Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
IVRAEL
T he moment we board my ship, Lara’s presence burns against my awareness like a brand. The ribbons connecting us pulse with each beat of my heart, sending jolts of electricity through my already overstimulated nerves.
Every slight movement draws the bonds taut between us, a constant reminder of how she felt pressed against me in the market, her lips soft and yielding under mine.
Each tug of the ribbons sends electricity racing through my veins, reminding me how perfectly she fits against me.
The memory floods my senses—the way she melted into me despite her defiance, the sweet snowfly honey taste of her.
“Welcome back, Your Lordship,” Cyan’s voice rings out with theatrical flair that sets my teeth on edge.
“Hello, Cyan.” I force my tone to remain neutral despite the knowing lilt in her voice.
“And welcome to your...guests.” The pause before the last word drips with enough irony to fill an ice field. “Shall I prepare the private quarters for any extended discussions?”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek for an instant, silently damning how well the AI knows me. “That won’t be necessary.”
Khrint and Tenyt exchange glances that make me want to freeze them both solid. The cramped bridge suddenly feels impossibly small, every breath bringing Lara’s scent closer.
Even now, this new bond pulses between us with echoes of that dangerous intimacy, and my cock hardens painfully. Behind me, Lara shifts her weight, her breath catching in her throat as the echo of my thought flashes down the magical connection between us, flashes star-hot, the power of it enough to make me bite back a groan.
I stride toward the captain’s chair, seeking refuge in command. “Cyan, please initiate launch protocols.”
“Of course, Your Lordship.” Her tone carries barely suppressed laughter. “Though your core temperature suggests you might prefer to delay cryosleep...”
The frost beneath my fingers spreads. “The launch sequence. Now.”
Delay cryosleep…
Oh, Goddess, I desperately want to do just that. To wait until everyone else is unconscious, then push Lara up against the nearest bulkhead and claim her. To hear those little gasps and moans she tries so hard to suppress. To feel her warmth surrounding me, melting my careful control until there’s nothing left but raw need and pounding desire.
Khrint begins moving through his segment of the pre-flight checks with practiced efficiency while Tenyt fumbles slightly with the unfamiliar controls. The ship’s hum does nothing to distract me from the maddening awareness of Lara’s presence.
“This isn’t possible,” Izzy whispers, taking in the crystalline control panels before sliding between her sister and me with dangerous perception. “Flying saucers aren’t real.”
“Yeah, well,” Lara says, and Goddess help me, even her voice sends desire pooling low in my gut, “he’s not just some creepy fairy tale nobleman. He’s also?—”
“A monster?” I interrupt, even as my chest tightens at her assessment. The temperature around me drops several degrees.
But she’s not wrong. Every slight movement of the ribbons makes me ache to drag her somewhere private—to put every other person aboard into cryosleep and spend the entire journey showing Lara exactly what kind of monster I can be.
“Speaking of monsters,” Cyan chimes in cheerfully, “your biothermal readings are quite fascinating, Your Lordship. Shall I share the data?”
“Preparing for launch,” I growl through clenched teeth.
“Though our new guests seem less than enthusiastic about space travel,” she continues blithely. “Perhaps some hands-on instruction?—”
“Khrint.” I cut her off before she can finish that thought. “The stasis fruit.”
My valet’s lips twitch as he retrieves the crystal container. Another meaningful look passes between him and Tenyt that makes me seriously reconsider the benefits of having a crew.
As I attempt to ignore how every slight movement from Lara sends awareness dancing across my skin, the ribbons connecting me to her pulse again, and my vision blurs. The urge to drag her into my arms and finish what we started in the market grows stronger with each heartbeat.
To finish it—finish her—as I did that night in the gallery, when she shattered against my mouth, surrender and rebellion warring in those amber-flecked eyes. The way she pressed against me, hot and eager, grinding and mewling, practically begging me to make her come. The way she looked at me afterward, flushed and disheveled, yet somehow still untamed.
