Page 32 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

Damn him.

And even before that, he’s taking us upstairs, when all I want to do is go to the kitchen to check on Kila, make sure she and Adefina are okay.

Glancing toward the servants’ quarters, I consider going anyway. But it’s late, and I’m sure they’re asleep.

“You can see your friends tomorrow.” Ivrael’s voice jolts me into glancing up at him, but he’s already moving up the stairs again.

How did he even know what I was thinking, anyway?

I glare so hard at his back as he ascends the staircase that he ought to feel it. If I had whatever power he imagines I do, my stare ought to be burning straight through him like lasers, leaving holes leaking light from the other side.

God. Part of me wants to fall to my knees and beg Ivrael to take us back home, back to the world I grew up in.

Instead, I’m now compelled to a kind of brutal honesty—the sort I’ve had to direct toward myself repeatedly over the last year. The kind that reminds me what fairy tale princes really are.

Lying bastards.

And that honesty also tells me he would never help me, anyway. He’s the reason we’re here, after all.

I might as well begin plotting our escape.

And honestly, in the end, knowing what’s going on is not going to save Izzy or me if Ivrael’s plan, whatever it may be, goes awry.

It won’t matter if we’re servants or honored guests or unwilling prisoners. If Jonyk figures out Ivrael plans to betray him, we’ll be treated as part of the duke’s household, whether we want to be here or not, and we’ll be put to death right beside Ivrael himself.

Or worse, we could be given to Jonyk’s Ice Court to be used and then discarded.

I’m still contemplating that possibility when Khrint appears at the top of the stairs and takes the lead, saying, “This way, if you please.”

As if I don’t already know my way around the manor.

Khrint leans in to murmur to Ivrael, and I hear him say, “Lady Uanna apparently sent a lady’s maid?”

Ivrael nods. “Send her up.”

Khrint peels off and heads toward the servants’ back staircase. Ivrael takes us to a guest suite across the hall from his personal chamber, one I’ve never been in—it wasn’t used by any of the guests who stayed since he brought me to Starfrost, so it never required my attention.

It consists of a guest room and a small sitting room. The suite also has its own bathroom, complete with a tub and shower.

Eyes narrowed, I test the taps.

Yep. Running hot and cold water. Powered, I presume, by Caix magic.

I have spent the last year bathing and washing my clothes once a week after heating water, one cauldron at a time, over a fireplace.

Stomping back into the sitting room from my exploration of the suite, I turn a glare on Ivrael as he says to Izzy, “I do hope you’ll be comfortable here. I’ll be right across the hall if you need anything.”

I can’t even think of words, I’m so astounded and angry. I stand there in the luxurious space and sputter at him. He gives me a knowing glance, and one corner of his mouth curls up in a slight smile.

Oh. What a prick.

I glare at Ivrael as he leaves, I assume to go to his own suite of rooms across the hall. Where, for all I know, he has a bathroom too.

The whole time I’ve been here, I never spent enough time in there to find out. Hell, I never explored any part of the manor unless I was required to be there.

A quiet knock at the door makes me jump, my nerves jangling from my return to Starfrost. Izzy’s sprawled on the bed, already half-asleep, but she lifts her head at the sound.

“Come in,” I call out, surprised to hear how steady my voice sounds.

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