The instant she whispered those three words, his hands released her wrists and his forehead dropped to hers.
Freed, her arms wrapped around him tight.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him and curling his arms around her to hold her close.
She realized then she was another one of his burdens. A mate he didn’t exactly want but he had all the same and it was his duty to do right by her.
And he was attempting to do his duty, not only to his people but to her. His moments of kingliness were a part of him, ingrained. It was who he was.
The rest of it, his tenderness and humor, was him doing the best he could with a difficult situation.
Her destiny had brought her to him to be his queen, his people’s queen and she had a duty as well, to him, to his people. It was an awesome responsibility but it was also an honor no one but no one of her kind would have.
But Sonia had been chosen and she’d been acting like a selfish idiot, thinking of her lost dream instead of doing her duty to him.
No man, not even someone as strong and charismatic as Callum, should face such a burden alone. It was her duty, her destiny, to stand by his side and provide what she could to help him see it through.
Still weeping silently, she tipped her head back to look at him.
“Callum –”
He looked down at her and started talking at the same time, “Your place is beside me, Sonia, wherever I go. I’ll take you to visit your friends as often as we can but you belong at my side. After what happened with the rebellion, I needed to be home and I needed you with me.”
“Callum –” she repeated.
He kept going. “You can’t wear your fancy clothes and high-heeled shoes here. It’s cold and it snows, a lot. It’s my duty to take care of you and I did, by getting you what you needed to live your life at my side.” Then he muttered with irritation, “Christ, you’re the only woman I know who doesn’t like new clothes.”
She wanted to kick herself at throwing his generosity in his face but instead attempted yet again to interject, “Callum –”
He kept right on talking just as, visibly, his irritation grew. “Your life is too short to worry about calories, f**k, it’s too damned short to worry about anything. You have a beautiful body and it’ll be even more beautiful when there’s more of it. But you have to learn, little one, to enjoy your life and not waste it on ridiculous things like counting calories and making certain you’ve taken every last vitamin.”
“Callum –” she tried again but he was on a roll.
“And when I arrived to collect you and didn’t say hello it was because I’d been fighting for eight days straight. No food, no rest. And I’d left the front after having given an order, an order I knew was carried out in my absence, a vile order I had no choice but to give for they would not admit defeat.”
Her body grew taut against his again because she knew he was talking about the executions and she fully realized the weight of his burden wasn’t immense.
It was colossal.
She tried to break in. “Callum, please –”
She failed in her endeavor and he carried on, “This has been going on for too f**king long. My father dealt with it, his father before him, we’ve tried everything. I had no choice but to break them. I don’t f**king like not having a choice and I don’t f**king enjoy being forced into a corner that requires me to make a decision that means the end of the lives of men who are probably good men but they followed the wrong path. If I didn’t break them, even more warriors would die, more letters would be written, this would never f**king end.”
She decided to wait it out. She’d created this, now she had to bear the consequences.
However, apparently, he was done, for he asked, “Do you understand?”
Sonia did understand.
Boy, did she understand.
She lifted her hand to the side of his face, her fingers going into his hair but her thumb swept along his cheekbone and she replied softly, “I understand.”
He studied her face and must have approved of what he saw for the intensity moved out of his, his big body relaxed into hers and his fingers started stroking her back.
“So we’re good?” he queried, his deep voice as soft as hers.
No, they weren’t good.