Wolfsbane (Howl #3) (16 page)

Chapter
20

The helicopter lowered itself to the ground about fifty feet away from where they were standing. Samara turned to Luke
.
Who do you think is inside?

I don’t know, but I guess we’re going to find out now,
he replied. He ran over to the helicopter and climbed inside. The rest of
the pack began to follow him.

Kyle turned t
o her. “Are you coming, Sam?”

Glancing back at the forest behind her, she knew that she had to act quickly. The Vyka had to be getting closer, and if she wanted to escape from them—with everything that her grandfather had left behind for her—she had to get out of
here now. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

Samara darted over to the helicopter. Glancing over her shoulder, she scanned the area for Jason and the rest of the Vyka.
Luckily, she didn’t see them.

Once she was inside the helicopter and it was rising from the ground, she allowed herself to breathe normally for the first time
that night
. It felt like she was safe—or at least, safer than she had been on the ground. Samara settled into the leather seat next to Luke and gasped when she saw Josh’s arms wrapped ar
ound Kyana in a tight embrace.

“Kyana? What are
you doing here?” Samara asked, hoping that her surprise wouldn’t be mistaken as disapproval.

Kyana glanced over Josh’s shoulder, her golden honey eyes smiling. “Akar agreed to let me become an Ima. He thought it was in my best interest—that I would be safer there with all of you, since Papa is no longer able to care for me.
The doctor of our pac
k said that it would take many weeks
for his injuries to heal, and Akar is afraid
of what might happen to me if Norm and Martin come back
. He thinks it’s safer for both of
us if I’m with you.”

Josh glanced over at Samara, beaming. “Isn’t it exciting? We can be together now. We don’t have to worry about n
ever seeing each other again.”

“It’s very exciting.” Samara forced a tight smile. She wasn’t about to tell him that she did have doubts about
him and Kyana since mates were only supposed to happen once in a lifetime.
She wondered if he had told Kyana anything about Lilly, or if she thought there was a chance they could be mates because he’d never had one before. “So, how did you get this helicopter to pick us up
?”

“Akar’s pilot friend is flying it,” Kyana explained. “He’s dropping us off in Anchorage, where we w
ill take a plane to New York.”

“
Oh.” Samara knew it was necessary for them to go home, but she didn’t feel completely ready to go back to Pennsylvania. “But, I thought there were no flights available for today. At least, t
hat’s what Colby’s dad said.”

Kyana shrugged. “I found tickets on my sister-in-law’s computer. I
don’t know what website Colby’s dad was using, but there were available flights.”

Samara nodded, wondering why Mr. Jackson hadn’t been able
to find them if this were true.

Something dawned on her. “Wait, we have a problem
. Nuka is still at the cabin.
Who’s going to take care of her if you’re coming with us?
”

“
Don’t worry. She’s already been taken care of
,” Kyana replied
with a small smile
. “I had my sister, Margie, drive Nuka to the airport. Nuka is all ready to be transported back to Pennsylvania
with us
. All we need to do is get on the plane and retrieve her
when we collect our baggage.”

“You really have thought o
f everything,” Samara murmured.

“Yes, she ha
s. Everything’s going to be okay,” Luke said, grabbing her hand and s
queezing it. “So, just relax.”

Samara squeezed back and sank down into her seat. “That’s much easier said than done.” She wanted to feel relaxed, but she was still worried that they weren’t going to make it out of Alaska without having a run-in with the Vyka. And she still needed
time to come up with a way that her pack could defeat the Vyka’s much larger pack.

*

When the helicopter landed in a park not too far away from the airport in Anchorage, Samara quickly climbed out.
She transferred everything that her grandfather had left her from her purse to her duffel bag; she didn’t want to pay extra for if everything
would fit in her carry-on bag.

Fifteen minutes later, they were all in their seats. Security seemed to be more relaxed today than it had been when they’d boarded the flight to Alaska, which Kyana explained was because one of her werewolf friends, Pete, was a security guard, so he let them bypass some of the security measures.
Colby had also disposed of his
gun before entering the airport so that there wouldn’t be any setbacks.

