Howl (Howl #1) (27 page)

“Everyone knows better,” Luke replied. “He’s on the pack with the strongest Alpha in the area. It’s not worth trying to fight with them ju
st to get Seth on their side.”

“
That makes sense,” Samara nodded. “
Still,
I could be the weakest wer
ewolf ever, for all we know.”

Luke shook his head. “No, I don’t believe that for a minute. You’re going to be very powerful, Sam. They don’t only want you beca
use you’re powerful, though.”

“Why else would they want me?” Samara
asked. Immediately, she realized how insecure she sounded. Maybe she was insecure, for all she knew. She’d never been wanted so bad by anyone, and now it seemed like everyone wanted her.

“They don’t have any females on their pack. None of their members have mates yet. If they don’t get some females on their pack, there will event
ually be no babies born and
the Seku will become nonexistent, even
after they’ve combined packs.”

“So, why don’t they just all go bite their girlfriends or something?” Samara rolled her eyes and muttered to herself, sitting down
on the bench in the McKinley’s front yard
, looking up at Luke
. “This is all so stress
ful for me. You have no idea.”

“Yes, I do,” Luke replied, sitting down beside her. He grabbed her hand. “It’s never easy to fin
d out that you’re not human.”

“Actually, that’s not it at all. I’m
starting to get used to not being a human. I might even be beginning to like it,” she smiled, thinking about how much more exciting her life had been lately than when she was just an ordinary human.
“
The hard part is that everyone wants me
to join their pack and no matter what decision I make, I’m hurting someone.
”

“Like me,” Luke said
softly. “I want you the most.”

Samara looked up at him and smiled. Somehow, she knew that Luke was right. He really did want her the most. Declan might have been her best friend for all of these years, but he probably didn’t really want her to be his mate. If Samara knew Declan as well as she thought she did, he probably wouldn’t be re
ady for a mate for a long time – he was too immature.

“So, um, are you sure that you w
ant to be an Ima?” Luke asked. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m trying to guilt you into it.”

Samara nodded. For the moment, she forgot about her destiny,
her brother, and even Declan. It might have been selfish, but a
ll she could worry about was
what would make
herself
happy
– and
more than anything, she knew
that she was meant to be an Ima. At heart, she was already an Ima. She might try to convince herself otherwise because she loved her brother and Declan, but she would never be a Vyka.

*

When Samara went back inside, her mom was sitting
on the sofa waiting for her.

“Samara, we need
to talk,” Mrs. McKinley said.

Samara groaned. “What, Mom?”

“I thought that
we said that you weren’t allowed to date
.”

Samara looked down at the ground. “I’m not dating.” She felt like she was sort of telling the truth; she and Luke had only gone on one date, and they definitely
hadn’t made anything official yet. Up until today, neither of them had even known if she was going to choose him and the Ima or Declan and the Vyka.

“Samara, no boy in his right mind comes over to a girl’s house at nine o’clock in the morning.
Only a boy who is in love would even think of waking up that early for someone.
Something has
to be going on between you.”

Samara narrowed her eyes. “Declan comes over in the morning sometimes and you’ve never said anything about him.”

“Well, yeah, because he’s
Declan.
That boy has liked you for years and he still hasn’t gotten the courage to tell you,” her mom replied, letting out a hearty laugh.

Samara stared at her mom incredulously. Even she thought Declan liked her? Deciding to avoid bringing Declan into this conversation, she said, “I mean, yeah, Luke
’s cute and all
. I do like him
. . .
but we’re really not dating.”

Mrs. McKinley studied her face. Finally, she gave in and sighed. “Well, you’re right. He is a cute boy.
He also does seem much nicer than some of the boys who you could be interested in.
I’d understand if in a week or so, you beg me to allow y
ou to go on a date with him.”

Samara raised her
eyebrows. “Would you let me?”

“We’d have to get to know him a little better,” Mrs. McKinley replied. “I’d want you to in
vite him over for dinner so that your father and I can learn more about him
. Then, we
might
agree
to let you go out with him.”

“That sounds fair,” Samara said. “
Can we do that on Wednesday?”

Mrs. McKinley laughed. “Sur
e. I knew you liked him!”

Samara grinned.
Mothers really did know everything
. Maybe
. . .
“Mom, while we’r
e being honest with each other . . .
can I ask y
ou a question?” Samara asked.

Mrs. McKinley
nodded. “Of course you can.”

“Can you tell me about Grandpa Joe
?”

Her mom’s forehead scrunched and wrinkles formed under her eyes. “That’s a very random question,
Samara. What makes you ask?”

Samara shrugged. “It’s just that he died when I was so young. I never really got to know him, but I’ve been wondering about
him a lot lately.”

Mrs. McKinley sighed. “Well, as you already know, he wasn’t around that much. I only met him a few times myself. He wasn’t even there on me an
d your father’s wedding day.”

“Why was
n’t he around?” Samara asked.

