“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 crawl out of my own skin.
That wasn’t a request,” he said.
I picked up the blanket. Clitnbed 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.
Naunched myself backward so hard I fell off the mattress.
Pain shot up my spine. I scrambled to my feet, yanking the hem of my tunic down, my face so hot I could have boiled water on it. The blanket tangled around my ankles and I kicked it off, stumbling toward the washroom.
“I sorry I was just -“
Nobody was listening to me.
The Prime Beta – a tall, hard-faced man with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow – stood in the doorway staring at Grayson with an expression I couldn’t read. Beside him, the doctor had paused mid-step, medical bag frozen in his hand.
They weren’t shocked that Grayson was awake. They already knew.
They were shocked that I’d been wrapped around him like a blanket.
“Since when,” the Prime Beta said slowly, “does anyone sleep in your bed?”
Grayson sat up, perfectly composed, as if a girl hadn’t just peeled herself off his chest and face-planted onto the floor. “She’s the surrogate. She sleeps here. It’s part of the act.”
“She was on top of you.”
“She moves in her sleep.” His tone made it clear the topic was closed.
The Prime Beta’s gaze slid to me. It was the kind of look that weighed and measured and came up short. The doctor glanced between us with raised eyebrows but said nothing.
I fled to the washroom and pressed my forehead against the cold stone wall.
Through the door, their voices dropped low. I held my breath and listened.
“The rogue prisoners broke under interrogation.” The Prime Beta’s voice was clipped, efficient. “They confirmed it – someone inside the pack leaked your patrol route. They didn’t have a name. Just a rank. Someone with access to the military schedule.”
A pause. Grayson: “Keep pressing.”
“There’s more. The prisoners said the ambush was supposed to kill you outright. Whoever planned this didn’t want you injured. They wanted you dead.”
Silence. A longer pause. Then the Prime Beta spoke again, and his voice had changed – quieter, colder.
“The girl is a liability.”
My blood went cold.
“She knows you’re conscious. She could tell Calvin, her father, anyone. One slip and the entire investigation is compromised.” A beat. Something metallic clicked – a blade being drawn, or a case being opened. “We should eliminate the risk.”
The door wasn’t locked. I could hear footsteps approaching. My body locked up. My wolf threw herself against her cage, snarling, but my legs wouldn’t move.
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