by Jody Morse
“Why would you think that?” Josh asked incredulously. Samara knew what he was thinking: how could one pack member kill another pack member? After what she had witnessed between Seth and Ethan, though, she knew that there were obstacles that pack members faced. It didn’t seem too unrealistic for one pack member to kill another. Besides, Josh shouldn’t have been too surprised—he had been willing to go along with the plan to kill his own twin brother.
Orkos looked up at him. “Think about it. If one of Joe’s own pack members is the one who secretly killed him, that pack member could have passed it off as though he was simply the next pack member in line to be Alpha. It could have seemed like fate chose him to lead the pack from that point on, when in reality, he only got the spot because he killed Joe.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Samara murmured.
“Do you know who became Alpha after Joe passed?” Luke asked.
Orkos shook his head. “No, I don’t recall who it was offhand. I think his first name was Finnegan, but I don’t remember his last name. I think I have it written down somewhere.” He got up and began leafing through tiny filing cabinets in the corner of the room. “I do know that he was killed shortly after, though. I only remember hearing about it and thinking it was strange—until I wondered if there was a connection between his death and Joe’s death.”
As Orkos searched the room for the paper he was looking for, Samara noticed that Kyana was staring at Josh. He stared ahead of him, not seeming to notice Kyana’s eyes on him.
“So, Kyana, how old are you?” Chris asked.
Samara rolled her eyes. Chris always tried to act like he was a womanizer, but she knew that he was in love with Rain, another werewolf. Rain was supposed to be a Seku, but no one wanted her on their pack because her grandfather had murdered Samara’s grandmother. Samara had promised Chris that she would let Rain join the Ima after she met her, mostly because she felt bad that she had to live with her grandfather’s mistakes, but also because she knew it would mean a lot to Chris, too.
“I’m seventeen,” Kyana replied, tucking a long piece of silky black hair behind her ear. “I’ve been a werewolf for one year. How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” Chris replied. “So, what do you do? Do you go out?”
Kyana nodded. “There’s this club. It’s run by werewolves. Me and all the other girls on the pack go dancing there often.” She paused, glancing over at her father, whose back was turned to them. “You should all come with me. We’re going there tonight.”
Chris glanced over at Samara, as though he were seeking approval, before agreeing to go. “I’d love to.”
“Yeah, it sounds like fun,” Colby spoke up. “I love to dance.”
Samara smiled at the way his eyes had lit up talking about dancing; she remembered how good a break dancer Colby had been at the Homecoming dance. All of the girls, who normally made fun of him, had actually paid attention to him for once.
“I’ll go,” Josh said, and Samara noticed the big smile that crossed Kyana’s face. From their places next to him, Kyle and Steve muttered their agreement to go, too.
“You’re all assuming we’ll still be in Alaska tonight,” Luke pointed out. “If we find what we’re looking for, we might be able to leave before then.”
“Don’t be such a party pooper,” Chris shot at him. “I sincerely doubt we’re going to be leaving Alaska tonight.”
Luke scowled and threw his hands up in the air. “Okay, whatever. I guess you can count me in.”
“It’ll be fun, Luke,” Samara said softly. In her head, she asked him, what’s wrong?
Nothing’s wrong. I just have a really bad feeling about this for some reason. That’s all, Luke replied.
Don’t worry, Samara told him, reaching over for his hand. She squeezed it tightly, trying to ignore the tingly feeling that shot through her body at his touch. His pineapple peppermint scent was stronger than it usually was, and it drew her to him.
“Just have my daughter home by eleven . . . one of you,” Orkos said, turning to Josh and Chris with a stern face.
Josh and Chris looked at each other, and Samara could tell that they both were sort of confused. To Samara, Chris seemed to be more interested in Kyana, but it was obvious that Kyana had a crush on Josh. From the look on Josh’s face, Samara could tell that he must have noticed her golden eyes flitting over at him every once in a while.
“Don’t worry, we will bring her home,” Samara promised Orkos as Josh and Chris continued to stare each other down. “We really need to be going now, though. We have to go to the storage company.”
“Storage company?” Orkos asked, a clueless expression on his face.
Samara nodded. “My grandfather left me an address that belongs to a storage company. Stucci’s Self Storage, it’s called.”
“Ah, yes, Joe told me that he left you something there. Wonder what it is.” The way Orkos’ eyes danced told Samara that he probably knew more than he was letting on. “I’ll keep looking for the guy’s name. If I find it, I’ll have Kyana give it to you tonight when you see her.”
Kyana nodded and handed Josh a piece of paper. “We’re meeting at the club around seven. Here’s the address. Don’t lose it,” she said with a flirty smile.
“I won’t,” Josh replied, stuffing the piece of paper into his pocket. “I . . . I’ll see you tonight, I guess, then,” he stumbled over his words.
Samara smiled. It made her sad to think that even though there were obvious sparks between Josh and Kyana, they could never be romantically involved. Well, maybe they could, but they would never be mated, since Josh had already been mated once. There was also the problem of Kyana being a Koto; it actually surprised her that Orkos was so willing to let his daughter go out with an Ima, but it was probably because he knew they wouldn’t be hanging around Alaska for too long.
