Callista noticed Sonia’s blush and she teased, “Mara, you forget our dainty queen is a respectable human. They don’t talk over coffee about all the best ways to fight back a chill.”
“Maybe not but I’m going to have words with Drogan. It’s been ages since he’s been able to go all night fighting back the chill.”
Callista and Mara burst into hysterical laughter and Callum glanced down to see Sonia, not in the least offended, smiling at them.
She must have felt his eyes for she tipped her head back to look at him and announced cheerfully, “Mara and Callie think I’m a prude.”
“You are a prude, Sonny!” Mara shrieked and then her gaze moved to Callum. “Still, after all this time, no one knows her claiming story! It should be illegal.”
“I agree,” Callista nodded mock soberly, “illegal.”
Sonia calmly grabbed her coffee cup, brought it to her mouth and mumbled into it, “Lucky for me, my husband’s king.”
That was when Callum burst out laughing, curling his wife into his front. She dropped her mug and tipped her head back to grin at him.
“Find me when you’re done here, wife,” he ordered quietly, his hand tensing on her shoulder on the word “wife”.
Her eyes flashed briefly and she nodded. He touched his mouth to hers and, with another nod to Mara and Callista, he left the room and went to his study.
Sitting at his desk, trying to focus his mind on the hundreds of matters that should be taking his attention, chiefly the victory celebration that was taking place tomorrow, he found his task impossible.
His eyes slid to the window and he saw for once the sun shining bright upon the snow.
He turned his chair to face the view and his gaze became as distracted as his mind as he looked at the over-bright vista but didn’t see it.
The last week and a half had been a revelation.
Ryon was correct. Female humans needed communication and giving it to Sonia had made the world of difference. Not knowing her hardly at all before claiming her, he’d not known how much she was holding onto in that head of hers.
And thus holding back.
Now he knew.
Fucking hell, but he knew.
She was like an all new Sonia and if he thought the old Sonia was perfect, he’d been wrong.
This Sonia, sitting in her robe with her hair pulled back in her kitchen with her new friends, having a laugh, getting him coffee, muttering jokes in her dry humor and leaning into him was fucking perfect.
And this all worked exceptionally well for Callum. In fact, he couldn’t have been fucking happier.
His mate was meant to be there for him to talk to, to work out his frustrations with and he’d found, since he’d never done it with another female, human or she-wolf, it was an extraordinary release.
Telling Sonia about Desdemona, about the letters he had to write, the order he had to give, all the while feeling her soft body against his as they lay in their bed, it was like being liberated from a mental prison. He could and did talk to Ryon and his brothers but nothing was like Sonia’s face gentling and her body melting into his as he let that shit go. Nothing. He’d never experienced anything like it. It was beautiful.
But, with Sonia, it was more.
Nearly three weeks ago, Ryon had asked how lucky he could get and Callum had thought he was lucky then with the mate destiny had chosen for him.
Now he couldn’t fathom the depths of his fortune.
* * * * *
It started the day after their fight, after she’d had her breakfast and he’d given her the injection. He took her back to his study and sat her on his lap as he bent to the task of writing more letters.
She sat quietly for a short while then she started to arrange things on his desk. Then more things. Then she slid off his lap and started tidying in earnest.
He allowed this. Mainly because his mind was on other matters but also because he’d noticed she was very organized and if she wanted to organize his desk, he’d let her.
Callum, he found out too late, should have paid attention. Though, in the end, he was glad he didn’t.
“What’s this?” she asked and he looked up to see her head tilted to the side and she’d flipped a piece of paper to face him.
Callum’s gaze dropped to the paper.
It was the report that Caleb had sent him with the list of the names of the fallen warriors, their next of kin and the kin’s address. About a third of the way down the list had tick marks, letters he’d already written.
“Those are the fallen, honey,” he explained softly.
Her brows drew together in confusion and she started, “The fall–?”
Realization dawned, her face paled and her hand pressed the list to her chest. He stood as she flipped the list around and he saw her eyes scanning it. She stepped back when he stepped forward, not raising her head to look at him when she did.
Callum stopped.
“I know him,” she whispered and flipped the list back to Callum. Peering over it, she pointed to a name then her head snapped back and her eyes caught his. “I met him at the mansion. We talked a couple of times. He was very sweet to me.”
There was more than one name of one wolf she talked to a couple of times at the mansion on that list. Which meant, from the troubled expression clear to read on her face, Callum had to get it away from her.
He held his hand out and ordered, “Baby doll, give me the list.”
She defied him and took another step back, shaking her head and she looked at the list again.
He started moving toward her but she kept moving back, her eyes scanning.
“Sonia –”
He stopped speaking and moving when she halted and gasped. Her head snapped back again, this time the movement sharper, her eyes were wide, her face ashen.
“Honey –” he began but she cut him off and when she did her voice was trembling.
“Tell me there are two of your men named Waring.”
Fuck!
