Read Wolfsbane (Howl #3) Online

Authors: Jody Morse,Jayme Morse

Wolfsbane (Howl #3) (10 page)

BOOK: Wolfsbane (Howl #3)
7.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“I don’t understand why he wanted to leave everything to the first female werew
olf in our family. Maybe he knew I was going to be a werewolf, but if he could see the future, he should have known that Kyle and my brother, Seth, would be werewolves, too,
” Samara said quietly, trying not to look at K
yle. “Do you know the reason he only left something to me?”

Orkos met her gaze. “It’s because of a dream that Joe had when he was only just a child. He knew you’d b
e stronger than him one day.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

When Samara and her pack got back to the cabin, she felt both physically and mentally exhausted.
From all of the walking they’d done to being threatened by those guys at the club and learning that she had become a millionaire overnight, Sama
ra just wanted to go to sleep.

But she couldn’t. They had to finish looking through the house tonight because, if all went according to plan, they had to leave Alaska tomorrow to go to Ma
ssachusetts to look for Jason.

“I have this feeling,” Samara told the pack, recalling what she had realized earlier that night. “I think we should be looking outside for whatever it is that we’re searching f
or
instead of inside.”

“That seems like a reasonable idea,” Colby said, nodding. “It would make a lot of sense that your grandfather would have tried to hide whatever we’re looking for so that no one would be able to find it if they broke into the house.
Quite clever, actually.

“U
nless . . .” Josh trailed off.

“Unless what?” Samara
questioned.

“Unless we’re looking for something that isn’t actually there,” Josh said, looking down at the ground. “What if this is all there is for us to find—the cabin that you now own? What if Joe McKinley didn’t actu
ally leave anything for you
besides the cabin and your trust fund
?
We don’t have any proof that he left you anything else, do we? Orkos probably would have mentioned it.

“No, there’s s
omething
here. I can feel it.” Samara wasn’t about to tell them the truth; she was only hoping at this point that there was something else
somewhere on Joe’s property
. Her grandfather had already left her more than enough and the truth was, Kyle was right; nothing said Joe McKinley had to leave her anything more than what she already knew about.

Samara wondered how Grandpa Joe even had millions of dollars to leave her. It was one of the questions that she was going to have to ask Orkos about when she saw him the next morning, since Orkos and Kyana were suppos
ed to st
op by with breakfast.

Once they were outside, Samara glanced around. “I don’t kno
w where we should be looking.”

“Probably around the greenhouse I’m guessing,” L
uke replied.

They walked over to the greenhouse and crouched down. Scanning the area, Samara searched for something—anything—that seemed out of place. But she didn’t notice anything that looked out
of the usual through
the white, powdery snow that covered the g
round. “I don’t see anything.”

“Maybe there’s something in the greenhouse itself,” Chris suggested.
“Something we missed before.”

“Maybe, but it looked
like the only thing that was in there was wolfsbane,” Sam
ara replied with a sigh, plopping
down in the snow. The cold didn’t seep thro
ugh her pants, now that the cooler temperatures no longer seemed to bother
her.

Someone called out her name. She turned around to see Kyle waving something in the air. “We found something, guys! It’s some type of weird vacuum or r
obot or something!”

He raced over to them, carrying the long neck of the vacuum-robot thing. Colby laughed out loud
when he saw what Kyle was holding
. “Are you for serious, Kyle? You really though
t that was a robot or vacuum?”

“Uh . . .
yeah. Why
,
do you know what it is, Colby Jack?” Kyle asked, using the nickname that most of the school’s popular kids—including Jason—
called Colby when they were making fun of him. Samara knew that her cousin was taking his anger out on Colby, even though the reason he was irritated was still because of their grandfather.

Colby laughed again, u
nfazed
by the nickname. “It’s a metal detector. This is actually a very rare model. Me and my dad always used to use a metal detector similar to this one to find gold and other trinkets people left on the beach. It was fun times.” He paused. “But I wonder why Joe McKinley has one
just lying around his cabin.”

