KARMA IS A BIT*H

Queen Of Glass and Gold

Chapter 2: The Queen of Glass and Gold*

The Celestial Ground was empty.

30 meters of scorched black glass. Roland still stared at it 18 years later. His kingdom hadn’t recovered. The curse ate the land. Crops failed. Wolves got sick. And every full moon, the word _QUEEN_ still echoed in his skull like a blade.

He thought she died that night. They all did.

They were wrong.

*18 years later. New York. 82nd floor. Bane Industries Tower.*

Rain lashed the floor-to-ceiling windows. Lightning lit up a skyline that Vannesa Bane owned half of.

Vannesa stood with her back to the world. 36 years old. Not a day older than the girl Roland rejected. The curse didn’t age her. The earth preserved her. But the last 18 years? She didn’t waste them.

No cave. No vines. No waiting.

When the light vanished her that night, it didn’t kill her. It _delivered_ her. The Celestial Ground spat her out 3,000 miles away, in a forgotten part of the Forbidden Forest that led to the human world. Pregnant. Bleeding. Cursing.

She crawled out with nothing but royal blood and her mother’s dying words.

18 years later, Bane Industries was worth $47 billion.

Tech. Pharma. Energy. She built it all with one rule: _Never trust an Alpha. Build your own throne._

Her office was glass and steel. Cold. Like her. On the wall: no photos of Roland. Only one photo — her mother, young and smiling, before the blood.

Behind her, her son typed on 3 monitors at once. 18 years old. Drake Bane. Hoodie, ripped jeans, eyes the same gold as the Celestial Ground.

“Mother,” he said without looking up. “The seal over the Blue Moon Pack is weakening. Roland’s kingdom is dying.”

Vannesa didn’t turn. She swirled red wine in a crystal glass. The liquid looked like blood.

“Good,” she said. Voice calm. Deadly. “Let it rot.”

She set the glass down. The glass didn’t shatter. It _vaporized_. Her power, 18 years of training with earth magic and human tech, leaked out.

“18 years I built this empire,” she whispered. “18 years I made them pay in dollars what they couldn’t pay in blood. Now the seal breaks. Now we go home.”

Drake stood. He wasn’t just her son. He was her weapon. CEO by day. Heir by blood.

“Mother,” he asked, “when we walk back into that pack… do we forgive?”

Vannesa finally turned. Her eyes glowed gold. Not wolf gold. _Queen_ gold.

Her mother’s curse hummed under her skin.

“No, my son. We don’t forgive. We collect.”

Outside, the New York skyline flickered. Every Bane Industries building pulsed once. Like a heartbeat. Like a war drum.

The Queen was done hiding. And she brought a multi-billion dollar army with her.

* Celestial Pack. 18 years later.*

The Celestial Pack was not a kingdom anymore. It was a graveyard that forgot to lie down.

Crops turned to ash. Wolves were born sick. Pups cried with black veins under their skin. Every full moon, the scorched circle glowed faint blue, and every wolf in the territory woke up screaming the same word: _QUEEN_.

And they all knew who to blame.

“Traitor!”

“Murderer!”

“You killed her! You killed us!”

They didn’t throw stones. Stones would be mercy. They threw words. Day after day. Year after year. Until the words became poison.

Roland aged 36 years in 18. His hair white. His crown melted down and recast 3 times because it kept cracking. His hands shook constantly. Not from age. From the curse.

Pamela? She left him 5 years in. “I didn’t sign up to be Queen of a dying pack,” she hissed before her new Alpha mate dragged her away. She took half the treasury. Left him with debt and ghosts.

Now the elders stood in the throne room. No bows. No “Your Majesty”. Just accusation.

“You rejected the earth’s choice,” Elder Magnus said. Spit flew. “You shoved the Queen to the ground. The land has not forgiven you.”

Roland slammed his fist on the throne. “I AM THE ALPHA KING! I DECIDE!”

