Black Magic (Howl #4) (17 page)

Chapter 20

The next night, when she was lying at home in her own bed, the sound of rocks clinking against her window in the middle of the night startled her. She cracked her eyes open, her heart beating fast as a wave of panic washed over her body.

Her first thoughts were of the Vyka; she wondered if they were in her backyard, trying to get through her window. They had probably come back to look for whatever it was they came for the first time, and this time, they were going to find it: she was at home this time.

Sam? Is everything okay?
Luke’s voice filled her mind, just as another rock hit against the window.

I’m not sure. I let you know once I figure it out for myself
, Samara replied through mind-speak. Her parents immediately filled her mind. What if the Vyka got to them before she could reach them? It would be just like Jason to try to hurt her by hurting someone who she loved.

As soon as she sat up in bed, the sound of the rocks being flung at her window stopped. Whoever it was must have seen that she was awake. But if the Vyka were planning an attack on her, why would they want her to be awake? Wouldn’t they just ambush her instead of try to wake her up?

Deciding that she didn’t want to take any chances, she crept out of her room and down the hallway to Seth’s bedroom. She opened his closet and pulled the baseball bat out of the closet, which she knew was tucked in the back under mounds of clothes, along with the other baseball equipment that she knew her brother hadn’t used in ages. The baseball bat might not actually do any good, but having it made her feel in control.

With the baseball bat in her hands, she tiptoed back to her own bedroom and, pulling the curtain back, peered out the window, fully expecting to find Jason’s haunting black eyes staring back at her.

She gasped at what she saw.

I’m okay. It’s just a raccoon or something. I’m sorry to freak you out. I’m going back to sleep. Goodnight
, Samara thought before putting up a barrier between their minds, just so that Luke wouldn’t worry when he wouldn’t be able to hear what was about to happen next.

Sliding the window open, Samara climbed out. “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

Declan stopped pacing back and forth, turning around to face her. “Hi, Sam.”

“What are you doing here?” she repeated. She felt guilty enough about lying to Luke at all, but it somehow made it even worse for her to know that she was lying about Declan . . . the guy who she thought she once may have had feelings for. At least, she could have had feelings for him, if she hadn’t decided to become an Ima.

But none of that mattered now; the point of the matter was that she
had
chosen to become an Ima. If anyone in her pack found out that she was talking to him, they might want to have her overthrown as Alpha.

“I need to talk to you,” Declan murmured.

Samara noticed the way his brown eyes sparkled with a tiny glimmer of hope in the moonlight. She knew that he was afraid that she was going to turn him away; what he didn’t know was that she couldn’t do that. Not now or ever . . .

“Talk,” she told him. “I’m listening.”

“I wanted to tell you what Jason’s planning,” Declan said, lowering his voice, and Samara knew it was because he didn’t want anyone to overhear him.

“Why would you tell me that? I thought he was the best Alpha ever.” She rolled her eyes at the memory of Declan defending Jason in the past when he was trying to convince her to become a Vyka. “Shouldn’t your loyalty lie with him?”

“Things have changed,” Declan replied. “I’m starting to learn things about him . . . things that I don’t agree with that I didn’t know or understand before. Things that I want no part of . . .” He shook his head. Pausing, he glanced over at her. “It’s not just that, though. It’s you.”

“What do you mean ‘it’s me’?” Samara asked, confused about what he could be referring to. She hadn’t done anything that might make him want to betray Jason.

“I mean it’s you he’s planning to kill,” Declan said. His face twisted into a look of disgust. “It doesn’t matter that you decided you don’t want to be with me, or that you didn’t even want to be in the same pack as me. All that matters now
is that you’re my best friend, Sam. I can’t just stand back and watch him try to kill you. I’d have to live for the rest of my life knowing I didn’t try to do anything to stop him.”

“It’s not news that he wants to kill me, Declan,” Samara replied quietly. “You even told me yourself a long time ago that I wouldn’t be safe if I didn’t become a Vyka.”

Declan shook his head. “He said he wanted to kill you, but I never believed him. I thought it was just his way to try to force you to be on our pack. I didn’t think he would ever actually follow through with it, but his intentions are clear now. He wanted to kill to you whether you joined the Vyka or not.
He’s planning to kill you on Christmas Eve.”

“What a lovely Christmas present for my pack and my family,” Samara murmured.

“That’s exactly why he’s planning it,” Declan nodded. “His plan is to kill you without anyone knowing and then deliver your body in a box with a bow on someone’s doorstep just to show them how powerful he is.” He shook his head, shuddering at the thought. “It’s really sick, the whole idea.”

Samara sat down on the grass, unable to stand with the information that she had just learned weighing down her shoulders. “How is he planning to kill me?”

