With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(4)

“But, Mac, we can’t –” Ryon began and Callum watched his father’s eyes narrow.

“See to it,” Mac ordered.

“We’re at war!” Ryon hissed. “We need every brother we have. We can’t afford –”

Mac cut Ryon off by repeating, “See to it.”

Callum watched his brethren shift and glance at each other.

Then their gazes moved back to him with dawning realization.

Callum had the same thought they did and he felt his body grow tight.

He looked back to Mac and asked with extreme unease, “She’s my queen?”

He watched his father nod and anguish tore through him but he didn’t allow it to show, instead, he lifted his chin.

“When?” he demanded to know.

“It matters not,” Mac replied.

“You’re my father and you’re my king, it f**king matters that you’re soon to die,” Callum ground out.

Mac didn’t answer.

Callum leaned forward. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I have my reasons,” Mac responded.

Jesus but Mac could be mysterious and in the three hundred fifty years of his life it never failed to piss Callum off.

“Mac –” Callum began but his father lifted his hand and placed it on Callum’s shoulder.

“We’re at war and this war will not end under my reign. You and she,” he glanced down at the girl before his eyes moved back to his son. “Will lead our people to peace.”

Callum didn’t know what he was feeling because there was too much to feel.

What he did know was that he didn’t like any of it.

His eyes leveled on his father’s and he promised, “If they bring you down, it’ll be a f**king bloody peace and only on my f**king terms.”

Mac leaned close as his fingers tightened on Callum’s arm.

Then he whispered in his son’s ear, “I’m counting on that.”

Chapter One

Clear

Sonia Arlington walked through her store and switched off the many Christmas lights decorating the space.

She loved Christmas.

She couldn’t help it. Her mother and father had both loved Christmas. They made it so special that the ones she remembered made the season one she always looked forward to even though her parents died during it.

She adjusted her fluffy, white scarf around her neck, pulled the white knit cap down over her ears and transferred her dove gray suede gloves to one hand, pulling the strap of her matching stylish suede handbag more securely over her shoulder.

She took one last look at her shop, called Clear because everything she sold in it was either clear, silver, gray or white. Everything. Furniture, clothing (though the clothes were never clear, of course), candles, jewelry, knickknacks, everything.

She loved her shop almost as much as Christmas.

Yuri wondered (aloud and often) why she bothered to work. He thought she was crazy, considering she had her father and mother’s millions of dollars “festering” (his word) in different accounts.

Sonia couldn’t imagine not working. What on earth would she do if she didn’t work?

She knew what Yuri wanted her to do.

She loved Yuri but she still wrinkled her nose at the thought, pressed the code into the alarm panel and quickly exited, locking the three locks to the front door.

Then she turned toward home.

It was four blocks away. She was wearing dove gray suede, stiletto-heeled boots and it had snowed that day. She walked the oft-not-shoveled sidewalks with a grace akin to a model on a catwalk.

This, her father would have said (if he’d lived to see her wearing heels and, of course, walking through the snow in them), was one of her special abilities.

She had many. All of which, her father told her, time and time (and time) again, were exceptional.

She was, her father told her, gifted.

Extremely gifted.

And for this, he explained, time and time (and time) again, she should be proud.

Very proud.

But, even so, she could never tell anyone about them.

Never.

Anyone.

So she hadn’t.

As she crossed the street from the first block to the second, she felt it.

And smelled it.

These, too, were part of her gifts.

She sensed things. Strange things. Eyes on her. A presence. Mostly benign but recently (and upsettingly) there were some that seemed menacing. And she smelled things. Lots of things. Things others didn’t smell.

It was out there. She sensed its presence, smelled its smell. It was benign. It was even pleasant (immensely so), attractive (that was immensely so too) and it was familiar.

Very familiar.

She sifted through her memory banks but she couldn’t find it.

Whatever it was, she knew it wouldn’t hurt her.

In fact, she had the strange, strong desire to seek it out, to turn to it – even to run to it.

Even though this urge was powerful (and surprising, she’d never felt anything like that before), she didn’t let on she sensed it. To do so would let it know she could feel it, which she could not do.

Her father had told her, repeatedly, she was special, exceptional and gifted. But without him telling her that for the last thirty-one years and knowing no one around her shared her “special” talents, she’d settled into the knowledge that she wasn’t special, exceptional and gifted. Instead, she was just strange.