Read Online Elder: Reckless Desires (Norseton Wolves #6) by Holley Trent - Free Book Online Page A

indication.
    Esther wouldn’t pry about that, though. But she was curious about something else. “Your sister got you out? How?”
    Graciella grinned. “Cunning and lies. Half Lisa’s, half Colt’s. Still working on getting the rest of our family out of our old pack, but we have to be careful. There are still two generations left there, and we’d have to pull them all out at once.”
    “Yeah. I understand that. I tried to bring my mother, but…” Esther stared at the floor again. Counted the specks in the clay tiles. Wriggled her toes to distract herself.
    She closed her eyes and willed the tears back to their ducts.
    Too many little triggers.
    Aunt Lil pulled her into her arms and made a shushing sound. “It’s all right. You’ll start feeling better soon enough. Once you get into a routine here.”
    Once I get over the guilt.
    Esther wanted to open her mouth and let out the words—that she’d pushed Michael over that railing. That she’d snapped.
    But her tongue was leaden and lungs constricted too tight for her to force the words out of her body.
    “Routines are easy to come by here,” Graciella said.
    She must have moved, because her voice was closer and there was an extra hand on Esther’s back, rubbing gently.
    Esther’s anxiety seemed to swirl around Graciella’s fingers, like iron filings being moved around by a strong magnet. And then the tension dissipated when she withdrew her hand.
    Wolf’s magic.
    Esther felt emptier, but somehow better.
    Empty isn’t the same as happy, but I’ll take it.
    “Speaking of routines,” Nixon said, “I need to go get medical clearance so I can start work. Got an appointment in an hour and have to go into town. If you want someone to show you around later, I’m sure I’ll be twiddling my thumbs this afternoon.”
    Esther pulled away from her aunt and dragged the sleeve of her robe across her eyes. Most wolves didn’t have the spirit of volunteerism anywhere in them, so she didn’t know how to answer.
    She looked to Anton for clues as to how she should respond to the query, but he was fiddling with his phone. Vic had turned on his barstool and was staring at the television on the other side of the great room.
    A male wolf had volunteered to escort her. As male representatives of her family, they should have been interceding.
    Why aren’t they interceding?
    She thought she knew.
    They didn’t care anymore. She was used goods—had already had a mate, so her honor wasn’t at stake anymore. It was too late for her to be anyone’s whore. She was a matron no man would look at in that way ever again.
    “Bookstore closes early today,” Nixon said. “Just FYI. Owner’s gotta go get her hair done or something. Ran into her this morning at the post office. Man, that woman can talk up a storm.”
    Anton snorted. “Be nice. Christina likes her.”
    Nixon smirked and put up his hands. “Hey, I don’t mean nothin’ by it. I just know some folks need to get their minds right before they find themselves in the company of chatterboxes. Personally, I can’t keep up with the chitchat. I don’t understand how people can pull stuff to talk about out of thin air and keep flapping their jaws for—”
    “She’s interesting!” Christina said.
    Esther sucked in a bracing breath, waiting for the fallout.
    Christina had interrupted a male wolf, and one with alpha energy, at that.
    But Nixon didn’t respond immediately. No one did, at least not in any particularly obvious ways.
    But, Anton was, in fact, choking back chuckles. Vic was pinching the bridge of his nose and grinning.
    Nixon just blinked at Christina.
    Esther kept holding her breath.
    “Seriously?” he said after a minute, and then guffawed.
    He even smiled —a smiling wolf because he thought a woman was funny, and not because he had some sadistic plan on the brain.
    Esther didn’t know what to make of Norseton, not even a little bit.
    Christina shrugged. “She is. Maybe she can’t tell a story in a