Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One (20 page)

He glanced down at the too-small
clothing and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I
guess so.”

“I kept all your old clothes. Your
room is the same as you left it.”

He looked to Autumn to make sure she
was all right with being left alone for a few minutes. She reached
out and squeezed his hand, giving him a nod and smile to tell him
she was fine.

Blake headed down the hallway, back to
the bedroom where he used to sleep as a boy. He’d left at the age
of nineteen, too young to bother to move to another house in town.
The first time he’d lived away from home had been hundreds of miles
away. His hand traced objects from his childhood—an old stereo
which still took tapes, the faded posters on the walls. He could
hardly believe his father had kept all of this the same. A pang of
guilt seared through him.

What else had he expected? For his
father to pack up his stuff and forget he ever existed?

He pulled open the dresser and
unfolded a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Quickly, he stripped,
replacing the items he wore with the ones from his teenage years.
The clothes were a little snug—he’d bulked out since his teenage
years, though he’d been big even back then. Still, they fitted a
hell of a lot better than the ones Chogan had stolen from someone’s
backyard.

He went back out to find everyone
standing in the entrance hall, waiting for him. Chogan seemed
eager, almost hopping from foot to foot. By contrast, Autumn was
pale, dark shadows beneath her aqua blue eyes. She looked exhausted
and Blake wished they weren’t putting her through another
excursion. He’d forgotten she didn’t have the extra reserves
shifters did.

“You can stay here if you want,” he
told her. “Get some rest in my room.” The idea of having her in his
old bed sent a thrill through him.

“No.” She smiled. “I want to meet your
sister.”

Chogan threw back his head and
laughed. “You might not be saying that after you meet
her.”

Blake narrowed his eyes. “Ignore him,”
he told her.

Together, they left the house and
walked down the middle of the street. Autumn stayed close to his
side and he automatically put his hand around her waist, allowing
her to lean against him. Both he and Chogan tired less easily
because of their body’s abilities, but he guessed, apart from her
so far untapped talents, she was as human as anyone
else.

She smiled up at him, grateful. “You
keep me warm.”

“Oh!” He hadn’t realized she’d been
cold, just tired. “You should have mentioned something at the
house. I would have found you a coat.”

She shook her head. “No need. I’m good
like this.”

A spark warmed his heart and he held
her a little closer, so her hip pressed against the top of his
thigh, her elbow tucking into his waist, her shoulder beneath his
arm. It felt good to move like this, like one person.

They followed his father down the
road, taking the first left onto another street. Blake couldn’t
help but compare the neighborhood to how it had been when he’d
left. His father had been working hard to bring the properties up
to a good living standard. It was always going to be hard getting
people to invest in property they didn’t technically own. Tribal
laws meant the whole of the reservation was owned by all the people
living on it. When everyone owned the land, no one owned the land.
The result was that the houses built upon the land were worth a lot
less than in non-reservation areas, so loans were hard to come by.
Hence the reason for there being so many mobile homes.

Still, the community had obviously
done their best to bring up the standard of this area, though he
had no idea what the rest of the reservation was like. At least
Tala had ended up living here instead of one of the poorer
areas.

Blake smiled as he observed the small
whitewashed house with the picket fence. So his sister had gone all
domesticated on him. It was hard to imagine. He wondered if there
was a man in her life and found himself frowning. He had no right
to try to play the protective big brother.

They piled up the path, nerves
suddenly churning his stomach. His father gave a sharp rap of
knuckles on the front door.

A few minutes passed. Chogan stepped
forward and knocked, harder this time. A noise came from inside, a
muffled shout to wait. The door flung open.

A young woman stood on the doorstep,
her jet-black shiny hair hanging down to her waist, her slender
body wrapped in a robe of some kind of silky material.

“What the hell’s going on?” She looked
between Chogan and her father, and then past them. Her dark eyes
widened, her neck straining forward as though reducing the gap
would help her make sense of what she was seeing. She stepped off
the stoop, one hand clutching her father’s arm as she went, gently
pushing him aside.

“Blackened Hawk?” She shook her head.
“No, it can’t be. I must be seeing a ghost.”

“It’s me Tala,” he said, stepping
forward and breaking the contact with Autumn. “I’m
home.”

“But ...” She shook her head again,
blinking. Only a matter of feet separated them now and she reached
out a hand and placed her fingers against Blake’s cheek. “It is
you.”

“Yes.” His face broke into a smile.
“I’m—”

His words cut off as a sharp crack
sounded across the otherwise empty street. A moment later, pain and
heat seared his cheek and he realized what had happened. She’d
slapped him.

“That’s for not being around the last
ten years,” she spat before turning around and storming back into
the house.

She’d left the front door open, and
Chogan started to head in. When no one else followed, he turned
back to face them. “If she’d not wanted you to come in, she would
have slammed the door in your face as well.”

Blake and Autumn exchanged a look. She
offered him a sympathetic smile, and reached up and gently touched
his cheek. “You okay?” she asked him softly.

“I deserved it, and I’ve had a lot
worse.” He resisted the urge to capture her fingers in his own and
kiss her hand.

“Come on, then,” Chogan said, laughter
behind his voice. Blake guessed he’d enjoyed seeing Tala slap him.
“Can’t get much worse.”

They piled into the house, Autumn
awkwardly lurking behind Blake’s huge form. He didn’t blame her. He
couldn’t imagine being dumped into a room with Tala on top of
everything else she’d been forced to go though over the past
twenty-four hours.

His sister stood in the middle of her
small living room, her arms folded, her weight shifted to one side,
her foot tapping. She didn’t appear much different than when he’d
left, except she was taller, her hair longer than before. Anger, so
often present when she’d been a teenager, still burned in her eyes.
Only perhaps that anger was darker now; he wondered if his
disappearance for the past ten years had something to do with
that.

