Autumn Rising (15 page)

Chapter Eighteen

THE SOUND OF the helicopter had caught Chogan’s attention, but it was the pat-pat-pat of automatic gunfire that made his heart sink. The chopper hadn’t reached them yet, though more soldiers were running their way. That only left one explanation as to who the men in the helicopter were shooting at. The chopper must have spotted Blake and the others, and was firing on them.

Fuck.

He glanced toward the group of men heading toward them, at least ten new soldiers to deal with. They were severely outnumbered and Chogan was seriously starting to wish he hadn’t gotten the group to split up. But if it wasn’t for the chopper, Blake’s group would have made it through unharmed. He hoped they were all still in one piece.

Some of the soldiers were close enough to start firing, though the distance meant their aim was bad. Michael dropped out of the air, claws outstretched, attacking with brief but intense bursts of activity. Powerful wings beat around the men’s heads disorient
ating them, but that didn’t stop shots from being fired into the air. The eagle got unlucky, taking a bullet to the wing, with a spatter of blood and feathers. The bird screeched in pain. He managed to glide toward the next copse of trees, but then Chogan heard branches snapping and the crash of leaves as something big and heavy fell to the ground.

Oh, shit
, Michael.

A couple of the soldiers had followed the bird’s fall, and turned to run into the trees where he had come down. More shots
came, followed by another shriek from the bird. Chogan snarled in anger, but he didn’t have time to waste on emotions.

We need to get to the others.

If the chopper was picking them off from the air, then his plan had failed. It didn’t matter how many soldiers they’d lured away. They would be stronger together. But first they needed to disarm as many of the men as possible.

Something came rushing from behind them, running through the forest with a speed that was surprising for her bulk. Lexie appeared,
roaring, her massive jaws filled with huge sharp teeth. Several of the soldiers saw her, and fell back, clambering to safety, as she rose up onto her hind legs and began to swipe at the remaining men. Chogan didn’t know if she’d followed Danny, or had run from the slaughter of the other team, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t glad to see her.

Mischa
was bleeding from a gunshot wound, but she continued to fight. She moved with supple speed and grace, all teeth and claws. As soon as a soldier lost their weapon, they had no chance against the shifter. She leapt at one. He managed to get a shot off, but she closed her jaws around his arm, and he let go of his weapon. She dropped his arm and he picked himself up, not even attempting to get his weapon back, and ran off into the trees. Mischa barely paused, turning straight to another soldier who lifted his weapon toward her. She was too far away to stop him from getting a clean shot.

No,
Mischa,
he willed her.
Avoid, don’t attack.

The gun went
off, a blast of light and sound in the night. She took the bullet in the shoulder and dropped to one side. Lexie rose up on her hind legs right behind the soldier who had just shot Mishca and brought her full body weight down upon him, crushing him to the ground. But Mishca had taken two shots now, and was losing blood, growing weaker by the second. She couldn’t fight any longer.

The number of
soldiers had dwindled. A small number still issued a few half-hearted shots at the shifters, while the injured or dead bodies of their comrades lay scattered upon the ground. Others had seen the fight as one they weren’t going to win, and had deserted, taking off into the forest. Those remaining might have noticed the sound of the chopper, and were holding their ground in the hope it was coming to help, or more would be on their way. Chogan didn’t think they would give chase if the shifters fled.

He lifted his muzzle to the sky and howled, grabbing the attention of the others. With a swing of his head, he motioned in the
direction of Blake’s team.

Injured and in pain,
Mishca began to shift back, quickly taking the form of a naked, beautiful, but hurt woman.

Damn
it. Now what?
He couldn’t leave her here.

But he obviously wasn’t the only one to have that thought. Lexie lowered herself to the ground, her teeth gently closing around
Mishca’s arm, tugging her. The woman lifted her head, dazed, and understood what the giant polar bear was trying to tell her. Finding the last of her strength, she managed to hook an arm around Lexie’s broad neck, and pull herself up onto the bear’s back. Her blood left streaks of red against the white fur. The bear’s back was broad enough for Mischa to be able to lie there, only needing to hold onto clumps of fur on the bear’s shoulders to prevent herself from sliding off.

L
eaving only one shifter fallen forever, they ran from the carnage. A couple of shots followed them into the trees, but no men appeared to give chase. Chogan led the way as they ran in the direction of Blake’s team, the thrum of the helicopter growing louder. The automatic gunfire paused for a moment, but then sounded again. They were getting closer. It was important for them to stay under the trees. As long as they had the cover of the canopy of branches, the chopper would lose its advantage.

Chogan stopped sud
denly, causing Danny, and Lexie with Mischa still on her back, to pull up short behind him as the chopper headed in their direction. He didn’t want to be spotted, but the silencing of gunfire and the movement of the helicopter worried him. Had the others got through safely? He doubted it.

The chopper passed overhead. The group hadn’t been spotted, for the moment.

They reached the spot where the others had been. Their scents covered the forest floor, intensifying in certain spots where they must have stood and surveyed the military. But there was no sign of Blake or the others on this side of the perimeter.

Chogan
broke through the trees into the clearing where the fence was going to be erected, and where the soldiers had held the perimeter not long before.

Hi
s heart leapt into his throat. Blake lay in a crumpled heap of fur and blood. He wasn’t moving, and Chogan got no sense of heat or breath from his body. Something, or someone, lay beneath the mass of bloodied fur. His sensitive nose recognized their identity, though her scent had changed since she’d begun her journey as a shifter.

Tala!

