Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One (15 page)

“Not always. Not all spirits are good,
just as not all people are good. Evil exists in all planes of our
world.”

“I don’t understand. Those who are
chosen at birth … how would a spirit know when a newborn is going
to turn out to be a bad adult?”

“A soul is a soul and will always be
who they are, regardless of outside forces. Why do you think people
who are brought up in exactly the same situation can grow up acting
in two completely different ways? Take two children who grow up in
abusive families. One child might grow up to be abusive himself,
while the other grows up working for organizations to try to
prevent such a thing happening to others. If someone has evil at
their core, they’ll be that person, no matter what.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Well, that’s
an ongoing debate—nurture versus nature. Most people put it down to
genetics, not the person’s soul.”

A small smile played on his lips. “I
wouldn’t expect you to say anything else. For the most part, you’d
be right, but not always.”

“So, where do I come into
this?”

“When our spirit guides bind to us,
something changes about our molecular make-up. As a human, our
genetics are human, but when we start to shift, our genes change
too.”

“Your genetic sequences rearrange,”
Autumn said, her understanding slotting into place. “Dumas is
trying to replicate a shifter’s genes from human DNA.”

Blake nodded. “All shifters—even in
human form—have better senses than any human alive. Plus, we’re
faster, stronger, and heal more quickly. But that’s not all. Those
who are well-synched with their spirit guides can view the world
through their eyes, even when in human form. I can send my wolf
ahead of me for several miles, and though he’s invisible to
everyone else, I’m able to see what he’s seeing.”

She looked at him in wonder. “That’s
amazing. So can you see something else right now?”

“Let’s not get distracted by what I
can and can’t do. We need to worry about what Dumas wants with
spirit shifters, and, because of what you did, what he now wants
with you.”

“Dumas wants to be able to create
shifters from regular humans, but why?”

“I thought you were smart,
Autumn.”

She briefly closed her eyes, putting
the final pieces of the puzzle together. “He wants spirit shifter
strengths.”

“Yes, though not for himself. Imagine
an army who can not only move faster and are stronger than their
enemies, and whose injuries heal within hours, but who can also
send eyes and ears into enemy territory without anyone ever knowing
they’re there.”

“An army of spirit
shifters?”

He nodded. “No one has ever been able
to achieve what you have, Autumn. Many have tried—not that the
other scientists survived their failures.”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “What do
you mean?”

“Accidents, if you can call them that.
When previous scientists failed to get any further in their
research, or perhaps they’d learned too much, they tended to meet
with unfortunate accidents.”

“Like who?” she demanded. “Who were
these scientists?”

“Before you was an older professor
called Cordell.”

“William Cordell?”

He nodded.

“William Cordell suffered a heart
attack. He died in his sleep. The news was well-circulated in the
scientific community.”

“Certain drugs have the ability to
induce a heart attack and make it appear natural.”

“Who else?”

“Before him was Doctor Laurence
Holt.”

Autumn thought for a moment, trying to
place a face with the name. Then she remembered who Blake was
talking about. She’d met with him briefly at a conference in New
York.

“I wasn’t aware he’d died.”

Blake nodded. “Car accident. Not very
original, but they happen all the time.”

She paused before asking the question
burning at her heart. She didn’t want to insult him, but
considering his position, she needed to know. “Were you involved in
their deaths?”

He held her gaze. “No, Autumn, I
wasn’t. Though I wonder if I should have done more to try to save
them.”

“Like you’re doing with me
now?”

“You’re different.”

“Am I?”

Tension buzzed between them. He spoke
softly. “You know you are.”

“The ability to change the DNA might
not be specific to my blood. Blood in general might cause the DNA
to shift?”

Blake shook his head. “No, I’m sure
those tests would already have been done. If we still had access to
the files and could get back into the lab, we might be able to find
out. I’m certain Dumas won’t destroy the research.”

Autumn considered this. “Okay, say the
test with blood has already been done, how can we be sure some
other outside influence, some other contaminant, didn’t affect the
results?”

He studied her face and she shifted
uncomfortably under his intense, dark stare. “There’s something
special about you, Autumn. I noticed from the first moment I saw
you. Don’t tell me you’ve gone through life feeling like everyone
else?”

Her cheeks colored. Of course she
hadn’t. Her mom had died when she was young, she had a reclusive
scientist, who had no idea how to handle teenage girls, for a
father, and she’d grown up smarter than any of the kids in her
class. No one liked the class geek. Even being moved up a year
hadn’t helped. Then, she even made the other geeks look bad. As for
boys ... well … She shuddered at the memory. Her following the boys
she liked around like some lost puppy. Them, always older than her,
looking down at her—at least in the metaphorical sense, she’d been
tall and gangly even back then—and laughing.

She broke the moment, not answering
the question. “Surely there is something else we can do? Go to the
press or something?”

“And tell them what? You’d look like a
crazy person. Plus, the government owns everyone. No one would dare
expose them for having people murdered, but what they would do is
expose the existence of my kind. If the world knew about us, we’d
be turned into freaks or monsters. Vigilante groups would try to
hunt us down. We’d be locked up in far more science labs than what
Dumas and his team have done.”

She allowed the implication of what
he’d said to sink in. Something else occurred to her.

“So is your wolf spirit here now?
Listening to us?” She couldn’t help but find the idea slightly
freaky, as though she no longer had her privacy.

