Free With Everything I Am by Kristen Ashley

they’d invaded her home and discussed raping her.
    But executing them?
    “They touched you,” Callum replied.
    “I know.”
    “They intended to violate you.”
    “I know!” she shouted and regardless of his strength, the fact that he could subdue her easily and even harm her, she started to struggle in his arms.
    His hand slid into her hair and twisted.
    She stilled at the onset of pain which was gentle but if she moved, it would get worse.
    His eyes were still tawny when he brought her face to his.
    And his expression was fierce and ominous and very, very frightening.
    “You’re my mate, Sonia, my queen, ” he announced, his voice the exact same as his face, his words, quite simply, were mad. “You were destined for me before you were even conceived. I’ve been waiting for you for longer than you can imagine. And they touched you before I touched you. They committed high treason and for that alone their execution was just. But they fucking touched you before I touched you and for that their deaths were not quick.”
    Sonia found she was holding her breath.
    Callum didn’t seem to notice.
    “I’ll explain more as the days pass but this you know now. You’re mine, Sonia Arlington. You’ve been mine for centuries. You have a week… one week… to get to know me and understand the ways of my culture. I wish it could be longer but because of what happened last night, my people are at war. I’m their king, they need me. I have no time to give but, regardless of that fact, I’m giving you one week. I’ll use it wisely and I suggest, strongly, little one, that you do as well. This will go much better for you if you do.”
    “What?” she breathed in spite of herself, not understanding even half of what he said and not knowing which part of “what” she was asking because there was so damned much!
    “What?” he repeated.
    Her mind focused on one point in many. “What will go much better?”
    He brought her face closer. “At the end of this week, baby doll, we’re flying to Scotland. We’re having the mating ceremony and, from that point on, you’re bound to me in the eyes of my people’s laws as well as yours until you die.”
    She’d obviously asked the wrong question.
    “You’re… what? ” she shrieked. Yes, right in his face.
    “I’m binding you to me.”
    “You’re… binding … me… to… you,” she repeated, enunciating each word with clear, open, horror.
    He ignored her horror.
    “Until you die.”
    She tried to rear back.
    His hand in her hair, his arm around her body and his strength that would make Hercules jealous made this effort moot.
    So instead she whispered, “Oh my God.”
    He ignored that too and stated, “You may have noticed you have no shoes.”
    Sonia blinked yet again.
    Then she nodded.
    Callum continued immediately but on a different subject, “I’m going to finish outside, the storm is already here. They’re forecasting snow, maybe several feet. The electricity can go out here easily and the insulation isn’t the best. We need the fires. We could be snowed in by nightfall. I need to get us sorted.”
    With that announcement, he stood, picking her up with him. Somewhere in her fogged, distracted, ravaged, oh-my-god-what’s-happening-to-me mind, she noted that no man had ever picked her up easily like that (or, at all) and held her to his chest like she weighed no more than a sack of feathers.
    He turned and tucked her sideways back in the chair, her knees to her chest, the soles of her feet in the seat.
    He leaned in and put a hand on either arm of the chair.
    “You take some time, come to terms with what I’ve just said. If you have questions, we’ll talk more after lunch.”
    She stared at his back as he walked through the cabin and out the backdoor.
    Then she twisted her head to look out the front windows and saw that snow had started to fall.
    Heavily.
    Then she realized she’d not make it very far in a snowstorm without shoes even if she managed to