Page 59 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

“Mr. Thorne.” Reid dips his chin half an inch. “The master isn’t home yet. It would be best if you leave.”

“And since when do you tell me what to do?” His voice is friendly and light, and I feel my skin crawl. “You’re just a servant. Your family sold you to the alpha. I’ve never understood how you manage to strut around here with that superior look on your face when you were handed over to settle a debt.”

I don’t know what any of that means or how it is legal, but what I do know is that this man has gone out of his way to be decent to me for the past two or three days, and I’m not going to have him insulted while I’m standing here. I step in front of Reid.

“I don’t know where you get off insulting the people who work here, but I would advise you to back off.” I sneer at Silas.

Silas blinks. It’s the first real reaction I’ve gotten out of him. “You’re defending a servant?”

“He’s not a servant. He’s part of this household.” My voice is firm. “And I don’t know why you say servant in such a derogatory tone. He looks after the people in this house. He has the most important job here. Without Reid, this house might not function. You think you can look down on him?”

“Miss Reyes, please don’t get involved,” Reid murmurs behind me.

I don’t turn around. “You might think you can stand here and listen to all this, but I’m not going to let him talk to you like that.”

Silas’s smile has gone tight at the corners.

“It would be best if you leave, Mr. Thorne. I don’t care how important of a guest you are. Get out. Or I’ll call Callum and have him throw you out.”

I have no idea whether Callum would throw him out. He might hand me my coat and throw me out instead. It’s still worth saying.

Thorne laughs once without opening his mouth. “So the child’s mother is the mistress of the house now? How curious.”

“You talk a lot for someone who’s been told to get out.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Do you have any self-respect, or do you want to be dragged out?”

The smile goes off him completely. His jaw sets, his eyes stop moving, and both guards shift their feet at the same time.

“I would watch what I say, little human.”

I put a hand over my heart. “Why? Do people not talk to you this way?”

Thorne tips his head back to look at the sky, and when he lowers it, he’s pleasant again.

“We’ll meet again.” He turns on his heel. “But you are an interesting woman, Ariela.”

He walks out through the gate without hurrying, two armed men trailing him at a distance neither of them seems willing to close.

“Are you all right?” I ask Reid.

He doesn’t answer. He’s looking at the gate with his hands behind his back, and the silence goes on long enough that I start to wonder whether I’ve made everything worse.

“You do not need to do that for me,” he says at last.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Let’s go back in.”

As we go in, I ask, “Do we need to tell Callum he came?”

“I’ll let the master know once he comes back.” He holds the side door for me, and when he looks up, he meets my eyes, which he hasn’t done once since I moved in. “He should be returning soon.”

We go down the corridor, and he walks slightly behind me.

“Reid, can I ask you something? Why do they call Callum ‘Alpha’?”

He keeps walking for four or five paces. “It’s just a title.”

“All right.” I let that lie there for about ten seconds. “Then why is it that whenever somebody wants to insult you, they say human? Isn’t everybody here human? How is that even an insult?”