The Night Prince

Lauren Palphreyman’s The Night Prince (2025) is a romantasy novel and the second installment in the bestselling The Wolf King trilogy. The story continues the journey of Aurora, a Southlands princess who is now part werewolf after being bitten by the Wolf King. The manipulative alpha wolf Blake has forged a powerful magical bond between them, which he intends to use to seize the Wolf Throne for himself. Caught between her loyalty to her protector, Callum, and her involuntary connection to Blake, Aurora must navigate a treacherous political landscape while trying to break the bond. The novel explores themes including The Quest for Female Agency In Patriarchal Systems, The Struggle Between Self-Control and Vulnerability, and Power as Both Protection and Domination.

Author Lauren Palphreyman gained a following by publishing serialized fiction online, with her earlier works garnering tens of millions of reads on platforms like Wattpad before being acquired for traditional publication. The Night Prince’s prequel The Wolf King was an Amazon bestseller and featured as a “Best of BookTok” selection. The series fits within the romantasy subgenre, employing common tropes such as warring kingdoms, rival alpha males, and a heroine discovering latent magical powers.

This guide is based on the 2025 self-published e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, sexual content, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Blake, the werewolf alpha of Lowfell Castle, shares a magical bond with Aurora, a half-human, half-werewolf Southlands princess. The bond allows them to feel each other’s emotions and enter the other’s dreams. In their dreams, they visit each other’s memories, as well as the magical prison of the God of Night, Oidhche. After one dream, Blake’s second-in-command Jack warns him of rumors that a figure called the “Night Prince” is gathering an army for Night.

Aurora and her lover, another alpha named Callum, are also at Lowfell, hiding from both her father, the Southlands king, and James, Callum’s brother and the current Wolf King. She and Callum have a shaky alliance with Blake, but she reveals to Callum that he created their life bond to usurp Callum after Callum challenges James for the throne.

As they are about to become intimate one night, Aurora is overcome by a strange fever and faints. For three days, she suffers from hallucinations, at one point sleepwalking into Blake’s room and holding a knife to his throat. Upon waking, she is summoned to a council meeting where Blake announces he has invited a powerful alpha, Lochlan Christensen, to a ritual called Oidhche Fhada to form an alliance against the James.

James has taken his friend Fiona hostage at Madadh-allaidh and wants to trade her for Aurora, who is technically his property under Wolf Law, as his bite is what turned her into a half-wolf. Blake suggests another alpha must “claim” Aurora by biting her to override James’s claim, but Aurora refuses. Callum and Aurora explore the grounds and find the chapel dedicated to the God of Night, where Callum explains the history of Night’s Acolytes, who seek the “Heart of the Moon” to free their god.

On the night of Oidhche Fhada, the Lowfell clan hikes up a mountain for the lunar eclipse ritual. Before it begins, the Moon Priestess publicly shames Blake’s half-sister, Elsie, and her son, Alfie, as “tainted.” Aurora defends them, and Blake forces the priestess to apologize. After the ceremony, James arrives with armed men and demands Aurora, threatening war. Blake bites her shoulder, publicly claiming her as part of his clan in front of the priestess. This act supersedes James’s claim. James leaves. Callum can’t attack Blake for the intimate act because the bond causes Aurora to feel the Blake’s pain. Lochlan agrees to ally his clan with Blake and Callum.

On the night of the full moon, Aurora’s fever returns with intense ferocity. Her wolf nature is provoked by Blake’s presence, and she attacks him. The ensuing power struggle between a protective Callum and a provoked Blake causes both men to shift into their wolf forms and fight, during which Blake is suspiciously protective of Aurora. However, Aurora does not shift into a wolf as she should’ve. Blake tells Aurora that she is a wolf, but the reason she did not shift is a mystery.

Soon after, Aurora is kidnapped and taken to James. Callum and Blake come to rescue her, but James says he’ll only let Aurora go if Blake kisses her. Aurora can tell he, Blake, and Callum know something she doesn’t, and she’s deeply hurt when Callum agrees to Blake kissing her without her consent. After, Callum challenges James to a duel for the throne.

They are ambushed by Alexander, a worshipper of Night and vengeful lord Aurora believed to be dead. Seeking Aurora, he shoots Blake. During the ensuing battle, Blake and Aurora escape to a nearby temple that Alexander, because of his religious affiliations, cannot enter. They return when a friend comes to tell them the fighting is over. James lost the fight with Callum, forfeited the throne, and fled. In the coming days, Aurora’s visited by her brother, Phillip, a self-absorbed prince who’s become suspiciously good at fighting yet turns himself over for imprisonment.

Callum and Aurora have a major fight over the kiss Blake gave her on Callum’s orders. In her shared dreams with Blake, they continue to learn more about each other’s pasts, and the dreams increasingly reveal their attraction to one another. As the alphas try to strategize their next moves in Madadh-allaidh, she sneaks into Blake’s room, sensing he has information on how to break their bond. He catches her, and they fight over a note she found about her that says “Anam-Cridech.” He won’t tell her its meaning.

After confronting Callum, she discovers she’s Blake’s fated mate, an unbreakable connection and the source of their life bond. Believing it taboo for him to be with another wolf’s mate, Callum decides to send Aurora away for her safety with her brother, Philip. They leave on a mission to visit a northern dignitary who has asked for Callum’s hand in marriage for a political alliance against the Southland king and the rumored Night Price.

While traveling, Aurora and Philip are ambushed and captured by Alexander. Aurora is taken to his fortress, the Grey Keep, and imprisoned with James, his ex-lover Claire, and a young wolf named Ryan. She is then brought to an amphitheater where Alexander tortures her by whipping her, attempting to force an unnamed latent power to awaken. As she is being beaten, Blake and his men arrive and a battle breaks out.

Wounded, Alexander releases the “Dark Beast,” a serpentine shadow monster from Night’s prison. Blake reveals to Aurora that she is the legendary Heart of the Moon and urges her to unleash her power. As the beast attacks, she unleashes a devastating scream of pure light, which destroys the monster and enables the other wolves to shift and fight. The surviving wolves, led by James, kneel before her in recognition of her power.

In the aftermath, Alexander slits Blake’s throat. As Blake dies, Aurora feels their bond fraying. Possessing the power to sever it and save herself, she instead chooses to save him. She enters their shared consciousness and pulls his soul back from death, an act that permanently strengthens their bond before she collapses from exhaustion.

Aurora awakens in the Grey Keep, where a fiercely protective Blake has taken control, threatening the surviving wolves to ensure their silence about her identity. In another shared dream, she learns he is one of Night’s branded prisoners; he died while tortured in the Southlands, and his soul was taken by Night. He made a deal to be resurrected in exchange for finding the Heart of the Moon for his master, not knowing at the time it was Aurora. He is the Night Prince. The Moon Goddess likely made him and Aurora fated mates to ensure he’d never actually turn her over.

He warns that now that Aurora has been found, Night’s forces are coming for her. He offers his help in her new quest to claim her father’s throne in exchange for her alliance. Seeing no other choice, Aurora agrees.