As the plane rose from the ground, Samara laid her head on Luke’s shoulder.
“I’m not sure if I’m ready to go home. It feels like we’ll
be even bigger targets there.”

“Do you want my advice on what I think we should do?” Luke asked. “Or should I keep
quiet since you’re the Alpha?”

Samara hesitated. “Well, if you think your advice would be useful, then yes,
you should share it with me.”

“I think we really need to work on expanding our pack,” Luke told her. “You saw how many guys the Vyka have now. There’s no way we can
compare in terms of numbers.”

“You’re right,” Samara agreed. “But I also don’t think we should just go on a biting spree and make innocent people become . . . like us,” she said, making sure to avoid the word werewol
ves as a stewardess passed them with a tray of beverages.
“I wouldn’t have chosen this life for myself, so it’s not in my hands t
o choose it for someone else.”

Luke nodded understandingly. “I agree. Maybe . . .” He trailed off. “Maybe we could find something to trade with other packs. If we could find something valuable enough, they might be willing to give us
some of their pack members.”

“Maybe,” Samara said doubtfully. “When we get hom
e, we’re doing an initiation.”

“I think we should wait a while before we let Kyana go through initiation,” Luke said, shaking his head. “What if she changes her mind? I think she just thinks she’s in love with Josh right now, so she’s willing to sac
rifice her own pack for him.”

Samara shrugged. “If Kyana thinks she’s ready to initiate, I think we should let her do it. It’s better than biting random people so that they can join our pack, at least
, and it will give us an extra member
. If she really misses the Koto pack, I can always let h
er go back to them later on.”

“That’s true, too,” Luke
agreed. “Seems fair enough.”

“Kyana’s initiation isn’t going to be the only initiation we do, either,” Samara said, tapping Chris, who was sitting on front of her, on the shoulder. “Once we get back to Pennsylvania, let Rain know that we’re doing h
er initiation tomorrow night.”

Chris raised his bushy eyebrows. “I thought you wanted to get to know her first to make sure she was a good
fit for the pack or whatever.”

“
Well, I did,” she said slowly. “But we need to build up our numbers really bad right now. So, as long as she wants to become an Ima, we’ll do t
he initiation tomorrow night.”

“C
ool,” Chris replied with a nod, quickly turning his head away from her.
Samara could tell that he was nervous, and she had a good idea of why: he was probably worrying about whether or not Rain was his mate.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine how hurt he was going to be if Rain wasn’t his mate; they’d known each other since they were kids and had been in love for a long time
, from what Samara understood.

She glanced over at Luke, who was staring out the airplane window into the sky. For the first time, it felt like their relatio
nship was truly uncomplicated.

*

When they got home early the next morning, Samara felt jet-lagged from all the traveling they’d done over the past few days.
She invited the pack to sleep over at her house, but Chris and Steve decided that they were sick of sleeping on the floor and wanted to sleep in their own warm beds. Kyle wanted to let Rae know that he was home, and he also took Nuka with him. Rae had ag
reed over the phone to allow Nuka
to live at their house. Josh and Kyana headed back to
the Jackson’s house with Colby to figure out their new living arrangements.

Before they all went their separate ways, she’d instructed them to put their wolfsbane necklaces in a safe place, so that they would have them once they needed them again.
She was afraid that they might have to go back to Alaska for more wolfsbane eventually, unless they could fi
nd somewhere that sold seeds.

When Luke and Samara got back to her house, t
hey crawled straight into bed.

“You should probably call Emma,” Luke told her. “Let her know that we’re doing h
er initiation tonight.”

Samara nodded, reaching for her phone. “I’ll text her.” Once the text message was sent, she relaxed back into Luke’s arms. They were strong and
felt icy, but warm, against her
skin. It sent shivers down her spine—and that’s when she knew that she couldn’t take it any
more.

S
he couldn’t resist him.

Leaning over, Samara
pressed her lips against his. Luke
pulled her closer to him; it was obvious that he wanted the same thing as she did. He lifted her shirt over her head, tossing it to the floor, and she tugged at his zipper. Luke pulled his pants off, revealing the bulge
that was visi
ble through his boxer shorts.

