Honey and Howls (Devils Point Witches #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

The dough yielded beneath her palms, alive with the heat of her hands. Willow pressed down, folded, turned. Press, fold, turn. The rhythm was a meditation for her, and the darkness outside her only witness.

Golden light pooled from the pendant fixtures above her, casting long shadows across the bakery's worn wooden counters.

The cold weather pressed against the windows like something hungry, but in here the ovens hummed and the air hung thick with yeast and butter and the first whisper of honey glaze warming on the stove.

"You're going to knead that into submission no matter what it takes, huh?" Sage said from behind her.

Willow glanced over her shoulder, she’d almost forgotten about her companion this morning.

Sage, her coven sister, stood at the prep table, lavender buds scattered across the surface as she measured them into bowls with careful precision.

Her friend had come a long way. Three months ago, Sage had trembled at everything.

Loud noises, direct questions, even her own shadow.

Now she casually measured lavender at six in the morning and made jokes about Willow's aggressive baking technique.

"The dough started it." Willow gave it one final fold. "It knows what it did."

"Does it, though?" Sage's mouth twitched. "Or are you projecting?"

"I don't project onto baked goods. I have conversations with them. There's a difference."

"If you say so."

Willow bit back a smile as she surveyed her work.

The croissants were proofing in neat rows, their laminated layers visible where the dough had stretched thin.

She truly preferred her scones over these, but the honey croissants were Maeve’s specialty and since this was her bakery, Willow had done what was necessary to learn the magic.

She’d gone through twenty-four painstaking folds to get them just right and she was damn proud of them.

Her grandmother had taught her that magic lived in the waiting as much as the doing and that a kitchen witch's power worked through patience, through intention kneaded into every rise and rest.

Sage had shown up at five-thirty with dark circles under her eyes and a mumbled explanation about not being able to sleep.

Willow hadn't pushed. They all had nights like that since arriving on the island.

She'd just handed over an apron and pointed toward the lavender, and they'd worked in comfortable silence until the sky started shifting toward sunrise.

"The scones are ready for their second rise." Sage tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "And I prepped the honey glaze. Did I do it right? The consistency looked—"

"Perfect." Willow checked the pot on the warmer, amber liquid glistening. "You're getting good at this."

Sage ducked her head, but not before Willow caught the flush of pleasure across her cheeks. She didn't deflect the compliment into self-criticism the way she would have a month ago. Just smiled and kept measuring.

Willow pulled the croissants from the proofer, their surfaces taut and trembling. "All right, you beautiful disasters. Don't you dare collapse on me."

"See?" Sage said. "Projecting."

"Encouragement. It’s completely different."

"It's weird."

"Says the woman who apologizes to vegetables when she chops them."

"That's politeness." Sage's chin lifted. "Vegetables have feelings."

Before she could respond, the bell over the door chimed, and the cold rushed in along with three bundled figures. Faith entered first, blonde hair wind-tangled and voice already pitched toward complaint.

"I need coffee immediately or I'm going to commit a felony.

" The alpha female made a beeline for the counter, shedding her coat onto the nearest stool.

"Mara made me walk faster than any pregnant woman should walk before sunrise, and Lily kept pace with her, which is a betrayal I will not soon forget. "

"You were the one who said we'd be late." Willow’s cousin Lily slipped in behind her, her mate’s flannel swamping her frame with the sleeves rolled up to free her hands. Her auburn braid was damp at the ends from the mist and fog. "I just didn't want to prove you right."

"The meeting doesn’t start for hours." Faith collapsed onto a stool with the dramatic exhaustion of someone who had walked perhaps two hundred yards. "We have time."

"We have prep to do." Mara shut the door behind her, already scanning the bakery with sharp eyes. Clipboard tucked under one arm, greying hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun. "Six dozen pastries don't box themselves. And the vendor contracts still need—"

"If you say 'vendor contracts' one more time before I've had caffeine, I will end you." Faith pointed a threatening finger. "I mean it. I'll tell Damien you were mean to me and he'll make that face."

Mara grimaced. "Damien's face doesn't scare me."

"Liar."

Mara's mouth pressed thin, but Willow caught the twitch at the corner despite the amusement she refused to show.

"Coffee's almost ready," Willow said, sliding the croissant trays toward the oven. "Two minutes."

