Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One

by Marissa Farrar

  His eyes widened.

  “I’m still cold.”

  A smile played on his lips. “Oh, right. I’d better stay for a moment then, until you warm up.”

  “That would be good. Thank you.”

  He kicked off his shoes. As he climbed fully-clothed into the small single bed with her, she turned her back to him. She took hold of his big hand, placed it over her hip, and wriggled down the bed.

  She tugged him down, pulling his body to fit against hers. He wrapped his arms around her waist, the curve of her back and bottom fitting snugly against him.

  “Are you still cold?” he asked her, his voice hoarse.

  She smiled in the dim light. “Not anymore.”

  But he made no attempt to leave, and she didn’t want him to.

  His heat burned through the material of her shirt. He was a solid block of muscle, rock hard against her softness. His hand lay on the mattress, curled into her, his bicep fitting into the dip of her waist. The heat of his breath gusted against the top of her head. At five-feet-eight, she didn’t normally feel tiny and fragile, but here, lying in his arms, she did.

  She reached down and took his hand. Brazenly, she pulled it toward her and placed his palm on the swell of her breast. Instantly, her nipple tightened and crinkled beneath the lace of her bra.

  Blake stiffened. “What are you doing, Autumn?” he asked, a warning tone to his voice.

  “What I’ve been thinking of doing pretty much since the moment I met you.”

  She squeezed the back of his hand, forcing him to clutch her harder. She knew he wanted this too. When she pushed back on him, grinding her bottom into his crotch, she could feel his need pressing against her lower back.

  But that didn’t stop the nerves racing through her. A long time had passed since she’d been with a man—the last time had been a one-night stand she’d immediately regretted, and that had been over a year ago now. But she wouldn’t regret this. This wasn’t just some guy she’d met. Blake was special—strong, tough, and unbelievably sexy. She wanted to get her hands all over his naked body, had wanted to touch him in that way ever since he’d stripped in front of her in the apartment in the city.

  Autumn twisted in his arms to face him. “Tell me you don’t want me,” she said.

  He stared into her eyes, his gaze dark and smoldering. His breath touched her lips, their mouths only inches apart. She didn’t know if it had been the events of the past twenty-four hours or if she simply had lost control of her own desires, but she couldn’t hold herself back anymore.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  She leaned in and kissed him, tentative at first, but then a low growl came from deep inside his chest and he flipped her over, his body held over hers. She reached up and tugged his shirt over his head, marveling in the size of his muscles, the tone of his skin. He lowered his mouth to hers again. This time, the tenderness was gone. He kissed her hard, their tongues tangling in exploration of each other’s mouths. Autumn reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, hooking her feet over the backs of his calves in order to close the gap between them.

  Her hands ran over the muscles of his back, their hard planes and curves, feeling them working as she reveled in the touch of his skin and the pleasure of his mouth. He left her lips, kissing down her jaw, her throat. Propping himself up, he feverishly worked the buttons of her shirt before ripping the final two away, sending them flying. Then he tore the material from her body, leaving her in only her bra and panties.

  Blake kissed her neck, her shoulders, slipping the straps of her bra from her shoulders, and then the lacy cups from her breasts.

  His lips enclosed her nipple and she cried out loud. The searing heat of his mouth was like nothing she’d ever felt before on such sensitive skin, the heat bordering the threshold of pleasure and pain. Blake worked his way down her body, peppering her body in tiny, bite-like kisses, nipping her skin with his lips. He paused at the waistband of her panties and she squirmed beneath him, wanting his lips and tongue on her, wanting to absorb his heat—

  The ringing of a phone in the room made them both pause and turn toward the sound, startled.

  For a moment, Autumn struggled to place the ringtone, but then she recognized her cell. She frowned in confusion. How had her cell phone gotten here?

  She sat up, regretfully pulling her body out from under Blake’s caresses.

  Sitting back on his haunches, Blake frowned. “How is there a phone in here? I’m pretty sure my father doesn’t even own a phone.”

  She crawled out from under him, planting her feet on the cold floor. Her emotions were torn in two different ways. Part of her wanted to clamp her hands over her ears and tell Blake to continue where he’d left off, but the other part of her had to know who was calling. She’d been sure she’d left her phone in the lab back at the facility, with her purse and work bag. She must have slipped it into her jacket pocket at some point. With all the excitement going on, she’d not even noticed it as she had the latest model smartphone and its weight was minimal.

  “It’s my phone. I totally forgot about it!”

  “What?” His face darkened with anger, but Autumn didn’t have time to process his reaction. She needed to know who was calling her. After what she’d seen on the television, she could only guess her father or Mia was trying to get hold of her.

  Autumn pulled the phone from her pocket and checked the small display screen. Number Withheld.

  Not allowing herself to time to think, she hit ‘answer.’

  “Autumn?” Mia’s voice came down the line, strained and high-pitched, as though she was trying not to cry.

  “Mia? It’s okay, I’m safe. No one’s kidnapped me.”

  “No, you don’t understand. A man came to the apartment, Autumn. He threatened me ...”

  “What!”

