Wolfsbane (Howl #3) (11 page)

“
Okay. Goodnight,” Emma said in
to the phone before hanging up.

As Samara placed her phone on the dresser next to the bed, Colby came into the room. “Sam?
It looks like we’re not leaving early tomorrow.”

“What do you mea
n?” Samara asked.

“My dad couldn’t find us any flights until Thursday morning at the earliest. So, we’re stu
ck here for
two more days.”

“Great,” Samara muttered. She sighed. “Emma really needs me to be there for her
right now
. They think her stepfather is going to pass away soon. He was
in a really bad car accident.”

Colby sat down on the bed.
When he glanced up at Samara, she noticed his face had softened a little.
“Wow, poor Emma. The girl’s annoying, but I feel bad for her.
Is she close to her stepdad?”

Samara hesitated.
“It’s
hard to explain.
She n
ever wanted her mom to get remarried
, so for a long time, she
wanted no part of him
. But, now, I think she knows he makes her mom happy . . . and she loves
her mom. They’re really
close.”

“Well,” Colby began, a thoughtful look on his face. “I have an idea. But it will only work if we ge
t back in time.”

Samara sta
red at him blankly. “Explain.”

“He doesn’t have to die,” Colby began. “As long as we get there to him in time, we can stop him from dyi
ng. Someone
just need
s
to bite him.”

“So, you’re saying that we could just
turn him into a werewolf
and that will save him?” Samara felt hopeful. As much as she wanted to avoid
turning
people
into werewolves
, it also made her happy to know that she could save her best friend from the heart
ache of losing of her stepdad.

“Yes,” Colby replied. “As long as he hangs on
until we get there.”

“Can’t Emma just turn him?” Samara asked
, reaching for her cell phone to call her best friend and tell her the news.

Colby shook his head. “No, she can’t. She’s too young, and she has to be a part of our pack before she can turn him. If she were to turn him right now, he would be a Shomecossee because that’s the pack she
still technically belongs to.
We gotta get back there soon so we can do it ourselves.
”

A
s Colby stood up to
go into the living room, Samara
whispered, “Thanks. I know Emma gets on your nerves
sometimes—”

“
Most
of the time,” Colby corrected her.

Samara smiled. “
Most of the time . . .
But
it
still
means a lot to
me for
you to think of doing this
for her
.”

Colby nodded before leaving the room. As Samara crawled into bed,
she felt a lot of pressure to get out of Alaska as soon as possible
. They had to go back to Pennsylvania now before they could go to Massachusetts; saving Emma’s stepdad was more important than finding Jason
at the moment
. Plus, it gave them more time to come up with a plan to catch him off guard
.

After Samara
relayed the bad news that they wouldn’
t be able to leave right away---l
eaving out the good news because she didn’t want to ge
t her best friend’s hopes up
if it didn’t work out right
—to
Emma via text,
she tried to drift off to sleep. But it didn’t happen right away. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she fell asleep at all. It was a long, lonely night wondering
if Luke was mad at her or not.

Chapter 15

The next morning, Samara was awoken by the sound of knocking at the
front
door.
Remembering that Orkos and Kyana were supposed to join them for breakfast, she quickly changed
into a clean pair of
clothes and made her way into the living room, where she found most of the guys sprawled across the floor
on their sleeping bags
with Nuka.
Luke was l
ying on the sofa, which gave Samara
a stale taste in her mouth. He could have just slept in the bed with her and let someone else have the comfort of sleepi
ng on the sofa, but he hadn’t.

When Luke met her eyes, he smiled at her, his green e
yes twinkling. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Samara
muttered, trying not to let anyone see how annoyed she was at him.
She turned to Orkos and Kyana, who stood in the doorway holding several tall paper bags which looked li
ke they were packed with food.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Orkos said. “We brought
enough food to feed an army.”

“We practically
are
an army
,” Chris said, flexing his muscle
s as if to prove his strength.

The pack
all sat down at the dining room table, and Orkos began pulling the food out of the bag.
Samara held her breath as she wondered what he would pull
out for them
; she’d heard that people from Alaska did a lot of hunting and ate a lot of things from the sea, so she half-expected him to pull out a moose or a walrus
or something t
hat she wasn’t accustomed to eating.

When Orkos
placed a container of lox on the table, along with bagels and pre-cooked bacon,
Samara
breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alaskans eat the same way as everyone else does,” Orkos laughed, noticing her expression. “Even u
s traditional Inuit Alaskans.”

