She instantly sucked in breath and tried to pull away.
His arms got tight.
She started struggling.
He registered his surprise at her actions and his gut registered worry when she just as suddenly stopped.
She’d been pushing against his chest with both hands but she bent her elbows, bowed her back and dropped her forehead to rest on them.
“Yes,” she whispered to his chest, uttering that one word in a way that sounded like it was torn from her. But the chest she muttered into felt like iron bands, bands that had been clamped tightly around it for centuries, were finally released so Callum could, for the first time in his life, actually breathe. “Yes,” she repeated in a whisper to his chest as he looked down at her hair shining in the firelight. “I fell in love with you during my first dream when I was seventeen. And I fell in love with you all over again Christmas Eve when you wiped the tears from my face during the general’s scene in White Christmas.”
Without willing them to do so, his arms crushed her to him, forcing her body flat against his, her arms caught between them, her face coming up to rest against his neck.
All of his torment was lost in his current sense of triumph.
And he could tell her now he was wolf.
“Sonia, baby doll –”
She pressed her face against his neck and her body against his, “Please, Callum, please. Can I please just go to sleep? Please.”
He lifted a hand and trailed his fingers along her hairline, curling them in at her jaw to pull her hair away from her neck.
“Has it been bad tonight, missing your parents?” he asked quietly.
She pressed deeper into him and her fingers, like in his dream, tensed in his chest hair, her nails dragging through it. This caught at his memory, pulling up his guilt at f**king the she-wolf, glorying in her faultless ass, calling her by Sonia’s pet name for him as he ground into her, betraying his own mate even if it was only in his unconscious mind.
“Yes,” she whispered, “it’s been bad.”
It had been bad.
And he’d been gone, leaving her to face her sorrow alone while he selfishly, no, as she put it, kingly, focused on his own thoughts instead of protecting his mate.
“I’m sorry, little one. Of course you can go to sleep.”
She pressed even closer and said with feeling, “Thank you.”
He exited the bed, taking her with him and placing her under the hides. Then he took off his clothes and joined her there. He pulled her into his arms and she acted as if she’d resist at first before she relaxed then melted into him.
Then, surprisingly, considering she said she’d had so much trouble getting to sleep, she drifted off quickly.
And, with Sonia close, Callum could set his thoughts in order.
No, with Sonia close, his queen, his mate, who loved him, had loved him for decades but who he’d made fall in love with him on Christmas Eve (which would, forever, be his favorite f**king holiday), Callum could finally set his thoughts in order.
He had a victory celebration tomorrow.
Then he’d tell his wife he was wolf.
Then he’d give her a Mating and a f**king wedding because she was human and she deserved it but also because she loved him and he’d tie himself in knots to give her everything she desired for as long as she was breathing on this earth.
Then he’d talk with Lucien and Gregor in an effort to create a strategy on how to beat The Prophesy that said her life would be shortened.
In the meantime, he’d make every f**king moment count.
And the dream…
At first he thought it was Sonia’s dream, as Lucien said he had Leah’s and he could see how she fell in love with him if that was how she dreamed of them together. For, if he’d had that dream without knowing her, he’d have fallen in love with her too.