Page 26 of The Alien's Cruel Starfrost Domain

I wrapped it around myself, hoping it would ward off the worst of the chill.

Ivrael didn’t wear any cloak at all. His snow-white coat with its golden embroidery caught the moonlight, and I realized he still had the top button undone, exposing the strong column of his throat. He seemed to relish the feel of the night wind on his face.

By the time I tried to speak to Ivrael again, we’d been in the air for hours, it seemed like, and my bladder felt like it was about to burst. You know what doesn’t ever happen in fairy tales? No one ever needs to stop the story so they can go pee.

We stopped twice that night.

We arrived at Starfrost Manor in the middle of the night, the ice horses landing in the courtyard and then swirling away into mist. Adefina met us, though of course I didn’t yet know her name. She was merely a small woman with dark skin.

“Oh, Your Lordship,” the woman said. “Not another human?” She sounded sad, disappointed almost. As if the duke were a small child who had brought home a stray kitten, and now Adefina was the one who was going to have to care for it. “They’re so fragile.”

Even as panicked as I was, I had to repress a snort. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life—many of them by Roland—but never fragile.

The duke ignored her comment, examining me from head to toe as I stood miserably in the courtyard, still wrapped in the cloak he’d given me.

“I think the kitchen,” he said to Adefina, who nodded briskly and turned to lead me away. I glanced at Ivrael, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, and if there was any way to escape this place.

He held out his hand and frowned when I didn’t move. “The cloak,” he demanded.

I think that was the moment I began to truly hate him. Not when he bought me, not even when he put me on that terrifying frost horse, but when he took away my one comfort.

I’ve refined that hatred since then, honed itat night by the dying fireplace, sharpened it until it all but cuts me from inside, the pain reminding me every day how much I loathe him.

But losing a cloak is nothing compared to what else he stripped away from me in the year that followed. My comfort. My freedom. My certainty about what kind of man he truly is.

My certainty about who I am.

And as it turns out, hatred is the least dangerous emotion Duke Ivrael stirs in me.

CHAPTER 8

LARA

That first night Adefina showed me to the kitchen, gesturing around the room, and told me that was where I’d be working and staying.

I asked her where the bed was, and she laughed. With a shake of her head, she said, “Get as comfortable as possible and grab whatever sleep you can. We’ll be up early tomorrow morning.”

Then she moved through a set of doors on the far end of the kitchen that I learned later led to her own bedchamber.

I was so tired I didn’t think I’d be able to stay awake long enough to choose a sleeping spot. I ended up huddled by the fire, though, and wrapped my arms around my knees, rocking myself, trying to find comfort in the fact that I was still alive, and that the duke did not have more nefarious plans for me.

In the end, I took a stack of towels from a basket and used one as a pillow and the others as blankets. Or at least, I tried to cover myself with the others.

I curled up closer to the fire, still shivering, remembering all thenights back home when Izzy and I had huddled together in my bed right after Mom married Roland.

Back then, Roland had turned the heat way down to save money, but Izzy would press her cold feet against my calves and whisper, “Tell me a story,” until I made up tales about magical creatures who’d swoop in and save us.

Now, a universe away from her, I knew better than to hope for someone to come rescue me like in those stories. But I could still wish.

Between the towels and the fire, I finally managed a few hours of fitful sleep.

The next morning, Adefina toed me awake with a nudge from her booted foot. “If you’re going to use the kitchen towels, don’t dirty the clean ones.” With a scowl, she pointed toward a corner. “The basket of used towels is over there. You can sleep under those.”

I blinked groggily, my teeth already beginning to chatter, and Adefina took pity on me.

“Come on, then,” she said. “His Lordship has called us to the courtyard.” Her tone was brusque, but I heard the fear lurking beneath her voice.

After I staggered to my feet, my head pounding and my back aching from my first night on the hearth, she led me to a storage closet, where she quickly sorted through piles of fabric, finally coming up with two cloaks, both worn thin. One was a scratchy, dark green wool full of holes. The other was made of a thin red cotton.

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