With Everything I Am (34 page)

Callum stared at his cousin, disliking (intensely) what he was hearing but also smart enough to know Ryon knew what he was talking about. He’d spent a lot of time in female human company whereas Callum took what he wanted and moved on. He’d never played their games but he knew they had them.

And furthermore, this conversation, and Ryon’s coaching, went a long way to dispel his disquiet at Ryon’s attention to his mate.

“Fucking hell,” Callum finally muttered then yielded, “I’ll talk to her.”

“Smart,” Ryon nodded.

Callum sighed at adding yet
another
issue to the list he would have to sort.

Then they walked together back to Sonia’s house.

After they’d taken off their coats, Ryon made his way instantly to Caleb while Callum went to Sonia. She was standing amongst a group of her friends, listening and smiling and he approached her from behind.

He knew she knew he was there because he saw, nearly imperceptibly but it was there, her body grow tight before he was even close. Understanding it now, he’d likely notice these actions far more and he began cataloguing them.

He used his smile aimed at her friends to hide his unrest, came up to her from behind and slid an arm around her waist, placing his mouth at her ear.

“It’s time for your injection, baby doll,” he muttered in a voice for only Sonia to hear.

He was pleased he couldn’t see her eyes, even though he felt her body tense. Seeing her eyes go blank, night after night, was like dying a little death.

She turned to him, her gaze at his shoulder, and nodded, murmuring her apologies as he led her away, up the stairs, to the bathroom.

She waited obediently as he loaded the syringe.

When it was ready, she turned her back to him, one of his arms slid around her belly as he instructed gently, “Lift your skirt for me, little one.”

She shimmied it up her hips, as she did so, exposing a pair of sexy, white, lace panties he’d ordered her to go with his mother and buy (about a second after he’d gathered her unattractive undergarments and thrown them in the trash). She was also wearing lace-topped, thigh high stockings.

Regardless of his chore, he still felt his groin tighten at the sight.

Swiftly, so as not to prolong her apprehension, he administered the injection.

Facing the basin, the minute the toxin entered her body, both of her hands flew out to clutch the basin and her head lowered. She sucked in a tortured breath and her pretty face twisted with suffering. Callum dropped the syringe into the sink, yanked her skirt down and wrapped his arms around her, trying to tear his eyes from the mirror that exposed her pain and failing.

His body absorbed the tortured shudders rending their way through hers until she unconsciously dragged in calming breaths as the pain slowly burned itself out.

When it was over, she lifted her head until it rested on his shoulder, her cheek against his. His chin was lowered to her and her hands glided along his forearms until her arms were crossed and her fingers curled around his wrists.

“I even feel it in my hair,” she whispered, the ghost of pain veining her voice and Callum’s scalp stung unpleasantly in hearing the comprehensiveness of his mate’s pain.

He buried his face in her neck.

“Baby doll,” he murmured there as there was nothing more that he could do.

And he fucking
hated
the feeling of powerlessness that was thrust on him night after night.

Her fingers tightened on his wrists and she said softly, “It’s over, Callum.”

It wasn’t over. It would happen again the next night and the night after that.

If it was indeed a disease, it would happen until he stood beside her burning pyre.

He didn’t respond, just tensed his arms, drawing her closer.

“We have guests.” she reminded him.

He took in breath through his nose, her scent, already surrounding him, intensifying and his body relaxed at the smell and her uttering the fact that
they
had guests.

She did not say “I” but “we”.

Callum liked that.

He nodded and lifted his head, his eyes catching hers in the mirror where
she
, who’d endured it, gave
him
, who’d only witnessed it, a reassuring smile.

Then he stood holding her while she reapplied her lipstick and unnecessarily rearranged her thick, beautiful hair.

Then he led her downstairs and stood at her side as she entertained, having lost his enjoyment of the evening and as it continued finding himself losing his patience as his need for her grew.

She, however, continued to enjoy it and that was the only reason Callum could endure.