He moved faster but she retreated just as fast, skittering across the room, her gaze locked to his all the while begging, “Tell me, Callum. Tell me that’s a common name for your people.”
It was rare his people’s names were common. Since wolves didn’t have last names, their parents often had to get creative. At the very least, they carried a name that no one in their town or village shared.
Callum had lived over three hundred years and he’d never met another wolf named Waring.
Except the one Sonia knew.
She ran into the wall but lifted her arm, hand out, palm up, to ward him off.
“Tell me, Callum.”
He ignored her arm and her palm hit his chest as he got close and framed her face with his hands.
Then, trying to be gentle with her, he whispered, “I can’t, little one.”
She closed her eyes tight and turned her head away.
She didn’t open her eyes when she whispered back, “He saved my life.”
He did. But Waring did more than that.
“I know,” Callum shared. “He saved mine too.”
Her eyes jerked back to his and Callum saw stark terror mixed with her grief.
“What?” she breathed.
He swiftly debated the merits of telling her the story but her hands came up to his at her face and her fingers curled tightly around them, fisting the paper in her hand as she did so.
Then she demanded loudly, “What?”
Callum sighed then quickly he explained, “I’d been targeted. I was defending myself against six attackers, maybe more. Waring drew several of them away, dispatched two but was killed by the third before I could aid him.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed in horror as her fingers tensed.
“Honey, it’s war,” he explained gently.
His gentle explanation had no effect for she repeated, “Oh my God.”
Before he could move to comfort her, she tore violently away from his hands and stepped to
the side.
“Who’s this?” she demanded to know, turning the paper and pointing at the name beside Waring’s.
Cautiously, Callum answered, “That’s his mother.”
“Right,” Sonia snapped and walked stiffly to his desk, sat herself in his chair and rolled herself forward.
Callum watched as she grabbed a piece of paper embossed with his crest at the top and started writing.
Silently, he walked to stand beside her and looked down to watch as she wrote:
Dear Michaela,
By now, you’ve likely heard of me. I’m Sonia, queen to Callum and I knew your son.
In the few weeks I’d known him, he did several kindnesses for me, two very important. One of those saved the life of my mate.
He also made me laugh.
There is nothing I can write in this letter which will help you during this time of sorrow. But I hope it gives you some small measure of comfort to know that there are two beings very grateful for the fact that they shared this glorious planet with your son, even if it was for a short time.
Please know you and your family are in my and Callum’s thoughts.
Forever indebted to your handsome, brave, fun-loving son, Waring,
-Sonia
Once she’d finished writing her extraordinary letter, writing it without hesitation or difficulty, she folded it, dug through his desk until she found an envelope, inserted the letter, sealed it and handwrote the address.
Then her head tipped back to look up at him. Callum saw the trail of wetness on her cheeks and the tears still shining in her eyes.
All right, it was abundantly clear she didn’t write it without difficulty.
“Okay, Callum,” she said in a trembling voice, picking up the report filled with names of dead soldiers and shaking it at him. “Who’s next?”
At first, Callum didn’t move.
There weren’t many times in his long life that Callum, king of the wolves, was uncertain what to do but in the face of his queen’s profound but poised compassion, that was one of them.
So he did what his instincts told him to do. He leaned down to his mate, curled his fingers around her neck and he marked her hair with his temple. Then he kissed her softly on her lips.
Then he pulled her out of his chair, sat in it, tugged her gently into his lap and, together, they wrote letters to the kin of the fallen. Callum writing the letters, Sonia, sitting in his lap, addressing them, ticking off the names and writing personal notes to the next of kin of the few wolves she knew, however briefly.
Her assistance made it a less difficult task, if not a less wretched one.
And, in that day and age of phones and e-mail, news of her notes, especially those received quickly by the kin of his Royal Guard who lived in the village (including Waring’s mother), spread widely and it spread rapidly.
Just like he expected but much more swiftly, in fact, before most of his people even met their queen, they fell in love with her.
* * * * *
The new Sonia continued to emerge when, three nights later in their bedroom, the firelight dancing on her skin, her face tucked into his neck, her body straddling his, their physical connection still held but their breath having recovered from their orgasms, she lifted up with her forearms on his chest.
Her eyes moved over his face before they caught his and she asked, somewhat timidly and even with a hint of embarrassment, “What’s your last name?”
He was surprised at her question but he shouldn’t have been. Most immortals, including vampires (although Gregor and Yuri had adopted one and they did it for her) didn’t have surnames. But humans, of course, did.
“My people don’t carry surnames,” he informed her.
She looked surprised for a moment as she whispered, “Oh,” and her gaze drifted away as she went on, “This is a problem.”
His arms about her gave her a squeeze, bringing her attention back to him before he queried, “Why?”
“Well, in my world, we do have surnames,” she told him. “People will expect you to have one and they’ll expect me to take it or explain that I didn’t.” She sighed and finished, “Which I guess is what I’ll have to do.”
