by Jody Morse
“But even if someone else does 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 Colby. “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. In the backyard, you’ll find a crabapple tree. The talisman is buried alongside of it under a marble bench. You’ll also find 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 shrugged, turning to Colby. “Anything else?”
Colby handed her a small golden compass.
“Is there a note to go with this one?” Samara asked.
Colby looked inside the box. “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 use 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 out 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 help 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. Actually,” she said, turning to Colby, “do you think you can call your dad about that now? Hopefully he can arrange something for us.”
“Will do,” Colby agreed, stepping out of the room.
“We’ll all sleep in the living room,” Steve told her. “You and 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 interested 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 her. But why would he be?
Sighing, she went into the bedroom and changed into the 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 temperature. 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 that 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 secret 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 as soon as I find out, though.”
“Okay. Goodnight,” Emma said into the phone before hanging up.
As Samara placed her phone on the dresser next to the bed, Colby came into the room. “Sam? It looks like we’re not leaving early tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?” Samara asked.
“My dad couldn’t find us any flights until Thursday morning at the earliest. So, we’re stuck here for two more days.”
“Great,” Samara muttered. She sighed. “Emma really needs me to be there for her right now. They think her stepfather is going to pass away soon. He was in a really bad car accident.”
Colby sat down on the bed. When he glanced up at Samara, she noticed his face had softened a little. “Wow, poor Emma. The girl’s annoying, but I feel bad for her. Is she close to her stepdad?”
Samara hesitated. “It’s hard to explain. She never wanted her mom to get remarried, so for a long time, she wanted no part of him. But, now, I think she knows he makes her mom happy . . . and she loves her mom. They’re really close.”
“Well,” Colby began, a thoughtful look on his face. “I have an idea. But it will only work if we get back in time.”
Samara stared at him blankly. “Explain.”
“He doesn’t have to die,” Colby began. “As long as we get there to him in time, we can stop him from dying. Someone just needs to bite him.”
“So, you’re saying that we could just turn him into a werewolf and that will save him?” Samara felt hopeful. As much as she wanted to avoid turning people into werewolves, it also made her happy to know that she could save her best friend from the heartache of losing
of her stepdad.
“Yes,” Colby replied. “As long as he hangs on until we get there.”
“Can’t Emma just turn him?” Samara asked, reaching for her cell phone to call her best friend and tell her the news.
Colby shook his head. “No, she can’t. She’s too young, and she has to be a part of our pack before she can turn him. If she were to turn him right now, he would be a Shomecossee because that’s the pack she still technically belongs to. We gotta get back there soon so we can do it ourselves.”
As Colby stood up to go into the living room, Samara whispered, “Thanks. I know Emma gets on your nerves sometimes—”
“Most of the time,” Colby corrected her.
Samara smiled. “Most of the time . . . But it still means a lot to me for you to think of doing this for her.”
Colby nodded before leaving the room. As Samara crawled into bed, she felt a lot of pressure to get out of Alaska as soon as possible. They had to go back to Pennsylvania now before they could go to Massachusetts; saving Emma’s stepdad was more important than finding Jason at the moment. Plus, it gave them more time to come up with a plan to catch him off guard.
After Samara relayed the bad news that they wouldn’t be able to leave right away---leaving out the good news because she didn’t want to get her best friend’s hopes up if it didn’t work out right—to Emma via text, she tried to drift off to sleep. But it didn’t happen right away. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she fell asleep at all. It was a long, lonely night wondering if Luke was mad at her or not.
Chapter 15
The next morning, Samara was awoken by the sound of knocking at the front door. Remembering that Orkos and Kyana were supposed to join them for breakfast, she quickly changed into a clean pair of clothes and made her way into the living room, where she found most of the guys sprawled across the floor on their sleeping bags with Nuka. Luke was lying on the sofa, which gave Samara a stale taste in her mouth. He could have just slept in the bed with her and let someone else have the comfort of sleeping on the sofa, but he hadn’t.
When Luke met her eyes, he smiled at her, his green eyes twinkling. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Samara muttered, trying not to let anyone see how annoyed she was at him. She turned to Orkos and Kyana, who stood in the doorway holding several tall paper bags which looked like they were packed with food.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Orkos said. “We brought enough food to feed an army.”
“We practically are an army,” Chris said, flexing his muscles as if to prove his strength.
The pack all sat down at the dining room table, and Orkos began pulling the food out of the bag. Samara held her breath as she wondered what he would pull out for them; she’d heard that people from Alaska did a lot of hunting and ate a lot of things from the sea, so she half-expected him to pull out a moose or a walrus or something that she wasn’t accustomed to eating.
When Orkos placed a container of lox on the table, along with bagels and pre-cooked bacon, Samara breathed a sigh of relief.
“Alaskans eat the same way as everyone else does,” Orkos laughed, noticing her expression. “Even us traditional Inuit Alaskans.”
Samara smiled, grabbing a cinnamon raisin bagel. “So, we found a bunch of stuff that my grandfather left behind for me last night.”
“Yeah? Did you find anything interesting?” Orkos asked, a genuine look of intrigue in his eyes.
“Well, there were a few things,” Samara replied, choosing her words carefully. Even though her grandfather was obviously very good friends with Orkos, she wasn’t sure how much information she was allowed to tell him. Would her grandfather have seen it as betraying her own pack or helping out a good friend? “Two of the things really confused me, though. He left a compass, and an address book.”
