Surrogate for the Alpha Prince in a Coma novel Chapter 12

Chapter 12

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Chapter 12

The royal escort drove me back to Shadow Creek on a gray morning. Two guards sat in the front of the black car, and neither spoke. I wore my palace tunic with the sleeves rolled, my mother’s locket flat against my collarbone, and a kitchen knife strapped to my calf beneath the trouser leg.

I’d taken it from the servants’ prep area three nights ago. The blade was dull and the handle was cracked wood but it was flat enough to hide and sharp enough to cut. That was all I needed.

Maren was waiting at the packhouse entrance.

She wore a white sundress and Calvin’s mark on her neck – fresh, pink, positioned exactly where my eyes would go. She looked me over slowly, head to toe, the way you’d inspect a stain on expensive fabric.

“Welcome home, sis.” She leaned against the doorframe. “Or I should say – welcome home, breeding machine. She examined her nails. “Calvin and I are planning our Luna ceremony. Next month. White lace, open back, imported shoes.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “You should see the guest list. Everyone who matters. Which, I guess, means you won’t be there.”

I walked past her without a word. My hands were steady. My jaw was tight. I would not give her the satisfaction of a single flinch.

Inside, the packhouse smelled the same – pine floor cleaner and old wood and something faintly sour underneath, like resentment soaked into the walls. Everything was exactly as I’d left it. The same crooked picture frames in the hallway. The same crack in the second stair.

I hated that it still felt familiar.

Calvin appeared within the hour.

He spoke to the royal guards at the front gate – pack hospitality, private family matters, the Luna Princess needs rest and they withdrew to the outer perimeter. By the time I understood what had happened, every person who answered to the Crown was on the wrong side of the packhouse walls.

His hand closed around my upper arm in the hallway.

“Smile,” he murmured. “Let me show you to your room.”

He dragged me up the stairs, through his bedroom door, and threw me onto the bed. The lock clicked. The pleasant expression dropped from his face like paint peeling off a wall.

“I tried the nice way.” He stood between me and the door, hands in his pockets. “Flowers. Apologies. Giving you space. None of it worked, because you don’t respond to nice.” His eyes went flat. “So here’s the version you’ll understand. You’re going to do what I tell you, and you’re going to give me a child. That’s it. That’s the whole plan.

I pushed myself upright on the mattress and reached for my ankle.

“You want to talk about plans.” My fingers found the knife handle. I pulled the blade free and aimed the point at his chest. “Here’s mine. Take me to my brother. Right now.”

Calvin’s jaw locked. His eyes dropped to the blade.

“Lillian -”

“Take me to Ronan, of drive this through your neck and then through mine, and you explain to the King why his Luna Princess bled out in your bedroom.”

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Chapter 12

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Something shifted behind his eyes. He searched my face for the bluff. He didn’t find it.

“Ten minutes,” he said through his teeth. He yanked the door open and barked at the guard in the hall. “Take her to the basement. Ten minutes. Then bring her straight back.”

The basement smelled like mold and damp stone.

A single lantern hung from a hook, throwing weak light across a cell barely wider than a closet. Ronan was curled on a thin mattress on the floor. He’d lost weight. His arms were thin, and his skin had a grayish color that made⚫ my chest clamp shut. The boy who used to race me around the yard and beg to arm-wrestle at dinner looked like he’d been emptied out from the inside.

He lifted his head. His whole face split open.

“Lily!”

He scrambled to the bars, and I caught his hands through the iron. His fingers were freezing. His grip barely closed around mine.

“I’m getting you out.” Low. Fast. The guard stood six feet behind me, bored, picking at something under his thumbnail. “When I say run, you go for the back courtyard. Don’t stop. Don’t look back.”

Ronan’s eyes went wide. He pressed his lips tight and nodded.

I spun and drove my elbow into the guard’s temple. He folded. I grabbed his keys, unlocked the cell, pulled Ronan out by the wrist, and we ran.

Up the stone stairs. Through the service corridor. Past the kitchen where two Omegas looked up and froze. Out the side door into the open air.

Calvin was already standing in the courtyard. Six warriors flanked him. He didn’t look surprised.

“That was cute,” he said. He had his arms folded and his head tilted, like a man watching a puppy try to climb a

fence.

They grabbed us in seconds. A warrior caught Ronan by the collar and yanked him off his feet. My brother bit the man’s hand, and the warrior backhanded him across the mouth. Ronan crumpled into the dirt.

Something snapped inside my chest. I threw myself at the warrior, clawing, biting, screaming my brother’s name. Two more pairs of arms caught me and pinned me down. A knee pressed into my spine. My face hit the dirt.

My father walked into the courtyard with his belt already wrapped around his fist.

“I warned you.” His voice shook with fury. “I told you exactly what would happen.”

They dragged me to the whipping post in the yard and tied my wrists above my head. The rope scraped the skin raw. Ronan was on his knees in the dirt, sobbing, begging them to stop, and not one person in that courtyard looked at him.

The first lash split my tunic and carved a stripe of fire from my shoulder to my hip. I bit down so hard I tasted

copper.

The second crossed the first. The pain whited out everything – the yard, the sky, my own name.

I braced for the third.

It never came.

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A boot connected with my father’s chest and launched him into the dirt. The whip flew from his hand and landed in the dust.

I twisted against the ropes. The Prime Beta stood behind my father, four royal soldiers spreading out at his back, every weapon drawn.

“The Luna Princess belongs to the Crown.” His voice carried across the entire yard. “Touch her again and I’ll remove the hand that did it.”

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