Chapter 7
SEVEN
JUNIE
They came bearing wine, snacks, and zero respect for personal boundaries.
Junie had barely finished closing the shop when the first knock came.
Dahlia stood on her back doorstep with a basket of pastries and the kind of smile that meant she wasn’t leaving until she’d extracted every detail of Junie’s humiliation.
Behind her, Cassia’s wild dark curls were visible over her shoulder, and the low rumble of thunder in the distance suggested the storm witch’s emotions were already running high.
“We brought provisions.” Dahlia lifted the basket. “And emotional support.”
“I don’t need emotional support.”
“Sweetie.” Cassia pushed past Dahlia into the shop. “You ruined a lion alpha’s suit in front of the entire town and then yelled at him about fabric. You absolutely need emotional support.”
“I didn’t yell. I… expressed my opinion firmly.”
“Loudly.” Cassia dropped onto the couch that Junie hadn’t offered. “With hand gestures. And profanity.”
“There was no profanity.”
“Implied profanity, then. Your facial expressions were doing plenty of swearing.”
“You called him an idiot with more money than sense.” Narla’s calm voice came from behind the others.
The candle witch carried herself with her usual serene grace, silver-streaked dark hair pulled back from her face, her presence both unassuming and impossible to ignore.
In her hands, she carried a small box that clinked softly—glasses, because Narla was always prepared for any social emergency.
“Mrs. Watters told Mrs. Patterson, who told the seagulls, who told everyone.”
“The seagulls are gossips.”
“The seagulls are accurate,” Narla corrected.
Junie groaned. When the friend group decided you needed an intervention, resistance was futile.
Her apartment above the shop was not designed for entertaining.
Books covered every horizontal surface—half-read novels, ancient brewing texts, a dog-eared romance that Dahlia had lent her three months ago that she kept meaning to return.
Failed experiments occupied most of her kitchen counter, including a crystallized substance that might once have been a clarity tonic and was now growing its own ecosystem.
The living room featured exactly one couch, two chairs she’d rescued from an estate sale, and approximately seventeen throw pillows Dahlia had given her over the years because “your space needs softness, Junie.”
The pillows were the softest thing about her. She preferred it that way.
Cassia surveyed the chaos with the air of a general assessing a battlefield. “When did you last clean?”
“Define ‘clean.’”
“That’s what I thought.” The storm witch started gathering books into piles, her movements efficient and slightly aggressive. A small storm petrel—Gust, her familiar—swooped in through the open window and began rearranging Junie’s mail with judgmental precision.
Dahlia claimed the kitchen, somehow producing clean glasses and a cheeseboard from the depths of her basket. Her familiar, Marzipan, leaped onto the counter and immediately began supervising.
The cream-colored cat fixed Junie with a look that clearly communicated I started this. You’re welcome.
“You.” Junie pointed at the cat. “You tripped me on purpose.”
Marzipan yawned, displaying impressive fangs, and began grooming herself with studied indifference.
The final knock came ten minutes later—Avine, slightly breathless, carrying two bottles of wine and wearing an apologetic expression.
“Sorry, I’m late. Theo wanted to talk about—” She stopped. Smiled in that quietly content way that still seemed new on her. “Actually, never mind. Girls’ night. No alpha talk.”
“Unless we’re talking about a different alpha.” Cassia accepted a wine glass from Dahlia and fixed Junie with a pointed stare. “A tall, tawny, extremely well-dressed alpha who’s currently staying at Avine’s inn.”
Junie dropped onto her couch and buried her face in a cushion. “Can we not?”
“We absolutely cannot not.” Cassia positioned herself in the chair across from her, wine glass in hand, Gust perching on her shoulder. “Spill.”
Twenty minutes later, Junie had consumed half a bottle of wine and recounted the full horror of her morning encounter with Leo Castellan.
The clinical questions. The leather notebook. The way he’d looked at her brewing station like it was a crime scene requiring forensic analysis.
“He took photographs,” she finished. “Of my cauldrons. Like evidence.”
“To be fair,” Dahlia offered gently from her perch on the arm of Cassia’s chair, “your cauldrons were covered in soot. And that potion was trying to escape.”
“Not the point.” Junie grabbed a pastry from the basket—a flaky thing with honey that melted on her tongue—and bit into it aggressively. “He’s arrogant. Cold. He looked at me like I was a disappointing lab result. Like I was a problem he needed to solve rather than a person.”
“And yet you let him into your basement,” Narla observed from the corner chair. “To see your ley line access. Which you’ve never shown anyone outside this room.”
Junie’s mouth opened. Closed. She shoved more pastry in to avoid answering.
Cassia snorted. “He also looked at you like he wanted to eat you alive.”
Junie choked on her pastry.
“In the fun way,” Cassia clarified, as if that helped. “At the dinner. Before you crashed into him. He was watching you from across the room with this intensity that was frankly obscene.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I’m really not.” Cassia’s sea-glass eyes sparkled with mischief. “Ask Narla. Her nose doesn’t lie.”
