Avenging Autumn (12 page)

Hands grabbed his shoulders, pulling him back.

“Blake! Blake, stop it! You’re going to kill him.”

The guy’s eyes had rolled back in his head.

Blake looked over his shoulder to see Madison, pale and wide eyed. She already had a massive bruise spreading down one side of her face, he assumed where the ex had hit her.

“What? This guy tried to abduct you and your son. Why the hell wouldn’t you want to see him dead?”

She lifted her eyebrows and jerked her head slightly toward the vehicle. “It’s because of Billy that you need to stop. I won’t allow him to watch his father beaten to death right in front of him.”

Blake’s shoulder’s relaxed. She was right.

“Thank you, though,” Madison said, crouching beside him, her hand touching his shoulder. “I don’t know how you did it, but if you hadn’t intervened, Billy and I would be on our way to God knows where right now.”

“Hey, do me a favor,” said Blake. “Go honk on the horn. We could use some extra hands.”

She nodded and got to her feet. “Sure.”

A couple of blasts on the horn caused lights to appear from inside the house. The front door had been left ajar after Madison’s ex had dragged them through, and it was with hesitation that Wenona and Lakota both appeared in the doorway. They frowned out into the dark, trying to see where the noise was coming from. Lakota lifted a hand and pointed toward them. They both came at a slow jog, a rifle held in Wenona’s hand as she ran.

“My God,” said Wenona, as she reached them. “What the hell happened?”

“Meet Madison’s ex-husband,” said Blake.

“Well, technically, he’s still my husband,” she said. “His name is A.J. and as you’ve probably figured out, he wasn’t too happy that I up and left with Billy.”

“How did he find you?”

“I made the mistake of telling this so-called friend where I was, thinking she would come and get us, and maybe let us stay for a while until I got us back on our feet. But the bitch must have put down the phone and called A.J. right away, telling him where to find us.”

“Some friend.”

She sighed. “You can say that again.”

“But you didn’t need to leave, Madison,” said Blake. “I already told you that.”

“I know. I just didn’t want to outstay my welcome, that’s all. I know it’s tough having a young kid around, and you all had so much other stuff going on. I felt like a burden.”

Wenona frowned. “Don’t be silly, girl. If you were a burden, we’d have kicked you out long ago. Now let’s get everyone back into the house. It’s freezing out here.”

Blake realized she was right. Everyone rubbed at their arms, their breath misting in the chill air, but he wasn’t cold at all. Had his body temperature increased? It was impossible to tell for himself, and he didn’t want to allow himself to hope for what it might mean.

“Can you get my chair?” Blake asked. He didn’t want to drag himself back to the house again. He was proud of what he had done, but the last thing he wanted was for the others to see him like that.

“Yes, of course.” His father turned and hurried back into the house.

“Madison,” said Wenona. “Why don’t you get Billy back inside the house? I have some hot chocolate in the kitchen, I’m sure you both could do with a hot drink to warm yourselves up.”

“Only if I can spike mine with something,” Madison said, wryly. But she lifted Billy from the vehicle and held him close to her body. The little boy wrapped his legs around her waist, and arms around her neck, his face buried into her shoulder. The bear A.J. had gone back for dangled loosely from Billy’s fingers. A.J. must care at least a little for the boy to have bothered going back for the soft toy. Holding him tightly, Madison took her son back to the house.

A moment later, Lakota wheeled the chair down the ramp. Wenona left Blake’s side to help his father, and together they brought the chair to Blake. Lakota reached down to him, but he batted his father’s hand away.

“I don’t need to be helped.”

Using his upper body strength, he planted his palms in the seat of the chair, and then hauled himself up and into it. He nodded down to the unconscious man. “What do we do about him?”

“I suggest we throw him into the cellar and lock the door,” said Wenona. “Then it’s up to Madison what we do with him next.”

“Okay,” said Blake. “Do you think you can manage to get him back into the house between you?”

Lakota nodded. “I’d say so. What about you?”

“I’m fine. I can get myself back.”

