Callum led her to the edge of the top landing where he stopped and pulled her into his side with his arm carefully wound around her shoulders.
Nearly the minute they stopped and nearly at once, every last wolf dropped to their knee, hand to the snow or stone, head bowed (though Lucien and Leah didn’t, of course, not being wolves and all).
Sonia quit breathing and learned that, even not breathing, you could still cry.
When she started breathing again, she whispered, “Oh my God.”
“They need to see you’re all right,” Callum murmured.
“Make them rise,” Sonia was still whispering.
Callum ignored her and carried on, “They heard you moved to protect me.”
“Callum,” she whispered, not able to tear her eyes from the bent multitudes, “let them rise.”
“Though,” he continued to ignore her, “they would have come all the same.”
“Please,” she breathed.
His arm came across his chest to her chin where his fingers grasped her and he tipped her face back to his.
Then he kissed her lightly, a brush on the lips.
His head lifting nary an inch, his sky blue eyes looked into hers and he said quietly, “These are my people. These are your people. These men and women bowing to you are werewolves.”
With that, he released her chin, turned to his people and in a clear, carrying, deep voice, he commanded, “Rise!”
His people stood. They also moved.
As the warriors at the steps stood sentry, flowers, tins and lit candles were placed on the steps as wolves came forward giving Callum a nod and Sonia a smile before giving their gifts.
This all happened silently before they turned to their cars or to make their way back up the hill to their tents.
It took longer than a minute and she was chilled through to the bone by the time the last wolf dipped his head to Sonia’s mate and sent a smile Sonia’s way.
But Sonia barely felt the cold or the biting pain that had begun to torment her back.
As any queen would, she stood for her people, injuries and all.
When it was done, without a word, Callum guided her back to their room, slid the robe from her shoulders and carefully pushed her into bed.
He kissed her injured temple at the bottom of the torn skin.
Then he slid his temple along her hair and in her ear, he whispered, “Sleep now, baby doll.”
He pulled the hides higher and he was gone.
Sonia didn’t think she could sleep. Not after that.
But it didn’t take long before she did.
Chapter Twenty
Reckoning
Today was the day of reckoning.
Sonia knew it.
She could feel it.
Callum was angry.
He’d been patient.
For a while.
That wore off and he’d been patiently impatient.
For another while.
Now he was mad.
And she didn’t care (or, that’s what she told herself).
It had been three weeks since the incident where she’d learned his true nature (all of it) and those three weeks were the longest of her life.
* * * * *
Sonia had forgiven Regan, Ryon and Caleb for their duplicity the very next day.
She’d done this because she knew they’d lied to her because King Callum ordered it, or, if she was being fair, just kept things from her. Things that would seriously freak her out but that was almost like lying even if those things were things that would seriously freak her out.
But she’d also done it because she cared about them.
* * * * *
Regan had come up with a late breakfast tray and the moment she looked at Sonia, Regan’s obvious hesitancy instantly tore at Sonia’s heart.
Sonia, who’d been awake for a while and had been lying in bed, feeling sorry for herself and lamenting her fate at the same time contradictorily feeling both honored by the remarkable and touching display the wolves made for her that morning, sat up carefully when she saw Regan’s shaky smile.
Then she reached her hand out to her mother-in-law.
Regan all but dropped the tray on the nightstand, sat on the bed and, taking care with Sonia’s wounds, gave her a gentle hug.
“It was a shock but I still was awful,” Sonia whispered in her ear, able to hug Regan back far more tightly.
“We shouldn’t have waited. Callum wanted –” Regan started but Sonia gave her a squeeze.
She didn’t want to hear about anything that Callum wanted.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she assured Regan.
Regan pulled back and framed Sonia’s face in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry about all of this.”
“That’s the last time you apologize for being who you are,” Sonia said firmly curling her fingers around Regan’s, pulling them down and holding their hands between them. “It was a shock. It’s over. It’s all good now,” she finished on a lie and her own shaky smile.
Regan’s eyes searched Sonia’s and hers remained troubled. “So, you’re not angry with Callum?”
No, she wasn’t angry with him.
Not anymore.
She’d never be anything with him anymore.
Not because he was a gosh darn werewolf and didn’t tell her (or not only because of that).
Not because all of his people were werewolves and he didn’t tell her (or, also, not only because of that).
Not to mention the existence of vampires which, she realized, feeling immensely stupid (and she blamed Callum for that too), Gregor and Yuri were too by their smell which was like Lucien’s which, like wolves, wasn’t like humans (but, in her defense, how could Sonia know werewolves and vampires existed!).
And not because he was not only her handsome wolf but also her beloved puppy and he’d torn both of them away from her (or, again, not only because of those).
But because he’d disappeared for a day and most of a night, doing God knew what with God knew who and then returned to their bed, proving her fevered suspicions true by smelling how he smelled after they had sex and pretended to be caring and kind and thoughtful but doing it an arrogant bastard type of way.
