Wolfsbane (Howl #3) (19 page)

The cushion-cut, vibrant blue sapphire pendant that her grandfather wore around his neck looke
d familiar . . .
too
familiar.

It was the same blue sapphire stone that was in the ring that Jason had given Emma—the same sapphire that was now in Troy’s hands.

Chapter
23

“What do you mean Troy has the talisman?” Kyle asked, the co
lor disappearing from his face.

“I never told you guys because it didn’t seem important a
t the time, but we made an exchange
with Troy.
We gave him the blue sapphire ring that Jason gave Emma in exchange for her to become an Ima instead of a Shomecossee,” Samara e
xplained,
still
in total disbelief.

Colby rolled his eyes. “Are you serious? You traded the talisman for Emma? Of all the girls you had to trade it
for?”

Samara gave him a ‘look’,
and his face softened.

“Hey, I’m just kidding,”
he said
apologetically. “
I know it’s not your fau
lt. How could you have known?”

Luke met her gaze. “Are you positive it’s the same sapphire? Maybe it just looks similar. . .” His voice sounded as hopeful as the rest of the guys in the pack looked. “One’s a neckl
ace, and the other’s a ring.”

She nodded her head.
“
I’m sure.
It’s the same exact color and the same exact cut. Apparently, someone had it put in a white gold ring setting instead of the yellow gold pendant sett
ing that’s shown in the picture . . . p
robably so that
it wouldn’t
be
so recognizable.”

She paused, remembering how Troy had acted about the ring the night he’d agreed to let Emma become an Ima.
“It all makes so much sense now. Troy kept saying that the ring was of some sort of significance to him. He said Jason stole it from him, but that it was rightfully his. Why would he have cared so m
uch about this ring otherwise?”

“You’re probably right,” Chris said.
“I just don’t understand how Jason—or Troy—got their ha
nds on it in the first place.”

Samara shrugged. “I don’t know
how they got it
. . .  b
ut I do know one thing. We need to get it back
now that we know who has it.”

“Well, let’s wait until after tonight’s initiation,” Kyle said. “The more pack members we have, the more likely we will be t
o fight off the Shomecossee.”

Colby shook his head in disagreement.
“Do you really want to wait that long? I’m not sure that our new members wi
ll be ready to fight tonight.”

“Kyana will be ready, I’m sure,” Samara muttered. “She’s been a werewolf for so long. Emma won’t be ready, though. She’s barely a week old yet.” She paused, glancing over at Chris. “Do you think Rain will be ready to fight right now if we need her to?”

Chris nodded. “Yeah, Rain’s actually pretty good at fighting. She’s pretty fierce, if you know what I mean.”
The other guys laughed, and Samara guessed that they knew something about the two of them that she hadn’t been let in on y
et. “I think she’ll be ready.”

“Perfect,” Samara said.
“So, we’ll just have Emma sit out of this one. Rain and Kyana should make up the difference enough in terms of numbers to help us beat them. I hope.” She didn’t know much about the Shomecossee. As far as she knew, they weren’t as powerful as the Vyka, but she did know that they were supposed to combine packs with the Seku. She wasn’t sure how many members they had altogether. For all she knew, the Shomecossee would still outnumber the Ima, e
ven with their
new two fighting members.

“We mostly only need to deal with Troy, anyway,” Chris pointed out. “And Rocco, too, probably. He has to butt into everything, so I’m sure he’ll butt into this, too, especially since his cousin’s involved. I’m hoping we can get the talisman back and steer clear of the res
t of them altogether, though.”

“That would be nice,” Samara agreed. “We need to be prepared for the worst, though.” She glanced at her clock. It was almost time for initiation. They were all meeting in the woods behind her house, near Starlight Lake, the same place whe
re the Ima pack always met up.

“We’d better get going,” Luke said, as though he was reading her mind, and Samara realized that was because he probably was. “We need
to get this show on the road.”

They locked up the house, leaving the photo album on the be
d, and climbed into Chris’ car.

*

When they got to their designated meeting area, Samara fo
und that Emma was already there,
tapping her foot on the ground impatiently
as she waited
. Her blonde hair looked even lighter under the moonlight, and she was wearing a short skirt and low-cut shirt with a leather jacket—an ensemble that seemed way too col
d for the late November night.

“It’s about time!” Emma called when they approached her. “I’ve been
waiting here for you forever.”

“Forever?” Colby asked, with a smile on his face that Samara couldn’t identify. He looked really happy, but Samara got the impression that he was about to make fun of Emma again.
When he opened his mouth next, she found that she was right. “How
long’s forever, a half hour?”

“Actually, about ten minutes. I’d like to see you stand
out
here for ten minutes in the dark in the middle of the woods all by yourself without complaining,” Emma snapped back, rolling her eyes at him. “Sam, I have great news! My ste
pfather came out of his coma.”

“Did he?” Samara asked, meeting Luke’s gaze.
I should probably tell her that it was b
ecause of us now, shouldn’t I?

Luke shrugged.
I think maybe you should tell her sometime later, in private. I don’t think she’ll be happy if you tell her here, in front of half the pack. Give her time to react to you w
ithout everyone watching.

Samara nodded. He was probably right. It didn’t seem like the type of thing to talk about in front of peo
ple who Emma barely knew yet.

“So, are we going to get this thing started?” Emma asked. “Or are we going to just stand aro
und all night?”

Samara heard Colby whisper to Steve
, “That might hurt her feet.”

