Reckoning
TODAY WAS THE day of reckoning.
Sonia knew it.
She could feel it.
Callum was angry.
He’d been patient.
For a while.
That wore off and he’d been patiently impatient.
For another while.
Now he was mad.
And she didn’t care (or, that’s what she told herself).
It had been three weeks since the incident where she’d learned his true nature (all of it) and those three weeks were the longest of her life.
Sonia had forgiven Regan, Ryon, and Caleb for their duplicity the very next day.
She’d done this because she knew they’d lied to her because King Callum ordered it, or, if she was being fair, just kept things from her. Things that would seriously freak her out but that was almost like lying even if those things were things that would seriously freak her out.
But she’d also done it because she cared about them.
Regan had come up with a late breakfast tray and the moment she looked at Sonia, Regan’s obvious hesitancy instantly tore at Sonia’s heart.
Sonia, who’d been awake for a while and had been lying in bed, feeling sorry for herself, and lamenting her fate at the same time contradictorily feeling both honored by the remarkable and touching display the wolves made for her that morning, sat up carefully when she saw Regan’s shaky smile.
Then she reached her hand out to her mother-in-law.
Regan all but dropped the tray on the nightstand, sat on the bed, and, taking care with Sonia’s wounds, gave her a gentle hug.
“It was a shock but I still was awful,” Sonia whispered in her ear, able to hug Regan back far more tightly.
“We shouldn’t have waited. Callum wanted—” Regan started but Sonia gave her a squeeze.
She didn’t want to hear about anything that Callum wanted.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she assured Regan.
Regan pulled back and framed Sonia’s face in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry about all of this.”
“That’s the last time you apologize for being who you are,” Sonia said firmly curling her fingers around Regan’s, pulling them down, and holding their hands between them. “It was a shock. It’s over. It’s all good now,” she finished on a lie and her own shaky smile.
Regan’s eyes searched Sonia’s and hers remained troubled. “So, you’re not angry with Callum?”
No, she wasn’t angry with him.
Not anymore.
She’d never be anything with him anymore.
Not because he was a gosh darn werewolf and didn’t tell her (or not only because of that).
Not because all of his people were werewolves and he didn’t tell her (or, also, not only because of that).
Not to mention the existence of vampires which, she realized, feeling immensely stupid (and she blamed Callum for that too), Gregor and Yuri were too by their smell, which was like Lucien’s which, like wolves, wasn’t like humans (but, in her defense, how could Sonia know werewolves and vampires existed!).
And not because he was not only her handsome wolf but also her beloved puppy and he’d torn both of them away from her (or, again, not only because of those).
But because he’d disappeared for a day and most of a night, doing God knew what with God knew who and then returned to their bed, proving her fevered suspicions true by smelling how he smelled after they had sex and pretended to be caring and kind and thoughtful but doing it in an arrogant bastard type of way.
Naturally, she knew he’d find someone else eventually.
She just didn’t know how much it’d hurt, and when she’d thoroughly processed it, lying and crying in their bed, how dead she’d feel and how surprised she was that feeling dead hurt worse.
She also didn’t know the depths of that pain and her torture were not even close to being plumbed until he made her admit she loved him.
God, it was too humiliating to even contemplate.
She admitted she loved him!
Which, because evidently she was weak, weak, weak, was all she could contemplate while lying in bed that morning.
“I’m sure Callum and I will be fine,” she lied again to Regan, who gave her a look like she knew Sonia was lying but she let it go.
She stayed while Sonia ate and then gave Sonia pain pills because the stitches at her back were, by then, killing her and the pills made Sonia drowsy.
Therefore, Sonia slept.
She woke in Callum’s arms.
Or, more precisely, with her head and hand resting on his stomach, his shoulders were against the headboard, his long legs stretched out straight in front of him and his arm was around her shoulders with his fingers drawing lazy circles on her skin.
“You awake, honey?” he asked.
She clenched her jaw at the empty endearment.
“Yes,” she answered.
“How are you feeling?”
Like garbage, through and through, she thought but did not say out loud.
“It hurts.” And that wasn’t a lie. It was just an understatement.
“Poor baby,” he murmured and he was lucky she was wounded or she’d have attacked, even though he could rip her to shreds with his claws and his teeth.
“Regan said you had a nice visit,” he told her.
“We did,” Sonia affirmed.
His hand squeezed her shoulder with approval.
She again fought the urge to tear her stitches out of her back by attacking him.
“Do you feel like moving around?” he asked. “I’ll help you in the bath.”
She did not think so.
“Are you telling me I stink?” she snapped irately.
He chuckled before he said (false) fondly, “You never stink, my little one.”
She’d had enough and therefore started to pull away from him saying, “I should move around. I don’t want to get stiff.”
She didn’t get very far before his hands went under her arms and he pulled her gently up to rest on his chest with their faces close.
She put her hands on his chest and pushed back but his arm slid around her lower waist and he held her still.
When she stopped moving, his other hand went behind her head, grasping her hair in one big fist, pulling it over her shoulder and twisting it again and again until it formed a long twine. Then he wrapped it around his palm at the side of her neck.
He watched his hand doing this as if enthralled.
“Callum,” she called and reminded him, “I was going to move around.”
His eyes came to hers and he announced, “You’re still pissed.”
Oh, he was right about that.
Apparently she could be something with Callum but “pissed” was all she was ever going to be.
“Can I have a day to get used to the fact my mate is a werewolf?” she asked caustically and then went on, “Or is that asking too much?”
He grinned at her (the arrogant bastard!).
Then he used her hair to pull her face to his and he touched his lips to hers.
Looking into her eyes, still grinning, he granted, “You can have a day.”
Now, that was when she would have attacked if she could have attacked.
But he simply marked her hair at her good temple (that particular business finally explained by him being half-wolf), let her go, moved away, and left the room.
She washed as best she could, dressed, and decided to hang out in their room because she couldn’t face anyone.
Leah came up with a tray of food in the late afternoon.