"Two minutes is an eternity." Faith slumped forward, forehead meeting the counter with a theatrical thunk. "I'm gestating a whole person. Possibly two. The doctors keep saying 'we'll know more at the next ultrasound' like that's not the most ominous thing anyone has ever said."

Lily's hand went to her own belly, unconscious and protective. She wasn’t much farther along than Faith, though neither of them showed much yet.

But in Lily’s case, twins had already been confirmed.

The Harvest Moon had been quite fruitful this year.

She bit her lips to keep from laughing. She couldn’t think about it without hearing Cal proclaiming it the Harvest Festival Baby Moon.

"Gray's the same way," Lily said. "Every time I mention feeling tired, he acts like I'm dying."

"Damien tried to carry me up the porch steps yesterday." Faith lifted her head, expression caught between outrage and reluctant affection. "Four steps. I could have managed four steps, but no, apparently I'm made of glass now."

"Wolves." Mara shook her head, settling into her corner with the clipboard. "They are ridiculously protective. Twenty years mated, and Marcus still growls at anyone who stands too close to me in the grocery store."

"The grocery store is a war zone," Sage offered, surprising everyone. She flushed when they looked at her, but kept going. "All those narrow aisles. Strangers reaching past you for the good bread. Very threatening."

A beat of silence followed. Then Faith snorted, and Lily's mouth curved, and even Mara made a sound that might have been a laugh.

"Sage." Faith pressed a hand to her heart. "I had no idea you were so funny."

"I'm not." But Sage was smiling now, and standing a little taller. "The grocery store really is stressful."

Willow slid more croissants into the oven and let the heat wash over her face, hiding her own grin.

This was the part she'd never expected—the easy teasing, the overlapping voices, the way these women had folded her into something that felt like family.

Three months ago she'd been Iris's true believer, holding her own cousin down during a binding ritual because her mother said it was necessary.

Because she'd trusted that cold voice more than her own conscience.

Now she was laughing at grocery store jokes in a bakery that someone had trusted her to run.

The oven door closed with a satisfying thunk.

"Sage, can you start on the boxes?" Willow reached for the apron hanging by the register. "Mara said we need six dozen, but I want to do eight. Better to have extra than watch Faith fight someone for the last scone."

"I would never." Faith pressed a hand to her chest.

"You absolutely would," Lily said. "I've seen you at pack dinners."

"Those were different circumstances. There was pie."

"There's always pie."

"My point exactly. High stakes."

Willow poured coffee into mismatched mugs, the collection Maeve had accumulated over decades, each one chipped or faded or perfectly imperfect. She passed one to Faith first, who cradled it like a lifeline, then decaf to Lily with a pointed look.

"Don’t worry, Gray already lectured me. I won’t fight you this time," Lily said, accepting the mug.

"Smart man."

"Annoying man." But Lily's hand drifted to her collar, touching the claiming mark where Gray's flannel didn't quite cover it, and her voice held no real heat against her mate.

The women settled into the space like they belonged.

Faith stationed herself at the counter, alternating between coffee and pastry theft attempts that Lily kept deflecting.

Willow helped Sage with boxes, their quiet coordination the product of weeks of working together.

Mara stayed in her corner making notes while muttering about pack logistics and tourist capacity.

"So… we need to finalize the vendor list today," Mara said, not looking up from her clipboard. "Faith, did you ever hear back from the candle maker?"

"She's in. She's also bringing her sister, who apparently makes goat milk soap now, so that's two booths instead of one."

"And the food trucks?"

"Confirmed. All four. Though the taco guy wants to know if he can set up closer to the Plunge site because he thinks cold people will want tacos."

"He's not wrong," Lily said.

Mara frowned. "He's very wrong. Cold people want hot chocolate. Or soup. Tacos are a fair-weather food."

"Tacos are an all-weather food." Willow drizzled honey glaze over the cooling croissants. "This is a hill I'll die on."

"You'll die alone on it."

"I'll die correct."

Faith grinned, the first genuine spark since she'd walked in. "Gods, I really like having you here now. Three months and you're finally getting mean. I love it."

The words caught Willow off guard. She ducked her head, focused on the glaze pot, but heat spread through her chest, the good kind, for once.