All attention swung to Narla, who was seated in the corner, cradling her wine glass with quiet composure. On her shoulder, her small owl familiar—Ember—blinked slowly.
“His scent was… complicated.” Narla chose her words with characteristic care. “Restraint on the surface. Turmoil underneath.” Her dark eyes met Junie’s. “He wanted you. Badly. And he was fighting himself over it.”
Junie’s cheeks flushed hot. “That’s—he was probably irritated. I’d just ruined his suit.”
“Irritation doesn’t smell like that.” Narla’s voice was quiet but certain. “Neither does simple attraction, usually. This was different. Deeper. More…” She paused, exchanging a look with Avine. “Primal.”
Avine had been quiet throughout the interrogation, curled into the other corner of Junie’s couch with her wine barely touched. Now she straightened slightly, that knowing look in her eyes that Junie had learned to distrust.
“Junie.” Avine’s voice was soft. “Did anything… unusual happen when you met him? Did you feel anything strange?”
“Besides crushing embarrassment?”
“Besides that.”
Junie opened her mouth to deflect. To joke.
To do what she always did when conversations got too close to uncomfortable truths.
But Avine was looking at her with such quiet knowing—the awareness of a woman who’d recently been exactly where Junie was, resisting feelings she didn’t want—and the joke died in her throat.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe. When he grabbed my wrists—to stop me from touching his suit—there was this… spark. Like static electricity but more. And Glimmer went absolutely insane. She’s never reacted to anyone that way.”
Glimmer, who’d been coiled on top of the bookshelf observing the proceedings, hissed softly at the mention of Leo.
“She’s still mad about it,” Junie added. “Whatever ‘it’ is.”
Avine and Narla exchanged another look. Dahlia had stopped arranging the cheeseboard and was watching with unusual intensity. Even Cassia had gone quiet, her storm petrel ruffling its feathers.
“What?” Junie looked between them. “Why are you all doing the significant eye contact thing?”
“It sounds like classic mate recognition,” Avine said quietly.
The words landed like stones in still water.
Junie laughed. The sound came out too sharp, too brittle. “That’s—no. That’s not possible. He’s a lion shifter. I’m a witch. That’s not how it works.”
“Says who?” Cassia leaned forward. “Theo’s a wolf, and Avine’s a witch. They managed.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Junie struggled for words. “It just is. Theo and Avine—that made sense. They had history. They had chemistry. They had—”
“Explosive arguments and stubborn denial?” Dahlia’s voice was deceptively mild. “Because from where I was standing, that’s exactly what you and the lion alpha have.”
“We’ve known each other for two days!”
“Mate recognition doesn’t care about timelines.” Narla set down her wine glass and reached into her bag. She produced a small candle—one of her creations, Junie recognized, designed to reveal emotional truths. “May I?”
“May you what?”
“A small demonstration.” Narla placed the candle on the coffee table and lit it with a whispered word. The flame flickered to life, burning a calm, neutral white. “Tell me about your day. What you worked on. How the potions went.”
Junie frowned but played along. “I tried to make Mrs. Watters’s arthritis tincture. It went sentient. Again. The ley line was acting up all morning—”
The candle flame stayed white. Steady.
“Good,” Narla said. “Now. Tell me about Leo Castellan.”
“I don’t—”
“Just his name. Say his name and tell me one thing about him.”
Junie huffed. “Fine. Leo Castellan has nice forearms. There. Happy?”
The candle flame blazed orange. Deep, vivid, unmistakable orange—the color of attraction, desire, heat. It flickered and danced, throwing gold light across the walls of Junie’s apartment.
“Oh,” said Cassia, delighted. “That’s pretty.”
“It’s mortifying, is what it is.” Junie stared at the flame like it had personally betrayed her. “That doesn’t prove anything. He’s objectively attractive. Anyone would—the candle would do that for anyone who’s—”
“It really wouldn’t.” Dahlia’s voice was gentle. “I’ve seen Narla’s candles react to attraction before. It’s usually pink. Soft. This is…” She gestured at the blazing orange. “Significantly more intense.”
“Say his name again,” Narla suggested.
“Leo.”
The flame flared brighter. Orange deepening to red at the edges.
“That’s not simply attraction.” Narla’s voice was calm, unsurprised. “That’s the beginning of a bond. Something much more significant.”
Junie stared at the flame. Her heart was doing unsteady things behind her ribs—racing and stumbling and refusing to behave. “This is insane.”
“The surge is creating bonds,” Avine said softly.
“That’s what it does. It finds matches and…
encourages them. Theo explained it to me when we first—” She caught herself, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.
“The point is, it’s not impossible. It’s not even unlikely, given everything happening in Haven Shores right now. ”
“But why him?” Junie threw her hands up, nearly sloshing wine on the couch. “Of all the people in the world, why would fate pick the most arrogant, emotionally constipated lion on the West Coast?”
“Maybe because you need someone who won’t let you deflect,” Dahlia offered. Then, at Junie’s betrayed look: “Eat a cookie. It’s not enchanted. Probably.”