Page 106 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

Isabella has one hand pressed to her thigh. She looks at me, and the shock from her eyes fades, replaced by a strange emotion. She doesn’t speak, just watching me.

“To think I trusted you and your family,” I finally hiss.

She shrugs one shoulder, and Silas comes to stand at her back. “Don’t act surprised, Callum.” Isabella flips her hair over her shoulder. “You had this coming. After everything you did to me? Did you think I’d just sit on my hands and twiddle my thumbs? You ruined my life.”

“Ruined your life?” I breathe, enraged. “I’ve done nothing to you!”

She stares at me and then scoffs. “Why do I even expect you to know? You’ve never cared how your actions impact others. Do you know what a woman in my family is worth if she does not become the luna, especially when she is the only female? She’s worthless. She loses her value. You destroyed my value the day you chose Elena over me. I was raised to be your mate. I was raised as the next luna. And at every point, you turned around and chose the wrong woman!”

I move while she talks, a step at a time along the wall, taking the angle that puts me between Isabella and my mate and child. Ariela’s eyes are open, still working that rope.

“Both women were my fated mates,” I growl.

“Just because a woman is your fated mate doesn’t mean you have to mate her. Great alphas of olden times have stepped away from their fated mates when it came to choosing their luna,” Isabella spits out.

“Those were the olden times. They had concubines. They had first mates. Those times are over. And a fated mate settles the wolf. You think I was going to choose somebody else?”

“Even when you didn’t know she was your fated mate, you still chose her!” Isabella’s voice rises.

“I would never have chosen you over my fated mate. No wolf would do that. Not now, not in this era. You were my friend, somebody I trusted since childhood, and you stabbed me in the back.”

“You stabbed me first. I just returned the favor.” Her voice drops. “I was going to become the head of my household. Because of you, no man dares to be with me because my main family branch only produces lunas. Do you know the insult my family had to face when you chose Elena? The humiliation my father had to go through when the pack elders taunted him? And then for you to force me to become your precious mate’s right hand, her assistant.”

“You were never her assistant. You were her friend.”

“I was her slave!” The scream comes from some deep broken part of her. “I did everything for her. I was the luna in everything but name, Callum. All your mate could do was look pretty and have parties. I handled all the dirty work. And then you expect me to do the same for this filthy human? I was not the bad friend, Callum. You were. You betrayed our friendship; you betrayed our promise. You betrayed everything my family stood for. You humiliated us, and you thought I would just sit by and do nothing?”

“If you had a problem with being Elena’s right-hand person, you should have said so.” My voice comes out quiet. “The same with Luca and Ariela. Instead, you chose to do this.”

Her brows lift, and her voice turns cool. “You have your way of dealing with problems. I have mine. But don’t worry, Callum. I’m not looking to you as a prospective mate anymore. You see, once I found out you wanted to use a surrogate pregnancy, I realized you were never really going to take a mate again. But I still had hopes. Once you lost the kid, the pack would pressure you, and I would be there, but you’re so fucking stubborn!”

The last of it comes out as a shriek that puts every glass on the shelf ringing. Then she stops, and her face resets into something calm that’s worse than the shriek.

“When you told me that Ariela was your fated mate, that’s when I decided you’re no longer fit to be the alpha of this pack. It’s time someone else got a turn.” She smiles, taking out a gun from her coat pocket. “Let’s put an end to this.”

It’s a small dark-barreled gun, and she aims it at my chest. Without hesitation or warning, she pulls the trigger. The bullet hits me just above the hip. A human gun is useless against us. But this one is different. It burns my flesh, nearly forcing me to go down on a knee.

“How do you like my new invention?” Isabella beams. “I tested it on a lot of people. Of course, the more powerful the wolf, the purer the silver I needed, and the wolfsbane had to be brewed to that consistency. You’re the first alpha I’m testing it out on.”

“You’re supposed to duck the bullet, Callum!!” Ariela cries out in alarm. Then her voice cracks over to me. “Callum, take Luca and run. Take him and run!”

“Take Luca and run!!” Isabella mocks. “Go where?”

She points the gun at me again, and this time when she pulls the trigger, I move out of the way. It grazes my shoulder, and the burning sensation is vivid. As I look down at my shoulder, I see movement in my peripheral vision, and I look up to see Silas charging at me.

I backhand him into the stacked chairs hard enough to bring the pile down. He struggles to his feet, growling. “You bastard, you—”

He runs toward me again, and I don’t even have to shift to deal with him. Grabbing him by the wrist, I break it in two places. His scream of agony is satisfying, but Silas has other plans.

He drives a hand into my side, claws first, straight into the hole Isabella put there. The wolfsbane surges through my blood, and my vision tunnels down to a circle with Silas in the middle of it. Behind my legs, Luca is snarling.

“Stay back!” I bellow at him.

Silas laughs into my face with the wrist I broke hanging off him at an angle he can’t feel yet. The ruined hand goes in deeper. “You’re slow. The great alpha is slow.” Blood bubbles out of his nose. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to see this?”

I slam my fist into his chest, and his face turns white. Snarling into his ear, I remind him, “You will never be able to take me in a fight, Silas. You were never good enough.”

My hand tightens around his pumping heart, and I yank it out, the organ pulsing in my hand. Silas’s body falls on mine, and Corinne screams in despair. I ignore her, tossing Silas aside. Looking over my shoulder, I see Luca backing away from me. He’s too young to understand this violence, and I’ve probably scarred him for life.