“Core temperature continuing to rise,” Cyan announces. “Shall I activate emergency cooling protocols? Or perhaps?—”
“That’s enough.” Frost crackles across every surface I touch.
“If you say so.” Cyan’s skepticism fills the bridge. “Though I note certain areas of your?—”
I slam my hand against the controls, ice exploding outward. “Launch. Sequence. Now.”
The sooner we break atmosphere, the sooner I can escape these close quarters, escape the maddening awareness of Lara’s every breath and movement.
If only I could trust myself to maintain control that long.
I rub my hands across my eyes and remind myself we’re not alone in the gallery now—not even close to it. We’re on my bridge, surrounded by knowing looks and barely concealed smirks. Izzy’s sharp gaze misses nothing, and my servants’ poorly concealed amusement already threatens what remains of my control.
Lara makes a small sound that might be suppressed laughter, and the bonds between us vibrate with an emotion I refuse to name. My cock throbs painfully against my breeches as I force myself to focus on the pre-flight checklist instead of all the ways I want to wipe that amusement from her face and replace it.
With her screaming my name.
“All launch checks complete,” Cyan says, and for a moment, I think she’s given up teasing me. But then she adds, “I was wondering if perhaps some cold water might help with your... discomfort?”
Tenyt coughs suddenly, and I don’t need to look to know he and Khrint are exchanging more meaningful glances. The urge to freeze them all solid grows stronger with each passing moment.
Fuck. This is going to be the longest flight of my life.
Goddess help me survive it with my sanity—and my dignity—intact.
Cyan’s systems pulse. Here, surrounded by technology that would horrify my court, I feel the divide in my blood more keenly than ever—part Icecaix nobleman, part space captain.
And with Lara so nearby, my craving for her overrides both of those elements of myself.
Already I can feel my magic weakening as the ship’s systems come fully online. It’s a familiar ache, this battle between the two halves of my nature—but it’s worse this time than it’s ever been before.
A wave of dizziness passes over me, and I grasp the back of the captain’s chair to steady myself. When the moment passes, I find Lara watching me carefully. Izzy, on the other hand, is staring at my servants, both of whom also reached for support when the engines spun up.
“The Icecaix aren’t supposed to use technology,” Lara explains to her sister. “It weakens their magic.”
She’s not wrong. Every moment aboard this ship dims my connection to the ice magic that is my birthright.
But Lara doesn’t understand that this perpetual balance between technology and tradition is exactly why I need the sisters. How their sacrifice will bridge these two worlds that tear me apart, allowing Caix magic and technology to coexist at last.
To be fair, I don’t fully understand it, either. But I can feel the truth of it, the reality that their blood will power the shift on my planet.
First, though, we need to get back to Trasq.
And the sooner I can get the Evans sisters into cryosleep, the better. The younger one’s presence sets my nerves on edge in ways I didn’t expect. She sees too much, and I’m afraid my attempts to maintain control over my desire for Lara don’t fool Izzy.
I worry Izzy will figure out what I truly need from her and Lara—and that’s the last thing I can afford for either Evans sister to know.
Behind me, Izzy spins in a slow circle, taking in every detail of the ship. Unlike her sister, whose fire burns hot enough to melt glaciers, Izzy’s energy is contained, analytical.
“You can’t just take off with us,” she finally says, though her voice wavers a bit as she watches the digital readouts spring to life around us. “Someone will notice we’re missing.”
If only she knew how carefully I’ve orchestrated everything, ensuring their disappearance will raise no alarms in their world.
How much their own stepfather helped me.
But thinking about Izzy finally helps cool the effects of binding Lara to me. I’m not calm—I know it would take only the barest brush of Lara’s magical ribbons against my senses for my desire for her to rage out of control again. But at least I am no longer a mere instant away from shoving her to the deck and ravishing her right now, spectators be damned.
When I don’t reply, Izzy moves toward the airlock, her fingers trailing along the metal walls. “Where exactly are you taking us?”
“That hatch won’t open for you,” Cyan announces cheerfully. “Ship’s on lockdown. Only the captain can authorize exit procedures.”