At that moment Sonia was grateful for Leah. It was good to be around her kind, for one, even if that made her a bad person for thinking it. For another, she liked Leah. Leah was funny and sweet and a little bit crazy and Sonia could be herself around her because, obviously, Leah was used to a life filled with vampires and such.
While Sonia ate, Leah talked, telling her wild stories of vampire concubines and captivating stories of places called Feasts and terrifying stories of something called The Sentence. All of this sharing how she’d fallen in love with Lucien.
The story had taken over an hour to tell and Sonia, long since having cleaned her plate, stared at her new friend when she was done talking.
“As you can see,” Leah concluded, “I’m safe, healthy, and happy and Lucien is . . .” she smiled a sweet eloquent smile before finishing, “happy too.”
“And I’m happy for you,” Sonia replied softly, meaning every word.
Leah grinned at her. “If you embrace it, Sonny, you’ll be happy too and, I promise, it’ll be beyond your wildest dreams.”
That was doubtful.
Sonia had had her “wildest dreams.” She knew how good it could be and it was not that.
“I don’t have much choice but to embrace it,” Sonia told her. “It’s destiny.”
“I know. Mine was too and destiny is my best friend,” Leah declared on a giggle.
Sonia laughed softly, not agreeing in the slightest but also not wanting to break Leah’s happy mood.
Ryon came up shortly after and she let him off the hook by smiling at him the minute he walked through the door.
Caleb came up not long after and she visited with them while Leah returned her tray but she came back with Lucien.
Lucien regarded her carefully as he walked in, but even though he freaked her out more than werewolves, she’d lived with vampires all her life (apparently) so she knew better than to fear him (hysterically rather than generally because Lucien, the individual, was still kind of scary).
Regan arrived a few minutes later with a board game and they all started playing. Even Lucien who didn’t strike Sonia as a board game type of . . . being. Then again, she was getting the sense cold aloof Lucien would do just about anything to make his bride happy, including playing a board game.
Therefore, hours later, Sonia was lying on her belly on the curvy couch by the fire. Regan and Lucien were in chairs pulled around to the side of the fireplace by the couch. Leah was sitting cross-legged on the floor at Lucien’s feet. And both Ryon and Caleb’s long bodies were spread across the floor as they lay on their sides with pillows under their elbows, heads in their hands when Callum walked in.
He stood at the couch by Sonia’s feet and stared down at them from his colossal werewolf height.
“We’re almost done with this game. You can sit in the next one,” Caleb announced.
“There won’t be a next one,” Callum declared meaningfully (and, incidentally, kingfully), walking down the couch and pulling Sonia up cautiously before sitting down, stretching his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles, and setting her down with her upper torso on his thigh.
She wanted to pull away but she couldn’t mainly because her back had begun to really hurt and she hadn’t wanted to mention it and worry anyone, but also because they were all watching her with Callum.
So she just settled in like she didn’t care (when she did).
They finished the game, folded it up, and said their goodnights and Sonia decided now was the time for pain pills because she didn’t mind Callum worrying.
She started to push up from the couch (he’d followed everyone to the door and closed it behind them), but quick as a flash, he was crouched at her side with a big palm in the small of her back.
“Just stay there, I’ll bring your injection out here,” he told her and then moved to the bathroom.
Holy cow.
She’d forgotten about her injection. How could she forget about that? And how could she take it with her back already on fire?
“Callum,” she called. “I need my pain pills.”
“After the injection,” he replied, walking in with the syringe already loaded.
She stared at it like it was a living thing which existed only to do her harm.
Callum saw her look, crouched at the head of the couch and his hand cupped the side of her face. “Two minutes, baby doll,” he said gently. “Then it’ll be over and that whole time I’ll be right here.”
Boy, she hated the fact that she loved him, that there were so many things to love, and that all of them were lies.
He moved to her side and murmured, “Can you get your jeans down for me?”
It hurt but she did.
He injected her.
The burn was ten times worse and seared through her back like wildfire.
She was panting when it was done but felt Callum’s warm hand cupped at the back of her neck, which she told herself didn’t feel good (when it did).
Then, when she fully recovered, Callum did something strange.
He usually righted her clothes before she recovered but her jeans were still low on her hips and his palms went to her bottom, fingers spanning her hips, and his thumbs slid over the pinpricks exposed by her jeans. He was sitting by her thighs and he started talking as if to himself.
“I hate these,” he said softly. “Fucking hate them.”
She got tense (or, she should say, more tense) but he wasn’t done.
“But I should love them because they’re a part of you.”
Sonia pressed her lips together and closed her eyes tight.
She gave it a moment before she asked, “Can I get up and get my pain pills? My back is beginning to hurt.”
His fingers curled into the waistband of her jeans and he pulled them up before he offered, “I’ll get them, baby doll.”
He gave her the pills, helped her dress for bed (another nightgown, a miracle!), and he held her close when they were under the hides, acting like the devoted king to his injured queen.
They were in the same position as she woke up early that afternoon when he asked, “Would you like me to tell you more about my kind?”
She’d get Regan, Mara, Callista, Ryon, and Caleb to do that.
She wanted nothing from him.
“The pills make me drowsy and they work pretty fast.” That wasn’t a lie. “I don’t want to miss anything.” That was a lie.
“All right, honey,” he murmured and went on to comment warmly, “You know, you’re taking this a lot better than I expected.”
She could have laughed.
She didn’t.
“You don’t know me very well,” she told him the truth for once.
His fingers slid into her hair and cupped the back of her head. “True, but everything I learn, I like.”
Liar, liar, liar, she thought but she just let out a fluttery, stupid sigh.
His fingers tensed against her scalp.
She prayed the pills would work their magic and, luckily, shortly after, they did.
The next week, Callum was patient mainly because Sonia was still feeling goodly amounts of pain which he took great care in assessing by often asking the soft, sweet, “How’re you doing, baby doll?”
He also demanded that he be the only one to clean, put ointment on, and re-bandage her wounds. And, surprisingly, other than that, he gave her space to rest and heal.
