Page 100 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

Well, fuck.

So much for no one being able to convince me.

I wrap my arms around myself. “I hate to admit it, but you could be right. That kind of thinking would definitely be right up an Icecaix’s alley.”

“If we’re going to try it,” Harai says, “I think we should all hold hands.”

I don’t miss the look she gives her sister and Izzy. Apparently one person is cheering on their flirtation.

“I’ll go first,” Rhaela says, holding her dagger in one hand and taking Izzy’s hand with her other. Izzy takes my hand, and I take Harai’s.

As soon as we step onto that path, everything goes dark. The blackness in that section of the maze is absolute. And in the dark, I begin to hear other people talking, some of them calling out to me.

It’s reminiscent of the wolf things that tried to get to me in the forest, and oddly enough, I find that comforting.

“Ignore whatever they’re saying to you,” I say. “They can’t get to you if you don’t answer them.”

I really hope I’m right.

The voices swirl around us like leaves caught in the icy wind, each one hitting with precise cruelty.

“Come back to the kitchen, child,” Adefina’s voice coaxes, though something’s wrong with it—too sweet, too concerned. “You were safer there. Happier. Remember how warm the fire was? How simple everything seemed?”

I grit my teeth against the temptation. It’s not real. Not her.

“Did you really think you could escape?” Roland’s sneer cuts through the darkness. “Everything you are belongs to someone else. Always has. Always will.”

His laughter echoes, bouncing off invisible walls until it sounds like a crowd mocking me.

My fingers tighten around Izzy’s hand. No. He’s wrong. He doesn’t own us anymore.

“Lara,” Ivrael’s voice whispers, so close I can almost feel his breath on my neck. “Let go. Give in. You know you want to submit to me completely.”

Heat floods my cheeks even as ice crystals form on my lashes. That voice—God, it sounds exactly like him, hitting every note that makes my body react against my will.

“Poor little hybrid,” Lady Uanna’s vicious, sparkling tones drift past. “Playing at being important. Did you think the duke actually cares for you? You’re nothing but a tool to be used and discarded.”

Through our joined hands, I feel Izzy flinch as new voices target her.

“My sweet, sweet sister,” my voice—but not my voice—calls out. “You’ll never be strong enough to save us. Just like you weren’t strong enough to save Mom.”

“Shut up,” Izzy growls, but I hear the pain beneath her anger.

The voices layer over each other now, a cacophony of our deepest fears and secret shames:

“You’ll freeze here in the dark...”

“No one’s coming to save you...”

“Did you really think you could change anything?”

“You belong to the ice now...”

“Just another servant playing dress-up...”

“Your blood will feed the crown...”

I try to block them out, focusing on the solid reality of Izzy’s hand in mine, Harai’s fingers gripping my other hand. The voices aren’t real. The connections between us—those are real.

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