Page 65 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

“You hear me? You have to make it because you are all I have in this world. Without you, I am nothing.”

Luca groans in his sleep. She puts her face into his hair, stays there, and I can smell the salt of her tears.

I get Salar out of the room with a look. Then I stand on the other side of that closed door, and my hand won’t come off the handle for about ten seconds.

Reid is waiting at the top of the stairs.

“Has she eaten since breakfast?”

Reid shakes his head.

I look over my shoulder at the closed door and say slowly, “Have something made for her. Something light.”

“Of course.” He doesn’t move yet. “How is the young master?”

I don’t answer right away. “Time will tell. Make sure this doesn’t get out.”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

“And the food for Ariela.”

“I’ll arrange something for the young madam.”

I go still at his words. “What did you say?”

Reid is silent, and I study him. That word isn’t decoration in this house. It’s what the staff call the woman they expect to be running them.

“The young madam, huh?” I ask slowly. “What did she do for you to change your stance on her?”

He hesitates. “She defended me against Silas Thorne.”

My blood turns cold. “What?”

“That is why I was waiting for you, Alpha. Silas Thorne came while you were at your meeting. He was very interested in the young madam. He kept trying to talk to her, but she kept rebuffing him. Then when I tried to intervene, Mr. Thorne tried to come after me, but the young madam stepped in.”

“In front of a Thorne, with two guards standing there.”

“She put herself in front of me, Alpha, and she told him to get out of your house.” The corner of his mouth goes up. “She used your name to threaten him.”

Now why does that not surprise me? I want to go and ask Ariela what Silas said to her, but now is not the time. The Thorne family once used to be the right hand of the Vance family. But greed for power separated the two households, and the enmity still exists. The Thorne family has political sway while I have that and money. To some extent, they are the only house that can openly oppose us. Not that I have ever let them.

For Silas Thorne to enter my estate without my permission is a huge breach, and I will be sure to let him know how I feel about it.

The night is the longest this house has had. Salar’s medicine holds the fever under a hundred and four for three hours, then loses it. At half past one, Luca starts convulsing, and Ariela has both arms around him before I’ve crossed the room. She holds him through the whole of it with his heels drumming her thigh, and she doesn’t make one sound. Her face is wet the entire time. When it stops, she doesn’t let go. She puts her mouth to the top of his head and pleads with him to get better. She doesn’t sleep. She sits with him in her arms, rocking him, whispering sweet, comforting words into his ears, promising him everything from the sun to the moon if he’ll just wake up.

I’ve never seen a woman so broken, and I realize that her words are true. Luca is her whole world. She doesn’t eat what Reid brings her, doesn’t touch a morsel of food or water. The staff doesn’t sleep either. They come up one at a time all night on invented errands because Reid won’t permit a line outside a sickroom door. The girl from the laundry brings fresh cloths nobody needs, the under-cook arrives at three with a jug of water nobody asked for. Every one of them looks at the woman on that bed holding my son, and every one of them goes back down quieter than they came up.

I put my palm on his chest and push my alpha power into Luca, which is the one thing I have that a healer doesn’t. This time it doesn’t work, and Salar tells me quietly that it might not work every time.

By dawn, the fever has come down, and Luca’s breathing has slowed. Salar lets out a breath of relief. “He’s going to be fine now.”

Ariela is swaying where she sits.

“Go to bed,” I tell her once Salar leaves.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Ariela.”