Also, Callum gave her space because Gregor turned up since Regan told him Sonia had been injured.
Gregor gave her the whole, “Callum’s a big boy and doesn’t need you to protect him so you’ve no business throwing yourself in front of an angry werewolf even if you didn’t have any idea he was an angry werewolf,” lecture (although it didn’t go quite like that).
Then Sonia gave him her, “So, you and your son are vampires?” interrogation (and that was exactly how she started it).
Then it was done and Gregor settled in like he was going to stay a while. This was evidenced by him having a lot of luggage, not Sonia being overly perceptive. This also made Callum’s patience slip a little bit, but for some reason, made Regan seem really happy.
Lucien and Leah left several days after the My Mate, The Werewolf Incident, which Sonia found distressing as she’d grown fond of Leah very quickly and she liked being around them. There was something beautiful about the two of them. The way they looked at each other, acted toward each other. The quiet but obvious way they were just in love.
Normally, considering Sonia’s circumstances, this would be added torture but Sonia cared about Leah and she also started to like Lucien. He seemed the sort of man who deserved to be happy and he acted like the kind of man who’d waited a very long time to be so and appreciated it deeply now that he had it. Considering Leah told her that Lucien was older than Callum by four entire centuries, a long time for him was literally, a long time.
Regan, Mara and Callista shared with both Sonia and Leah a good deal about werewolf nature, history, lore, and just about anything else they could share because Mara, as ever, liked to talk. It was a fascinating culture with a rich history and they were proud of it (as they should be).
There was only one hiccup in the first week and that was close to the end of it.
Sonia was in bed reading and hadn’t switched out the light and settled in long before Callum came up. This was what she’d made a habit of doing, saying she was going to bed early because of pain and needing to rest, and, considering Callum didn’t know an awful lot about humans, he didn’t know any better. But Gregor gave her knowing looks and Regan gave her increasingly penetrating ones.
By the time she sensed him walking up, she couldn’t feign sleep as he’d know since the door was open and he’d see the light go out, not to mention, he probably would hear her moving.
Luckily, he smiled at her when he walked in but went directly to the bathroom. She had time to turn out her light, turn on his, put her book aside, and get in a sleeping position before he walked out, naked and heading to bed.
She told herself he didn’t hear her sucking in her breath at the beauty of his naked body (but she didn’t believe herself) and this was proved false anyway when he grinned at her knowingly.
Once in bed, he immediately, and adeptly (totally ignoring her painstakingly crafted sleeping position), slid her closer to him, rolled her to her belly then to her side, avoiding her back, and pulled her to him, face to face.
Then his hands started roaming.
She tucked her face in his throat and bit her lip because his hands on her felt way too nice and she missed them.
Way too much.
“Sonia, baby doll, do you want to play?” he asked softly.
She shook her head.
“I’ll be gentle, little one.”
She loved it when he was gentle almost as much as she loved it when he was rough.
“I’m in a little pain. The pills aren’t working as well as they used to,” she lied for she felt okay. The pain was mostly a twinge by then and the wounds had started itching, indicating they were healing.
“All right, honey,” he murmured but his hands still roamed, though they’d slowed and the caresses felt soothing rather than exciting.
Then he asked, “Do you want to talk?”
“About what?” she asked back and her voice sounded higher than normal.
His hand slid up her arm, his fingers curled in at her neck then her jaw and they tipped up her chin so she was forced to look at him.
“About anything,” he replied.
“Not really,” she told him.
His brows drew together and he commented, “A good deal has happened to you. With me, my family, my people, moving, finding out about Gregor and Yuri, meeting Lucien and Leah. Are you okay with all of that?”
God, he’d be sweet if he wasn’t such a jerk.
“I’m coping,” she told him, and when he looked like he didn’t believe her, she went on, “I mean, it’s so much, you get used to your world rocking under your feet every few days. If Frankenstein walked through that door right now and asked if we wanted to go to a barbeque at his house tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t even blink.”
He burst out laughing and wrapped his arms around her, low at her waist to avoid her injury, falling to his back and taking her with him so she was on top.
She planted her forearms in his massive chest and lifted up to watch him laugh.
She told herself it was clinically (when it was not) that she noted he was unbelievably handsome when he laughed, and therefore, since she was like a scientist observing nature, she could watch him do it.
When he got control of himself, he informed her, “There is no such thing as Frankenstein.”
“I trust you.” And that wasn’t a total lie.
She didn’t trust him, trust him, but she trusted, with his statement, he was telling the truth and he, of all people, would know.
“Would you go?” he asked.
“What?” she asked back.
He grinned. “To a barbeque at Frankenstein’s house.”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “What do Frankensteins serve at barbeques?”
He roared with laughter again, and with a hand cupping the back of her head, he forced her down so her arms had to slide out and around him and he pressed her face into his neck.
Then he took her hair in his big fist and wrapped it into a rope again, coiling it around his palm.
“I fucking love your hair,” he murmured and she forced her body to stay relaxed.
Because that was a lie. He hated blondes.
That was, supposedly, until recently.
“I was thinking of cutting it,” she lied yet again just to be mean.
His fist tightened in her hair and he decreed, “I’ll not allow that.”
She bit back a, “Yes, your grace,” and stayed silent.
He used her own hair to rub against her jaw when he whispered, “Are you happy, little one?”
It was an odd, endearing, and unbelievably poignant question, and furthermore, he sounded like he cared about her answer.
She felt the sting of tears in her sinuses again, but with effort, she controlled them.
Then she sighed and stated, “Well, I guess a girl could do better than a fairytale castle in a beautiful wood with a handsome wolf as her husband who happens to be king, making her queen of a kind and loving people who think good things about her . . . but I don’t know how.”
Except, of course, having that king love his queen beyond anything in the whole world, like Lucien loved Leah and like Regan loved Mac and like Mara loved Drogan.
Or like Sonia’s father loved her mother.
Or even a little of what they had.