Naturally, she knew he’d find someone else eventually.
She just didn’t know how much it’d hurt and when she’d thoroughly processed it, lying and crying in their bed, how dead she felt and how surprised she was that feeling dead hurt worse.
She also didn’t know the depths of that pain and her torture were not even close to being plumbed until he made her admit she loved him.
God, it was too humiliating to even contemplate.
She admitted she loved him!
Which, because evidently she was weak, weak, weak, was all she could contemplate while lying in bed that morning.
“I’m sure Callum and I will be fine,” she lied again to Regan who gave her a look like she knew Sonia was lying but she let it go.
She stayed while Sonia ate and then gave Sonia pain pills because the stitches at her back were, by then, killing her and the pills made Sonia drowsy.
Therefore, Sonia slept.
She woke in Callum’s arms.
Or, more precisely, with her head and hand resting on his stomach, his shoulders were against the headboard, his long legs stretched out straight in front of him and his arm was around her shoulders with his fingers drawing lazy circles on her skin.
“You awake, honey?” he asked.
She clenched her jaw at the empty endearment.
“Yes,” she answered.
“How are you feeling?”
Like garbage, through and through, she thought but did not say out loud.
“It hurts.” And that wasn’t a lie. It was just an understatement.
“Poor baby,” he murmured and he was lucky she was wounded or she’d have attacked even though he could rip her to shreds with his claws and his teeth.
“Regan said
you had a nice visit,” he told her.
“We did,” Sonia affirmed.
His hand squeezed her shoulder with approval.
She again fought the urge to tear her stitches out of her back by attacking him.
“Do you feel like moving around?” he asked. “I’ll help you in the bath.”
She did not think so.
“Are you telling me I stink?” she snapped irately.
He chuckled before he said (false) fondly, “You never stink, my little one.”
She’d had enough and therefore started to pull away from him saying, “I should move around. I don’t want to get stiff.”
She didn’t get very far before his hands went under her arms and he pulled her gently up to rest on his chest with their faces close.
She put her hands on his chest and pushed back but his arm slid around her lower waist and he held her still.
When she stopped moving, his other hand went behind her head, grasping her hair in one big fist, pulling it over her shoulder and twisting it again and again until it formed a long twine. Then he wrapped it around his palm at the side of her neck.
He watched his hand doing this as if enthralled.
“Callum,” she called and reminded him, “I was going to move around.”
His eyes came to hers and he announced, “You’re still pissed.”
Oh, he was right about that.
Apparently she could be something with Callum but “pissed” was all she was ever going to be.
“Can I have a day to get used to the fact my mate is a werewolf?” she asked caustically and then went on, “Or is that asking too much?”
He grinned at her (the arrogant bastard!).
Then he used her hair to pull her face to his and he touched his lips to hers.
Looking into her eyes, still grinning, he granted, “You can have a day.”
Now, that was when she would have attacked if she could have attacked.
But he simply marked her hair at her good temple with his (that particular business finally explained by him being half-wolf), let her go, moved away and left the room.
She washed as best she could, dressed and decided to hang out in their room because she couldn’t face anyone.
Leah came up with a tray of food in the late afternoon.
At that moment Sonia was grateful for Leah. It was good to be around her kind, for one, even if that made her a bad person for thinking it. For another, she liked Leah. Leah was funny and sweet and a little bit crazy and Sonia could be herself around her because, obviously, Leah was used to a life filled with vampires and such.
While Sonia ate, Leah talked, telling her wild stories of vampire concubines and captivating stories of places called Feasts and terrifying stories of something called The Sentence. All of this sharing how she’d fallen in love with Lucien.
The story had taken over an hour to tell and Sonia, long since having cleaned her plate, stared at her new friend when she was done talking.
“As you can see,” Leah concluded, “I’m safe, healthy and happy and Lucien is…” she smiled a sweet, eloquent smile before finishing, “happy too.”
“And I’m happy for you,” Sonia replied softly, meaning every word.
Leah grinned at her. “If you embrace it, Sonny, you’ll be happy too and, I promise, it’ll be beyond your wildest dreams.”
That was doubtful.
Sonia had had her “wildest dreams”. She knew how good it could be and it was not that.
“I don’t have much choice but to embrace it,” Sonia told her. “It’s destiny.”
“I know. Mine was too and destiny is my best friend,” Leah declared on a giggle.
Sonia laughed softly, not agreeing in the slightest but also not wanting to break Leah’s happy mood.
Ryon came up shortly after and she let him off the hook by smiling at him the minute he walked through the door.
Caleb came up not long after and she visited with them while Leah returned her tray but she came back with Lucien.
Lucien regarded her carefully as he walked in but even though he freaked her out more than werewolves, she’d lived with vampires all her life (apparently) so she knew better than to fear him (hysterically rather than generally because Lucien, the individual, was still kind of scary).
