Surrogate for the Alpha Prince in a Coma novel Chapter 9

Chapter 9

GRAYSON

The girl was staring at me like I’d crawled out of a grave.

Her hand was still hovering where I’d grabbed it, fingers trembling, her face cycling through expressions faster than I could catalogue — shock, terror, confusion, and something else underneath that looked a lot like guilt.

Good. She should feel guilty.

The first time she’d climbed into my bed, reeking of aphrodisiac and grinding against me like a bitch in heat, I’d given her the benefit of the doubt. Drugged. Disoriented. Not in control.

But this was twice now.

I let go of her wrist. She stumbled backward, nearly knocking the washbasin off the nightstand.

Here was what I knew: Lillian, Gamma’s daughter from Shadow Creek. The intelligence briefing on the surrogate candidates had been thin- low-ranking pack, no political connections worth noting. But one detail had snagged: she’d been publicly linked to the future Alpha of her pack. Everyone in Shadow Creek expected her to be his Luna.

And then she’d been handed over as a surrogate instead. No protest from the future Alpha. No challenge, no objection, no attempt to claim her back.

That didn’t sit right. Men like that didn’t give up territory without a reason.

Maybe he had sent her. A loyal operative inside the prince’s chamber, reporting back on whether the vegetable was really a vegetable.

Either way, I couldn’t let her leave this room knowing what she knew.

“You’re awake,” she whispered. Her voice cracked on the second word.

I sat up against the headboard. The movement sent a dull ache through my ribs – the old injury, never fully healed. I ignored it.

“I just woke up,” I said, “when you started groping me.

—

Her face went scarlet. “I wasn’t that was an accident I was doing the massage and my hand -”

“Slipped.”

“Yes.”

“Onto my cock.”

She made a sound like a small animal being stepped on. I almost felt bad. Almost.

“I’m calling a doctor.” She turned for the door.

“No.” The word stopped her. I let the silence sit for three seconds. “No doctors. No servants. Nobody hears about this.”

She turned back. Her eyes were wide and wary.

“You want me to- to just pretend you’re still in a coma?”

“I’m telling you that if anyone in this palace learns I’m awake, the person who leaked it dies first.” I held her

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gaze. “That’s you.”

The color drained from her face.

She swallowed. I could see her processing it – the fear settling into her bones, replacing the embarrassment.

“Keep my secret. Don’t cause trouble. Don’t draw attention.” I leaned back. “Do that, and when this is/over, I’ll let you walk away. Free.”

She stared at me. Then she nodded.

Smart girl.

LILLIAN

I stood on the far side of the room with my back pressed against the stone wall and tried to remember how to breathe.

The Prince was awake. The Lycan Prince – the one they said had killed a duke’s daughter with a wave of his hand, the one whose inner wolf broke bones for sport – was conscious, alert, and watching me with the same cold calculation a wolf gives a rabbit before deciding whether to chase.

He’d said he woke up just now. When my hand slipped.

–

Which meant the night before — the drug, the bed, the fingers was still a dream. It had to be. He’d been unconscious. He couldn’t have been the one who –

I looked at the bruises on my wrist. The fresh ones, from thirty seconds ago, overlaid the fading purple from last night. Same grip. Same pressure.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

If the Prince of the Lycan Kingdom discovered that I’d used his hand to relieve myself while drugged out of my mind, he wouldn’t just let me walk away. He’d snap my neck. Everything I’d heard about him pointed to the same conclusion: ruthless, violent, unforgiving.

I had to keep my mouth shut, do what he said, and survive long enough to find a way out.

That night, I made a bed on the floor.

I folded the spare blanket into a rectangle, used a rolled-up towel as a pillow, and curled up on the cold stone three feet from the bed. It was miserable. The floor leached heat from my body within minutes, and my wolf whined pitifully inside my chest.

“Get up.”

His voice came from the bed. Flat. Bored.

“I’m fine down here.”

“The servants come at dawn to clean. If they find bedding on the floor, they’ll ask questions.” A pause. “I told you not to draw attention.”

I lay still. My wolf was already pulling toward the bed – toward him – with an eagerness that made me want to

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crawl out of my own skin.

“That wasn’t a request,” he said.

I picked up the blanket. Climbed onto the far edge of the mattress. Pressed myself against the very edge, as close to falling off as I could manage without actually falling. I lay on my back, rigid, my arms pinned to my sides, staring at the ceiling.

The bed was enormous. A canyon of silk sheets separated us. His warmth radiated across the gap anyway – cedar and frost and clean skin, the scent that made my wolf purr and my stomach clench.

I could hear him breathing. Slow. Even. The sheets rustled once when he shifted, and I held my breath until the sound stopped.

Every muscle in my body was locked tight. My jaw ached from clenching.

I pressed my eyes shut.

He was a killer. He’d threatened to have me executed. He thought I was either a spy or a schemer. There was absolutely nothing about this situation that should have made my pulse race the way it did.

My wolf disagreed. She settled low in my chest, content, like she’d finally found where she belonged.

Traitor.

I didn’t think I’d sleep. Not with him three feet away, breathing that slow, even rhythm. I was wrong.

A door slammed open.

I jerked awake. Morning light flooded the chamber. Two figures stood in the doorway – a man in a dark uniform and an older doctor with a medical bag.

I was not on my side of the bed.

I was wrapped around Grayson like a second skin. My leg thrown across his thigh. My arm draped over his chest. My face buried in the curve of his neck.

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