“Probably so we could find it,” Luke replied. He turned
to Samara. “Are yo
u thinking what I’m thinking?”

Samar
a nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

 

 

An hour later, the metal detector began beeping as they waved it over the sno
wy ground.

“Jackpot!” Chris exclaimed. “I
didn’t think we would actually
find anything.”

“Well, we don’t actually know what it is yet, so it’s best not to get our hopes up,” Colby pointed out. “At the beach, me and my dad found lots of garbage. It could be an aluminum can
or something
under the ground
for all we know.”

Samara nodded in agreement. “Yeah, let’s try not to count our chickens before they hatch.
This really could be nothing.”

“Let’s start shoveling,” Luke told Josh, who h
ad come outside to join them. Josh
and Kyle had found shove
ls in one of the coat closets.

Josh began to shovel the snow. “Wow, this is really hard to shovel.
The ground’s frozen.

“Yeah, thank God we’re strong,” Luke said, flexing his muscle and grinning at Samara. “I’m not sure we would be able to dig this up if it weren’t for the fact that we’re werewolves.”
He turned back to digging up the ground, tossing piles of snow and then dirt into the air.

When Josh

s shovel hit something hard, Samara
perked up. Could there actually b
e something important for them buried under
the ground?

Josh met her gaze.
“It’s s
ome sort of box or something.”

Luke and Josh continued to dig up the box. Once the dirt was piled high around them, they pul
led it out, and Samara gasped.

Taking one glance at the dirt-covered box, Samara suggested, “Let’s take it insi
de and find out what’s in it.”

Once they were in the house and had placed the box on the table, Steve wiped the dirt off it, revealing the intricately carved wooden chest,
which was adorned with jewels.

“Is there a lock on it?” Samara asked Kyle, who was closer to the
front of the box than she was.

Kyle
glanced down
at the box, examining it
. “Ye
ah, there is.”

“Great,” Samara muttered. “Where would my
grandfather have put the key?”

“I didn’t see any keys earlier,” Josh admitted. “Maybe he
told Orkos where to find it.”

“Maybe . . . or maybe we already have the key,” Colby said, turning to Samara. “
Where’s the key to the house?”

Samara pulled it out of her purse and handed it over to him, c
onfused by what he was doing.

“Actually,” Colby said, turning the key into the box and lifting its lid successfully, “this was really smart of him. Who would have thought to use the
house key
?
Most people would
still be sear
ching for the key to the box.”

“I definitely would have been if you w
eren’t here,” Samara admitted.

Colby grinned
proudly
. “Am
I a genius . . .
or am I a genius?”

“I don’t know if that puts you into the genius category,” Steve said. “
It’s not like you’re Bill Nye the Science Guy or that dude who invented the light bulb or anything.
But it was pretty damn smart. I ne
ver would have thought of it myself, I’ll tell you that much.

“Well, what’s inside?” Samara asked, realizing that every moment they weren’t looking into the box was a moment they were wasting. Whatever was inside it had to have been important; she couldn’t imagine any other reason why her grandfather would have gone through the
effort of keeping it hidden under the ground.

Colby pulled
a long envelope out of the box
and handed it to her. “Here, open it. It has your name on it.”

Samara glanced down at the
white manila
envelope
that she held in her hands
. Her
grandfather had written Samara Alyce McK
inley in his neat handwriting. When she tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter that was tucked inside, she read it aloud.

“My dearest Samara, it is with great pain that I write this to you, but I know that it is necessary. If you are reading this, it means that I am already gone. It is important for you to know what to do once you have made the transformation.”
She breathed in deeply. Orkos was right; her grandfather had known that she woul
d become a wolf one day.

She glanced
back down at the words that were written on the paper
and continued reading
.
“There is going to come a time in your life when you must make an important decision, and I h
ope that you make the right one
if you haven’t made it already at the time of reading this letter.” She paused. Was he talking about the decision she had to make when she chose between packs? There was no further reference to
the decision as she read on.

