Wolfsbane (Howl #3) (20 page)

“Cut you
rself,” Samara instructed her.

From behind them, Emma said, “She has to cut herself? Am I going to have to do that, too?”

Samara nodded over her shoulder, and Emma’s face paled. It wasn’t that surprising that her best friend wasn’t okay with this
; she hated needles and blood.

Kyana hesitated before slicing her skin open with the dagger. She looked up at S
amara for further instruction.

Samara pricked her own skin with the thumbtack and rubbed her
finger
, which was now dripping with blood, against Kyana’s open wound. She took a step back, allowing each of her pack members to do the
same thing.

After everyone’s blood met Kyana’s, she hunched over, a painful expression written on her face. Samara rememb
ered that
feeling all too well.

A blue cloud of smoke e
nveloped Kyana, t
ransforming
her to
wolf form. Her white fur looked fluffier than usual, as the gust of air blew against it. When the smoke disappeared, Kyana phased back to her human form, glancing at each of them. For a moment, ther
e was a dizzy look in her eyes.

“Well, it’s done, then. I’m an Ima now,” Kyana smiled, glancing over
Josh, who grinned back at her.

When Samara glanced over at Chris, she knew that something was wrong—he wasn’t smiling;
his jaw had tigh
tened, and a solemn look had crossed over his face.

Chapter
24

They waited for another ten minutes for Rain to get there before Samara asked Chris to contact her to make sure she was still coming
.
She was afraid that Rain was going to leave them hanging, because she was
too nervous to become an Ima.

Chris had gone off into the woods to make the call out of earshot of the rest of the pack, though it was obvious that he had been reluctant t
o do so. Samara wondered why.

“What is taking this girl so long?” Emma whined. She was tapping her foot impatiently
again. “I’m sick
and tired
of waiting.”

“Oh, please, you don’t h
ave any place to complain. We wouldn’t
even
have to be waiting right now if you didn’t insist on going last.
” Colby rolled his eyes. “We could probably be don
e with your initiation by now.”

“Samara told me I can go last, so I’m going last,” Emma snapped back at him. “Just get over it, C
olby Jack.”

“Emma,” Samara said gently. “No name calling, okay?”
She couldn’t understand why her best friend and Colby were bickering so much all of a sudden. Had it always been this way between them?
Samara hadn’t noticed it before
, bu
t then again, she hadn’t spent
a ton of time together before now. Emma was usually too drunk or too busy entertaining the other
guests
at her parties to
really pay attention to Colby.

Emma just rolled her eyes and crossed her ar
ms over her chest in response.

When Chris came back, he was followed by a girl who Samara immediately knew was Rain. Her strawberry blonde hair, which was cut in a chin-length bob hairstyle, was very close in color to the reddish fur that she sported while she was in wolf form. When she approached the p
ack, she smiled, “Hi, guys.”

Samara realized that
she was probably the only pack member, besides Emma and Kyana, who hadn’t already met Rain. S
i
nce she and Chris were so close, the other guys in the pack had already gotten a chance to hang out with her.
Plus, it seemed like Rain was pretty well known in the werewolf world
—or at least in the local area—because
of what her grandfath
er had done to Samara’s grandmother.

“Ar
e you Samara?” Rain asked her.

Samara nodded. “It’s nice to meet you
,
finally. I wanted us to get to know each other before you initiated, but we’re sort of in a rush to get new members.” She stopped herself from saying anything further because she didn’t want Rain to assume that she was being asked to join the pack
because they needed to increase their numbers and not because they really wanted her there.

“Yeah, I understand,” Rain replied, cracking her gum. Samara noticed the hint of a Brooklyn accent in her voice, which surprised her. She’d figured that Rain was from the area, for some reason. “L
et’s get this party started.”

Samara wiped away Kyana’s blood from the dagger with a cloth that she’d found
neatly folded
inside the drawstring bag. She handed Kyana a thumbtack.
“You’ll have to do this part now since you’re officia
lly one of us,” she explained.

Kyana
nodded. “Okay, I don’t mind.”

As Samara was about to hand Rain the dagger and tell her what to do, Chris screamed, “Wait!” He inched closer to Rain until he was about a foot away from her. “Are
you sure you want to do this?”

Rain smiled, confused by Chris’ actions.
“Yeah, I
definitely
want to do this. Why do you think I’m here?” She tried to move closer to him, but he held up his hands as a barrier
to prevent her from doing so.

“I just
. . .
I think you should maybe think twice before you become an Ima,” Chris said, glancing down at the ground. “Make sure this i
s what you really want first.”

“Of course it’s what I really want. I want to be with you,
Chris,” Rain replied softly.

Chris shook his head, interrupting her. “That’s the thing, Rain. Becoming an Ima doesn’t mean that you’ll be with me.”

“You’re not making much sense, Chris,” Rain replied, shaking her head, her short hair moving with it.
“Of course I’ll be with you.”

“I mean, we don’t even know for sure if we’re
really
going to b
e mates,” Chris said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and glancing away from her.
“
There’s a chance that we might find out that we’re not
meant to be
after you’ve already turned. Make sure that you’re joinin
g because you want to be an Ima and
not
only
be
cause you want to be with me.”

Rain rolled her ice blue eyes, which were framed
by heavy
black liner, at him. “Yeah, right, Chris. Like all these years of wanting and lusting after each other was all for nothing. I’m positive we’re going to be mates. And even if we’re not mated, I still need a pack.” She glanced over at Samara
. “I’m
sorry, don’t mind him. I’m
ready to initiate now.”

Samara hesitantly handed her the dagger, unsure of what Chris was going to do next to try
to convince Rain to change her
mind. “If you’re not sure that you want to go through with this, speak now or forever hold your peace,” she said
jokingly
, trying to
make light of the situation.

