With Everything I Am (2 page)

Regardless of the fact that she was clearly a gifted child, like any child she was dead asleep within minutes.

And he lay beside her, letting the healing work and thinking, even though she clearly adored her father, he would be having words with a man who’d let his child, gifted or not, stay alone in a remote cabin and wander the forest in the dead of night. He didn’t give a fuck that she was obviously quite capable or if she did, indeed, have a way with animals.

No
good
human parent did
that
.

He was whole again and he sensed them well before they arrived.

He carefully moved away so as not to waken her, had transformed and was standing beside her wrapped in the throw she’d placed over him when the door opened.

His brethren glanced at him then the child then his brother Calder threw him his pants.

He pulled them on as his father walked close.

Too
close to the child.

Unconsciously he straightened, pants still half unbuttoned, and moved to stand in front of her.

His father, Mac’s eyes slid away from the girl and caught his.

Then he watched Mac’s face gentle.

“Callum,” Mac murmured softly.

“She’s Senator Arlington’s daughter,” Callum announced, his voice low in deference to her sleep but rumbling because he was pissed way the hell off.

“I know,” his father replied.

“I’m uncertain of an allegiance with a man who’d leave his daughter unprotected,” Callum went on.

Callum watched something flash across Mac’s face and what he saw made him brace.

“It matters not,” his father said softly and when Callum opened his mouth to speak again Mac lifted a hand. “Senator Arlington was assassinated tonight. His wife with him.”

Callum’s head jerked toward the innocently sleeping child and he felt his gut clench painfully at the thought that she, especially
she
, would lose her mother and clearly beloved father on Christmas Eve.

“She was here for her safety,” Mac continued and Callum’s eyes cut back to him as he carried on, “
You
were here for it as well.”

“I –” Callum started, surprised at this announcement and getting pretty fucking tired of surprises.

Mac got closer. “It was a test.”

Callum’s jaw grew tight.

He had endured a fair few of his father’s tests in his very long life.

He watched Mac look back down at the girl with an infinitely gentle expression and he knew his father wasn’t finished.

He wasn’t wrong.

When Mac’s eyes came back to Callum, he went on, “As ever, you passed,” Callum watched his father smile and something oddly joyous shone in his eyes before he murmured, “And so did she.”

“Would you like to tell me what you’re on about?” Callum suggested.

Mac didn’t hesitate. “Tonight, my son, the connection has begun.”

Callum felt his body go solid before his eyes sliced down to the girl.

He looked again to his father, his voice coated in angry disbelief. “She’s human.”

Mac took in a breath through his nose, hesitated, opened his mouth, closed it then opened it again to say, “She is.”

“I can’t be connected to a human,” Callum clipped.

“The oracle has spoken,” his father declared.

Callum heard his brethren pull in shocked breaths.

Mac moved even closer and his voice grew lower when he asked, “You felt it?”

Bloody hell.

He felt it.

It was bigger than him, bigger than his brethren, bigger and more important than anything.

He’d die for her.

She was in a very important sense, his reason for being.

Hell, he’d even moved to protect her against his own father, a wolf he knew wouldn’t harm a living soul unless forced to do it.

“
Fuck!
” he bit out.

“She’ll be protected until the time is right,” Mac assured.

Callum narrowed his gaze on him and growled, “She bloody better be.”

Mac glanced to the side. “Ryon, see to it, our best men.”

“But, Mac, we can’t –” Ryon began and Callum watched his father’s eyes narrow.

“See to it,” Mac ordered.

“We’re at war!” Ryon hissed. “We need every brother we have. We can’t afford –”

Mac cut Ryon off by repeating, “See to it.”

Callum watched his brethren shift and glance at each other.

Then their gazes moved back to him with dawning realization.

Callum had the same thought they did and he felt his body grow tight.

He looked back to Mac and asked with extreme unease, “She’s my queen?”

He watched his father nod and anguish tore through him but he didn’t allow it to show, instead, he lifted his chin.

