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

mouthful of bagel.
    “It’s nothing, really, just…” Letting the words trail off, Ashley stirred her spoon through the foamy top of her drink and watched the tiny bubbles pop. “What was it like for you? Did you go to a pack school?” She looked up to see both Stephanie and Lisa shaking their heads.
    “Up until I was sixteen, I grew up with my human mom away from my dad’s pack,” Stephanie said. “When he made me move in with him and enrolled me at the school most of the pack kids attended, I ended up placing out of it. It’s not that I’m a genius at all, but most of the kids in the pack school were way behind.”
    “In my case, the pack just wasn’t organized enough to pull all the kids into one school,” Lisa said. “I’m sure they would have, if they could’ve, just to carry the brainwashing over into yet another institution.”
    “ Brainwashing ?” Ashley said it in a whisper, as if the concept wasn’t meant to be discussed in polite company. “What do you mean?”
    Stephanie scoffed. “It was like night and day, my educational experiences. So much in the wolf school was bare minimum—about knowing our places in the pack.”
    “Society, you mean?”
    “No, the pack, because that’s supposed to be the only society a wolf knows.”
    Ashley found that hard to believe. Wolves can’t be productive citizens of the world if…
    She brought her coffee to her lips and sipped. The realization burned her heart more than the scalding hot beverage did her tongue.
    She wasn’t a productive citizen of the world. Up until she’d responded to the mate call, she was barely even a productive member of her own household. Whatever her parents didn’t handle for her, the household staff they’d hired for her when she’d moved into her apartment did. She’d thought she’d had agency and freedom, but really—and it pained her to realize it—she’d never had room to make even simple choices on her own. She’d gone from her parents’ house to the care of people being paid by her parents, then straight to her new husband’s house. She didn’t know what it meant to be independent. She may have been nearly thirty, but out in the real world, she was practically a baby.
    At the sharp rap against the plate glass window nearby, she jumped—her sense of hearing amplified since receiving her bite. Everything was louder and smelled more pungent, too. She clutched at her rapidly beating heart as she turned to the window, only to find her mate standing on the other side.
    Now, her heart seemed to stop, and her stomach dropped. That face he was making was unquestionable. He found her abhorrent, and she was so confused that she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be returning the sentiment.
    He crooked two fingers at her in a come here gesture, and she swallowed hard.
    That feeling she always got when she was certain she was about to be grounded for doing some stupid thing came rushing at her like a freight train.
    She was so still—frozen there in her seat—that he knocked again and waved her out, his eyes narrowed and brow furrowed.
    “You’d better go see what he wants.” Lisa tipped her head, indicating the citizens in the room behind them. “The locals are watching.”
    Ashley risked a glance over her shoulder to confirm that they indeed were. They didn’t seem hostile, just curious. Too curious, in her opinion. She was used to doing things behind closed doors.
    She pushed back from the table and hitched her purse up to her shoulder. “He probably forgot to tell me something. Like where he was going, or whatever.”
    “Probably so.”
    Ashley mustered a grin and walked with artificial confidence to the door. “I’ll be right back, but if I’m not for whatever reason, call my cell phone.”
    Or check the dumpster in the back of this place.
    With that murderous glare of his, she thought he looked like he wanted to toss her into it.
    He took her by the elbow and started her at an aggressive pace down