With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(181)

She followed.

He then crouched to make the transformation in order to latch the lower door so she couldn’t escape but her deep, brown eyes held his and suddenly she jerked around and started running through the castle.

Fuck, Callum thought before he darted after her.

Like she knew exactly where she was going, she raced to the steps and up them.

Fuck, Callum thought again as he raced after her.

Up she went, up, up and she dashed straight into his and Sonia’s goddamned room.

He skidded to a halt outside the door.

He didn’t want to be there. He could smell her scent from outside and that scent, her scent, all that was left of his Sonia, he couldn’t bear it.

He didn’t want to be there. He never wanted to enter that room again.

He heard the she-wolf howl.

Fuck, he thought yet again as he snarled and shot into the room then he skidded to another halt and stared.

She was jumping around, leaping, her body twisting this way and that. She abruptly stopped, whined, got down on her forepaws then leaped again, twisting her body in mid-air.

She was trying to transform.

Callum used his haunch to slam the door closed in order to contain her, crouched and leaped to man.

Quickly, he prowled to a wardrobe, yanked it open and pulled out a pair of jeans.

Tugging them on, he ordered, “Calm, wolf, focus and crouch. Do nothing more. Hold there and then listen to me.”

She didn’t listen. She got down to her forepaws again, jerking her mahogany-furred head this way and that then her wolf body stilled. Unexpectedly, she started digging under the couch, whining desperately, so frantic, she pushed the couch back with her body, her entire head shoved under the couch.

Then she backed out, lifted up and twirled to him, Sonia’s stuffed wolf in her jaw.

Callum’s heart lurched and it was pure, unadulterated agony.

That stuffed wolf, the symbol of him her parents gave her that she held close before she met him and continued to hold close even after she had him had disappeared around the time he found her rings in the fire. He had not questioned Sonia about it. Knowing she’d acted in anger with his rings, he suspected she’d done the same with her wolf.

Apparently, like the rings, her wolf had survived.

Now, with her scent that lingered in the room and his wedding band held in her lifeless hand, it was the only thing he had of her that held any importance.

“Drop that!” he snarled but she didn’t.

She rushed him, racing around him, circling, butting his thighs with her head, all the while whining.

“Drop the goddamned wolf!” he barked, leaning into her only for her to jump up to her hind paws and claw his chest with her front ones.

He pushed her off, made for Sonia’s wolf but she jerked her head away and pranced out of reach.

“Goddamn you, drop my wife’s f**king wolf!” he roared.

She dropped the wolf, backed up until her tail hit the wall then she burst forward. Suddenly stopping on a skid and crouching through it, she leaped, transformed in mid-air and dropped to the floor on her belly as human, her body na**d and flushed, a mass of shining, extraordinary mahogany hair falling down her back and over her shoulders.

She was facing the floor, her hands to her sides, palms flat to the rug and she was panting.

But Callum was frozen.

Completely.

He knew her scent because he knew her.

He’d dreamed her.

She was the she-wolf in his dreams.

“This isn’t happening,” he whispered.

“It seems,” she spoke and it was so quiet, even with heightened hearing he could barely hear her, “that I am like your people.” She lifted her head, arching her neck way back and Callum stared in shock, his body still frozen, as beloved, familiar green eyes caught his and she finished, “Wolf.”

Callum blinked as something inside him shifted, fluttered, lightened.

Hope.

But, even staring at her, he couldn’t believe it.

She pushed up to her knees, sat back on her calves, wrapped her arm around her br**sts, the other around her belly, her eyes never leaving his, her glossy, magnificent dark hair framing her cherished face and she noted, “Uh… the na**d thing, not so fun. And, for a while there, I thought I’d be wolf forever. It was pretty cool until it was terrifying.”

“Sonia?” Callum called, his voice low, quiet, disbelieving.

She stared up at him.

Then she smiled.

Then she whispered, “Get this, wolf. I’m a wolf.”

She was wolf.

She was alive and she was wolf.

Callum came unfrozen and he was on her in less than a second. Hands under her arms, he hauled her up then tossed her across the room. She landed on her ass in the bed and he moved, landing on her.

Covering her body with his, his hands framed her face, his eyes caught hers, he watched the warm, dark brown filter out the green and there she was.

His wife, his mate, his bride, his queen.

His wolf.

He dropped his head and kissed her.

Sonia curved her arms tight around him, spread her legs and then wound them around him, protectively, lovingly and kissed him back.

It was just the same. Absolutely the same. Her taste, her kiss, his Sonia.

Just wolf.

Her human life will be fleeting.

But her wolf life could last an eternity