“There are going to be people who will want to interfere in your li
fe, once they know who you are.
Don’t let them. The reason they’ll bother you is because of me and because of the things that I have done.
I can’t change my past, nor can I
fix
the things that I have done
wrong
.
What I can do is help you prepare for the future that you will have to face as a result of me.
I have enclosed several objects that you must never lose, as well as instructions on how to find things that I have hidden for you in a safe place
. These things
will be of great importance to you throughout your journey.


You must always remember who you are, Samara. Follow your heart. Let it guide you. Make decisions that you will be able to live with at the end of the day. Because the truth is, you are going to have to live with them longer than a mortal will.
You may have to live with them until the end of time.” Samara paused. She’d never thought of her grandfather as a sentimental guy, or the type who would offer her this type of advice. Then again, she’d barely known Joe McKinley. How would she have known what typ
e of advice he was capable of
giving
?

Glancing at the bottom of the letter, s
he read the final words, “P.S. Please make sure
Nu
ka
is always taken care of
for me. Love, Grandpa Joe.”

She looked up at her pack members, who all seemed to be mesmerized by what she was reading.
Samara realized it was
probably the equivalent of reading a letter by some notorious celebrity whose death was a mystery, like Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley. It was strange for her to think that those few times she had spent with her grandfather, people were practically worshipping his great powers.

“What else
is in
side
the box?” Samara asked.

When Colby pulled the next object out of the box, he met her eyes, as he placed i
t in front of her. Wolfsbane.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 14

 

“What is that doing in there?” Samara asked,
staring at the purple flower
that lay on the table in front of her
.

Colby
shook his head. “I don’t know, but there is a note attached.” He hand
ed it to her,
rubbing his eyes tiredly
.

“Don’t do that!” Samara yelled at him. “It’s toxic. You’re going to make
yourself blind or something.”

“Oh, please, Sam,” Colby replied, laughing. “It doesn’t feel like I’m going to die. My hand feels fine where I touched it. Besides, I doubt that he’d put it in the box if it was all that deadly. Maybe it is for huma
ns, but I doubt it is for us.”

“Yeah, just relax,” Steve chimed in
. “I th
ink Colby’s right about this.
I’ve never heard of a werewolf losing his vision before.

Deciding not to argue with them,
Samara unfolded the piece of paper that Colby had handed her and began to read from it.
“I have made several attempts in
scattering this flower throughout my home and property in
hopes that you would find
it. If you don’t already know, this flower is called
wolfsbane.
It’s in the greenhouse in my backyard, and I’ve placed
several
packets of seeds in my
cabin in hopes that you would discover them by now. If you haven’t seen the flower yet, this is what it looks like. Embrace wolfsbane. It’s not deadly to us,” she read, glancing up at Colby, and feeling an overwhelming sense of relief.
“However, it can be useful to us. I’ll let you in on a little secret that is unbeknownst to most of the werewolf world: wolfsb
ane makes us more powerful.

“Wolfsbane offers us two advantages. The first is that it works similarly to a steroid when it is consumed. It makes us stronger, faster, and more agile than other werewolves. It also hides our scent from other wolves, which makes it easier for us to attack without anyone suspecting it.” Samara looked up at Luke first and then the other guys in the pack, a wide grin on her face. “This is it! Wolfsbane is what’s
going to help us beat Jason!”

“Is that all that the letter says?” J
osh asked. “Or is there more?”

“There’s more,” Samara replied, glancing back down at the note. “There are only two ways to take advantage of the benefits that wolfsbane has to offer. The first is to wear it around your neck, but note that this will only hide your scent. It will also only work while you are in human form, unless you place a necklace around your neck wh
ile your wolf form is present.
The flower will not remain on your neck while you make the transition from human to werewolf form; just like clothes, it will disappear once you have your fur, and you will not be able to take advantage of the benefits that it has to offer.

“The second way
to use wolfsbane
is to boil the flower in water to create a soup to be eaten during
the full moon. The benefits of the flower
will extend until the next full moon, during which they must be restored. When wolfsbane is consumed, you can take advantage of its strengthening benefits, as wel
l as its protective benefits.”

