With Everything I Am (4 page)

She didn’t need him to touch her, kiss her, anything.

He just needed to be near and she was ready for him.

“What do you want?” his voice rumbled, his hips pressing. She could feel the promise of him and she could… not…
wait
.

“You, inside me,” she answered.

“Just like that?” he teased.

“You’ve been gone a while,” she told him and arched her back. “I missed you.”

She watched close up as his face gentled before he murmured, “Baby doll.”

She loved it when he referred to her as “little one” because, at five foot nine (and three quarters) she was far from little.

But she loved it even better when he called her “baby doll”.

She pressed her lips against his, tightened her limbs around his body, lifted her hips into his, dug her nails into the muscles of his back and begged, “Please, my handsome wolf, fuck –”

She didn’t finish, his hips reared back, her breath caught in thrilling anticipation and she waited for his invasion.

* * * * *

Sonia’s eyes opened.

“Damn!” she snapped softly into the night.

Always, right before the
good
stuff happened, she’d wake up.

And always, when she woke up, she was hot and bothered.

Immensely so.

Frustratingly so.

Unless she did something about it, which she always did.

She turned to her nightstand, took out her toy, touched the button and slid it between her legs.

Her neck arched, her body tightened and not long later, her mind filled with visions of her handsome wolf, she made herself come.

It was nowhere near as good as her dream even as frustratingly short as her dream always was.

But it was all she was going to get.

Her “puppy” was dead and her “handsome wolf” didn’t exist in the real world (alas) so her toy was all she had.

For some reason that night this upset her more than it usually did.

She put her toy away, got out of bed and padded to her window seat to look out into the dark.

“I need a dog,” she told the window.

And she did. She’d always wanted one, even as a child. Her father had actually bought her one that last Christmas and he and her mother were on their way to pick it up when they got into the accident. But after they’d been killed, Gregor, not wanting the animal in his home, had given the dog away.

A dog wouldn’t think she was weird because she could see better, hear better, smell better and sense things. A dog wouldn’t care just as long as she fed it, pet it and threw a Frisbee for it.

“That’s it,” she told the window, “I’m getting a –”

She stopped, her body froze but her head jerked around to look toward the door.

Someone was in her house.

She jumped up and ran to the bedside table, yanking her phone from its cradle.

She’d pressed the nine and the one before they were on her.

This stunned her.

When she’d sensed them, they’d only just breached the door and her alarm didn’t go off. She knew no one who could move that fast and that silently while at the same time disabling an alarm.

One hand at her mouth and one arm around her waist, she was swung around, her legs flying wide and she dropped the phone.

Instinctively, her fingers formed a claw and she scratched the arm holding her waist. She felt her long, strong nails (she religiously took a cocktail of vitamins every morning and this gave her shining hair and fast-growing, strong nails, that, in that particular moment, she was deliriously happy for) digging in deep.

She heard his inhuman howl and she was tossed away with such force she flew across the room, literally right through the air, and slammed into the wall.

She fell to the floor and didn’t hesitate. She surged up already on the run.

She was tagged within seconds. Her wrist caught, she was whirled sharply, the tug at her arm causing her to feel an acute, intense pain up her arm and along her shoulder. She had no time to cry out, her arm was wrapped around her front, her other wrist caught and pulled forward as well. Her attacker, she noted distractedly, was huge and had enormous hands, holding both wrists tight at her front with little effort while his other hand went to cover her mouth.

His lips came to her ear.

“Play nice, queenie,” he ordered.

“Jesus, fucking, God, she’s a goddamn wildcat,” the other swore from behind them.

Their smell hit Sonia then.

She’d smelled them before.

They’d tracked her before. They were the menacing ones.

But they’d always kept a distance. Now, obviously, there was nothing distant about them and this made terror slice through her.

He held her easily. His strength was hard to miss. She was kicking out with her heels, connecting with his shins and he didn’t even so much as grunt.

