At any other time, he’d be thrilled to be snowed in at their cabin. Since buying it decades ago, he’d spent a goodly amount of time there. Regardless of the fact that his title came with castles in Scotland, England and France, a mansion on the East Coast of the US and his entitlement to take over any Territorial Mansion while traveling, he’d toyed with the idea of talking Sonia into settling in their cabin for a long spell after he’d won the war. At least until they started having pups. It reminded him of the years he spent in the Canadian Rockies and he liked its intimacy, the dense forest that surrounded it, sensing and smelling the plethora of wildlife all around.
She’d once told him she loved it there which was one of the reasons why he bought it. The other being that he loved it there and it was the only place that was theirs not to mention she thought she was in a dream when she was back.
He figured she wouldn’t be hard to sway to his way of thinking.
This was the only thing that brightened Callum’s morning.
On that thought, he walked into the house, removing his gloves and tossing them on the counter in the kitchen.
However, upon entry, his eyes went directly to Sonia.
She didn’t look to him. In fact, she didn’t move.
She was seated where he left her, curled up, her neck twisted to look over the back of the chair and out the window at the falling snow.
He had, for one shining moment that morning, thought she’d also felt their connection, just as all wolves do instantly, and he could gratefully dispense of this charade of courtship, claim her, mate with her and install her at his side.
He also had, for one shining moment that morning, gloried in the fact that she was not what he’d feared when he’d read the varied reports that had been unlocked to him after his father’s death or when he’d watched her walk home last night. It was the first time he’d laid eyes on her in person since he met her that Christmas Eve years ago.
For one shining moment that morning, he’d gloried that she was instead like a wolf, lusty for life and all that it offered.
Her sultry, teasing, inviting demeanor this morning, her unbridled response to his kiss, his thigh, his touch, he thought proved that.
Her hideously healthy, unappealing breakfast and subsequent behavior had, however, eradicated it.
Callum couldn’t imagine why fate had linked her to him.
She was beautiful, there was no doubting that. As he read her reports and saw the pictures of her, they stirred him. He was a man but he was especially a wolf. He’d have to be dead for her pictures not to affect him.
It was vaguely alarming, however, the colorless life she led. Hell, even her house was painted light gray. But when his brethren welcomed her with open arms, Callum hoped she’d blossom under their adulation.
Even so, he had to admit under normal circumstances, outside of noting her beauty, she’d not tempt him and when wolves met their mates, this was not only unusual, it was unprecedented.
He’d taken more than his fair share of humans, it wasn’t that.
It was that he didn’t fancy blondes.
He also didn’t fancy skinny women.
She was not as thin as some humans starved and exercised themselves to be, this was true, but she was definitely not as curvy as a she-wolf or the humans he’d chosen.
And he detested talk of healthy food, fat, cholesterol and anything of the like. He wasn’t attracted to women who counted every calorie, sauntered around on high heels and wore expensive, designer gear. He also wasn’t attracted to women who over-groomed, making it their ridiculous mission to have perfect hair, makeup and nails. This did nothing for him. Callum held in contempt the very idea of wasting precious life engaged in dieting and primping. He held even more contempt for the women who engaged in these pursuits as Sonia, he knew from the reports, not to mention her perfect nails, hair and skin, did.
In the rare times he was not performing his duties or engaged in war, he preferred to be transformed to wolf, running outdoors. Or doing anything outdoors for that matter, preferably in a wood. Or getting drunk on real ale or whisky with his brethren. Or eating enormous, home-cooked meals. Or bedding a female human or wolf who not only knew how to play but f**king well enjoyed it and was willing to give herself over to him so he could meet her needs but also so he could assuage the hungry force of his own.
Not drinking martinis at elegant gathering places, shopping or partaking of miniscule servings of haute cuisine.
And Sonia Arlington looked, acted and it was reported that she was a woman who preferred to engage in the latter.
Nevertheless, they were connected. Even as he wondered at it, he felt it stir in his blood, in his gut and, this morning, she’d given him a very slim hope that perhaps there was something more to Sonia Arlington.
He approached her chair and crouched by the side.
She didn’t move from her contemplation of the snowfall.
“Sonia,” he called softly and her head turned.
She was no longer crying but he saw the tracks the tears left through her makeup. She hadn’t even wiped them away.