Page 62 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

To force her to even this.

I could break her. Could use my power, my position, to shatter that spirit into compliance. The thought sends ice crackling across my skin, magic surging with dark potential.

I want... I need…

I tell myself I need to break the wildness in her, to make her submit fully to my will. Yet each small act of rebellion makes my blood sing with something dangerously close to pride.

It’s a delicate dance we perform, this push and pull of power.

I’ve watched too many nobles break their servants’ spirits with such commands, seen the hollow shells left behind. The way their eyes go dull and distant.

The thought of the fire in her gaze being extinguished makes my chest tighten with something uncomfortably close to pain.

No, I realize.

I want her tochooseme. Want to see that defiant spirit bend, not break. Want her surrender to be given freely, not taken by force of title or tradition.

The intensity of this desire unbalances me, makes me question motives I thought were carved in ice. The thought of her coming to me by choice, of her own accord, burns hotter than any desire to force her compliance.

Because true power lies in her willing submission—in earning her mouth wrapped around my cock rather than demanding it.

And yet, the fact that I want her willing submission rather than her forced obedience is an alarming weakness, one I cannot afford.

These thoughts are dangerous—for both of us. I have a duty to my world, my people. Her role in my plans must remain clear. Yet with each passing day, the lines between captor and captive, between duty and desire, grow increasingly blurred.

The ice in my veins wars with the heat her kneeling ignites.

I’ve spent years crafting this mask of cold nobility, yet she makes me want to shatter it with my own hands. To show her the fire that burns beneath my frozen exterior.

The vulnerability in that desire terrifies me more than any loss of control.

And even as she kneels, power pulses between us, magnetic and dangerous.

So again I ask her, my voice scraped raw by emotion, “Do you understand what you are begging for, princess?”

CHAPTER 17

LARA

When Ivrael strode out of the woods and toward the evil wolf-things all those months ago, his expression was harder, crueler than it had ever been before.

It only made me want him more.

Even from a distance, I could read the determination in every line of his body, every fluid muscle ready to rain death down on the creatures that had spent the night torturing us.

He carried the same sword he’d brought to the cemetery, hilt wrapped in those elegant hands of his, blade lifted and ready to take on the monsters, and it was still shining with an otherworldly inner glow.

Ivrael’s pale blue eyes had that same golden fire burning deep inside him as he swung the sword left and right—an avenging angel in Mr. Darcy’s clothing, slaughtering terrifying wolf-creatures with every step.

It was the sexiest thing I had ever seen.

After all, there’s nothing quite like saving a girl’s life to turn her on.

That’s what I told myself at the time, anyway.

The wolf-monsters’ creepy, high-pitched voices descended into a tangle of yelps and cries, the wolves who had already been cut down lying still on the ground or, in some cases, trying to drag their bodies deeper into the forest to get away from Ivrael.

I stood up from my hiding place, Kila still inside my cloak, just in time for one of the creatures that was close to me to leap forward, its mouth wide open, and in the same moment I realized Ivrael was almost to us, holding the sword over his shoulder, prepared to swing it in a move that looked to me as much like swinging a baseball bat as anything else I’ve ever seen in real life.

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