“So what are you doing
back here?” She glared at him. Her eyes shifted to where Autumn
stood. “I suppose
she
has something to do with your return. Are congratulations in
order?”

He frowned and glanced back at Autumn
and realized what she meant. “Oh, no. Nothing like that. Or at
least, we are back because of Autumn, but not in the way you’re
thinking. This is Doctor Autumn Anderson. She’s a
colleague.”

Autumn stepped forward as if to shake
hands with his sister, but Blake put out an arm, keeping her back.
Tala had barely looked at her. Instead, her attention remained
focused on Blake.

“Oh, right. ‘Cause the way you two
were cuddled up certainly seemed like something was going
on.”

Blake suddenly found himself unable to
look at Autumn, tension buzzing between them.

“Well, whoever she is, I’m not going
to leap into your arms and play the doting baby sister, if that’s
what you were expecting. I’ve barely heard a word from you in
almost ten years and I’ve done just fine without you.”

Blake frowned. “What are you talking
about? I wrote to you all the time, from all over the world,
wherever I was stationed.”

She snorted. “A few crappy letters.
Big deal.”

“I wrote you every week, Tala. Even
after I realized you were never going to reply.”

She shrugged and stared at the floor,
her naked toes rubbing at the rug. “Maybe I didn’t want letters.
Maybe I wanted my big brother.”

“I’m sorry. I never thought I’d be
away so long. The years kind of got away on me.”

She lifted her head, fixing him with
her sharp, dark eyes. “So what are you doing back now?”

He shook his head. “It’s not something
I want you to get involved in. I just wanted you to find out about
me being here yourself, not hear it from gossip around
town.”

She gave a weak smile. “Well, thanks
for thinking of me ... for once.”

“Tala, you know what happened. If I’d
stayed, I would have broken apart the family. Is that what you
wanted?”

“By leaving, you broke us up
anyway.”

He nodded, not knowing what to say.
She was right.

Chogan stepped in. “Right, well, if
the heartwarming family reunion thing is done, I suggest we get
some rest.”

Blake offered his sister a smile.
“I’ll catch up with you again later, Tala. Even if you’re not happy
for me to be home, it’s still good to see you.”

AS THEY HEADED back to the house,
Autumn couldn’t shake the residing awkwardness she’d experienced
from being in Blake’s sister’s home. The other woman’s welcome was
in complete contrast to the one they’d received from Blake’s
father.

“I’m sorry about Tala,” Blake
said.

“Don’t be.” She smiled at him. “I can
kind of understand her being pissed.”

“Yeah, she’s angry with me, but she’s
always been a bit like that. Even before I left.”

Lakota interrupted. “Tala’s had a
difficult life. She lost her mother as a young child.”

“Oh!” She glanced to Blake, realizing,
of course, that what happened to Tala had also happened to
him.

Lakota continued, “It was always
assumed Tala would be wolf too. After Blake started to shift from
such a young age, and showed such control, understanding and
empathy with his spirit guide, then, not long after, Chogan began
to shift and was also wolf, we assumed Tala would have the same
talents. We even named her, assuming she would become a spirit
shifter. Her name means ‘Wolf.’ But the years went by and a spirit
never made itself known to her. The older a person gets without
being able to shift, the less powerful a shifter they become—the
less in control of their talents they are. Those who obtain guides
very late in life often don’t even have the ability to shift, they
simply have the wisdom and guidance of their animal guides. So the
more Tala grew up, the more frustrated she became.”

Autumn frowned. “But I thought
becoming a spirit shifter wasn’t passed down generation to
generation.”

He laughed, the sound deep and
hearty—that of a much younger man. “It isn’t. For example, I have
never been blessed with the ability to shift. But that doesn’t mean
some families won’t show a greater propensity for the
gift.”

“So Tala resented her brother and
cousin for being able to do what she wanted.”

Lakota nodded. “And not only that, it
made her feel like an outsider in her own family. Her mother being
white also didn’t help. Tala found herself unable to fit in
properly anywhere, at home or in the community.”

Autumn turned to Blake. “But you
didn’t feel like that?”

He shrugged. “My focus was always on
my spirit guide. I didn’t think about anything else growing up
except for shifting and running as a wolf. Tala never had
that.”

“And then you left,” she
said.

“Yes, and I’m not sure she’ll ever
forgive me.”

Chapter
Eighteen

AUTUMN STEPPED THROUGH the front door
of Blake’s old home and a wave of tiredness washed over her. Blake
looked down at her, a crease of concern between his dark
eyebrows.

“You must be exhausted. Why don’t you
take my old room? I’ll sleep on the couch.” He looked to his father
as if for confirmation.

Lakota nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll be
out all day now, I have work to do. So you have the place to
yourself. Time to figure out what your next step is going to
be.”

“I’ll leave you to it as well,” said
Chogan. “My own bed is calling.”

Blake guided Autumn to his old
bedroom, the heat of his palm burning against her lower back. She
looked around curiously at the small collection of sporting
trophies, the posters on the walls, the stack of music tapes in the
corner. How strange to be transported into the domain of a boy who
was very much a man now, standing beside her. Yet, despite the
teenage surroundings, she couldn’t help the surge of excitement at
being in such close proximity to him again. The bedroom was small,
Blake’s sheer size filling the majority, dwarfing the small, single
bed. She sensed the charge between them, the unspoken words of
attraction between two adults, though she knew she should have
greater things on her mind. Yet still, all she could seem to focus
on was the memory of the smooth, brown skin of Blake’s back, the
strong curve of his pectorals and biceps. How she wanted him to
strip naked once more and allow her to run her hands all over his
body, committing every inch of his skin to memory.