Wolfsbane (Howl #3) (13 page)

It felt like every muscle in her body was being electrified by his touch. Goosebumps shot up and down her skin and, with his arm wrapped around her waist, she felt so
mething stir inside of her.

It fel
t
like the heat contained in their tiny tent was growing
thicker and more intense
, as a sense of w
armth took over her cold body.

Samara leaned over and pressed her lips against Luke’s. She kissed him slowly and gently at first, but as their tongues met and Luke pressed his hands against the small of her back, a sen
se of urgency rushed over her.

She gave into the kiss and, pressing her body against Luke’s, inhaled h
is pineapple peppermint scent.

Luke pulled himself away from her and began planting a trail of kisses down her neck. He slipped his hands under her
shirt, slowly moving upwards.

Samara felt another electrifying wave of ecstasy wash over her body as Luke’s hand slipped underneath the bra she was wearing and
lightly gl
azed
over h
er breasts.

Every inch of her body didn’t just want him a
t that moment; she needed him.

When she met his hungry, pleading emerald green eyes, she whispered, “I’m ready.” His eyes widened in question, and Samara nodded,
encouraging him to go further.

Luke leaned forward to pull her shirt over her head, but the delicate cotton material ripped down the center at his strength and urgency. He pressed himself against her and, releasing a territorial, th
roaty growl, bit into her neck.

The feeling of his teeth sinking into her skin sent shivers down her spine, and she fel
t herself squirming beneath him
as his cold but fiery
skin brushed against her own.

Samara pressed her lips against Luke’s again. She could feel his hunger and desperation as he kissed her back, deeply and frantically. His tongue pressed against hers, sending that icy fiery feeling throughout her entire body, and she frantically
struggled to unzip his jeans.

“Stop,” Luke whisper
ed, pushing her away from him.

Staring at him in confusion,
Samara felt her heart drop
as a wave of disappointment washed over her body.
Why was he
rejecting her? She thought he wanted this,
but maybe she had been wrong.

And then she smelled it. The scent was musky and even though she could tell that it was far away, she knew the scent
all too well. It was the Vyka.

Wake up guys,
Samara
said, tapping into her pack members’ minds
.
We have visitors.

Chapter 17

Luke pulled off his own shirt and handed it to Samara. “Here, wear this. I don’t want any of the guys seeing you without a shirt on,” he
said, motioning to her
bare
chest.

Samara glanced down at herself and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. All that she had on was the light pink lacy bra that she had been wearing underneath the shirt Luke had ripped in half.

Her hands brushed against his as she took the shirt from him, and part of her wanted to tell him that she wan
ted to just shut the tent again and close
the door to the outside world so that they coul
d finish what they had started.

But she couldn’t. They had more important things to worry about right now
. . .
like why the Vyka were in Alaska, and what they were going to do i
n the event of an attack.

Once they climbed out of the tent, the rest of the pack was
already rushing towards them.

“We smell them, too,” Colby hissed, trying to keep his voice down. “I thi
nk they’re about a mile away.”

“How did they even figure out we were here?”
Kyle asked, shaking his head.
“I thought they were supposed to be in Massachusetts.”

Samara wondered the same thing, but she couldn’t come up with an answer.
“I don’t know, but we need to act quickly.”
She thought fast, and an idea came to her—an idea that would give them a fighting chance, at the very least.
“Chris and Steve, I need the two of you to go in the house to find some string or something that can
work the same way as string.”

Chris and Steve both gave her a funny look before
, surprisingly without questions,
darting back to the house to do as they were told.

Samara
turned to Colby and Josh.
“You two go into the greenhouse and pick enough wolfsbane for us to all we
ar it around our necks, okay?”

“Okay, we will,” Colby agreed, and they both hurrie
d off towards the greenhouse.

“The rest of us are going to keep guard of the house,” Samara told Luke and Kyle. “If they come anywhere near the yard, we need to be prepared for an attack. We need to come up with a plan of action.” She felt the nerves and anxi
ety building up within her, and
for a moment, she was positive she was going to vomit right there
in the snow behind the cabin.

