Blood Moon (Howl #2) (28 page)

This was it.
She had to act fast enough.
It was now or maybe never.

Samara lunged at Jason, sinking her teeth into his furry shoulder. She felt Jason’s teeth cut through her own skin, shooting a rush of pain through her body. It felt like he had injected her skin with
a
painful venom.

Samara drew back and licked the wound. If there was venom, should she try to suck it out?
That’s what you were supposed to do with snake venom, but what type of venom was this?
Deciding that it didn’t matter right now because she had a mission to accomplish, Samara turned her attention back to Jason – just in time to see Jason’s body turning to a ghostly transparen
t shade before he disappeared.

What the hell!
Samara screamed, looking
around the woods for J
ason. He was nowhere to be seen, though.
She turned back to her pack members, trying to keep the anger that had built up inside her under control.
How coul
d he just disappear like that?

Black magic
, Colby replied.
It allows you to disappear. Only the strongest of w
olves can pull it off, though.

Well, where is he? Is he just hidden? Can he hear me right now?
Samara asked, frustrated. Jason had just been within her reach. She could have killed him, but she hadn’t acted fast enough
.

Josh shook his head, one of his ears flopping onto his forehead.
He’s done this before. He’s not invisible right now. It’s sort of like time travel, in a way. He imagined that he wanted to be in a certain place, within a nearby range, and he lands there
.

Well, we need to get a move on then
.
We have to find him. Where do you think he would be?
Samara asked, turning to Josh.

Josh shook his head.
I – I don’t know. Somewhere closer to St
arlight Lake, though, I think.

Come on then,
Samara instructed her pack.
Let’s go!

Samara ran through the woods until she reached the Grandv
iew High School football field.

She kept on running.

Samara?
Steve hissed from behind her.
Should we really be cutting through school property? There’s a dance going on. We’re going to
draw attention to ourselves.

I don’t care!
Samara screamed over her shoulder, as her four legs carried her as fast as they could.
This is the
fastest way to Starlight Lake.

As the
pack approached the high school,
Samara heard a loud scream. Samara halted enough to take in the screaming sound, which echoed through the empty teacher’s
parking lot.

Sa
mara froze.
She knew that scream.

It
belonged to Emma.

Chapter 23

****

Samara stopped running and scanned the parking lot for her best friend. Most of the cars that had been parked in the lot for the dance had already left, but Samara didn’t see Emma. She walked towards a
large pickup truck and froze.

Emma was kneeling on the ground beside the truck, clutching her wrist in her hand. There was b
lood dripping down her
arm
.

Emma glanced up; her eyes widened in fear as she noticed Samara standing next to her. Samara opened her mouth to say something, but Emma looked even more frightening. Glancing down at her white paws, Samara
hesitated
.
If she revealed who she was, could she trust Emma to keep it a secret?
Doing the one thing that she thought she would never do, Samara changed from he
r wolf form to her human form.

She watched as Emma’s eyes lit up as the blue cloud of smoke surrounded her, blowing a gust of wind with it that whirled Samara’s ch
ocolate brown hair in the air.

“Samara?” Emma whispered after Samara had
changed. “I must be dreaming.”

“No, Emma,” Samara replied, laughing.
She walked over to her and pinched her wrist.
“You’re very much awake.”

Emma stared back at Samara as though she were an ali
en. “What . . . what are you?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Samara replied. “Right now, I need to know
what happened to your wrist.”

If you want to catch up with Jason, we need to hurry up
, Luke urged through mind-speak.
Who knows where he is by now or what
he’s planning in retaliation.

Samara glanced at Luke, who had come over to stand by her side. Emma’s eyes wi
dened again, obviously in fear.

Obviously, we know what part of his retaliation was. He did this to Emma
, she told him privately, not wanting to speak out loud in front of Emma.

We still need to hurry if we’re going to catch up to him and kill him
, Luke insisted.

Samara ran her hands through Luke’s
gray
fur and pressed her forehead against his furry head. “I know we need to hurry. We hav
e to help Emma first, though.”

The look in Luke’s golden eyes, which had a hint of green in the moonlight
, told her that he understood.

Emma cleared her throat. “What – what are you doing? That wolf is going to atta
ck you.”

“No, he’s not,” Samara replied. “It’s Luke. Emma . . . I’m going to explain all of this to you later, I promise, but what I need to know right now is . . . what h
appened? Did a wolf bite you?”

Emma nodded hesitantly
, blinking back tears
. “How – how did
you know that?” she whispered.

“I was bitten by a wolf, too, remember?” Samara asked. “You don’t need to worry about the wound. It will heal up on its own by tomorrow. Just wash it
and put a bandage on it
. What I need to know right now is . . . who bit you?” When Emma stared back at her speechless, Samara pressed. “Was it a white wolf like me? A gray wolf like Luke?
A black wolf
?”

