Blood Moon (Howl #2) (12 page)

“They didn’t sit as tall . . . their shoulders were slumped, and they kept their heads down . . . almost like t
hey were afraid of the Alpha.”

“Very good. You’re learning quickly,” Steve said as he pulled off the street and into the dar
kness of the night.
 

*

On Monday morning,
E
mma was waiting
in front of
Samara’s locker, talking on her cell phone. When Samara got
closer, she heard her say low voice
, “Of course my dress will be sexy. You better look sexy, too.” Emma paused before saying, “Okay, babe, get to
class. I’ll see you tonight.”

Samara tried not to roll her eyes.
She couldn’t name how many guys she’d heard Emma call ‘babe’ and ‘baby’ and ‘sweetie’ in the past year. There were far too many to count.

“Troy?” Samara as
ked, as she opened her locker.

“Yeah,” Emma replied, a smile
on her face. “He’s so
incredibly
sweet.”

Samara forced a smile back. Every guy Emma fell for was
incredibly
sweet until she grew bored of him
or got to know him better
.
From what Samara could remember, Emma’s relationship with Jason had lasted longer than anyone and that had been, what, a few weeks at the most?
“So, I guess breaking u
p with Jason went well, then?”
Samara asked.

“Shh,” Emma hissed, putting a hand over Samara’s mouth. “No one can know I broke up with him because of Troy.” Emma glanced around
the hallway
to make sure that no one was listening in on their conversation. “I don’t know how breaking up with him went, actually. We were texting back and forth, and I sent him the text telling him
how I felt and that it was over
, but he never responded
to me
.
That’s not like him.
”

“Do you think he read it?” Samara asked, hating to think
about
what would happen if Jason saw Emma with Troy or heard about them without even knowing that she had broken up with him.
It was probably a bad idea to break up with him over a text message. It could’ve made things a lot worse, though at least he would have had enough time to cool off
if it did upset him
.

“I think he did. I think he’s just mad at me,” Emma said, shrugging. “Oh well. It’s whatever. I mean, he never even called me when he got back from the Catskills. I don’t think he cares about me that much.” Samara opened her mouth to say something, but Emma went on. “Anyway, g
uess what we’re doing tonight?”

Samara rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the fact tha
t Emma was making plans for her
agai
n. “What are we doing tonight?”

“We’re going dress shopping,” Emma replied, jumping up and down, clapping her hands like a four year-old.
“
The Homecoming dance i
s in two Saturdays from now.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Samara said, realizing how soon the dance was. She normally didn’t pay attention to Homecoming. It was usually just another excuse for the kids at school to get drunk. Samara sometimes went to Homecoming to see how cool the floats looked, but she usually went home
right after,
while her friends went to the dance and
then
to the keg parties to get wasted afterwards. “Okay, we can go dress s
hopping today if you want.
Is four o’clock okay?”

Emma nodded. “That’s perfect because I’m going out with Troy around eight.” She linked her arm through Samara’s as they began walking to class. “I can’t wait for you
to meet him. He’s so amazing.”

As they were about to turn the corner, they nearly collided with Colby, who was wearing brown corduroy pants and a green checkered shirt today. If the two clothing items
had been paired in separate outfits
, they might not actually be so bad for once, but together, it was just a disaster. When Colby saw them, he beamed a
t Samara. “Hey, Sam!”

“Hi, Colbs,” Samara replied, giving him a smile before turning into her homeroom classroom. Emma followed close behind, a confused look on her face. “Colbs? Sam? Since when are
you and Colby Jack best buds?”

“Don’t call him that,” Samara snapped. “He’s really nice. And, besides, he’s Luke’s best friend. I’m not going to be a bitch to
him and make things awkward.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, but I’m still going to call him Colby Jack. I can’t help it. The name just sticks.”

Chapter 10

****

“Do you want to go with a short dress or a long dress?” Emma asked, her arms filled with a heaping pile of dresses
in just about every color of the rainbow
that she had picked out for Samara to try on – which looked like a l
ot in comparison to Samara’s own
meager pile of two dresses,
which consisted of a short plain brown dress and a silver halter dress that she knew was way too loud for her.

Samara shrugged. “Whatever you think will look best.” Emma had insisted that she would be able to find some awesome dresses for Samara’s body type
since her new goal in life was to become a personal shopper for the rich and famous
, so Samara
had agreed to
let Emma pick out whatever she wanted for her to tr
y on.
She’d only picked up a few dresses on her own so that the saleswomen wouldn’t think she was a weird to be not picking out anything to try on.

Emma plucked a few of the dresses from the pile and shoved them at Samara. Samara took them from her and stepped into the dressing room, c
losing the curtain behind her.

Samara began peeling off her clothes. As she tossed the lacy powder pink camisole that she had been wearing under her fuchsia sweater to the chair, she gla
nced at herself in the mirror.

Samara had always
been
on the
slender
side, which she’d
attributed
always
to her mostly-healthy vegetarian diet. Sh
e looked different now, though.