  “He brought me to this place. I don’t know where I am but—“

  Her words were cut off and she heard Mia cry out, followed by a shuffling and scraping noise.

  “Mia!” Autumn yelled into the phone. “Mia, are you there?”

  A male voice replaced her roommate’s terrified one. “Doctor Anderson, I assume?”

  “What the hell have you done with Mia? Put her back on the phone right now!”

  The man laughed, and Autumn balled up the fist not holding the phone. If he was standing in front of her right now, she’d happily punch him in the face.

  “I’m not going to do that, Doctor. I think between you and the ball of muscle I assume is still with you, you can probably figure out where she is. Now, why don’t you get your pretty little face back here so we can sit down and talk about this like adults.”

  Blake leapt to his feet, glaring at her. “Put down the goddamned phone!”

  She stared back and shook her head, trying to motion toward the cell. Couldn’t he see how important this call was?

  Blake reached out, snatched the cell from her hand, and threw it to the ground. He lifted his foot, and, with the back of his naked heel, stomped on the cell, shattering it into several pieces. A sharp piece of plastic cut his foot, blood smearing the carpet.

  “What the hell do you think are you doing?” She suddenly found angry tears threatening. “Those bastards have Mia and you’ve smashed up the only thing I’ve got to be able to get in touch with her again.”

  “Goddamn it, Autumn! Think for a moment. If they were able to trace my phone back to my apartment, there is no reason why they couldn’t have yours traced as well.”

  She shook her head. “No! When would they have been able to do that? I’ve only been at the center for a few days.”

  “Any time. All they’d need to do is hack into your phone account. They’d only need it for a few minutes.”

  She remembered the x-ray scanner breaking down as she’d entered the building. Had they taken her phone from her then? Done whatever it was they needed to do to make the cell traceable. They could easily have slipped the phone back into her jacket pocket a
t some point during the day.

  “I don’t care. We need to leave right away. I need to get back to help Mia.”

  He grabbed her forcefully by the arm, holding her body only inches from his. He was still bare-chested, Autumn just in her underwear, which she’d tugged back over to cover her breasts as soon as the phone had rung.

  “You’re not going anywhere. This is exactly what they want you to do.”

  She wrenched her arm back and glared at him. “Why would they need to kidnap Mia if they can track me by my phone?”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure. Perhaps your roommate has something to do with this as well.”

  “Mia? She runs a missing person’s charity. She’s about as un-military as you can get. In fact, the government has even pulled her funding for next year.”

  Blake arched his eyebrows. “And you don’t think that’s a coincidence? Don’t you think the people Dumas and his lot have been holding captive—even down to the scientist before you—would be considered missing people? Maybe she started asking questions of the wrong ones?”

  Autumn shook her head. “No. She’s in this because of me and I need to go help her.” She spun away from him, gathering her clothes, tugging her shirt on over her shoulders and pulling on her pants.

  Blake placed his large body in front of the bedroom door. “I won’t let you go.”

  She stared at him, incredulous. “You won’t let me? Since when do I need your permission to do anything?”

  “Haverly put me in charge of your security. It’s my job.”

  She gestured toward the rumpled bed. “And that? Was that your job too?”

  His face betrayed no emotion, a hard mask falling down over his features. “It doesn’t matter what you say to me. I’m not going to let you go racing off to save your friend, only to get yourself captured. You’re too important to the security of my kind.”

  “Is that all I am? Only important to keeping your lot a secret?” Her gaze flicked to the window.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “If you go for the window, I’ll be forced to find some rope and tie you down to the bed. And don’t think for a minute that I’m bluffing.”

  Hot tears burned the backs of her eyes, and to her own fury and frustration, a single tear spilled from the rim of her eye and trickled down her cheek. Angrily, she turned from him, not wanting him to see, and wiped it away.

  “So what do you suggest we do?” she said, her voice choked. “If you think they’ve traced my phone, we won’t have much time.”

  “No, we don’t. I need to contact some other shifters, ask for their help. But we will go and help your friend, just like we’ll help the others, I promise.”

  Autumn pressed her lips together. “Just so you know, I don’t do well with this macho bullshit.”

  His head tilted to one side, one eyebrow cocked. “Yeah, well, just so you know, you forgetting about your cell phone may have put this whole town in danger, so quit the girly whining and think about the bigger picture.”

  He snatched his shirt from the floor, turned and walked from the room, leaving Autumn shocked and breathless. Her legs went weak and she sat back on the edge of the bed. She wanted to chase after him, or else do exactly what she’d been planning as soon as she got Mia’s call and get the hell back to Chicago, but his words rang in her ears.

  She curled up on the bed, still warm from Blake’s body heat and smelling faintly of him, and succumbed to tears. Eventually, exhaustion claimed her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  CHOGAN PAUSED OUTSIDE the bedroom door.

  His cousin was charging around town with all the subtlety of a bull. The man was clearly on a mission. Though Chogan knew he should be offering to help, he couldn’t resist taking some kind of advantage, knowing Autumn would now be alone. If his cousin and uncle’s story was right and her blood could change regular people into spirit shifters, he didn’t intend to let her get too far out of his control. Her being tall, blonde, and beautiful also helped spark his interest, but he’d been there before with Blake and a woman, and he didn’t intend to repeat that particular part of their lives again.

