Sonia stood amongst the boxes and decided, for Regan, she’d do as she was asked. She could easily unpack them later when she told Callum she wasn’t moving to Scotland.
An hour and a half later, Sonia stood staring out her window in shock as her six full suitcases, one full cosmetic case, Callum’s three suitcases and five boxes full of her family’s Christmas decorations, her stuffed wolf, her photo albums and a few odds and ends were whisked away by one of Callum’s men.
That’ll make unpacking tonight a bit more difficult, she thought as she bit her lip and worry began to nag her.
Any hope she had of staying put was dashed fifteen minutes later when Callum arrived.
The door opened and Sonia, sitting and enjoying a mug of herbal tea with Regan in the living room, got to her feet, turned to her mate and opened her mouth.
Then she froze and stared.
Callum’s body, hair and clothes were clean although his clothing was wrinkled.
However, the beard that had grown in the weeks she’d been with him was now immensely thick and untrimmed. Further, his hair seemed to have grown tremendously in that short time and it went from overlong to just plain long falling past the collar of his shirt.
Further, his face appeared so exhausted he looked almost haggard, something she would never have guessed as he always seemed alert and energized.
And his eyes were hungry and not in a good way. The lines beside them deeper, and they were positively seething, not with anger but with wrath. A rage so deep, so strong, it emanated from him and filled the room with its terrifying intensity instantly.
He looked wild, even savage and Sonia was frozen to the spot when Callum didn’t look at his mother who had risen at Sonia’s side. He came directly at Sonia and she had the desire to flee, to run away from him as fast as she could. However, her terror was so absolute it felt her feet had grown roots into the floor.
She didn’t move a muscle when he used one arm to hook her brutally at the waist and yank her body so that it crashed into his. Then he used his other hand to twist viciously in her hair causing so much pain it didn’t feel sensuously pleasant, it only felt like pain. Then his mouth slammed down on hers and he kissed her in a way he’d never kissed her before. In a way that Sonia didn’t even know you could kiss.
It was violent and merciless and seizing and even cruel.
Therefore, when his head came up and he glanced dismissively at his mother, Sonia didn’t say a word.
“We’ll see you at home,” he growled, his voice rough with all that was in his eyes, all that was carved in his features and every line of his enraged frame.
Then he took Sonia’s hand and dragged her out to his SUV.
Yes, dragged.
She even tripped twice trying to keep up with his ground-eating strides and he didn’t even glance at her.
She was buckled in and he was speeding casually through the streets before she realized he hadn’t muttered a word to her.
He hadn’t even said hello.
She was too terrified of him to suggest it or say it to him.
Definitely too terrified to tell him she wasn’t going to Scotland.
He took her to an airfield, tossed the keys of the SUV to a waiting Saint and dragged her up the steps into an aircraft.
When she got inside she saw to her shock it was a personal jet. There was a set of four, wide, comfortable seats upholstered in rich, tan leather facing each other over a gleaming wood topped table, four more seats in the back, two on each side of a door. There was a bar and refrigerator on the wall opposite the jet’s door, the bar also made of highly-shined wood where glasses and bottles were in snug, secured shelves. There was a television screen on the wall behind the cockpit. And there was a long, wide, deep-seated couch running the opposite side to the seating area and bar.
Callum turned to her and commanded tersely, “Strap in.”
Looking into his forbidding, hostile eyes, without a peep, Sonia did as she was told. She chose a seat at the back by the window and buckled in.
He stuck his head into the cockpit and said one word, “Go.”
Then he strapped himself in beside Sonia.
She tried to get her heart to stop beating so crazily. She tried to find one thread of courage. She tried to catch a single thought.
She failed at all of these things in the face of this new, fearsome Callum.
When they leveled off in the air, again without saying a word to her, he unbuckled her, picked her up and carried her to the couch.
Sonia tensed as Callum all but tossed her on it then came down on top of her.
With most of his body pinning her between him and the back of the couch, he tucked her face in his neck and, within moments, the tightness left his body, his enormous weight settled into her and he fell fast asleep.
She was shocked at this, shocked silent and still for long minutes.
Then the shock wore off and she realized she was not comfortable nor was she tired, primarily because she was scared out of her mind. But anytime she tried to shift out from under him, his arm tightened reflexively, pulling her further underneath him.
So Sonia gave up and lay mostly under him, trying to get comfortable, sometimes dozing (as he slept for nine hours straight without moving a muscle) but most of the time deciding that she couldn’t live this life.
No matter how good they were, she couldn’t live for the times when Callum remembered she existed and at least attempted to be the mate he didn’t want to be but it was his duty to be as king. She couldn’t rail against the times when he forgot to do that and was just king.
She couldn’t bear this for a lifetime.
She knew she couldn’t leave but she also couldn’t live like this.
She’d been right all those weeks ago. Living like this would drive her mad.
Before she came to a single conclusion and thus before she made that first plan, Callum woke.
It was moments before the captain announced over the intercom that they would shortly be landing and they needed to take their seats and fasten their seatbelts.
Callum used the restroom at the back as did she, finding it wasn’t a restroom but a full on bathroom, four times the space as in a regular airplane’s. It even had a shower.
When she came out, his arm extended to her, he pulled her into his lap and kissed her, this time slowly, lingeringly, reminding her how good it could be and how much she missed it.
Her heart lurched as her belly tightened but her mind fought against the sweetness of it even as her body rebelled and relaxed into his.
Then he nuzzled her neck, flicking her ear with his nose and he whispered, “Buckle in, baby doll. We’re almost home.”