He could snap her neck in an instant, she knew it. How she knew it, she couldn’t say, she just did.

Still, she fought his hold and only stopped when she noticed what he was doing.

Her body went solid.

He was sniffing her.

Sniffing her.

She held her breath.

“Fuck, do you fucking smell her?” he asked against her neck, his arms tightening painfully.

She felt his comrade get close but she heard him pull in breath through his nose.

Then his friend muttered, “Jesus.”

“You touch yourself tonight, queenie?” her captor asked, his voice a leer.

Her body jerked with surprise.

Oh my God
, she thought hysterically,
they’re like me.

“Sure she did.” The other got close, bending from his enormous height to peer in her face. “She doesn’t smell like that normally. I would have noticed.”

For some strange reason, her captor was rubbing his temple against her neck, her jaw, her cheek. “Christ, I’m getting hard.”

“What do you think?” his friend asked, getting closer, his voice dropping, becoming ugly with greed. “Will we get medals, promotions, or both, we do her before the king can claim her?”

Sonia’s body locked tight as fear froze every muscle.

“Both,” her captor muttered, his hand moving from her mouth, down her neck, her chest, his aim unmistakable as he continued, “Me first.”

She opened her mouth to scream. Her captor’s friend’s hand shot toward her face and she gave an almighty heave to get loose when they heard the thundering, unbelievably terrifying howl.

Everyone froze but Sonia’s eyes shot to the door.

The man from her dream stood there.

She gasped.

Then he moved, dropped down and crouched low on both legs and not even a second passed before he surged up…

And the man was gone but, suddenly – she could not believe her eyes –
her
wolf
, alive and snarling, was flying across the room.

He landed on her captor’s colleague who went down with a wounded yelp.

Sonia, thinking vaguely that her fear was making her hallucinate, got one chance to look and saw a spray of blood spurting across the room before she was tossed again.

She flew through the air and fell down, the back of her head slamming against the corner of her bedside table. She felt a brief moment of pain and she heard a vicious snarl at the same time she could have sworn she heard the tearing of flesh.

Then everything went black.

Chapter Two

The Throne

Ryon walked into the throne room of the Territorial Mansion and he felt his jaw grow tight.

Desdemona sat on the throne on the dais, her dark, gleaming hair around her shoulders, her face fully made up, an honor guard of twelve flanking the back of the throne and down the steps of the dais.

She, at least, was smart enough to know if she wanted to try something it would take at least thirteen of them to bring him low.

However, she wasn’t smart enough not to appear unaware of their surprise visit.

Or there was the distinct possibility she was still panting for the opportunity to see Callum and she’d hastily thrown this circus together for his benefit.

Fuck, Ryon had called her only a half an hour before and she’d managed to pull together this show.

Stupid bitch.

He barely got two steps in the room before the entire guard dropped to a knee, fell forward on a hand and gazed at him, heads up.

Much more slowly, Desdemona gracefully alighted from the chair and she took her time moving a step to her left before she fell into the same ceremonial bow.

Ryon hadn’t seen her in years and she hadn’t changed. Haughty because of her high birth, conceited because of her extreme beauty and stupid because she just plain was.

She was lucky it was Ryon moving toward her. If Callum had seen that demonstration, he’d have her head and deserve it.

He might have it anyway and deserve it more.

Desdemona, daughter of Titium and Governor of the Western Territories of the Americas was about to learn that King Callum was not, at all, like the patient, generous, benevolent King McDonagh was.

Without a word, he walked up the steps of the dais, sat in the throne and muttered, “Rise.”

The guard and Desdemona took their feet.

She stepped down two steps and turned to him.

“Ryon,” she greeted familiarly and with anyone else but her, because he didn’t like her
and
with what was happening in her territory, Ryon
might
have allowed it.

Instead, he sensed the eyes of the guard, he’d never liked Mona and he
knew
the state of her territory therefore he clipped, “You forget yourself, Governor.”

