With Everything I Am (72 page)

“Yes,” Callum agreed but continued, “And about that.” He looked to Ryon. “The two weeks we planned just turned into two months.” His eyes swept Calder and Caleb as Sonia’s heart stopped squeezing so it could swell with happiness. A two month honeymoon was very good news. “Adjust your plans. Sonia and I won’t return until then.”

“And hopefully I’ll be pregnant when we return,” Sonia announced and Callum dipped his chin to look down at her.

“You won’t be pregnant,” he declared.

She looked up at him. “We’ll see.”

“We won’t see. You won’t be pregnant,” he repeated his declaration and Sonia’s swelling heart turned into swelling anger.

“Callum, you don’t get to be King Callum when we’re discussing starting a family and thus what you say just goes,” she snapped.

“Sonia, you don’t get to be Queen Sonia when we’re discussing starting a family and thus you being pretty, beloved and recently, for all intents and purposes,
dead,
does not mean what you say goes either.”

 
“Perhaps we can discuss this later, wolf,” she snapped.

“Oh, we’ll discuss it later,” he leaned down so he was nose-to-nose with her, “
wolf.
”

Her heart fluttered at her mate calling her wolf even if it did this while she was angry.

“Great, now can we eat?” Calder asked. “Or do we all have to stand around and watch you two bicker for the next half an hour?”

“Let’s eat. I’m starved. Sonia dying then suddenly coming back to life and morphing into wolf, freaking me out because I didn’t fucking know she
was
wolf, put me off my food last night,” Caleb stated as he started sauntering to the door. “Time to party and by that I mean, stuff ourselves and drink until we’re sick.”

Sonia forgot to be irritated mostly because she thought Caleb was hilarious.

“The town is feasting now and the fireworks are rescheduled to go off tonight. I know you’re keen to be away, Cal, but it might be nice if you and Sonia took some time to make an appearance before you board the plane,” Ryon suggested, getting close.

“Set that up,” Callum ordered, shifting and beginning to move Sonia toward the door.

Ryon nodded and moved away.

Sonia got close to her husband and requested, “Later, can you tell me what that last part was about, the part with Lucien and his father and Leah’s dreams killing her?”

“I will, little one, once I find out from Lucien what the parts I don’t know about were about,” Callum muttered irritably and Sonia suppressed a grin.

Regan got closer and, even with Sonia curled in Callum’s arm, she shoved hers through Sonia’s.

“Are you angry at me, sweetheart?” she asked Sonia softly.

“Of course not, Regan,” Sonia answered softly and felt Callum’s arm tense around her as Regan pressed closer. “All of that wasn’t easy, on
any
of us. But now it’s over.”

They moved toward the door, Regan smiled at Sonia then leaned partly across her, her eyes lifting up to her son. “Are
you
angry at me, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” Callum replied, Regan and Sonia tensed but Callum went on, “but I’ll get over it after fireworks and when I’m on a plane taking my bride on our honeymoon.”

Regan looked at Sonia and grinned.

Sonia grinned back.

Regan let Sonia go so she and Callum could walk through the door but Sonia turned back so she could aim her smile at Gregor.

She saw his eyes move to Callum’s back before they came again to her and he sighed.

Her smile got bigger.

Then she went with her groom to the dining room to feast with her family in celebration.

In other words, with abandon.

Like a wolf.

* * * * * *

Callum stood at the front door waiting for his
bride
to join him so he could take her into town, let their people see them healthy, happy and, for Sonia, alive and watch fireworks before he finally took her away to somewhere it would only be them for a good, long time.

He figured he had a wait since he could hear Sonia giggling with Leah, Kerry, Mabel, Mara, Callie, Regan and fucking Caleb and they were all doing it drunkenly.

Listening to their happiness and hilarity, he looked to his boots and grinned.

His wife was wolf and the sounds of her drunken cheerfulness, embracing all that she was, were far from unwelcome.

His head came up when he smelled vampire.

He watched as Gregor approached him and braced. He knew what was coming.

