With Everything I Am (39 page)

So Sonia kept the coffee going (in the mornings) and the wine flowing and food available (in the evenings) and did the best she could in a tense situation that seemed to last an age and not eight days.

Therefore, as Sonia was busy seeing to her female subjects while the males were at war, Sonia would have to argue with Callum when he got home about the fact that she intended to
stay
home and not move to his castle.

While Callum battled a faceless (to Sonia) enemy, Sonia waged her own battle.

A battle within.

She battled against her feelings of fear that he would be hurt (or worse). She also battled to control her feelings of rage that he had again, for whatever demented, Callum reason, fought to win a place in her heart and succeeded brilliantly only to prove he didn’t belong there.

This was proved time and again after he took off her ring, handed it to his mother and left without a single glance at her house. A place where
he
built the best Christmas she’d had in decades only to end it by nonchalantly blowing down his own house of cards.

He proved it in making it known he was taking her away from her home, her friends, her business by doing nothing more than ordering it so and not even having the courtesy to order it to her face. He proved it by making her say good-bye to her friends and neighbors by, again, ordering it done. He proved it by making Regan take her shopping for the numerous clothes (how she needed
more,
Sonia would never know) that Regan told her would be required in her new home. He proved it by doing all of this without asking Sonia what
she
wanted, where she wanted to live, who she wanted to surround her and what she wanted to wear.

Lastly, he proved it by his behavior the moment he arrived back safely from the fight and the hours after he swept her away.

Callum, her dream Callum, her handsome wolf, was a figment of her imagination.

No matter how he behaved sometimes, there was only King Callum and she vowed in her head that she would always,
always
remember that.

* * * * *

The worst part started when Regan received a phone call in the kitchen and came rushing into the living room where Sonia was sitting with Julianna and Helena.

“It’s over! Victory is ours!” Regan shouted with delight, Julianna and Helena cried out their joy and Regan looked at Sonia. “Callum, Calder, Caleb and Ryon are fine.” She looked at Helena. “Trenten is too.” She looked at Julianna. “Your brother is also with us and I’m sure Saint already knows his two brothers are safe.” Then she hugged herself and laughed out loud before Julianna, Helena and Sonia surged up to hug her and each other, so great was their relief. Though Sonia’s, obviously, was mixed with other things as well.

Then suddenly Regan grabbed Sonia’s face in both her hands and cried, “Oh sweetheart! I forgot! It’s time to get you prepared!”

Before explaining a word of this statement to Sonia, Regan started dashing around the house while Helena and Julianna, still wreathed in relieved smiles, gave her hugs and fond farewells but, Sonia noted, no explanations.

Regan was banging around upstairs when Sonia finally joined her in her bedroom. The six suitcases and one large cosmetics bag they’d purchased three days earlier were all open and littering her bed, her window seat and even the floor.

“The boys will be here soon. You go find the things that you want to take with you. Don’t worry if you miss something. Julianna can send it if you remember something you’d like to have.” Then she paused, whirled on Sonia and exclaimed, “Oh no! The boxes are in the garage. I’ll need to go get them. You! Pack your clothes. I’ll run and do that.”

“Regan, what on earth?” Sonia started but she was talking to no one. In the blink of an eye Regan was gone.

She followed her mother-in-law and found her in the kitchen for some reason struggling with large, flat-folded cardboard boxes and tape.

Regan glanced her way before babbling, “We should have done this before but I didn’t want… just in case…” She hesitated. “Well, obviously, if something happened, you’d be staying here so I didn’t…” She paused again and went on, “Anyway, Callum ordered me to do it and if we don’t get it done by the time he arrives, he won’t be best pleased.”

Even though Sonia had no idea what Regan was talking about she figured that last part was the sorry truth.

Regan continued, “And Caleb said Callum wants to leave for home the minute he gets to the city so we must be ready.”

“Regan, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sonia told her and Regan stopped and looked at her as if perplexed.

“You’re moving to Scotland with Callum,” she replied. “I thought I explained that to you.”

