Page 69 of The Alpha's Cursed Queen

Without so much as another word to anybody else, I gather my things and rush out of the boardroom. I know that if I leave the building, Darian will catch up to me. What if he kidnaps me? What if he decides to kill me? The safest place right now is Katherine’s office.

I rush past her startled assistant and my own team members, who have been waiting in the corridor. I hear my name being called, but I ignore it. Slamming Katherine’s office door behind me, I drop everything in my hands and fall to my knees beside the wastepaper basket in the corner, proceeding to throw up in it. It’s only after I’ve emptied the contents of my stomach that I sit on the floor, panting. My whole body feels cold.

How do I protect my daughter? There’s no way Darian is going to leave her alone. Mary never tells me anything about him or the Wolf Kingdom. She knows I needed to cut out that part of my life. I should call her…

My hands grope among my things for my phone, and I realize that I must have left it in the boardroom.

I stare blankly at the carpeted floor.

If I call her right now, I’m just going to send her into a panic. I don’t know how the laws in the Wolf Kingdom work when it comes to children. I need to find someone—I need a lawyer versed in shifter laws, and that can only be another shifter. But if it comes out that my child is descended from the royal family, even my own shifter lawyer will turn on me.

What do I do? Should I relocate? I could leave the country. I have my law degree; I should just have to take a few exams to be able start practicing in Europe somewhere, or Australia. That might work. The royal family’s jurisdiction ends on this continent. And since I am no longer registered as a wolf shifter, I don’t need the permission of the royal family of whichever continent I decide to relocate to.

I struggle to hoist myself up, and then I sink into the two-seater couch, my head buried in my hands.

I can do this. I can uproot my whole life. I’ve done it once, and I can do it again. But even if I escape to another continent, Darian is powerful enough to be able to get to Mira using other means. If he discovers that he has a daughter, which he no doubt will, he will find us.

I’ll have to change our names. Of course, if I change my name, I will have to start from scratch: a new law degree, a new career. It might be easier than the first time around, but the stress it will put on Mira, not having her mother around once again, is not going to be good for her. But I’m doing this to protect her!

I don’t know what to do. Stay or go?

I never changed my name because once it was removed from the wolf shifter registry, I knew Darian would never come looking for me. As far as he was concerned, I was probably dead. After all, the condition he left me in was as close to death as one can get. He had wanted to finish the job by branding me, at which point my heart probably would have stopped.

Still, he had no reason to believe I was alive this whole time. And now that he knows, his pride will not allow him to leave mealone. He’ll want to destroy me all over again. When he finds out I had the nerve to give birth to his child, even more so.

What do I do?

The door of the office opens, and I look up to see Kathering entering. “Alice! What’s—” Her eyes settle on the waste basket, and she pales. “What happened? Are you okay?”

I could tell Katherine. She’d help me.

I open my mouth, but then I remember that I fed her the same lies as everyone else. That I had been married, and Mira was my deceased husband’s daughter. I can’t tell her the truth now. I can’t even imply that Darian is some ex-boyfriend. It won’t work. She thinks my supposed husband was the only man I’ve ever been with.

I still suck at lying, it appears.

“Stomach bug,” I murmur, my insides twisting.

She gives me a relieved look. “If that’s all it is, I’ll get you some medicine. Or maybe it’s just nerves from that meeting.” She walks over to her desk and opens a drawer, which I can see is stocked with over-the-counter pills. “Darian Kassel seems very interested in you.”

“No shit,” I mutter under my breath, folding my hands together as I try to calm down.

She comes over to me, holding out two pills and a glass of water. Some human pills work for me, while some don’t. But there’s no adverse reaction if I pop a pill or two. I swallow them, chugging the water.

She sits in the armchair next to me and crosses her legs. “So, what was going on in there?”

“What do you mean?”

My friend scoffs. “Cut the crap, Alice. You two already knew each other. It was evident to everybody in the room. Darian was looking at you like he wanted to take you right there on the table. And you looked like you want to cut his balls off.”

I wipe my damp hands on my thighs. “Okay, maybe we’ve met before.”

“To use your words, no shit.” She narrows her eyes. “He was agreeing to everything you were saying. You could’ve told him to take zero profit from us, and he would’ve allowed it. I’ve never seen a man so desperate to please someone. He didn’t take his eyes off you for even a minute.”

I’m silent, trying to figure out what to say to her.

“Alice?”

I get to my feet. “He’s no one important.” Running my fingers through my short hair, I try to figure out my next move. “I need to get back to the office. Have they left?”

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