Black Magic (Howl #4) (5 page)

Chapter 7

Emma was lounging on the sofa and flipping through the stations on TV when Samara went inside the house. A smile spread across her best friend’s face when she noticed that she was home. “Yay! You’re finished doing whatever you had to do.
Now you can hang out with me.”

Samara rolled her eyes. “I can’t hang out with you for that long. I have to get rea
dy for my date with Luke soon.”

“Oh.” Emma’s face fell. “Well, what
am I supposed to do all night?”

Samara shrugged. “Maybe you could
hang out with Ashley and Bri?”

Ashley Everest and Brielle Morris were two of Emma’s best friends from school. They spent most of their time at the mall shopping or gossiping about boys . . . when they weren’t partying at Emma’s house, of course. But now that Emma was no longer living at home, it seemed that her days of throwing parties for most of their high school class were over. Samara wondered i
f Emma had realized it already.

“I don’t want to hang out with Ashley or Bri,” Emma admitted. “I don’t want to have to tell them that my mom kicked me out of the house. Besides, I don’t have that much in common with them anymore that we’re so different from them. I don’t think hanging out with them now woul
d feel the same as it used to.”

Samara nodded in understanding. She had felt the same exact way when she had found out that she was a werewolf. With the exception of hanging out with Declan once, she had completely withdrawn from Emma and her other friends because she felt like no one else would be able to understand what she was going through. And that was
before
she knew t
hat Declan was a werewolf, too.

It was sort of ironic that she’d had
to cut him out of her life now.

She tried not to think about not having a friendship with him anymore too much. Thinking about it only made her sad and sort of angry. As much as she missed Declan and wondered what he thought about her these days, or if he thought about her at all, there was no going back to being friends. She’d known that when she had chosen the Ima and, ultimately, being with Luke over him.

She didn’t regret her decision, though. Not having to be on Jason’s pack was worth sacrificing their friendship
over, even though it was hard.

“Oh, by the way, you may want to lay low,” Samara told Emma. “Does anyone know you’ve been living here?”

Emma shook her head. “No, just you and the boys. And Kyana. And Rain.”

“Good, let’s keep it limited to just those people,” Samara replied. “The Vyka are back in town. Well, Seth and Declan are, at least.”

Emma’s eyes widened, but before she got the chance to say anything, Colby came into the living room. “Emma, I have something for you.” He had changed into one of his new polo t-shirts and the new jeans that they had picked out for him.

“What?” Emma raised her eyebrows. Glancing over at him, her eyes grew big. She must have noticed the changes that they made because she asked, “Did you do something different with your hair? You don’t look like yourself. At all.”

“Yeah, I cut it.” He flung the tiny bag from the jewelry counter into her lap. “Open your gift.”

Giving him a strange look, Emma reached into the bag and pulled out the red velvet box that was tucked beneath the gold tissue paper. “It’s not my birthday.”

“I know,” Colby replied with an eye roll. “Your birthday is April twelfth.”

Emma gaped at him. “How do you know when my birthday is? Creeper!”

Colby shrugged. “Sometimes, we just know things about our mates. I bet if you tried hard enough, you would know my birthday, too.”

“January second,” Emma murmured, glancing up at him. “Is that when it is?”

A small smile tugged at his lips. “Yup, I’m practically a New Year’s baby. Anyway, open your gift.”

“I don’t understand why you got me a gift,” Emma replied, staring down at the box that she held in her hands.

Samara rolled her eyes. “Emma, just open it already! We don’t have all day.”

Shooting her a glare, her best friend cracked the box open and glanced inside. “Oh, my God. Why did you get me this? You’re not proposing to me or something, are you? Because I am so not ready to get married right now. Not to you or to anyone else.”

Samara smiled at Emma’s reaction. And who could blame her? The large vibrant blue sapphire was set in a white gold band with a scalloped halo that made the ring look like a flower. If only Emma knew how much the ring had cost . . .

“Because every time you look at your finger, you think about how naked it looks without that blue sapphire ring that Jason gave you,” Colby replied. “I thought that having a new sparkly ring for you to look at would make your mind shut off when
certain people
are trying to sleep at night.”

Emma glanced down at the ring that she held in her hands and then up at Colby. “Thank you,” she whispered before rising to her feet and scampering down the hall to her bedroom.

When Samara heard the door close behind her quietly, she turned to Colby. “What was that all about?”

Colby shrugged, sitting down on the couch next to her. “I don’t know. For once, I can’t hear what she’s thinking. She must have figured out how to block me out of her thoughts finally. I’d really like to know if she likes it, or if she was just pretending to be impressed by it.”

He sighed, and Samara stifled a giggle. She doubted that the whole reason he had bought her the ring was to keep her from pouting over the ring that Jason had given her. They had given Troy the ring so that he would let Emma join the Ima pack. They’d later learned it was the only reason he’d bitten Emma; he wanted the ring because the sapphire had belonged to Joe McKinley; it was his legendary talisman.

The Ima still hadn’t figured out how they were going to get the ring back, even though they knew they were going to have to find a way. The stone was thought to be powerful, and Samara was afraid of it getting into the hands of the wrong person . . . if it hadn't already.

“Do you think she likes it?” Colby asked, turning to her. There was a nervous look in his eyes.

“She probably really likes it, but I have a method. For her birthday one year, I got her a pair of chandelier earrings. She wore them every day. So, for Christmas that year, I got her a matching bracelet. She didn’t wear it even
once
.” Samara chuckled at the memory. “Anyway, the point is, if she doesn’t ever wear it, you’ll know it’s because she hates it.”

