Taking in a quiet breath, she slid carefully out of his arms, out of the bed and walked to her robe. Pulling it on and tying it tight, she went to the window and stared out at the night, the cloudless sky allowing the moon to shine bright on the snow making the forested hills a winter wonderland.
For a moment, she wished with everything that she was out in it, like Callum could do, turning to wolf and running though the snow in the night.
Or, at least, like she’d do with her Papa, walking, seeing, listening, hearing, smelling, experiencing.
But then these pleasant thoughts melted away and Sonia realized that the cosmos wasn’t quite done with its joke.
“Honey?” Callum called and she turned to him.
He was up on an elbow, his beautiful eyes on her.
“What are you doing up?” he asked.
“Thinking,” she replied.
“Well, think over here,” he ordered.
She felt her mouth quirk into a smile because he was really so gosh darned bossy.
She didn’t, however, hesitate and she walked to the foot of the bed and then crawled up it on all fours, his body between her moving limbs.
When she got face-to-face with him, his arms came around her and pulled her down on his powerful frame.
His hand slid into the side of her hair and tucked her face in his neck when he asked, “What were you thinking?”
Again, without hesitating, she answered, “I was wondering how old you were when you locked in your development.”
“Around one hundred and ninety-five.”
Her head came up and she stared at him.
“You don’t look one hundred and ninety-five,” she told him and he grinned.
His hand came around to the back of her neck and he gathered her hair in his palm and twisted it into a rope, explaining, “In human years, around thirty-nine.”
He was coiling her hair around his fist when she noted, “So, you’re still older than me.”
His face softened with understanding when he replied, “I’ll always be older than you, Sonia.”
She dropped her head down to tuck her face in his neck again, knowing this wasn’t true.
It was the cosmos’s last, big, huge, ugly joke.
He rubbed her hair at her jaw and called, “Baby doll?”
“Mm?” she answered, not wanting to talk anymore that night or any night if it was on this subject.
“You can think about it tonight, worry about it, be sad about it but then get it out of your head,” he offered on a command.
She felt the tears collecting behind her eyes when she whispered, “You’ll always be beautiful.”
He released her hair and rolled into her so she was on her back, he was mostly on her and he lifted up on an elbow to loom over her.
Then he announced, “Wolves mate for life.”
“What?” she asked.
“We mate for life. We never cheat. We’re never unfaithful. We never leave. We mate for life. Our instinct, everything that makes us, everything that is us centers around our mate, our pack, our family. It’s the only thing that matters. Not beauty, not youth.”
“Easy for you to say,” she mumbled, her eyes sliding away, “you’ll be forever young.”
Her eyes came back to him when he stated, “Right now I feel about as old as I am.”
Surprised at this, she queried, “Why?”
He looked at her a moment, shook his head and said, “It doesn’t matter.”
Then he bent his neck to touch his mouth to hers before he rolled again to his back, taking her with him.
But it was her turn to get up on an elbow and look down on him.
“Why do you feel that?”
“Sonia, let’s just –”
“Is it because you know you’ll have to watch me get old?”
“Baby doll –”
She cut him off. “No, really, Cal. Tell me.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“But you did,” she pushed.
“Yes, I did and it was a mistake.” His arm came around his chest and he tried to pull her into his embrace but she resisted and he, unusually, relented.
She planted a hand in his chest, beginning to feel funny. The happiness was sliding away and the despair was returning at the thought that he’d watch her get wrinkled and gray and weak and stooped while he stayed forever beautiful, tall and strong and, therefore, she demanded, “Cal, talk to me.”
“It isn’t because I have to watch you get old.”
“Then what is it?” she pressed.
His brows drew together as his patience started to ebb, “Just let it go.”
She put pressure on his chest and insisted hotly, “No, tell me what it is!”
“It’s because I have to watch you die.”
She sucked in breath and stared at him. That heinous thought hadn’t occurred to her and she didn’t know what to say.