With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(127)

His arms about her gave her a squeeze, bringing her attention back to him before he queried, “Why?”

“Well, in my world, we do have surnames,” she told him. “People will expect you to have one and they’ll expect me to take it or explain that I didn’t.” She sighed and finished, “Which I guess is what I’ll have to do.”

There was one thing he liked about the human’s mating ritual, the female accepting the male’s name. Callum liked this not because it denoted possession but because it signified the birth of a single unit, a family.

He found at that moment to his further surprise he wished he had a name to give her.

It was with delight when he heard that Sonia had an even better idea.

“Mara told me your father’s full name was McDonagh,” she remarked.

“It was,” Callum confirmed.

“Well,” she started, her gaze drifting away and her manner again became tentative before she looked back to him. “That’s a last name for my people.”

“I know,” he replied.

“Well,” she went on after giving a brief nod, “I thought…” she hesitated then forged ahead, “if you don’t mind, and, um, if Regan doesn’t, maybe, when we’re in my world, I can tell people my new name is Sonia Arlington-McDonagh.”

At her quiet, faltering words, he had the same exact reaction he had when she gave him his ring. Something shifted inside him, so big it was as if the bed moved. His gut and chest tightened and all he could think of was her being known by the name of Sonia Arlington-McDonagh.

She stared at him and her face grew worried before she whispered, “I don’t have to –”

But he cut her off by rolling her to her back so he was pinning her to the bed, his h*ps snug between her legs, his c**k still inside her and hardening again as his mouth took hers in a hungry kiss.

When he lifted his head, both their breath was coming faster.

His eyes locked on hers and he decreed, “You’ll be known by that amongst my people as well.”

Then he started moving slowly inside her and, automatically, her h*ps moved with his.

One of her hands glided up his back as her other one came to rest at the side of his face before she said softly, “I take it you like that idea.”

He stopped moving, slowly pulled out and surged back in, burying himself to the hilt before he growled against her mouth, “Yes, I f**king like it.”

At his surge, her arm had clasped around him, her knees had come up to press against his sides and the fingers of her other hand had slid into his hair.

But she grinned against his lips.

At her reaction, his h*ps started to move faster.

Her lips went to his ear and, beginning to pant, she breathed, “Mara also told me you’re known as ‘The Wolf’.”

His body stilled and at his reaction her head fell back to the pillows so she could gaze at him curiously.

“Sorry?” he asked, a different feeling seizing him.

He’d planned carefully with Regan and Ryon as advisors as to when to share the information with Sonia that his people were werewolves. Her reaction could be anything and Callum wanted to control it.

Werewolves were fantasy creatures to humans and not good ones. Vicious, murdering and abhorrent, something to be frightened of, the villain in a horror story.

Back in the day when wolves were less careful about who witnessed the transformation, humans had sometimes seen it. And, being humans, instead of trying to understand it, they feared it.

And hunted it.

Which was one of the reasons the rebellion they’d been fighting for millennia had remained so staunch in their beliefs that humans should be enslaved.

Sonia might fear what his people could do and unless he took the time to allow her to experience the fact that wolves were friendly, good-humored and kind, there was little doubt she would.

He also wanted their bond to strengthen. He felt confidence in their connection but this would be a shock. Callum wanted her life thoroughly entwined with his in a way she couldn’t imagine it without him, no matter what secrets and how great they were that he may hold.

Regan and Ryon had agreed to his plan and it was even Ryon’s suggestion to keep this knowledge from Sonia until she was securely inserted into their fold.

However, after their blowout, Callum had concerns about this plan.

Sonia seemed to prefer to understand what was happening to and around her. The longer he waited, the less it felt he was protecting her, the more it felt like a lie.

So much so, he’d begun to feel something he’d never experienced before. A twinge of something unpleasant. Almost as if he feared she’d discover his secret and consider his keeping it from her a betrayal.

Werewolves were half man. They weren’t immune to f**king up, say taking to too much gaming or drink. Though wolves never strayed. Infidelity to your mate was unheard of. Before you found your mate, finding play partners (and numerous of them) for both males and females was the norm. After you found your mate, never. Callum had known many a wolf to succumb to the weaknesses of drink and gambling and, in so doing, betray their mate through deceits. And, with a she-wolf, it was never pretty and it was often the female would never get over it.

Living an eternity paying for a betrayal was a daunting prospect.

Living an eternity expecting another one, he reckoned, would be far worse.