He shook his head. “My spirit guide
doesn’t watch me, but the world around me. That way, it can guide
me when needed, show me danger, or warn me of
something.”

“What does it feel like? Does your
spirit guide speak in your head? Can wolves even speak?”

Blake laughed. “No, of course not. No
more than any other wolf can speak. But my wolf shows me things,
put images or smells in my head.”

“All the time? Any time he
wants?”

Again he shook his head. His gaze
drifted away from her for a moment as he considered what he was
about to say. “Have you ever been asleep and dreaming, only for
someone to talk to you or the phone ring, and the sound somehow
infiltrates your dream? You know it’s happening and your body
fights to either wake up or ignore the noise. Well, that’s what
it’s like for me all of the time. In the back of my mind, I can
feel my wolf, what it’s seeing or feeling, and I can either choose
to wake up and fully connect, or else I can choose to sleep and not
open my mind.”

She smiled. “It’s interesting that you
compare blocking your mind off to your guide as like being
asleep.”

He shrugged. “I’m never more awake
than when I connect completely, especially when we go that step
further and become one.”

“When you become a wolf?” Her voice
was hushed with awe.

“When the wolf and I become
one.”

“That’s amazing, you know.”

His gaze smoldered. “You’re
amazing.”

She glanced away, the heat in her face
deepening in intensity. “But how is it possible that I’m able to do
what you say, if I even accept that what you’re saying is right? I
mean, I can kind of understand you being able to do what you
do—even though I’ve had to seriously rethink some of my
beliefs—because of who you are, you know, your ...
culture.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You mean
because I’m Native American.”

She bit her lower lip, worrying at a
piece of dried skin. “Well ... yes. Isn’t the existence of spirit
guides something you’ve been brought up with, something your
culture has believed for centuries?”

“Autumn, just because one culture has
embraced a part of life, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in other
cultures as well. We just learned to accept and embrace it as a
part of our lives. It was never hidden away, but the rest of the
world simply assumed something like that couldn’t be true. Of
course, those able to shift into the form of their guides were
never paraded around. They would have been taken away and treated
like freaks—”

“Like how Dumas is doing now,” she
interrupted.

Blake’s features darkened to a scowl.
“Exactly. Which is why I have to figure out a way to save those
people.”

“You will,” she said, and
then corrected herself. “
We
will.”

He shook his head. “You’re not going
anywhere near that place. God knows what will happen if Dumas gets
hold of you. He can make you vanish from the face of the
earth.”

Her eyes widened. “He can’t do that! I
have family who will ask questions, friends and colleagues who will
wonder where I am. They’ll go to the police.”

“It won’t make a difference, Autumn.
If he wants to bleed you dry in order to change as many people as
possible, that’s exactly what he will do. He’ll tell other people
in authority you’re needed for the security of this country, and
they won’t say a thing. Everyone lives in fear now, and if he says
you’re needed to make our country safer from the threat of
terrorism, no one will question him.”

The pressure in Autumn’s head
increased, making it feel as though her heart was thumping in her
temples. “But that’s insane.”

Suddenly, the walls of the small hotel
room seemed to be closing in around her, her chest tightening,
heart pounding. Breath whistled in and out of her lungs and she
struggled to catch it. The only driving force inside her was a
desperate knowledge that she needed to get out, and needed to get
out now.

She jumped to her feet and
rushed for the door, the floor tilting beneath her feet like a ship
in a storm.
People she knew were dead. Men
could turn into animals. Someone wanted to capture her and do
God-knows-what.

She managed to get to the door and
reached for the handle, but her spinning mind couldn’t seem to
focus on where her fingers needed to be to get the door open. She
was only barely aware of movement behind her, of Blake calling her
name, concern thickening his voice.

“
Autumn! Autumn,
wait!”

Then his hands were on her shoulders,
turning her to him. She locked her gaze on his deep dark eyes, her
mind taking focus on the only solid thing in the room. Before she
could process what was happening, his mouth was on hers, crushing
the breath from her lungs for a different reason this time. His
arms wrapped around her back, holding her against the solid heat of
his body. How he held her! Never had she been caught in the grip of
such a powerful man before, as if every inch of his body was coiled
muscle, and she found herself being grounded by his strength. The
heat of his mouth burned against hers. Her fingers locked around
his neck, reaching into the soft hair at his nape. Seemingly of
their own accord, her hands traced his skin, running down the thick
cords of his throat and across his massive shoulders. All panic
fled her mind as he kissed her deeper, his tongue entwining with
her own. She pressed herself into the hard planes of his body,
wanting to lift herself up and wrap her thighs around his narrow
hips and forget everything else that was happening.

They broke apart, gasping, staring at
each other with a new kind of wonder. Blake reached out, his
fingers cupping her cheek. His skin burned. But he shook his head
and lowered his eyes.

“
I’m sorry, Autumn. I
shouldn’t have done that.”

“
What? Why
not?”

“
This is all too
complicated as it is.” He took her hand and led her back to the
bed. Her heart stuttered at their proximity to clean sheets and a
soft mattress, but he took a seat on the very edge, leaning forward
with his elbows pressed into his thighs, his fingers pressed into
his temples.

“
I’m scared, Blake,” she
said, finally admitting to herself that it was the
truth.

“
You should be. Dumas is a
dangerous man.”

“So he can take me and no one will
ever know what happened?”