Page 39 of The Alien's Cruel Starfrost Domain

When she sat down on a crypt to rest, I barely noticed which one it was—until moonlight hit the snow and the door began to creak open. At the sound, a premonition shivered through the air and down my arms, and I found myself sitting up straight.

As the door swung wide, revealing the crowned figure within, understanding slammed into me with the force of an avalanche. My heart seemedto freeze in my chest.

The king emerged, and moonlight glinted off the blue stone in the twisted crown he wore—the Starfire Crown, key to restoring our world’s magic.

The sight of it sent power thrumming through my veins, calling to something deep in my own blood.

My breath hitched. After all my searching, here it was. The very thing I’d spent cycles hunting, the key to saving everything—or destroying it all.

Lara’s blood had led her—led us—to the very monarch whose power I sought. The possibilities and implications whirled through my mind even as terror gripped me. Not for myself, but for her. She was in far more danger than I’d anticipated.

My reaction has nothing to do with Lara, I told myself harshly, even as my body tensed to spring forward at the first sign of real threat.I’m simply worried that my plans will go awry.

The thought tasted foul on my tongue, and I half expected to hear the bones of the world creaking as my lies broke them.

I forced myself to wait as other undead arose, watching for any sign of her powers manifesting. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to move, to protect her, but I held myself in check. This was the moment that could prove everything—my research, my plans, my sacrifices.

It was what I’ve been planning for, what I was betting my life and all the lives of my people—everyone I loved, everyone I knew, everyone I was responsible for—and more besides. The responsibility for those lives pressed down on me.

Nothing happened.

Nothing magical, anyway.

I could barely believe it. After everything, after all my certainty, could I have been wrong about her?

When Lara realized that the dead were rising from their graves, her reactions were purely human. She did nothing but scream and gasp and lurch away from them, reeling from one set of bony fingers reaching out and grasping for her to another.

Each cry of fear from her lips sent shards of ice through my heart.

My teeth ground together in frustration as I watched her dodge another grasping hand. She should be able to command them, to bend them to her will through the power of her royal blood. Instead, she was helpless. Just like any other human would be.

For the first time, real fear for Lara’s safety swept through me, tightening the skin on the back of my neck and sending chills tickling along my scalp.

The emotion was foreign, unwelcome. I hadn’t planned on caring whether she lived or died.

Still, I didn’t intervene. Every instinct screamed at me to protect her, but I forced myself to remain still.

I shouldn’t have to do this.

So I didn’t.

Then bony fingers closed around her arm, and something inside me snapped. The sight of those dead hands on her skin shattered what remained of my resolve.

Drawing my sword, I gathered my magic around me like armor, frost crackling in the air around me. As I vaulted from the horse, landed lightly just outside the fence, and strode through the gate, my mind raced. I had to get her out alive—but I also needed that crown. Everything depended on both.

I’d never intended to care whether she lived or died. She was meant to be a means to an end, nothing more. The perfect sacrifice to save my world.

But as I moved to place myself between her and the undead king, I realized with dawning horror that somewhere along the way, that had changed.

The realization burned in my veins.

Now her safety mattered to me almost as much as my plans.

Almost.

Still, the king had to die—again—and I had to claim his crown.

But first, I had to save Lara. Even if doing someant complicating all my carefully laid plans. Even if it meant admitting, just to myself, that she had become more than just a means to an end.

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