He watched as her face grew pale, her mouth set hard and her eyes flashed.

Jesus, she was stupid.

He should strike her.

He didn’t. He wanted her brain functioning properly when he had a go at her.

He watched as she bowed her head and murmured, “Your grace.”

He let go her silent rebellion, threw his hand out and commented, “This is impressive. Half an hour ago, you didn’t know of the king’s imminent arrival.”

“We’re ever ready in the Western Territory, your grace,” Desdemona replied.

Bullshit, she knew they were coming.

That was why they’d moved on the queen.

Could the bitch be more stupid?

“Where is he, I mean,” she hesitated before finishing, “the king?”

Ryon surveyed her.

Yes, she could be more stupid. Because there was a chance she didn’t even know about the queen and even as those in her territory conspired to break the treaty, she couldn’t hide her eagerness to see Cal.

She was, quite plainly, gagging for it.

In fact, there was a more than mild possibility she’d orchestrated this fiasco in order to get it.

If she
wasn’t
involved in the conspiracy, this grand show was entirely for Cal.

Jesus, Cal must be a master of his own dick to inspire this kind of devotion. He’d finished the messy business with Desdemona over a hundred years ago and she
still
wasn’t over him.

“He’s collecting his queen,” Ryon answered bluntly, exposing knowledge that had been, for thirty-one years, treated as the most crucially held state secret.

Every last guard pulled in breath and even Desdemona gasped.

All right then, perhaps she didn’t know.

“The queen is in my territory?” she asked, her voice breathy and irate, not even attempting to hide her displeasure. Anyone else would find that knowledge an unreserved honor even if they knew the queen was human.

“Yes,” Ryon replied.

“I don’t believe it,” she whispered.

“Believe it, Mona,” Ryon returned sharply. “And while you’re wrapping your mind around that you better pray he gets to her before the men who were dispatched to kidnap her do.”

Her body jolted and the air in the room got thick.

Finally, the bitch was smart enough to know fear and she definitely knew Cal enough to know that fear was warranted.

She leaned forward and her face was even paler, her eyes betraying her fear but her voice was angry. “No one in my territory would
dream
of moving on the queen.”

“They would and they did. We received word eleven hours ago they were taking her tonight. That’s why we’re here,” Ryon informed her.

“That’s impossible,” she snapped.

Ryon’s head suddenly tilted to the side and he took in a breath through his nose.

Cal was there.

As were his warriors.

He also had his queen with him.

He wouldn’t have her if she hadn’t been under threat.

The mating ceremony wasn’t to commence until a year in the future. Cal was supposed to begin their regular, human courtship in a few weeks at her annual Christmas party. He was to pose as the guest of a neighbor, a wolf who’d been planted in a house across from hers years ago.

This was something Ryon had talked him into doing. Cal wanted just to grab her, as was his due. Ryon, on the other hand, had been reading reports on her as well as watching her himself for thirty-one years.

Sonia Arlington needed to be courted. As a human, she’d expect it.

But being all she was, she deserved it.

It took Ryon a while to talk Cal around most especially since his father’s death Cal had been reading the reports on her as well as getting the pictures. And, because of this, not to mention the simple fact that she
was
his mate, Cal was growing impatient.

Very impatient.

But, apparently, Cal’s hand had been forced and the treaty broken.

This meant war.

Desdemona’s head jerked toward the door. She sensed it too.

“Impossible, Mona?” Ryon asked quietly and he watched as she slowly turned to face him, her throat moving convulsively.

Yes, Mona, you… are… fucked,
Ryon thought as he rose from the throne and stepped to its right side.

The next second, Cal came through the door.

Ryon felt his jaw get tight again upon seeing Sonia, wrapped in a blanket, held unconscious in Cal’s arms.

The guard and Desdemona, without delay, dropped to their knee, forward on their hand but, in the presence of their king, they bowed their heads toward the floor.