Izzy whirls to face me, her expression hardening into something closer to her sister’s early defiant anger. “You can’t kidnap us.”
“It’s not kidnapping. I bought you.”
Her jaw tightens, and for the first time, I truly see the resemblance between Izzy and Lara. “Then you can’t buy us.”
“I already have,” I remind the younger sister.
After all this time manipulating events, I find myself wishing there had been another way. But wishes are luxuries I cannot afford.
So many things I can’t afford.
That’s really nothing an Icecaix duke should ever have to say to himself.
Lara steps closer to her sister, reaching for her hand. She inhales deeply before she starts speaking. “I promised I’d explain everything, remember? Well, we’re going to a planet called Trasq.”
“That’s where you’ve been all this time?”
Lara makes a sound of assent, then gestures toward me with her chin. “He’s some kind of alien ice duke there.”
A burst of hysterical laughter escapes Izzy. “A what?”
“It’s like an ice elf—but not like Santa’s elves.” She pauses and huffs out something resembling a laugh. “Except I guess he does kind of live at the North Pole. At least, that’s what it feels like.”
“Perhaps I can help clarify.” Cyan takes on a pedantic tone. “Trasq is the fourth planet in the Caix system, primarily inhabited by two races of what humans might call ‘fae’—the Icecaix and the Starcaix—and a third race, the firelords. His Lordship, a noble among the Icecaix, holds the title of Duke of Starfrost, and as such, is responsible for the domain of the same name.”
I pull up navigation displays from the controls in the captain’s chair, pretending to study them while actually watching the sisters. The two girls stand close together, Lara slightly in front of Izzy as if to shield her, Izzy on her toes as if prepared to dart in any direction as soon as she sees a way out.
Lara’s copper-gold curls catch the blue light from the displays, while Izzy’s darker hair absorbs it.
Fire and shadow , I think, though they share the same amber-flecked eyes—eyes that draw me to her in Lara’s case, make me want to own her, keep her, protect her… and do no such thing in Izzy’s case. I find myself regarding Lara’s sister with the same cold analysis that she turns on me.
If not for Lara, I would not care about this human’s wellbeing at all beyond my plans for the sisters.
Goddess, why couldn’t I have reacted to Lara the same way?
“The Caix are an ancient race,” Cyan continues, clearly enjoying her role as lecturer. “The Caix possess significant magical abilities, particularly in relation to temperature manipulation and stellar energies. The Icecaix control the frozen regions, while the Starcaix?—”
“This is insane,” Izzy interrupts. “Magic? Aliens? You’re all completely crazy.”
I push away from the captain’s chair, fighting the urge to massage my temples as my magic once again flickers and dims. “Cyan, prepare the stasis fruit.”
“Already done, Your Lordship,” she responds, managing to make the title sound like gentle mockery.
A panel slides open beside me, revealing the clear storage unit where the fruit gleams like rubies caught in ice.
The sight sends memories flooding through me—how I fisted my hands in Lara’s hair, pulled her to me, and pressed the fruit to her lips. The way her breath hitched, her defiance as she tried to turn away, the heat of her mouth when I finally forced the fruit past her resistance.
Even now as I retrieve one of the globes, my cock hardens instantly at the memory of her submission—willing or not.
Lara’s eyes narrow as she watches me handle the fruit. She remembers too—I can see it in the way her breath quickens, the slight parting of her lips that makes me want to claim her mouth again. The ribbons around her wrists pulse with my need, in time to my cock’s throbbing.
Even here, surrounded by technology that would see me exiled from court, I am still Icecaix. Still driven by duty and blood to save my dying world. Still fighting this maddening need to possess her completely.
Goddess save me, but I want to recreate that moment. Want to back her into a corner and shove the fruit down her throat as she fights against my control. Want to taste the sweetness on her tongue afterward, to feel her melt against me as the sedative takes hold.
“Your core temperature is rising again, Your Lordship,” Cyan announces cheerfully. “Shall I log this as another physical response to?—”
“Stop.” With effort, I turn toward Izzy instead of her sister, though every fiber of my being screams to do otherwise.
