Cursed (Howl, #6)

by Morse, Jody

  “Look, I know that you don’t like Penelope, but what I don’t understand is why,” Seth said with a sigh. Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “So, you better give me a good reason for this questioning. And please don’t just say that she gives you a bad feeling or some shit like that. It’s got to be more than that.”

  Samara sighed. She really didn’t want to go into this when Penelope was right in the other room, but she knew that her brother wasn’t going to leave her much of a choice. In order to understand why she was acting the way she was acting, he had to know her reasoning. “Look, there’s something I never told you. When you brought Penelope to meet our pack, that wasn’t the first time I met her. I pretended like that was the first time, but it wasn’t really. I met her before that—before you even met her, actually. And when I met her, she was so . . . weird. She insisted on meeting my Alpha and becoming a member of my pack. It was strange, and it rubbed me the wrong way.” Taking a deep breath, she added, “It’s not just that, though, Seth. I also hated how, in the beginning, she seemed to flirt with all of the other guys in the pack, right in front of your face. I don’t know if she did it to make you jealous or to—”

  “What do you mean she flirted with all of the other guys in the pack?” Seth questioned through gritted teeth. “Penelope never did that. She would never do that to me.”

  “Yes, she did, Seth,” Samara replied. “I think you might have been too blinded by falling for her to realize what was happening at the time, but you can even ask Steve. He said he felt really uncomfortable by it.”

  Seth glanced over at Kyle. “Penelope never did that, did she?”

  Kyle darted his eyes away from Seth and down at the ground. “Dude, I’m sorry, but . . . she did. I’m not sure if she knew she was doing it. I mean, maybe she’s just a natural flirt or something, but she was definitely very flirtatious in the beginning.” When he saw the hurt expression that crossed Seth’s face, Kyle reached out and touched his shoulder gently. “Hey, man. That’s in the past now, right? Maybe she just did it because she was nervous or something, but I haven’t noticed her do anything lately.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Seth mumbled. Turning to Samara, he said, “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t okay for Penelope to flirt with other guys, but it’s not like she’s made a habit out of it. But I think it’s wrong of you to not like her just because she wanted to be a part of our pack. Did you ever think the reason is because she felt like she didn’t have anywhere else where she belonged? I know, just from listening in on her thoughts sometimes, that she’s really appreciative to be a part of our pack.”

  Samara sighed. This wasn’t the first time someone had reminded her that maybe Penelope just needed friends or somewhere to belong to. Her mom had thought the same thing. And maybe both Seth and their mom were right, but it didn’t excuse the fact that Penelope hadn’t been nice in the beginning.

  Even so, though, Samara knew that she couldn’t press her brother any further on the possibility that Penelope could be an enemy. If she did, there was a good chance that Samara and Seth would become enemies—and she really didn’t want that to happen.

  “Okay. Listen, I’m sorry. I’m just being paranoid,” Samara told Seth, even though she felt like she was technically lying to him. She wasn’t really sorry—and she definitely wasn’t just being paranoid—but it was what she needed to tell him to keep peace. “The last few weeks have been so crazy, and it’s scary knowing that Grandpa Joe’s talisman is gone. I want to know who took it.”

  Seth exhaled and ran a hand over his dark hair frustratedly. “I know, Sam. I feel the same way. I’m worried that it might have gotten into the hands of the wrong person, but I have no clue who that might be.” Sighing, he said, “I would just appreciate it if you could at least try to trust Penelope a little more. Look at it this way. Fate wouldn’t choose to mate me with someone who’s a complete monster. Obviously she’s a good girl.”

  “Actually, I have to disagree on that one,” Kyle said quietly. “Look at Mrs. Jackson—err Linda. I don’t know if she wants to go by Mrs. Jackson anymore. She is the sweetest woman you could ever meet, but fate chose to mate her with Darren. I don’t think it works the way you think it does. Sometimes, good people do get matched with ‘monsters’, so to speak.”

