Wolfsbane (Howl #3) (6 page)

Samara
watched as she strolled out of the den. She couldn’t tell if Kyana’s
tail was just moving, or if it was wagg
ing happily as she left.

Okay, is anybody else creeped out?
Steve asked.
Why does t
his guy want to talk to Samara?

I guess we’ll find out soon
, Luke said, lying down on the ground.
The good news is that I didn’t notice any other pack members nearby, except for the son. I think we could conquer all of them if we had to.

Samara instinctively let out a low growl.
Don’t talk that way. No one’s going to conquer anyone here. We’re not here to fight anyone, especially not on their turf. We’re just here to talk.
But I don’t know what we’re here to talk about.

Before anyone could get another word in, the sound of paws hitting against the dirt
floor
filled her ears, and she turned around to see a white wolf standing behind them. It was the largest wolf she had ever seen; his shoulders were pressed back and he exuded an overwhelming sense of confidence—to the point
where it could easily be mistaken as cockiness.

Samara McKinley?
Kyana’s father’s voice boomed, echoing throughout the den. His orange
eyes scanned the area for her.

That would be me
, Samara s
poke up nervously.

Well, well, well. I d
idn’t expect to see you in my neck of the woods
anytime soon,
the wolf said.

Chapter 8

Who are you, and how do you know my name?
Samara asked Kyana’
s father, who stood before her.

Let’s just say that I was a good friend of your grandfather’s
, the wolf responded.
My name is Orkos. If you don’t mind transforming into a human, I’d like to offer you and your pack a cup of tea.

Tea sounds good
, Samara replied politely. The truth was,
she definitely wasn’t in the mood for tea at that moment.

The den filled with a cloudy smoke as the Ima, Kyana, and Orkos all shifted to their human forms. The cloud of smoke that surrounded Kyana and Orkos was a vibrant shade of orange, which matched the eye
color that they had as wolves.

Once she was back in
her
human form, Samara got a good look at Kyana
and Orkos. They both had silky
black hair and almond-shaped eyes, and their
skin was on the tanner side.

As Kyana handed each of them tiny cups of tea from a kettle in the corner, Samara noticed that she was really pretty
—and
not just girl next door pretty. She was the type of breathtaking that could land her on th
e cover of a magazine one day.

Orkos was also attractive, and
Samara was surprised to find that he wasn’t old.
He appeared to be in his mid-thirties or perhaps his early forties.
Even though she knew it was rude, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “If you knew my grandfa
ther, why aren’t you his age?”

Orkos laughed. “How l
ong have you been a werewolf?”

“Not long,” Samara admitted, taking a sip of the tea. She tried not to wrinkle her nose at its bitter taste and forced herself to gulp it
down so she didn’t seem rude.

“We
rewolves all
age differently. Some of us stop aging when we’re in our twenties, some of us continue to age until our bodies are physically in their eighties or nineties. If you want my opinion, I think it has a lot to do with your nutrition. Nobody’s gonna stay young-looking by drinking beer and eating pizza all the time,” Orkos said. “If it comes from the earth, it’s good for you. Stay away from that processed garbage, and you’ll be fine. I think the
reason your grandfather aged quicker than many
of us
do
is
because he loved his cigars.”

“I didn’t know my grandfather smoked,”
Samara
admitted. “W
hy didn’t he get lung cancer?”

Orkos laughed. “Silly girl. We don’t get cancer. We can’t get a disease that causes us to die the same way humans would
. It’s just not in our
immortal
blood.”

“Oh, right.
” Samara shook her head at herself, feeling sort of dumb for not realizing that sooner. “My grandfather died of natural causes, though,” she said, recalling that Jason had told her that her father had died because his strength had basically been too dr
aining for his body to handle.

“That’s subjective,” Orkos said, shaking his head a
nd looking down at the ground.

“What do you mean?” Samara pressed. “You don’t think he died of natural
causes?”

“All of the history books say he did,” Colby chimed
in, and Samara had to stifle a giggle
. Leave it to Colby to rely on history books to know what
went on in the werewolf world. Samara knew that i
f werewolf history books were anything like human history books, they probably
didn’t always give the most accurate account of history.

“The history may say it
and some people might believe it, but I don’t,” Orkos admitted, meeting Samara’s ey
es. “I think he was murdered.”

“What makes you think that? Wouldn’t it be well-known by now?” Chris, who had remai
ned quiet until now, spoke up.

“It wouldn’t be well-known if the people who killed him did a good job of covering it up,” Orkos replied with a shrug. “Thing
s aren’t always as they seem.”

“What would make you think he was murdered?” Samara asked. Even though she knew that her grandmother had been murdered by werewolves, it had never crossed her mind that her grandfather m
ight have
been killed, too.

Orkos paused for a long while, and when he looked back up at Samara, he had a wistful look in his eyes, as though he were reminiscing about what had happened like it
was
yesterday. “I received a letter from Joe just before he died. He told me that he wanted the two of us to go to Arkansas to hide out. There’s a really low werewolf population out there, so he thought we wouldn’t get discovered. Apparently, he had some bad dealings with wolves in his general area
,
and he wanted to get away from them. I th
ink he knew he was in danger.”

“Who do you think killed him?” Samara questioned. What if her grandfather’s murderer
was still out there somewhere?

“I don’t know,” Orkos replied, shaking his head, his chin-length black hair moving with it. “Part of the reason no one believes Joe was actually murdered was because no one conquered his pack. A new Alpha from another pack didn’t take over. But that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have been killed. There are ways around it. For example, I know there is one clause that says that if you conquer an Alpha, you can request that your firstborn son takes your place as Alpha instead. But if you want my opinion, I think someone from the Vyka—someone from Joe’
s own pack—is who killed him.”

