“Ryon said Callum seemed impatient for the mating, wanted to get it over with so he could get on with taking down the rebellion,” Caleb went on and Sonia’s briefly buoyant heart lurched before Caleb mumbled, “Fuck me.”
“Caleb –”
“It was me, I wouldn’t be shitty I was forced to spend a week with that woman in a remote cabin explaining the ways of our culture to her. It was me and I was alone with her in a remote cabin, I’d draw it out so long, it’d take a year.”
“Well, it isn’t you,” Regan retorted firmly.
“No, it isn’t and a damned shame it isn’t.” He paused and went on sharply, “Not for me, Regan, for her. Woman like that? She deserves a man who wants her not the mate the oracles foretold would be his queen.”
Oh dear lord, Sonia thought as her lurching heart turned to stone.
“Perhaps he’ll grow an attraction to her,” Regan suggested.
“Oh, he’ll do his duty to his people, Mac made sure of that,” Caleb clipped. “The oracles said it was Sonia, Callum will mate with Sonia. The end. Every one of us expects to find the other half to our soul. Not Cal. Duty first, heart second.” There was a pause and then the kicker as a finish, “Maybe, if he’s lucky, as a human, she’ll understand his need to f**k around on her with his kind.”
Sonia sucked in breath.
“Caleb!” Regan snapped. “You don’t know he’ll do that. She’s his mate and –”
“It’s Callum we’re talking about, isn’t it?” Caleb returned sarcastically.
Sonia rested her forehead on the bathroom door.
“I’m not talking about this anymore,” Regan replied. “I’m going to go and get to know my soon-to-be daughter-in-law.”
“I’m gonna run,” Caleb returned irately.
“You do that, you need it,” Regan retorted.
Sonia turned her back to the door and slid down it until her bottom hit the floor. Then she rested her temple on her knee as she wound her arms around her calves.
Evidently, the cosmos wasn’t done with her.
So it gave her the handsome, charismatic king of a secret sect of eye-color-changing, slow-aging people as her destined mate.
But it also made it so that king didn’t want her.
And, apparently, he was a philanderer (even his brother said so!).
Somewhere in her heart at every moment she missed her mother and father.
It was only times like these when that slightly dulled ache grew and blossomed and twisted and reminded her how truly alone she was in the world.
Not that she often found, and lost, her dream man in the span of minutes.
But Sonia Arlington had lost a lot in her life.
This was just the last in long line of it.
And, unfortunately, she’d never gotten used to it.
* * * * *
Sonia was in the kitchen with Regan watching Callum arrange greenery and lights on the mantels of the fireplaces.
The Christmas decorations were Ryon’s idea.
After Sonia experienced her latest life trauma, she composed herself (she hoped), came out of the bathroom and she and Regan made breakfast for what Regan called “The Boys”. “The Boys”, Regan informed Sonia, were Calder and Caleb, Callum’s younger brothers, and Ryon, his cousin.