There was one thing he liked about the human’s mating ritual, the female accepting the male’s name. Callum liked this not because it denoted possession but because it signified the birth of a single unit, a family.
He found at that moment to his further surprise he wished he had a name to give her.
It was with delight when he heard that Sonia had an even better idea.
“Mara told me your father’s full name was McDonagh,” she remarked.
“It was,” Callum confirmed.
“Well,” she started, her gaze drifting away and her manner again became tentative before she looked back to him. “That’s a last name for my people.”
“I know,” he replied.
“Well,” she went on after giving a brief nod, “I thought…” she hesitated then forged ahead, “if you don’t mind, and, um, if Regan doesn’t, maybe, when we’re in my world, I can tell people my new name is Sonia Arlington-McDonagh.”
At her quiet, faltering words, he had the same exact reaction he had when she gave him his ring. Something shifted inside him, so big it was as if the bed moved. His gut and chest tightened and all he could think of was her being known by the name of Sonia Arlington-McDonagh.
She stared at him and her face grew worried before she whispered, “I don’t have to –”
But he cut her off by rolling her to her back so he was pinning her to the bed, his hips snug between her legs, his cock still inside her and hardening again as his mouth took hers in a hungry kiss.
When he lifted his head, both their breath was coming faster.
His eyes locked on hers and he decreed, “You’ll be known by that amongst my people as well.”
Then he started moving slowly inside her and, automatically, her hips moved with his.
One of her hands glided up his back as her other one came to rest at the side of his face before she said softly, “I take it you like that idea.”
He stopped moving, slowly pulled out and surged back in, burying himself to the hilt before he growled against her mouth, “Yes, I fucking like it.”
At his surge, her arm had clasped around him, her knees had come up to press against his sides and the fingers of her other hand had slid into his hair.
But she grinned against his lips.
At her reaction, his hips started to move faster.
Her lips went to his ear and, beginning to pant, she breathed, “Mara also told me you’re known as ‘The Wolf’.”
His body stilled and at his reaction her head fell back to the pillows so she could gaze at him curiously.
“Sorry?” he asked, a different feeling seizing him.
He’d planned carefully with Regan and Ryon as advisors as to when to share the information with Sonia that his people were werewolves. Her reaction could be anything and Callum wanted to control it.
Werewolves were fantasy creatures to humans and not good ones. Vicious, murdering and abhorrent, something to be frightened of, the villain in a horror story.
Back in the day when wolves were less careful about who witnessed the transformation, humans had sometimes seen it. And, being humans, instead of trying to understand it, they feared it.
And hunted it.
Which was one of the reasons the rebellion they’d been fighting for millennia had remained so staunch in their beliefs that humans should be enslaved.
Sonia might fear what his people could do and unless he took the time to allow her to experience the fact that wolves were friendly, good-humored and kind, there was little doubt she would.
He also wanted their bond to strengthen. He felt confidence in their connection but this would be a shock. Callum wanted her life thoroughly entwined with his in a way she couldn’t imagine it without him, no matter what secrets and how great they were that he may hold.
>
Regan and Ryon had agreed to his plan and it was even Ryon’s suggestion to keep this knowledge from Sonia until she was securely inserted into their fold.
However, after their blowout, Callum had concerns about this plan.
Sonia seemed to prefer to understand what was happening to and around her. The longer he waited, the less it felt he was protecting her, the more it felt like a lie.
So much so, he’d begun to feel something he’d never experienced before. A twinge of something unpleasant. Almost as if he feared she’d discover his secret and consider his keeping it from her a betrayal.
Werewolves were half man. They weren’t immune to fucking up, say taking to too much gaming or drink. Though wolves never strayed. Infidelity to your mate was unheard of. Before you found your mate, finding play partners (and numerous of them) for both males and females was the norm. After you found your mate, never. Callum had known many a wolf to succumb to the weaknesses of drink and gambling and, in so doing, betray their mate through deceits. And, with a she-wolf, it was never pretty and it was often the female would never get over it.
Living an eternity paying for a betrayal was a daunting prospect.
Living an eternity expecting another one, he reckoned, would be far worse.
Callum didn’t want anything to mar the perfection of what he had with Sonia.
And he didn’t want her to think he’d betrayed her, not for an instant but especially not for the short time that represented her eternity.
He didn’t want this so much he actually thought that unpleasant feeling was that he feared it and fear was not something that he’d experienced before.
Further, he didn’t fucking like how it felt.
“Mara told me you’re known as ‘The Wolf’,” she repeated quietly, watching him closely.
“Honey –” he started.
She interrupted with, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I –” he began again but she lifted her mouth and pressed it to his at the same time she tilted her hips and he slid in deeper. Both felt so good, his word ended in a growl.
“I like wolves,” she whispered against his mouth and her hand put pressure in his hair. Her head tilted slightly to invite his kiss and her eyes turned hungry before she finished, “I like them a lot.”
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