Surrogate for the Alpha Prince in a Coma novel Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The followers flanking Ophelia stared at me with something that hadn’t been there ten seconds ago. Not respect, exactly. Wariness. The kind of look you give a stray dog that just showed teeth.

In the werewolf world, females trained to fight were rare. Most girls – Beta daughters, Gamma daughters, Omega daughters – learned to cook, to clean, to run a household. Combat training was for males, and for Alpha- blooded girls whose families could afford the privilege. Ophelia sparring alongside the King’s warriors wasn’t just ambition. It was proof of how deeply the royal family adored her.

And I’d just blocked her strike with one hand.

My wolf was buzzing inside me. Not snarling anymore. Excited. Alive in a way she hadn’t been since I was twelve years old and used to sneak out to the training yard after dark, mimicking the movements I’d watched the boys practice all day. I’d loved it. The speed, the precision, the way my body knew what to do before my brain caught up.

Then Calvin told me he wanted a Luna who was graceful. Soft-spoken. Feminine.

So I stopped sneaking out. Wore dresses. Kept my hands folded in my lap.

Ophelia wrenched her wrist free. Her face was flushed. Her followers shifted behind her, uncertain.

“You’ll regret that.” Her voice was steady, but her eyes were not. “I promise you, surrogate. You will regret that.”

She turned on her heel and walked away. The three followers trailed after her, one of them glancing back at me over her shoulder.

The courtyard stayed silent for another three seconds. Then the sparring resumed, and the whispers started.

“That,” Margaux said, once we were out of earshot, “was extremely foolish.”

I said nothing.

“Ophelia is not some pack bully you can brush off.” She walked faster, and I had to half-jog to keep up. “She is the Royal Beta’s daughter. She has the Queen’s ear, the King’s affection, and every warrior in this compound would take her side over yours without thinking twice.”

“She was going to claw my face off.”

“And now she’ll find a way to do worse.” Margaux stopped and faced me. Her expression wasn’t angry. It was tired. “You are a surrogate, Lillian. You have a title and no power behind it. Ophelia has been the pack’s favorite since she was born. Don’t make enemies you can’t afford.”

She turned and kept walking. I followed, my wolf still humming behind my ribs, and said nothing.

The nurse was waiting in the Prince’s chamber when I returned.

She was a small, efficient woman with a clipboard and reading glasses. She stood beside the bed, gestured to the unconscious Prince, and launched into instructions without preamble.

“Daily massage. Forty-five minutes. Shoulders, arms, back, and legs. Maintains muscle tone, promotes circulation, prevents atrophy.” She tapped her clipboard. “The Queen performed this herself before you arrived. She expects the same standard.”

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Chapter 6

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I looked at the Prince lying motionless in his silk sheets. Dark hair against the white pillow. That jaw. Those shoulders.

The memory hit me before I could stop it. Fragments from last night – the pressure of a broad chest, cedar and winter air, a low voice saying stay still, and the devastating slide of fingers that –

Heat rushed to my face so fast my vision blurred.

“Any questions?” the nurse asked.

“No,” I said. Too quickly.

She left. The door clicked shut. I was alone with him again.

I stood over the bed and took a breath. Professional. This was a medical task. Nurses did this every day. There was nothing intimate about maintaining muscle tone in an unconscious patient.

I pushed his sleeve up and started with his right arm.

His skin was warm under my fingers. The same heat I remembered from changing his clothes – alive, present, radiating through muscle and sinew like his body hadn’t received the message about being in a coma. I worked my thumbs along his forearm, pressing into the dense tissue, and tried to focus on technique.

I failed.

Every time my fingers pressed into his skin, my brain supplied an image I didn’t ask for. The weight of his chest against my cheek. The sound of my own breathing — ragged, desperate, shameful. The ache between my legs that had greeted me this morning.

I bit the inside of my cheek and focused on his forearm.

His forearms were corded with muscle. His biceps were solid – not gym-built, battle-built. The kind of arms that had swung swords and pinned enemies. I moved to his shoulders, and the landscape of his upper body spread out under my hands. Broad. Ridged. The faint scars of old wounds mapped across his skin.

My wolf pressed against her walls, straining, and that flutter returned to the pit of my stomach. The same flutter from yesterday when I’d accidentally brushed against his-

I shut that thought down. Moved to his other arm.

But the fragments kept surfacing. The heat of last night. The dream that had felt too real. The low command stay still — that my body remembered even if my mind insisted it was fantasy.

My hands were shaking. I was working down from his shoulder, across his chest, my palms flat against the hard planes of his torso. Up close, his scent filled my lungs – cedar, frost, clean skin. The same scent from last night. The scent I’d buried my face into while I whimpered and begged and pressed myself against him like a cat in heat.

My wolf purred. Actually purred. I wanted to strangle her.

His breathing was even. His face was composed. His lashes lay dark and still against his cheekbones, and his lips were slightly parted, and I was staring at his mouth, and I needed to stop staring at his mouth.

I moved my hands lower. Across his abdomen. Each ridge of muscle shifted under my palms. His hip bones jutted above the waistband of his sleep pants, and the V-line of muscle that pointed downward was —

My hand slipped.

It grazed the waistband of his sleep pants, then lower — across the front of the fabric.

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He’s hard. My face was on fire.

Before I jerked my hand back, a hand clamped around my wrist.

That grip. Last night – the hand that had pinned me, the voice that said stay still, the fingers that had

Oh, my, that wasn’t a dream.

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