Page 240 of Scorching the Alien Empire
I wince, already regretting my poor choice of words.
Gods. Dammit, Lexie.
Big Belly’s eyes snap to mine. “And where areyourscars? The living runes of your heroic deeds carved into flesh and bone?” His gaze drags across my glowing, flawless skin, and I feel naked in a way even my sexy robes can’t fix. “Chieftainess Rocks earned hers completing the Proving. The first off-worlder to do so. She bears them proudly—as she should.”
He leans back. “And you?” he asks, voice low, almost pitying. “Have you achieved the same?”
His pale green eyes narrow further, slicing me down.
Typical.Only in this backward, bone-through-the-nose culture would fabulous be considered a flaw. I should’ve come in full Freddy Krueger cosplay—maybe then they’d actually take me seriously.
“... I’ve not had time to—” I start.
“A Chieftainess who hasn’t completed the Proving,” he interrupts, folding his enormous arms across his equally enormous belly. “An untested child. A leader of a clan.” He shakes his head, snow-white braids jingling with fangs like a judgmental wind chime. “Such a thing should berejected.”
My nails dig into my palms so hard I half expect to bleed. “I’ve more than proved myself—” I snarl.
“That cloak.” He jabs a thick finger at my Sock-Chair mantle like he’s pointing at a war crime. I brace myself for the next incoming slap, wondering whose cosmic mocha I pissed in to become this guy’s personal punching bag.
“The scales of a sneachir, if I’m not mistaken,” he drawls. “The mightiest beast from my homelands of Aroth. Please,” he crooks a patronizing eyebrow, “do regale me with the glorious tale of your hunt. I’m greatly intrigued by how anunproven alien femalecould match a full team of my best hunters?”
The eyebrow wiggles. Smug. Condescending. I want to slap it right off his stupid, judgmental face.
“I couldn’t possibly,” I snap, face burning. “You keep interrupting me every two seconds!”
“Go on,” he purrs, leaning back like he’s settling in for bedtime story hour. “I won’t interrupt your...epic saga, little female.”
Little female. Me. A puppy. Yelping for his amusement. Woof. Woof.
“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?” I shriek. Chaste-Lexie dies a violent, fiery death—murdered before her time. “Todd and I do not have to take this abuse!” I howl, chest heaving. “Do you have any idea who I am? What I’ve done?” I launch myself upright like an overstuffed turkey rolling off a countertop.
“I’m not some doll for your amusement! I’m thefucking Divine Daughter! The one who shielded the Revered Mothers. The one who saved all you bone-through-the-noses from bashing each other over the head during the battle! So maybe don’t sit there acting like a judgmental Big Belly Buddha, because let me tell you—that’s not very Zen, is it?!”
My glare could melt steel. I dig into him with my silver-scorched eyes, willing him to feel the fury burning inside me. If I had Mr. Frowny Face’s murder bond juice, I’dsquishhis braininto jelly by now. But there’s nothing. Just me. Alone in my mercurial inferno, blazing in the void.
Big Belly blinks, stunned. Hit by the full, unfiltered force of Lexie’s Thousand Stylish Handbags of Justice. I seethe, waiting for him to open his stupid mouth so I can give him a taste of his own stinky medicine.
“I think you should—”
“I’ve been to your precious Aroth,” I cut him off, grinning savagely. “A giant freaking freezer that nearly killed me.” His mouth clicks shut. “That’s where I had a vision of the Gods.Arawnoth himselfcame to me then. He saved me from icy death. Marked me.”
I trace my fingers over the scorched runes seared across my chest and throat. They flare like stoked embers under my touch, the divine fire answering my rage.
“That’smyscars,Chieftain,”I snarl.“This ismyProving. Not some ugly beast scratches.But runes scribed by the Gods themselves.”
His pale green eyes widen in delicious shock as he traces the glowing words. “The cycle burns eternal...” he murmurs, voice cracking like dry hair.
“Touch it,” I command, seizing his massive hand and dragging it toward my chest.
His fingers hover for a heartbeat—then hiss as they meet my scorched flesh. He jerks, gasping at the heat.
“It burns,” he chokes, awe dawning on his face beneath the rising steam. “It actually burns.”
I step back, grimacing as the pain flares sharper. “That’s enough Divine boobie time,” I grunt, massaging the tender skin. “What are you made of? Icicle knives?”
Big Belly shakes out his scorched fingers like he just yanked them out of an oven baking cookies, staring at me like he’s seeing the sunrise for the first time.
“Aenarael’s love flows strongly in my veins,” he murmurs, sucking the ends of his scorched fingers as his gaze drifts off. “Ever since I was a boy, I felt her frozen touch caressing my heart.”