Samara had made a point of placing emphasis on a black wolf because she had a strong feeling that it was Jason
who had bitten Emma out of spite . . . to seek revenge.
Since Samara had taken away his brother – or, more importantly, a member of his pack, low
er
ing the Vyka’s overall number of members – he had claimed her best friend as his own. The thought made Samara feel sick to her stomach;
it just made her want to act out her revenge on Jason even more than she already did
.
She wouldn’t let him get away with this. At least for Samara, being a werewolf w
as a part of her destiny; it would have
happen
ed
whether Colby
had
bit her or not. Samara doubted that Emma was destined for this life, though.
And she didn’t think that any werewolf, no matter who it was,
should be forced to be a Vyka.

“I – I don’t know who bit me,” Emma replied
hesitantly. By the tone of her voice, Samara could tell that she was trying to piece together everything that had just happened.
“It was dark . . . and they just came at me. I know it had darker fur than . . . yours,” she said, pausing, as though she were trying to register what she had just seen – that Samara was a wolf. “But I covered my face with my hands
to protect myself so
I didn’t see it, and I just don’t know what color it was exactly.” Emma’s eyes glistened in the moonlight and tears began sliding down her cheeks. “Are you sure I’m going to be okay? The wolf didn
’t have rabies or something?”

“I promise you, everything is going to be fine,” Samara replied sympathetically, remembering how scared she had been
after
she had been bitten by Colby.
She wished that she could tell Emma the truth – that she wasn’t sure if everything was going to be okay and that, after night, there was a good chance that they would be forced into being enemies. “Look
, here’s what I want you to do. Go home, lock your doors and windows, and put a bandage on that. I’ll be over as soon as I possibly can to explain everything to you, but I have something that I real
ly need to take care of first.”

Emma nodded. “O
kay . . . okay. I’ll do that.”

Samara gave her best friend a tight hug before morphing back into a wolf. As she began running again with Luke, Colby, and Kyle – the only pack members who had stuck around to wait for her
while she consoled Emma
– she glance
d over h
er shoulder at her best friend.

Emma
’s face was full of astonishment; she looked like she had just seen a ghost.

Samara wished that she could tell Emma that ghosts probably existed, too.

Chapter 24

****

Did you catch up to Jason?
Samara asked through mind-speak,
directing the question at Steve and Chris, but
allowing the entire pack to he
ar what she was saying to them.

Chris was the first to respond.
We didn’t exactly catch up with him, but we followed his scent to Route 90. It smell
s strong . . . so we think he’s probably still
there right now.

Okay. Guys, we’re heading to Route 90
, Samara told everyone, turning in the opposite direction.
It seems like that’s where Jason is right now.
We need to hurry if we want to catch up to him.

As Samara ran in the direction of Route 90, her nostrils filled up with the scent of another pack. She
hadn’t been around enough werewolves yet
to know which scent belonged to which pack, but she
recognized the scent
of the Vyka almost immediately
. The scent was overwhelming.
The other wolves in the pack must be close by, probably
catching up to them right now.

Jason had pro
bably called his
other pack members
to
come
protect him and to fight the Ima and kill them before they could kill J
ason or any of the other Vyka.

Samara really hoped that she wouldn’t come face-to-face with her brother tonight. The last thing she needed was to fight her own flesh and blood, even if it no longer felt like they were family. Family or not, how would Samara explain to her own parents that she had killed her own brother? Or even that someone else, someone she was friends with, had killed him? She hoped that, for both of their sakes, Seth
would stay out of this tonight.

Samara doubted that he would, though. Seth was loyal to Jason, so he was sure to do wh
atever Jason wanted him to do.

Feel
ing the anger build up inside of her even more
, Samara tried to run faster. Werewolves could run quicker than humans, but they didn’t have the supernatural
speed
that everyone seemed to think. If a werewolf
had to run a race
with a cheetah, the cheetah would undoubtedly win.

Once they reached the highway, Samara glanced behind her. Luke was following closest behind her. Colby an
d Kyle weren’t too far behind.

Samara knew that she couldn’t stop too long to make sure that her pack members were w
ith her. She had to find Jason.

At that moment, she turned around and watched as a gray wolf approached their pack, a wolf who she knew wasn’t an Ima. Upon closer look, she realized that it was Ethan
Miller, one of the Vyka
, and he wa
s quickly catching up to them.

Run!
Samara yelled at her pack members. She didn’t want herself or any of the Ima to have
to kill anyone else if it wasn’t
necessary, even though
she was sure
that’s what Jason had planned for his pack
to do
. She just wanted this whole fight to be ove
r with, for Jason to die, and
, hopefully,
for
the Ima to make peace with the Vyka . . . though she wasn’t sure if the
last thing could ever happen.

Samara glanced over her shoulder, just in time to watch what was happening. Ethan was approaching Luke. Just as Ethan sunk his teeth into Luke’s leg, provoking him to yelp, Samara noticed
the
white fur darting towards
them.