“Just relax,” Luke told her.
“We still have some time. But once we have the wolfsbane, we need to get the hell out of here. We might be able to hide our scent so that they can’t follow us when we leave but they might be able to trace us here still si
nce we already left a trail.”

“The box,” Samara said, remembering the chest that her grandfather had left for her.
There was no way she could let the Vyka find everything in it
. . .
especially not the letter from her grandfather telling her that the key to becoming stronger was wolfsbane. The last thing they needed was for the Vyka to become even more powerful than t
he Ima than they already were
, assuming that they didn’t already know her grandfather’s secret weapon
.

Once Samara was in the house, she
pulled everything out of the box
. She stuffed the address book, the letters, the d
irections to the talisman back in Pennsylvania
, and the compass in her purse. At that moment, her
phone started ringing loudly.

“Of all times,” she groaned. She was about to hit the ‘ignore’ button, but she glanced down at the
caller ID. It was her mother.

Why was her mother calling now? It was late, and she should probably be in bed. Then, she realized that her mom was probably confused with the time difference between the Bahamas and Pennsylvania
—throw
into the mix the time difference from Pennsylvania and Alaska, and it was probably already mornin
g or something in the Bahamas.

“Mom?” she ask
ed frantically into the phone.

“Samara! I can’t believe we haven’t talked all week!” Mrs. McKinley chirped into the phone, her voice full of excitem
ent. “How’s everything going?”

“Fine,” Samara replied, keeping an eye out the back window, making sure that the Vyka weren’t sneaking up on them from behind. She turned all of
f
all of
the lights in the h
ouse
, except for a dim lamp, in hopes that no one wou
ld notice that they were inside the cabin.

“How’s school going?”

“It’s okay,” Samara said nonchala
ntly. “How’s your trip going?”

“It’s been so much fun so far. I’m so glad that you convinced us to go because we’ve been having a really amazing time,” Mrs. McKinley said, as Chris waved a piece of thr
ead in front of Samara’s face.

“Perfect,” she mouthed to him. Into the phone, she said, “That’s great, Mom
. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“Have you been thanking Aunt Rae for everything she’s been doing for you since we’ve be
en gone?” Mrs. McKinley asked.

“Yes,” Samara lied, closing her eyes. She hated not being able to tell her mother the truth—which was that she might die in Alaska tonight if they had a bad run-in with the Vyka or the Savia. At that moment, she heard a loud bang from outside. “Mom? I have to go. I have homework to finish before school.” She paused. “I love you.
And tell Dad I love him, too.”

“I love you, too, baby,” her mom said into the phone. “Goodnight. We’ll see y
ou on Saturday.”

“Yeah, see you Saturday,” Samara muttered.
When she
hung up the phone, she could feel her hands shaking. What
if this was the last time she would ever talk
to her mother again?

Trying not to think about that possibility, Samara asked, “Did
anyone else hear that noise?”

“It sounded like a car hitting a tree or something to me,” Luke replied. “I don’t think it was anything, but we still need to hurry if we’re going to get out of
here without getting caught.”

Samara nodded and
,
holding her breath
in hopes that it would offer her some of protection from the Vyka,
ran outside into the dark night.
She ran to the greenhouse to find that Colby and Josh had already opened the door and were makin
g their way back to the house.

“We have the wolfsbane ready,” Josh told her, as he came out of the greenhouse, followed by Colby. They both had a
rmloads of the purple flowers.

“Good, we need them now,” Samara said. She led them back to the house and grabbed the thread that Chris had found. “How are we going to get the flowers on the thread?” she wondered o
ut loud.

“Beats me,” Chris shrugged.
“
I failed h
ome-ec class
.”

“Dude, that’s because you nearly burnt down the school,” Steve commented. Turning to Samara, he added, “I, on the other hand, am an excellent sewer. If you can find a sewing machine, I could probably make you a sweater right now.”

“This is more like jewelry making than it is
like
sewing,” Samara murmured, as she tried to wrap the thread around one of
the flowers without success.
“And it’s not like we have a needle or anything, anyway.”

