“Callum really,” Sonia called his attention to her. “Isn’t that going a little overboard?”
“I just witnessed it,” he retorted. “You experienced it and you can ask me that?”
“But –” she started.
“You’ll not endure that again,” he proclaimed, thinking, as he was king and when he proclaimed something people tended to listen (always), that was the end of it.
This was Sonia so he thought wrong.
“But –” she repeated.
“Little one –” he began.
“Seriously, Callum, it’s not –”
“Sonia,” Callum stated firmly, “we’re not discussing it.”
She glared at him mutinously and she did this for a while.
Then her glare softened and she gazed at him again like she was trying to believe he was real.
Then her eyes changed slowly and, he wasn’t certain because he didn’t fucking well understand it, but it looked in their depths like the light of hope shined.
Finally, she emitted one of her fluttering sighs and relaxed against him.
“All right, wolf,” she whispered quietly, her eyes never leaving his.
At her sweet endearment, he wanted to kiss her.
Hell, he wanted to swipe the remains of breakfast off the table and fuck her until she said it again and again.
As he couldn’t do that for obvious reasons, instead, he told her, “You can be a pain in the ass sometimes, baby doll.”
She pressed her lips together but she still couldn’t hide her smile.
When he looked at the table he noticed immediately that all the wolves were also smiling.
However, both the vampires looked worried and they didn’t hide it.
Callum rose from his seat, lifting Sonia to her feet as he did so.
With his arm around her shoulders he announced, “We’ll be back shortly and resume Christmas.”
Then he and his queen put on their boots and coats and Callum drove his pretty, little wife to the hospital to have her blood drawn.
* * * * *
Sonia in his arms in their bedroom tipped her head back to look up at him.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked.
It was early evening. They’d returned from the hospital. Sonia had helped Regan prepare the enormous Christmas banquet which was all wolf. It consisted of a prime roast of beef cooked rare, sliced potatoes baked in milk, cream, garlic and layered with cheese, thick, meaty gravy, Yorkshire pudding and green beans tossed in butter and bits of crisp bacon. It was finished with Regan’s special trifle which had more custard, more cream, less jam and more cake than any trifle Callum had eaten.
After that, Sonia gave both Gregor and Yuri warm hugs and they left. Then Sonia rounded up Jay, Jed and Jake from down the road. Ryon went to the house across the street where they’d planted Trenten, the warrior who’d looked after Sonia for years. They joined Callum and his brethren who had to alter their play significantly so as not to harm the humans in a game of American football in a local park. While this was happening, Sonia, Regan, Trenten’s mate, Helena, and Jo were part-time cheerleaders but mostly they sat on the sidelines under woolen blankets, sipped hot cocoa from a thermos Regan prepared and chatted.
They’d said good-bye to their neighbors, came home and made sandwiches from the roast beef. Callum gave Sonia her injection and Ryon started to give Callum pointed looks which meant it was time to go.
They had a distance to travel and, at first light, they had war to wage.
Callum had whispered to Sonia he wanted a private word and led her to their room.
“I hate to say it, baby doll, but Christmas is over,” he informed her and the regret could be heard in his voice.
She leaned into him and grinned. “No it isn’t. We have hours left. We can stay awake until past midnight again and watch movies. I have tons of Christmas movies. We can watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Or we can watch A Christmas Story, that’s a funny one. Or we can –”
He cut her off with a squeeze of his arms. “We can’t, honey. The men and I are leaving.”
Her grin died slowly and she blinked in confusion before whispering, “Leaving? But why? It’s Christmas.”
He drew her closer and dipped his face to hers. “We had a great day, little one, but my warriors spent today assembling and preparing for tomorrow’s battle.” She pulled in breath but he kept talking, “I must go meet them.”
“Battle?” she breathed.
“Tomorrow, we quell the rebellion,” Callum told her and she stared at him a second before she closed her eyes tight.
When she opened them again, they were bleak and that look cut him to the bone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t want to spoil your Christmas,” Callum answered.
She watched him again, her face gentling at his words and then took in a shallow breath and let it out on another fluttering sigh.
Then she suggested, “Maybe you should explain what ‘battle’ means.”
“I don’t have time,” he replied and when she opened her mouth he gave her another squeeze and continued, “And you don’t want to know.”
