Page 59 of The Alpha's Cursed Queen

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I sigh. Time to go to work.

Kalem and Sons is a law firm that recruited me four years ago. They have a building in the Melrose District, a hub of activity. My office is on the top floor along with the other senior lawyers. After greeting my assistant, Holly, I walk inside the large space that I was given a year ago.

Getting into law school was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life, and having a toddler attached to my hip while attending classes was even harder. But I had a little help in the form of Mary and a few babysitters. The determination to give my daughter the life I never had drove me to succeed. I functioned on the bare minimum hours of sleep and worked myself to the bone, studying and doing odd jobs when I needed money. But I did it.

“Miss Lane?” Holly knocks on the door before entering. “Miss Lockhart’s assistant called for a lunch meeting this afternoon.”

I’m taking out my laptop from my briefcase, and I look up in surprise. “Katherine’s assistant called?”

“As I understand, it’s not a personal request but a business one,” Holly clarifies.

I blink. Katherine Lockhart is a friend of mine. When I first joined Kalem and Sons, I was a junior lawyer in the team that was working on the Pinnacle Group’s case. That meant I had to do a lot of grunt work. Katherine’s father was the CEO, and shehad just joined her family’s firm. She was very hands on, and the two of us worked together on the case, hammering out the fine details. Thanks to the many hours we spent eating takeout in either my office or hers as we pored over facts, an unlikely friendship blossomed.

Now, we get together for lunch at least once a week, so for her to set up a formal appointment with me, without so much as a heads up, means it must be serious.

“Do I have any meetings today?”

“One, and it can be rescheduled,” Holly informs me quickly. “If you want, I can get Jefferson to cover it. It’s also a lunch meeting. But it’s a small mom-and-pop shop. Their son-in-law is trying to convince them to merge their—”

“—successful restaurant with his failed chain of restaurants,” I finish, recalling the meeting from last Friday. “No. Call Brandon and tell him to schedule dinner with Katherine instead of lunch. Tell him I have an important meeting today.”

Holly hesitates. “Are you sure? Pinnacle Group is one of our biggest accounts.”

I give her a firm look. “Pinnacle Group isn’t going to suffer if I don’t show up for a meeting. That old couple will. All clients are equally important, Holly. Just because they won’t be paying my normal fees doesn’t mean they don’t deserve my full attention.”

My assistant gives me a flustered look. “Of course. I’ll let Brandon know.”

She closes the door behind her, and I sink into my leather chair.

Seven years ago, I could not have imagined sitting in such a splendid office, with an assistant and people relying on me. I would not have dreamed that other law firms would try to poach me.

Seven years ago, I was lying in the bed of a private clinic, wanting to die. My spirit had been crushed in its entirety, my body so badly damaged that I was holding on by a thread. Mary put her hands on my flat belly, the blood of another healer staining those hands.

My friend, who is the gentlest person I have ever known, had killed someone to protect me and to protect the secret I was carrying inside me. A child. A child with royal blood.

The memory has me touching my stomach.

It was Mira’s existence that made me fight for a second chance in life. I worked hard to become someone. I had been at the bottom of the barrel, and I was determined to claw my way out. The moment I learned I was carrying a child, I swore to myself that I would never let anyone humiliate me again.

My eyes flit around the room, the office that is a symbol of my success. Alice Lane is no longer a worthless wolf shifter. She’s a successful corporate lawyer who is on track for partnership. My child is happy and confident. She is loved. She will never know even a day of sadness, if I can have it my way.

I look at one of the photos on my desk. Mira is in my arms. She was a few months old when this was taken. I had started law school just a few weeks earlier. I was thin back then, having run myself ragged throughout the pregnancy. I look so tired, but this picture is a reminder of who I fought for and how I fought for her.

Mira’s birth changed a lot of things for me. My red hair, which had once been a source of ridicule for me, is now something I carry with pride. Cut in a blunt bob, the edges barely touching my shoulders, I dare somebody to call me Firecrotch now. My wolf rumbles within me in approval.

When the white witches performed the sealing spell on me, they subdued my wolf spirit, which had only just woken up inside me. However, when Mira was born nine months later, I once again had a brush with death, and my wolf spirit revived. Even Mary couldn’t explain it. It was unheard of.

However, the plan had been to hide in the human world and pose as a human. Mary helped me with my shift and taught me how to accept my wolf, but I can’t risk running into wolf shifters in Arizona. While the Moonlight Pack has no control in this state, the Blackwood Pack is the ruling entity here, and I have done everything to make sure I don’t get on their radar.

Fortunately for me, ever since the sealing ritual, according to Mary, I don’t smell like one of my kind. If my scent was diluted before, it is even more so now. Sometimes one has to be grateful for the small things.

I try not to think about the past, but perhaps today, after sending Mira off to a new school, my heart feels heavy. Walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window that looks out on Phoenix, I gaze at the city I now call home.

A knock on the door has me looking over. “Come in.”

A man enters. His dark hair is streaked with gray, his features youthful despite his age. Harry Asher is one of the partners at Kalem and Sons. He’s in his early forties and has been a good friend to me over these past four years. At the same time, he hasnot concealed his interest in me, which started the moment I joined this firm.

“Harry.” I greet him with a small smile. “What brings you here?”

---