Scion (Norseton Wolves Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

of them with suspicion, and now she was in their lair—married to one.
    They crossed the street, and Ashley pointed to the coffee shop. “Can we start there? I need caffeine to be able to make sense of my lot in life. I didn’t have time this morning.”
    Lisa snorted. “Your lot in life seems pretty simple to me. You’re a full-fledged werewolf married to the pack alpha’s son.”
    “Put that way, it sounds like a fairytale.” If only it were.
    The three women stepped into the shop and got into a line that was nearly out the door. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock, so half the community was probably still waiting to get its caffeine fix.
    “From where I’m standing, you’re pretty lucky.” Stephanie bent and peered into the glass case containing bagels and pastries. Ashley had to admit they looked pretty good. The Afótama clan may have lived in the middle of nowhere, but they obviously took their breakfast carbs seriously.
    “How so?”
    “Well, you not only get a mate, but also in-laws. The rest of us are completely lacking in the family department here.”
    “Some of us might say that’s a good thing,” Stephanie muttered and pointed out a lemon Danish to the clerk.
    Ashley twirled some of her hair around her fingers and let her gaze flit between the crullers and the cinnamon rolls. “I happen to like the family I had back at home.”
    “Me, too,” Lisa said. “My parents are the sweetest wolves you’ll ever meet.”
    “Sweet?” Stephanie scoffed and turned to the clerk again. “Can I get a really big black coffee? Thanks.”
    They all moved a bit closer to the register.
    “They’re not typical wolves, that’s for sure,” Lisa said. “But neither are pure. That probably has something to do with it. They’re probably a lot less inbred than some others in the pack.”
    Ashley cringed, and put in her order for a dry cappuccino. She’d heard the whispers and jokes about her pack and how insular it was. She’d always thought there wasn’t much they could do about that. If they wanted wolf children, they had to take wolf mates.
    “There you are.” At the sound of the newcomer’s voice, they all turned to find Mrs. Carbone in the shop’s doorway with mate number four, Christina, under her wing. She gave the timid, smaller woman a squeeze around her shoulders. “I figured you’d start here and make your way around, but I caught your scents. That verified it for me. I’m going to show you all what’s what around here. Need clothes? Groceries? Voter registration? I’ll show you everything.”
    “I wish I’d had someone like you on my first day of college,” Lisa said.
    Stephanie chuckled and scooped her dish up from the counter. “Seriously. I was hopeless.”
    They went to college?
    Lisa let out a dry chuckle and bobbed her eyebrows at them as they departed for a table.
    Higher education hadn’t been on Ashley’s radar during much of her childhood. Her parents hadn’t explicitly dissuaded her from aspiring to it, but they hadn’t exactly been cheerleaders for it, either. Maybe they’d suspected she wouldn’t be able to get into a good school. And whose fault is that?
    Ashley ground her back teeth and slid a ten-dollar bill to the clerk. “Keep the change, okay?”
    As she navigated through the tight tables, she wondered how things might have been different if she’d grown up outside a wolf community and gone to school with people who weren’t wolves. What would I have learned? Maybe nothing different. I’m just being paranoid . I would have learned the exact same things, probably.
    Unconvinced, she gnawed at her bottom lip as she sank into the seat Lisa pushed out for her.
    “What’s wrong?” Stephanie asked. “You look confused.”
    Ashley straightened her spine and put on a smile for her fellow mate. “Nah, I’m okay. Just thinking about pack stuff.”
    “This pack?”
    “Well, no. Other packs, like my old one.”
    “What kind of stuff?” Lisa asked through a