With Everything I Am (62 page)

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 then 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.

Then 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 and 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 though 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 and 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.

Chapter Twenty-One

Understanding

Callum was sitting in his study, going through a report on some of his investments when he sensed Sonia’s approach.

She was wearing another pair of her thick socks so her footfalls were soft.

But that morning before he left her, he’d made love to her and she hadn’t showered. He could smell the essence of them getting stronger as she got closer.

And he fucking
loved
that smell.

It had been a month since she’d finally unburdened her mind.

It was also only days before their official Mating.

And Callum couldn’t
fucking
wait.

The hills were again filling with tents and the town was again bursting. Everyone wanted to be there, not because the king was formally binding his queen to him but because Callum was formally binding Sonia.

He’d been to many a Mating and he’d enjoyed them.

But he knew he’d like this one best for their last month together was better than the months before that.

Infinitely better.

It was beyond perfect.

It was a dream.

However, with Regan’s assistance and Leah’s long distance advice, he was planning a surprise to happen during their Mating.
A surprise for his
wife
.

He was looking toward the door when Sonia rounded it and came into the room smiling.

The vision of her pretty, smiling, happy face settled pleasantly somewhere in his gut, he dropped his report, sat back in his chair and returned her smile.

She made short work of the distance, her cashmere robe parting and exposing her shapely legs as she walked. He noticed, yet again, that she’d put on weight in the last month. As he suspected it would, it had hit all the right places and he was pleased with the result. But he was more pleased that she’d given up her obsession with calories and was simply, as she should, enjoying her food.