Rain laughed. “I think I’m good. I don’t know why someone is being so weird about this.” She rolled her eyes again at Chris, whose face had hard
ened, and cracked her gum again loudly.
“What do we need t
o do?”

“You need to cut yourself with the dagger,” Samara told her. When Rain stared back at her blankly, she explained, “Our initiation is
kind of like blood brothers.”

For a moment, Samara was afraid that she
was going to say that she couldn’t do this—that, like Emma, she had a weak sto
mach—but Rain
dug into her skin with the dagger a
nd then looked up. “Now what?”

Samara sunk the thumbtack into her own skin, creating a new wound that fresh blood streamed out of. She mo
ved closer and smeared her blood against Rain’s open wound.

“This is gross,” Rain whispered. “No one here has
diseases or anything, right?”

Samara smiled. “We’re werewolves, remember? We don’t get diseases. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. We’ve a
ll been fine so far.”

When she stepped away, the rest of her pack members did the same thing as she
had.
Chris was the last to mix his blood with Rain’s, and Samara could tell from h
er place around the circle that, for some reason, he really didn’t want to.
She
decided that he must just be nervous that they would find out that Rain wasn’t his mate . . . or maybe he was nervous that she was. Maybe he just wasn’t ready for
that type of connection
or the commitment that would come with it
yet.

Just wondering about
if Rain was his mate
—and knowing that there was a risk that she might not be—was probably killing him inside. Even Samara was hoping that they were mates because she had a feeling that things were going to be super awkward between them if it turned out that they weren’t destined for each oth
er.

Once Chris took a step back, Rain fell to her knees and groaned in pain. A blue smoky cloud danced around her body, and
she was lowered to the ground.

When the smoke evaporated into the night sky, revealing her reddish
fur
, Rain wagged her tail happily, taking a step closer to Chris. It looked like she wanted him to touch her, to run his fingers through her fur, the same way Samara liked to lovingly run her fingers through Luke’s fur when he was
in
wolf form and she wasn’t.

Much to Samara’s surprise, Chris
didn’t do anything. He just stood there, staring into space. What was going on? Sure, he had to be nervous, but it almost seemed l
ike he was being cold to Rain.

What is going on?
Samara a
sked Chris through mind-speak.

I don’t know if everyone’s ready to hear what I have to say yet. It might kill the mood,
Chris said, glan
cing over in Rain’s direction.

Well, I think you’re making everyone else feel awkward by not telling them what’s going on,
Samara replied.
I’d rather you just say it now and get it over with. It can’t be that bad.

I have a feeling one or more people will leave right now because it will upset them. I’d rather wait until we’re done with Emma’s initiation.
Chris explained.
Other, she might not get to initiate tonight.

“Fine,” Samara said out loud, forgetting to use mind-speak. She was curious about what he was being so cryptic about, but she didn’t have time to worry about this at the moment. Making sure that Emma became an Ima before Rocco or Troy came back and told her that they wanted her to be a Shomecossee after all was her biggest concern. “Rain, I need you to phase back. We have anothe
r initiation to do right now.”

Rain morphed back into her human form, and she ran her acrylic nails through her short hair. “Well, that was interesting. I didn’t know that in
itiation would be so painful.”

Samara laughed. “I wasn’t expecting it to be painful when I phased, either.” She turned to Emma, who was standing quietly in the corner, biting her nails. Emma never bit her nails, so she had to be nervous. “Emma, co
me over here. It’s your turn.”

Emma strutted over to Samara and held her hand out for the dagger. “I so can’
t wait to get this over with.”

“Me, either, honestly,” Samara admitted. She decided to leave out the part about how they had to go find Troy to get the ring back once initiation was over. Emma would probably want to tag along, and that wasn’t a good idea right now. In fact, Samara had decided that she probably wasn’t even going to tell Emm
a what they were doing tonight because she didn’t want her to ask if she could come with them.

Samara turned to Emma.
“You
know
what to do, right?”

Emma nodded, holding the dagger up to her forearm, shakily. As she was about to pierce her skin with it, she pulled it away. “I
. . . I
can’t do this,” she stumbled.

“Yes, you can,” Samara encouraged her. “Don’t worry. We’ve all done
it.”

“I think I seriously might vomit if I do
it, though,” Emma complained.

“Well, if you do, I’ll be here to hold your hair back,” Samara offered. “The sooner you do this, the soo
ner you’ll get it over with.”

Emma nodded, turning her attention back to the dagger she was holding in her hand. She ran it over her skin carefully. When she found the perfect spot, she turned the dagger so that
its
sharp edge was brushing agai
nst her skin, and pushed down.

Blood oozed out of the
wound
she’d created
, and Emma’s face twisted in disgust. “Ew, ew, ew,” she groaned. “This is so disgusting!”
She turned
her head in the other direction
and scrunch
ed
her eyes shut.

Samara pressed forward and brushed her own wound, which was still oozing blood from when she’d cut herself before, against Emma’s skin. She turned to the rest of her pack. “Let’s do this quickly, guys.” She knew that if her pack members didn’t move fast enough, it was only going to make Emma even more grossed out about the whole ordeal.

All of the guys, Kyana, and Rain quickly rubbed their blood into Emma’s wound. The blue smoky cloud swirled around her best friend’s body, blowing her long, blonde hair into the wind, as
her body changed to its wolf form
.
It was the first time Samara had seen Emma turn into her wolf form; her fur was the same shade of gray a lot of the wolves had, but it looked silkier and shinier
than the rest, for some reason.

“Okay, now, turn
back, Emma,” Samara told her.

Emma met her gaze with her eyes, their icy blue color taking on a hazy appearance,
before she slumped to the ground, lifelessly.

Samara tried to
scream, but nothing came out.