Page 101 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

Silas swears at me, low and vicious, then crouches down onto his heels so we’re eye to eye.

“So you are Callum’s fated mate.”

I tighten my jaw and give him nothing.

“What are you talking about?”

“A slip of a human is going to be the luna of this pack? I don’t think so.” He gets hold of my chin between his finger and thumb, then turns my head until I’m looking at Corinne. “Do you think you’re qualified to compete with my sister for the luna position? You are nothing. You are not even the mother of the alpha heir.”

Corinne’s eyes are on the floor tiles. She won’t look at me.

I glare up at him with my chin still in his hand, and his mouth spreads in a twisted sneer.

“You think I didn’t know that? I knew Maya.” He watches it hit me, and he enjoys every part of it. “Your sister was quite clever, but then there’s such a thing as being too clever. If she had handed over the child, I might have let her live. But she wanted to protect him.”

There’s a roaring in my ears.

This is the person Maya ran from? This is the man who had my sister living in a shelter, terrified for her life, for the life of her child?

He reaches down and takes a fistful of Luca’s hair, pulling my son’s head up off the tiles. Luca’s neck bends at an angle that turns my stomach over.

My leg kicks out, and even as the rope hauls my shoulders back against the chair, my heel catches Silas square in the knee.

He drops Luca, and I throw my legs out, dragging my child back across the tiles, and wrap them around his body until he’s tight against my shins where Silas has to come through me to reach him.

“Don’t you dare touch him,” I spit out.

Silas laughs, straightening and shaking out his leg.

“Do you really think you’re in a position to help him?” He tilts his head. “Don’t worry. I have no plans of killing Luca today. No, he’s going to go in front of the pack elders. They’re going to diagnose the disease. And then we’re going to push for an immediate execution to force Callum to take another mate. Since Callum is determined to only have you, you unfortunately have to go.”

“He will never be with Corinne, if that’s what you want,” I hiss, my whole body trembling with rage.

“It doesn’t matter what he wants.” He crouches again, close enough that I can smell his cologne over the metal in my mouth, and his voice drops into a whisper with something rotten under it. “The Thorne family should have been alpha. My father should have been the alpha. I should have been the next alpha, but Callum could not bear it. He destroyed everything. He seized control of a pack that was no longer his. But not anymore. If he wants his fated mate to live, he’s going to give Corinne his mating mark. So either you die or you become my bargaining chip.”

“He won’t do that.”

“You and Luca are now his weaknesses. There’s nothing he won’t do for you.” His teeth show. “The almighty alpha has fallen on his knees for a human. How touching. Now that human will be his downfall.”

My stomach tightens with emotion. Surely not. Surely Callum wouldn’t—

I look past his shoulder.

“You’re going to let him do this?”

Corinne shrinks in on herself against the stacked chairs, her face bloodless, her hands knotted in her own sleeves.

“She has no choice.” Silas doesn’t even glance back at her. “This is for our family’s glory. Right, Corinne?”

The girl swallows and nods.

Against my shins, Luca shifts, and his shoulder comes up off the tiles half an inch.

I press down on him with my legs, hard, all the words I can’t say packed into it. Stay down. Stay asleep. Don’t you dare let him see.

Silas has already turned his head.

He’s got Luca by the arm before I can scream, wrenching him out from under my legs across the floor. My son comes awake fighting, kicking, both hands clawing at the grip on his elbow, and I roll onto my hip and kick out at Silas’s shin with everything left in me.