With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(121)
Sonia’s eyes narrowed on him and she asked scornfully, “She should have been punished just because she’s got the hots for you?”
His painstakingly serious expression changed to genuinely serious.
In fact, deadly serious. So deadly, one look at it made Sonia hold her breath.
“No, Sonia,” he stated slowly. “She should have been punished for what her inattention to her responsibilities caused. She should have been punished because what she didn’t do meant hundreds of warriors died. Hundreds on both sides. She should have been punished because what she didn’t do means I’ve spent the last three days writing letters to mates and mothers explaining that their lovers and sons died brave. Died honorably. Even though every word is f**king futile because nothing I say will ease their anguish.”
At his words, and the depth of feeling with which he spoke them, the fight left Sonia. She felt her body relaxing under his as she felt her heart slide into her throat and tears start to prick the backs of her eyes.
He’d been writing a lot. She saw him doing it.
Callum had been handwriting letters to grieving mates and mothers.
She couldn’t imagine writing hundreds of letters like that. She wouldn’t know what to say. The task was so atrocious she couldn’t ever imagine having the strength to bear it.
But Callum did. He did it at the same time he grinned at her or took her to the village or walked with her through the snow, never once letting on that this heavy weight was bearing on his broad shoulders.
For the first time since she met him the burden of his responsibility as king to his people struck her and it felt like she’d been seared by lightning.
It came out of her mouth before she could stop it. It came out softly, gently, even lovingly as the tears welled in her eyes and slid out the sides.
“My handsome wolf.”
The instant she whispered those three words, his hands released her wrists and his forehead dropped to hers.
Freed, her arms wrapped around him tight.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him and curling his arms around her to hold her close.
She realized then she was another one of his burdens. A mate he didn’t exactly want but he had all the same and it was his duty to do right by her.
And he was attempting to do his duty, not only to his people but to her. His moments of kingliness were a part of him, ingrained. It was who he was.
The rest of it, his tenderness and humor, was him doing the best he could with a difficult situation.
Her destiny had brought her to him to be his queen, his people’s queen and she had a duty as well, to him, to his people. It was an awesome responsibility but it was also an honor no one but no one of her kind would have.
But Sonia had been chosen and she’d been acting like a selfish idiot, thinking of her lost dream instead of doing her duty to him.
No man, not even someone as strong and charismatic as Callum, should face such a burden alone. It was her duty, her destiny, to stand by his side and provide what she could to help him see it through.
Still weeping silently, she tipped her head back to look at him.
“Callum –”
He looked down at her and started talking at the same time, “Your place is beside me, Sonia, wherever I go. I’ll take you to visit your friends as often as we can but you belong at my side. After what happened with the rebellion, I needed to be home and I needed you with me.”
“Callum –” she repeated.
He kept going. “You can’t wear your fancy clothes and high-heeled shoes here. It’s cold and it snows, a lot. It’s my duty to take care of you and I did, by getting you what you needed to live your life at my side.” Then he muttered with irritation, “Christ, you’re the only woman I know who doesn’t like new clothes.”
She wanted to kick herself at throwing his generosity in his face but instead attempted yet again to interject, “Callum –”
He kept right on talking just as, visibly, his irritation grew. “Your life is too short to worry about calories, f**k, it’s too damned short to worry about anything. You have a beautiful body and it’ll be even more beautiful when there’s more of it. But you have to learn, little one, to enjoy your life and not waste it on ridiculous things like counting calories and making certain you’ve taken every last vitamin.”
“Callum –” she tried again but he was on a roll.
“And when I arrived to collect you and didn’t say hello it was because I’d been fighting for eight days straight. No food, no rest. And I’d left the front after having given an order, an order I knew was carried out in my absence, a vile order I had no choice but to give for they would not admit defeat.”
Her body grew taut against his again because she knew he was talking about the executions and she fully realized the weight of his burden wasn’t immense.
It was colossal.
She tried to break in. “Callum, please –”
She failed in her endeavor and he carried on, “This has been going on for too f**king long. My father dealt with it, his father before him, we’ve tried everything. I had no choice but to break them. I don’t f**king like not having a choice and I don’t f**king enjoy being forced into a corner that requires me to make a decision that means the end of the lives of men who are probably good men but they followed the wrong path. If I didn’t break them, even more warriors would die, more letters would be written, this would never f**king end.”