“But I don’t… you can’t… I mean, how can you battle when… I mean, will my people see it?”
He shook his head. “Your people’s government knows it’s coming, when and where. As usual, they’ve prepared.”
Her mouth dropped open in horrified wonder.
His head dropped and he marked her hair with his temple. “It’ll be over soon, baby doll,” he assured her, lips at her ear, hoping at the same time that he was right.
Then he gave her another squeeze, her arms grew tight and she jerked her head away.
“You don’t… you know, as king, you don’t fight.” She paused and stared at him, fear obliterating the desolation in her eyes. “Do you?”
He gentled his voice further when he explained truthfully, “Unlike your generals, in our battles, I would not be a good commander if I didn’t only fight at my warriors’ sides but lead them into battle.”
Her body jolted, the fear now stark on her face and she cried, “But you can’t do that! You might get hurt!”
Her strong reaction pleased him just as much as it hurt him which was to say, for both, immensely.
“Sonia, I must.”
“Have you tried talking to them?” she asked desperately.
He had. Mac had. His grandfather had.
For millennia they’d attempted a diplomatic solution. The rebellion remained staunch in their beliefs.
“We’ve tried that,” he told her.
“But –”
“Sonia, I have to go.”
Her hold grew tighter.
“Baby doll, I have to go.”
She stared at him as tears gathered in her eyes.
The first time witnessing his mate’s utter despair at the thought of him entering battle, unable to stop himself, Callum bent his neck and kissed her, thoroughly and long enough to taste her tears yet again.
He enjoyed everything that was her but if he never tasted her tears again for the length of her short life, he’d be able to live his long one much more contentedly.
When he lifted his head she lifted a hand, slid her fingers into his hair and then watched as her thumb slid along his eyebrow, his cheekbone then his lower lip.
“At least tell me you’re a good… um, warrior,” she whispered and he grinned.
“The best,” he told her truthfully. “That’s why I’m king.”
At his words, she gave him a sad smile then got up on her toes to place her lips against his.
“Come back to me safe, my handsome wolf,” she murmured there.
He wanted to kiss her then but he couldn’t. If he did, with her so sweet in his arms, he wouldn’t have been able to stop.
Instead, he touched his forehead to hers, gave her another squeeze, let her go and walked out of the room without looking back.
Outside by his SUV, he embraced his mother, took off the wedding band Sonia had given him and handed it to her.
“Keep that safe,” he growled so low even Sonia, standing at the window upstairs, tears falling from her eyes and watching him, didn’t hear. “I’ll want it back the instant I come home.”
Regan nodded.
He swung in his SUV and, for the first time in his life before a battle, his mind wasn’t on the coming fight.
It was on his queen.
Little did he know her mind was on him as well.
And she cried long after he was gone. Long into the lonely night, in her lonely bed, in her lonely room, in her lonely house that even the company of the twinkling lights on her tree and her stuffed wolf couldn’t abate.
Callum’s queen cried not because he was going to battle (entirely).
She cried remembering the last two days they shared. Days that cracked through the bitterness that had built around her heart. Bitterness he had broken through with his tenderness and generosity and had given her hope that her dream had finally come true.
Bitterness that slammed back with a vengeance when that dream died the minute he took off the ring he seemed so proud to wear but, as observed from an outsider who had no idea why he did so, obviously was not.
Indeed, as observed from an outsider, it appeared he didn’t care about the ring or what it meant at all.
If he did, he’d understand, like her claiming chain, that he was never to take it off and, if he was truly proud to wear it, he never would.
* * * * *
“Sign it,” Callum growled, standing over Nikolas, the only chief of the rebellion left alive. He was on his knees, naked, wounded and bloodied, before his king.
Callum was also bloodied, both from his own healing wounds and from the blood of his victims, but he had taken the time, and given it to his warriors, to don clothes.
He had not allowed that courtesy amongst the scores of defeated wolves who were all now kneeled in front of him.
He might have done, if they had not slain his brother Calvin.
And he might have done, if they had not slain his father.
And he might have done, if the battle he’d waged on three fronts in the mountains, and on simultaneous fronts in four other territories, had not taken eight days to win.
