Defying the Lycan King

Alicia walked into her office with her heart slamming so hard against her ribs that she could hear it in her ears. Her hands were shaking like she had been standing outside in a blizzard instead of a climate-controlled office building. She shut the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, trying to remember how breathing worked.

This could not be happening. Not now. Not when everything was finally falling into place.

She crossed to her desk, sat down, dug her phone out of her bag with fingers that did not seem to be hers, and dialled her mother’s number. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Alicia’s grip on the phone tightened with each unanswered tone.

"This had better be important, Alicia." Valerie’s voice came through with sunshine behind it. "I am on holiday. Do you know what a holiday is? It is the thing where nobody rings me. And if you are calling about Kai and his illusions again, I will—"

"Your number has been switched off all morning," Alicia cut in, and even to her own ears, her voice sounded strange. Too high. Too thin. Like it belonged to somebody smaller. "I’ve been trying to reach you since nine. Nine, Mother. I have called seventeen times."

There was a pause on the other end. The sound of waves in the background, and Valerie’s slow exhale. "I silenced my phone because I was busy. What is going on? You sound deranged."

Alicia tried to form a sentence. The words were all there, queued up in her head. "I saw her," she managed finally.

"Saw who?"

"Jessica."

There was a silence on the other end so complete that Alicia checked the screen to see if the call had dropped.

"What did you say?"

"I saw Jessica, Mum." The words came faster now, tripping over each other. "This morning. In the building. She came out of the lift and I turned round and she was just there, holding two cups of coffee, and I fell over. I fell on the floor, Mum, in front—"

"Where?" Valerie’s voice had gone completely flat. All the sunshine was gone out of it. "Alicia. Where exactly?"

"Here. In the building. She works here."

"She what?!"

"She works in the restaurant." Alicia laughed, and it came out wrong. "Downstairs. In Kai’s own building. She’s a waitress and—"

"Listen to me carefully." Valerie was all business now, whatever relaxed persona she had worn for the beach packed away. "Do not panic. Panic makes people stupid, and we cannot afford for you to be stupid right now. Are you certain it was her? Absolutely certain?"

Alicia’s mind flashed back to that face in the corridor. The ginger hair. The steady eyes. The smile that had stopped her heart cold and dropped her straight onto the floor.

"It was her," she whispered. "I saw her face. She looks...older, different somehow, but it was Jessica. It was definitely Jessica. She didn’t seem to know me." The words tumbled. "I asked her name and she said Sidonie. Like she had never heard of Jessica in her life. Like she had no idea who I was."

"Then you have work to do." Valerie’s voice was crisp and certain. "Find out everything. Where she lives. What she remembers. How she came to be employed in that building. But most importantly, Alicia, you must make sure she does not come anywhere near Kai or his office again. Do you understand me?"

Alicia nodded, then remembered her mother could not see her. "Okay," she whispered. "Okay. Yes."

"And Alicia?"

"Yes?"

"Do not panic. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Don’t confront her before then."

"Right. Yes. I’ll—"

Two brisk knocks came at the door, and it swung open.

Alicia startled so badly she dropped her phone. It clattered to the desk with a sound like breaking glass, and she scrambled to retrieve it, her face flushing a deep, mortifying red.

Kai stood in the doorway with a file under his arm, looking at her with his brows drawn together. "Are you alright?"

"Yes! Yes. Fine." Alicia’s hand went to her hair, then to her collar, then to the desk. "Yes, I’m fine. I was just—" she waved a hand vaguely, "I came over a bit dizzy."

Kai studied her for a long moment, his head tilting, and his brows still creased. "You should go to the clinic and get checked out." He crossed the room, dropped a file on her desk without ceremony, and was already turning back toward the door. "I’m leaving early today. If anything urgent comes up, I trust you can handle it."

"Yes. Of course."

Then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him, and Alicia was left alone with her thundering heart and the sound of her own ragged breathing. She sat perfectly still for a moment, then slumped forward, elbows on the desk, both hands over her face, and let the tears come.

***

By the time the evening service was winding down, Jessica had reached the stage of the shift where her feet had opinions. She was stacking clean plates at the end of the pass and thinking about nothing when the door opened and two women walked in.

She recognised the first one instantly. The blonde from that morning. The one she’d sent flying. The second was a brunette, slightly taller.

Jessica dropped her eyes to the plates and got on with stacking them. But she could feel their gazes on her, all the way across the room. She stacked another plate. Then another. Then risked one quick glance up.

Both of them were looking straight at her. The blonde looked away first, but not fast.

"Well." Gloria appeared beside her, wiping her hands on a cloth and craning to see who had come in. "Miss Westwood. Good evening." She moved across the floor toward the corner table.

Jessica watched Gloria exchange words with the blonde. It was a brief exchange, but even from across the room, Jessica could see the shift in Gloria’s posture, the extra touch of deference. When Gloria returned to the counter, Jessica leaned in close.

"That’s her," she said quietly. "The blonde one. That’s the woman from this morning. The one who told me I wasn’t allowed upstairs."

Gloria raised her eyebrows. "That’s Miss Alicia Westwood. Head of Operations." She paused. "And the Chairman’s fiancée."

Jessica’s stacking slowed. "Oh."

"Mmhmm."

"She’s very pretty."

Gloria gave her a long look, as if trying to determine whether she was genuine with her compliment. "She is," she said finally. "Word is the engagement was recently postponed, but nobody’s entirely sure what happened there. Very hush-hush."

"That must be devastating," Jessica said carefully.

"It is."

"I think she doesn’t like me very much, and I can’t get why."

Gloria let out a snort of laughter and leaned in, lowering her voice. "Well. You’re pretty too, love. That’s the first thing." She flicked her cloth over her shoulder. "And the second thing is the rumour."

"What rumour?"

"About the Chairman’s old girlfriend. Nobody knows what she looks like." Gloria’s eyes went, meaningfully, to Jessica’s hair. "But they say she had ginger curls."

Jessica stopped stacking altogether. "Ah."

"So you can see how it looks, can’t you?" Gloria shrugged comfortably. "The poor woman’s probably just insecure. New girl turns up, right shade of hair, right sort of face, and she’s got a fiancé who apparently hasn’t smiled about anything. I’d be twitchy too."

Jessica considered that. It actually made a worrying amount of sense. It would explain why the woman had snatched the coffee from her hands and told her never to come up to the main floors again.

It wasn’t personal. It was a jealous woman guarding her patch.

Honestly, it was almost a relief. Jessica had spent half the day turning that corridor over in her mind, convinced she’d walked into something big and strange, and it turned out to be the oldest story in the world.

"Don’t panic about it," Gloria said, already moving off towards the kitchen. "Do your job properly, keep well away from the Chairman and his fiancée, and you’ll have no trouble at all in this place."

"Trust me," Jessica said, picking up the last of the plates. "The last thing I want is trouble. I’ve had enough of that to last me three lifetimes."

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