Not knowing her thoughts, at her words, he released her hair and his arms wound around her. For the first time since she was injured, they did this powerfully, crushing her to him and making that twinge of pain in her back magnify.
“I’m glad,” he said and his voice sounded strangely hoarse.
“Callum, my back,” she whispered.
His hold loosened and he slid her off his side but kept her close with an arm about her waist. He reached and turned out the light, settled her with her cheek on his shoulder and he pulled her arm around his stomach.
“Sleep,” he murmured.
“Okay,” she murmured back.
He gave her a squeeze.
Her sinuses started stinging again because it hurt so much, more than she thought she could endure, wanting him to be real and knowing he was not.
But, somehow, she fell asleep.
Much later, she woke sensing him gone. She laid awake until he returned and he slid into bed at her side, his skin cold when he tucked her into him, but he again smelled of sex.
And her broken heart broke just that little bit more.
The next two weeks Callum’s patience waned considerably, more and more each day.
First, he wasn’t Gregor’s biggest fan and Gregor had made it a habit to monopolize any time not taken by Regan, Ryon, Caleb, Mara, Callista, and wolves from town who had, at Regan, Mara and Callista’s invitations, begun to drop by to meet and get to know Sonia.
Therefore, Sonia didn’t spend hardly any time in Callum’s lap in his study or with Callum anywhere. Practically the minute she sat there, Gregor was at the door asking if she wanted to go into town, if she wanted to go for a walk, telling her Yuri was on the phone and wanted to speak to her, and the like.
Second, Callum wasn’t buying the “I’m in pain” excuse anymore considering she was going into town and taking walks but also he was seeing firsthand that her wounds were healing well. Even if he hadn’t seen it, Orphenon popping by to have a look deep into week three and announcing they were healing surprisingly rapidly gave it away.
Sonia had always been a quick healer and she had the freakish capacity never to scar and she wondered if this was part of her gifts but she never mentioned it to anyone and didn’t, for obvious reasons, then either. In fact, Orphenon had clipped away the stitches which kind of hurt and left her feeling a bit raw, which Callum, upon examining her face closely, believed because she was for once telling the truth.
Third, because Callum was beginning to get frustrated that Sonia was finding the willpower to fight back the urge.
Deep into the second week he made it obvious he wanted “to play.” But why he wanted to play when two or three times a week he disappeared from their bed in the middle of the night and came back obviously having been outside and smelling of that intense and beautiful musk he always smelled like after they’d finished, she would never know.
Sonia had put him off both morning and night and some afternoons besides with a variety of excuses which were wearing thin.
He started to get suspicious then he started to get dubious and this melted straight into extremely annoyed.
Luckily Calder turned up the third week and Callum lost interest in her as he holed himself up with the boys in his study. But this still left the nights for Sonia to find ways to fend off his hands, his mouth, and his quiet, gentle, sweet bedtime interrogations (but getting less gentle and less quiet and definitely less sweet).
Just last night, quiet, gentle, and sweet went out the window.
Sonia was in bed reading (again) when Callum hit the room.
He didn’t smile at her when he walked in.
Considering it was 8:30, he stopped two feet in, crossed his arms on his chest, frowned ominously and stared at her in bed.
“It’s 8:30,” he informed her.
Sonia tensed and decided not to look at him anymore because he was freaking her out. Therefore, she looked back at her book.
“This is a really good book,” she told him (though it wasn’t). “I’ve been waiting all day for an excuse to get back to it.” (Though she hadn’t.)
Suddenly her book was pulled from her hands and her eyes automatically and irritably shot back to him.
“There’s the small matter of your injection,” he clipped and she closed her eyes and looked away.
She hated those injections always but told herself they were a necessary evil.
Now, they were pure torture with Callum giving them to her and Sonia emerging from the burn always wrapped lovingly (but insincerely) in his arms.
She opened her eyes when she felt the bed depress with his weight, his fingers sliding into the side of her hair, and she saw him sitting beside her on the bed.
His anger was gone, the gentle look was back, and he murmured, “Two minutes, baby doll, then it’s done.”
“I hate those injections,” she whispered and his fingers flexed in her hair.
“I do too,” he agreed.
He gave her the injection, led her back to bed, and threw the hides back. She started climbing in but he stopped her, turned her to face him, and then his hands bunched the material of her nightgown at her hips and, whoosh, it was gone.
“Hey!” she cried, shocked at his actions.
“Now your pants,” he ordered.
Sonia was covering her breasts with her arms and she looked in confusion, as she was not keeping up, down at her underwear.
Then she looked up at him. “You mean my undies?”
“Off,” he demanded, leaning in and hooking his thumbs in the waistband.
“Callum!” she shrieked but her panties were already at her ankles and he was lifting her up so she repeated, “Callum!”
Like she didn’t utter a word (or, in this case, shriek his name twice) he placed her in bed and pulled the hides over her.
Sonia got up on an elbow and Callum sat on the edge, leaning into the hand that he’d planted in the bed behind her.
“I thought I told you I wanted you naked when you don’t have to wear clothes,” he declared calmly.
She glared at him. “I’m not comfortable sleeping naked.”
His brows drew together. “It didn’t seem to bother you before you found out I was wolf.”
This was true but only because, by the time he let her sleep, she was already naked, exhausted, and slept the sleep of abandoned contentment.
Now they weren’t having sex, were never going to have sex again, so she wanted to wear a nightgown.
As she didn’t feel like getting into that particular subject at that time, she just glared at him.
He absorbed her glare for a while then reached out, grabbed her book, and handed it to her.
“I’ll be back soon,” he muttered, leaned down, kissed her temple, and then walked from the room.
Without him to glare at, Sonia glared at the door instead.
Then she got up, put her undies and nightgown back on, and got back into bed.
Callum could do a lot of things, considering he was king.
But he could not tell her what to wear to bed.
She was dead asleep when she felt her body move and she didn’t tell it to do so.
Then she felt her nightgown sliding up, up, and, whoosh, it was gone.
