Blood Moon (Howl #2) (11 page)

Before Samara could answer, Luke’s voice filled her head.
It would be an honor to take you to the Homecoming dance.

Really?
Samara asked him, smiling. She couldn’t help but feel giddy about the idea of going to the dance with Luke. No guy had ever asked her to go to a dance before. She’d always gone solo and sat in the corner as she watched Emma and her friends dance with whatever guys they’d brought, who they’d usually ended up ditching later on. It always made Samara mad because they didn’t seem appreciative of the fact that they
had dates in the first place.

It would make me so happy,
Luke replied.

Samara smiled and said into the phon
e, “Luke and I will be there.”

“Yay!” Emma chir
ped excitedly. “I can’t wait!”

“Me either,” Samara replied.
For once, she wasn’t lying.

*
 

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Luke asked that night when Samara swung the front door open. They’d agreed earli
er that they would talk about Emma’s party
in person instead of through mind-speak. Samara was beginning to think that communicating mentally was like talking on the phone; it was best reserved for necessary times, while important topics should b
e
discussed
in person, face-to-face.

“Let’s go outside,” Samara replied, slipping out the front door. She led Luke to the bench in the front yard and sat down. “At Emma’s party last night
, do you know why I ran away?”

Luke nodded. “Yes, I do. It w
as because of Ashley Everest.”

Samara stared at him. “How did yo
u know? Your back was turned.”

“I can usually sense what you’re feeling,” Luke explained. “When you’re happy . . . I just know. I coul
d tell that you were jealous and angry and hurt over it.”

“Why didn’t you come
after me then?” Samara asked.
Now that she knew that Luke had known the whole time that she was mad at him for it, she felt even more annoyed. He should have done something – anything – to let her know that she shouldn’t be so pissed off. Instead, he just stayed in the same room as Ashley until Samara had called for him.

“Because I knew that you were angry. To be
honest
, I didn’t want to get my ass kicked.” Luke took a deep breath. “You didn’t have to get jealous, you kn
ow. I only have eyes for you.”

Samara sighed. “I know that. It’s just . . . you’re my mate. I can’t
not
get jealous
when another girl touches you that way. An
d it’s no
t like you pulled away either,
”
she pointed out, remembering what had happened.

Luke reached for her hand and took it in both of his. “I’m sorry, Samara. I really am. It’s just that I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to have feelings for anyone else. So, I didn
’t think it would bother you.”

“I understand,” Samara replied. “I was never mad at you ei
ther, you know. It just hurt.”

Luke brushed a lock of chocolate brown hair out of her face and stared into her eyes. “Don’t be hurt. I would never hurt you.
Now, come on. We need to go.”

Samara raised an eyebrow. “Where are we going?
”

“To Colby’s house,” Luke answered. “He wants you to meet his parents.”

Chapter 9

****

When they got to Colby’s house, it was all lit up with gold Christmas lights, and there was a huge wreath that was decorated with tiny Christmas ornaments and a huge red bow hanging from the door. It reminded Samara of what the White House would probab
ly look like at Christmastime.

Samara didn’t realize that werewolves even celebrated Christmas, let alone got this into it. Most of the human families she knew didn’t even start decorating their houses for Christmas until
at least after
Thanksgiving. Octo
ber seemed a little bit early.

The front door to the Jackson’s house swung open before Luke even had a chance
to knock. “Why, hello, Lucas!”

“Hi, Mrs. Jackson,” Luke said cheerfully befo
re stepping into the door way.

When Samara stepp
ed inside, Mrs. Jackson, a tall
woman with long
,
blonde curly ha
ir, stared her down head to toe.
“My, my, my . . . you’re just as pretty as Colby described. You wouldn’t believe
how excited I am to meet you!”

Samara felt her cheeks reddening. “It’s nice to
meet you, too, Mrs. Jackson.”

“Please call me Linda!” Colby’s mom said, waving her hand in the air. She took Samara’s coat and wrapped her arm around her shoulder. “After all, we’re family no
w, even if it’s not by blood!”

Samara smiled. Colby’s mom had the same peppermint-pineapple scent as the rest of the wolves in her pack. Even though Samara had only been acquainted with Linda Jackson for a few minutes, something about her was warm and inviting. Samara realized that it was probably just that Linda reminded her of Colby; she even had the same
twinkling turquoise blue eyes.

As Samara followed Linda into the living room, where all of th
e guys from the pack were lounging
on couches or on the floor with Philly cheesesteak sandwiches in hand, she noticed a tall guy standing in the corner. He wasn’t just tall. He was probably about six foot seven or eight – by far the tal
lest guy Samara had ever seen.

The man turned around and looked her in the face, his nearly-black eyes meeting hers. “You must be Samara McKinley,” he said quie
tly, taking a step toward her.

Samara nodded.

“I’m Colby’s father. You may call me Darren.” When he was standing closer to her, face-to-face, he stared at her body, as though he were trying to measure her up. Samara didn’t move a muscle. Something about Colby’s father really unnerved her. She also felt like she knew him from somewhere, but she co
uldn’t put her finger on where.
His raven-colored hair and darker skin tone were polar opposite of Colby’s own fair skin and light features.