At least, Samara hoped they wouldn’t be.
Chapter 9
A half hour later, Samara found herself standing in front of Stucci’s Self Storage. They’d had an easy time finding the place with the help of the GPS on Colby’s cell phone, but suddenly, she was afraid to go inside.
What was she supposed to say? That she was pretty sure her dead grandfather had left her something? Like that wouldn’t sound creepy or anything. . . .
Finally, Luke pressed his hand against the small of her back. His warm touch made her relax some. “Are you ready to go inside?” he asked.
“As ready as I can be,” Samara replied, taking a deep breath. She double-checked the storage unit number that was written on the piece of paper. 402. Turning to the rest of the pack, she said, “You guys wait out here. Me, Luke, and Colby will go in.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted Colby to go with her, but she did.
“Sounds good,” Steve said, plopping down on the cold ground. Everyone else nodded in agreement.
When they pushed through the doors, Samara’s wet boots squeaked against the linoleum floor. A woman with short red hair and black framed glasses sat at the front desk. She glanced up at them. “May I help you?”
“Yeah, um, I need to get something out of a storage unit,” Samara told her. “Unit number four hundred and two.”
The woman clicked some buttons on her computer before turning back to her. “McKinley?”
Samara nodded, beginning to feel relieved. At least they hadn’t made this trip for nothing; Grandpa Joe had left something here at some point. The question was whether or not it was still in storage.
“Do you have the password?” the woman asked.
Samara shook her head. “No, I didn’t know there was one.”
The woman tapped her chin with her long fingernails. “I can’t allow you access to the storage unit unless you can give me the correct password.”
“Oh.” Samara could feel her face falling, as she realized that the whole trip might have been a waste after all. Even worse, she hadn’t thought to bring the book with her. What if her grandfather had written the password in the book som
ewhere, and she’d missed it somehow?
“I can give you a hint if you would like one,” the woman at the front desk said. “We have a password reminder to help our customers out in case they have forgotten their passwords.”
“Okay,” Samara agreed, even though a shadow of doubt loomed over her. What good would a password reminder be if she didn’t know anything about her grandfather or his life? This felt like finding a needle in a haystack, if she had never seen the needle in the first place.
“S-a-m-d-o-b,” the woman read from the computer. “Does that help at all?”
Samara was about to shake her head and tell the woman that it wasn’t helpful because she still had no idea what the password could be when Luke spoke up. “It’s your birthday, Sam. Samara Alyce McKinley, date of birth. That’s what s-a-m-d-o-b stands for.”
Samara’s eyes widened. Would her grandfather have used her birthday as the password so that she would be able to figure it out easily? “3-1-1996,” she rehearsed her birthday.
The woman typed away on the keyboard for a moment before standing up. “Follow me.”
Samara’s jaw dropped in surprise. She had been expecting the woman to tell her that it wasn’t the right password.
The three of them followed the woman to the storage units. “We have large storage units and small locker-sized units,” the woman explained. “Since your items are small, they’re in one of the locker-sized units.”
The woman approached an aisle of lockers and pulled out a key ring. When she swung the locker door open, Samara peered inside. She felt her heart drop.
The locker was nearly empty. The only thing she could see was a piece of paper. She felt stupid knowing that she had dragged her pack all this way for a stinking piece of paper.
“Here you go,” the woman said, pulling the piece of paper out of the locker and handing it to Samara. She smiled at her. “Will you be keeping this storage unit open, or should we close it?”
“Um, I think we can close it,” Samara replied. If all that was in the unit was a piece of paper, it seemed pointless to keep it open.
Once they were back outside, she glanced down at the piece of paper—which was actually an envelope—and opened it. A gold key was inside, along with a small piece of paper.
Pulling it out, Samara realized that it was another address, and she sighed. “I feel like this is turning into a scavenger hunt,” she muttered under her breath.
“Scavenger hunts are kinda fun,” Colby offered lamely.
“Like the one you made us do to find out what pack we were on?” Kyle asked, rolling his eyes.
Samara raised her eyebrows at them in question. Colby explained, “When they turned, I wanted to have a little fun with them. Instead of approaching them, like Alphas normally do, I stuck anonymous notes in their lockers and sent emails to them from an unknown sender. I turned it into a game with a scavenger hunt for them to figure out what pack they belonged to.”
“I think Steve thought someone was stalking him, though,” Kyle said with a laugh.
“Stalker or not, you have to admit, it was a really fun game,” Colby said.
“I heard it was a blast,” Luke commented. When Samara raised her eyebrows at him, he reminded her, “I came here because my parents knew I would need to be an Ima. I didn’t really have the choice of being surprised like the others did.”
“How did you guys not know what pack you were going to belong to if it’s normally genetically predetermined?” Samara questioned. Since Colby had bit her, she didn’t really know what it was like for a werewolf to find his or her pack the normal way.
Kyle raised his hand like he was in the classroom. “I didn’t know because I had both Vyka and Ima relatives.” Samara recalled her cousin telling her this in the past—and about how shocked his family had been when he’d become an Ima instead of a Vyka. They’d been expecting Kyle to be a Vyka since Grandpa Joe had been a Vyka.
