Autumn's Blood: The Spirit Shifters, Book One by Marissa Farrar Read Free Book Online

their bodies
when they change.”
    Haverly stared at him in horror. “How
are you going to do that?”
    “Open them up and get them to change
into whatever animal they can. I want to watch how their bones
alter, how their organs reform while they’re changing. I figured
we’d need some extra backup, which is why Thorn is
here.”
    Blake could stay quiet no longer.
“They’re not going to be able to shift if they’re dead!”
    “I don’t want them dead. It’s possible
to open someone up while they’re still alive, still
conscious.”
    Haverly’s jaw clenched. “This is
unnecessary and barbaric!” he spat through gritted
teeth.
    He and Blake exchanged a worried look.
They couldn’t stand by and let this happen.
    Dumas rounded on Haverly. “I’m not
asking for your permission, Haverly. This is my project and I’ll
decide what happens.”
    Calvin Thorn regarded the exchange, a
cold humor barely hidden beneath the restrained surface of his
expression.
    The boy sat in the chair, his head
down. Silent tears ran down his face, his hands still shackled to
the armrests, rendering him unable to wipe the moisture away. A
desperate urge overtook Blake, a need to go and reassure him, offer
him some kind of comfort. But if he went in there, the boy would
recognize what he was and there was a chance of his cover being
blown. He shuddered to think what Dumas would do if he discovered
his head of security was one of those he seemed to both despise and
adore.
    The head of the project nodded at
Calvin. The two medics waited with small, slender boxes which Blake
felt certain held hypodermic needles containing some kind of
sedative.
    “Take the man,” Dumas instructed,
nodding toward the chambers.
    Without a word, the men took the
passageway to the right, which lead behind the glass screen and to
the back of the holding cells. Cal folded his arms across his
chest, the expression on his face never changing.
    Blake watched through the one-way
glass, his fists clenched. He was torn, desperately wanting to
shift and rip these people apart, but knowing he
couldn’t.
    The captive man turned as if he’d
heard something, and the next moment a hidden door in the metal
wall at the back of his chamber opened. The men in white coats
entered the room, syringes in hand. The man’s eyes widened. He
struggled, yanking his bound feet and hands. The cuffs didn’t
budge.
    He turned to the front and locked eyes
with Blake, though Blake knew he couldn’t see him through the
glass. The eye contact must be coincidence, the man had no way of
knowing another shifter stood on the other side.
    The man’s eyes flared a golden
yellow.
    Blake knew what that meant. He
launched forward, slamming his hand down on the button which
allowed him to speak into the chamber. “Get out! He’s
shifting!”
    The world seemed to pause as the man’s
whole body tensed. His hair withered and vanished and what appeared
to be quills spiked from his body. He roared in pain as they
stabbed through his skin. His body yanked one way and the next,
then the quills unfurled.
    Feathers, Blake realized.
    The man’s face changed, his nose and
mouth molding together and elongating, covered in a hard, brittle
material. His whole body shrank, his arms and legs slipping from
both his clothing and the ties which bound him. His clothes fell in
a pile on the floor.
    The men took a couple of steps away,
their backs against the wall, looking on with a mixture of
amazement and horror. Where only moments before a man sat, now a
huge eagle stood perched on the chair. The bird was larger than any
of them had ever seen before, easily four times that of a regular
eagle.
    The bird opened its beak and
screeched.
    It spread its massive wings, spanning
almost half the room.
    Dumas seemed to remember himself. He
pushed Blake out of the way to get to the microphone. “Sedate it!”
he yelled at the doctors.
    They exchanged a glance and both
lunged forward. The bird flapped its wings and lifted