With Everything I Am(141)

“Honey –” he began but she cut him off and when she did her voice was trembling.

“Tell me there are two of your men named Waring.”

Fuck!

He moved faster but she retreated just as fast, skittering across the room, her gaze locked to his all the while begging, “Tell me, Callum. Tell me that’s a common name for your people.”

It was rare his people’s names were common. Since wolves didn’t have last names, their parents often had to get creative. At the very least, they carried a name that no one in their town or village shared.

Callum had lived over three hundred years and he’d never met another wolf named Waring.

Except the one Sonia knew.

She ran into the wall but lifted her arm, hand out, palm up, to ward him off.

“Tell me, Callum.”

He ignored her arm and her palm hit his chest as he got close and framed her face with his hands.

Then, trying to be gentle with her, he whispered, “I can’t, little one.”

She closed her eyes tight and turned her head away.

She didn’t open her eyes when she whispered back, “He saved my life.”

He did. But Waring did more than that.

“I know,” Callum shared. “He saved mine too.”

Her eyes jerked back to his and Callum saw stark terror mixed with her grief.

“What?” she breathed.

He swiftly debated the merits of telling her the story but her hands came up to his at her face and her fingers curled tightly around them, fisting the paper in her hand as she did so.

Then she demanded loudly, “What?”

Callum sighed then quickly he explained, “I’d been targeted. I was defending myself against six attackers, maybe more. Waring drew several of them away, dispatched two but was killed by the third before I could aid him.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed in horror as her fingers tensed.

“Honey, it’s war,” he explained gently.

His gentle explanation had no effect for she repeated, “Oh my God.”

Before he could move to comfort her, she tore violently away from his hands and stepped to the side.

“Who’s this?” she demanded to know, turning the paper and pointing at the name beside Waring’s.

Cautiously, Callum answered, “That’s his mother.”

“Right,” Sonia snapped and walked stiffly to his desk, sat herself in his chair and rolled herself forward.

Callum watched as she grabbed a piece of paper embossed with his crest at the top and started writing.

Silently, he walked to stand beside her and looked down to watch as she wrote:

Dear Michaela,

By now, you’ve likely heard of me. I’m Sonia, queen to Callum and I knew your son.

In the few weeks I’d known him, he did several kindnesses for me, two very important. One of those saved the life of my mate.

He also made me laugh.

There is nothing I can write in this letter which will help you during this time of sorrow. But I hope it gives you some small measure of comfort to know that there are two beings very grateful for the fact that they shared this glorious planet with your son, even if it was for a short time.

Please know you and your family are in my and Callum’s thoughts.

Forever indebted to your handsome, brave, fun-loving son, Waring,

-Sonia

Once she’d finished writing her extraordinary letter, writing it without hesitation or difficulty, she folded it, dug through his desk until she found an envelope, inserted the letter, sealed it and handwrote the address.

Then her head tipped back to look up at him. Callum saw the trail of wetness on her cheeks and the tears still shining in her eyes.

All right, it was abundantly clear she didn’t write it without difficulty.

“Okay, Callum,” she said in a trembling voice, picking up the report filled with names of dead soldiers and shaking it at him. “Who’s next?”

At first, Callum didn’t move.

There weren’t many times in his long life that Callum, king of the wolves, was uncertain what to do but in the face of his queen’s profound but poised compassion, that was one of them.

So he did what his instincts told him to do. He leaned down to his mate, curled his fingers around her neck and he marked her hair with his temple. Then he kissed her softly on her lips.

Then he pulled her out of his chair, sat in it, tugged her gently into his lap and, together, they wrote letters to the kin of the fallen. Callum writing the letters, Sonia, sitting in his lap, addressing them, ticking off the names and writing personal notes to the next of kin of the few wolves she knew, however briefly.

Her assistance made it a less difficult task, if not a less wretched one.

And, in that day and age of phones and e-mail, news of her notes, especially those received quickly by the kin of his Royal Guard who lived in the village (including Waring’s mother), spread widely and it spread rapidly.