Ice Queen Alpha (Lez The Halls #5)

Chapter One

Dessi

Aiven Burns AKA Ms. Burnzilla—a tyrant, authoritarian, and one of the most terrible people to ever walk this earth.

Unfortunately for me, she was also my boss.

One would assume the magick of the holidays would make someone like Aiven pull the stick out of her ass and offer her employees a smile.

But after three years of hoping my superior would rip off her monster mask and behave like a human being, I’d become resigned to the fact that I worked for an automaton—one that had been created by our overlords to torture me and everyone who worked at the Mystic Distillery.

The only good thing about Aiven was her predictability.

She lived her life by the clock. The ticking hands dictated when she ate, slept, worked out, berated employees…

I’d long since resigned myself to the fact that I had come to know everything she did before she did it.

I didn’t even have to consult her schedule anymore.

Did that make me a good assistant? Perhaps. But it also meant that I knew too much about Burnzilla than necessary.

As I walked through the front doors of the Distillery, carefully balancing two tumblers of shadowbrew in one hand and my overstuffed bag in another, I wondered if I’d ever get used to the distinct smell.

Three years had passed—three long, drawn-out years—and still, the scent of ozone was difficult to get used to.

Once, long ago, I’d wanted to ask if it was even safe for us to be packed in this space with such harsh chemicals and burnt herbs, but the thought faded quickly after learning more about my new work environment. Ozone, the byproduct of magick, was the least of my worries.

There were more than a few people here before me—that was not a surprise, given that tomorrow was the solstice and all orders had to be packaged, personalized, and shipped before ten this evening.

The foreman, a big, burly Alpha named Josephine, had already worked up a sweat as she transported boxes of lovespells to their assigned pallets.

I paused in the foyer as a courier dressed in a red uniform flagged me down.

“Ms. Nayak!”

“Let me guess,” I said, shifting my bag to the crook of my elbow. “Package for Ms. Burns?”

He hefted a large envelope out of his mail bag. I clasped it awkwardly under my arm, thanking him as I tottered up the stairs that separated the factory floor from the offices.

Mystic Distillery was an institution. For two centuries, it had been Meadowrun’s biggest employer.

On the floor, factory workers moved with mechanical precision, their brows furrowed as they worked. Like all of us, they were up against a deadline, and the ticking clock above their heads only reminded them that they were far, far behind.

Potion-making wasn’t delicate work—not in the distillery. Once, long ago, wytches and wyzards would tailor each potion to its recipient, but that personal touch had long since died with tradition.

Now, a team wearing thick rubber gloves and a black apron poured shimmering liquid from copper vats, the fumes curling upwards in thin ribbons of pinkish-green smoke.

Another group of employees sealed glass bottles with their assigned crimson corks, the wax dripping down the curved glass like blood from cut fingers.

Each potion bottle was then stamped with the Distillery’s sigil—a cluster of stars with the letters M.D. imprinted in the middle.

Steam hissed from the row of pressure chambers that rose high above our heads. The volatile brews were stored up there—those we used for curses and hexes. In their reinforced glass chutes, they were given time to stabilize before being packed away.

On the old wood floors, the safety runes glowed sharply—all green, thank the moons. The last time one of them had shifted to red, the glass chutes had destabilized and exploded within minutes.

In the corner of the factory floor, apprentices—or brewlings, as we called them—sorted sacks of dried herbs into their waiting receptacles. These would be taken to the potion room and added to the vats as needed.

I took the stairs carefully, placing one high heel on the step in front of me, then another until I reached the mezzanine. Here, the office spread out in front of us like a maze of wooden cubicles.

The sight of a colleague slumped at her desk stopped me short.

“Angie?” I called, using the bottom of the tumbler to tap on her desk. She came awake with a snort, her usually neat bob in straggles around her cheeks.

“Did you sleep here?” I asked as she tried to push her hair back into place. “Are you okay?”

“I…” She ran her palms over her pale cheeks. “Curse the moon, I can’t believe I fell asleep. I have so much to do.”

“But that doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to rest,” I said pointedly.

“I know.” She sighed. “It’s just… Bonnie’s recital is this evening and I wanted to make sure I could get everything done before I asked Ms. Burns for permission to leave.”

I felt my lips thin as she spoke.

If the past few years were anything to go by, Angie would not make Bonnie’s recital. There wasn’t even a slim chance. The factory and office staff always worked until the last shipment had gone out on the eve of every solstice, and that was at ten in the evening—at the earliest.

She turned back to her holo link, letting it scan her retinas before the blue and white screen popped up in front of her.

“I’ll get you a brew from the break room,” I said.

It was the least I could do, but I doubted a simple cup of stimulants would console Angie when she missed her daughter’s recital tonight.

That was the sacrifice one had to make when working for an age-old institution run by a tyrant.

It might have been different if Ms. Burnzilla hadn’t brought results, but under her leadership, the company had grown from a struggling family-owned operation on the edge of shutting down to a thriving powerhouse that supplied government-approved potions all across the country.

