With Everything I Am(115)

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.”

She did as she was told, the frightening Callum still fresh in her mind even though his voice was no longer harsh, his eyes were no longer hungry or enraged and his warm tone indicated an extreme sense of relief.

When they alighted from the plane, one, tall, dark-haired man was standing beside a hunter green Range Rover that Callum, holding her hand, guided her to immediately.

The man was looking at Sonia curiously but he did not drop to a knee.

He bowed his head deeply to her and to Callum before he lifted his head and, to Sonia, he murmured reverently, his Scottish burr evident even though he spoke two words, “My queen.” When she nodded and gave him a tremulous smile, he grinned at Callum and said, “She’s pretty, your grace.”

“Yes, she is, Drogan,” Callum answered as the man threw Callum a set of keys which Callum caught.

“Good to have you back,” Drogan called as Callum practically pushed Sonia into the left side passenger seat.

“It’s fucking good to be back,” Callum answered, slamming Sonia’s door without bothering to introduce her to Drogan.

“Hail victory, my king,” Drogan went on, his voice was soft but it was also filled with pride and relief.

“Hail victory,” Callum repeated, his voice was threaded with a vein of steel.

Callum drove them through the darkening afternoon of a wooded countryside just as swiftly as he drove them to the airfield hours before.

She wanted to ask him to slow down. She was too numb to speak.

He didn’t bother.

However, finally he said, “There she is.”

Sonia turned her head from her silent, angry, fearful contemplation of the countryside whizzing by on her left to look straight ahead.

On a small rise sat a castle.

In the waning light she saw it. Not exactly large and also not like any castle she’d ever seen in the times Gregor had taken her to France and Germany.

This one was like out of a fairytale.

It had eight (she counted them) turrets upon which long, streaming pennants flew. It seemed to have no straight sides, no sharp angles. It was all rounded with sweeping edges. It didn’t ramble across the rise but was compact and tall, at least three stories except the turrets which were much higher.

She barely got a good look at it before Callum swung around the circular drive which had a small, round fountain dancing in the middle, stopped the Rover and parked.

She also barely got a good look at the two statues (she could swear they were wolves) guarding the banisters on either side of the six (or seven, or even eight) foot wide set of steps. These led to the studded, wooden, arched double doors that seemed fifteen feet tall and had enormous, scrolled, iron hinges.

She also barely got a look at anything in the welcomingly lit interior as he dragged her up a winding, stone staircase lit by sconces on the wall and cut by thin tapestries hanging on the rounded walls.

One flight, two, three, four and on the landing of the fifth he walked them straight into the only room that led straight off the landing. A bedroom that she didn’t see at all.

Because she was concentrating on the fact that Callum was almost tearing her clothes from her body.

“Callum –” she began.

“Quiet,” he ordered in his kingly voice.

“Cal –”

He kissed her.

She struggled. Not against him but against the urge which was fighting to emerge during his deep, heady, hungry kiss. She struggled because she was never going to sleep with him.

Not ever again.

But concentrating on her inner battle, she lost track of him taking off every last stitch of her clothing.

So when she was naked and he had his hands on her bottom, lifted her and threw her on the bed but caught her ankles and yanked her forward at the same time he pulled her legs apart she was losing the fight in her head.