Page 40 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

I strain against Callum’s hold on me, and he yanks me back, his voice low. “Enough.”

I whirl my head to glare up at him. “I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but I’m going to kick her ass. Let me go!”

He shoots me a look that could either be approval or pride, or maybe just annoyance. I can’t tell. However, his arm around my waist is like a steel band, and I vaguely wonder why he keeps putting me in this position.

My heart is pounding so hard that I want to throw up.

“Is this why you brought me here?” I turn my anger on him now. “So that your people could try to bully me? I knew I should have stayed home. I don’t know why I listened to you!”

“How dare you talk to the alpha so disrespectfully!” Camille snarls, and before she can add anything, Callum snaps.

“Hold your tongue!”

Camille flinches, and I look between the two, chest heaving. “Alpha? What’s an alpha?”

“Never mind that.” When Callum speaks to me, his voice is calm, the iciness aimed toward Camille no longer present. “Are you hurt? Let me see.”

It takes me a minute to understand what he’s talking about as he turns me around to inspect me. The coffee stain on my sweater is unmistakable, but he hooks a finger in the front of my sweater and pulls it away to inspect the skin.

I immediately bat his hand away, flustered. “What are you doing?!”

He’s relentless, however. “It seems the outer garment absorbed most of the heat. I’ll take you to a healer nonetheless.”

He’s so focused on checking the intensity of my injury that he’s not paying attention to the three women staring at him, one of them bloodied.

“I’m fine. I don’t need a healer or whatever,” I snap. “Now can you stop looking down my shirt in public!”

He raises a brow and says simply, “All right.”

“Mr. Vance.” Camille sounds shaken. “Mr. Vance, this human attacked me.”

“Again with the fucking human?!” I burst out before freezing and looking over Callum’s shoulder to make sure Luca isn’t there. I turn around in his grasp—he still hasn’t let me go—and say fiercely, “You’re just as human as I am, so stop using that as an insult!”

“I’m not—”

“Enough, Camille.” The ice is back in Callum’s voice, and he looks at the three women. “Ariela has no reason to attack you. Did you spill coffee on her?”

Camille looks toward me, an ugly flush crawling up her neck. “You’re going to believe her over me?”

“She has a coffee stain on her clothes, so unless you’re implying she threw it on herself and went rabid on you, I want an explanation.”

She opens her mouth, and then after a few seconds of struggle with herself, she whispers, “It was an accident, sir.” She has both hands cupped under her nose now, and the blood is going through her fingers.

“It was not—” I begin.

“Shush,” Callum says to me, and my eyes widen. Did he just shush me?

His eyes are on his secretary. “You expect me to believe that my son’s mother attacked you? The mother of the next alpha of this pack?”

His voice is thin, and Camille pales. “I didn’t mean to—”

One of the other women decides to show some bravado. “Alpha, Camille has been with you for two years. She didn’t do anything wrong. It’s this woman who started everything—”

“Do you take me for a fool?” His voice cracks like a whip, and all three women are suddenly on their knees, much to my shock.

“You put your hands on one of my people?” he snarls. “You dare?”

“C-Callum.” I grab his wrist, horrified. “Why are they kneeling? Make them stop.”