Samara pressed her hands against his chest, kissing his lips again. A tingly feeling pulsated throughout her whole body, sending another wave of shivers down he
r spine as their tongues met.

“I want you so badly,” Luke murmured, as he kissed his way down her neck. When his lips were just above her heart, he looked up at her, his emerald green eyes filled with an intense
lust.
“Are
you sure you want to do this?”

Samara nodded, reaching behind her back and unhooking her bra. She didn’t just want to do this; she had to do this. It felt like she was drawn to Luke, and the only way to give into that magnetic pull was to give in to what she wa
nted---what they both wanted.

Luke’s lips came down on hers again and when he pulled awa
y, he whispered, “I love you.”

Samara’s heart skipped a beat, and she felt her skin growing warmer as her stomach did cartwheels. This was the first time Luke had told her he’d loved her since she’d said it the night of the accident, and just hearing those words made her feel even more tingly inside. “I love you, too,” she whispered back, kissing him back and pulling off his boxers.

They moved together as one, their bodies electrified by each other
’s touch, into the afternoon.

Chapter
21

When Samara woke up later that evening, there were three missed calls and two text messages from Colby. “Oh,
shit!” she cursed at herself.

“What’s wrong?” Luke asked,
sitting up in bed next to her.

Samara glanced over at him. His brown hair was a ruffled mess, a byproduct of what they had done earlier that day. Just thinking about it made her want to do it all over again.
“We slept through hospital visiting hours, so we’ll have to wait until tom
orrow to turn Emma’s stepdad.”

“Unless w
e sneak in,” Luke said slowly.

Samara raised her eyebrows at him. “You think we could do
that without getting caught?”

Luke replied, pulling on his clothes. “Yeah, I have an idea. C
ome on.”

Less than an hour later, Samara found herself pressed against the door to the hospital room that Emma’s stepdad was in, glancing around the corner to make sure that no one was coming. The hallway was empty. Even so, she still felt nervous. She wasn’t so sure that Luke’s plan was
going to work.

Chris and Steve were both down the hall keeping all of the on-duty nurses distracted by flirting with them, while Luke and Kyle were pretending that they needed to get information from the main desk that was less than a hundred feet away. Colby was standing guard, ready to let Samara know if he spotted anyone com
ing while she was in the room.

With h
er heart thumping against her chest, she slipped inside
the room
, closing the door behind her. Once she was in
side
, she glanc
ed around.

Emma’s stepdad was lying in the hospital bed with an oxygen mask on his face and IVs poking through his skin. His skin was paler than usual, and bandages covered much of his body, which was injured from the accident. Samara knew that he was going to be in bad condition, but she hadn’t known that he was goin
g to be almost unrecognizable.

Samara hadn’t told Emma what they were going to do—that they were coming to the hospital without her, or that they were even planning to change her stepfather. She hadn’t wanted Emma to get her hopes up if things didn’t work out . . . and there was that chance that her best friend might decide that she didn’t want them to go through with it, only to
regret her decision later on.

Glancing over at the bed next to Emma’s stepdad, Samara breathed a sigh of relief. The only benefit
about sneaking into the ICU
instead of another hospital room was that Emma’s stepdad’s roommate was also unconscious, so he wouldn’t see what
Samara was about to do next.

Standing next to the bed that he was lying in, she willed herself to change into wolf form. The blue smoke circled around her, as she was lowered to the grou
nd until she was on all fours.

Peeking over at the door to make sure that no one had seen, Samara acted quickly. She stood up on her hind legs, putting her front paws on the hospital bed frame. Looking down at his wrist, she sunk her teeth into his hip, ripping through the hospital gown that he was wearing, because it was the first area of skin that she could find that wasn’t covered in bandages and didn’t have IVs
shooting through it.

Her mouth filled with his blood, and she found right away that she didn’t mind the savory taste, which reminded her of gravy—in fact, she wanted to devour it, to get to the core of his flesh, and never stop biting. But she knew that she couldn’t allow herself to do that, so she forced herself to
let go of him.