The sooner everyone else is in cryosleep, the better. Everyone. Including Lara.
Because I am not free to do what I want. Even here, surrounded by technology that would see me exiled from court, I am still Icecaix. Still driven by duty and blood to save my dying world. Still fighting this maddening need to possess her completely.
Izzy backs away as I approach with the stasis fruit. “Don’t you come near me.”
“You’ll need to eat it before we enter FTL,” I tell her, keeping my voice level.
“Like hell I will!” She slaps at my hand, and the fruit goes flying.
I catch it with my other hand, ice crystals forming along my fingers. “I had hoped to do this the easy way.”
“You can go to hell.”
“It will help you sleep through the journey.”
She laughs aloud. “So you want to drug me?”
I glance at Lara, remembering how she’d finally yielded to me that first journey. “Your sister was far more cooperative.”
“Eventually,” Lara mutters. Her hand drifts up toward her mouth and she runs her fingers across her bottom lip.
“Oh. Only because you basically seduced her into it,” Izzy snaps, and I see Lara flinch from the corner of my eye.
The truth of the accusation stings more than it should. I am what I must be to save my world. The fact that my desire for Lara is real changes nothing.
And in any case…
“You don’t know what happened,” I say.
“Are you kidding? I can tell just by looking at the two of you.” Her gaze flickers between us and she shakes her head a little wildly. “You pulled some weird frozen Satan-snake shit on her and convinced her to eat your apple. Well, that’s not gonna happen with me. Nope. No way.”
My ice power, depleted though it might be, skitters down my arm and to my fingertips, where it causes a snowflake-pattern to bloom across the surface of the stasis fruit.
It’s truly fortunate I acquired the elder sister first.
Lara’s fire burns hot, but she also possesses an underlying sweetness I never expected to find in a human.
This one, though—Izzy has thorns where her sister has flames. I wouldn’t have shown such patience with her defiance.
I reach for Izzy’s jaw, prepared to force-feed her the fruit, but Lara steps between us. “The fruit isn’t harmful—it’s just to help us through the wormhole jump. Like sleeping meds.”
“Why would we need drugs for space travel?” Izzy demands, though she stops trying to back away from me.
“Oh, my.” Cyan’s voice holds gleeful anticipation. “Shall I explain the effects of unprotected wormhole travel on the human nervous system? The hallucinations begin within seconds, followed by extreme vestibular disruption. Most subjects experience the sensation of their internal organs being turned inside out while?—”
“That’s enough, Cyan,” I interrupt, though I notice Izzy has gone pale.
“I’ve had the fruit stuff twice now,” Lara says quietly. “Once when he first brought me to Trasq, and again when we came to get you. No side effects.”
Lara’s words make my lips curl into a smile I quickly suppress. Of course she would try to protect her sister, even if it means appearing to side with me.
Izzy spins to point at her sister. “Why are you helping him?”
“Because she knows what happens when you don’t cooperate,” I say, letting frost edge my tone. In the periphery of my vision, I catch Lara’s slight flinch, and I assume she’s remembering the hanging she witnessed early on—the punishment in front of my household.
Bitterness floods my mouth at the necessity of reminding her—but I can’t allow more than a year of careful conditioning to be undone.
Though it occurs to me almost immediately that she might be remembering the spanking she received at my own hand. As the thought flashes through my mind, I’m reminded of the feel of her ass under my hand—and that leads to the memory of Lara’s scent, her taste, surrounding me.
I quickly suppress a groan and tear my attention away from her, focusing it back on her sister.
Izzy’s jaw sets in a stubborn line I recognize from her sister. “Fine. But one of your men takes it first.”
I stare at her consideringly and am about to refuse when she juts her chin toward Khrint and Tenyt. “I want to see exactly what happens.”
Tenyt steps forward with an easy shrug. “Happy to demonstrate, Your Lordship.”
We all follow as he moves to his assigned cryocasket. While Tenyt connects the monitoring leads, Izzy peers at the stasis pod.