  Samara glanced over at Kyle. “I agree. It’s not always black and white, Seth. Sometimes, there are shades of grey. Where has Linda been lately, anyway? Is she still staying with that cousin of hers in Canada?”

  “Yes, she is,” Kyle replied. “I think Colby said she’s supposed to come home sometime later this week, though. She wants to go through with an un-marking ceremony.”

  “Un-marking ceremony?” Samara questioned. “I’ve never heard of that before. What is it, exactly?”

  “It’s sort of like the opposite of a wedding,” Kyle explained. “No one actually knows if werewolves can lose their marks when they get divorced, though we think it’s possible. In any case, I guess you can say an un-marking ceremony is the closest thing we have to a divorce. I don’t think it’s ever happened in werewolf history, but basically, you vow to never be with your mate again.” He shrugged. “I don’t know the exact details, but I do know that Colby doesn’t want his mom to bother going through with it.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Samara questioned. “If she does go through with it, it could be a really good thing. It would mean that Darren will never be able to hear her thoughts, which also means he’ll have less of a chance of figuring out where she is.”

  “Right, but . . . the problem is, in order for her to go through the un-marking ceremony, Darren also needs to be there,” Kyle explained. “Which means that Darren will know her location, and he might even follow her back here—or wherever she goes—which means he’ll know where she is, anyway. And even worse than that, he might be angry that she wants to leave him. It could get really ugly. We’d need the whole Tala pack to be there for back-up, but it seems like such a big risk. At least, Colby thinks so. He thinks she should just wait it out, at least for now.”

  Samara understood the reason Colby felt that way, but she also understood why Linda really wanted to un-mark from Darren. She couldn’t imagine having to look at her ice and fire dragons mark if Luke did the same thing to her that Darren had done to Linda. It would be a constant reminder of how he had betrayed her.

  More than anything, Samara still felt bad for Linda and everything she had been through. Somehow, Samara was going to find a way for Colby’s mom to un-mark from Darren—assuming that it was possible for werewolves to truly unmark from one another.

  Chapter 11

  As Luke pulled in front of his family’s house, he turned to Samara. “Are you sure we have to do this?”

  “Yes, we have to do this, Luke,” Samara replied with a sigh. “Your mom invited us over for dinner. I don’t know what’s going to happen once we’re inside that house, but we need to give her the benefit of the doubt, at the very least. She deserves that, if nothing else. I mean, she did give birth to you.”

  Luke glanced over at her and rubbed his palms together nervously. “I’m glad that you’re going to be going in there with me, at least. And no matter what happens, no matter what she says, it doesn’t matter. I know I made the right decision by marrying you. I love you.”

  Samara smiled. “I love you, too.” She leaned over and gave him a small kiss on the lips. Sitting upright, she opened the mirror on her sun visor and glanced at her face. Her amber eyes stared back at her, lined by the dark liner and smoky eye shadow that she wore. She puckered her lips in the mirror, making that awful duck face that girls made in their obnoxious Facebook pictures.

  She couldn’t help but notice that she looked different—and it wasn’t just the sun-kissed glow she had gotten from all of the sun that she had soaked up when she was in Hawaii. Something about her looked older, more mature, than it had before. Samara wasn’t sure what it was, though. Nothing different had happened, and nothing had changed—aside from her la
st name.

  “Are you ready to go inside?” Luke questioned, glancing over at her.

  “Yeah, I’m ready,” Samara replied. “Let’s go.” She climbed out of the car and followed Luke until they were standing on the front porch of the log cabin.

  Luke knocked on the front door, and a few moments later, it was swung open.

  “Hey, you guys made it!” Joel, Luke’s stepfather, said, with a big grin. “I’m so happy to see the two of you.”

  “We’re happy to see you, too,” Samara replied with a smile. The truth was, she really did like Joel. She wasn’t sure how he had ended up with Marnie, but she felt bad for him at times. Marnie seemed like such a difficult person to get along with, but then again, she was only judging based on the few awkward times they had met. Samara hoped, deep down, that she was wrong about Marnie. She wanted to like her mother-in-law.