Her eyes opened and she stared groggily at Callum who was in the process of pulling her panties down her legs. Then, whoosh, they were gone too.
“What . . . ?” she whispered but wasn’t awake enough to get her brain functioning.
He lay on his back, pulling the hides over them and yanking her roughly in his arms.
“Did you . . . did you just do that?” she asked his chest, her mind still fuzzy with sleep.
“I did,” he answered calmly.
“I . . . I can’t believe you just did that,” she whispered.
“Believe it,” he replied.
“Why did you just do that?” she queried.
“Tomorrow,” was his strange response.
“Tomorrow?”
He rolled into her so they were face to face.
“I’m too fucking pissed right now to have this conversation, Sonia,” he informed her, sounding pissed. Sounding downright mad. “But tomorrow morning, after breakfast, we’re fucking talking,” he finished.
In the face of his anger, Sonia thought it was prudent not to say anything further.
So she didn’t.
He rolled to his back again, taking her with him so her head was on his shoulder. Then he hauled her arm around him so it was resting across his stomach and his arm, curled at her waist, tightened so she was pressed into him close.
When he settled, it occurred to her that he had nothing to be pissed about.
She wasn’t sneaking off at night for liaisons with whoever (or multiple whoevers).
She wasn’t pretending to be his devoted queen when she wasn’t attracted to him.
She was just doing the best she could in a really bad situation.
However, she didn’t feel like getting into these subjects at that particular juncture either.
Or, ever, really.
So she forced her body to relax and she listened to his deep breathing, smelled his heady scent and wished she could go back to a time when she could, at least, pretend this was real.
But she could not.
It was the morning after and Sonia was curled in the little oval alcove trying to concentrate on her book but she couldn’t because she knew that day was the day of reckoning.
She’d woken alone, showered, dressed, had a quick breakfast, and ran back upstairs before anyone could catch her.
She had no idea why she woke up alone because Callum always woke her if he was leaving her even if just to give her a kiss and tell her he was going.
She didn’t take that as a good sign.
When she heard him approaching, she didn’t take hearing that he alighted the stairs at least two at a time as a good sign either.
When he hit the room and slammed the door so hard that the sound it made seemed to undulate through the room like a shockwave, she didn’t take that as a good sign either.
The instant she saw the look on his face she realized that today was not the day of reckoning.
Today was the day of the apocalypse.
Without hesitating, he walked right up to her, jerked the book out of her frozen-with-fear hands, and tossed it across the room with such force, the sound it made when it hit the doors of the wardrobe all the way across the room was like a gunshot.
She stared at her book on the floor for a second, lips parted in shock, then she looked back at him. What she saw terrified her to such an extreme, the only thing she could think to do was flee.
So she tried.
She shot out of the alcove and ran past him as fast as her feet would carry her, her heart beating a mile a minute and her mind totally blank.
She wasn’t fast enough.
He hooked an arm across her waist and lifted her up, her back to his chest, her legs kicking out, and her hands pushing at his arm.
“Let me go!” she squealed but he just turned, took three long strides, and tossed her on the bed.
She instantly rolled and kept rolling until she rolled over the other side, got to her feet, and glared at him standing opposite the bed to her. His chest was heaving and he was visibly having difficulty controlling his anger.
Sonia was panting with fear but that fear was replaced by fury on the spot.
“What’s the matter with you?” she shrieked.
“You didn’t come to the study after breakfast,” he replied, his deep voice even but far from calm.
He was enraged. His voice said it. His face said it. Every line of his big tall body said it.
But Sonia didn’t care.
“You just slammed the door, accosted my book, and tossed me across the room because I didn’t come to the study?” she shouted.
“I didn’t toss you across the room but I did tell you we were talking this morning and you didn’t come to my goddamned study!” he shouted back.
“Don’t you yell at me, King Callum,” she yelled.
He put his hands to his hips and leaned forward, yelling back, “I’ll yell until I find out what in the fuck is wrong with you, Queen Sonia!”
“There’s nothing wrong!” she screamed her lie, leaning toward him too.
“There isn’t?” He leaned back. “Then my wife is denying me her affections because . . . ?”
He let the last hang but Sonia didn’t.
She lied again, “I’m not denying you my affections!”
“Really?” he asked mockingly. “Have you been fucking me in the night and I haven’t felt it?”
Her hands clenched into fists, so angry she couldn’t have stopped herself even if she’d tried.
Which she didn’t, she’d been holding on to this long enough.
So she just let loose.
“Well, I figured, since you’re out fucking whoever at night, you wouldn’t need me!”
His body jerked but he scowled at her through the movement, muttering angrily, “What the fuck?”
“You’re cheating on me, Callum. I know it. Remember? I have gifts! I can smell it! You go off in the middle of the night, come home, and you reek of it!” she screamed.
He stared at her looking both stunned and furious and shouted, “Fucking hell, are you mad?”
“No!” she shouted back. “I’m not mad!” She shook her head and threw out an arm, looking away and talking mostly to herself but still doing it heatedly. “I shouldn’t care. I keep telling myself I shouldn’t care. Why do I care?”
“You shouldn’t care?” Callum muttered, low and dangerous, his tone making Sonia’s eyes go back to him, and if she thought he was angry before, she was wrong.
Now he was incensed.
But she was too far gone.
“No, I shouldn’t care,” she hurled at him.
“You shouldn’t care that you think I’m fucking around on you?” he asked, still in that low tone.
“No!” she shouted.
“Why?” he shot back. “Because you want me to get it elsewhere now that you know I’m wolf and you don’t want that sweet little body of yours defiled by an animal?”
Sonia gasped in outrage at his words and screeched, “How dare you! I love wolves!”
“Yes, honey,” he said cuttingly. “And three weeks ago you told me you loved me. The next day I find my fucking rings in the fire and you fucking avoid me all day and then you find out I’m wolf and do everything you can to avoid me for the next three fucking weeks! Is that what love is to you?”
“No, Callum. I did all that because you made me tell you I loved you while making me sit in your lap after you’d come home from fucking someone else and still reeking of it!”
