With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(39)

Regan heard it and her head turned to Sonia. “Sonia? Sweetheart?”

Sonia stared at the greenery on the mantel twinkling with lights and dangling with lively, lovely ornaments and she remembered her mother’s decorated mantels in that very room.

“Sonia?” Regan called again but Sonia didn’t move.

It was too much. All of it.

Too much to take.

“Callum, something’s wrong with –” Regan started but Sonia was already drawn away from the dough, the cookie cutter pulled from her hand and she was being turned toward Callum’s big body.

“Little one, look at me,” he demanded.

Automatically she tipped her head back to look at him.

He took one look at her face and asked, “Jesus, honey, what’s the matter?”

She didn’t delay in replying. “The last time I was here, my Momma’s decorations were on that mantel.”

She barely finished talking before she was yanked into his embrace and when his warm body surrounded her, she lost it.

She burst into loud, wracking sobs. It was embarrassing and it was weak but it was also understandable.

Her life was terrible.

It had once been perfect when her mother and father were alive. Idyllic. Wonderful. She had been protected. She had been loved. She had been told she should be proud of who she was and the gifted things she could do. And she had lived her young life knowing her Momma and Papa were proud of her and those gifts.

Since then all she had was Gregor who wasn’t exactly loving, if he was always gruffly kind. And Yuri who was also gruffly kind but decided not to be her brother-type-figure but instead wanted since she turned twenty-one (and he made no bones about it) to be her lover-and-husband-type-figure.

And without anyone knowing what she could do, much less being proud, she felt she was weird.

Because of that she had to hide her gifts and therefore had no true friends who knew her down to her every secret.

She was the mate to a man who didn’t want her.

She was the queen to a people she didn’t know.

She’d been attacked, kidnapped and traumatized.

And now…

What?

What was she supposed to do?

She tipped her head back and wailed to Callum, “Now what do I do?”

He didn’t answer likely because he wasn’t in her head and didn’t know what she was on about.

Instead, he picked her up cradled in his arms and carried her to a chair, arranging her body in his lap, her face in his neck then his arms tight around her.

“Well?” she demanded loudly into his neck.

“You cry it out, baby doll,” he answered. “Then, together, we’ll get on with it.”

Easy for him to say.

He was king. He could do whatever he wanted to do.

She was queen which meant she just followed him around while he did whatever he wanted to do. Even though he didn’t want her, he would, if what Caleb alluded was true, find someone he did want.

Deciding to forget they were in the room (though she didn’t actually forget they were in the room), she declared, “Your family’s going to think I’m a loon.”

“Since they’re all pretty nuts,” Callum replied calmly, “you’ll fit in.”

She jerked her head back, glared at him and demanded to know, “What are your people going to think of me?”

His big hand came to the side of her face and his thumb rubbed away the streaming tears.

Then his eyes went to hers and he replied, “They’re going to love you.”

How? She thought. He was never going to love her.

She decided to use the tactic that worked at hiding her thoughts earlier and buried her face in his neck.

Then she did as he suggested and cried it out.

While she did this, she heard Regan working silently in the kitchen and the men went out the back to let her have her moment.

When she smelled gingerbread man cookies baking, she took a shaky breath, got herself under control and told Callum’s neck, “I’m all right now.”

His hand sifted into her hair and twisted, using it to pull her head back gently and his blue eyes scanned her face.

Then he said something in a quiet but firm voice that made her world tilt crazily.

“You’ve got a lot to get used to, baby doll, but I asked my family to come up here to show you that you’ve got family now to help you get used to it. The people in this cabin will fight and die for you. And they would never want to see you struggle, no matter what you’re struggling with. Know that in our soul and never forget it.”

She blinked at him (what else could she do!) and blurted, “I think your culture is very intense.”

His lips tipped up in a grin and he replied in a now teasing tone, “You’re learning.”

It was time to move on and away from Callum who, when he was sweet (and intense and teasing) she could forget he was with her out of kingly duty.

“I want a gingerbread man cookie,” she announced.

His grin turned into a smile, she hated it that she loved his smile and while she was thinking that, he replied, “Me too.”

* * * * *

Sonia wandered the room in her sexy, lacy, satiny nightgown, quickly turning off lamps and blowing out the fragrant candles.

Callum was in the bathroom changing for bed. His family had left just a little while ago.