  He lifted his hand and gently rapped his knuckles on the wood. In the back of his mind, his wolf prowled, edging him on, trying to urge him to send it in first to observe her unnoticed. Only his desire not to encroach on her privacy held him back. From the deepness of her breath, he assumed she was sleeping as planned, but from the state Blake had been in, he thought something else had happened.

  He ran a hand through his long hair, pushing it away from his face, and then knocked again. The temptation to walk right in lingered. Why did he care about her opinion anyway?

  A choked sound came through the closed door.

  He frowned. “Autumn?”

  Screw it. He pushed open the door to find her starting to sit up. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Her skin looked blotchy, her mouth bruised and swollen. Strands of her hair stuck to her face, making her appear both vulnerable and sexy. He noticed a couple of buttons of her shirt were missing, a tantalizing hint of creamy skin peeking through the gap.

  “Autumn?” he said again, frowning. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  She blinked at him and shook her head slightly as if she’d been expecting to find someone else standing at the door.

  She was expecting someone else, you fool. She was expecting Blake.

  “Chogan?” The frown on her face matched his own. “Where’s Blake?”

  “He’s off rounding up the forces.”

  “To save Mia?”

  “Who is Mia?”

  She looked into his face, and, to his horror, burst into tears. “How the hell has this happened?” She buried her face in her hands. “A couple of days ago, I was worried about a job interview and whether my dad gave a shit about me or not. Now, my best friend has been kidnapped by a bunch of government crazies, and I’ve discovered people can turn into goddamn animals.”

  She lifted her head and tossed back her hair, blinking back the tears. “I must be dreaming all of this, or else I’ve lost my mind and should be sitting in a padded white room right now.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her and took her hands. She lifted her eyes to him, pools of ocean blue. “Autumn, this is all real. I’m sorry about what’s happened to your friend, but they’ve taken plenty of our friends as well. She might just end up being another casualty.”

  She snatched back her hands. “Don’t say that!”

  “I’m sorry, but we’re up against the big boys here. We’re bound to take casualties. Even with Blake rounding up help, there’s a chance we’ll all go down.”

  She stared at him, alarmed. “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t think a group of shifters is going to be able to take on a military building and men with guns. There’s a good chance we’ll go to try to rescue our people only to end up dead as well.”

  “So why are you going?”

  His jaw stiffened. “What else am I supposed to do? Stand by and let them get away with this? As shifters, we’re connected to something higher than regular humans. Humans keeping shifters captive is like a twist on what’s natural. We should be above them. We should be the ones taking them prisoner, not the other way around. Humans should fear and revere us. We shouldn’t be hiding away like dirty little secrets. Autumn, if you are what my uncle says you are—the start of our kind—then, do you understand how special that makes you?”

  She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head.

  He continued, “You’re like the daughter of our maker, the closest thing to having a goddess on earth.”

  The air seemed to shiver between them and he reached out, intent on touching the smooth skin of her cheek, his hair falling in a sheet like a curtain shielding them from the rest of the world.

  Suddenly, Chogan became aware of another presence in the room. In his head, his wolf growled, only to be met with the snarl of another wolf.

  “I hope I haven�
��t interrupted anything.” Blake’s voice came, low, controlled, but with fury bubbling behind his words.

  Autumn leapt away as though a ring of electricity had suddenly formed around Chogan’s body, propelling her from him.

  “Blake!” she cried.

  But he ignored her, all his attention focused on his cousin. He stormed into the small room, the two big men crowding the small space.

  “So are we back to this again?” Blake said. “You and I after the same girl?”

  “Blake!” Autumn said, sounding angry herself now. “You don’t have any claim on me, and we weren’t even doing anything!”

  “It’s okay, Autumn,” Chogan said. “This isn’t just about you.”

  She lifted both hands and shook her head, stepping back. Sort it out between yourselves, then, her gesture said.

  Chogan put out his hand and caught Blake’s arm. “I wasn’t fucking Shian, Cuz.”

  Blake shook him off, anger blazing in his eyes. “No? Then what were you doing with her out in the forest that day?”

  “We were just talking. You know, tea and sympathy, and all that.”

  “Bullshit! You don’t do ‘just talking.’

  “Shian was my friend as well, Blake. You forget that. Her dying left me just as cut up as you. Don’t you think I wish I’d been able to save her that day? I ran those events over and over in my head, trying to figure out if I could have done something differently. One minute we were walking, and the next she’d slipped and hit her head. The doctors said the aneurysm had already formed and would have ruptured at some point. The accident simply sped things up.”

  “I know all that,” Blake growled. “But what I still don’t understand is what you were doing with her at all. She was my girlfriend, Chogan, had been since we were not much more than children. She told me she was going to lunch with some friends. She lied to me to spend time with you. Tell me why she’d do that if there was nothing going on between you?”

  “I don’t have anything else to tell you.”

  “You’re a goddamned liar, cousin. And everyone wondered why I couldn’t stomach living in the same town as you.”