Page 111 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

“It was never the disease.” Callum pulls out the chair beside me and sits. “His wolf was incredibly powerful and wanted to come out. It’s never happened before, and there’s no precedent for this, but now that he’s shifted, he is able to shift at will as well.”

I look at the door Luca went through. “He can shift whenever he wants to.”

“No child has shifted at six. Not one, anywhere, in every record we hold.” His eyes move to Luca, who is running outside. “Which means the children we’ve been burying may never have had a disease at all. Their wolves were early, and there was nobody there to bring them through it.”

Something goes down my spine that isn’t quite grief. There were parents in all those houses, sitting on the ends of all those beds.

“And him?”

“He’s fluctuating between high energy and drowsiness. His body has to settle.” Callum reaches over to put his hand on the back of my neck. “I told him to run to burn off some of that excess energy. He’s going to be quiet for a few days, and then he’ll be back to normal.”

When Luca comes back, he hurries to sit with me, but he doesn’t speak much, just leaning against me. He gets through most of a bowl of soup with his eyes half shut, then a slice of bread with butter, then the corner of a second slice before he gives up on it. Every mouthful goes down slowly.

“You were very brave, Luca. I’m very proud of you,” I finally say.

He doesn’t look up. His voice, when it finally arrives, is smaller than I’ve heard it since he was four.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?”

“Yes.”

“He has his own room,” Callum states.

I turn my head and give him a look that has ended better men. “He’s been through an ordeal.”

Callum opens his mouth. Then he takes in the child fastened to my side and sighs. “Very well.” He picks up his coffee. “In my bed.”

“That’s not what I—”

“You’re both in my bed. I’ve also been through an ordeal.” He drinks his coffee. Out past the terrace doors, the light has started going orange along the top of the trees.

“Everything’s over now?”

Callum sets the cup down. He looks at his son, then at the window, then at me.

“Yes. But there are still questions that have to be answered. Some will. Some might never get resolved.” His hand covers mine on the table. “But we will always be here.”

Not so long ago, I was on my back under a sink with a wolf figurine jammed in the drain, running the sums on beef stew and wondering how many more weeks I could keep the lights on. The world had felt small then, measured in unpaid bills, the thin walls of a rented flat, and the sound of Luca’s breathing in the next room. I had believed that if I just stayed quiet enough, careful enough, the worst things would pass us by.

They didn’t.

And yet here I am.

The kitchen has gone quiet enough that I can hear the clock in the hall. Luca’s breathing is long and even against my collarbone, his small fist still knotted in my sleeve as if he is afraid I might disappear the moment he loosens his hold. Callum’s hand rests warm over mine on the table, solid and steady, the same hand that once held me together when everything inside me was coming apart. Outside, the last of the light is orange along the tops of the trees. Somewhere beyond those trees, the pack is settling into a new order, and the wreckage of everything that happened is still being cleared away.

I think of the woman I used to be, the one who measured safety in locked doors and careful lies. She would not recognize this version of me, sitting in a house that once belonged to strangers, marked and claimed, with a child who can turn into a wolf and a mate who would burn the world down before he let either of us go. She would have been terrified of all of it. I am not.

There is still weight here. It sits quiet and heavy in the corners of the room, in the knowledge of what was done to us, in the blood that was spilled, in the truth of what my sister suffered alone. It will not vanish overnight. But for the first time, it does not feel like the only thing left.

I close my eyes in a house full of monsters and hold on to both of mine.

For the first time in a very long while, it feels less like surviving and more like living. And I am not alone in it.

Epilogue

Ariela

When I was young, I wanted to be a dancer on the world’s biggest stage. That dream evolved into wanting to win titles, then owning my own studio. Somewhere along the way, life handed me a son, and then problems, and then it introduced me to my mate, Callum Vance. We have our problems, our fights, but I have never been adored the way Callum adores me, loved as fiercely as this man does.