With Everything I Am (46 page)

That was Sonia’s.

Something came over her. Something she’d never felt in her life. Something she didn’t understand, for a moment.

Then she realized it was fury. It was a fury so mammoth, she could think of nothing else but it.

She looked up at Callum not noticing the air in the room had gone dense as all of its inhabitants sensed her rage.

“I need a word,” she declared before yanking out of his arm and practically running to their bedroom.

In the seconds before Callum followed her in and shut the door, Sonia realized that the time had
come
.

She was going to do this.

Now.

She lifted her hand out, palm up and demanded, “Give me my ring.”

Callum was watching her carefully, arms crossed on his chest as he asked, “Sorry?”

She wriggled her fingers. “My ring. Give it to me.”

He wasn’t watching her carefully anymore. He realized what she was talking about and his jaw clenched.

Then he asked, “Why?”

“It doesn’t mean anything to you. And, when I bought it, I wasn’t certain it meant anything to me.” She watched the muscle leap warningly in his jaw at these words but she was too enraged to care. “But then it did. It meant something. And it isn’t right, if it means something to the giver, for the receiver to wear it if it means nothing to them.”

He paused for a moment before he spoke.

Then he said in a tone that was as much of a threat as the muscle jerking in his jaw, “Can I ask why in
the fuck
you think it means nothing to me?”

Sonia ignored his tone too.

She dropped her hand and snapped, “It doesn’t matter
how
I know, I just
know
. Now give me
my ring!
”

She watched his body grow taut before he stated, “You’ve got about two seconds, baby doll, to tell me what the fuck you’re on about.”

Something broke inside her and the pain was excruciating.

Because of that she leaned forward and hissed, “Don’t call me baby doll.”

And the second the words were out of her mouth, she saw it, clear as if she was an inch away.

His eyes instantly turned golden.

And he started toward her.

Sonia was alert enough to retreat.

“Two seconds are up,” he growled as he stalked her.

She was still throwing caution to the wind in the frightening face of his mirrored fury. She might have been alert enough to retreat but she was definitely not going to back down.

“I didn’t know your kind existed,” she threw at him. “But you knew about humans. You knew what wedding rings were.”

“And?” he clipped.

She stopped retreating, braced and shouted, “So I had an excuse when I started to take off my claiming chain! I didn’t know what it was!” She jabbed her finger at him as he stilled his progress and stared at her. “But
you
knew what a wedding ring was and you
took it off just the same!
”

His head jerked slightly, his face cleared of his fury and he murmured, “Honey.”

“Don’t call me that either,” Sonia snapped. “This charade is over. You don’t like blondes? Great. Fine. Whatever. Consider your duty served, Callum. In public, if your people want me, I’ll be their queen. My parents wanted that. It’s my destiny. Even
I
feel it, though I don’t want to. But in private, it’s over. I’m done. If you aren’t okay with that, that’s good too. I’ll just go home.”

Sonia thought that was pretty good. However, when she focused on Callum and not what she was saying she saw he was grinning.

Yes,
grinning
.

He was
such
an arrogant bastard!

Then he asked calmly, “What makes you say I don’t like blondes?”

Sonia gaped at him.

Was he mad?

“That crazy woman said it before you sequestered her!” Sonia cried.

He started toward her again, not stalking in the same way but definitely still stalking.

“Baby doll,” he said with humor threading his tone, “She’s crazy.”

Sonia started retreating again in exactly the same way as before.

“Do you like blondes?” she queried with a bite in her tone.

“No,” he replied honestly. Her shoulders hit tapestry and she was forced to halt at the same time she gasped at his effrontery before he finished, “Or, I should say, not until recently.”

He got close and she tried, quickly, to move to the side to escape him.

This failed.

With no effort at all, his arm shot out, hooked around her waist and he pulled her in front of him, took a step forward and she was back against the tapestries, pinned there by his tall frame.

Sonia decided she’d fight her way out of it. Not physically, she wasn’t stupid or, at least, not
that
stupid.

Verbally.

“You sequestered her,” Sonia accused.

“I did,” he replied, gazing down at her patiently, one arm around her, the other hand coming up to curl around her neck.

Sonia tried to yank her neck away.

This failed too.

She quit trying and went on, “That was cruel.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Sequestering Mona?”

“No,” she shot back. “
Everything
you did to Mona.”

“Sonia, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She opened her mouth to speak but his hand at her neck moved to her jaw and his thumb pressed against her lips. “But if you’d calm down a second, I’ll explain.”

She jerked her face from his hand and then snapped, “I don’t want an explanation. You’re right, I don’t know what sequestered means. But I know you humiliated her in front of a room full of men. Then you forced her to go somewhere she didn’t want to go and she barely got a word in edgewise. There
is
no explanation for that.”

Callum watched her speak with curiosity then he muttered, “Bloody hell, Ryon was right. Baby doll, have you been holding onto this for a whole fucking
month?
”

“Has it only been a month?” Sonia retorted sarcastically. “It’s felt like
years.
”

He studied her a moment still with that strange curiosity then he remarked musingly, “I thought this would be annoying but it isn’t. You’re pretty all the time, little one, but you’re spectacular when you’re pissed off.”

Sonia growled and shoved at the massive wall of his chest.

He rocked back a few inches but recovered quickly and returned to his previous position.

“All right, Sonia, you obviously need to talk, we’ll talk,” he offered but it looked like he was fighting a smile. “Tell me what’s on your mind.
All
of it.”

She stared at him in astonishment.

He was enjoying this!

Her vision covered with a film of red.

She’d never been so incensed and she didn’t care that he could snap her like a twig. She shoved him again, harder this time, but he just rocked back and then came forward yet again.

So she went back to her earlier strategy.