And he might have done if he’d had more sleep in those eight days, which he had not as he’d only had an hour here or there and exhaustion had settled into his bones.
And he might have done if he’d not been so fucking hungry, not having the time to eat as he didn’t have the time to sleep.
And he might have done if the loss of wolves on both sides had not been so great simply due to their stubborn refusal to admit defeat because their surprise attack had indeed been a surprise, a resounding one. The enemy had been caught unaware, had never recovered and they should have admitted defeat days ago. In fact, within fucking hours.
And, lastly, he might have done if he hadn’t been so long separated from his queen.
But, because of all of that, and because he was King Callum, far more impatient and intemperate than his father, especially weary, hungry and angry, their humiliation ran alongside their defeat.
Nikolas stared up at him obstinately.
“Sign it!” Callum barked.
Nikolas’s face twisted with fury but his voice was a pained whisper when he said, “She’s a pretty piece.”
Callum’s body grew taut but he sought patience.
“Sign the terms of surrender and accept punishment as leader of your followers. Don’t sign it and we don’t stop until we’ve brought low every last one of you,” Callum warned.
“A pretty piece,” Nikolas repeated quietly. “She’ll make a beautiful slave.”
At once, Callum’s arm swung out and the back of his fist caught Nikolas with a brutal blow to his jaw, sending him sprawling on his back.
“For fuck’s sake, sign it!” he roared, bending over the wolf.
Nikolas scrambled back to his knees and shouted fanatically, “They all will! When we align with the other immortals who believe as we do, who believe in the divine order of things, all the humans will be what they were always meant to be. Our slaves!”
Callum drew in a sharp breath through his nose.
Then he turned his back to Nikolas and walked three paces away.
Swiftly, he turned again, crouched low and, in a blur of motion, sprung up through the air and landed as wolf on the defeated leader.
He ripped Nikolas’s throat out with his teeth.
First.
Then he tore the warrior’s head off.
Springing back to man, he caught the towel thrown at him by one of his wolves, wiped the blood from his jaws and sauntered to the clothes that he’d long since learned to leap out of while becoming wolf. He grabbed his pants and pulled them up.
As he did so, he turned to Ryon. “Go through every last one until one of them signs it,” he gritted as he picked up his shirt and shrugged it on. “They don’t sign it then send the order to the commanders on the fronts of the other territories. Give every rebel wolf the opportunity to sign the surrender.” His eyes locked on his cousin. “If they don’t, slay them.”
“It’s done,” Ryon replied, eyes lit with fury even through his fatigue.
When Callum was dressed, he turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Ryon called.
Callum kept walking and didn’t look back when he answered, “To my queen. We’re going home.”
Chapter Fifteen
Castle
Sonia woke under the heavy hides, feeling the soft sheets and the traitorously pleasant ache that sat heavy in every muscle in her body.
Then her eyes opened.
She stared at Callum’s empty pillows and the memories of the last nine days crashed brutally into her brain.
Even while Callum was away battling the rebellion, Sonia spent that time adhering to his orders as given to her through Regan.
She was to train Kerry and Mabel in managing Clear as Diana couldn’t stay forever, nor, apparently, could Sonia. Under his edict she also began the process of hiring a new shop assistant who her girls would eventually choose and who would work alongside them. This was because Sonia, as soon as the rebellion was quashed, Regan told her, would be moving to Callum’s castle in Scotland.
She could not argue this “fact” with Regan as Regan had as little power as Sonia did.
Furthermore, Sonia couldn’t argue with Regan because Sonia spent those eight days with a very concerned mother. Her mother-in-law had lost a husband and son to this rebellion (Sonia learned) and she greatly feared for her family and her people.
Diana, Julianna, Helena and half a dozen other mates, mothers or sisters of warriors away at the fight spent time at her home, the latter of whom Sonia had not met until then. But, when Regan told her they lived close, she invited them to her home (comfort in numbers, Sonia thought). They all congregated with Sonia at her house and, as they would be, were also openly troubled.
Sonia tried to be calm and as upbeat as appropriate to soothe the worries of women (especially Regan) who she grew to care about in a short period of time. It was hard not to care about women whose faces were taut with anxiety and whose lives would be a misery if their warriors fell.
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 wha
tever 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.