“He’s planning to send you an email that looks like it came from Luke telling you to meet him at a surprise location on Christmas Eve so he can give you his Christmas gift,” Declan replied. “He thinks you’ll be naïve enough to fall for it. Once you get there, it will be just the two of you. He’s planning to have the rest of the pack create a barrier so that no one from the Ima can come to save you. Everyone else has been given strict orders to leave you be. He wants to kill you himself.”

Samara let out a loud sigh. “Where is this location I’m supposed to be meeting him at?”

Declan shook his head. “I don’t actually know. He hasn’t told anyone except for Seth yet.”

“Oh.” Samara’s face fell. If she didn’t know where she was supposed to be meeting Jason, how was she going to be able to stop this whole plan from taking place? Her initial idea was to have her pack get to the place before Jason even got there and to attack him, but he wasn’t making that easy.

“Seth’s been acting like a moron lately,” Declan told her.

“How so?”

“He’s going along with this whole plan Jason came up with. It’s like it doesn’t matter to him, that he could be losing a sister as a result of all this. Whatever Jason wants him to do, he goes along with it, no questions asked. It pisses me off.”

“I see.” Samara blinked back the tears that threatened to pour out of her eyes; Declan’s words cut like a knife. How could her own brother be so willing to go along with this plan? And here she had been thinking this whole time that she didn’t need to worry about her brother because he could never do anything that would hurt her. But all of that had been in her imagination; the real Seth was right alongside Jason, probably helping him plot his attack on her and laughing it off.

Declan glanced over at her, his face softening as he looked into her eyes. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” Samara replied, unsure of what to say. As much as she wanted to fill him in on everything that had happened in her life since the last time she’d spoken to him, she knew that she couldn’t do that. There was still a risk that he might, at some point, go back to being loyal to Jason. It made her happy to know that he had risked everything to come here to tip her off, but she couldn’t trust him fully. “How are you?”

“I just . . . I-I miss you,” Declan stammered, glancing down at the ground. “But that’s life, I guess . . . right?”

When Samara didn’t say anything in response, he continued. “They say there’s always going to be that one person from your past who you wish you were able to make things right with. That one person who you’ll always wonder if you were meant to be with, if certain obstacles hadn’t come along the way.” He paused, before glancing up at her. “Do you think we would have been together eventually if we stayed humans?”

Samara shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, but it’s sort of irrelevant now isn’t it? Fate decided that we were supposed to be werewolves, so I guess this is what was supposed to happen . . . not us. If that’s what was meant to happen.”

A look of pain filled Declan’s eyes. “Do you ever wish that I was the one who had been destined to be an Ima . . . instead of Luke?”

Samara glanced away from him. “I-I don’t know. I try not to think about it that much.” She glanced over at him. “I would be lying if I told you right now that I didn’t miss you because I do. I miss you every day. I love Luke, but it feels like there’s this empty place
in my life where you used to be . . . and thinking about it just hurts too much.”

Declan took a few steps closer to her. His breath was hot on her neck when he whispered, “I want to kiss you right now.”

Samara gulped. Luke flashed through her mind . . . and the fact that he was probably still worried about her; even though she’d told him she was asleep, there was a chance that he or someone else from the pack might be in the woods behind them right now, guarding her from a possible Vyka attack. If any of them saw her kissing Declan, she worried that they might want to have her overthrown as Alpha and exiled from the pack.

“But I can’t kiss you,” Declan continued, even though he didn’t move away from her. “If I were to kiss you . . . Luke would smell my scent on your body. He would know that I was here.”

“Can’t Jason figure out you were here? From your scent, I mean?” Samara asked, even though she was still thinking about the fact that he wanted to kiss her. “I don’t want you to get in trouble for being here.”

Declan shook his head. “Jason’s scent has been off lately. He’s been doing drugs which are potent to werewolves.”

“I see,” Samara said, forcing herself to do what she didn’t want to do. She took a step backwards, away from Declan, so that he wasn’t so temptingly close to her. “I think you better go anyway. I don’t want them to find out you were here.”

“You’re probably right,” Declan replied, even though the tone in his voice told her he was reluctant to leave.

“Thank you for letting me know about what Jason’s planning. It really means a lot to me.”

”I would do anything to protect you, Sam. You should know that.” Declan turned to walk away. Glancing at her over his shoulder, he added, “Sam? You should know I love you, too.”

Before she even had a chance to say anything back, Declan had already slipped out of her yard and into the woods behind her house, leaving her wondering if it was the last time they’d ever speak to one another.

Chapter 21

The night before Christmas Eve, Samara sat at her computer, refreshing her email. She had been checking it all night, but there were still no messages from Jason disguised as Luke.