Colby seemed to sense Samara’s unease. He came to stand in front of Samara, forming a protective wall between her and his father. “My parents were both really excited to meet you,” he explained to her. “Not only are you the great Joe McKinley’s granddaughter, but you’re also the f
irst female Alpha in history. Both of those things are pretty exciting.” 

Samara glanced at Colby’s dad and forced a smile. She had a feeling that, to him, she was nothing more than a specimen that he wanted to
examine under a microscope
or celebrity that he wanted to stalk
. It was like someone meeting Jennifer Anniston and, though they were able to admit that she was a beautiful woman, they’d surely
try their hardest to find something wrong – a strand
of hair that was out of place or a piec
e of spinach
caught
between her teeth.

Samara didn’t trust Darren Jackson at all. She didn’t even want to be in the same room as him. “Well, it was nice meeting you both, but,” Samara said, turning to Steve, “we should really get going. We have a lesson to do.”

Steve nodded and, shoving the last bit of the Philly cheesesteak in his mo
uth, hopped up from the couch.

“Bye, Samara,” Linda said.
“It was so nice to meet you.”

“You, too,
Mrs. Jackson,
” Samara replied before looking at Luke.
I’ll see you later,
she told him befo
re leading Steve out the door.

Once they were outside, Steve walked over to his car, a black Volkswagen Jetta. He unlocked the passenger’s side door. “Get in,” he told her before going around
to the other side of the car.

“Where are we going?” Samara asked him. When he didn’t answer and got into the car, Samara climbed in
after him. “Well?”

Steve glanced over at her, running a hand over his dark braided hair. “We’re going to watch another pack so that I can show you how to figure
out who the weakest link is.”

Samara felt a knot twist in her stomach. Something about watching another pack didn’t seem like a good idea. It almost felt like they were looking for trouble. “Is this
the only way you can teach me?”

“There are probably other ways, but this will be the most effective,” Steve said, cranking up the radio. A song by Jay-Z came on, v
ibrating through the speakers.

Samara leaned back against the cold leathery seat and took a deep breath. She wondered what pack they were going to watch. It probably wasn’t the Vyka, but she hoped that it wasn’t the Shomecossee either, since
they wanted her dead now, too.

Steve stopped the car on Old Mill Road. Samara frowned. This was the same road she had been on the night of her first date with Luke – the night Colby had
bitten her, changing her destiny for good.

“What pack are we going to watch?” Samara
finally
asked
when she was sure that Steve wasn’t planning on telling her on his own
.

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve said. When Samara shot him a glare for his secretiveness, he explained, “I don’t want to tell you in case you already know any of them. If you’ve already been acquainted, you might be able to figure out who t
he weakest link is.”

Samara sighed.
“Can you at least tell me who they are afterwards?” Samara felt like she needed to know. There could be a dozen different packs against her at that moment and she would have no idea who they are.
She didn’t know very many werewolves besides Rocco and the wolves on the Vyka pack, and she didn’t even know all of them that well. Not enough to know who the wea
kest or the most confident was.
“How do you even know they’re
here right now?” Samara asked.

“I know they always hang out here. And I can smell them.
Can’t you?
” Steve swung his car door open and climbed out. Samara opened her own door and began follow
ing him along the gravely road.

“Will they know we’re here?” she whisp
ered.

Steve shook his head. “Probably not. Our scent isn’t as strong
because we’re in human form.”

Samara forced herself to calm down. The first thing the pack had taught her was that she needed to be a confident wolf. Well, right now, she needed to be a confident Alpha
and
a good student. She needed to learn, but she also needed to prove to Steve that she was worthy of him teaching her.

As they walked through the woods, Steve bent down beh
ind a large boulder. “Come here. Come look,
” he whispered,
nodding his chin forward.

Samara knelt down on the ground beside him and looked in the direction that he was motioning towards. There were six werewolves sitting in a circle around a campfire. Samara didn’t recognize any of them, but she could smell their lavender-citrus scent from a good one hundred feet away. “Why do they smell so st
rong?” she whispered to Steve.

“Because there are so many of them,” Steve said, pressing his pointer finger to his lips to
signal her to be quiet
. “Study them real
ly hard, and we’ll go over everything importa
nt when we get back to the car.”

Samara studied the wolves. One of the wolves, who appeared to be the pack leader, sat in the center of the circle. The wolf, which had a reddish tint to its fur (that Samara
didn’t think was caused by a reflection from the
fire), sat taller than the other wolves. He was defini
tely the most confident wolf.

There were two gray wolves on each side of him. Samara thought that the gray wolves looked like they were fairly confident; both of them sat tall. If she had to guess, she would assume that these two wolves were the Alpha’s cronies, and that they felt higher and mightier than the three darker gray wolves who sat across from them on the other side of the fire with slu
mped shoulders and heads down.

After a few minutes, Steve got up and walked back to the car. Samara followed close behind, being careful
to step lightly so she wouldn’t
crunch too much on the
leaves that were scattered in patches over the ground.

When they were back in the car, Steve asked, “So, which wolf . . . or w
olves . . .  were the weakest?”

“The
dark gray ones,” Samara said.

“And what makes you come to
this conclusion?”