by Jody Morse
“Actually, about ten minutes. I’d like to see you stand out here for ten minutes in the dark in the middle of the woods all by yourself without complaining,” Emma snapped back, rolling her eyes at him. “Sam, I have great news! My stepfather came out of his coma.”
“Did he?” Samara asked, meeting Luke’s gaze. I should probably tell her that it was because of us now, shouldn’t I?
Luke shrugged. I think maybe you should tell her sometime later, in private. I don’t think she’ll be happy if you tell her here, in front of half the pack. Give her time to react to you without everyone watching.
Samara nodded. He was probably right. It didn’t seem like the type of thing to talk about in front of people who Emma barely knew yet.
“So, are we going to get this thing started?” Emma asked. “Or are we going to just stand around all night?”
Samara heard Colby whisper to Steve, “That might hurt her feet.”
She rolled her eyes at him before turning to Emma. “We need to wait for the rest of the pack to get here. And we’re also doing more than one initiation tonight.”
“Oh.” Emma’s face fell.
“What’s wrong?” Samara asked, noticing Emma’s sudden look of sadness.
Emma hesitated. Tossing her blonde hair over her shoulders, she replied, “Well, I just thought that, you know, I would get my own initiation night. I mean, it’s something really special, you know. And everyone else got their own night . . .” She trailed off, and Samara knew that her best friend was waiting for her to tell her that she could have her own designated night for initiation.
Are you serious? She really thinks she’s entitled to her own private initiation? It’s like she wants it to be Emma day or something. Is she going to want us to celebrate it every year, too, like her birthday? Colby’s voice drifted into her head.
Samara shot him a glare; why was Colby so anti-Emma lately? It was really starting to get on her nerves.
“I’m sorry, Emma. It’s a lot to explain at the moment, but we really need to get our number of pack members up right now,” she told her. “We’re initiating two other girls tonight, too.”
Emma nodded. “I understand,” she replied quietly. “Can I go last at least?”
“I figured you’d want to go first,” Colby commented, staring at her intently.
Emma smiled sweetly at him. “No, I think it’s always better to save the best for last,” she said with a wink.
Colby groaned, and Samara was positive that he was going to make yet another comment, so she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. What is getting into you? Be nice, she commanded him through her thoughts.
Colby glanced over at Emma and forced a smile at her. “I think that sounds like a fabulous idea. I vote that Emma goes last.”
Her best friend beamed, and Samara breathed a sigh of relief. “So, um, I don’t know much about this whole initiation thing yet. Can we do all three of their initiations at the same time, or do we need to do each of them separately?”
“Separately,” Colby advised. “Otherwise, we might not be able to welcome all of them in. Everyone in the pack needs to focus on letting each of the people into the pack, and it can be difficult to focus when you do all three initiations at once.”
“Then, yes, you can go last,” Samara said, turning to Emma. She glanced at the time on her cell phone. It was starting to get late. “Has anyone heard from Josh and Kyana?”
They had stayed at the Jackson’s house while she and the guys had gone to the hospital and then to Mollie’s old house because Kyana had said she was too tired to tag along. Samara had a feeling that she was probably depressed about leaving Alaska. Even though she didn’t doubt that Kyana wanted to be an Ima, it still had to be hard to leave her family and her old pack behind. Samara wasn’t sure that she would have been brave enough to do it herself, and she was Joe McKinley’s daughter and the Alpha of her own pack, which was supposed to make her stronger than most.
Before anyone could even answer Samara’s question, she heard the sound of footsteps coming up from behind them. She glanced over her shoulder to find Josh and Kyana walking towards them, their arms linked.
“Hi, Samara!” Kyana chirped excitedly as they approached her. She let go of Josh long enough to give her a tight hug.
“I’m glad you came,” Samara smiled. “Oh, I want you to meet my best friend. Kyana, this is Emma. Emma, Kyana.”