“So, what you’re saying is, the whole reason Joe McKinley was more powerful than every other werewolf is because he either drank this shit or wore it around his neck?” Steve asked, his chocolate
brown eyes filled with wonder.

“I guess so,” Samara nodded.

“I can’t believe it,” Luke said, shaking his head. “It’s
hard to believe that he did what he did the natural way . . .
for the most part. I mean, it’s just a flower. He didn’t use
black fighting or anything.”

“So, he’s innocent then?
He wasn’t a black fighter?
” Samara
questioned
. Black fighting was what it was called when werewolves used black magic to help their fights. As far as she knew, a lot of people in the werewolf world had hated her grandfather because they
thought he was involved in it.

“Well, it seems that way now,” Kyle replied
, his voice full of surprise. Even
he
must have been convinced that black fighting was the only way his own grandfather had been able to accomplish everything he did.

“Guys, do you think there’s any chance that the Vyka know about wolfsbane?” Samara asked
. She’d been convinced that the Vyka used
black fighting, but maybe they knew about wolfsbane’s powers, too. Then again, that didn’t explain how Jason had disappeared into thin air on the night the Ima had tried to kill him. Wolfsbane c
ouldn’t have been behind that—at least, she assumed it couldn’t be because her grandfather probably would have included it in his letter if it were.

Colby shook his head. “I’ve never seen wolfsbane mentioned in any of the old history books. I don’t know how they would know, unless . . .” He paused, considering what he was about to say next. “Unless Joe told the rest of the Vyka about it, and the information got passe
d down to Jason and his pack.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking may have happened,” Samara replied. She felt disappointed knowing that they might not be the
first living wolves to learn about wolfsbane’s benefits.
It might not be top secret information—even though she would have thought that others would have heard about it by now if someone else besides them knew about it.

“But even if
someone else
do
es
know about it, we have the same knowledge as them now,” Luke pointed out. “We
can consider ourselves even.”

Samara nodded in agreement. “That’s a good point.” She turned to Col
by. “
Is there anything else in
the box?”

Colby handed her an index card.
She glanced at the words that were written on it.
My talisman is back in Pennsylvania. It’s at 492 St. Charles Lane in Grandview, where you’ll find a vacant white house (which now belongs to you). That house once belonged to Mollie Archer, a close friend of mine. She had no friends or family to speak of, so she
gave me
the house
so I could use it for this purpose
.
I
n the backyard, you’ll find a crabapple tree. The talisman is buried alongside of it under a marble bench. You’ll also fi
nd the key to the house here.

Samara looked up at the guys, who
were all staring at her
expectantly,
waiting to hear what was her grandfather had written.
“He gave us an address for the talisman. It’s back home,” she said, deciding to leave out the details about the house. She
didn’t want Kyle to be more upset than he already was.

“The thing is, he doesn’t tell us why the talisman is so important. What are
we supposed to do with it?” Samara
shrug
ged, turning to Colby. “Anything else?

Colby hand
ed her a small golden compass.

“Is there a note to go
with this one?” Samara asked.

Colby looked inside the bo
x. “No, I don’t see anything.”

“I wonder what it’s for,” Samara said, cradling the compass in her hands. It was weird to think that all of these things had belonged to her grandfather at one point. She tucked the compass inside her purse. “We’ll have to research how werewolves us
e compasses when we get home.”

“This is the last thing,” Colby said, pulling out a tiny book from the box in front
of him and handing it to her.

She opened the book and flipped through it, quickly realizing that it was an address book. Every other name and address was written in either red or green writing. Samara read through the names that were listed on it. Artie Nova. Byron Keenan. Elizabeth Channing. She flipped a few pages forward, and her eyes hovered over one name, written in
green, that stood out to her.

Finn McClellan . . .
Could Finn McClellan
’s full name
be Finnegan McClellan?

“I think we have the name of the person who took his place,” Samara told her pack, passing
around the book.

