Page 123 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

Power surges through my veins like liquid starlight, burning cold and blazing hot all at once. It floods every cell, every nerve ending, until I’m not sure where the sensation ends, and I begin. My skin tingles with it, my breath catching in my throat as the magic rises in me like a tide.

The force of it nearly brings me to my knees.

Is this what Ivrael meant about my heritage? About royal blood?

The power thrums through me, eager and wild. It feels like flying. Like falling. Like finally understanding why he chose me.

The falling ice stops mid-air, suspended in a glittering cloud around me like stars plucked from the night sky.

My skin tingles—no, it sings—with the awareness of every crystal, every jagged fragment. I can feel them all, their edges and angles humming against my consciousness like notes in a frozen symphony. The sensation floods my nerves until I’m dizzy with it, until I can barely tell where my body ends, and the ice begins.

When I flex my fingers experimentally, the shards dance and swirl in response. Not just responding—anticipating, eager, like they’ve been waiting for my touch. Like they know me.

The movement feels as natural as breathing, as inevitable as heartbeat.

“What the hell?” The words escape in a whisper that clouds in the frigid air, equal parts wonder and terror. My voice shakes, but my hands are steady as I direct the ice to spin faster, testing the limits of this impossible new ability.

Above me, one of the hunters screams again—high and desperate—before cutting off in a wet gurgle. Good. The vicious satisfaction that floods me at the sound should probably frighten me, but all I feel is savage joy.

Let them feel what it’s like to be hunted. Let them know what it means to threaten what belongs to?—

The thought stops me cold, sending a shock through my system that makes the hovering ice shiver and chime.

When did I start thinking of myself as belonging to Ivrael?

I press my fingers to my lips, still swollen from his kisses, and try to sort through the tangle of emotions threatening to overwhelm me.

Desire and resentment. Pride and shame. Power and surrender.

But there’s no time to examine this revelation, this seismic shift in how I see myself—because the maze is literally falling apart around me.

Another of Ivrael’s roars shakes the foundations, and great chunks of ice break free from the walls.

My newfound power flares in response to the danger, to the resonance of Ivrael’s rage above. The magic feels like frost racing through my veins, like starlight caught beneath my skin, and I can’t tell anymore if I’m trembling from cold or from the sheer overwhelming force of it.

All I know is that everything has changed—the maze, the magic, my understanding of my place in this frozen world.

And maybe most terrifying of all, my understanding of myself.

I sense everything around me with a clarity like never before.

So I turn my attention to my power.

The power is a brilliant, electric blue, crackling with tendrils of white light that dance and sway with my movements. Themetallic tang of magic flashes across my tongue, like a burst of energy fizzing and crackling with each movement.

As I raise my hand, the icy ground below crackling and popping with the release of energy, the world around me glows with a light that holds an otherworldly radiance.

The frozen ground beneath my feet smells of crisp winter air, earthy minerals, and that faint scent of ozone and electricity, like before a storm.

There’s also a hint of something darker, a scent of danger and destruction that lingers in the icy mist swirling around me.

A tingling sensation courses through my veins, as if my blood has turned to liquid fire. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, like holding a live wire that surges with electricity.

Like holding starlight.

I reach out with this strange new power, feeling the structure of the ice, the patterns of cold that hold it together. It’s like seeing music or tasting light—impossible to describe but suddenly as natural as heartbeat.

With a flick of my wrist, the magic shifts and bends. The ice responds to my touch, reforming into crystal steps that spiral upward, rising gracefully from the chaos and destruction at my feet.

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