  “Why don’t you guys take a seat, and I’ll let Marnie know you’re here?” Joel suggested, motioning to the living room.

  “That’s fine,” Samara replied, taking a seat on the love seat. Luke sat down next to her, his weight shifting the cushion. He reached over and grabbed her hand.

  Your palm’s all sweaty. Don’t be so nervous, Samara told him through mind-speak, resting her head against his shoulder.

  I’m trying not to be, Luke replied. It’s just so damn hard. You don’t know what it’s like to have your mother hate you because of who you love. You’re lucky your parents are so accepting of me.

  I know, Samara replied. I am lucky. But it doesn’t mean that your mom might not become accepting of us eventually—assuming she’s not beginning to accept it already.

  When Samara saw Marnie’s face when she entered the room, she could tell, right away, that Marnie actually was beginning to accept Samara. There was a warmness to it; it was a very slight warmness, but it was there, hidden behind all of the makeup and the serious-looking smile.

  “Lucas. Samara,” Marnie said, smoothing out her skirt and sitting down on the sofa across from them. “It’s good to see you. You both look well.”

  “So do you,” Samara replied boldly. Even though Luke was nervous, she didn’t have a reason to be. She wanted to get along with his mom, but at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter if the woman hated her or not.

  “I guess I created a mess of things at the wedding,” Marnie said, running a hand through her light brown hair nervously. She met Samara’s eyes, directing the conversation at her. “I didn’t mean for it to get so out-of-hand the way it did, but you have to understand things from my prospective. My son lied to me, and I didn’t find out that he lied until after he was married. It stung a little, to say the least.”

  Samara nodded understandingly. “I get it. I actually wanted to tell you before the day of the wedding, but . . . Luke told me it would be for the best if we waited until after we were married.”

  “I know,” Marnie replied.

  Samara raised her eyebrows. “You do?” She glanced over at Luke, wondering if he had told his mother, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that he hadn’t.

  “Yes, of course I knew. It makes so much sense why you were so awkward around me,” Marnie explained. She sighed. “I know I was probably a little bit harsh. At least, Joel says I’ve been pretty harsh about things. But I really wish the two of you had told me before the wedding day. I didn’t want Lucas to marry his mate, as you already know, but I might have been more accepting of it if I had known beforehand. Well, to be honest with you, I did know about it beforehand.”

  Luke raised his eyebrows. “You did, Mom? Why didn’t you ever say anything to me about it?”

  “I tried, Lucas! I asked you several times if Samara was really a werewolf, but every time I asked, you did nothing except for deny it. It was just a gut-feeling—a mother’s instinct—that I had. I knew deep down, but I couldn’t keep pressing you about it when it was obvious that you weren’t going to tell me the truth.” She shrugged. “I kept waiting for you to open up about it, and when you didn’t, I guess I may have started to believe you. It didn’t make any sense to me why her parents agreed to let her marry you at such a young age unless they werewolves themselves—”

  “My parents aren’t werewolves,” Samara interrupted. “My brother, Seth, and I are the only ones in the family who are werewolves. Well, besides my grandfather, that is. And my great-grandfather.”

  Marnie nodded knowingly. “That’s another thing I’m already aware of. You’re Joe McKinley’s granddaughter.”

  A nervous knot tightened in Samara’s stomach. “But . . . how could you possibly know that?”

  “Well, for starters, your maiden name is McKinley, and you’re a werewolf,” Marnie said with a small smile. “It’s more than that, though. I recognize those eyes. You have the same exact amber eyes that he had. You also move the same way he moved. Very swiftly and gracefully, but it’s obvious that you could be sly if you wanted to be, too.” She shrugged. “It’s just an easy thing to tell, I guess.”

  Luke tapped his foot against the hardwood floor nervously. “Aren’t you upset, though? Joe McKinley murdered Grandpa. Doesn’t it make you angry that I married his granddaughter?”

