Descendants of the Kings (Book 2)

Mister Wolf and the little warrior 6

Callan hadn't wanted to fall in love with Minna.

He hadn't wanted to like her, either. His life had been perfectly fine until she showed up. Rather dull, but fine. Routinary. He tended to his duties, he spent time with Seren and Finnian when they demanded it, he kept to himself and made sure everything ran smoothly. Nothing ever changed, just the way he liked it.

He might have admitted that it was a bit lonely, but he'd never minded that. He was solitary by nature, and he'd never desired friends. He had Seren and Finnian--who he was half sure only tolerated him because they'd been exposed to his moods long enough to become immune--and that was more than enough. Yes, life for Callan had been dull, predictable and controlled.

And then Minna came along and turned everything upside down.

Callan had hated it. She was loud, bright and almost irksome in her cheerfulness-- it was like staring straight into the sun. Nobody could be that happy all the time. Callan had been immediately suspicious.

Worse than worse, Minna hadn't been deterred by Callan's snappish answers and icy expression. That was enough to perplex him. Everyone was terrified of him, they avoided him like the plague. And yet this human woman was unbothered. Minna Hawthorne seemed to have made it her mission to make Callan her friend; to make him want to befriend her.

Soon, Callan had found that she was impossible to ignore. She laughed loudly and asked a million questions, she was nosy and poked around incessantly, and she got into all sorts of trouble. Her presence was louder than her laugh, and her behaviour just as dotty as her freckled cheeks.

He'd wanted to ignore her, to pretend she was merely an unwanted guest. But he'd not been able to stop thinking about her since the moment he saw her. The more he spent time around her, the harder it was.

Gods knew, he'd tried his hardest to not like her. He'd tried his hardest to push her away. Frankly, he'd been a downright prick to her, in Finnian's words. He'd never been rude, but he certainly hadn't been warm. He'd dismissed her the way one would a pesky child, only gracing her with one-word replies and blank faces every time she tried to strike up a conversation. He hadn't deserved her enthusiasm, not one bit.

That was the first thing had Callan learned from Minna--kindness was a choice. Minna wasn't sweet because her life was perfect, far from it. She was good because she believed everyone deserved good in their lives. Even if life hadn't always been kind to her. Even if some people—sour curmudgeons like Callan—didn't deserve it.

No matter how much he tried, liking Minna was inevitable. Falling in love with her had been easy then, an inevitable course of action. He'd never had a choice, he'd realised some time ago. In the end, he'd been helpless to fall for her.

"Keep still, you're moving again."

Callan pulled back from his musings and looked at the woman across from him. "I'm not moving."

"You are," Minna huffed, not looking up from her sketchbook. "You get that grumpy look when you're thinking, with that little notch between your brows." She frowned purposely and pointed to the small furrow high on her nose bridge.

Callan's frown deepened, before schooling his expression into a more neutral one. He wasn't grumpy, but everyone tended to assume he was always upset for whatever reason. It was his natural expression.

"You can draw me with a smile if you'd like," he said dryly, lips turning up in wry amusement when Minna finally looked up and scrunched her nose.

"If I drew you with a smile, everyone would think it was a portrait of Finnian," she replied. Then, with a mischievous grin, "Besides, I love the way you look. So broody and handsome."