“When?” he demanded to know.

“It matters not,” Mac replied.

“You’re my father and you’re my king, it fucking matters that you’re soon to die,” Callum ground out.

Mac didn’t answer.

Callum leaned forward. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I have my reasons,” Mac responded.

Jesus but Mac could be mysterious and in the three hundred fifty years of his life it never failed to piss Callum off.

“Mac –” Callum began but his father lifted his hand and placed it on Callum’s shoulder.

“We’re at war and this war will not end under my reign.
You
and
she
,” he glanced down at the girl before his eyes moved back to his son. “Will lead our people to peace.”

Callum didn’t know what he was feeling because there was too much to feel.

What he did know was that he didn’t like any of it.

His eyes leveled on his father’s and he promised, “If they bring you down, it’ll be a fucking bloody peace and only on
my
fucking terms.”

Mac leaned close as his fingers tightened on Callum’s arm.

Then he whispered in his son’s ear, “I’m counting on that.”

Chapter One

Clear

Sonia Arlington walked through her store and switched off the many Christmas lights decorating the space.

She loved Christmas.

She couldn’t help it. Her mother and father had both loved Christmas. They made it so special that the ones she remembered made the season one she always looked forward to even though her parents died during it.

She adjusted her fluffy, white scarf around her neck, pulled the white knit cap down over her ears and transferred her dove gray suede gloves to one hand, pulling the strap of her matching stylish suede handbag more securely over her shoulder.

She took one last look at her shop, called Clear because everything she sold in it was either clear, silver, gray or white. Everything. Furniture, clothing (though the clothes were never clear, of course), candles, jewelry, knickknacks,
everything
.

She loved her shop almost as much as Christmas.

Yuri wondered (aloud and often) why she bothered to work. He thought she was crazy, considering she had her father and mother’s millions of dollars “festering” (his word) in different accounts.

Sonia couldn’t imagine
not
working. What on earth would she do if she didn’t work?

She knew what Yuri wanted her to do.

She loved Yuri but she still wrinkled her nose at the thought, pressed the code into the alarm panel and quickly exited, locking the three locks to the front door.

Then she turned toward home.

It was four blocks away. She was wearing dove gray suede, stiletto-heeled boots and it had snowed that day. She walked the oft-not-shoveled sidewalks with a grace akin to a model on a catwalk.

This, her father would have said (if he’d lived to see her wearing heels and, of course, walking through the snow in them), was one of her special abilities.

She had many. All of which, her father told her, time and time (and time) again, were exceptional.

She was, her father told her, gifted.

Extremely gifted.

And for this, he explained, time and time (and time) again, she should be proud.

Very proud.

But, even so, she could never tell anyone about them.

Never
.

Anyone
.

So she hadn’t.

As she crossed the street from the first block to the second, she felt it.

And smelled it.

These, too, were part of her gifts.

She sensed things. Strange things. Eyes on her. A presence. Mostly benign but recently (and upsettingly) there were some that seemed menacing. And she smelled things. Lots of things. Things others didn’t smell.

It was out there. She sensed its presence, smelled its smell. It was benign. It was even pleasant (immensely so), attractive (that was immensely so too) and it was familiar.

Very familiar.

She sifted through her memory banks but she couldn’t find it.

Whatever it was, she knew it wouldn’t hurt her.

In fact, she had the strange, strong desire to seek it out, to turn to it – even to
run
to it.

Even though this urge was powerful (and surprising, she’d never felt anything like
that
before), she didn’t let on she sensed it. To do so would let it know she could feel it, which she could
not
do.

Her father had told her, repeatedly, she was special, exceptional and gifted. But without him telling her that for the last thirty-one years and knowing no one around her shared her “special” talents, she’d settled into the knowledge that she wasn’t special, exceptional and gifted. Instead, she was just strange.

Even bizarre.

Definitely weird.

And that was not a nice thing to know about yourself.