It was late. The caterers had swept away their wares, leaving the house tidy but Sonia still wandered it. Finding a discarded napkin here, the remains of wrapping paper there and throwing them away while Callum shut down the house for the night.

When he guided her up the stairs, he led her to the bathroom deciding that he’d give them a better memory of a space that had become, for him, as it had to be for her, dreaded.

At first she was confused and hesitant but that melted, as Sonia always did, when he gently placed her hands on the basin, ordered her to keep them there and yanked up her skirt. He pulled down her panties and she stepped out of them before he commanded she open her legs. He saw, reflected in the mirror, her face grow hungry and his need for her deepened before she did as she was told and, at once, as her reward, he slid his hand between her legs from behind, giving her what she craved.

Callum watched her in the mirror thinking distractedly, because he so liked what he saw, that he’d have to have a room paneled in mirrors at his castle in Scotland. The vision of her growing excitement erasing the earlier, painful one as he brought her to orgasm with his fingers. Then, while she was still moaning her uninhibited release, he watched as he entered her and fucked her, her skirt bunched at her hips, her sweet ass willingly tilting up to take all of him. And he kept watching as he brought her to orgasm again moments before he had his own.

Then, keeping Sonia impaled on his cock, he gazed in the mirror, her hooded eyes, he noted, doing the same, as he slowly disrobed her, baring her beautiful, little body still intimately connected to his. Once she was naked against him, he took his time, running his hands along the skin of her midriff, her belly, her sides and up to her breasts as he, and Sonia, watched the trail of his hands and as he, alone, felt her sex shudder around his cock in response to their travels. And he held her, his forearms crossed, his hands cupping her breasts, his thumbs idly stroking her nipples, his shaft still hard and buried to the root, as he memorized the look of them together. The smell of their mingled essence. The beautiful feel and sight of all that was her.

She twisted her neck and, with her lips against his skin, he watched in the mirror as she whispered there, “How do you stay so hard so long?”

“Sensory incentive,” he replied softly (and truthfully).

She emitted a fluttering sigh.

He smiled.

Then he lifted her off his shaft, turned her, seated her on the basin and lazily pulled off her boots and slid off her stockings.

Then he carried her to bed, his sweet little Sonia, took off his clothes, joined her and pulled her close, on their sides, his face in her hair, her ass snug in his crotch, his body pressed to the length of hers.

His voice was gentle when he asked, “Did you have a good night, my little one?”

“Yes,” she whispered sleepily, hesitated, then enquired, “Did you?”

“Yes,” he answered and his arms gave her a squeeze. “I liked the way it ended the best.”

“Figures,” she mumbled seconds before she fell asleep.

He should have felt contentment but these were his worst times. In the dark, Sonia near, her body relaxed in his arms. These were the times he knew he’d miss most when she was gone.

He didn’t seethe against her aging, the onset of wrinkles, her gorgeous hair turning gray.

He seethed against the knowledge that one day, she’d be gone.

As with every night since the claiming, King Callum fell asleep with his queen forced to come to uneasy terms with this vile knowledge of his future.

Chapter Fourteen

Christmas

Sonia’s body was trapped between the back of the far more comfortable couch in her upstairs television room and the length of Callum’s frame. Her head was resting on his chest. Her arm was draped around his stomach. Her gaze was on the television.

In this position, late Christmas Eve, King Callum watched the movie
White Christmas
for the first time.

The detritus of their feeding frenzy was on the table in front of them, something, to his surprise, which was Sonia’s idea.

One of the things she had made no bones about since they met was her dislike of the wolf diet. But that morning when he’d asked how she traditionally spent her Christmas Eve and Christmas day, she’d told him in a tentative, almost, to his surprise (and foreboding)
shy
way, that both days were the
only
days of the calendar year where she ate what she wanted, how much she wanted and didn’t worry about it.

Callum hid the displeasure he felt at these words, a displeasure he felt for three reasons.