“We must talk,” Gregor said low when he got close.

“You’re correct,” Callum agreed. “Not now.
When we return.”

“This will happen fast,” Gregor told him.

“My mate died yesterday regardless of the fact she didn’t. She’s wolf. We have not had but scant time alone. We’re taking it and we’re celebrating. When we return, we’ll talk. And when I return, you’ll show me The Prophesies,” Callum replied.

“Callum, we cannot –”

Callum leaned into the vampire. “You’ll show me The Prophesies,” he growled.

Gregor pulled in a deep breath before he nodded.

Then he stated, “She’s wolf and that explains her senses amongst other things but you know she has additional abilities.”

“Her affinity with wildlife, her dreams,” Callum confirmed.

“We must understand that,” Gregor stated.

“First, she and I will,” Callum told him.

“Callum, we’re preparing for
war,
” Gregor reminded him.

“I’m aware of that, far more than you since it’s
myself
and my mate who will be in the thick of it, Gregor. And any warrior knows, prior to war and after it, you savor the beauty of life so you always have close exactly what you’re fighting for.”

Gregor held his eyes then he inclined his head.

He turned and started to move away before he stopped and turned back.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“For what?”
Callum asked.

Gregor stared into Callum’s eyes.

“Making her happy.”

Then, in a blink, the vampire was gone.

“Jesus,” Callum muttered to the space where Gregor disappeared.

He heard Sonia’s giggle.

His mood shifted and he grinned.

Then he bellowed, “
Sonia! Wolf! Get your ass out here!
”

“
Patience, wolf!
” he heard his
bride
bellow back and his grin turned into a wide, white smile.

* * * * *

The fire in the cabin’s grate roaring, Callum, flat on his back on the couch, heard the door to the bathroom open and his
wife’s
feet padding on the floors

His eyes caught her as she rounded the end of the couch and walked to him, hair in a towel, body encased in a short robe.

He moved only his hands to settle on her hips as she moved over him to settle astride him.

She leaned down, her face irritated, and she rested her forearms in his chest.

“Guess what,” she ordered.

“What?” he asked, fighting a grin, knowing from her disgruntled tone and the times they’d been through this before exactly what.

She lifted one hand away, jerked at the towel and her dark, wet hair tumbled around her face and shoulders. “Project So Much Bleach Marilyn Monroe Would Balk was a failure. Wolf hair is immune to peroxide,” she announced.

His hands slid up her sides, drawing her closer as they did and his lips twitched. “Baby doll, this has now been proved five times.”

“You want me blonde,” she pointed out.

He did. He missed her golden hair. The mahogany was beautiful but he fell in love with a blonde.

“With time, I’ll get used to it,” he muttered.

“How much time, a century?
Three?” she asked, still disgruntled.

“Maybe four,” he answered while fighting his grin.

She glared at him then her glare melted as her body melted into his and she whispered like she still couldn’t wrap her mind around it but it made her blissfully happy all the same, “Maybe four. I have four centuries with you and more.”

His arms circled her. “Yes, my little one, four centuries and more,” his arms gave her a squeeze, “and about the time we hit four, we’ll be ready to start a family.”

Her eyes
flashed,
the brown spiking out to obliterate the green.

Perfect. She was getting angry.

That meant a tussle.

Which meant that tussle would end phenomenally.

His arms got tighter.

Suddenly, the brown receded and her hand slid up to curl around the side of his neck.

“You brought me home for our honeymoon,” she said quietly and Callum felt his brows draw together.

“Sorry, baby doll?”

She vaguely threw out a hand. “This has always been home to me,” she explained.
“My parent’s cabin,
our
cabin.
Where I brought you when I first met you even though I didn’t know it was you. The only home, until you gave me the
castle, that
I ever knew. And you brought me here for our honeymoon.” She bent even closer, brushed her mouth to his and whispered against his lips. “Perfect.”

It was.

She was.

Everything was.

Apparently, they weren’t going to tussle, they were going to do something else and Callum found he was fine with that.