“Actually,” Colby said.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a ti
ny
plastic container. “Here.”

“A needle! Perfect!” Samara exclaimed. She felt her forehead wrinkle in confusion. “You just carry
a sewing kit around with you?”

Colby nodded. “I always thought it might come i
n handy sometime . . .
like if someone r
ipped their pants or something.” When Samara stared back at him questioningly, he explained, “
That happened to me once when we were doing gymnastics in gym class, and everyone made fun of me.”

“That’s because you were wearing rubber ducky box
ers,” Chris said with a snort.

“Well, thank goodness for rubber ducky
boxers, then,” Samara muttered, pointing her chin at the needle she held in her hands.
With some difficulty, she stuck the thread through the eye of the needle and poked it through the center of
one of the purple flowers. She half-expected its petals to crumble as she pulled the thread all the way through, but luckily,
they didn’t.

Once she was finished, she handed the first flower-threaded necklace to Luke, who placed it around his neck. She continued threading the flowers until she had given one to each and every one of her pack members. Samara pulled the final completed necklace over her ow
n head. “We better get going.”

“Whe
re are we going?” Steve
questioned.

“We could go to Kyana an
d Orkos’ den,” Josh suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” Samara agreed. “I can’t really think of any other options, anyway. Come
on.”

“Wait,” Kyle said, just as they were about to close the door b
ehind them. “What about Nuka?”

Samara hesitated, glancing over at the dog, who simply stared at her and wagged her tail. “I think we can come back for her before we leave Alaska. We’ll have Orkos and Kyana come back and feed her regularly just li
ke they always do until then.”

“But we can’t just leave her behind,” Kyle protested. “She was Grandpa’s dog. He would have wanted us to take care of her. You even said so y
ourself.”

“
Which is why I want to make sure that we keep her safe,” Samara said softly. “If she comes with us, I think she’ll be more of a nuisance than anything else
. . . and
I really don’t want her to get in the middle of anything. I know Nuka’s immortal, but it would kill me if something did happen to he
r if we come across the Vyka.”

“I agree that we should come back for her,” Luke said. “Now, come on, let’s get out of here before the Vyk
a find us before we find them.”

*

When they got closer to Kyana and Orkos’ den, Samara noticed a different
s
cent. It was musky, but it also smelled of almonds. Had Jason and the Vyka tried to cover up their scent so that she and her pack wouldn’t
be able to find them so easily
? Sneaky,
maybe, but
smart—and either way,
she was on to them.

As they entered the door of the den, the scent grew stronger and Samara began to panic. Were the Vyka already here? Maybe they had tracked down their scents to the den. . . . Why hadn’t she thought that the Vyka may come to look for her here? They should have stayed far away from Kyan
a and
Orkos to keep them safe, but now it was too late to turn back.

As Samara
began walking
into the tunnel-like den, she heard
Kyana scream, “Leave us alone!”

Samara’s heart dropped to her knees, and she ran forward. Kyana was tied up to a wooden chair, and Orkos was sprawled out on the ground with his eyes
closed. Was he even conscious?

A man’s voice sounded from the kitchen, and Samara
quietly
crept forward to see wh
o Kyana had been screaming at.

Norm and Martin both stared back at her
, their eyes filled with
a look of
rage.

The scent didn’t belong to the Vyka, after all; now that she was up close, she realized
that the scent should have been familiar—it belonged to the Savia.

“So, we meet again,” Norm chuckled when he saw Samara. He took a step closer to her, and she backed
up, straight into Luke’s arms.

“What do you want with Kyana and Orkos?” Luke growled at them, protectively stepping in front of her.

“We thought we smelled you, so we came here to re
mind you that we want you gone. Ol
d Orkos here
decided to gi
ve us a warning to leave your pack alone. No one gives us orders. Not when your mate, as you call her,” Martin sneered, “is the one who made a death t
hreat to someone on our pack.”

“I didn’t—” Samara started to say in defense of herself, but she stopped talking when Luke took a
step forward, fists clenched.

“My mate hasn’t threatened anybody,” Luke replied, his voice deep and territorial. “So, I
suggest you get out of here.”