Samara smiled, grabbing a cinnamon raisin bagel. “So, we found a bunch of stuff that my grandfather l
eft behind for me last night.”

“Yeah? Did you find anyth
ing interesting?” Orkos asked, a genuine look of intrigue in his eyes.

“Well, there were a few things,” Samara replied, choosing her words carefully. Even though her grandfather was obviously very good friends with Orkos, she wasn’t sure how much information she was allowed to tell him. Would her grandfather have se
en it as betraying her own pack
or helping out a good friend? “Two of the things really confused me, though. He left a
compass, and an address book.”

“Ah, the compass,” Orkos said, nodding his head. “You know
what that’s used for, right?”

Samara bit into the lox on her bagel, delighted by the sweet taste of the savory fish, and shook her head. “No, I hav
e no idea what it does.”

“It’s intended to help you find your enemies,” Orkos explained. “Joe used some secret formula to create it himself. It detects hormones and chemical reactions in the air, and it knows how to sense anger and revenge. He swore that if you use the compass, it will let you know
when you should be cautious.”

“That’s simply fascinating,” Colby sai
d through a mouthful
of bacon. “Joe was some scientist. Do you believe it
really
works?”

Orkos shrugged. “The idea used to sound too far-fetched to me, but Joe had this miraculous ability to sense when people were out to get him. Then again, that shouldn’t have been too hard. Most of the people in our
world were
out to get
Joe McKinley.”

“Really? I mean, we’ve all heard the stories
about his haters
, but were there really that many people out to get him?” Kyl
e asked from across the table.

Orkos cleared his throat.
“A lot of people wanted to kill him so that they could say that they had successfully killed the most
powerful werewolf in this world . . .
or in hopes of becoming the next most powerful.
Some of them even wanted to kill him so they would be able to be the next Alpha of his pack—which, presumably, was the most powerful pack, since McKinley
was the most powerful leader.

Orkos glanced over at Samara.
“When you’re as powerful and well-known as Joe is, people will always want to
try to
bring you down.”

Samara
sunk down into her seat, knowing that he was trying to give her
advice. She was, after all, the next in line to be as powerful as her grandfather had been.

“Speaking of pack leaders and Alphas, do you know if the next leader was named Finn
egan McClellan?” Samara asked.

Orkos’ eyes lit up with recognition. “Yes, that was his name! How did you find it? I was looking all day and night, but didn’t uncover anything in the
mess of documents in my den.”

“
Mess is an understatement,” Kyana whispered to Josh, who she was holding hands with.
“It looks like we were hit by a tornado.
”

Orkos shot Kyana a ‘look’.

“It was one of the names in the address book I mentioned,” Samara replied, standing up to get the book. She handed it to Orkos. “Do you have any idea why some of the names are written in red, and
others are written in green?”

Orkos looked down at the list, scanning the addresses that were scribbled in the book.
“I’m not sure that there is a reason. I mean, it’s a little strange that it goes by every other name. If it were strategic, I would imagine that it would go in random order.”
Glancing up at Samara, he handed
the address book
back to her
.
“Joe never told me a reason for it if that’s what you’re asking. In fact, he didn’t tell me much at all about the things that he left for you—only that I was to give you the bank account information and the deed to the house when the time came.”

“Do you have the deed to the other house? The one in
Pennsylvania?” Samara asked.

Orkos stared back at her, a confused expression on his f
ace. “There’s another house?”

“Yeah, Grandpa Joe left me information about it,” she muttered, surprised that he
r grandfather
hadn’t mentioned any
thing to Orkos about it. Maybe Grandpa Joe hadn’t said anything because he hadn’t wanted his best friend to know about it, though. Maybe the other house was supposed to be a secret . . .

“I can’t say that I know anything about that house,” Orkos replied, running a hand over his dark hair. “Sorry about that. I wish I had answers for you.”

“
It’s okay,” Samara
replied. “When can I get those documents
, by the way? You know, the bank information and the deed to the house?”

“Whenever you’re ready for them,” Orkos replied.

“I think I’ll let you hold on to them a little while longer,” Samara replied, remembering that she didn’t want to say anything about what her grandfather had left her to her parents just yet. Not until she was sure that they would allow her to decide w
hat to do with it on her own.

“That’s fine,” Orkos replied. “I’ve already had them for years. A few more weeks or months won’t hurt.”