He was again wrong.

“Can we run?” she asked, her thumb sweeping the thick stubble on his jaw.

He stared into her eyes. She was a fast learner, becoming quite adept at controlling her transformations. She loved the wood, nature, she loved running with him and they did it every night and some days besides, three weeks of it at their cabin.

An idea struck him.

No, a memory.

No,
a dream.

And this made his look turn wolfish as his lips whispered, “Absolutely, little one. We can absolutely run.”

* * * * *

He was lone wolf no more.

They were running, roaming, as wolves, he and Sonia.

She was fast and kept up with him, close to his right flank, where she always ran.

Callum took them deeper into the trees. They’d been running for hours. He could hear her pants. He knew he was pushing her. He knew what she wanted.

He kept pushing her, knowing the anticipation would be worth it.

Finally, he turned, headed for home and he sensed her instant excitement.

He felt it too.

* * * * *

Sonia was beneath him, on her belly, her long, thick, mahogany hair spread across her back, obscuring her face, tangled with pine needles. Her sweet, musky wolf scent assaulted him, coming from her hair, her skin, between her legs.

There was something familiar about it.
Something beautiful.
Something nostalgic.
Something he fucking
adored
.

His human Sonia.

He was up on his hands, giving his hips leverage to thrust into her wetness with savage brutality.

Her moans weren’t filled with pain but each one a temptation to take her harder.

So he did.

“Spread your legs wider,” he ordered.

She did as she was told.

“Tilt your ass, take all of me,” he commanded.

Again, she did as she was told and he drove inside her then ground his hips between her spread-eagled legs and her moan was so deep, he could feel it vibrating against the tip of his cock.

That felt so fucking good, Callum ground into her deeper and he knew he couldn’t take much more.

“Let go,” he demanded but she defied him, clenching her sex around his shaft in an effort to hold off her climax. He shifted his weight to one arm and twisted her dark hair around his fist, yanking it back, arching her neck and driving her further down on his cock. “Let go, wolf.”

He got off on calling her “wolf” as Sonia did with him, especially when he was fucking her.

He fucking
loved
it.

She did too.

Her legs spread even wider. Her ass tilted further. He dropped his head and saw its perfection. Not an ass marred with pinpricks and he felt a feeling of triumph so complete, the sight set him thrusting into her again.

Which was what she wanted.

“Harder, Cal,” she breathed her demand, her voice barely a whisper, even he could hardly make out the words. “Fuck me harder.”

He was losing control, his orgasm was coming and he knew it would be staggering.

With her, it always was.

The best he’d ever had.

“Goddamn it,
let go!
” he roared the instant her sex convulsed around his cock.

She lifted up on her own arms, propelling herself onto his shaft so intensely he feared he’d split her in two.

But she threw back her dark head, her hair flying over his hand still fisted in it, over his forearm, down her back and she howled her release.

He pulled out and surged back in, burying himself to the root one last time and then howled his own.

* * * * *

Naked on their bed of pine needles, Callum on his back, Sonia on top of him, his mate moved. Shifting up, she pressed her temple to his and slid it through his hair, marking him.

He growled into her ear, rolled her to her back, him on top and did the same.

When done, he lifted his head and looked down at her in the moonlight.

“You know, you gave me another wedding band, another charm and a fabulous honeymoon for my wedding gifts and I’ve given you nothing but, well… me,” she said softly.

“All I need is you,” he replied just as softly and felt her already relaxed body melt under his as her arms grew tight around him.

“Okay then, how about, for your wedding present, I give you more of me and agree to wait fifty years before we start a family?” she suggested.

“Seventy-five,” he countered, her head jerked slightly before he saw her eyes light and her mouth twitch.

“Deal, wolf,” she whispered.
“Seventy-five.”

He grinned and dropped his head to touch his mouth to hers again.

He lifted his head and she shifted a hand and framed the side, her thumb moving to smooth his brow, his cheekbone, his jaw, her eyes watching.

Finally, they came to his. “You know I love you?” she asked.