“I’m not fucking anyone else!” he roared, losing what little hold he had on his temper.
But something broke inside Sonia. It had broken before, time and again, and it still hurt so much it was a miracle she didn’t fall to her knees.
Instead, her anger and heartbreak kept her breathing, standing, and fighting.
She turned and rounded the bed, her eyes locked on her mate, her hand lifted with finger jabbing the air at him all the while screaming back, “You are so full of it! You don’t want me. You never wanted me! I’m just your duty. Another in a long line of duties.”
She was still screaming as she made it to him and she used both hands to shove his chest, rocking him back on a foot as he stared down at her looking shocked.
“You said in the beginning we were a farce! Your brother said you wanted to get the claiming over with, that you felt forced to be at the cabin with me and that I’d have to understand your need to fuck around with your own kind.”
She shoved him again and kept screaming.
“Your other brother called being up at the cabin with me ‘dicking around.’ That crazy Desdemona woman said you hated blondes and I’m blonde! And everyone, but everyone, Calder, Yuri, even Titium, talks about your legendary prowess with women.”
He caught her wrists and hauled her up to his chest, muttering, “Sonia—”
“No!” she screeched in his face. “I’ve got good news. This is over for you, Callum! Over. You don’t have to pretend anymore. You don’t have to playact. I promise, I’ll do my duty as queen and you can just go off and do . . . whatever it is you have to do and somehow I’ll deal with it. I’ll cope. I’ll find a way to be happy even though I’m with you but I’m still, like I’ve always been, alone.”
She tore her hands from his wrists and started to run but he caught her around the waist and tugged her straight back, front to front.
“Baby doll—” he started.
The tears hit her eyes at those two words and she shrieked, “Stop calling me that!” She pushed at his chest with her hands and struggled in his arms. “Stop calling me that when I’m not that to you. I’ve never been that to you. I’m only that in my stupid, stupid dreams!”
He barely controlled her struggles while whispering, “Honey, settle down and listen to me.”
Working hard to hold back the tears, Sonia stammered, “N-no!” and kept right on fighting.
But Callum kept right on controlling her thrashing so she had to do it harder.
She had to get away, far away. Far enough to get her head together and piece her heart together and find some way to get on with her hideous destiny.
She managed to break away but he caught her again and pushed her on the bed.
She rolled and almost got to her knees but his fingers wrapped around her ankles, twisted her back, yanking her down the bed, and his big body landed on hers.
In a panic because this was not where she wanted to be (even though it was), she bucked and pushed at his shoulders, shouting, “Just let me get away. I need to get away!”
“Baby doll, you need to calm down,” he murmured softly.
Something in his tone struck her.
Her body stilled and her mind cleared but her hands still pushed at his shoulders as she looked away from him and stared at the side of the bed.
She took in a ragged breath.
She took in another one.
Then she realized what she’d said and what she’d done and how much it betrayed about how very much she felt about him.
Deflated and crushingly humiliated, she made an attempt to salvage a very bad situation, whispering, “You’re right.”
His hand rounded her jaw and he said softly, “Look at me, honey.”
She closed her eyes tight and resisted, but finally, taking in a breath, she looked at him.
God, he was beautiful, watching her with tenderness etched in every feature.
Seeing him looking at her that way, she realized she was so caught up in the hurt, she forgot that he was dealing with a hideous destiny too.
“I’m sorry,” she was still whispering. “You don’t need this. You have a kingdom to worry about. I should have . . . I should . . . I should have just learned to deal on my own.”
He stared at her a moment then his eyes went over her head and she could almost hear him counting to ten in his.
His gaze came back to hers and he stated, “I’m not fucking around on you, Sonia.”
A hated sob welled up in her chest and she swallowed it down on the word, “Don’t.”
“Baby doll, I’m running at night.”
She blinked at him, sudden confusion swept through her at his words and she asked, “Running?”
“Transforming to wolf and running. I did it at the cabin too. I have to do it, compelled to by the wolf in me,” he told her and she stared because no one had told her that. “I couldn’t do it when we were in the city but I do it here all the time. You always slept through it, me leaving and returning.” He paused and then finished, “Until lately.”
She kept staring, trying to wrap her mind around this strangely logical fact.
“Do you . . . do you,” she shouldn’t ask, she really shouldn’t ask, but on a barely-there whisper, she asked, “run with someone else?”
His lips twitched and he said, “No, little one, I’m a lone wolf.”
“But you smell like—” she started.
He cut her off. “I smell like wolf.”
“But, I’d never smelled it before except when—”
“The scent wears off quickly, definitely by morning.”
“But it smells like after we—”
He grinned. “Yes, honey, that’s exactly what it smells like.”
She thought that was kind of neat, and definitely sexy, and she felt her body getting soft under his. “So you’re not meeting someone?”
His face grew serious when he replied, “I’d never fuck around on you, Sonia.” His face dipped closer when he finished on a growl, “Never.”
Relief started sliding through her but she couldn’t let go. “But . . . why? You don’t want me. You said . . . and Caleb and Yuri—”
“Forget what Caleb and Yuri said.”
She was back to staring at him and getting annoyed so she snapped, “Forget?”
“I’ve lived for nearly four hundred years and you know I like to play,” he calmly explained.
Yes, she was definitely getting annoyed. “Right, so—”
“No, baby doll,” he cut her off firmly. “You said what you had to say. It’s my turn to talk.”
She clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.
He watched her as if waiting for her to defy him and then he went on, “I’ve had a lot of lovers but I’ve never had a mate.”
She opened her mouth and shot back, “A mate you don’t want.”
Now Callum looked like he was getting annoyed when he informed her, “Sonia, you’re talking.”
“Yes, I am,” she retorted. “There’s no reason to do this. I get it. I understand my place. You know I understand it, so it’s over.”
“But you don’t understand your place,” he bit out.
And yes, he was definitely getting annoyed too.
“I—”
“Sonia, shut up,” he clipped.