But his voice cracked. And the throne answered him.

It burned.

Black veins crawled up the armrest, matching the pups’ sickness. The same curse Vannesa’s mother spoke. _“Let the ground reject you, as you rejected her.”_

Pain shot up Roland’s arm. Through his chest. To his heart.

The poison had no mercy. Because poison never does.

He collapsed to his knees in front of the very circle where he’d humiliated Vannesa. Wolves watched from the doorway. None helped.

“Mercy,” he gasped. But the ground didn’t listen. It remembered.

18 years of blame. 18 years of tears. 18 years of crops failing and children dying.

All forwarded. All to him.

His crown fell off. Rolled to the edge of the scorched circle. Stopped.

The earth didn’t take it.

Because the earth was waiting for a different Queen.

*Celestial Pack. 18 years + 3 months later.*

Roland was stuck.

Not just broke. Not just cursed. _Stuck_.

18 years of commands, 18 years of war meetings, 18 years of Alpha roars… and for the first time, the Alpha King had no move left. Crops dead. Allies gone. His own Beta wouldn’t meet his eyes.

So he did what desperate kings do. He opened the gates.

“Bring me anyone,” he ordered, voice cracked. “Witch. Healer. Rogue seer. I don’t care. Just lift it.”

They came. Dozens. Charlatans, frauds, scared old women. All took his gold. All left with empty hands. The curse laughed.

Until _her_.

The last witch. Name forgotten. Back bent. Eyes clouded white, but seeing more than any Alpha in the room.

She walked straight to the scorched circle. Touched the black glass. Her fingers came away bleeding.

The whole pack went silent.

“You must seek the true Queen of all packs,” she whispered. Not to Roland. To the ground. To the air. To the curse itself. “The true Alpha Queen shall lift the curse. Only her blood, accepted, can unbind what was rejected.”

Roland stepped forward. “Where is she? I’ll bring her—”

The witch turned. Looked right through him. “She’s not lost, King. She’s waiting. But you must beg.”

Then she walked out. Slow. One step at a time. Past the gate. Into the dead forest beyond Celestial territory.

Halfway to the treeline, she stopped. Fell to her knees. And died.

Just like that. No roar. No magic flash. Just a breath… then silence.

The pack erupted.

“She tried to lift the curse and it killed her!”

“The ground punishes anyone who helps us!”

“Even witches die here!”

Fear spread faster than before. Now even magic was terrified of Celestial.

But Beta Charles stayed behind. He checked her body. Her pulse. Her skin.

“Your Majesty,” he said quietly, pulling back her sleeve. “She was already ill. Cancer. Black veins under her skin, just like our pups. She didn’t die from the curse. She died coming here, knowing she would.”

Roland didn’t hear him.

All he heard was: _The true Alpha Queen shall lift the curse._

And for the first time in 18 years, Roland whispered a name he’d banned from his lips.

“Vannesa.”

The ground didn’t crack. Didn’t glow.

But somewhere 3,000 miles away, on the 82nd floor, Vannesa’s ring pulsed once. Hot.

Like it heard him.

*82nd floor. Bane Industries Tower.*

Drake pulled up the footage. A spy drone caught the witch’s last words.

“Mother,” he said, “the last witch is dead. But she gave Roland the answer.”

Vannesa watched the clip on loop. The part where the witch said _true Alpha Queen_.

She stood. Walked to the window. Lightning cracked the sky over New York.

“Let him say my name,” she whispered. “Let him choke on it for 18 years. Now he wants me to save what he broke?”

She touched the glass. Her reflection had gold eyes. Queen eyes.

“Tell me, Drake… when a King finally learns humility, does the Queen have to answer?”

Drake didn’t reply. He just zoomed the drone shot. On the witch’s dead hand, clutched in the dirt, was a symbol burned into the earth: a crown. With 9 points.

The symbol of the True Alpha Queen.

The one even Roland’s bloodline didn’t carry.

Vannesa’s did.