Regan arrived a few minutes later with a board game and they all started playing. Even Lucien who didn’t strike Sonia as a board game type of… being. Then again, she was getting the sense cold, aloof Lucien would do just about anything to make his bride happy, including playing a board game.
Therefore, hours later, Sonia was lying on her belly on the curvy couch by the fire. Regan and Lucien were in chairs pulled around to the side of the fireplace by the couch. Leah was sitting cross-legged on the floor at Lucien’s feet. And both Ryon and Caleb’s long bodies were spread across the floor as they lay on their sides with pillows under their elbows, heads in their hands when Callum walked in.
He stood at the couch by Sonia’s feet and stared down at them from his colossal werewolf height.
“We’re almost done with this game. You can sit in the next one,” Caleb announced.
“There won’t be a next one,” Callum declared meaningfully (and, incidentally, kingfully), walking down the couch and pulling Sonia up cautiously before sitting down, stretching his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles and setting her down with her upper torso on his thigh.
She wanted to pull away but she couldn’t mainly because her back had begun to really hurt and she hadn’t wanted to mention it and worry anyone but also because they were all watching her with Callum.
So she just settled in like she didn’t care (when she did).
They finished the game, folded it up and said their goodnights and Sonia decided now was the time for pain pills because she didn’t mind Callum worrying.
She started to push up from the couch (he’d followed everyone to the door and closed it behind them) but, quick as a flash, he was crouched at her side with a big palm in the small of her back.
“Just stay there, I’ll bring your injection out here,” he told her and then moved to the bathroom.
Holy cow.
She’d forgotten about her injection. How could she forget about that? And how could she take it with her back already on fire?
“Callum,” she called. “I need my pain pills.”
“After the injection,” he replied, walking in with the syringe already loaded.
She stared at it like it was a living thing which existed only to do her harm.
Callum saw her look, crouched at the head of the couch and his hand cupped the side of her face. “Two minutes, baby doll,” he said gently. “Then it’ll be over and that whole time I’ll be right here.”
Boy, she hated the fact that she loved him, that there were so many things to love and that all of them were lies.
He moved to her side and murmured, “Can you get your jeans down for me?”
It hurt but she did.
He injected her.
The burn was ten times worse and seared through her back like wildfire.
She was panting when it was done but felt Callum’s warm hand cupped at the back of her neck which she told herself didn’t feel good (when it did).
Then, when she fully recovered, Callum did something strange.
He usually righted her clothes before she recovered but her jeans were still low on her hips and his palms went to her bottom, fingers spanning her hips and his thumbs slid over the pinpricks exposed by her jeans. He was sitting by her thighs and he started talking as if to himself.
“I hate these,” he said softly. “Fucking hate them.”
She got tense (or, she should say, more tense) but he wasn’t done.
“But I should love them because they’re a part of you.”
Sonia pressed her lips together and closed her eyes tight.
She gave it a moment before she asked, “Can I get up and get my pain pills? My
back is beginning to hurt.”
His fingers curled into the waistband of her jeans and he pulled them up before he offered, “I’ll get them, baby doll.”
He gave her the pills, helped her dress for bed (another nightgown, a miracle!) and he held her close when they were under the hides, acting like the devoted king to his injured queen.
They were in the same position as she woke up early that afternoon when he asked, “Would you like me to tell you more about my kind?”
She’d get Regan, Mara, Callista, Ryon and Caleb to do that.
She wanted nothing from him.
“The pills make me drowsy and they work pretty fast.” That wasn’t a lie. “I don’t want to miss anything.” That was a lie.
“All right, honey,” he murmured and went on to comment warmly, “You know, you’re taking this a lot better than I expected.”
She could have laughed.
She didn’t.
“You don’t know me very well,” she told him the truth for once.
His fingers slid into her hair and cupped the back of her head. “True, but everything I learn, I like.”
Liar, liar, liar, she thought but she just let out a fluttery, stupid sigh.
His fingers tensed against her scalp.
She prayed the pills would work their magic and, luckily, shortly after, they did.
* * * * *
The next week, Callum was patient mainly because Sonia was still feeling goodly amounts of pain which he took great care in assessing by often asking the soft, sweet, “How’re you doing, baby doll?”. He also demanded that he be the only one to clean, put ointment on and re-bandage her wounds. And, surprisingly, other than that, he gave her space to rest and heal.
Also, Callum gave her space because Gregor turned up since Regan told him Sonia had been injured.
Gregor gave her the whole, “Callum’s a big boy and doesn’t need you to protect him so you’ve no business throwing yourself in front of an angry werewolf even if you didn’t have any idea he was an angry werewolf,” lecture (although it didn’t go quite like that). Then Sonia gave him her, “So, you and your son are vampires?” interrogation (and that was exactly how she started it). Then it was done and Gregor settled in like he was going to stay a while. This was evidenced by him having a lot of luggage not Sonia being overly perceptive. This also made Callum’s patience slip a little bit but, for some reason, made Regan seem really happy.