“Emma, huh?” Kyana asked, glancing in Colby’s direction with a smirk on her face. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Emma’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, uh, only good things I hope.”
“Of course it was only good things. Who—who would say bad things about you?” Colby stammered over his words, and Samara tried really hard not to laugh. Why was he so afraid of Emma finding out that he had been talking about her? Everyone else knew it, and it’s not like he was even nice to Emma’s face lately.
“I’m ready to initiate,” Kyana told Samara. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Samara explained to her that she wasn’t the only one initiating tonight, either. “Since all of the pack members are here, though, I guess we could start a little early. We’re just waiting on Rain.”
“I’d like to get this over with,” Kyana admitted. “You don’t have a crazy initiation ritual, do you? The Koto ritual wasn’t so pretty. We had to—”
“Don’t tell me about it,” Samara said, throwing her hands in the air to halt Kyana from saying anything else. “I don’t want to know because that information is supposed to stay top secret between packs. Just as I hope that you’ll never tell anyone else what our initiation ritual is one day.” She wasn’t sure why she cared so much about keeping it a secret; she’d never cared before she became Alpha, but now it sort of felt like some sort of sacred sorority or fraternity initiation ritual that she didn’t want anyone finding out about.
Kyana pretended that she was zipping her lips with her fingers. “So, what is your ritual?” Her voice sounded a little nervous, and Samara remembered how it had felt to wonder the same thing when it had been her turn.
“You’ll find out soon,” she laughed. “It’s that not that bad, I promise.” Actually, the truth was, it was a little worse than the Vyka initiation she’d pretended she was going to go through, where she had to toss a piece of her hair into the fire. The Ima initiation wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t the easiest ritual for someone who hated the sight of blood.
“Do we have everything we need?” Kyle asked.
Luke brought forward the black bag with blue drawstring closure that held the dagger they used for the initiation ritual. As Samara pulled it out of the bag, she realized how ironic it was that the dagger had blue sapphire gemstones on the handle, similar in color to her grandfather’s talisman. Was it only just a coincidence . . . or a sign of something else?
Chris handed her a second bag, which contained thumbtacks. She handed one of the thumbtacks to each of the guys in the pack before taking one for herself. Then, she handed the dagger to Kyana, who stared back at it wide-eyed.
“Cut yourself,” Samara instructed her.
From behind them, Emma said, “She has to cut herself? Am I going to have to do that, too?”
Samara nodded over her shoulder, and Emma’s face paled. It wasn’t that surprising that her best friend wasn’t okay with this; she hated needles and blood.
Kyana hesitated before slicing her skin open with the dagger. She looked up at Samara for further instruction.
Samara pricked her own skin with the thumbtack and rubbed her finger, which was now dripping with blood, against Kyana’s open wound. She took a step back, allowing each of her pack members to do the same thing.
After everyone’s blood met Kyana’s, she hunched over, a painful expression written on her face. Samara remembered that feeling all too well.
A blue cloud of smoke enveloped Kyana, transforming her to wolf form. Her white fur looked fluffier than usual, as the gust of air blew
against it. When the smoke disappeared, Kyana phased back to her human form, glancing at each of them. For a moment, there was a dizzy look in her eyes.
“Well, it’s done, then. I’m an Ima now,” Kyana smiled, glancing over Josh, who grinned back at her.
When Samara glanced over at Chris, she knew that something was wrong—he wasn’t smiling; his jaw had tightened, and a solemn look had crossed over his face.
Chapter 24
They waited for another ten minutes for Rain to get there before Samara asked Chris to contact her to make sure she was still coming. She was afraid that Rain was going to leave them hanging, because she was too nervous to become an Ima.
Chris had gone off into the woods to make the call out of earshot of the rest of the pack, though it was obvious that he had been reluctant to do so. Samara wondered why.
“What is taking this girl so long?” Emma whined. She was tapping her foot impatiently again. “I’m sick and tired of waiting.”
