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  “Are they –?” he started but Gregor shook his head.

  “Things became…” Gregor hesitated, “uncomfortable for a while. However, several members of The Council, including, obviously, myself, saw the wisdom of rescinding that particular edict. We were successful in convincing the others as well.”

  Callum continued to study Gregor, keeping his face perfectly blank and his turbulent thoughts to himself.

  It had begun. The Prophesies, or what he knew of them, were coming true.

  Even the parts Callum had hoped would not.

  Bloody hell.

  “So the foundation of vampire culture has shifted,” Callum noted.

  “It has indeed. Not only Lucien but all vampires are free to take mortal mates if they so choose.”

  Callum’s jaw grew tight and he started walking again. Gregor fell in step by his side.

  They rounded the block and kept walking together silently.

  After some time, Gregor spoke again and, when he did so, he did it quietly.

  “This means Yuri is free to take a mortal mate.”

  Callum halted and turned instantly to the vampire, fighting the blinding fury that immediately started roiling inside him.

  “Don’t say another word,” he warned.

  “Callum, hear me out.”

  “Absolutely fucking not.”

  “Callum, hear me out,” Gregor repeated but Callum started walking again and Gregor again fell in step by his side.

  “She’s my daughter,” Gregor stated.

  Callum stopped once more and turned to the vampire. “She’s your ward.”

  “She was my ward, thirty-one years ago. That’s a long time, Callum, nurturing a mortal, watching her grow up, putting Band-Aids on her skinned knees, arguing with her about eating peas and hoping you bought her the birthday present she wanted most of all.” Callum ground his teeth together, unaffected by the depths of Gregor’s heretofore unknown fondness for Sonia as Gregor finished, “Since then, she became my daughter.”

  “And you’re saying you want me to renounce my queen, walk away from my fucking mate, so you can keep your daughter?” Callum bit out.

  “I’m saying I don’t want her to die,” Gregor returned coolly. “Ever.”

  Callum sucked in breath. He knew where this was going.

  And he had no idea Gregor felt this deeply for Sonia but he didn’t disbelieve it. Gregor was not a warm male, not openly. But Sonia was a warm woman and it would be hard not to feel deeply for her, especially if you had thirty-one years of putting Band-Aids on her skinned knees and buying her birthday presents.

  Gregor continued, “Yuri adores her. He has since the moment he laid eyes on her. He’ll take care of her. He’ll give her anything she desires –”

  “You need to stop talking,” Callum warned.

  Gregor ignored his warning and announced what Callum already knew, “He’ll give her immortal life.”

  Callum sucked in breath.

  Vampires fed on human blood, they had since time began. As their species developed, it also developed the capacity to protect its prey. Therefore, at the exact same time vampires fed, they released healing properties into their human meals through their saliva. These properties were extraordinarily strong, they helped the bite heal and the blood to regenerate swiftly.

  And, if released into the bloodstream of a human regularly and for any length of time, it could do more. Regress aging, fight disease, greatly hasten the healing of broken bones or, say, halt the effects of a deadly blood disease.

  And, if released into the bloodstream of a human regularly and indefinitely, it could keep them young, vital and alive forever.

  “I know your people don’t understand this concept but this is my lifemate you’re talking about,” Callum growled.

  Gregor’s tone was actually gentle when he replied, “Lifemate? Hardly, Callum. Her life, maybe. But yours?”

  Callum’s skin started prickling again, even so far as stinging and he felt his blood start to heat as the transformation started.

  He hadn’t transformed without willing himself to do so since he was a young wolf who hadn’t yet learned control.

  It took effort but he held it back and started walking again swiftly, his long legs eating the distance to round the block which would take him back toward Sonia’s house.

  Gregor kept up with him, pace for pace.

  “Think of her, Callum,” Gregor urged calmly. “What she’ll go through, aging while you do not age, knowing that –”

  Callum cut him off, “This conversation is over.”

  “Callum, you must think of Sonia.”

  Callum yet again halted, turned on the vampire and took a step closer, clearly aggressive and on the offense, bending slightly so he was nose-to-nose with Sonia’s guardian.

  “I said, this conversation is over.”

  Gregor held his cool and Callum’s scowl for long moments before he replied, “Fine, Callum, the conversation is over.”

  “Don’t raise this subject again, not with me, not with Sonia,” Callum commanded.

  Gregor pulled in breath through his nose then sighed and agreed, “I won’t raise it again, with either of you.”

  “Yuri either,” Callum went on.

  “I’ll speak with Yuri,” Gregor promised.

  “I want your vow on that,” Callum demanded, he watched Gregor’s eyes flash then the vampire nodded.

  “You have my vow.”

  Callum felt his body relax.

  But he wasn’t finished. “If you and Yuri want to be a part of Sonia’s life, no matter how short it may be, you’ll not behave like you did tonight. Especially Yuri.”

  “As you can see, my news was important,” Gregor returned.

  “Call next time,” Callum gritted out.

  Gregor’s jaw tensed but he nodded.

  “Yuri speaks to her like that again, or to me when she’s within hearing distance, I’ll tear him apart, burn the pieces and scatter the ashes to the winds.”