“It looks like a coffin,” she says.
“It’s a cryocasket,” I correct her.
“A glass one.”
I frown. “It’s a clear polymer-ceramic composite. And it’s transparent so as to allow any waking crew to more easily monitor anyone in cryo.”
She tilts her head to one side and stares at me, her mouth opening and closing several times before she manages to force words to come out.
“What is it?” Lara asks her.
The expression Izzy turns to her sister is incredulous. “Are you seriously telling me that some magical dude straight out of some weird-ass fairy tale wants me to take a bite of his drugged apple, so I’ll fall asleep in a glass coffin?”
Lara blinks a couple of times and then snickers. “Well, yeah. I guess so.”
“What then?” Izzy continues, waving her hands in the air. “Is he going to kiss me awake?”
Lara’s guilty gaze darts at me, and it’s suddenly obvious how Izzy deduced that I had seduced the elder girl into eating the stasis apple.
“I believe,” I say dryly, “I can safely promise never to kiss you.”
“Your Lordship,” Tenyt says nervously, “I’m ready for the demonstration.”
“Of course.” I wave at him to continue.
Tenyt climbs into his pod and retrieves his portion of stasis fruit from its container within. With a slight bow of his upper body toward Izzy, he takes several bites, then slides the fruit back into its container, and lies back in the cryocasket.
His eyes flutter closed almost immediately, his body relaxing as the fruit’s sedative properties take effect.
Izzy approaches cautiously, studying the steady rise and fall of his chest and the peaceful expression on his face. She presses her hand against his chest—feeling for a heartbeat, I presume.
When she finally turns to speak to me, her voice is tight, and she glowers at me. “Fine. Where’s my...sleeping pod thing?”
I direct her to her cryocasket, and she heads toward it.
Then she pauses as she’s about to climb in. “You know I’m only doing this because I won’t leave Lara alone with you people, right?”
“I know,” I say softly.
As Khrint hooks Izzy up to the monitors, Lara turns that fierce glare on me, her eyes burning in a way that makes the ribbons I tied to her pulsate in time to the almost painful throbbing of my cock.
She waits until her sister is safely encased in the stasis pod before speaking. “And I’m only here because you have Izzy.”
It’s not true, of course. She’s also here because I won’t let her out of my sight. Not until the time comes for the sacrifice. But I nod anyway, trying to ignore how the ship suddenly feels too small, too intimate now the others are securing themselves in their pods. Soon it will be just us—Lara and me and the endless expanse of space.
At the thought, my breath hitches in my chest. How easy it would be to corner her against the bulkhead, to taste those defiant lips again. To press her back against the cold metal and make her forget everything but the feel of my hands on her skin, my mouth on hers, take my time exploring every inch of her until she’s gasping my name, begging for more...
What would it be like to have her come to me willingly? To feel her yield to me completely, without any barriers between us? To allow everyone in the ship to rest, unaware, as we…
But I can’t think that way. Can’t let myself imagine possibilities that will never exist. While we’re on our way back to Trasq, Lara will not be distracted from Izzy for long, not by anything other than cryosleep itself.
The sisters may express their protective instincts differently—Lara through fierce defiance, Izzy through wary calculation—but I can’t deny their shared loyalty.
The realization sends an uncomfortable chill through my veins, warring with the heat of my desire. I’ve been counting on their differences making them easier to manipulate. Instead, their bond may prove a greater obstacle than I anticipated.
My cock jumps toward her as Lara moves past me to check on her sister, and I ache for her, desperate to lose myself in her heat until duty and destiny are nothing but distant dreams.
But I am the Duke of Starfrost. I have responsibilities that go beyond my own desires. The fate of my world hangs in the balance.
And for the first time since I conceived this plan, I wonder if I’ve miscalculated what the Evans sisters are truly capable of.
Or what I am…
Especially when Lara has turned out to be a temptation I never anticipated.
And one I’m not sure I can continue to resist—no matter how much she and I might both fight against it.