With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(154)

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 h*ps and his palms went to her bottom, fingers spanning her h*ps 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.”