  Marnie shook her head. “No, it doesn’t make me angry. I know it’s not your fault that you fell in love with Samara—or that you were mated to her. And what’s more than that is the fact that you never so much as met your grandfather or Joe McKinley. What Joe McKinley did to your grandfather was terrible, but none of it is your fault. The past is the past, and you weren’t even a part of that past.”

  “I was actually wondering . . . Do you know why my grandfather killed your father?” Samara asked quietly. She knew that she was probably being rude for asking, but it was something that she had always wondered. Why had her grandfather, the man who was so busy trying to save the world from all of its evils, kill someone? There had to be a reason.

  “I don’t know all of the details,” Marnie said, meeting Samara’s gaze. “I can tell you what I do know. It’s the only thing my mother ever told me.” She took a deep breath. “My father was a trader. He used to trade things that other werewolves might want. Some of them were simple trades, like furs and herbs. Some of them were more complicated, though. I guess you can call it magic. He offered to trade your grandfather something—he had some sort of information that your grandfather wanted, and your grandfather was supposed to give him the information about what made him so powerful in exchange. Well, your grandfather told him what he promised to tell him, and my father didn’t hold up his end of the deal.” She sighed. “As much as I personally hate Joe McKinley for what he did to my own father, the truth is . . . My father deserved it. He made a bad trade, and he paid for it.”

  “Wow,” Luke murmured, ruffling his light brown hair. “You never told me the story from this angle before.”

  Marnie shrugged. “It’s difficult for me to talk about it. Either way, I lost my father. He might have deserved it for what he did, but I lost him, no less.” She wrung her hands nervously. “Anyway, enough of this depressing talk. How was the honeymoon?”

  “It was a lot of fun,” Samara replied. “Hawaii is beautiful.”

  “Maybe we can take a family vacation there one day,” Marnie suggested. “If that’s okay with the two of you.”

  “It sounds great,” Luke replied with a smile, and Samara could feel the happiness that washed over him. “I have one question, though. You’re really not mad at me? For marrying my mate instead of a human companion?”

  Marnie sighed. “Oh, Lucas. It’s not the most ideal of marriages, but what can I do? I don’t want to lose you because of this. Samara’s taking a risk by being with a werewolf, but . . . we all take risks when we love someone, don’t we?” Smiling, she added, “And it does make me feel better to know that you married who Joe McKinley believed would be the next most powerful werewolf in history. At least I know she can kick your ass if you try to do anything to hurt her.”

  Samara glanc
ed over at Luke with a smile. “See, I told you that would make her feel better.”

  Chapter 12

  The next day was the first Monday back to school after spring break. As Samara arrived at school with Luke, they quickly parted ways. Luke headed off to the gym with Colby, and Samara made her way to biology class with Emma.

  “So, what’s been going on with you and Colby lately?” Samara asked, glancing over at her best friend.

  A nervous look flitted across Emma’s face, but she tried to pass it off like the question hadn’t bothered her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, all everyone hears about is the secret the two of you have with each other lately,” Samara replied. “Are you ever going to tell us about it?”

  Emma’s expression remained stony. “Yeah, we’ll tell you about it. When we’re ready.”

  Samara stopped her best friend in the middle of the hallway and turned to look at her. “It’s nothing crazy or anything, right? The two of you aren’t doing anything illegal together or something, are you?”

  Emma laughed. “I don’t know why you would think that. It’s not like me and Colby look like the type of people who do illegal things, do we?”

  Samara shrugged. “No, not really. But it feels like I don’t know you lately. You never keep secrets from me, Em.”

  “I know.” Emma glanced over at Samara with an apologetic look. “I promise when we’re ready to tell people, you will definitely be the first person I tell. Pinky swear.” She held up her pinky finger.

  Samara locked fingers with her and laughed. “Now that you mention it, maybe Colby does seem like the type to do something illegal. I mean, wouldn’t he make the funniest pimp ever?”