I’d seen the reports myself. Twenty years ago, we produced five thousand units per year if we were lucky. Now, with Burns’ investment in new technology and holo software, we were up to five thousand a day.

The Distillery had become the factory to work for—the gold standard and the envy of countless other businesses in the area. My colleagues walked out each day exhausted and burnt out, but they couldn’t deny that they’d been a part of something powerful.

In return for this success, Burns demanded everything. Time, energy, sanity—she consumed everything from her employees without batting an eye. Case in point: Burns had launched a county-wide Winter Solstice campaign with a guarantee that we will fulfil all orders before midnight.

Needless to say, it had become a shitshow around here with people scrambling to do twice their job for no difference in pay.

I disagreed with Burnzilla’s employee management skills.

Truly, they were piss poor. If she wasn’t barking at one of us, she was stalking the factory floor, frowning as she watched her employees struggle to meet their daily quotas.

I was always forced to trail behind her, notepad between my fingers as I offered conciliatory smiles to people who were scorched by her unsatisfied glares.

Despite Burnzilla’s terrifying attitude, I still wanted to learn from her.

It had never been my dream to be someone’s assistant, but I couldn’t deny that watching how she handled shareholders and clients gave me a little thrill.

I studied her body language, her words, her negotiation tactics because, one day, I yearned to do the same… Well, the same, but nicer.

Working for a prized institution would definitely be beneficial to my resume.

A hush descended over the factory as I neatened up Burns’ office, arranging her hand-written notes in the order she would need them today.

She had several meetings lined up with retail chains that bulk-ordered our potions, and another with a contractor that was trying to squeeze us on the prices of dragon’s breath serum.

I glanced up to find her at the edge of the stairs, her icy blonde hair pushed back into a neat swoop.

In the years that I’d worked for her, little had changed about her appearance.

She always wore one of many suits she owned—wool in the winter, cotton in the summer.

The labels weren’t fancy, but they were well-made by local tailors.

As she approached her office, the heels of her Oxfords were sharp on the tile beneath. I watched as the bullpen released a collective sigh of relief and turned back to their work as per normal.

“Good morning, Ms. Burns.”

All I received in return was a curt nod—typical. Sometimes I wondered if I even registered to her as a human being deserving of common courtesy.

“You have a meeting with Witherspoon’s head of retail in fifteen minutes,” I continued, knowing what was expected of me. “The notes on the previous meeting are here in case you need a refresher.”

She draped her forest green jacket over the back of her chair and settled into it, rifling through the notes that were probably still warm from the printer.

“Numbers.”

My lips thinned at the command.

She often spoke to me this way with one-word directives like I was nothing more than a well-trained pet.

In many ways, I probably was. I spoke only when spoken to.

I fetched and carried whatever she wanted.

And I stayed by her side until she decided to call it a day.

Overall, I considered myself a rather dutiful pet.

I read off the overnight production numbers I’d scribbled onto my notepad, bracing myself for what was to come.

“That’s ten percent short.”

It was. I’d been dreading giving her the news, knowing the consequences.

Something stirred in the air, acrid and sour. My nose wrinkled and I wished to step away, but the truth was that I didn’t want to invite her ire with any semblance of movement.

Instead, I stood very still, trying to fight the Alpha pheromones that sparked with anger and annoyance.

I didn’t dare breathe too loudly as I watched her process the news.

Her features were already carved in severe lines—cheekbones cut like stone and a mouth that forever seemed caught in a snarl.

Her slate green eyes focused on something in the distance.

I never wanted her attention on me when her gaze was hard like this.

She had a tendency to dissect someone without words, strip them down to their weakest points.

Her anger was never wild—she never shouted or behaved violently, but it was worse this way. Her composed silence cut so much deeper.

She began rolling up her sleeves, the muscles in her forearms like cables pulled too tight. Her fists weren’t clenched, not yet, but they would be soon.

“Get me Ms. Jaques,” she said, leaning back in her chair and steepling her fingers on the desk.

“Ms. Burns.” I pushed aside the internal alarm that warned me to shut the fuck up.

“Everyone is working at maximum capacity. The daily output quotas are set far too high with the current level of technology we have. Even the extra hands we hired for the holiday season can’t help breach the difference in—”

“Tell me, Ms. Nayak,” she began, cutting me off. “Did I ask for your opinion?”

Once, years ago, the words might have landed like a slap to the face, but my skin had grown thick.

“Well, no, but—”

“Then do your job. You’re my assistant, so assist me by summoning Ms. Jaques.”

Fuck. Poor Josephine. The foreman always took the fall for lapses in production quotas. I knew how hard the Alpha worked; she didn’t deserve the haranguing she was about to receive.

I moved toward the door, but I couldn’t leave without one last word.

“It’s the solstice,” I said, turning back to glance at her rigid frame. “You could at least pretend to be human. Be nice to your employees for just one day...”

Not a single muscle twitched in her icy features.

“Nice does not build empires, Ms. Nayak.” Her tone brushed over me like a blast of chilly wind. “You’d be wise to remember that.”