Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega #4)(3)
He turned back to her, and some chance of light brought out the bones of his face and outlined his shoulders. He was so beautiful to her. His Salish heritage gave him bronze skin and rich, almost-black hair and eyes. Hard work and running as a wolf gave him the muscles that defined the contours of his warm skin. But it was the core of integrity and … Charlesness that really made her heart beat faster, that swamped her with knee-weakening desire.
Not just lust—though who wouldn’t lust after Charles? She savored the whole of him and thought again, Who wouldn’t lust after Charles? But she was consumed with the desire to claim him, to wrap herself in his essence.
Charles allowed her to understand the line in the marriage vows about “these two shall become one flesh.” That sentence had annoyed her immensely when she was nine or ten. Why should she give up who she was for some dumb boy? She’d taken her objections to her father, who had finally said, “When and if ‘some dumb boy’ loses his mind and agrees to marry you, then doubtless he’ll also be happy to take that phrase out.”
Anna had taken out the “obey” part when they married. She didn’t want to lie. Listen to, yes—obey, no. She’d had enough of obeying for ten lifetimes. She had, however, left in the part about “one flesh.”
With Charles she didn’t lose herself, she gained Charles. They were a united front against “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” He was her warm safe place in the storm of the world, and she … she thought that she was his home.
She wanted his children.
“Absolutely not,” he said, and for a moment she thought he was reading her mind because she had lost track of the conversation. But then he said, “No witchcraft.”
She wasn’t stupid. He was throwing out any obstacle he could find. She would have backed off except for the deep belief, born of the mating bond they shared, that he wanted a child even more than she did.
“Don’t fret,” she told him. “I won’t do it the way your mother did.” Unless there are no other options. “I actually thought that Moira might have some insights for Samuel. I thought it only fair to call and warn her that I’ve sent him after her … he sounded quite intense about the whole thing.”
He raised his head like a panicked horse. “Ah. I misunderstood. Good.”
Charles liked children. She knew he liked children. Why did he panic over the thought of their child? She considered asking him. But she’d tried variants of that; he’d given her a series of answers that were true as far as they went. She was pretty sure that he didn’t know the real answer. So it would be up to her to discover it.
Once she figured it out she would be able to see if there was a way around it. The panic she could work around—and if he honestly didn’t want children, well, she’d deal with that, too. But it was the sadness that lingered behind the panic, the sadness and longing her wolf knew was there, that made her dig in and fight. Anna style.
“Okay,” she said brightly. She who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. “I just thought I’d give you an update.” She picked up her bundle of information and tucked it under her arm.
She walked over to the window and looked at the falling snow that had frosted the deep green trees and coated the not-so-distant mountains, making the world seem clean and new. Also cold.
“Have you decided what you’re getting me for my birthday yet?” she asked.
He liked giving presents. Sometimes it was a flower he’d picked for her—other times expensive jewelry. He’d gradually learned that really expensive gifts, which he liked best, freaked her out. He now left those for important occasions.
He put his arm around her, his body relaxed against her. “Not yet. But I expect I’ll figure something out.”
Charles couldn’t keep his mind on the numbers, so he closed down his computer. Money was power, and in the long run it could keep his people safer than his fangs and claws. After a hiatus, pack finances were his to protect again.
His gaze fell on the yellow sticky he’d put on the top of his monitor—Anna’s birthday, her twenty-sixth. He needed to find her a present. His preference was for jewelry—which, as his da pointed out, was sort of marking his territory for the other males in the vicinity.
My mate, the ring on her finger told them. And when she ventured to wear any of the necklaces and earrings he’d gotten her, they said, And I can provide for her better than you. After his da made him aware of the reason for his need to bedeck Anna in jewels, he’d begun to work on presents that she did want.
Anna wanted children.
He stared at the bright-colored Post-it note.
It was perfectly reasonable that she’d want children. He understood the urgency of her drive even if she didn’t. She’d been a college student when Justin, the Chicago Alpha’s hit man, had taken away nearly all of her choices; she’d spent the better part of the time since then taking them back. Reclaiming her life from those who would have taken it from her entirely.
His phone rang and he picked it up absently—until he heard the voice on the other end.
“Hey, Charles,” said Joseph Sani, once the best friend he had in the world. “I was thinking of you today. You and your new bride.”
“Not so new,” Charles said, not fighting the happiness rising up. Joseph affected everyone that way. “It’s been three years—a few months more than that. How are you?”