“Why would you think that?” Josh asked incredulously. Samara knew what he was thinking: how could one pack member kill another pack member? After what she had witnessed between Seth and Ethan, though, she knew that there were obstacles that pack members faced. It didn’t seem too unrealistic for o
ne pack member to kill another.
Besides, Josh shouldn’t have been too surprised—he had been willing to go along with the plan
to kill his own twin brother.

Orkos looked up at him. “Think about it. If one of Joe’s own pack members is the one who
secretly
killed him, that pack member could have passed it off as though he was simply the next pack member in line to be Alpha. It could have seemed like fate chose him to lead the pack from that point on, when in reality, he only got th
e spot because he killed Joe.”

“That makes a l
ot of sense,” Samara murmured.

“Do you know who became Alpha after Joe passed?” Luke
asked.

Orkos shook his head. “No, I don’t recall who it was offhand. I think his first name was Finnegan, but I don’t remember his last name. I think I have it written down so
mewhere.” He got up and began leafing
through tiny filing cabinets in the corner of the room. “I do know that he was killed shortly after
, though
. I only remember hearing about it and thinking it was strange—
until
I wondered
i
f there was a connection betwe
en his death and Joe’s death.”

As Orkos searched the room for the paper he was looking for, Samara noticed that Kyana was staring at J
osh. He stared ahead of him, not seeming to notice Kyana’s eyes on him.

“So, Kyana, h
ow old are you?” Chris asked.

Samara rolled her eyes. Chris always tried to act like he was a womanizer, but she knew that he was in love with Rain, another werewolf. Rain was supposed to be a Seku, but no one wanted her on their pack because her grandfather had murdered Samara’s grandmother. Samara had promised Chris that she would let Rain join the Ima after she met her, mostly because she felt bad that she had to live with her grandfather’s mistakes, but also because she knew it
wo
uld mean a lot to Chris, too.

“I’m seventeen,” Kyana replied, tucking a long piece of silky black hair behind her ear. “I’ve been a werewolf f
or one year. How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” Chris replied. “So, w
hat do you do? Do you go out?”

Kyana nodded. “There’s this club. It’s run by werewolves. Me and all the other girls on the pack go dancing there often.” She paused, glancing over at her father, whose back was turned to them. “You should all come with m
e. We’re going there tonight.”

Chris glanced over at Samara, as though he were seeking approval, before
agreeing to go. “I’d love to.”

“Yeah, it sounds like fun,” Col
by spoke up. “I love
to dance
.”

Samara smiled
at the way his eyes had lit up talking about dancing; she remembered
how good
a break dancer Colby had been at the Homecoming dance. All of the girls, who normally made fun of him, had actually p
aid attention to him for once.

“I’ll go,” Josh said, and Samara noticed the big smile that crossed Kyana’s face.
From their places next to him,
Kyle and Steve mutter
ed their agreement to go, too.

“You’re all assuming we’ll still be in Alaska tonight,” Luke pointed out. “If we find what we’re looking for, we might
be able to leave before then.”

“Don’t be such a party pooper,” Chris shot at him. “I sincerely doubt we’re going
to be leaving Alaska tonight.”

Luke scowled and threw his hands up in the air. “Okay, whatever.
I guess you can count me in.”

“It’ll be fun, Luke,” Samara said softly. In her head, she asked him,
what’s
wrong?

Nothing’s wrong. I just hav
e a really bad feeling about this
for some reason. That’s all
, Luke replied.

Don’t worry,
Samara told him, reaching over for his hand.
She squeezed it tightly, trying to ignore the tingly feeling that shot through her body at his touch. His pineapple peppermint scent was stronger than it usually
was, and it drew her to him.

“Just
have my daughter home by eleven . . .
one of you,” Orkos said, turning to Josh
and Chris with a stern face.

Josh and Chris looked at each other, and Samara could tell that they both were sort of confused. To Samara, Chris seemed to be more interested in Kyana, but it was obvious that
Kyana had a crush on Josh. From the look on Josh’s face, Samara could tell that he must
have noticed her golden eyes flitting over
at him every once in a while.

“
Don’t worry, we will bring her home
,” Samara promised Orkos as Josh and Chris continued to stare each other down. “We really need to be going now, though. We have
to go to the storage company.”

“Storage company?” Orkos asked, a cl
ueless expression on his face.

Samara nodded. “My grandfather left me an address that belongs to a storage company. Stucci’s Self Storage, it’s called.”

“Ah, yes, Joe told me that he left you something there. Wonder what it is.”
The way
Orkos’ eyes
danced
told Samara that he probably knew more than he was letting on. “I’ll keep looking for the guy’s name. If I find it, I’ll have Kyana give it to
you tonight when you see her.”

Kyana nodded and handed Josh a piece of paper. “We’re meeting at the club around seven. Here’s the address. Don’t lose it,
” she said with a flirty smile.

“I won’t,” Josh replied, stuffing the pie
ce of paper into his pocket. “I . . .
I’ll see you tonight, I guess, then
,” he stumbled over his words.

Samara smiled. It made her sad to think that even though there were obvious sparks between Josh and Kyana, they could never be romantically involved. Well, maybe they could, but they would never be mated, si
nce Josh had already been mated once. There was also the problem of Kyana being a Koto; i
t actually surprised her that Orkos was so willing to let
his daughter go out with an Ima,
but it was probably because he knew they wouldn’t be hanging around Alaska for too long.

At least, Samara hoped they wouldn’t be.