Quickly, he prowled to a wardrobe, yanked it open and pulled out a pair of jeans.
Tugging them on, he ordered, “Calm, wolf, focus and crouch. Do nothing more. Hold there and then listen to me.”
She didn’t listen. She got down to her forepaws again, jerking her mahogany-furred head this way and that then her wolf body stilled. Unexpectedly, she started digging under the couch, whining desperately, so frantic, she pushed the couch back with her body, her entire head shoved under the couch.
Then she backed out, lifted up and twirled to him, Sonia’s stuffed wolf in her jaw.
Callum’s heart lurched and it was pure, unadulterated agony.
That stuffed wolf, the symbol of him her parents gave her that she held close before she met him and continued to hold close even after she had him had disappeared around the time he found her rings in the fire. He had not questioned Sonia about it. Knowing she’d acted in anger with his rings, he suspected she’d done the same with her wolf.
Apparently, like the rings, her wolf had survived.
Now, with her scent that lingered in the room and his wedding band held in her lifeless hand, it was the only thing he had of her that held any importance.
“Drop that!” he snarled but she didn’t.
She rushed him, racing around him, circling, butting his thighs with her head, all the while whining.
“Drop the goddamned wolf!” he barked, leaning into her only for her to jump up to her hind paws and claw his chest with her front ones.
He pushed her off, made for Sonia’s wolf but she jerked her head away and pranced out of reach.
“Goddamn you, drop my wife’s fucking wolf!” he roared.
She dropped the wolf, backed up until her tail hit the wall then she burst forward. Suddenly stopping on a skid and crouching through it, she leaped, transformed in mid-air and dropped to the floor on her belly as human, her body naked and flushed, a mass of shining, extraordinary mahogany hair falling down her back and over her shoulders.
She was facing the floor, her hands to her sides, palms flat to the rug and she was panting.
But Callum was frozen.
Completely.
He knew her scent because he knew her.
He’d dreamed her.
She was the she-wolf in his dreams.
“This isn’t happening,” he whispered.
“It seems,” she spoke and it was so quiet, even with heightened hearing he could barely hear her, “that I am like your people.” She lifted her head, arching her neck way back and Callum stared in shock, his body still frozen, as beloved, familiar green eyes caught his and she finished, “Wolf.”
Callum blinked as something inside him shifted, fluttered, lightened.
Hope.
But, even staring at her, he couldn’t believe it.
She pushed up to her knees, sat back on her calves, wrapped her arm around her breasts, the other around her belly, her eyes never leaving his, her glossy, magnificent dark hair framing her cherished face and she noted, “Uh… the naked thing, not so fun. And, for a while there, I thought I’d be wolf forever. It was pretty cool until it was terrifying.”
“Sonia?” Callum called, his voice low, quiet, disbelieving.
She stared up at him.
Then she smiled.
Then she whispered, “Get this, wolf. I’m a wolf.”
She was wolf.
She was alive and she was wolf.
Callum came unfrozen and he was on her in less than a second. Hands under her arms, he hauled her up then tossed her across the room. She landed on her ass in the bed and he moved, landing on her.
Covering her body with his, his hands framed her face, his eyes caught hers, he watched the warm, dark brown filter out the green and there she was.
His wife, his mate, his bride, his queen.
His wolf.
He dropped his head and kissed her.
Sonia curved her arms tight around him, spread her legs and then wound them around him, protectively, lovingly and kissed him back.
It was just the same. Absolutely the same. Her taste, her kiss, his Sonia.
Just wolf.
Her human life will be fleeting.
But her wolf life could last an eternity
On that thought, Callum kissed her harder and Sonia, as ever, returned the gesture, her hands moving to the waistband of his jeans, she rounded it to the inside and he lifted his hips so she could get to his fly.
She made short work of it, pressing into him to pull his jeans down his hips.
She broke her mouth from his. “Now,” she ordered.
Callum didn’t make her ask twice. He buried his cock inside her heated wetness, straight to the hilt.
Her neck arched, her moan filled the room, her legs around him convulsed as her sex around his cock tightened.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“No,” he growled.
Her neck righted and she looked at him, perplexed, her brown eyes hungry.
“No?”