  This threat was not idle, Gregor knew it and he knew Callum could carry it out.

  Yuri might be a vampire with extraordinary abilities, including strength.

  But Callum was king of the werewolves and his family didn’t rule because they were good at diplomacy. They ruled because they were the strongest, swiftest, most cunning and by far the most ferocious warriors of all werewolves.

  In Callum’s teeth, Yuri would be shreds.

  A muscle in Gregor’s jaw flexed.

  Then he defended, “This evening was difficult for Yuri.”

  “That might be so but the past four days have been traumatic for Sonia and the man she thinks of as her brother behaving like that didn’t fucking help.”

  Gregor held Callum’s scowl for a moment before he acceded, “Your point is made. As I said, I’ll speak with Yuri.”

  “Good,” Callum bit out.

  Finished with their fucking stroll and definitely finished with their conversation, he turned and walked the rest of the distance to Sonia’s house. He didn’t speak the entire time nor did he do so when he entered her house and took off his coat.

  He was striding to the stairs, not having deigned even to glance at Yuri, when he ordered, “You let yourselves in, you’ll lock up on your way out and you’ll never use your keys again unless you know Sonia and I aren’t in this fucking house.”

  “Callum,” Gregor called.

  Callum stifled a growl, stopped, turned to Sonia’s guardian and regarded him in silence.

  “We’ll expect to see Sonia during the holidays,” Gregor said quietly.

  “We’ll see,” Callum replied roughly, put them out of his mind and took the stairs two at a time.

  Sonia was asleep on her side when he’d disrobed and joined her in bed.

  He fitted his body to the curve of hers and, with his arm around her waist, he hauled her deeper into his still agitated frame.

  He had a great deal on his mind but the only things catching
his attention were the exact things he wished not to think about at all.

  He had a vast number of friends who had found their mates. Claiming stories were shared freely and outrageously amongst wolves, both male and female, even bragged about. Fuck, it was such a common practice he even knew his parents’ claiming story.

  Keen to find his connection, Mac had gone on a quest to seek his mate. It had lasted years, but Mac, with his usual patience, never grew frustrated.

  He’d sensed Regan well before he was even in her vicinity. He’d tracked her and found her sitting on the steps in front of her parents’ cottage in France, eating an apple and, apparently, as reported to Callum by Mac, waiting for him.

  Mac had seized her immediately, dragged her into the wood surrounding her parents’ cottage and claimed her on the forest floor, clasping the chain he’d carried in his pocket for centuries around her waist before he’d done it.

  Until the deed was done, Mac didn’t even know her name.

  And that was the wolves’ way. Wolves didn’t fuck around.

  The male seized the female, claimed her and their lives began.

  Although wolves didn’t shy away from talking about sex and mated wolves didn’t balk at unseemly (to other cultures) public displays of affection, Callum was grateful not to know the particulars of his mother’s claiming as he did some of his friends.

  What he did know was that was it. Regan was then Mac’s and their lives together started there. Callum wasn’t a romantic and never imagined their relationship was perfect in the centuries they had together. But it was solid, it was strong, it was affectionate and tender and, last, it was loving.

  What Callum had with Sonia might not have started like other wolves but with the way he felt the moment her hand drifted toward him last night while he was wolf then stroked his muzzle with drowsy affection. The way he felt when she threw the covers aside and offered to make him warm. The way he felt when she pressed herself to him and fell asleep. The way he felt when her eyes opened that morning and she stared at him with that sleepy look of love. The way he felt when she was connected to him and agreed she was his. The way he felt when the claiming was done and he smelled the beauty that was them. And, lastly, the way he felt through (practically) every moment in between, he knew it had ended that way.

  Human or not, what he would have with Sonia was solid, strong, affectionate, tender, loving as well as spirited, fiery and unbelievably sweet. Sonia felt the pull of their connection. He knew it and she herself had declared she was his.

  But now Regan was without her mate and, although his mother kept up a bright, cheerful façade, her eyes always betrayed her loss, sometimes her sorrow, sometimes even her confusion as if she didn’t know what to make of a life without Mac in it.

  That was to be Callum’s future. There was no way of escaping it.

  And this thought didn’t make him anguished.

  It enraged him.

  So much, he felt the change, again against his will, coming over him, heating his blood and tightening his skin.

  Any other time, he’d give into it, become the wolf and run.

  But he couldn’t, not in bed beside Sonia, nor could he go outside and roam the city streets.

  So he did the only thing he could do.

  He fought back the change as he released his conscious human will to his innate wolfish instincts.

  And his instincts told him his mate was finally at his side. She was there for him, to take care of him, ease his way, soothe his frustrations and tame the beast within.

  His hand slid over her hip, back over her bottom, between her legs and he found her. Without easing into it or waking her, he manipulated her until he heard her breath become heavy in her sleep, her hips moving unconsciously against his hand.

  And then she woke, already wet, her breath escalating sharply as she realized what Callum was doing but she didn’t begin to fight.

  Callum’s sweet Sonia began to moan.

  Yes, asleep, awake, Sonia was fucking his.