“Where did Grandpa Joe get his money from?” Samara questioned. “I never knew he was rich when I was a kid. I mean, I knew he wasn’t poor, but I didn’t
think he was a millionaire
or anything like that
.”

Orkos smiled. “A lot
of his money
was an inheritance from his parents. But he’s also lived a long life. Money is
bound to add up eventually.”

“How old was he?” Samara asked. She thought her grandfather wasn’t much older than most of her friend’s grandparents.

“A few hundred years old,” Orkos replied. “Your father was one of the childre
n that he had later in life.”

“I didn’t know that werewolves could have pups when they were that old,” Samara said quietly, She wanted
to ask Orkos why he was in such a rush for Kyana to reproduce when she had years to do that? It didn’t make much sense.

“It is possible, but it’s not very common,” Orkos said. “Most of us have pups early on. Just like parenting human children,
parenting
werewolf children can grow tiresome over
the years
. But, Joe had pups long before he met your grandmother. His mate
had already been dead for many years before he’d met her
. A lot of us thought he was nuts for mating with a
human, but Joe was stubborn
a
nd he thought he was in love.”

“Do you think my grandfather
was in love?” Samara questioned. She’d never heard that her grandparents didn’t have a good relationship with each other, only that her grandfather travelle
d often.
She hadn’t even known for sure that her grandmother was a human.

Orkos hesitated. “I don’t know if I believe that a werewolf can really love a human the same way he can love another werewol
f. It
doesn’t seem logical to me.”

Samara nodded.
She knew that she couldn’t argue with him;
it was hard to imagine what it would be like to love a human now. They wouldn’t share that intense to
uch that she shared with Luke—the bond that could only be formed between mated wolves.

At that moment, Orkos’ cell phone rang and he pulled it out of his shirt pocket. He glanced down at it. “I have to be going now. Duty calls. The pack is h
aving a dilemma.”

“Can I stay here for the day, Papa?” Kyana asked, still holding Josh’s hand. “I’ve already d
one all of my chores at home.”

“I don’t see a reason
why
not,” Orkos replied. “It’s not every
day that we get to meet the infamous Samara McKinley.” He grinned at Sama
ra before heading to the door.

Once she heard the door close behind him, Samara turned to Kyana. “He doesn’t seem that old school, if you ask me. I mean, he let you skip going to school so that you could hang with us for the day. I can’t imagine an overl
y strict father allowing that.”

Kyana laughed.
“He only agreed to let me stay because I don’t go to school at all. I’m homeschooled, but I’m way ahead of schedule on my schoolwork. In a few weeks, I shou
ld be able to graduate early.”

“You don’t seem like a homeschooled girl,” Josh commented, leaning forward and giving
her a small kiss on the lips.

Samara gaped at him. She had never seen Josh act this affectionate towards Lilly before she’d died, and they’d been mates.
Was it possible that his feelings for Kyana could be just as strong? From what Colby had explained when she’d first turned, Samara didn’t think it was possible to ever get a second mate—unless you were to get bitten before
you went through initiation and were
forced to decide between two
packs, like she had.

Pushing away from him, Kyana scoffed
. “I
wasn’t aware
that homeschooled girls acted a certain way.” When everyone stared back at her, she explained, “I’ve never been around many girls who have gone to school. Papa and the rest of the Koto pack believe that it’s best for us to be isolated from humans because they ‘cloud our vision’
.” She made
air quotes with her fingers, rolling her
golden honey eyes at the idea.

“You don’t seem much different from the girls who go to our school,” Colby commented. “Most of them dres
s like you and act like you.”

“One of the women in our pack owns a clothing store,” Kyana explained.
“Me and the other girls from our pack
get most of our clothes there . . . otherwise, my father would probably object to me wearing human clothing
at all. He’d rather see me dress in deerskin than wear human clothing
.” She rolled her eyes. “He makes
it seem like humans are so bad
sometimes, when really, I don’t see how the
y’re much different from us.”

“They’re not,” Colby agreed. “Well, some of them are more obnoxious. Like Samara’s friend, Emma. She’s a wolf now, but she wasn’t destined to be.
And there’s probably a reason for that.
She’s the most annoyin
g person you could
ever meet
! Have you ever seen the movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
? It would be like that if Kate Hudson’s character
wa
sn’t just pretending to
annoy Matthew McConaughey’s character
.”