteration of their blood could no longer shift themselves, but within their blood they still held the secret to creating those who could.”

  Autumn stared at him and then lifted her hand, touching her blond curls. “But ... look at me. I’m ...” She stumbled awkwardly over her words.

  “White?” the older man offered.

  Her cheeks flushed. “Yes. I don’t have any Native American background, so how can I have this bloodline you’re talking of?”

  “You’re a scientist, is that right?” he asked. Autumn nodded. “Then you must know that it is believed in your scientific world that we all originated from one blood line. White, black, brown, it’s all the same. Once upon a time, we were all one people.”

&nbs
p; “I still just find this so hard to comprehend.”

  His brown palm covered the back of her hand. “I understand, child. But it is not a matter of you needing to believe. You don’t need to try to believe what is right in front of your eyes. You simply must accept it.”

  Chogan appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray of cups and toast—a strange sight to see the powerful, long-haired man doing such normal, homely task.

  “Blake hasn’t told you the full story yet, Uncle.”

  Blake lifted his head. “No, I haven’t. General Dumas is after Autumn now. He wants her blood and what she can do for himself. Not only that … In the laboratories where Autumn and I worked, Dumas has three shifters captive.”

  “One of those is from Big Lake Reservation,” Chogan added.

  The older man nodded slowly, then helped himself to tea, adding milk and sugar. “I’m sorry, where are my manners? Please, how do you take yours?” He addressed Autumn.

  “Oh, no, I’ll do it.” She lifted the pot and poured tea.

  “So these men are after us, Father. They know I took Autumn, got her out of the laboratory, and that I betrayed them. I doubt they’ve figured out that I’m a shifter yet, which is why we came here in wolf form. So they wouldn’t be able to track us—they’d be looking for two men and a woman. But we can’t hide out here forever. We need to go back and save those other people and try to figure out a way to shut down Dumas and his team for good.”

  His father nodded. “I understand.” He turned to Autumn. “And what about you? What do you want from all of this?”

  She looked bewildered. “Nothing. I don’t want anything, only to go back to my old life and not be chased around by guys with guns!”

  “But what about your gift? You’re the first of your line I’ve ever come across. Don’t you want to see what your gift can do?”

  “I ... I ... hadn’t really thought about it. I guess, scientifically, it’s fascinating to me, but at the same time it scares the hell out of me. I don’t want to change people. I don’t want to hold any kind of powers. I just want to be me. I want to be able to get up and go to work in the morning without worrying that someone is going to try to shoot me.”