“Most of us have werewolf relations on both sides,” Steve said, running a hand over his braided hair. He shrugged. “It happens.”
“Right, well, anyway, let’s finish this scavenger hunt,” Josh said, snapping everyone’s attention back to the situation at hand. “I guess we’re supposed to go to the address.”
“I wonder if it’s another storage facility,” Samara muttered as they began walking down the street, their shoes crunching over the snow-covered sidewalks.
Luke shook his head. “Nah, that just seems too obvious. Why would he give you a key to another storage facility unit? It just seems too . . . repetitive. Too boring . . . I don’t think it was his style.”
“You’re probably right,” Samara agreed. Over her shoulder, she told the other guys, “Let’s quicken the pace. I’m really curious to see what this key belongs to.”
Chris muttered something under his breath to Steve. Samara wasn’t sure if she heard the words when he said them aloud or if they filled her head, but they were crystal clear: This is pointless. We should have just gone to Massachusetts.
Samara whirled on him. “If you don’t think you’re here for a good reason, then why don’t you just go to Massachusetts, Chris? Go find Jason.”
Chris glared at her. “It just seems like we’re doing a whole lot of something for a lot of nothing.”
“I have to agree, Sam,” Kyle chimed in. “It doesn’t feel like we’ve accomplished much of anything yet, and it’s starting to get late already. We’ll need to stop for dinner soon.”
Samara let out a loud sigh. She knew that they were sort of right, but she still knew that they were here for a reason. Grandpa Joe wouldn’t have just led her out here for no reason, would he have? No. She had been right about the storage facility; if she was right about that, she was probably right about this, too.
Just trust your gut, Luke told her. I think your natural instincts are right about this. I can feel it, too.
Samara smiled at him before turning back to the rest of the pack. “Look, guys. I’ll make a deal with you. If this turns out to be nothing—if we don’t accomplish anything once we figure out what this key belongs to—then we can just leave and go to Massachusetts. But if I’m right, and I think I am, there’s something waiting for us at this address. Sound good?”
Everyone nodded and muttered their agreement, but the looks on their faces told Samara that they weren’t sure that they believed her. Instead of trying to convince them at that moment, she decided that there was only one thing she could do.
She was going to show them.
*
Fifteen minutes later, they trudged down Copperfield Avenue, the street of the address that had been left in the storage unit. It was getting even darker outside than it already was, and although Samara could feel the breeze tossing her loose, long hair, she still didn’t feel cold at all.
“I think that’s it right over there,” Colby said, holding up his cell phone and pointing at a driveway. Samara could hear the robotic GPS’s voice reading the address telling them that they had arrived at their destination.
“I wonder who lives there,” Samara commented, as she led the way up the driveway. She noticed that no tire tracks had left indentations in the snow like they had in all the other driveways. As they inched closer to the house, she could see that it was a tiny, unlit log cabin. What if there was no one home?
She began to panic. As much as she wanted to believe that her grandfather wouldn’t have left her to deal with some sort of death trap, the truth was, she didn’t know the man all that well. What if he actually wasn’t trying to help her? What if he somehow knew, even back then, that she wasn’t going to become a Vyka, that she was going to choose one of his rivaling packs, and he wanted to get revenge on her?
Stop worrying so much, Luke’s voice filled her head, as he wrapped his arm around her waist. I already told you, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.
She turned around and stared into his emerald green eyes. There was a genuine honesty in them. I believe you, she though
t back, standing on her tiptoes to plant a tiny kiss on his lips. Just the small touch sent a wave of chills down her spine.
“Can you guys go even a few hours without kissing?” Kyle asked, wrinkling his nose. “I’m not trying to turn all big cousin on you or anything, Sam, but it grosses me out.”
“Oh, shut up,” she replied with a laugh. “Once you have a mate of your own, you’ll know how it feels.”
Kyle rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I guess. And then you’ll see how much it grosses you out.”
Samara laughed, as she climbed the front steps to the house. She searched for a doorbell, but there wasn’t one, so instead, she knocked. When she didn’t hear any movement inside, she knocked louder. “Hello?”
“Anybody there?” Josh called from behind her.
Samara waited for a moment, and when no one came to the front door, she said, “I guess no one’s home.”
She was about to turn around and walk away when Luke told her, “Open it.” She stared back at him with wide eyes.
“Open the door. What else would the key be for?” Luke asked pointedly.
“I . . . um, I don’t know,” Samara replied hesitantly. She had figured that someone inside would be waiting with a locked box that her grandfather had left for her to retrieve, or something; it hadn’t occurred to her that she was supposed to open the front door. Wasn’t that like breaking and entering?
“The key might not even fit,” she told Luke lamely, knowing that she was just trying to stall.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he replied.
She pulled the key out of the envelope. As she was about to unlock the door, she pulled her hand away and was about to tell her pack that she couldn’t do it, that it was wrong, when Luke’s voice filled her head. You have a key for a reason, Sam. Don’t worry.