Autumn Rising (6 page)

Chapter Eight

CHOGAN AND BLAKE rationed out a little of the food to the other shifters before setting about storing everything away. Everyone had been through a lot, including a shift, which always left a shifter ravenous, so all but Rhys, who was still sulking and insisting the supplies might be poisoned, took the food with thanks. Once they’d eaten, a couple carried their sleeping bags into the adjoining bedrooms and settled down to get some rest. Toby had got chatting with Leah, though Chogan was perfectly aware of the glances Leah was sending him, even while she spoke to the boy. He didn’t want the girl to get the wrong idea. He’d put his arm around her, but only as a gesture of comfort, nothing more. She’d been the one ally he’d had when Tala turned against him, and he didn’t want to be forced into the position of having to reject her.

Tala was still sleeping—part woman, part something else—on the floor. Not wanting to
move her, he and Blake had laid a sleeping bag over her body, and placed another beneath her head.

“Will her shift start again when she wakes up?” Chogan asked.

Blake shook his head. “I have no idea. This is completely new to all of us. But I guess it’ll need to ‘cause she can’t stay as she is. She needs to shift one way or the other.”

“I hate what she did to
Autumn, but I can’t stand to see her like this either.”

Blake
’s expression softened. “Me too. She’s still my baby sister, even if I did let her down. She lost her mom, and then her brother, for all I was worth. No wonder she ended up messed up.”

Chogan experienced a rare moment of compassion for his cousin.
“It’s not all your fault, Cuz. Remember I was the surrogate brother while you were gone. I obviously didn’t have a particularly good influence on her either.”

Blake shrugged. “I’m not going to argue with you about that.”

Chogan pressed his lips together to prevent an answer from busting out. They had enough problems to worry about without arguing about the past. What was done, was done.

“Let’s hope she’s not in too much pain,” he said instead, though he knew that would be an impossibility. It was agony to shift, and Tala was shifting all the time when she was awake.
He didn’t even want to imagine what kind of excruciation she’d suffered.

They went back to stashing the packets of dried goods in the cupboards beneath the small kitchen sink. Chogan had already tried the taps, but was only rewarded with groaning pipes and a trickle of brown sludge.

Suddenly, Blake straightened from where he’d been leaning into the cupboard. “Do you hear that?”

Chogan froze
. A frown creased his brow as he strained his ears, listening. A low roar filtered through to him, growing louder.

“A vehicle,” Blake confirmed.

The engine grew louder, and Rhys stood from the corner where he bedded himself down with another sleeping bag. “Who the hell is it now?”

“We’re not going to know from in here,” Blake
replied.

The three of them headed back outside onto the
porch. They peered out into the night, though Chogan noticed the sky was already growing lighter, no longer pitch black, but now tinged with purple. They waited, the engine growing louder. Chogan saw the headlights first, bouncing across the uneven forest floor. He sensed the tension radiating between each of the men, but for once the tension wasn’t directed at each other. Whatever their differences, they were at least united in this one thing. Whoever headed toward them now was most likely the enemy, and they would fight side by side to defeat them.

The vehicle took an awkward, jolting path, forced to wind between the trees, tho
ugh it still travelled at the highest speed possible. It skidded to a halt, sending dirt and leaves spraying up from beneath the massive wheels. The vehicle appeared to be black in the moonlight, though it may have been a dark green. It was a large all-terrain van with bull-bars and a rack with spotlights mounted on the roof. The front doors swung open and two soldiers leapt from the vehicle. Immediately, they dropped to one knee, their guns, some kind of semi-automatic rifle, pointed in the direction of the cabin and the waiting shifters. The rear doors of the van swung open, and another couple of soldiers jumped out, but they were not alone. They shoved, pushed and dragged a number of other people, their hands bound behind their backs, hoods over their heads. Someone cried out and was rewarded with another shove.

Chogan started forward, but Blake’s hand on his arm stopped
him. “There’s nothing we can do right now.”

“Who the hell do they think they are?” Chogan
glared at the military men. Every part of him wanted to go all wolf on them and rip their stinking heads from their necks.

“They’re military,” Blake continued, his voice calm, measured. “They’re trained to take down people who attack them. They’ll be ready, and they won’t hesitate to fire on you if you appear to be a threat, which you do right now. So back the hell down.”

Chogan saw Blake look toward Rhys.  He’d also heard what Blake had said, though Chogan imagined the expression on the other man’s face was much the same as his, gritted teeth, flared nostrils, narrowed eyes.

Still
, they waited.

The soldiers continued to push, pull and shove the new arrivals in the
direction of the cabin.

“Hey, boys,” one of the
soldiers shouted. “We’ve got some new blood for you.”

One by one, t
hey unlocked the handcuffs of the bound people—shifters, Chogan assumed—and shoved them in the direction of the cabin. They staggered forward, each ripping the material bags from their heads now their hands were free.

One, a young man in his early twenties, caught sight of the soldiers. With a roar, he launched himself back at them. A shot went off, a crack in the otherwise still night. The man drew up short.

“Stay right where you are. One more step in our direction and we’ll fire more than a warning shot.”

A y
oung woman, about the same age as the man, had also removed her hood. “Danny, please ...” she begged him. “Do as they say.”

Chogan opened his mouth to tell him to listen to the girl’s advice, but Blake once again stopped him with a touch and a shake of his head. As much as it went against
Chogan’s instinct to not get involved, he needed to listen to Blake on this occasion. These soldiers were Blake’s people—or at least they had been before. His cousin understood how they worked.