Sonia glared.
Callum scowled.
This lasted a while.
Sonia finally lost patience. “You wanted to talk . . . talk.”
“Christ, you’re a pain in the ass,” he told her.
“Thanks,” she snapped.
His eyes narrowed and he lost control of his temper. “All right, baby doll,” he gritted out through his teeth, “I never thought this was the way I’d tell you but here it is. You’re perfect.”
Sonia stopped glaring and her mouth dropped open.
Callum kept talking, “You have to know, I didn’t think I would feel that way at first but every fucking second I was with you I realized it more and more. Every day, I would wake up and think you were perfect and every night I’d go to sleep thinking, somehow, during the day, you got even more perfect. If I could have wished what I thought was my perfect mate on the wind and had her come back to me in a storm, I could never have come up with anything as exquisite as you.”
Sonia gazed wordlessly up at her king.
She had never, in her whole life, heard anything so beautiful.
Not said about her (even if it was said with clipped irritation).
Not ever.
She felt the tears welling in her eyes as she whispered, “Callum—”
But he talked over her. “I don’t know what you heard when you were listening and no one knew you were eavesdropping or what was said to you flat out, but whatever it was, they didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. The minute you woke up in my bed in the cabin, I wanted you. I questioned it, that first day wasn’t great, but I questioned it for about an hour before you started to get interesting. Then more interesting. And when we lay on the couch that first night I thought our lives together would be sweet . . .” His hand slid in her hair as she stared at him in loving shock. “And I knew by the night of your claiming when I fell asleep connected to you that our lives would be beautiful and I’ve never thought anything since except, every day, it seemed to grow impossibly more beautiful.”
“Callum—”
Then he concluded, “Until the last three weeks.”
She closed her eyes and everything that was him danced across her eyelids.
Callum holding her in his lap and telling her she had family.
Callum holding her close in his arms while the Christmas lights twinkled, telling her she was home.
Callum fiddling with her charm on her chain, wanting her to wear it outside her clothes so he could see it, his people’s symbol, like her wedding bands, telling everyone that she was his.
Callum taking her sledding, playing board games and watching Christmas movies, then later, taking away the pain when her blood started to boil.
Callum bending over backward to give her the best Christmas she’d had in thirty-one years.
Callum coming direct to her after a bloody eight day battle and sleeping his exhaustion away with her held close and later trusting her to bury the hideous memories by taking her, again and again.
Callum’s gentleness when she discovered Waring had died.
Callum letting her be who she was, the first person since her momma and papa died.
Just who she was, without hiding anything.
He’d been right those weeks and weeks ago.
And she’d been there for weeks and weeks.
She was there at that very moment.
She was home.
“I love you, baby doll,” he said, his voice no longer annoyed. It was filled with tenderness and her eyes flew open to see his face was filled with the same thing. “I loved you before you took your first breath on this earth because that was my fate but you made me love you because you’re just . . . fucking . . . you.”
Her heart fluttered, her belly melted, and of its own accord, her hand lifted to the side of his face. Her fingers slid in his hair and she watched as her thumb smoothed his eyebrow then along the beautiful angle of his cheekbone and across the fullness of his bottom lip.
When her eyes went to his, they were closed and he looked, for some reason, as if he was experiencing a weirdly painful ecstasy.
“Cal?” she called. His eyes opened instantly, they were golden, she loved that so much she felt her heart swell, and she whispered, “You love me?”
He answered without hesitation. “With everything I am, baby doll, and everything I’m meant to be.”
She felt the sob move up her chest. She lifted her head to shove her face in his neck and her breath hitched from the effort of holding it back.
Callum heard it, rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him, and he held her close, one arm at her waist, the other cocked along her spine with his fingers in her hair while she pressed her face into his skin, battling the tears.
A thought occurred to her. It was so huge, her body jerked with it and her head snapped up.
“You’re real!” she cried with joy as if she’d made some fabulous discovery that was going to light the world on fire.
He grinned at her and said, “I’m right here, baby doll.”
She stared at him, her dream man, her handsome wolf. She was in his arms in their bed in their room in their castle.
“You’re real,” she whispered.
His arms got tighter and he whispered back, “I’m real.”
“And . . . and,” she gulped as the enormity hit her, blocking her throat, “you’re my puppy too.”
His grin turned to a smile as he moved a hand around to caress her cheek tenderly with his thumb. “I’m thinking me being your ‘puppy’ should stay between you and me, little one. Not likely to strike fear in the hearts of my enemies, being known as The Puppy.”
She giggled, shoving her face back into his neck. His arms wrapped tight around her and she felt him there. Right there. Not a dream. None of it a dream.
All of it real.
“Cal?” she called into his neck.
“Yes, honey?”
“You remember you asked me if I was happy?”
“Yes.”
“I lied.”
His arms tensed.
She lifted her head and looked at his wary eyes a moment before she put her mouth to his and whispered, “Now . . . I’m happy.”
His hand slid back into her hair as his head slanted, crushing her mouth to his at the same time he rolled and he kissed her.
And his kiss was hot, sweet, wet, deep, long, and best of all, perfect.
Sonia woke in the middle of the night held close in Callum’s arms.
They’d spent the entire day in bed making up for lost time with Callum leaving her only to go down and order food to be brought up.
All day, she’d been what she told him she was.
Happy.
Ecstatically so (as well as hot and bothered, but that was ecstatic too, as only Callum could do).
But things happened to your mind when you woke in the middle of the night and they happened to Sonia.
Taking in a quiet breath, she slid carefully out of his arms, out of the bed, and walked to her robe. Pulling it on and tying it tight, she went to the window and stared out at the night, the cloudless sky allowing the moon to shine bright on the snow making the forested hills a winter wonderland.
For a moment, she wished with everything that she was out in it, like Callum could do, turning to wolf and running through the snow in the night.
Or, at least, like she’d do with her papa, walking, seeing, listening, hearing, smelling, experiencing.