“Finn’s name is written in red,” Colby noted. “
What do you think that means?”

“Could it mean that the names written in green come from a pack with green as their color, and the ones in red come from a pack with red as their color?” Luke asked, studying it when Colby handed the book to him to look at.

Samara nodded. “That would make sense, actually. Finnegan was a Vyka Alpha, which would
put him in the red category.”

“Hmm,” Colby said, thoughtfully. “I feel like there might be another reason behind it. There
are a lot of names in this book—it would have to be a few really big packs.”

“And there’s nothing else in the box?” Samara asked.
Colby shook his head, and she sighed. It made her feel frustrated to know that her grandfather had left behind this address book,
along with the compass,
without any explanation
for either
. Did he really expect them to figure o
ut what
these things were supposed to do for them on their own?

Kyle cleared his throat
. “I think there might be something else waiting for us with the talisman. Some sort of instructions or something that will h
elp us figure this stuff out.”

“You’re probably right,” Samara agreed. Glancing at the time, she realized it was nearly two o’clock in the morning.
“We should probably turn in now. It’s getting late. With any luck, we’ll be able to catch an early flight to Massachusetts. Actual
ly,” she said, turning to Colby, “d
o you think you can call your dad about that now? Hopefully he
can arrange something for us.”

“Will do,” Colby ag
reed, stepping out of the room.

“We’ll all sleep in the living room,” Steve told her. “You a
nd Luke can take the bedroom.”

Luke turned to Samara. His emerald green eyes flitted away from her and down to the floor. “I think I’ll be camping out in the living room tonight, too, actually .
. . if that’s okay with you.”

“Oh.” Samara blinked confusedly.
She hadn’t been expecting him to say that. “Yeah, it’s fine. You should sleep wherever you feel the most comfortable.” Samara blocked Luke from hearing her thoughts; she didn’t want him to know how upset she was. Why didn’t he want to sleep with her? Was it because he
actually
was
in
terested in Natalie or Alexis?

No, that wasn’t possible. Werewolves couldn’t just fall for someone other than their mate. There was no way Luke could be interested in anyone besides her. He was probably just mad at h
er. But why
would he be
?

Sighing, she went into the bedroom and changed into t
he pajamas that she had packed,
which consisted of shorts and a tank top that would have been far too cold if her body was still affected by the temp
erature
. For the first time in a
long
while, she glanced down at her phone. There was a
new
text message from her parents. When she opened it up, she found that they’d sent her a picture of the two of them smiling with the beach in the background. Samara smiled.
Hope you’re having fun
, she texted back to them.

Almost immediately, her phone lit up with a phone call and her ringtone blared. “Hello?” Samara asked without even glancing at the caller ID. She fully
expected it to be her parents.

“Samara?” Emma said into the phone. Samara knew right away from the muffled sniffling th
at her best friend was crying.

“Is everything okay?” Samara asked, even though
she already knew the answer.

“My stepfather’s condition is getting worse. They don’t think he’s going to make it,” Emma’s
voice croaked into the phone.

“I’m so sorry,” Samara offered lamely
, unsure of what else to say.

“I need you here right now, Sam. It’s hard to pretend to be strong for my mom when I’m also going through this whole werewolf thing, too,” her best friend whispered into the phone. “I don’t know how you kept it a secr
et from everyone for so long.”

“Me, either,” Samara admitted. “I’ll try to get there as soon as I can. I think we’re going to leave sometime early tomorrow, but Colby is still supposed to let me know once he talks to his dad. I’ll let you know a
s soon as I find out, though.”

BOOK: Wolfsbane (Howl #3)
7.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

DARE THE WILD WIND by Wilson Klem, Kaye
The Lost Relic by Mariani, Scott
One Dance with a Duke by Tessa Dare
Scarecrow by Richie Tankersley Cusick
Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell
Scone Cold Dead by Kaitlyn Dunnett
The Royal Elite: Mattias by Bourdon, Danielle
Apart From Love by Poznansky, Uvi