Virgin Surrogate for the Alpha Prince in a Coma

Lillian Blackwood has five minutes. She's in a room, phone pressed to her ear, waiting for Calvin to answer. He promised they'd run. He swore he'd get her out before the guards came to drag her to the Alpha Prince's east wing. The call goes to voicemail. She pleads with the moon goddess for an escape — anyone but her as the next tribute. None of the others survived. She'll run herself if she has to.

She doesn't make it far. A sound from behind a door stops her cold. It's Calvin. And her stepsister Marin. Through the crack, Lillian watches the man who was supposed to be her fated mate tangled up with her sister, both of them laughing about how she just lies there like a cold fish. Three years Marin has been in his bed. Calvin, an alpha, sneers that he'd never tie himself to a worthless wolfless girl — Lillian was just entertainment he planned to pass around to his men. When Lillian confronts them, Marin drops another truth: she was the original tribute. They swapped her name for Lillian's. Calvin won't even bother severing their mate bond. In an hour, the Alpha Prince's wolf will rip her apart and do it for him. Guards drag Lillian away while she screams that she's not the chosen one.

Inside his chamber, Alpha Prince Grayson isn't as comatose as the kingdom believes. The coma is bait — he's hunting his poisoner from the shadows. But his wolf keeps tearing apart every surrogate the Luna Queen sends, and he can barely hold the beast back. When Lillian is shoved into the room for the trial, something shifts. His wolf doesn't attack. She stands before the massive creature, confessing the worst day of her life — the cheating, the setup, the fact that nobody ever loved her — and asks only that he make it fast. Instead, the wolf accepts her. She's declared Luna Princess, tasked with bearing the Prince's heir. The court whispers behind her back: she's wolfless, an insult to a war god like Grayson. The Luna Queen orders their tongues cut out and sends Lillian to Seraphine, head Omega, for immediate instruction on manual extraction.

That night, things spiral. Calvin breaks in with chloroform, planning to impregnate Lillian himself and pass his child off as the Prince's heir. He taunts Grayson's motionless body — right up until the Alpha Prince's eyes snap open and his wolf lunges out of the dark. Calvin flees, convincing himself it was a reflex. Lillian, drugged and disoriented, reaches for the impossibly awake Grayson. She wakes the next morning covered in marks, horrified that she might have used the Prince's hand on herself. Seraphine arrives promptly, demanding she complete last night's "treatment" or face the Luna Queen's wrath. Lillian stands over Grayson's body, hands shaking, promising this time it's strictly professional.