Her body was beginning to look much more athletic than it ever had before. Not only did her arms look like she had
been
lifting weights, but her stomach was also starting to look more toned . . . way more toned. It might have been the lighting, but Samara was pretty sure a
six
pack was beginning to form – which was kind of random because she
never really exercised much.

The only thing that had changed was that she was a wolf now. She hadn’t noticed these changes when she
first became a wolf, though. Were these changes new because she was an Alpha now?

Samara pulled a long, frilly Barbie-like dress off the top of the pile, wrinkling her nose at the highlighter-orange color. Orange was on
e of her least favorite colors.

As she pulled up the spaghetti straps and began zipping up the dress, Samara glanced at her back in the mirror and held in the gasp t
hat wanted to escape her lips.

She had completely forgotten about her tattoo – and the fact that she was going to have to hide it from Emma
and everyone else at the Homecoming dance
. The paw prints were visible
– very visible – in this dress.

“Sam?” Emma called from the next dressing room over. “Are
you ready to show each other?”

“Umm, hold on. This dress doesn’t fit so I’m going to try on the next,” Samara lied, hoping that her nervousness wasn’t blatantly obvious from the tone of her voice. She rummaged through the pile for a dress that had a higher cut in the back, but all of the other dresses were either strapless or
worse,
halter tops, which she knew would leave her
entire back exposed.

Would Emma even notice
the tattoo
? She obviously hadn’t noticed, after all of these years of friendship, that Samara didn’t even like
the color
orange. And, so what if she did notice
the tattoo
? Maybe Samara could just tell her that she and Luke had gotten matching tattoos together. Knowing Emma, she would probably think it
was romantic and would give Samara
pro
ps for being a badass for once.

Deciding that it didn’t matter if Emma knew
she had the tattoo
, Samara looked through the pile for a dress that she actually liked. She settled on a royal purple tea-length dress with sparkly sequins that extended from
the waist to the cleavage area.

As soon as Samara stepped into the dress, she knew that it was
the one she was going to get
. The color complemented her fair, but slightly olive, skin tone, and the dress hugged her hi
ps in all of the right places.
It was one of the most flattering dresses that she had ever worn.

When she opened the curtain and stepped out of the dressing room, Emma was standing outside
, twirling around in front of the full length mirrors,
waiting for her. Samara had been expecting her to choose a
short little black or red number
that show
ed
off too much leg and barely cover
ed
her cleavage, mostly because she had heard Emma tell Troy that she was going to wear something sexy to the Homecoming dance. So, when she saw the long periwinkle gown that Emma had chosen for herself, Samara gasped. “You look like an angel
.”

Emma laughed. “Not that I’ll be one on Homecoming night.” She winked. “No, bu
t, seriously, do you like it?”

“I love it,” Samara replied. “And Troy wo
uld be crazy not to like it.”

“Okay, I’m getting it then,” Emma said, running her fingers over the taffeta material. She glanced at Samara’s dress, as though she were noticing it and taking it in for the very first time. “Wow, that dress looks
awesome
on you. Are you going to get
it?”

“I really like it,” Samara admi
tted. “Do you like the color?”

“Yes, we can be purple twins!” Emma said excitedly. “I wonder if the
y make purple limos! If they do
, we should to
tally get one for Homecoming.”

Samara rolled her eyes. Did people normally take a limo to the Homecoming dance? Samara didn’t even want to think about what Emma was going to plan for
them for
prom. Realizing that Emma hadn’t asked to see the back of the dress, Samara breathed a sigh of relief. No one knew about her tattoo yet. Hopefully she could keep it
that way.

After they had paid for their Homecoming dresses, Samara and Emma headed to the mall food court to get pretzels from Auntie Anne’s. As they were waiting in line, Samara happened to glance ov
er at the KFC line. She froze.

Jason and Seth were standing in line. This was the first time she had seen either of them since she had
been
initiated, and the first time she had seen Seth since he had mov
ed out of the McKinley’s house.

Just as Samara was about to look away so they wouldn’t noti
ce her, she felt Jason’s nearly
black eyes fall over her, giving her a cold hard stare. Quickly turning her head, she tried to act like
she hadn’t noticed them and pretended that she had been talking to Emma.
“So, what does Troy look like?”

Emma swung out her iPhone and opened a picture of a Latino guy, who reminded Samara of Orlando Bloom. “He’s cute,” Samara said. She could still feel Jason’s eyes on her back. Through the corner of her eye, she could tell tha
t he was
still staring at her. Samara felt her cheeks reddening.

When the woman working at Auntie Anne’s handed both
of them
their pretzels, Samara asked, “Do you mind if we take these to go? We could eat them outside or
somewhere
else
instead.”

“Why?” Emma asked, raising a perfectly waxed blonde eyebrow at her. “We
always eat in the food court. And the good table by the fountain is actually empty for once.”

Deciding that she didn’t want to tell Emma that Jason was creeping her out,
she whispered, “Seth’s here.”

“So? You guys are best buds. Maybe he’ll even want to eat with us!
I haven’t talked to your brother in ages.
” Emma spun around, as though she was going to call Seth over to them, but she froze when she no
ticed that Jason was with him.