The presence was moving with her, tracking her and she ignored it as she did the many others she’d felt throughout her life (or, more precisely, since her parents’ deaths) as she carried on home. Then she saw her little farmhouse on its corner and smiled to herself. The sight of her home and the peace she always felt when she saw it allowed her to be able to set the alarmingly alluring sensation firmly aside.

Gregor (
and
Yuri), had both gone nuts when she bought her farmhouse. Well, not
nuts
, they were too polished to go nuts, but they definitely disapproved. Firstly, because, even though a rather nice (if colorful) residential area of the city had sprung up around it, it
was
a simple farmhouse. Sonia Arlington (as they told her repeatedly), did
not
reside in something as common as a
farmhouse
.

Secondly, because when she bought it, it was a wreck.

Luckily, Sonia was loaded. Therefore, she’d had it fixed up.

She walked up the steps and unlocked her door. The alarm beeped when she entered and she punched in the code. She dropped her purse on the chest in the entryway and, through the dark, she went directly to the plugs that would turn on her Christmas lights. Then she plugged them in,
all
of them and there were many, on both floors.

As she did so, the inside and outside of her farmhouse lit up and she didn’t have to look at it to know it was perfect. Just as if it had been decorated for a magazine (which, it had, her house was always photographed for the city’s monthly magazine, every year at Christmas, twice it had even made the cover).

Sonia would have preferred to decorate herself but, even though in her early years at her house she’d tried, she’d never had a flair for it and it always turned out wonky.

Her mother had had a flair for it. Cherise Arlington was the Master Christmas Decorator. Therefore, Sonia could not abide her own wonky efforts.

So she hired designers every year to come and decorate her house.

And it was always beautiful.

She walked straight back out the front door and down to her white picket fence to get her mail from the box that was fitted to the gatepost.

“Hey Miz Arlington!” she heard called from her side.

She turned to see the Lanigans getting into their mini-van, their two young boys, Jed and Jake, both standing outside and waving at her.

She’d known they were there, of course. She’d heard their feet in the snow Jay Lanigan had not (and would not, because it was football season and Jay Lanigan didn’t do much of anything during football season) shoveled from their drive. She’d also smelled the scent of their skin and hair. But as they were several doors down, she didn’t turn to them. To do so might expose her secret and Sonia guarded against that every second of her life.

“Hey there!” she called back, feigning surprise and waving then she saw Joanne Lanigan round the hood of the van. “Ready for Christmas, Jo?” she called.

“If you’re ready for Christmas, I’ll shoot you!” Jo yelled back with a smile in her shout. “It’s weeks away.”

Sonia was ready in September. That was how much she loved Christmas. She planned for it all year.

“A few more things to do,” Sonia lied.

“Right,” Jo shouted. “We got your card today. The first one every year.”

Sonia shrugged even though they couldn’t see her however she could see them, clear as day. Her night vision, another gift, was perfect. “I’m organized and don’t have a full-time job, two boys and a husband who disappears when it’s football season!” Sonia replied loudly.

“Hey! I heard that!” Jay shouted from the other side of the van.

“Good!” Jo replied. “Then maybe you’ll notice the neighbors see me taking out the stinking trash from September to January. Yeesh!”

Sonia chuckled to herself as she pulled her mail out of the box, turned to her neighbors and called, “Be safe, Jay, it’s supposed to snow again.”

“Always!” Jay called back, not affronted by Sonia’s comment.

He wouldn’t be. Sonia was a great neighbor. She watched their house when they were away including walking their completely out-of-control dogs, which was why no one but Sonia would watch their house (or dogs). She regularly babysat the boys. She threw fantastic barbeques during the summer. And she had a catered Christmas party that was so spectacular, the entire neighborhood waited with bated breath to receive their invitation and turned out for it. They did this even if they were invalid. She knew this because another of Sonia’s neighbors had broken one leg and the other ankle falling off the ladder while fixing Christmas lights to his house and he’d
still
rented a wheelchair and wheeled himself to her place for her party.