She rolled her eyes at him before turning to Emma. “We need to wait for the rest of the pack to get here. And we’re also doing more
than one initiation tonight.”

“Oh.” Emm
a’s face fell.

“What’s wrong?” Samara asked, noticing
Emma’s sudden look of sadness.

Emma hesitated. Tossing her blonde hair over her shoulders, she replied, “Well, I just thought that, you know, I would get my own initiation night. I mean, it’s something really special, you know. And everyone else got their own night . . .” She trailed off, and Samara knew that her best friend was waiting for her to tell her that she could have her own de
signated night for initiation.

Are you serious? She really thinks she’s entitled to her own private initiation? It’s like she wants it to be Emma day or something. Is she going to want us to celebrate it every year, too,
like her birthday?
Colby’s voice drifted into her head.

Samara shot him a glare; why was Colby so anti-Emma lately? It was really
starting to get on her nerves.

“I’m sorry, Emma. It’s a lot to explain at the moment, but we really need to get our number of pack members up right now,” she told her. “We’re initiating
two other girls tonight, too.”

Emma nodded. “I understand,” she replied quie
tly. “Can I go last at least?”

“I figured you’d want to go first,” Colby commen
ted, staring at her intently.

Emma smiled sweetly at him. “No, I think it’s always better to save the best for last,” she said with a w
ink.

Colby groaned, and Samara was positive that he was going to make yet another comment, so she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.
What is getting into
you? Be nice
, she commanded
him through her thoughts.

Colby glanced over at Emma and forced a smile at her. “I think that sounds like a fabulous idea
. I vote that Emma goes last.”

Her best friend beamed, and Samara breathed a sigh of relief. “So, um, I don’t know much about this whole initiation thing yet. Can we do all three of their initiations at the same time, or do we need t
o do each of them separately?”

“Separately,” Colby advised. “Otherwise, we might not be able to welcome all of them in. Everyone in the pack needs to focus on letting each of the people into the pack, and it can be difficult to focus when you do al
l three initiations at once.”

“Then, yes, you can go last,” Samara said, turning to Emma. She glanced at the time on her cell phone. It was starting to get late. “Has anyon
e heard from Josh and Kyana?”

They had stayed at the Jackson’s house while she and the guys had gone to th
e hospital and then to Mollie’s
old
house because Kyana had said she was too tired to tag along. Samara had a feeling that she was probably depressed about leaving Alaska. Even though she didn’t doubt that Kyana wanted to be an Ima, it still had to be hard to leave her f
amily and her old pack behind.
Samara wasn’t sure that she would have been brave enough to do it herself, and she was Joe McKinley’s daughter and the Alpha of her own pack, which was supposed to make her stronger than most.

Before anyone could even answer Samara’s question, she heard the sound of footsteps coming up from behind them. She glanced over her shoulder to find Josh and Kyana walking towards the
m, their arms linked.

“Hi, Samara!” Kyana chirped excitedly as they approached her. She let go of Josh long e
nough to give her a tight hug.

“I’m glad you came,” Samara smiled. “Oh, I want you to meet my best friend. Kyan
a, this is Emma. Emma, Kyana.”

“Emma, huh?” Kyana asked, glancing in Colby’s direction with a smirk on her face.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Emma’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh,
uh, only good things I hope.”

“Of course it was only good things. Who—who w
ould say bad things about you?”
Colby stammered over his words, and Samara tried really hard not to laugh.
Why was he so afraid of Emma finding out that he had been talking abo
ut her? Everyone else knew it, and it’s not like he was even nice to Emma’s face lately.

“I’m ready to initiate,” Kyana told Sa
mara. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Samara explained to her that she wasn’t the only one initiating tonight, either. “Since all of the pack members are here, though, I guess we could start a little earl
y. We’re just waiting on Rain.”

“I’d like to get this over with,” Kyana admitted. “You don’t have a crazy initiation ritual, do you? The Koto ritual
wasn’t so pretty. We had to—”

“Don’t tell me
about it,” Samara said, throwing
her hands in the air
to halt Kyana from saying anything else
. “
I don’t want to know because that information is supposed to stay top secret between packs.
Just as I hope that you’ll never tell anyone else what our initiation ritual is one day.” She wasn’t sure why she cared so much about keeping it a secret; she’d never cared before she became Alpha, but now it sort of felt like some sort of sacred sorority or fraternity initiation ritual that she didn’t
want anyone finding out about.

Kyana pretended that she was zipping her lips with her fingers. “So, what is your ritual?”
Her voice sounded a little nervous, and Samara remembered
how it had felt to wonder
the same th
ing when it had been her turn.

“You’ll find out soon,” she laughed. “It’s that not that bad, I promise.” Actually, the truth was, it was a little worse than the Vyka initiation she’d pretended she was going to go through, where she had to toss a piece of her hair into the fire. The Ima initiation wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t the easiest ritual for someone
who hated the sight of blood.

“Do we have ev
erything we need?” Kyle asked.

Luke brought forward the black bag with blue drawstring closure that held the dagger they used for the initiation ritual. As Samara pulled it out of the bag, she realized how ironic it was that the dagger had blue sapphire gemstones on the handle, similar in color to her grandfather’s talisman. Was it only just a coincidence . .
. or a sign of something else?

Chris handed her a second bag, which contained thumbtacks. She handed one of the thumbtacks to each of the guys in the pack before taking one for herself. Then, she handed the dagger to Kyana, wh
o stared back at it wide-eyed.