“Oh, please, you don’t have any place to complain. We wouldn’t even have to be waiting right now if you didn’t insist on going last.” Colby rolled his eyes. “We could probably be done with your initiation by now.”
“Samara told me I can go last, so I’m going last,” Emma snapped back at him. “Just get over it, Colby Jack.”
“Emma,” Samara said gently. “No name calling, okay?” She couldn’t understand why her best friend and Colby were bickering so much all of a sudden. Had it always been this way between them? Samara hadn’t noticed it before, but then again, she hadn’t spent a ton of time together before now. Emma was usually too drunk or too busy entertaining the other guests at her parties to really pay attention to Colby.
Emma just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest in response.
When Chris came back, he was followed by a girl who Samara immediately knew was Rain. Her strawberry blonde hair, which was cut in a chin-length bob hairstyle, was very close in color to the reddish fur that she sported while she was in wolf form. When she approached the pack, she smiled, “Hi, guys.”
Samara realized that she was probably the only pack member, besides Emma and Kyana, who hadn’t already met Rain. Since she and Chris were so close, the other guys in the pack had already gotten a chance to hang out with her. Plus, it seemed like Rain was pretty well known in the werewolf world—or at least in the local area—because of what her grandfather had done to Samara’s grandmother.
“Are you Samara?” Rain asked her.
Samara nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, finally. I wanted us to get to know each other before you initiated, but we’re sort of in a rush to get new members.” She stopped herself from saying anything further because she didn’t want Rain to assume that she was being asked to join the pack because they needed to increase their numbers and not because they really wanted her there.
“Yeah, I understand,” Rain replied, cracking her gum. Samara noticed the hint of a Brooklyn accent in her voice, which surprised her. She’d figured that Rain was from the area, for some reason. “Let’s get this party started.”
Samara wiped away Kyana’s blood from the dagger with a cloth that she’d found neatly folded inside the drawstring bag. She handed Kyana a thumbtack. “You’ll have to do this part now since you’re officially one of us,” she explained.
Kyana nodded. “Okay, I don’t mind.”
As Samara was about to hand Rain the dagger and tell her what to do, Chris screamed, “Wait!” He inched closer to Rain until he was about a foot away from her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Rain smiled, confused by Chris’ actions. “Yeah, I definitely want to do this. Why do you think I’m here?” She tried to move closer to him, but he held up his hands as a barrier to prevent her from doing so.
“I just . . . I think you should maybe think twice before you become an Ima,” Chris said, glancing down at the ground. “Make sure this is what you really want first.”
“Of course it’s what I really want. I want to be with you, Chris,” Rain replied softly.
Chris shook his head, interrupting her. “That’s the thing, Rain. Becoming an Ima doesn’t mean that you’ll be with me.”
“You’re not making much sense, Chris,” Rain replied, shaking her head, her short hair moving with it. “Of course I’ll be with you.”
“I mean, we don’t even know for sure if we’re really going to be mates,” Chris said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and glancing away from her. “There’s a chance that we might find out that we’re not meant to be after you’ve already turned. Make sure that you’re joining because you want to be an Ima and not only because you want to be with me.”
Rain rolled her ice blue eyes, which were framed by heavy black liner, at him. “Yeah, right, Chris. Like all these years of wanting and lusting after each other was all for nothing. I’m positive we’re going to be mates. And even if we’re not mated, I still need a pack.” She glanced over at Samara. “I’m sorry, don’t mind him. I’m ready to initiate now.”
Samara hesitantly handed her the dagger, unsure of what Chris was going to do next to try to convince Rain to change her mind. “If you’re not sure that you want to go through with this, speak now or forever hold your peace,” she said jokingly, trying to make light of the situation.
Rain laughed. “I think I’m good. I don’t know why someone is being so weird about this.” She rolled her eyes again at Chris, whose face had hardened, and cracked her gum again loudly. “What do we need to do?”