“I don’t want to talk!” she yelled in his face, “There’s nothing you can say about how you treated Mona. About me being here without you even asking me if I wanted to move, wanted to leave my business, my friends, my
home
. There’s nothing you can say about coming back from… wherever, whisking me away,
just like that
, without even saying
hello!
There’s nothing you can say about me not having any of
my
clothes here, about you taking over everything, every move I make, everything I wear, everything I
eat
. There’s nothing you can say to explain all… things…
you!
”

He was still fighting a smile when he commented, “There’s a lot there, baby doll.”

“
Stop calling me baby doll!
” she shrieked.

She barely got out the word “doll” when he bent, put a shoulder to her belly and hefted her up. She kicked out her legs and beat at his back with her fists but he didn’t notice or didn’t care. He strode nonchalantly to the bed and tossed her on it.

Sonia instantly rolled, got up on all fours and started crawling but his hands seized her ankles and he pulled her knees out from under her, dragging her across the bed and rolling her to her back.

She growled and went at him.

In no time at all, he was on top of her and had her wrists pinned over her head.

“We’ll play later, Sonia,” he informed her, his face suddenly serious but it was studiously so, as if he was being serious for her benefit but still found the situation amusing. “Now we’re going to talk.”

Sonia gaped at him, mouth open and everything.

He thought she wanted to play?

He
was
mad.

“We’ll start with Desdemona,” he announced and she bucked under him but his hands tightened on her wrists and he gave her a warning shake before he demanded, “Pay attention.”

She stilled and glared at him.

“There’s a lot of history with Mona I won’t get into,” he started to explain.

“I gathered that,” Sonia snapped acidly.

He watched her still obviously trying to fight back his humor. “You’ve got nothing to be jealous of, little one.”

“
I’m not jealous!
” she screeched.

He shook his head, ignored her screech and continued, “Being sequestered is not a bad thing. Your people do it as well when someone is not right and they need help. Mona, as you could tell, is not right.”

“She just has a thing for you,” Sonia retorted.

“Yes, she does but it’s more than that,” he returned smoothly. “She’s in a far better place than she deserves to be. For what she did, or, more to the point
didn’t
do, she should have been punished. Instead she’s amongst people who will try to help her sort out her head.”

Sonia’s eyes narrowed on him and she asked scornfully, “She should have been punished just because she’s got the hots for you?”

His painstakingly serious expression changed to genuinely serious.

In fact, deadly serious. So deadly, one look at it made Sonia hold her breath.

“No, Sonia,” he stated slowly. “She should have been punished for what her inattention to her responsibilities caused. She should have been punished because what she
didn’t
do meant hundreds of warriors died.
Hundreds
on both sides. She should have been punished because what she didn’t do means I’ve spent the last three days writing letters to mates and mothers explaining that their lovers and sons died brave. Died honorably. Even though every word is
fucking
futile
because
nothing
I say will ease their anguish.”

At his words, and the depth of feeling with which he spoke them, the fight left Sonia. She felt her body relaxing under his as she felt her heart slide into her throat and tears start to prick the backs of her eyes.

He’d been writing a lot. She saw him doing it.

Callum had been handwriting letters to grieving mates and mothers.

She couldn’t imagine writing hundreds of letters like that. She wouldn’t know what to say. The task was so atrocious she couldn’t ever imagine having the strength to bear it.

But Callum did. He did it at the same time he grinned at her or took her to the village or walked with her through the snow, never once letting on that this heavy weight was bearing on his broad shoulders.

For the first time since she met him the burden of his responsibility as king to his people struck her and it felt like she’d been seared by lightning.

It came out of her mouth before she could stop it. It came out softly, gently, even lovingly as the tears welled in her eyes and slid out the sides.

“My handsome wolf.”

The instant she whispered those three words, his hands released her wrists and his forehead dropped to hers.

Freed, her arms wrapped around him tight.

He rolled to his side, taking her with him and curling his arms around her to hold her close.

She realized then she was another one of his burdens. A mate he didn’t exactly want but he had all the same and it was his duty to do right by her.

And he was attempting to do his duty, not only to his people but to her. His moments of kingliness were a part of him, ingrained. It was who he was.

The rest of it, his tenderness and humor, was him doing the best he could with a difficult situation.

Her destiny had brought her to him to be his queen,
his people’s
queen and she had a duty as well, to him, to his people. It was an awesome responsibility but it was also an honor no one but
no one
of her kind would have.

But Sonia had been chosen and she’d been acting like a selfish idiot, thinking of her lost dream instead of doing her duty
to him
.

No man, not even someone as strong and charismatic as Callum, should face such a burden alone. It was her duty, her
destiny
, to stand by his side and provide what she could to help him see it through.

Still weeping silently, she tipped her head back to look at him.

“Callum –”

He looked down at her and started talking at the same time, “Your place is beside me, Sonia, wherever I go. I’ll take you to visit your friends as often as we can but you belong at my side. After what happened with the rebellion, I needed to be home and I needed you with me.”

“Callum –” she repeated.

He kept going. “You can’t wear your fancy clothes and high-heeled shoes here. It’s cold and it snows,
a lot
. It’s my duty to take care of you and I did, by getting you what you needed to live your life at my side.” Then he muttered with irritation, “Christ, you’re the only woman I know who doesn’t like new clothes.”

She wanted to kick herself at throwing his generosity in his face but instead attempted yet again to interject, “Callum –”

He kept right on talking just as, visibly, his irritation grew. “Your life is too short to worry about calories, fuck, it’s too damned short to worry about
anything
. You have a beautiful body and it’ll be even more beautiful when there’s more of it. But you have to learn, little one, to
enjoy
your life and not waste it on ridiculous things like counting calories and making certain you’ve taken every last vitamin.”