“Yes, but –”

“There’s no time to waste, Sonny.” Regan threw down a box. “You do this. Build the boxes. There’s that bubble wrap stuff and tissue paper for packing in the garage. Anything you want from here, pack it up in the boxes. I’ll see to your clothes.”

“Regan –” Sonia started again but Regan’s phone rang.

She lifted a hand palm up for Sonia to stop speaking and she answered her phone. While listening, the palm went down but she twirled her hand adamantly toward the boxes.

On a sigh (even though Sonia was going
nowhere
), she started to build the boxes as Regan listened, mumbling, “Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Right.” Regan flipped her phone shut and announced, “We have less time than I expected. The boys will be here in an hour and a half. Let’s get cracking.”

Before Sonia could utter a word, Regan flew up the stairs.

Sonia stood amongst the boxes and decided, for Regan, she’d do as she was asked. She could easily unpack them later when she told Callum she wasn’t moving to Scotland.

An hour and a half later, Sonia stood staring out her window in shock as her six full suitcases, one full cosmetic case,
Callum’s
three suitcases and five boxes full of her family’s Christmas decorations, her stuffed wolf, her photo albums and a few odds and ends were whisked away by one of Callum’s men.

That’ll make unpacking tonight a bit more difficult,
she thought as she bit her lip and worry began to nag her.

Any hope she had of staying put was dashed fifteen minutes later when Callum arrived.

The door opened and Sonia, sitting and enjoying a mug of herbal tea with Regan in the living room, got to her feet, turned to her mate and opened her mouth.

Then she froze and stared.

Callum’s body, hair and clothes were clean although his clothing was wrinkled.

However, the beard that had grown in the weeks she’d been with him was now immensely thick and untrimmed. Further, his hair seemed to have grown tremendously in that short time and it went from overlong to just plain
long
falling past the collar of his shirt.

Further, his face appeared so exhausted he looked almost haggard, something she would never have guessed as he always seemed alert and energized.

And his eyes were hungry and not in a good way. The lines beside them deeper, and they were positively seething, not with anger but with
wrath
. A rage so deep, so strong, it emanated from him and filled the room with its terrifying intensity instantly.

He looked wild, even savage and Sonia was frozen to the spot when Callum didn’t look at his mother who had risen at Sonia’s side. He came directly at Sonia and she had the desire to flee, to run away from him as fast as she could. However, her terror was so absolute it felt her feet had grown roots into the floor.

She didn’t move a muscle when he used one arm to hook her brutally at the waist and yank her body so that it crashed into his. Then he used his other hand to twist viciously in her hair causing so much pain it didn’t feel sensuously pleasant, it only felt like pain. Then his mouth slammed down on hers and he kissed her in a way he’d never kissed her before. In a way that Sonia didn’t even know you
could
kiss.

It was violent and merciless and seizing and even cruel.

Therefore, when his head came up and he glanced dismissively at his mother, Sonia didn’t say a word.

“We’ll see you at home,” he growled, his voice rough with all that was in his eyes, all that was carved in his features and every line of his enraged frame.

Then he took Sonia’s hand and dragged her out to his SUV.

Yes,
dragged
.

She even tripped twice trying to keep up with his ground-eating strides and he didn’t even glance at her.

She was buckled in and he was speeding casually through the streets before she realized he hadn’t muttered a word to her.

He hadn’t even said hello.

She was too terrified of him to suggest it or say it to him.

Definitely too terrified to tell him she wasn’t going to Scotland.

He took her to an airfield, tossed the keys of the SUV to a waiting Saint and dragged her up the steps into an aircraft.

When she got inside she saw to her shock it was a personal jet. There was a set of four, wide, comfortable seats upholstered in rich, tan leather facing each other over a gleaming wood topped table, four more seats in the back, two on each side of a door. There was a bar and refrigerator on the wall opposite the jet’s door, the bar also made of highly-shined wood where glasses and bottles were in snug, secured shelves. There was a television screen on the wall behind the cockpit. And there was a long, wide, deep-seated couch running the opposite side to the seating area and bar.

