Surrogate for the Alpha Prince in a Coma novel Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The Prime Beta’s soldiers cut me down from the post and wrapped a cloak around my shoulders. The fabric pressed against the lash wounds and I hissed, but I didn’t pull away. My legs barely held.

My father was still on the ground where the boot had put him. Calvin stood at the edge of the courtyard, face carefully blank, his warriors already stepping back. Neither of them spoke. The Prime Beta didn’t look at either of them.

“The surrogate is returning to the Royal Territory.” He said it to the yard in general. Flat. Final. “Any further interference with her will be treated as an act against the Crown.”

They loaded me into the escort car. Through the rear window, I watched Ronan being dragged back inside by a guard, and something inside me cracked – a clean, sharp break, like bone.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and did not cry. The car smelled like leather and metal polish, and underneath it, faintly, the cedar scent that clung to everything in the royal pack. My wolf curled tight inside my chest, trembling.

I’d failed him. I’d come with a knife and a plan and I’d failed him, and now he was back in that cell, alone, getting weaker. The thought sat in my stomach like a swallowed stone.

Grayson was sitting up in bed when the Prime Beta deposited me in the chamber. Not pretending. Not performing. Just sitting there, jaw tight, his wolf’s blue shimmer pulsing brighter than usual at his side.

He was angry. I could feel it pressing against the air – heavy, electric, suffocating.

“I’ve had people watching you since you left.” His voice was quiet. The dangerous kind of quiet. “Your escape attempt lasted four minutes. If Calvin’s guards hadn’t caught you first, mine would have.”

I stood in the doorway, the cloak draped over my torn tunic, blood soaking through the fabric at my back. My wrists were raw from the ropes.

“You were watching.” Something hot and bitter rose in my throat. “You watched them tie me to a post. You watched them whip me.”

“I sent the Beta.’

“After two lashes.”

My voice cracked. I didn’t care.

“This is your fault. All of it. If I wasn’t trapped in this palace playing dead man’s wife, my brother wouldn’t be locked in a basement with wolf toxin in his blood.”

Something flickered across Grayson’s face. His jaw worked once. Then his expression sealed shut.

“Come here.”

I didn’t move.

He stood. Crossed the room in three strides and grabbed the back of my collar. I flinched – the movement pulled the cloak against the lash wounds, and a sound escaped my teeth that I couldn’t stop.

His hand closed around my throat. Not squeezing. Holding. His palm was warm against my pulse, and his eyes were inches from mine — dark, flat, unblinking.

“You want someone to blame.” His thumb pressed against the side of my neck. “Fine. Blame me. But the next

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time you run, I won’t send someone to save you. I’ll let them finish.” He released me. “Stay away from Calvin. Stay away from your father. And stay in this room until I say otherwise.”

He turned to the Prime Beta. “Tell the household the Prince’s condition has worsened. The surrogate is needed at his bedside. She doesn’t leave this wing.”

The Prime Beta nodded and left. The door shut behind him.

I stood in the middle of the room with blood drying on my back and Grayson’s scent filling my lungs with every breath. Cedar. Frost. Clean skin underneath. My wolf pressed toward him – toward the warmth, toward the steady heartbeat, toward the only person in this palace who hadn’t tried to use me as a stepping stone. Not yet, anyway.

He’d choked me thirty seconds ago. He’d threatened to let them kill me.

And my stupid, traitorous wolf still wanted to curl up at his side.

The doctor came an hour later. An older man with careful hands and reading glasses. He cleaned the lash wounds with something that burned and stitched the deepest one with thin black thread. I sat on the edge of the bed and gripped the sheets and stared at the far wall.

“Whoever did this used a leather belt with a metal buckle.” The doctor’s voice was tight with disapproval. “The second strike caught the edge of your shoulder blade. Another inch and it would have cracked the bone.”

Grayson was lying on the bed behind me, eyes closed, performing sleep. But I felt his breathing change when the doctor described the wounds. A small hitch. A held breath.

“She brought it on herself,” Grayson said. His voice was flat. His breathing hadn’t steadied.

The doctor glanced at him – a quick, careful glance that said he’d been around the royal family long enough to know when to keep his mouth shut. He finished bandaging my back in silence, packed his kit, and left.

The room was quiet. The ghost-wolf’s pale light pulsed at the foot of the bed. Outside the windows, the last edge of sunset bled across the sky.

We didn’t speak for three days.

Grayson stayed on his side of the bed. I stayed on mine. Meals arrived and were eaten in silence. I changed his clothes without meeting his eyes. He submitted to the massage without comment. The ghost-wolf watched us both with its pale, flickering gaze and occasionally made a low sound in its throat that could have been concern.

The wounds healed faster than they should have. By the third morning, the stitches were pulling at skin that had already closed underneath.

My wolf hummed – pleased, restless, straining at the walls.

On the fourth day, a servant knocked.

“Luna Princess. Your training schedule begins today. Lady Ophelia is expecting you at the grounds.”

I pulled on the training clothes they’d left outside the door fitted black pants, a sleeveless top, boots that actually fit. I braided my hair back and looked at Grayson.

He didn’t open his eyes. “Don’t start anything you can’t finish.”

I walked out.

Ophelia was waiting at the training grounds with six of her followers arranged behind her. She wore a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and a look that said she’d been planning this for days.

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I squared my shoulders. Whatever she had in store, I’d handle it.

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