“You need to cut yourself with the dagger,” Samara told her. When Rain stared back at her blankly, she explained, “Our initiation is kind of like blood brothers.”
For a moment, Samara was afraid that she was going to say that she couldn’t do this—that, like Emma, she had a weak stomach—but Rain dug into her skin with the dagger and then looked up. “Now what?”
Samara sunk the thumbtack into her own skin, creating a new wound that fresh blood streamed out of. She moved closer and smeared her blood against Rain’s open wound.
“This is gross,” Rain whispered. “No one here has diseases or anything, right?”
Samara smiled. “We’re werewolves, remember? We don’t get diseases. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. We’ve all been fine so far.”
When she stepped away, the rest of her pack members did the same thing as she had. Chris was the last to mix his blood with Rain’s, and Samara could tell from her place around the circle that, for some reason, he really didn’t want to. She decided that he must just be nervous that they would find out that Rain wasn’t his mate . . . or maybe he was nervous that she was. Maybe he just wasn’t ready for that type of connection or the commitment that would come with it yet.
Just wondering about if Rain was his mate—and knowing that there was a risk that she might not be—was probably killing him inside. Even Samara was hoping that they were mates because she had a feeling that things were going to be super awkward between them if it turned out that they weren’t destined for each other.
Once Chris took a step back, Rain fell to her knees and groaned in pain. A blue smoky cloud danced around her body, and she was lowered to the ground.
When the smoke evaporated into the night sky, revealing her reddish fur, Rain wagged her tail happily, taking a step closer to Chris. It looked like she wanted him to touch her, to run his fingers through her fur, the same way Samara liked to lovingly run her fingers through Luke’s fur when he was in wolf form and she wasn’t.
Much to Samara’s surprise, Chris didn’t do anything. He just stood there, staring into space. What was going on? Sure, he had to be nervous, but it almost seemed like he was being cold to Rain.
What is going on? Samara asked Chris through mind-speak.
I don’t know if everyone’s ready to hear what I have to say yet. It might kill the mood, Chris said, glancing over in Rain’s direction.
Well, I think you’re making everyone else feel awkward by not telling them what’s
going on, Samara replied. I’d rather you just say it now and get it over with. It can’t be that bad.
I have a feeling one or more people will leave right now because it will upset them. I’d rather wait until we’re done with Emma’s initiation. Chris explained. Other, she might not get to initiate tonight.
“Fine,” Samara said out loud, forgetting to use mind-speak. She was curious about what he was being so cryptic about, but she didn’t have time to worry about this at the moment. Making sure that Emma became an Ima before Rocco or Troy came back and told her that they wanted her to be a Shomecossee after all was her biggest concern. “Rain, I need you to phase back. We have another initiation to do right now.”
Rain morphed back into her human form, and she ran her acrylic nails through her short hair. “Well, that was interesting. I didn’t know that initiation would be so painful.”
Samara laughed. “I wasn’t expecting it to be painful when I phased, either.” She turned to Emma, who was standing quietly in the corner, biting her nails. Emma never bit her nails, so she had to be nervous. “Emma, come over here. It’s your turn.”
Emma strutted over to Samara and held her hand out for the dagger. “I so can’t wait to get this over with.”
“Me, either, honestly,” Samara admitted. She decided to leave out the part about how they had to go find Troy to get the ring back once initiation was over. Emma would probably want to tag along, and that wasn’t a good idea right now. In fact, Samara had decided that she probably wasn’t even going to tell Emma what they were doing tonight because she didn’t want her to ask if she could come with them.
Samara turned to Emma. “You know what to do, right?”
Emma nodded, holding the dagger up to her forearm, shakily. As she was about to pierce her skin with it, she pulled it away. “I . . . I can’t do this,” she stumbled.
“Yes, you can,” Samara encouraged her. “Don’t worry. We’ve all done it.”
“I think I seriously might vomit if I do it, though,” Emma complained.