Colby nodded. “That makes a lot of sense, I guess.” He sucked in his cheeks and released a big breath of air. “Now, we wait.”

Samara laughed. “You mean, now
you
wait. I need to go get ready for my date with Luke. He’s supposed to pick me up here in the next fifteen minutes.”

“Where has Luke been all day, anyway?” Colby asked.

She shrugged. “He had to go home to help his parents with something.”

“Have you met the folks yet?”

“Not yet,” Samara sighed. It actually bothered her that Luke hadn’t introduced her to his mom and stepfather yet. It felt like he was hiding her from them for some reason, but she wasn’t sure why he would be. Wasn’t he supposed to be proud of having her as his mate? Or was he afraid that they weren’t going to like her?

“All in good time, I’m sure. And don’t worry. His parents will love you once they do meet you,” Colby replied, as though he were reading her mind. “I’m sure of it.”

Sighing, Samara rose to her feet. She wasn’t convinced that he was right. Not one bit.

*

Samara heard the sound of Luke’s car pull into the driveway just as she finished running a brush through her hair. Since she planned to spend a lot of time at the new house, she had already stocked one of the bathrooms with the makeup and hair products that she normally used and had stuffed some of her clothes into Emma’s closet.

She stepped outside the front door, just as Luke was walking up the front steps. He smiled when he saw her.

“This is for you,” Luke said, as he handed her a single rose.

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Samara said, taking it from him. She hugged her pea coat closer to her as they descended the steps. “So, where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.” Luke grinned, as he held her car door open for her. Once Samara climbed inside, he walked around to the other side of the car and got in. He turned to look at her. “I heard what you were thinking about earlier.”

“Oh? What was that?” Samara questioned.

“You know, about how you haven’t met my parents yet,” Luke replied. His emerald green eyes flitted over at her, as he stared at her intently, measuring her face for a reaction.

“I see.”

“The reason you haven’t met my family . . . it’s not what you think,” Luke said, turning away from her and backing out of the driveway. “I don’t want you to feel like the reason you haven’t met them yet is because I’m afraid they’ll be disappointed with you. They won’t be. They’d be crazy not to like you.”

“Prove it,” Samara replied, her voice merely a whisper. When Luke glanced over at her, she continued. “Prove to me that you’re not afraid of what they’ll think of me.”

“How do you want me to do that?”

“Let me meet them.”

Luke glanced over at her, and a look of uncertainty flickered through his emerald green eyes. It quickly vanished, and they filled with a look of amusement instead. “Okay, I will. Friday night, I’ll introduce you to them. So, make yourself available.”

Samara laughed. “Sounds like a plan.”

*

After they saw a movie, Luke pulled into the Open Cupboard parking lot. The Open Cupboard was one of the town’s nicest casual restaurants, and Samara recalled that she had mentioned in passing once that it was one of her favorites. It was cute that Luke had remembered.

Once they were seated, Samara took her pea coat off. She had worn it through the whole movie, even though she wasn’t actually cold. As she placed the coat behind her, she glanced over at Luke and smiled.

He didn’t return her smile; he was scowling at her.

“What’s wrong?” Samara asked, her forehead wrinkling in confusion.

At that moment, Brad Kelly, who went to school with them, walked over to their table and placed their menus in front of them. “Hey, Luke! Samara! I’ll be your server this evening. The soup of the day is cream of broccoli, and we’re offering a two-for-twenty dollars special on the items listed on the last page of the menu.”

“Thanks,” Samara muttered, keeping her eyes locked on Luke, who was staring back at her, an angry expression on his face. She waited anxiously for Brad to leave their table so she could grill Luke over what he was mad about, but Brad continued to hover over them.

“You look really different, Samara,” Brad commented, tapping his index finger against his chin. “Did you do something different with your hair?”

Samara shook her head. “Nope, it’s the same as it always is.”

“Huh,” Brad said, looking her up and down once before shrugging. “I’ll give the two of you a few minutes to decide what you want to order.”

Samara watched as he cut across the restaurant and sauntered off into the kitchen. She turned back to Luke. “Do you want to tell me now why you’re mad?”

“That shirt,” Luke said through gritted teeth.

Samara glanced down at the outfit that she had picked out for this evening. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s too revealing. Put your coat back on.”

“No, I’m not going to put my coat back on,” Samara snapped at him. “I feel kind of hot.”

“You’ll still look hot with the coat on, I promise,” Luke insisted. “Just put it on.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t mean
hot
hot. I mean, my body temperature feels really high right now, which is why I’m not going to put my coat back on.” Why was he acting like this?

Luke glared at her. “Then maybe you should have put on something a little less revealing.”

Samara’s jaw dropped open. “What’s with you? You’ve never acted like this before, and I’m not sure if I like it, to be completely honest.”

Other guys are staring at you
, Luke said.
Brad is probably thinking about how he wants to do you right now.

Samara knew right away that she was listening to his thoughts. She could hear his voice, but his lips weren’t moving. His voice also sounded louder and clearer than it did over the noisy people laughing in the restaurant and the music that blared from the radio speakers.

“You’re so ridiculous,” she replied out loud. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks.”

Conveniently, at that moment, Brad came back over to the table. Keeping his eyes locked on Samara, he asked, “Can I take your orders now, or are you going to need a few more minutes?”

“Actually, I think we’re done here. This is for your time,” Luke said, slapping a few dollars down on the table in front of him. Turning to Samara, he said, “Come on, let’s go home.”