He pressed his lips together as he watched Lakota and Wenona bend to Madison’s ex and struggle to lift him between them. But they picked him up, one arm slung over each of their shoulders, his head falling forward. Blake felt as though he should offer to loan his chair to move the guy, but something about seeing that asshole in his position in the wheelchair made him uneasy.

He pushed the wheels to maneuver himself back up the ramp and into the house. He headed into the living room, both Lakota and Wenona following close behind, their breathing heavy as they fought with the weight. The man’s feet dragged across the floor behind them.

Blake wheeled himself to the door which led down into the basement. “Are there any more weapons down there?” he asked Wenona.

She shook her head. “No, they’ve all been distributed between the shifters now.”

“Good. Throw him down there, if you can.”

Wenona gave a shrug, as best she could with the man hanging from her neck, and she and Lakota exchanged a glance. Blake moved out of the way, and the two of them shuffled A.J. to the top of the steps, and let go.

A.J. dropped to the first step and then teetered forward. For a moment, Blake thought he was going to remain on the top step, but then his body weight carried him over and he tilted forward. He hit the step a couple of treads down, and then tilted to one side and rolled the rest, bumping and thumping down to the bottom.

Wenona turned back with a grimace on her face, then pushed the door shut, plunging the cellar into complete darkness. “If the son of a bitch has broken his neck, it’s the least he deserves.”

Her eyes locked on Blake in the chair and her cheeks colored. “Sorry, Blake.”

“No offense taken.”

“I’ll help Madison with that hot chocolate,” said Wenona, vanishing into the kitchen and leaving the two men alone.

They went into the living room. Lakota took a seat on the couch beside where Blake had positioned his chair. “I’m proud of you, Blackened Hawk. I knew your disability wouldn’t prevent you from being the same man. You saved that woman and boy tonight, despite everything. Weaker men who had use of their legs might not have been able to do what you did, and yet you overcame that.”

He shook his head. “I just did what I always would have done.”

His father smiled, deepening the lines on his face. “That’s my point exactly. Your body may be broken, Blake, but your heart is not. You need to acknowledge that, and I think it may help your spirit guide problem.”

Blake pressed his lips together. He didn’t want to say what he’d thought earlier out loud in case it jeopardized any chance of him healing.

His father noticed his hesitation. “What is it? Talk to me, son.”

“I’m not sure, exactly. I feel different, as if I’m stronger somehow. And I didn’t notice the cold outside. My body heat dropped when my wolf started distancing itself from me, but now I think it may have increased again.”

Lakota leaned over and placed his weathered palm against his son’s head, checking his temperature as though he were a small boy with the flu. Lakota smiled and nodded. “You feel warm to me, too, son.”

Blake suppressed a smile. He didn’t want—didn’t dare—to hope that something might have changed only to be disappointed.

He feared that if he dared to hope, then whatever magic may have happened, would only vanish again.

––––––––

T
HE NEXT MORNING, Blake opened his eyes to the stomach sinking realization that Autumn and the others hadn’t yet returned.

A.J. had regained consciousness at some point during the night and kept himself entertained by hammering on the inside of the cellar door and demanding to be let out. When that didn’t work, he’d resorted to hurling abuse, which everyone had ignored. Blake had hoped Chogan would be back by now to deal with this new problem. His cousin was the one who’d brought Madison and Billy into the group, so it seemed only right that he be the one to clear up the mess.

Blake lay still for a moment and internalized his thoughts, probing into the darkest recesses of his mind, like a mental prodding with his tongue into a space a tooth had once inhabited. After his increase in body heat last night, he wondered if his wolf was any closer. His mind traveled into the part of his soul his wolf inhabited. Whether his spirit guide liked it or not, they were still joined, and they always would be. He wasn’t sure if a spirit shifter could ever be completely parted from their spirit guide. It was strange, he felt like this was the one time his wolf guide should be there for him, should help him spiritually to find the right path.

A surge of surprising anger lifted inside of him. He’d been abandoned because of his physical incapacity by the one being who should have helped him the most.

