"You can't keep calling me that, you know."
"What?"
"English."
"And why is that?"
"Because I'm Balmoral now. I have it on good authority we're a clan of Highlanders."
"Would you prefer I call you sweeting?"
"I do like that."
He laughed and pulled her into his arms. "You're going to lead me on a merry chase."
"I should not want you to grow bored with me, laird."
"I love you too much to ever do that, but I have a feeling my hair will be silver before the birth of our first child."
"Will your wolf's fur go gray if the hair on your head does?" she asked, her curiosity immediately aroused.
His eyes narrowed warily. "No."
She peppered him with questions after that and he only got her to cease by taking her to bed. Afterward, he taught her how to declare her love in Chrechte.
The next day she asked him if they could send for her sister Abigail and he agreed. "What about your Scottish king? I don't want him making trouble for my sister."
"Talorc has already agreed to go speak with him."
"He's not as bad as I thought he was."
"Our king?"
"Talorc."
"But I'm still the only Chrechte you love."
"You are the only man, Chrechte or human, that I could ever love," she vowed firmly.
"That is as it should be."
She hit his arm and then winced. The man had muscles like boulders. "You are supposed to say I am the only woman you could ever love."
"Do you not know this already?" he asked quite seriously.
She made no effort to stifle her happy grin. "Yes, in fact, I believe I do. But I still want you to say it."
He lifted her and held her close to his chest, his eyes filled with devouring hunger and the love she now recognized had been there as long as her own. "There is no other female, wolf or human, that I could ever love as I do you, sweeting."
"I think I'd like another swimming lesson."
"I believe I might enjoy that myself, but this time I will do what I longed to the first time we were in the loch."
"Drown me?"
He laughed out loud, the sound warming her clear through. "Make love to you."
"It will not take too much time from your important duties?" she teased.
"Nothing is more important to me than you."
And she knew it was true.
She had come to the Highlands to save her sister, but had ended up finding her own happiness. A wound that had opened on her mother's death and been torn wide by her father's rejection, finally closed. She had not thought it humanly possible, but then her husband, the love of her life, was more than human, and she would not have him any other way.