Samara, one of the nurses is coming. Hide!
Colby’s p
anicked voice filled her head.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she glanced around the room for a hiding spot. But it was too late. The door was clicking open, and a nurse strolled into the room, checking the patient chart she held in her hands. When the woman looked up, she met Sama
ra’s eyes and her jaw dropped.

The woman backed out of the room and screamed, “Wolf!
There’s a wolf on this floor!”

Samara gave Emma’s stepfather one last look, finding that he hadn’t
been
resu
rrected from his hospital bed and hadn’t
even opened his eyes, and darted across the room to the door and down the hallway.
When she got to the end of the floor, she watched the nurses who were walking down the hall turn to look at her, their faces changing to nervous expressions as they quickened their pace, hoping she wou
ld let them pass by unharmed.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she found that the door was an automatic door, so she could get outside all on her own, and quickly darted out of it and outside onto the black pavement. She noticed a police car, with its telltale flashing red and blue lights, and siren wailing. Samara stood there frozen, feeling the panic rise in the back of her th
roat. What to do? Where to go?

Just run,
Luke told her.
Run as fast as you can until you’re out of sight, and then phase back.

Samara did as he sai
d, feeling as fast as she could
from the hos
pital.

Once she reached some pine trees two blocks away from the hospital, Samara quickly phased back into her human form. Just as soon as she changed, she glanced up to find Chris’s car pulling alongside her.
Luke opened a car door and motioned for her
to get in.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief that she hadn’t gotten caught, she climbed into t
he car, and Chris drove away.

“That was
a close one,” Steve commented.

“Did you at least get to do it before the nurse c
ame into the room?” Kyle asked.

Samara nodded. “Yeah, I
. . .
I bit him.” She stared out the window at the old abandoned farmhouse that they were driving past, blinking back the tears. She hadn’t expected to feel this guilty about biting Emma’s stepdad without asking
for her
permission
first
. Not that it mattered how she felt about it now. I
t was already done. Or was it?

Luke reached over and gave her hand a tiny squeeze, and
Samara offered
him a weak smile.

Colby glanced over at her, and a look of worry filled his own turquoise eyes. He must have noticed her te
ars. “What’s wrong, Sam?”

She looked down at the ground. “What
if that was all for nothing?”

“What do you mean?” Colby asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion. “As long as you b
it him, it was for something.”

Samara wiped her tears on the sleeve of her hooded sweatshirt. “I mean, when I left, he was still practically a vegetable. He didn’t wake up.
What if it didn’t even work?”

Colby laughed, running a hand over his curly blonde hair. “I’m glad that’s all you’re worried about, and not something more s
erious.”

Samara scoffed. “Umm
, I think this is a little serious! It means we might not have saved him, after all. I’m so glad we didn’t tell Emma about it. Now, she can’t be disa
ppointed that it didn’t work.”

“
No, it should have worked,” Colby replied. “I did a little research about what happens when people are in comas, and they’re bitten by wolves. There were only ever three cases of this happening. The first two woke up within twenty-four hours, and the third woke up within forty-eight. I’m pretty sure her stepdad won’t wake up right away. Not until
tomorrow, at the very least.”

Samara felt the knot of tension that had formed in the pit of her stomach release itself. “Well, that’s good to know. Do you think
I should tell her now, then?”

Colby shrugged. “I guess it’s better to
be honest with her early on.”

“No, I don’t think you should tell her,” Luke intercepted. “Not yet. I think we should wait to make sure that he does wake up—otherwise, you will get her hopes up. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I agree,” Steve chimed in from the passenger’s seat. “It’s best to just wait this th
ing out, for better or worse.”

Samara thought about it. “I guess that’s what I’ll do then. We have other things to worry about right now
, anyway
. Like all of the initiations th
at we’ll be doing tonight.”

“Rain said she’ll be there at nine,” Chris said, meeting Samara’
s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Good, I’m excited to meet her,” Samara replied. She left out the part about how she was excited to be getting another member to build up their pack. That would make her sound like she was Jason—just wanting to increase their numbers and, ultimately, their power. Speaking of power . . . “We need to stop somewhere guys. I just remembered that the
re’s something we need to do.”