“Sonia,” he warned.
She shook her head.
His brows drew together and he asked in a far less soft tone, “Why are you hiding it?”
She stared at him and then something pierced her panic.
He’d heard Regan and Ryon as well and the person falling outside yesterday and he’d heard Waring arriving at the cabin weeks before. And he smelled them between her legs, just as she did. Thinking about it, she’d noticed it often in a distracted way that he could sense the same things she could.
And her attackers that night, they’d sniffed her. They could smell her and she’d forgotten or blocked it out of her mind but she’d thought, at the time, they were just like her.
It was because they were Callum’s kind.
So much was going on she never thought about it but Callum consistently exhibited the same abilities, the same gifts of sight, hearing and smell that she did.
And he never hid it. Not once.
“You have heightened senses,” she breathed in wonder.
He continued to watch her with knitted brows. “All my people do.”
“They do?”
“Yes, Sonia, they do,” he replied and his arms gave her a squeeze. “All my people do. What I want now is for you to admit that you do too.”
She didn’t know what to make of this. She’d never met anyone who had her gifts except her father. She had always been the strange one, worried about what people would think, how they’d react if they knew.
But Callum was just like her.
She stared then she swallowed.
Then she thought about her destiny and how it brought her to this man who shared her gifts.
Then she took a huge chance, hoping her father wouldn’t disapprove and, quietly, she shared.
“Father told me never to tell anyone,” she whispered and watched his brows unknit and lift.
“Why the fuck not?” he asked irately.
She shook her head and answered, “Humans don’t have my gifts. He said I should be proud of them but I had to hide them from everyone. Everyone. I could never tell a living soul. And I didn’t. Even Gregor and Yuri don’t know.”
His mouth got tight at that but he didn’t speak.
“If they knew, Callum, they’d think I was a freak,” she went on to explain. “They might even fear me.” She pressed closer and her voice dropped back to a whisper. “They might even harm me. My senses are that good. They could think I was a mutant. They could want to study me.”
As her lifelong, perhaps hysterical fears were verbalized, Callum gave her a shake. “Baby doll, no one is going to hurt you.”
“Not now,” she agreed. “I have you to protect me. But before, who knows?” she cried. “It’s not just that, it’s more,” she added. Now that she’d let it go, after so, so long, she couldn’t stop the information flowing. “Animals don’t fear me. And I’m not just talking dogs and cats, I’m talking all animals. Birds and the wild animals Papa and I would see when we were out in the woods. And even more, I can feel eyes on me, smell people from far away but I know if they’re good or they’re bad. I’d been sensing your people watching me for years and I knew I had nothing to fear. I also knew those men who attacked me that night before they came into my house. I knew them because I’d been sensing them for weeks.”
It was Callum’s turn to try to cut in. “Sonia –”
But it was Sonia’s turn to be on a roll.
“And I dreamed of you. I dreamed of you for ages and you were real. I dreamed of you and I in this room and I didn’t know you or this castle existed. No one does that! I’m a freak!”
His arms grew so tight, for a second it cut off her breath and she stopped ranting and stared at him.
“Baby doll, calm down. You aren’t a freak. Me and every one of my own have the same abilities.”
Her eyes grew wide at this revelation and she breathed, “Did you dream about me?”
His gaze grew soft and he rolled to his back, rolling her on top of him at the same time. Then his hand came up and his fingers tucked her hair behind her ear.
“No, unfortunately, I never dreamed of you,” he whispered. “That, honey, is a gift all your own.” She drew in breath to speak but he kept talking. “But your father was right, it’s a gift. All of it and you shouldn’t hide it. You should be proud.” His thumb swept her lower lip and she trembled against him, hearing those words again, words her father said time and again but this time from Callum, spoken in his fierce whisper, his eyes never leaving hers. “You don’t have to hide it here, not amongst my people who are now your people. Baby doll, with me, you don’t have to hide anything. You can be all you.”