Page 96 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

Something goes cold under my ribs. I cross the roof to her slowly, keeping my voice low.

“Is there something about me you don’t like?”

Her head shoots up. “You’re perfect. What are you talking about?” A beat later, she adds, “Well. Close to perfect.”

My mouth twitches at the correction.

“Ever since you came into my life, you’ve had me questioning everything, including my own life, Ariela,” I say quietly. “Nobody has ever done that before. You’ve made me want to be a better father. I can’t do that without you beside me. You have slowly become the center of my entire universe.”

She’s shaking. I can see it in her hands where she’s got them locked around her own elbows.

“You can’t say things like that,” she whispers.

“I never lie.”

“No.” A wet laugh escapes her. “No, you really don’t.”

The silence stretches out over the tree line. Somewhere below us a door closes, and one of the dogs at the gatehouse starts up and then thinks better of it.

“What do you want from me?” she asks at last.

“I want to give you my mark.” My hand comes up, and my thumb settles over the place at the base of her neck where my teeth have wanted to be since a lake ran hot around both of us. “It goes here. It ties us together for a lifetime, and nothing undoes it.”

She swallows against my palm. “And if I don’t want it?”

My wolf whines inside my chest. The flash of pain, of rejection is instant, and for a moment I can’t breathe.

“Then you don’t take it. The mark is for the wolf. If you don’t want to be part of our world, I’ll tie myself to you in whatever human way you’d prefer instead.” As I utter the words, I realize it’s true. I’ll take her in whichever way she wants me.

“Won’t your wolf be unhappy?”

I shrug. “It’s seen and suffered worse.”

That gets a strangled sound out of her that might be a laugh or a sob. “So what exactly are you asking for?”

“I want to make certain you can never leave me.”

Ariela presses her hand over her mouth. “This is a lot to take in.”

“It is.” I step back and put my hands behind my back because if I keep them anywhere else, this conversation will end differently. “I’ll wait for your answer.”

I turn for the door.

Her hand closes on my sleeve and hauls me back around with more strength than a woman her size should have. Then she’s up on her toes with both fists in my collar and her mouth on mine.

She kisses me hard enough that I forget how to breathe, her teeth catching my lower lip. My hands find her waist and pull her against me before my brain has caught up with any of it. My wolf comes up so fast that my vision grays at the edges.

She breaks away first, breathing hard.

“This is my answer,” she declares, her face a bright red.

I look down at her, my hands still spanning her ribs. “You’ll have to be clearer than that.”

“I’ve never met anybody who cares about me as much as you do.” Her eyes are shining, and her chin comes up. “I don’t want to lose you, Callum. I don’t want to walk away from you. So yes. I want a wedding, and I’ll accept your mark, but not yet.”

“Not yet,” I echo carefully.

“Not yet.” She’s got both hands flat on my chest now. “I want us to go on dates. I want things settled on your end, all of it, the elders and the Thornes and whatever else you’re not telling me. I want you and me and Luca to be a normal family sometimes.”