But then these pleasant thoughts melted away and Sonia realized that the cosmos wasn’t quite done with its joke.
“Honey?” Callum called and she turned to him.
He was up on an elbow, his beautiful eyes on her.
“What are you doing up?” he asked.
“Thinking,” she replied.
“Well, think over here,” he ordered.
She felt her mouth quirk into a smile because he was really so gosh darned bossy.
She didn’t, however, hesitate and she walked to the foot of the bed and then crawled up it on all fours, his body between her moving limbs.
When she got face to face with him, his arms came around her and pulled her down on his powerful frame.
His hand slid into the side of her hair and tucked her face in his neck when he asked, “What were you thinking?”
Again, without hesitating, she answered, “I was wondering how old you were when you locked in your development.”
“Around one hundred and ninety-five.”
Her head came up and she stared at him.
“You don’t look one hundred and ninety-five,” she told him and he grinned.
His hand came around to the back of her neck and he gathered her hair in his palm and twisted it into a rope, explaining, “In human years, around thirty-nine.”
He was coiling her hair around his fist when she noted, “So, you’re still older than me.”
His face softened with understanding when he replied, “I’ll always be older than you, Sonia.”
She dropped her head down to tuck her face in his neck again, knowing this wasn’t true.
It was the cosmos’s last, big, huge, ugly joke.
He rubbed her hair at her jaw and called, “Baby doll?”
“Mm?” she answered, not wanting to talk anymore that night or any night if it was on this subject.
“You can think about it tonight, worry about it, be sad about it, but then get it out of your head,” he offered on a command.
She felt the tears collecting behind her eyes when she whispered, “You’ll always be beautiful.”
He released her hair and rolled into her so she was on her back, he was mostly on her, and he lifted up on an elbow to loom over her.
Then he announced, “Wolves mate for life.”
“What?” she asked.
“We mate for life. We never cheat. We’re never unfaithful. We never leave. We mate for life. Our instinct, everything that makes us, everything that is us centers around our mate, our pack, our family. It’s the only thing that matters. Not beauty, not youth.”
“Easy for you to say,” she mumbled, her eyes sliding away. “You’ll be forever young.”
Her eyes came back to him when he stated, “Right now I feel about as old as I am.”
Surprised at this, she queried, “Why?”
He looked at her a moment, shook his head, and said, “It doesn’t matter.”
Then he bent his neck to touch his mouth to hers before he rolled again to his back, taking her with him.
But it was her turn to get up on an elbow and look down on him.
“Why do you feel that?”
“Sonia, let’s just—”
“Is it because you know you’ll have to watch me get old?”
“Baby doll—”
She cut him off. “No, really, Cal. Tell me.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“But you did,” she pushed.
“Yes, I did and it was a mistake.” His arm came around his chest and he tried to pull her into his embrace, but she resisted and he unusually relented.
She planted a hand in his chest, beginning to feel funny. The happiness was sliding away and the despair was returning at the thought that he’d watch her get wrinkled and gray and weak and stooped while he stayed forever beautiful, tall and strong and, therefore, she demanded, “Cal, talk to me.”
“It isn’t because I have to watch you get old.”
“Then what is it?” she pressed.
His brows drew together as his patience started to ebb. “Just let it go.”
She put pressure on his chest and insisted hotly, “No, tell me what it is!”
“It’s because I have to watch you die.”
She sucked in breath and stared at him. That heinous thought hadn’t occurred to her and she didn’t know what to say.
“All these weeks we’ve been together, you’ve been thinking that I didn’t want you. Do you know what I’ve been thinking, little one?” he asked softly and she didn’t want to know, she really didn’t, but she nodded anyway and he went on even softer, “I’ve been wondering how I’m going to carry on for centuries without you after you’re gone.”
Sonia felt her breath hitch painfully, and unable to hold herself up any longer, she dropped down, rested her forehead against his collarbone, and slid her arm around his chest.
Then she murmured into his chest, “You can’t love me. I’m so self-absorbed. All this time, all I’ve been thinking about was me. How on earth could you love me?”
His hand slid into her hair and pressed her cheek to his chest as he said quietly, “Unfortunately, baby doll, we don’t have enough time for me to explain all the ways I love you. That, in itself, would take centuries.”
She laughed but it was without humor, pushing closer to his body, holding him tighter and tangling her legs with his. His fingers slid through her hair then again and again, until some time later when his hard warmth and his soothing fingers quieted her rampaging thoughts, she took a fluttering breath.
“So now you know,” he said gently. “Our time is precious. So we won’t waste it talking of this again. Agreed?”
She lifted a hand and sifted her fingers lazily through the hair on his chest.
God, she loved his chest.
On that thought, her fingers curled and she dragged her nails through the hair there as she whispered, “Agreed.”
She went back to toying with his chest hair and decided at that moment he needed to know something very, very important.
“Cal?”
“Yes, baby doll.”
God, she loved it when he called her “baby doll.”
She took in a breath and asked, “You remember when you asked me if I loved you?”
His body grew still under hers and he answered, “Yes.”
Quietly, she said, “That time, I didn’t lie.” She felt his still body grow tight and she finished, “Not about any of it.” Both of his arms came around her but she pushed up, pressing her body to his and she whispered her story in his ear, “The first time I met you, my first dream, I felt you slide in bed behind me. You held me in your arms and I told you I was glad you were home. You kissed my neck and I lay in your arms thinking, ‘This is the man I love.’ It was short, just that before I woke up, but I felt strangely happy.” She lifted her head, stared in his now tawny eyes and concluded, “In that first dream, I never even saw your face.”
Both his hands came to her head, sliding into her hair, pushing it back.
Then he stated throatily, “You love me.”
Sonia rested her lips against his but with her eyes open, and staring in his, she whispered, “With everything I am, wolf, and everything I’m meant to be.”
Callum’s fingers tightened in her hair and he rolled Sonia yet again.
He was kissing her by the time her back hit the bed.
It took a while before they fell back to sleep.
And when they did, they were connected.
In more ways than one.