  His other hand pressed under her and between her legs. Taking over, he used the hand that had been working her to yank off her underwear and then it went back to start fucking her with two fingers.

  Stroking deep, feeling her growing wetness coat his fingers as they drove again and again into the silk that was Sonia, his heart rate rose as his blood still boiled under his prickling skin and his breath grew thick when he heard her moans turn to pants. She bent a knee deep to offer him better access and she wiggled out of her nightgown as her hips started jerking, demanding, slamming down on his fingers.

  Christ, she was fucking glorious.

  His cock hard and throbbing, he could wait no longer. He growled into the back of her hair, stopped fucking her with his fingers and flattened his hand against her pubic bone. Using his other hand to shift her hips, he roughly pulled her up with the hand between her legs until she was on her knees and he positioned himself between them.

  Then he entered her with a violent, driving thrust, seating himself to the hilt.

  He fucking loved it that she could take all of him. Even she-wolves couldn’t take all of him.

  And he loved that she was made for him. Loved not only that she understood it but also that it was Sonia who explained it to him.

  He loved it that she loved to play, just as much as Callum, and just as rough and hard and hungry.

  Like at that very instant, Sonia was on her knees with her sex offered to him shamelessly, her thighs quivering in joyful anticipation and he gave her what she wanted. He pulled back, surged forward and seated himself to the root yet again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And he did it with a ferocity he would only use with a wolf, never a human. Fucking Sonia so hard her moans were sharp and curt, jolted to silence by his thrusts.

  She came up on her hands and, when she assumed the position of a wolf, his need quickened, his strokes deepened and she took him, all of his cock, all of his power, feeding the force of his hunger.

  He reached his long arm out and grasped her thick hair, using it and his hand at her waist to grind her into him as he drove into her, harder, harder. It hit his consciousness she wasn’t only taking the pounding force of his thrusts, she was rearing her hips back to meet him.

  He felt her sex quiver around his shaft and her breath start to rasp and he knew it was upon her.

  He twisted his fist in her hair.

  “Say it,” he demanded.

  She reared back into his cock, her rasping breath turning to scratchy cries.

  “Sonia, fucking say it.” His own orgasm was coming. He felt it building in his groin and he finally understood the panic she displayed the two times he had her because the force behind his oncoming climax seemed like something that would tear her apart.

  Not of his will, his hand twisted again in her hair, forcing her neck to arch as she moaned deep in her throat, his own voice gravelly when he changed his command, “I want to hear you fucking scream it.”

  “Wolf,” she whispered, then her sex convulsed around his cock with her orgasm and she did as he commanded, her words shrieked so loud, it wasn’t a possibility the neighbors heard, it was a certainty, “My wolf!”

  At her words, he buried himself inside her silken wetness and exploded with a guttural snarl, feeling an intensity he’d never experienced. It was akin to the change to wolf, it was like exploding out of his skin.

  And the power of it was startling and magnificent.

  When he recovered he released her hair but held her hips and continued to thrust gently inside her. She’d collapsed on her front, her head in the pillows, her hair fanning everywhere, her breathing still labored. She continued to offer her sweet ass to him as he tenderly plunged inside her, her hips angled up and pressing, encouraging, a loving invitation, a tender capitulation, a beautiful reminder that she belonged to him.

  He glided a hand from her hip, over her bottom and up to his chain which had slid high up her
back, catching under her breasts. He tugged it down where it caught lightly on her hips so he could remind his mate of its presence, something he never wanted her to forget. Then, still thrusting, slower and slower, he trailed his fingers along the chain at the small of her back.

  Her body shivered under his as the walls of her sex trembled delicately around his shaft.

  Callum forced his hips into hers, taking her off her knees, pinning her to the bed on her belly, his cock still inside her, her legs spreading pleasingly wide to accommodate him.

  The change wasn’t upon him anymore. His blood not boiling, his skin heated only from fucking his gloriously sweet, pretty, perfect little mate.

  As was the reason for her existence, she’d sated him.

  And, he was realizing with fierce satisfaction, she did it beautifully every fucking time.

  Content, he placed his forearms into the bed at her sides to settle some of his weight off her body. He used his chin to shift her hair away from her face and, at her ear, pressing deep inside her one last time, he muttered, “My glorious queen, I told you we’d have a beautiful life, you and I.”

  And, with his still hard cock buried deep inside his queen, Callum, king of the wolves, fell asleep while the Christmas lights from Sonia’s tree cast a glow on their connected bodies.

  Chapter Eleven

  Scales

  Still mostly asleep, Sonia’s hazy consciousness registered the covers slowly sliding down her body.

  She was on her belly. Even motionless she could feel the delicious ache in every single muscle and a luscious throbbing between her legs that was a vague ache but a greater feeling of gratification. The ache was the ghost of Callum pounding inside her, the gratification was the reminder of being headily stuffed full.

  Her eyes fluttered open then closed as she felt the fleeting touch on the skin of her upper buttocks where the needles were jabbed for her injections.

  This fleeting touch became a different kind as if lips were trailing there.

  She sighed at the beauty of it and momentarily melted back to sleep.

  Then she felt strong fingers grasp her hips and she was gently rolled, arms came around her and she was lifted.