Free Beast (Norseton Wolves #1) by Holley Trent Page A

validated.
    “He’s actually out back beyond the courtyard with some potential guards we’re trying out, putting them through target practice. Why don’t you come in?” She held the door open a little wider, and Christina stepped across the threshold. Somehow, she managed to suppress her compulsion to stick her tongue out at her fellow wolf.
    The other woman closed the door behind them and extended her hand. “I’m Lora, the Afótama queen’s personal assistant.”
    “Oh!” Christina took the proffered hand and shook it. “The queen’s personal assistant answers the front door?”
    Lora steered them across the atrium, toward a hall at the right. “In my office, I get a pretty decent view of who’s outside because of all the surveillance cameras. Every new resident in Norseton gets background checked, and your file had just crossed my desk. I recognized your face. We’re short-staffed at the moment, so, yeah. I answered the door. There’s no one else available to. Ask Anton to get you up to speed on specifically why that is.”
    “I will. So, what sort of jobs do you have available here?”
    “Tell me what you’re good at, and we’ll figure something out.”
    “Just that easy?”
    “Sure. Part of our agreement with your pack, though I see it as a buy-one, get-one deal. You ladies are bonuses, as far as I’m concerned. You’re the first mate who has popped by, other than Mrs. Carbone. I was wondering if your Pack Momma was going to send any of you over.”
    “The rest are busy. With their wolf selves, I mean. They’re new at shifting.”
    “And you’re not?”
    Christina’s face burned hot again, but this time not from pride—just the opposite. “I can’t shift.”
    “Oh, I see.” Lora led her up a stairwell, down a hall, past a large library-type room, and into a small office. “Don’t take my lack of questioning as disinterest, okay? I do my job as well as I do because I accept information only on a need-to-know basis.”
    “I understand.” Thank the lord. At least Lora wouldn’t be judging her on that.
    Lora indicated a chair Christina could take, and depressed the button on her walkie-talkie. “Mr. Denis, can you head up to my office when you have a minute?”
    “Anything wrong?” Anton returned.
    “Nothing at all. Just need to hash out some scheduling to make sure I don’t inadvertently have your wife working opposite shifts.”
    Wife? Christina held up an index finger. She’d forgotten all about it. While the others had certainly received their certificates and civil ceremonies by now, she and Anton were still ramping up to that. She hoped, anyway. “ Um —”
    “Can you give me half an hour?” Anton asked. “We need to let these guys know one way or the other if they’re up to snuff before the next round.”
    “Take your time,” Lora said. She set the walkie-talkie on her desktop and turned her wrist over to expose her watch’s face. “Can I leave you here for a few minutes? I just want to check on a contractor who was sitting around too much for my liking.”
    “Sure. I’m sorry I didn’t think to make an appointment.”
    “Don’t worry about it. Feel free to take a walk. I might be gone a little while if I have to throw my inconsiderable weight around.”
    Christina chuckled. Inconsiderable sounded about right. She wasn’t much more imposing than Christina, but Christina suspected Lora demanded respect in other ways than through her size. Christina could probably take some lessons from her. “Can you tell me where Anton is?”
    Lora waved her over to the window and pointed down. “Easy enough to figure out for a wolf, right? Halls are twisty-turny here.”
    “Yeah, easy enough.”
    Christina made her way down to the back courtyard where Adam, Anton, and the other two wolves she didn’t know the names of watched a few men fire bullets into targets mounted on hay bales, set about two hundred yards into the desert.
    Cringing, she slipped quietly past the