With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(159)

“No!” she shouted.

“Why?” he shot back. “Because you want me to get it elsewhere now that you know I’m wolf and you don’t want that sweet little body of yours defiled by an animal?”

Sonia gasped in outrage at his words and screeched, “How dare you! I love wolves!”

“Yes, honey,” he said cuttingly, “and three weeks ago you told me you loved me. The next day I find my f**king rings in the fire and you f**king avoid me all day and then you find out I’m wolf and do everything you can to avoid me for the next three f**king weeks! Is that what love is to you?”

“No, Callum. I did all that because you made me tell you I loved you while making me sit in your lap after you’d come home from f**king someone else and still reeking of it!”

“I’m not f**king anyone else!” he roared, losing what little hold he had on his temper.

But something broke inside Sonia. It had broken before, time and again, and it still hurt so much it was a miracle she didn’t fall to her knees.

Instead, her anger and heartbreak keept her breathing, standing and fighting.

She turned and rounded the bed, her eyes locked on her mate, her hand lifted with finger jabbing the air at him all the while screaming back, “You are so full of it! You don’t want me. You never wanted me! I’m just your duty. Another in a long line of duties.” She was still screaming as she made it to him and she used both hands to shove his chest, rocking him back on a foot as he stared down at her looking shocked. “You said in the beginning we were a farce! Your brother said you wanted to get the claiming over with, that you felt forced to be at the cabin with me and that I’d have to understand your need to f**k around with your own kind.” She shoved him again and kept screaming. “Your other brother called being up at the cabin with me ‘dicking around’. That crazy Desdemona woman said you hated blondes and I’m blonde! And everyone, but everyone, Calder, Yuri, even Titium, talks about your legendary prowess with women.”

He caught her wrists and hauled her up to his chest, muttering, “Sonia –”

“No!” she screeched in his face. “I’ve got good news. This is over for you, Callum! Over. You don’t have to pretend anymore. You don’t have to playact. I promise, I’ll do my duty as queen and you can just go off and do… whatever it is you have to do and somehow I’ll deal with it. I’ll cope. I’ll find a way to be happy even though I’m with you but I’m still, like I’ve always been, alone.”

Then she tore her hands from his wrists and started to run but he caught her around the waist and tugged her straight back, front-to-front.

“Baby doll –” he started.

The tears hit her eyes at those two words and she shrieked, “Stop calling me that!” She pushed at his chest with her hands and struggled in his arms. “Stop calling me that when I’m not that to you. I’ve never been that to you. I’m only that in my stupid, stupid dreams!”

He barely controlled her struggles while whispering, “Honey, settle down and listen to me.”

Working hard to hold back the tears, Sonia stammered, “N… no!” and kept right on fighting.

But Callum kept right on controlling her thrashing so she had to do it harder.

She had to get away, far away. Far enough to get her head together and piece her heart together and find some way to get on with her hideous destiny.

She managed to break away but he caught her again and pushed her on the bed.

She rolled and almost got to her knees but his fingers wrapped around her ankles, twisted her back, yanking her down the bed and his big body landed on hers.

In a panic because this was not where she wanted to be (even though it was), she bucked and pushed at his shoulders, shouting, “Just let me get away. I need to get away!”

“Baby doll, you need to calm down,” he murmured softly.

Something in his tone struck her.

Her body stilled and her mind cleared but her hands still pushed at his shoulders as she looked away from him and stared at the side of the bed.

She took in a ragged breath.

Then she took in another one.

Then she realized what she’d said and what she’d done and how much it betrayed about how very much she felt about him.

Then, deflated and crushingly humiliated, she made an attempt to salvage a very bad situation, whispering, “You’re right.”

His hand rounded her jaw and he said softly, “Look at me, honey.”

She closed her eyes tight and resisted but finally, taking in a breath, she looked at him.

God, he was beautiful, watching her with tenderness etched in every feature.

Seeing him looking at her that way, she realized she was so caught up in the hurt, she forgot that he was dealing with a hideous destiny too.

“I’m sorry,” she was still whispering. “You don’t need this. You have a kingdom to worry about. I should have… I should… I should have just learned to deal on my own.”

He stared at her a moment then his eyes went over her head and she could almost hear him counting to ten in his.

Then his gaze came back to hers and he stated, “I’m not f**king around on you, Sonia.”

A hated sob welled up in her chest and she swallowed it down on the word, “Don’t.”