Page 3 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

But she doesn’t seem to hear me, shooting rapid-fire questions in my direction, never waiting for an answer. “Oh, my God, Lara, we thought you were dead. Where have you been? Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

I slide my arms down from her shoulders and catch her wrists in mine.

She pauses to take a breath, and I tighten my hold on her, giving her a sharp tug.

“Now,” I say urgently. I turn and run away in the opposite direction from the iron gate, pulling her with me.

Izzy stumbles behind me, a single word rising from her in a wail. “Why?”

“No time to explain. Come on.”

To her credit, Izzy takes me at my word, finally falling into step beside me, our feet pounding on the gravel path that winds among the tables. For a single second, I think we might make it out of the market, might be able to flee Ivrael.

But we were never going to escape.

We were always going to be too late, too slow, too fuckinghumanto get away.

Icy tendrils slide along my neck, as real as fingers, tightening and jerking me back. My legs keep moving as my upper body stops, and my feet fly out from under me.

I land hard on my ass, Izzy falling right beside me. She cries out in pain, but I bite down on my own yelp. I’ve learned some things in the Icecaix lands, apparently. No screaming, no crying, no admission of any misery at all.

I think I always knew this was going to fail. I’m not even upset, exactly. I’m filled with a sick, hot sense of inevitability, heavy and dreadful.

Izzy and I are well and truly caught.

“What the actual fuck, Lara?” Izzy sputters, as if the words make a complete question. “What is going on?”

When I turn to look at her beautiful, sweet face, her hazel eyes flashing with a fiery indignation, I almost laugh. All our lives, Izzy has been accused of having the fiery temper that supposedly goes with that bright red hair of hers, and right now I can imagine her blasting Ivrael, her heated anger melting all his icy power.

But I know it’s not possible—not really.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can say.

I start to pull myself to standing, but that same invisible hand lifts me, setting me back on my feet. I manage to crane my head around far enough to see Ivrael, his silvery-cold eyes filled with gold sparks of anger, his fists clenched as he uses his magic to maintain control of both me and Izzy, who has also been pulled to standing.

He stalks around to stand in front of us, glaring down at me.

“You promised me you wouldn’t run,” he says, and I almost think there’s betrayed hurt threading through his tone.

I shrug and brush off the seat of my pants. “I had to try.”

He grips my upper arm in a hand as hard as the iron he can’t touch, and he leans in close. Golden flecks begin to swirl deep inside his eyes. “You lied to me.”

Suddenly unafraid for the first time in a year, I rise up on my tiptoes to lean in as close to him as he is to me, matching him in tone and intensity. “You’re the one who isn’t supposed to lie. Not my world. Not my rules.”

We’re both breathing heavily, and tiny sparks of awareness flicker between us, heating the air so much it seems it could almost burst into flames.

“Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?” Izzy demands, a tiny crease between her furrowed brows.

With a dismissive gesture, Ivrael sends Izzy reeling into Khrint’s arms. She tries to jerk away, but the duke’s servant holds her tight.

Ivrael’s free hand hovers over the hilt of a knife I hadn’t realized he’s carrying in a sheath on his belt under his jacket.

He releases my arm, but before I can jerk away, he gathers the front of my ragged, stained sweater in his fist, and pushes me backward until I bump up against a wooden structure, a vendor’s stall. Ivrael’s hold on me is the only thing that keeps me from slamming into it harder than I do.

He’s glaring at me, those golden sparks now glowing a fiery red.

Then his gaze flickers to each of my hands, and his chin juts out and up. My arms are flung up over my head by some invisible force, crossed at the wrist and pinned against the wooden wall behind me, held there as securely as the rest of my body, though Ivrael isn’t touching them.

---