“His job required him to do a lot of traveling,” Mrs. McKinley shrugged. “I don’t know what he did exactly. Something to do with vacation rentals, I think. Anyway, what
other questions do you have?”

“Where was he from?” Sama
ra asked, remembering that Colby
had told her that she was an arctic wolf because of
her
Alaskan origins, which
no one in her f
amily had ever mentioned before.

“He was born in Alaska, but his parents moved him here when he was just a baby, so he didn’t grow up there. Your great-grandfather was actually an
Eskimo of the Inuit tribe
. That’s where
you get your dark hair from.”

Samara glanced
at her mom’s hair, which had been midnight black for as long as she could remember. “
I thought that was from you.”

“Oh, no, honey
,” Mrs. McKinley said, laughing. “
I’ve been dying my hair for years.
My natural hair color
is a lighter shade of brown.”

“Dad doesn’t have da
rk hair,” Samara pointed out.

“That’s because most of his feat
ures came from your grandma.”

“How did she die again?” Samara asked.
For some reason, she had never wondered much about her grandmother’s death. She
supposed that it was probably because she had never really had her as a grandmother in a first place, so for that reason,
she had never really missed her.

Mrs. McKinley looked down at the ground. “Her death was very tragic, Samara. If I tell you about it, please don’t talk about it in front of your fath
er. It upsets him very much.”

“Okay,” Samara agreed.
She knew that talking about her grandmother had always upset her father, which was another one of the reasons she had never really mentioned her. Even now, Samara knew better than to ask he
r dad these types of questions.

“Your grandmother
was murdered in their home. The murderer
was actually someone who your grandfather knew. I’m pretty sure it was someone who he did a bad business deal with or something. They cam
e into the house and killed her
while your father hid in his bedroom
with your Aunt Rae and Uncle Rich
throughout the whole ordeal
.
The murderer was never caught
.
Rumor had it that h
e
fled town and moved up North, but no one really knows.
”

“Wow,
” Samara managed to say in a tiny
voice. She found herself wondering if what everything her mom had just told her was true, though. Had her grandma really been killed by a shady business partner, or had it been a werewolf? Samara foun
d herself
doubting that Grandpa Joe even sold vacation rentals
, though that was probably the excuse he used for his absences
.
She assumed that he had to have had some sort of job, but vacation real estate sounded like a career that was too
time
consuming for someone who was out
busy
saving the werewolf world.

“Yeah, like I said, it’s pretty tragic,” Mrs. McKinley replied. Getting up off the couch, she headed into the kitchen. “I’m
going to make lunch. Hungry?”

Samara
started to shake her head because the whole story had made her feel nauseous, but she nodded instead. Even the most disturbing of stories wouldn’t make her inner wolf feel less hungry.
 

*

After a mostly uneventful weekend (for once), Samara walked into her biology class on Monday morning. When she saw Emma sitting at their lab table, she did a double take. She hadn’t been expecting her to come to school for the next few days because of
what had happened with Jason.

“So, I see that you’re over it,” Samara said, putting her tote bag on the floor next to t
heir table.

Emma looked up at her and shook her head. Her makeup was perfectly applied, her hair fell over her shoulder
s
in
long
waves, and her outfit looked
trendy and chic
. She definitely didn’t look like someone who had just had
her
heart broken by one of the most popular guys in school. “No, I don’t h
ave to be over it,” she replied slowly, before grinning,
“Be
cause he gave me back the ring!”

Emma waved her hand in front of Samara, the blue sap
phire sparkling in the light.

“Emma, are you sure this is what you want?” Samara asked. “I promise, I’m not jealous or upset that you’re with Jason. Well, actually, that’s a lie. I
am
upset, but only because I saw how much he hurt you the other night. How do you know he’s not going to take the ring back and break up with
you again?”

Emma shook her head, this time more forcefully. “No. That’s not going to happen. Jason is in love with me. He told me last night
, and he said that he’ll never do anything like this to me ever again
. It just made him really jealous to talk about
my relationship with Brian.”

“He’s the one
who brought it up! Not you.”

Emma shrugged
, tossing her hair over her shoulder
. “Look, it’s fine, okay? Just be happy for me. You’re my best friend. I
need you to be happy for me.”

“Fine,” Samara said through gritted teeth. She knew that if she didn’t calm down a little bit, she was going to want to turn into a wolf b
ecause Emma’s naivety was making her angry
.
She didn’t understand how she could be so naïve
about Jason.

“And please don’t tell anyone else
about what happened
, okay?” Emma asked.
“I don’t want Ashley and Bri
finding out about this.”

“I won’t,” Samara replied. She wasn’t sure if she should be happy because Emma still told her things that she didn’t
want her other friends to know about,
or if she should be upset that she was more concerned about being popular than admitting
to herself
that Jason was an asshole.

Samara didn’t say anything to Emma for the rest of the class period. When the bell rang, she ran out of the cl
assroom as fast as she could.

As she turned the corner, she collided with someone in the hallway. Books we
nt flying all over the floor.