Saving Autumn

SAVING AUTUMN

The Spirit Shifters: Book Two

Marissa Farrar

For my family, always.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

*You can click on the title to be taken to the selection. Additionally, clicking on the chapter titles will bring you back to the table of contents.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright Information

Chapter One

THE LOCATION OF a disused industrial building in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly where he’d envisioned the uprising of shifters starting.

Chogan
Pallaton surveyed the small group of men and women gathered before him. Some leaned against the bare brick walls, others squatted on the concrete floor talking quietly between themselves. Above their heads, rain rattled on the corrugated roof.

He reached behind his head and pulled his long black hair into a ponytail, squeezing the rainwater from the ends. His leather jacket had kept off the worst of the deluge, but the fronts of his jeans and t-shirt were still damp from his run through the city. His shifter body heat made his clothing steam, creating a shimmer in the air surrounding him.

Preferring to stick to the shadows of backstreet alleys, he’d deliberately not grabbed a cab to the meeting place. One unwanted side effect—one he’d not considered—was that his public shifting had made him recognizable to almost everyone in the city. Of course, most people didn’t believe his shift had been real, and so he found himself inundated with numerous questions and inane comments like, “Hey, man, you pulled off some cool shit! What special effects did you use?”

He found himself scowling at them in response. What else was he supposed to do? If he told them it had all been real, as he’d done the first time he’d been faced with a skeptic’s response, they’d only laugh and say something along the lines of, “So turn into a wolf for me now.” He didn’t have the time or energy to humor those assholes.

No, he had bigger plans. But he understood now that he wouldn’t be able to do this alone.

Chogan jumped up on top of a stack of overturned wooden pallets and cleared his throat. The murmured voices of those like him fell silent, and he addressed the crowd, his tone strong and commanding.

“A few days ago, three spirit shifters were rescued from a government building here in Chicago.” His eyes scanned the group, focusing on the middle-age white man he now knew to be called Michael Davis and the younger Native American woman, Kasa Lowery, two of the three they’d rescued. The boy, Toby West, who’d been held captive with them, was absent from the meeting. He was a minor and both his parents were fully human—a difficult situation for the boy to be in.

Chogan continued, “They were held and tortured, forced to shift using electrocution …”

A mutter of disbelief and shock went up among the crowd.

“And our government, the people who are supposed to look after us and protect us, knew about this abomination. They turned their backs and allowed this madman,
Maxim Dumas, do whatever he wanted because of what we are.” He raised his voice another level, filling his tone with the emotion that lay at his heart. “We are better than these people. Each of us has a divine gift, and yet we’re forced to keep ourselves hidden, as if our gift is some dirty little secret.”

Black, White, Hispanic, Native American, men, women, young, and old. Spirit shifters from all walks of life had gathered here today after Chogan had put out word of the meeting. He didn’t know most of these people, had never met them before now, with the exception of
Enyeto, a bear-shifter from his own reservation, who stood silently at the back of the group. Chogan had deliberately tried to keep this meeting quiet from the rest of the reservation, even those who had helped in the rescue. Despite there being the possibility of finding others who might support him in his quest, he’d not wanted to risk Blake finding out about the gathering.

What are Blake and Autumn doing now?
His mind took him to the thought of them together and his insides twisted with ugly jealousy. He wanted to be happy for his cousin, but the knot in his heart told him otherwise. Over the last few days, Autumn had not only proven herself to be beautiful and smart, she’d also gone into the government building to rescue the other shifters and her friend with no thought for her own safety. Chogan knew that took some balls, something he struggled to hide his admiration for.

But that wasn’t the only reason for the blonde being tangled in his thoughts every minute of the day. No, she wasn’t just a regular woman. She held the secret to the creation of his kind. That was the reason for his current infatuation, he told himself. He was merely interested in who she was and what she could do for them.

Despite what Blake believed, this
was
the first time he and his cousin had been interested in the same girl. He’d only ever been friends with Shian, Blake’s childhood sweetheart who had died suddenly. Chogan was aware of his own downfalls—he was selfish, hard, unsympathetic. Autumn was better off with Blake than she would ever be with him. Not that his opinions mattered; she’d already made her choice.

He’d felt bad for allowing his cousin to be taken away in the back of an ambulance after he’d been shot, though he’d been sure Blake would be fine. He was strong, physically and mentally, and Chogan knew he’d recover quickly enough. He’d been right. When he’d phoned the hospital, telling the nurse in reception he was family and asking for a progress update on Blake
Wolfcollar, she’d told him the patient had checked himself out, albeit against the doctor’s advice. She’d sounded pissed about it, and he had wondered what sort of scene Blake had caused and if Autumn had been with him.

He suspected Blake’s unadvised release from hospital had something to do with his own display on the local television channel. He’d known he was taking a risk, but he’d needed to take the opportunity. What other time would present itself where shifters would be gathered in such numbers, and with so many eyewitnesses? He hadn’t considered that so many people would convince themselves it had all been
some kind of trick. Even the ones who had been there still seemed to think such a thing happening might have just been an illusion. Idiots. How could they disbelieve what occurred right in front of their eyes?

Not all humans thought his display in front of the cameras had been fake. A small but disturbing group of individuals had been posting their own videos online, videos which encouraged others to stamp out the rise of shifters, to not tolerate the group of “freaks” and “abominations of nature.”

The awe and respect he’d expected hadn’t come, but it was early days. He’d gotten something started, had commanded the attention of the public and of other shifters. The gathering before him now proved he wasn’t the only one who wanted to be able to live in the public eye.