“Ah, the compass,” Orkos said, nodding his head. “You know what that’s used for, right?”
Samara bit into the lox on her bagel, delighted by the sweet taste of the savory fish, and shook her head. “No, I have no idea what it does.”
“It’s intended to help you find your enemies,” Orkos explained. “Joe used some secret formula to create it himself. It detects hormones and chemical reactions in the air, and it knows how to sense anger and revenge. He swore that if you use the compass, it will let you know when you should be cautious.”
“That’s simply fascinating,” Colby said through a mouthful of bacon. “Joe was some scientist. Do you believe it really works?”
Orkos shrugged. “The idea used to sound too far-fetched to me, but Joe had this miraculous ability to sense when people were out to get him. Then again, that shouldn’t have been too hard. Most of the people in our world were out to get Joe McKinley.”
“Really? I mean, we’ve all heard the stories about his haters, but were there really that many people out to get him?” Kyle asked from across the table.
Orkos cleared his throat. “A lot of people wanted to kill him so that they could say that they had successfully killed the most powerful werewolf in this world . . . or in hopes of becoming the next most powerful. Some of them even wanted to kill him so they would be able to be the next Alpha of his pack—which, presumably, was the most powerful pack, since McKinley was the most powerful leader.
Orkos glanced over at Samara. “When you’re as powerful and well-known as Joe is, people will always want to try to bring you down.”
Samara sunk down into her seat, knowing that he was trying to give her advice. She was, after all, the next in line to be as powerful as her grandfather had been.
“Speaking of pack leaders and Alphas, do you know if the next leader was named Finnegan McClellan?” Samara asked.
Orkos’ eyes lit up with recognition. “Yes, that was his name! How did you find it? I was looking all day and night, but didn’t uncover anything in the mess of documents in my den.”
“Mess is an understatement,” Kyana whispered to Josh, who she was holding hands with. “It looks like we were hit by a tornado.”
Orkos shot Kyana a ‘look’.
“It was one of the names in the address book I mentioned,” Samara replied, standing up to get the book. She handed it to Orkos. “Do you have any idea why some of the names are written in red, and others are written in green?”
Orkos looked down at the list, scanning the addresses that were scribbled in the book. “I’m not sure that there is a reason. I mean, it’s a little strange that it goes by every other name. If it were strategic, I would imagine that it would go in random order.” Glancing up at Samara, he handed the address book back to her. “Joe never told me a reason for it if that’s what you’re asking. In fact, he didn’t tell me much at all about the things that he left for you—only that I was to give you the bank account information and the deed to the house when the time came.”
“Do you have the deed to the other house? The one in Pennsylvania?” Samara asked.
Orkos stared back at her, a confused expression on his face. “There’s another house?”
“Yeah, Grandpa Joe left me information about it,” she muttered, surprised that her grandfather hadn’t mentioned anything to Orkos about it. Maybe Grandpa Joe hadn’t said anything because he hadn’t wanted his best friend to know about it, though. Maybe the other house was supposed to be a secret . . .
“I can’t say that I know anything about that house,” Orkos replied, running a hand over his dark hair. “Sorry about that. I wish I had answers for you.”
“It’s okay,” Samara replied. “When can I get those documents, by the way? You know, the bank information and the deed to the house?”
“Whenever you’re ready for them,” Orkos replied.
“I think I’ll let you hold on to them a little while longer,” Samara replied, remembering that she didn’t want to say anything about what her grandfather had left her to her parents just yet. Not until she was sure that they would allow her to decide what to do with it on her own.
“That’s fine,” Orkos
replied. “I’ve already had them for years. A few more weeks or months won’t hurt.”
“Where did Grandpa Joe get his money from?” Samara questioned. “I never knew he was rich when I was a kid. I mean, I knew he wasn’t poor, but I didn’t think he was a millionaire or anything like that.”
Orkos smiled. “A lot of his money was an inheritance from his parents. But he’s also lived a long life. Money is bound to add up eventually.”
“How old was he?” Samara asked. She thought her grandfather wasn’t much older than most of her friend’s grandparents.
“A few hundred years old,” Orkos replied. “Your father was one of the children that he had later in life.”
“I didn’t know that werewolves could have pups when they were that old,” Samara said quietly, She wanted to ask Orkos why he was in such a rush for Kyana to reproduce when she had years to do that? It didn’t make much sense.
“It is possible, but it’s not very common,” Orkos said. “Most of us have pups early on. Just like parenting human children, parenting werewolf children can grow tiresome over the years. But, Joe had pups long before he met your grandmother. His mate had already been dead for many years before he’d met her. A lot of us thought he was nuts for mating with a human, but Joe was stubborn and he thought he was in love.”
“Do you think my grandfather was in love?” Samara questioned. She’d never heard that her grandparents didn’t have a good relationship with each other, only that her grandfather travelled often. She hadn’t even known for sure that her grandmother was a human.
Orkos hesitated. “I don’t know if I believe that a werewolf can really love a human the same way he can love another werewolf. It doesn’t seem logical to me.”
Samara nodded. She knew that she couldn’t argue with him; it was hard to imagine what it would be like to love a human now. They wouldn’t share that intense touch that she shared with Luke—the bond that could only be formed between mated wolves.