Callum turned to her and commanded tersely, “Strap in.”

Looking into his forbidding, hostile eyes, without a peep, Sonia did as she was told. She chose a seat at the back by the window and buckled in.

He stuck his head into the cockpit and said one word, “Go.”

Then he strapped himself in beside Sonia.

She tried to get her heart to stop beating so crazily. She tried to find one thread of courage. She tried to catch a single thought.

She failed at all of these things in the face of this new, fearsome Callum.

When they leveled off in the air, again without saying a word to her, he unbuckled her, picked her up and carried her to the couch.

Sonia tensed as Callum all but tossed her on it then came down on top of her.

With most of his body pinning her between him and the back of the couch, he tucked her face in his neck and, within moments, the tightness left his body, his enormous weight settled into her and he fell fast asleep.

She was shocked at this, shocked silent and still for long minutes.

Then the shock wore off and she realized she was not comfortable nor was she tired, primarily because she was scared out of her mind. But anytime she tried to shift out from under him, his arm tightened reflexively, pulling her further underneath him.

So Sonia gave up and lay mostly under him, trying to get comfortable, sometimes dozing (as he slept for nine hours straight without moving a muscle) but most of the time deciding that she couldn’t live this life.

No matter how good they were, she couldn’t live for the times when Callum remembered she existed and at least attempted to be the mate he didn’t want to be but it was his duty to be as king. She couldn’t rail against the times when he forgot to do that and was just king.

She couldn’t bear this for a lifetime.

She knew she couldn’t leave but she also couldn’t live like this.

She’d been right all those weeks ago. Living like this would drive her mad.

Before she came to a single conclusion and thus before she made that first plan, Callum woke.

It was moments before the captain announced over the intercom that they would shortly be landing and they needed to take their seats and fasten their seatbelts.

Callum used the restroom at the back as did she, finding it wasn’t a restroom but a full on bathroom, four times the space as in a regular airplane’s. It even had a shower.

When she came out, his arm extended to her, he pulled her into his lap and kissed her, this time slowly, lingeringly, reminding her how good it could be and how much she missed it.

Her heart lurched as her belly tightened but her mind fought against the sweetness of it even as her body rebelled and relaxed into his.

Then he nuzzled her neck, flicking her ear with his nose and he whispered, “Buckle in, baby doll. We’re almost home.”

She did as she was told, the frightening Callum still fresh in her mind even though his voice was no longer harsh, his eyes were no longer hungry or enraged and his warm tone indicated an extreme sense of relief.

When they alighted from the plane, one, tall, dark-haired man was standing beside a hunter green Range Rover that Callum, holding her hand, guided her to immediately.

The man was looking at Sonia curiously but he did not drop to a knee.

He bowed his head deeply to her and to Callum before he lifted his head and, to Sonia, he murmured reverently, his Scottish burr evident even though he spoke two words, “My queen.” When she nodded and gave him a tremulous smile, he grinned at Callum and said, “She’s pretty, your grace.”

“Yes, she is, Drogan,” Callum answered as the man threw Callum a set of keys which Callum caught.

“Good to have you back,” Drogan called as Callum practically pushed Sonia into the left side passenger seat.

“It’s fucking good to be back,” Callum answered, slamming Sonia’s door without bothering to introduce her to Drogan.

“Hail victory, my king,” Drogan went on, his voice was soft but it was also filled with pride and relief.

“Hail victory,” Callum repeated, his voice was threaded with a vein of steel.

Callum drove them through the darkening afternoon of a wooded countryside just as swiftly as he drove them to the airfield hours before.

She wanted to ask him to slow down. She was too numb to speak.

He didn’t bother.

However, finally he said, “There she is.”

Sonia turned her head from her silent, angry, fearful contemplation of the countryside whizzing by on her left to look straight ahead.

On a small rise sat a castle.

In the waning light she saw it. Not exactly large and also not like any castle she’d ever seen in the times Gregor had taken her to France and Germany.