Elder: Reckless Desires (Norseton Wolves #6) Read Online Free Page B

Kevin.
    He was looking at Esther as if he were expecting her to say something in rebuttal.
    She had no words, and no desire to rebut, because she agreed with him. There was nothing wrong with the way her children were. She and Michael had fought numerous times over that very issue, and a couple of times, she’d actually gotten pissed enough to win. Normally, she might have gotten punished good for daring to lay a hand on her husband, but Michael had likely been too ashamed to report her to the alpha. He’d picked fights and lost them to an angry, shrieking woman.
    Fortunately, she didn’t have to say anything because the waitress returned with their drinks and pulled Nixon’s intimidating stare away from Esther.
    “Brought you some water, too. Just in case.”
    “Thank you,” Esther said quietly. “I underestimated how dry the air would be here. I’ve got a bit of a headache.”
    “I’m sure that’s not the only reason you have one,” Nixon said.
    “Too many reasons to count.”
    The waitress padded away again, greeting some probably familiar patrons at the door.
    Nixon pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket pointed the camera at her. “You mind?”
    “You already took my picture.”
    “Not yours. Although your aunt told me to buzz off for a little while, now she’s telling me that she wants me to send her pictures of the kids, as well as—” He squinted at the screen and worked the pad of his thumb across the bottom. “Oh. Needs to know their sizes. I think she’s rounding up stuff.”
    Esther let out a dry laugh and tore the paper cover off Darla’s water straw. “I don’t remember her being so efficient, but I guess I was too young when she and Uncle Adam left.”
    “Every time I’ve seen her, I always thought she was the one holding the whole crew together. Adam might be the alpha, but Lil’s the thinker.”
    “Sounds like you know my family better than I do.”
    He shrugged. Snapped a picture of Darla, then Kevin, and then grunted and mumbled something about bad focus. “Adam tried to adopt me into his bunch a few times throughout the years. Every time he ran into me someplace, he’d ask me if I was sure I didn’t want to join up. He’d started with just the two, right? Vic and Anton. He picked up Darius after he got thrown out of his pack because D’s momma gave Adam the heads-up that he was out in the wild somewhere. Took a while for Adam and them to catch up to him. They call Darius ‘Loner’ for a reason. He’s hard to find once he gets outside.”
    “ Darius ,” she whispered. She was going to have to remember those new names, and fast, so she didn’t offend them. Vic and Anton she knew, of course, but the others… They were wildcards.
    “Yep. And then there was Colt. Just the six of them for all those years they were on the road. They’ve picked up a few more strays since then—now that they’ve settled down.”
    “Who are the others?”
    “You’ll have plenty of time to meet them. Every one of them except Jim has a mate now, so you’ll have lots of new wolves to meet.”
    Jim? And all those mates.
    So many people, but there were women in Norseton, which meant people for her to take refuge with if she needed to.
    “How come you didn’t want to go with them?” Kevin asked.
    Esther nudged his knee under the table, and the kid furrowed his brow and scowled at her. “What?”
    “That’s a good question,” Nixon said. “Couple of reasons. For one thing, I was a little older than the other guys. I’m not sure who’s older—Anton or Vic—but I’ve got both by a couple—okay, quite a few years. I was already in a different place, lifestyle-wise, when Adam caught up to me the first time. I was lucky. I was always able to find a job of some kind. Worked on oilrigs and ranches. Mostly ranches. Easier to live in a place like that when you have to shift for the full moon and run off to where folks can’t see you.”
    “How come you’re going to Adam now?”