First, she’d been shy in relating this information to him. Why Sonia would be shy, considering they were lifemates, she’d been claimed, she spent most of her days in his lap and all of her nights full of his cock, he couldn’t imagine.

Second, because her shyness made him realize that he’d never bothered to ask her anything about herself, her likes, dislikes, what she enjoyed doing, what she did not. So, he supposed, it wasn’t unusual that she
would
be shy because she was being asked to share about herself which was new to her. At least doing it with him was.

She needed to fit into his life, this was true. But she was also an important part of his. He’d had a lot on his mind but, regardless if it was inadvertent, the extent of his callousness shook him. Further, he wondered, as Ryon suggested, if under the surface of Sonia’s acceptance of her fate, something else lurked.

Last, because she so rigidly controlled her eating which was one of his most disliked human traits and one he would be fully breaking her of after the holidays.

Wolves didn’t count calories and they were not obsessively tidy as Sonia also was. Contradictory to humans, even though a wolf’s life could last eternity, they didn’t squander them on trivial things. They
lived
them to their fullest, every day enjoying what life had to offer and never sweating the small stuff.

While in bed that morning, her eyes riveted to his chest, her fingers absentmindedly sifting through the dark hair there, she’d explained (while he hid his displeasure, and, later, unrest) that Christmas Eve, she relaxed, read a book, watched movies and ate whatever she wanted. Christmas morning, she opened her presents which she kept for some reason she didn’t share under her upstairs tree. Then she went to Gregor’s in the afternoon and had a late afternoon dinner with him and Yuri before she came home.

This news was, Callum thought, somehow gloomy. Although she related it in a way that seemed straightforward, it didn’t change the fact that most of her beloved holiday she spent alone and none of it, to his way of thinking, sounded very much fun.

This was also not the way of the wolf, not ever, but
definitely
not on Christmas.

And Callum determined, watching her eyes follow her fingers, even if his queen was used to her lonely Christmases, she’d have them that way no longer.

From that day on, they would be vastly different.

And Callum set about making that so.

When she was finished talking, he’d turned to her and made love to her. He’d done it slowly, taking his time, building the hunger and when her moans slid back to whimpers, he sated it. After, still wrapped in her limbs, their bodies connected, he took the time he rarely took (because he rarely had it) to coddle her. His hands drifting idly on her skin. His nose taking in the scent of her. His lips trailing her neck, her ear, her face and, as he did so, her limbs tightened around him protectively, lovingly and he growled his approval against her skin.

 
After they got out of bed, she made breakfast for them and they showered. When she was dressing and doing whatever else it was she did while preparing for her day, he placed calls, making arrangements and seeking information.

When she came down the stairs dressed in a long sleeve t-shirt and jeans, he sent her back up to dress warmer.

Without a peep, she did as she was told.

Then he took her to a sporting goods store and bought what they needed.

Then he took her sledding.

She’d been shocked through this, to the point she didn’t speak.

But once they hit the crowded, public sledding hill and she was amongst the children and parents with their own sleighs, she’d thrown herself into it with abandon.

Callum stood at the top of the hill watching her challenge the kids who always took her up on it and then race them down the hill, always letting them win. He’d saunter down and drag the sled back up for her, Sonia climbing by his side, his arm around her shoulders, hers light around his waist as she exchanged loud, animated replays amongst her new friends. And then she’d find her next mark and challenge another child and down she’d go again, giggling all the way.

Honest to God, if he didn’t know differently, watching her unabashed glee, he’d swear she was wolf.

After she’d exhausted herself, he’d taken her to the snack shop and they sat outside, Sonia in his lap. As they sat, the children giggled at them and men and women surreptitiously glanced their way (some with curiosity, most, he noted, both male and female, with envy) while they drank hot cocoa.

Then he took her home, challenged her to a board game that they played sitting on the floor in her living room by a fire he built. They played while they ate a late lunch and he beat her, soundly, to which she pouted, magnificently, so he gave her another chance and played her again and beat her again. But he purposefully didn’t do it so decisively the second time.