What would happen if he was able to shift again? Would he be able to run, or would he be a crippled wolf? He assumed the reason his spirit guide had kept his distance was because his last instinct was correct. If he shifted, his wolf body would be as broken as his human one. Despite his anger, he didn’t blame his spirit guide for keeping his distance. If he knew a way he could avoid being what he was, he would keep his distance, too.

In his head, his wolf growled.

Blake tensed.
Are you there?

The growl came again. His wolf was definitely closer, though he wasn’t synched with it as he had been. But his father had agreed that his body temperature had increased. Did he dare hope things were getting better, and, if they were, what had been the cause? Had it been because of the small amount of contact he’d made in the spirit world? Or had saving Madison and Billy last night somehow helped?

The sound of movement and scents of breakfast came from the direction of the kitchen, cups clinking, water running, the hiss and sudden waft of bacon frying.

Blake opened his eyes and pulled himself to sitting and then leaned out of the bed to allow his body weight to take him to the floor. Using only his arms, he took himself to use the bathroom. Damn it, he couldn’t even piss like a man, forced to sit on the toilet like a woman instead. Would his hatred of the way he was ever end?

With business taken care of, he pulled himself into his chair and maneuvered himself out of the door, down the hall, and into the kitchen. Everyone else was already there—his father drinking coffee at the table, Madison buzzing around, feeding Billy breakfast, and Wenona frying up bacon in the pan. Such a domestic, normal scene, it was hard to imagine they had a guy locked up in the basement.

“Morning,” he said as he pulled himself up to the table.

“Morning,” his father replied, before taking another slurp of coffee and turning the page of an old newspaper he’d found.

Madison gave him a smile and poured milk onto Billy’s breakfast cereal.

No one mentioned A.J.

Wenona dropped a plate onto the table in front of him and started to pile it high with bacon, eggs, and toast.

He lifted a hand to stop her. “That’s plenty, Wenona, thanks.”

“Nonsense. Strapping young man like you needs to keep his strength up.”

He smiled and tucked in, relishing the soft egg, and the salty bacon. He was starving.

“So what are we going to do about your ex?” Blake asked Madison, once Billy had run off to play in the yard. “We can’t keep him in the cellar indefinitely.”

She pushed her dark hair away from her face. “Sure, I know that.”

“Do you want us to call the cops? He was abducting you both, after all. That’s got to be a crime in the eyes of the law.”

“I’ve reported him before for getting violent, and the police never did anything. They had a quiet ‘word’ with A.J. and told me that he wouldn’t be a problem again. Of course, that was bullshit, ’cause as soon as they left, he pinned me up against the wall and told me if I ever called the cops on him again, he’d take Billy away from me.”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

“Okay, we’ll wait until the others come back, and perhaps a little time with a whole bunch of shifters will make A.J. understand what the cops didn’t—that he needs to stay out of your life in order to keep his.”

Madison gave a small smile. “Thanks, Blake. And thank you for last night as well. I can’t imagine where we would be right now if you hadn’t stopped A.J. like that. What you did was incredible—I mean that—especially considering you’re ...”

She motioned to his chair, and he gave a nod to show he understood what she was trying to say without her needing to actually say it.

“Well, thank you,” she said again, and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. The waft of a fruity body wash filled his senses, and her soft hair brushed the side of his neck.

Stupidly, he felt himself blush.

He caught his father watching, and Lakota raised his eyebrows at him. It was nothing. He loved Autumn, but it was nice to have a beautiful young woman make him feel like he wasn’t completely unnoticeable now he was confined to a wheelchair.

“Blackened Hawk,” said Lakota. “I wondered how you might feel about trying to contact the spirit world again. You said your body temperature had increased. Does your spirit guide feel any closer?”

He nodded. “Actually, yes. This morning my wolf was really close, but when I tried to make contact, it growled and backed off.”

“Do you remember how I told you how I felt that your struggles with your spirit guide may be more about your broken spirit than your broken body?” Blake nodded. Lakota continued, “I wonder if what happened last night, how you saved Madison and Billy, may have somehow mended your soul a little. You proved to yourself that you’re not incapable, or useless, or any of the other things you have been thinking about yourself recently. Perhaps that’s the reason why you felt differently afterward.”