His self-righteous cousin thought differently. Chogan suspected Blake would be looking for him, thinking up ways to put a stop to his plans.

“What they did to us was horrific,” the woman, Kasa, called out. “The same thing could happen to any one of you here, or to those you love. We have no rights in their eyes! As long as what we are is kept a secret, the government can go on using us.”

A skinny white guy, Joey Miles, spoke up. “But didn’t that guy, Dumas, die?”

Chogan nodded. “Yes, he did, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. There are plenty of others who will take his place.”

Michael, one of the shifters Blake and Autumn had freed, shouted, “As long as we stay hidden, we’ll never have any strengths as shifters. We might as well not exist.”

A chorus of agreement rose from the group.

Harry Bernard, an older black man, shook his head. “I don’t agree. We’ve spent our whole lives trying to keep what we are a secret, and you undid it all with one stupid, selfish act.”

“Selfish?” Chogan’s eyebrows lifted. “What I did was self-
less
. I’ve sacrificed my anonymity, even when I couldn’t be sure others would follow me. I did this for us, so the rest of society will finally know what we are.”

The older man sniffed. “And you think that’s a good thing?”

“Of course. Humans have no reason to fear us, but they should at least offer us their respect.”

“Well, I’m with you,” called out another woman—a girl really—in her early twenties. Her hair was dyed bright red and flipped over to one side, revealing the shaved underside. She wore big biker boots over the top of black leggings and a black dress that appeared to be held together with safety pins. “I’m sick of feeling like a freak. I’d rather people knew and understood what I was than wonder why I seem different all the time.”

Chogan couldn’t help but think the girl would probably have felt different even if she was fully human, but he was grateful for the support. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Leah Phelps,” she told him.

“Thank you,” he said, locking eyes with her. Her cheeks went pink beneath her pale makeup.

“What about those of us with families?” another woman, Juanita Romero, called out. “My children don’t even know what I am. I need to think about them and how people are going to treat them.”

Chogan stalked across the raised platform. “Again, everyone thinks this is going to be a negative thing! Why? Because that’s what we’ve been told over and over. Why does everything have to be bad?”

The woman shook her head. “You obviously don’t have children.”

“No, I don’t. But if I did, I certainly wouldn’t want to keep what I was from them. If one of them has the gift, do you intend to teach them to be ashamed of what they are and hide it from everyone else?”

Juanita bristled. “I never said I was ashamed.”

Chogan could tell he was starting to rile people the wrong way. He pulled back. “Listen, I understand if this isn’t for you. My intention was never to force those who want to stay hidden out into the open. If you want to keep your secret, please do. But I hope the rest of us can at least start to work toward making our existence common knowledge and not something to be feared.”

A murmur rose up around the crowd as they turned to each other to discuss his point of view. He kept his mouth shut, allowing them space to come to their own conclusions. While he wanted them behind him, he wanted them to
want
to be there, not be there because they felt pressured or intimidated.

Wanting to keep an eye on the surrounding area, he concentrated and briefly focused in on his wolf spirit guide. His wolf trotted around the perimeter of the cluster of industrial buildings, nose to the ground. The insistent rain didn’t affect the wolf in the same way as it would a live animal, didn’t chill or wet its fur. However, the rain did affect the acoustics of the area, making it harder to hear. The low talk of the humans inside the building filtered through the drumming of the rainfall to its sensitive ears. In the distance came the rumble of traffic, the swish of tires on wet asphalt. A fox clattered a trashcan lid somewhere nearby, but then, as if the animal somehow picked up on the presence of the spirit wolf so close by, skittered away in a scramble of claws.

Another movement, this one much larger, drew the wolf’s attention. It stopped and lifted its head, hackles rising on the back of its neck and in a ridge down its spine. A low growl emitted from the back of the animal’s throat.

Damn, what was that?

Another voice called to him from the crowd, and Chogan had to refocus on the people before him, people who had only come here today because of him.

“So what is it you want us to do?” asked Leah.

He cleared his throat. “The first thing we need is for people to take us seriously. I’m sure you’re all aware that the vast majority of humans don’t even believe my shift in front of the government building was real, despite there being numerous eyewitnesses and being broadcasted to thousands of people. That’s what we’re up against—people so closed-minded they don’t even believe their own eyes, preferring instead to explain things away. Those who do believe, who don’t think this is some kind of scam, seem to be the troublemakers.”

“Isn’t that going to be a problem?” Joey called out. “That those who believe what we are instantly hate us for it?”

Chogan’s jaw tightened. “They should revere us, not hate us.”

Mishca
Klein, a tall woman with ebony skin and startling, sloped green eyes interjected, “What they
should
do and what they actually do are two different things.”

He focused his intense, dark gaze on her. “Then what would you suggest? That we stay hidden from society until the end of time?”

“No, but we need more of a plan than just making ourselves known.”

“That’s only the start. I want to see shifters living openly among the rest of society. I want to see them heading up police departments, council boards, even as ministers of government departments. I want our existence to be recognized and accepted.”

Chogan paused and slowly turned his head to scan across the group. “If you want to go, then please do. I don’t expect anyone here to out themselves unless they’re one hundred percent certain that to be known as a spirit shifter is what they want.”

Something tugged at his subconscious, his wolf wanting to make contact. He struggled to focus on both the people he addressed and what his wolf was trying to show him.

The rain fell heavily again, drumming against the rooftops and splashing off the street, distorting what surrounded the wolf. But it sensed movement, people, moving stealthily.

Are
these more shifters?
Ones who had heard about the meeting?