She was starting to wonder if Jason had changed his plans.

Sighing, she glanced inside the bag of presents she picked out for her pack members earlier that day. She still had to wrap them, but looking at them again gave her something to do as she wa
ited for Jason to message her.

First, she pulled out the gift that she had picked out for Emma. It was a small paw print charm for the Pandora charm bracelet that she always wore. Samara had given Emma charms for her past two birthdays, and Emma had really liked them. She hoped this one would be her favorite since it had a lot of significance to her lif
e.

Next, she pulled out the gift that she’d picked out for Steve. It wa
s a classic Batman comic book.

For Colby, she’d bought a Carolina Colts lacrosse team sweatshirt, which Luke had told her was his favorite team. He’d been such a good sport about wearing his Notre Dame sweatshirt lately that she felt that he deserved
to wear what he really wanted.

The gift she’d bought Chris was more expensive than any of the other gifts she’d gotten for anyone else. It was a round trip plane ticket to Alaska so he
could go visit Kyana.

She’d gotten Kyle a scrapbook that she thought he would be able to use to save everything from his and Silas’ relationship; first flowers, the date of their first kiss, their first movie ticket stubs, and all of the things that she w
ished she had saved with Luke.

Josh had been the most difficult one of her pack members, besides Luke, to buy a Christmas gift for. Even though she’d known him for years, she didn’t feel like she
really
knew him. She didn’t know much about his hobbies or interests, so she’d asked for Kyle’s advice. Kyle had told her that Josh loved going to the movies, so she’d gotten him a gift cer
tificate to the local theater.

Samara had gotten two gifts for Luke; the first was the latest John Mayer CD. The second was a snow globe that she’d found at a thrift store. It was of two wolves--one white and one gray--howling together at the moon as the snow fell in the background. It had been such a rare find that was so unique to their relationship that she couldn’t pass
up on it.

Stuffing the gifts back inside the bag, Samara turned to her computer again. She hit refresh
again; there was still nothing.

On a whim, Samara clicked on the spam folder. At the very top, there was a message that said it was from Luke Davenport. She knew it hadn’t actually came from Luke because she didn’t even have his email address; they only communicated through mind-speak or in person. They didn’t even have a need to te
xt message or call each other.

The message headline was “A Christmas Su
rprise For You.”

Samara clicked on the email and read through
the email Jason had sent her:

My Dearest Samara,

I have gotten you a Christmas present that is very special. It’s so special that I must give it to you in private. Please meet me at 251 Old Mill Road on Christmas Eve at 8 p.m. sharp. Don’t be late
.

Your Love,

Luke Davenport

Samara laughed. Jason really thought he was going to trick her with this email, even though he didn’t sound anything close to the tone that Luke would use with her. She wouldn’t have fallen for it even if Declan hadn’t warned her of his intentions. And either way, Luke was only a thought away . . . she would have pestered him for details about the surprise, to which he would tell h
er the message wasn’t from him.

Still laugh
ing, she hit reply and wrote:

Luke,

Okay, baby. Can’t wait to see you then! K
isses and hugs!! XOXOX

Sammy

As she hit send, she laughed at her own response. She was going to make Jason believe that she was the fool he thought she was. Once the email had sent, though, she thou
ght about what it really meant.

The next day, she was going to meet Jason face to face . . . and h
e was planning to kill her.

*

That night, as she laid in bed, she thought about what she was going to do. She needed some sort of plan, or there was no way this was going to work. As it was, she hadn’t even told anyone from her pack what Declan had told her. She didn’t want to drag Declan into it, but more importantly, she didn’t want to drag her pack members into it, ei
ther.

The truth was, the Ima didn’t have any reason to meet Jason with her. It would only end ugly once the other Vyka got involved. Jason wanted this to be an easy kill; he wouldn’t have his pack to back him up tomorrow night because he wanted to kill her on his own, and she was going to
keep her own pack away, too.

Samara was going to face Jason by herself. She wasn’t going to le
t her pack members defend her.

Now that she knew more about black magic, she at least had a starting point that would help her overcome Jason. If she summoned the Trusted Ones, they would keep her safe. The chances of them being able to do anything if the rest of her pack was involved were actually slimmer; the less bad spirits that were conjured, the easier it would be for th
em to ward them off.

At least, she ho
ped it would work out that way.

There was always the chance that things could backfire on her. She might get there and find out that Jason had changed the plan and the whole Vyka pack would be fighting her tomorrow n
ight.

Samara tried not to think about it too much, though. In the worst case scenario, she would just let her pack members know where she was and hope that they would be able to save
the day without getting hurt.

In the meantime, she was just going to focus on the positive—that tomorrow night, at eight o’clock, she was
going to kill Jason Masterson.