It dawned on Chogan that his closest family members lay before him, covered in blood and barely moving.

Were they both dead?

But no, Blake was still in the form of a wolf. He might be seriously hurt, his body’s reserves for healing already depleted due to the gunshots he’d taken only a matter of a week ago, but if he remained in wolf form, he was still alive.

Chog
an couldn’t help either Blake or Tala as a wolf. He focused internally, finding the soul of the beast within him, and forced his spirit guide away. He felt an almost physical tearing as the wolf’s spirit left his body. Instantly, the clarity of the world when he was a wolf dimmed. His form began to change, a resounding crack echoing in his head as every bone in his body shattered simultaneously, only to reform once again. Muscles tore only to rebind. He felt them grow like bindweed, twisting and curling around the newly shaped bones. His fur retracted, leaving his nut-brown skin smooth and free from blemishes.
Please,
shift quicker,
he willed, even through the agony of the shift.
Hang in there, Blake. Please be
okay.

But as his
shift began to near its end, before his eyes, Blake too began to turn back to a man. He did so with no sound, no cries of pain, or even moans of discomfort. His body was completely still.

Oh, fuck
. God, please no.

The
others had understood what was happening. Lexie still had Mishca on her back. Danny prowled restlessly behind them. Across the clearing, he saw some of Blake’s team, Leah and Toby, shifting back.

Where the fuck was Rhys?
He was supposed to have been looking after Tala, but instead it looked like he’d just dumped her out in the open, and Blake had stepped in.

Damn it, Blake.
Had he made the final sacrifice? Chogan never meant for things to go down like this. It was the sacrifice
he
was prepared to make, not his cousin. Blake had never wanted any of this to happen, he’d fought against it, but in the end he was the one who’d ended up hurt.

With his shift completed, Chogan
got to his feet and ran, naked, toward the body of his cousin. He came to a halt at Blake’s shoulder and dropped to a crouch.

From the opposite side of the clearing,
Leah and Toby ran toward him, when they should be running the other way. In their horror, neither of them noticed or cared that the other was naked.

“Is he okay?” Leah cried.

“He stood over Tala,” said Toby, his face pale with worry, his eyes wide. “He took the bullets.”

Chogan reached out and placed his hand against Bla
ke’s broad throat. He held his breath, his stomach in knots, waiting. Could he feel anything? The seconds seemed to stretch out for eternity, every ounce of focus he had alert for the barest movement beneath his fingertips.

There it was! The faintest of pulses, but
definitely present. Blake was still alive … barely. Beneath Blake, Tala moaned and tried to move. She was back to being almost fully human, apart from a rash of dark, mottled skin down the side of her face and one arm. The skin had bumps beneath it, like baby’s teeth about to break through. He could only assume the change and slowing of her shift was because Blake’s weight, or perhaps something more life-threatening, had left her only partly conscious.

He felt a surge of anger toward her. If she hadn’t injected herself
with Autumn’s blood, Blake wouldn’t have been put in the position of needing to protect her. She could have run for herself.

In the distanc
e came the now familiar thrum of the chopper. It was coming back, and he suspected the men encased within its metal shell were searching for him.

The rest of the group, most still in their animal forms, had gathered around.
Chogan could sense the hesitation in the air, each of them with the same question on their minds. Should they shift back and help, or stay as they were and run? The chopper could be back within minutes. He saw no point in losing anyone else.

“Go,” he told Lexi, still in bear form. “Get Mishca out of here and find
her help.” He didn’t know where that help would come from. If they tried to get to a hospital, the doctors would have to report the gunshot wounds to the police. Right away they’d know something was wrong, and if they suspected them to be shifters, they’d probably be shipped right back here again, and this time the military wouldn’t make the same mistake. They’d get the fence up in that time, and keep the whole thing fully guarded. They’d underestimated the shifters, but they wouldn’t do so a second time.

“
Run,” he said, raising his voice to a shout. “Get to safety.”

“They’re coming back!” Leah cried, looking up at the sky in the direction the chopper was coming from.

“Go!” he repeated, swiping his arm in the direction of the line of trees. “
All of you. Get out of here!”

“But what about you?”
asked Leah, her voice frantic.

“I’ll be fine. Now go, or we’re all going to end up dead.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave you.”

He forced his tone to be hard.
He didn’t want to hurt the girl, but she was better off being emotionally hurt than physically. “You’re just a kid, Leah. Go home, already.”

She blinked back tears, but turned her face from him and
ran back toward the cover of the trees to start her shift back to her owl spirit guide. Toby shot Chogan a look he couldn’t quite read—he hoped it wasn’t admiration, he didn’t deserve that from anyone—and then took off after Leah.

Who was left?
Garth and Jerome hadn’t hesitated at Chogan’s suggestion to run. They were taking care of each other, and slipped between the trees to head deeper into the forest, away from danger. Harry, still in boar form, snuffled and crashed his way through the bushes. Lexie and Danny ran side by side, still in animal form, with Mischa on Lexie’s back. Rhys was nowhere to be seen.

If he made it out of this alive, Chogan vowed, he would track the other man down and beat seven bells of shit out of him for running.

They’d lost
Michael, Julianne, and possibly Mischa. Would Blake die now? With mixed emotions, he watched the others take off into the forest. Both Toby and Leah completed their shifts back to their spirit guides, and lifted into the air. They would be faster that way and would find it easier to avoid capture.

The sound of the chopper faded for the moment. They must be checking out a different part of the perimeter. He’
d gotten lucky, but he doubted his luck would last.