The Alien’s Vicious Starflash Manor (Empire of Frost and Flame #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

LARA

A s I follow the alien fae down the ramp of his spaceship onto Earth’s familiar soil, the noise of the Trasqo Market hits me first, their cries of “Come buy!” echoing around me, the babble of hundreds of voices as customers and vendors haggle with each other.

The sounds all compete for my attention, and I suddenly realize just how quiet the Icecaix lands are. I can hear cars in the distance, and even though I know the market is largely separated from my world, my heart leaps at the sound.

But almost immediately after that, the warmth snags my attention. It is morning here, and it’s winter once again. But this is a Texas winter—not the kind I’ve spent almost an entire year surviving in Duke Ivrael’s home.

The light suggests it’s morning, and… oh, God. The sun here is brighter, shining with a different quality. I can tell it will eventually offer warmth rather than only light, and for just a moment, I close my eyes and tilt my head back, glorying in its touch on my skin.

Then I snap back to attention.

If I’m going to grab my sister and escape, I need to be ready. I have to pay attention to my surroundings.

“This way.” Ivrael strides off with an unerring sense of where he needs to be. I trail behind him, turning my face up to the morning sun, realizing it’s the same sun Izzy woke up under today. My heart pounds at the thought of seeing my sister again, knowing that this is our best chance to get away.

Following him, I continue to refine my plans to escape—the ones I’ve been making since we left Trasq. They’re not very good plans, but they’re a start.

Of course, even those terrible plans require his henchmen to be absent.

Lucky for me, his doorman-turned-guardsman Tenyt stayed behind to watch the spaceship, so that just leaves his valet—also turned-guardsman—Khrint.

I glance over my shoulder at Khrint.

He’s even taller and more muscular than Ivrael. In fact, I’d say he’s downright burly. I’m not sure how I’m going to get him out of the way.

Then, from across several aisles, I see Izzy’s hair, dark red waves where mine is strawberry blonde frizzy curls, and all thought of disabling Khrint disappears. My breath seizes in my throat, and tears spring to my eyes. I blink them away, determined not to cry.

Ivrael makes his way to the same booth where he bought me the year before.

I hear Roland’s voice before I see him, the rumbling tones of malice and petty complaints sending a shiver of revulsion through me as he speaks to the short, toad-like vendor who’d brokered the deal between the duke and Roland. “I expect you to get me more this time.”

Ivrael moves to stand between us before I’ve gotten more than the barest glimpse of the man who’d sold me to him like cattle at an auction, the duke sweeping me behind him with one arm. I glare up at the back of his head, but it does no good.

Roland apparently doesn’t notice me, all of his attention on the duke. “There you are. About time you got here. I need more money this time.”

“Oh?” To anyone who hasn’t spent the last year as a servant in Starfrost Manor, Ivrael’s tone probably sounds mild enough. But the temperature around him drops by several degrees, and when I glance down, the brown grass just around Ivrael’s feet has turned hoary with frost.

“Yeah,” Roland says, his voice rising as he sees a chance to air his complaint. “The other bitch’s disappearance caused more trouble than I expected. You didn’t pay me enough to deal with the police questioning me over and over.”

“What are you talking about?” At the sound of Izzy’s voice, my heart lifts—but her next words send it plummeting again. “Dammit, Roland, I thought you said you had a lead on Lara.”

That bastard used the promise of finding me to get my sister here. I want him dead, maybe even more than I’ve ever wanted to see Ivrael die.

Unable to wait any longer, I step out from behind the duke, pushing the hood of my tattered cloak off my head.

Roland catches sight of me, and his face turns ashen. Maybe he’s afraid of what will happen to him if I get the chance to tell the police that he sold me to some alien elf dude.

I give him a long, slow smile as I think of everything I want him to suffer. He goes even paler, as if he can read my mind and it terrifies him.

That fear is the least of what he deserves.

Izzy’s gaze darts between Roland and Ivrael, and she blinks and frowns, as confused as I was when I was the one being sold in the Trasqo Market. But I note the moment Izzy sees me, the instant her confusion turns to shock.

“Lara!” she screams, throwing herself past Ivrael and at me.

I wrap my sister in a hug, holding her tight and whispering into her ear. “We have to run.”

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 fucking human to 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.

He releases my sweater, shifting his hold to my wrists. His long, elegant fingers easily wrap around both wrists and hold them in place.

“You lied to me,” he says again, the words grinding out from between his clenched teeth and hardened jaw, both an accusation and a complaint.

My nostrils flare, and I would toss my hair if I could move my head. But Ivrael has me in a hold I cannot escape from, both magically and physically. And even if I were able to move, I’m not certain I could tear myself away from those eyes, that gaze.

“I did,” I say defiantly. “And I would lie again if I thought it would get me away from you and save Izzy from the same fate.”

At that moment, Ivrael—the cool, sardonic, frozen high lord of an Icecaix domain—actually growls at me, as if I have pushed him so far outside his usual civilized role that he’s lost the capacity for language itself.

He draws the knife from its sheath at his waist—more a dagger, really, and not a knife like any I’ve seen before, possibly made of bronze or some other non-iron metal. I don’t know why my mind is clocking that distinction right now as he lifts it to point toward me.

I swallow hard, fear finally overcoming my defiance, the sound audible between us.

But Ivrael never takes his gaze away from mine as he slides the knife in his hand toward my throat.

Instinctively, I close my eyes, unwilling to see my death coming toward me.