Most of
the soldiers got back in the van. Two final men lingered with their weapons trained on the small group until their comrades were ready, and then they jumped back in the vehicle. The wheels spun, more dirt whirling out from beneath the tires. The van took off back through the trees, the headlights and roar of the engine growing dimmer as the distance increased.

Chogan quickly counted the new arrivals. Five in total. They were all unmasked now—three men and two women. The young
man and woman, who had initiated the shot, were now embracing, the man still with an angry, terse expression on his face, the girl in tears. The other woman was older, in her forties, with jaw length blonde hair, and a tall, slim figure. The other two men were similar in appearance, with the same sandy hair and freckled skin. The man was in his mid fifties, the boy in his early twenties, at most. Each of them sported injuries of some kind; grazed cheeks, blackened eyes, split lips. But from the way the injuries seemed to be rapidly healing, Chogan assumed all of the new arrivals were full shifters, with good connections to their animal guides.

He stepped forward. “I’d say ‘welcome’ but I can’t imagine any of you are happy to be here.”

The new arrivals eyed the men with mistrust. Some of the other shifters had been woken by the commotion and had come to see what was happening, though they remained on the porch.

“Who are you guys?” the young man called out.

Chogan suddenly hoped they wouldn’t recognize him as the one who started all of this. He didn’t think for a moment that they would thank him for it. “We’re shifters, just like you. We’re in this together.”

Blake moved to his side. “Come inside.
You look hurt. We have a basic medical kit, if anything needs seeing to.”

The young man scoffed. “We’re all shifters. We’ll heal.”

“That may be,” Blake continued, and Chogan admired his non-aggressive, but firm tone. “But you’ll be more comfortable inside. We have blankets and food, and I’m sure your girlfriend has been through a lot.”

The guy turned to his
girlfriend’s tear-stained face. She nodded to him, and his shoulders dropped.

Chogan was relieved.
They needed to be able to think clearly, and they couldn’t do so while riled up, hurt, and frightened.

He nodded to each of the new arrivals as they filed past him. The older man stopped and offered his hand. Chogan took it
, the man’s grip strong and warm.

“Name’s Garth Grissett,” he introduced himself, and Chogan noted his strong southern accent. “This here’s my boy,
Jerome.”

“Chogan,” he said, shaking first the hand of the father and then the son.

Everyone else had gone back into the cabin, so Chogan followed.

There felt like an awkward divide between the newcomers and the originals. The newbies stood in the middle of the cabin, looking around at the others. The originals held back, each side not quite confident enough to bridge the gap.

Chogan would have to be the bridge.

He stood between them and addressed the group. “The army have just delivered these people here.” He gestured to the young man, “Danny and his girlfriend
….”

“Lexie,” the girl filled in with a shy smile, tucking a st
rand of her long, mousy-brown hair behind one ear.

Chogan smiled and gave her a nod. “Lexie. And these are father and son, Garth and Jerome
.” He turned to the blonde. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name?”

She held his gaze.
“I’m Julianne Elwood. I think I already know who you are.”

Chogan’s
heart picked up a beat. He didn’t want a showdown between the shifters. They needed to be united if they were going to get out of this place. He ignored her comment and forced a smile, “And this is everybody,” he said, gesturing to everyone else.

“Well now all the niceties have been done,” said Rhys, moving forward to stand between Chogan and the newcomers, “are we going to talk about how we’re busting out of here?”

Anger surged through Chogan. When was this guy going to let it go? To his relief, Blake intervened, placing a hand on Rhys’ arm.

“These people have just got here, Rhys. Let’s at least give them time to adjust.”

He shook Blake off. “We should attack now. While we still have a little darkness to cover us.”

“No. We need to plan what we’re going to do. Rushing out hot
headed is only going to get us killed.”

“But there are more of us now,” Rhys insisted. “Before
, your excuse was that we couldn’t fight because there weren’t enough of us, and now it’s too soon! What other excuses are you going to come up with just because you’re chicken shit?”

Blake rounded
on him. “The last thing I am is chicken shit, you fucking moron. Those used to be my people out there. I’m ex-military. Unless we go in with a plan, and a damn good one at that, they will take us out in less than a minute.”

Chogan lifted both hands, stepping in between them. “All right, let’s cool things down a minute.
Blake’s right. We need to rest, and those with injuries need to heal. We’ll come up with a plan during the day, and when it falls dark again, we’ll do whatever we’ve decided.”

Chogan had to force himself not to shake his head in amazement. Since when was his the voice of sensibility?
Things were really going to shit if he was the one who had to rein others back in.

“Yes, that’s exactly what we need to do.” For once, Blake had agreed with him.

Rhys shook his head, but argued no further, though his upper lip was curled in a snarl of disdain. He turned his back on the group and sauntered back to the corner where he’d pitched up with his sleeping bag. He sat with his back against the wall, his knees bent, sullenly watching the rest.

Blake began to hand the new shifters food and sleeping bags. The young
man, Danny, was still comforting his girlfriend, and they took the offering gratefully. The father and son also seemed grateful to receive these small tokens of home comfort.

The older woman stood apart from the others
. Chogan took her rations over to her, but instead of taking them, she jerked her head to one side, indicating she wanted to talk to him out of range of the rest.

“Who’s the leader here? You?” S
he nodded over to Blake. “Or him?”

Chogan hesitated,
and then said, “We both are. He’s my cousin. We work together.”

“Well you might or might not know that things have gone to
hell out there. The military are rounding up shifters, or anyone suspected to be a shifter.”