Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
The distillery smelled like wood and grain and something faintly sweet, the warmth of it hitting Willow's face the moment she stepped through the heavy wooden door.
After hours in the cold, the heat felt almost too aggressive.
She tugged off her knitted hat and unwound her scarf as she crossed the tasting room, heading for the glass-walled office where pack business usually happened.
Willow slowed as she approached. She didn't usually find this many people crammed inside.
Through the glass, she could see Diego standing at the head of the long table, his broad shoulders blocking part of her view.
Damien sat to his right, weathered face unreadable, while Dante leaned forward with his elbows on the table.
The three alphas were positioned like a tribunal, making whatever was going on look serious.
Gray and Lily occupied chairs along one side, Lily's hand resting on Gray's arm. Faith sat nearby, one hand on her small, rounded belly, dark circles under her eyes suggesting the pregnancy still wasn't letting her sleep. Cal leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed over his chest.
And Ryker stood at the far end of the table, pointing at something on his phone while the others listened.
This definitely wasn't a casual conversation. This was a meeting, and one she’d heard nothing about.
She hesitated outside the glass, uncertain whether to interrupt or wait. Cal spotted her first, his eyebrows rising slightly before he nudged the door open.
"Hey, Willow. We’re having a bit of a meeting, you want to come back later?”
“Let her in.” Damien’s voice broadcasted all the way across the room.
Cal smiled at her. “Come on in."
Every head in the room had turned toward her. Ryker's hand dropped to his side, his expression going carefully blank the way it always did when she entered a room.
"I’m sorry to interrupt." She stepped inside, hyperaware of her windblown hair and the clipboard still clutched against her chest like armor. "I needed to report something, but I can wait until you're finished."
"You should hear this." Diego gestured toward an empty chair. "Ryker's been briefing us on some problems."
Problems. Plural. Uh oh.
Willow took the offered seat, her stomach tightening as she looked around the table at faces that revealed nothing. She was the only witch in a room full of wolves, a position that never quite stopped feeling precarious.
"What kind of problems?"
Ryker didn't look at her as he answered.
"Mostly equipment failures. Three in the last ten days, all near the water.
" He pulled up something on his phone and set it on the table where everyone could see.
It was a map of the island with red pins marking locations that were next to the festival area.
"Generator at Pier 3 went down last night.
Before that, a pump station on the old pier and a lighting rig near the beach access point. "
Willow studied the map. The pins formed a rough arc along the eastern and northern coastline, each one closer to the island's tip than the last.
"Mechanical issues?" she asked.
"That's what I thought at first." Ryker's jaw tightened.
"But the damage doesn't match. The generator was fried, circuits melted, but the surge protector was intact.
No electrical cause. And the pump station—" He shook his head.
"Salt corrosion on every piece of equipment inside.
The kind that takes months to develop. But there was no water damage. No flooding. The floor was bone dry."
"Diego and I checked it this morning," he continued. "The metal was cold. Colder than it should have been, even in January. And there was a smell—brine, mostly, but something else underneath. Something we couldn’t identify."
Willow's skin prickled. The same unsettling pressure she'd felt at the edge of the vendor area, building at the boundaries of her awareness.
She hadn't realized he'd been investigating these problems. They were co-chairs, they were supposed to coordinate on everything related to the festival.
He'd been emailing her about vendor schedules and parking logistics while secretly tracking equipment failures and hiking out to inspect more damage sites with Diego.
The sting of it surprised her. She'd wanted the distance. Needed it. But being left out still bothered her.
"The supply boat had trouble this morning too," Diego said. "Captain came in shaking. Said he spent three hours trying to find his way out of a cove he's navigated hundreds of times. Fog rolled in from nowhere, and he couldn't think straight. Kept feeling like something was pushing him back."
"Which cove?" Willow asked, though she already knew the answer.
"North shore. Past the cabin trail."
The same direction the equipment failures were trending. The same area where she'd felt her magic stir in warning. And more importantly, the same area where the witches resided.
Gray shifted against the wall. “This is going to sound stupid.”
“Then it’ll fit right in with the rest of this meeting,” Cal said.
Gray ignored him. “The salt corrosion with no water damage. The cold equipment. The captain…” He paused like he knew what was coming if he said more. “That sounds like siren territory.”
The silence lasted about two seconds before Cal snorted. “Siren. Okay, Gray.”
“That’s not logical,” Diego said. “Their magic fries a shifter’s nervous system.
And we’ve been known to kill them on sight when they trespass here.
They know that. So they keep to the coast line and we stay inland.
It’s the one thing both species actually agree on.
” He shook his head. “No. No siren would nest this close to us. That’s a death sentence. ”
“I said it would sound stupid.” Gray’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t push it.
“Next you’ll tell us fairies stole the generator parts,” Cal said. A few people laughed. Gray didn’t.
"There's more," she said. The words came out steadier than she felt. "That's why I came to find you. A tourist stopped me near the north vendor area, a woman staying at the inn. She and her husband are leaving early."
She told them what the woman had said. The dreams. Tasting salt. The feeling of being watched. And the worst part, sleepwalking to the window in the middle of the night, staring out at the water without remembering how she got there.
"Her husband had to shake her several times before she heard him," Willow finished. "She was terrified. And she's not the only one. She mentioned other guests having trouble sleeping, though I don't have details on them yet."
The room was quiet. Lily's hand had tightened on Gray's arm. Faith shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"Maybe it’s leftover coven magic," someone suggested. Willow didn't see who, her attention had snagged on Ryker's face, watching her with an expression she couldn't read. "The island's wards took damage during that ritual. There’s no telling what kind of residual effects there could be."
"It's not residual." Willow forced herself to meet the eyes around the table, one by one.
She was the only witch here. If she didn't speak up, no one else could.
"I felt something when I was near the north vendor area earlier.
Before the woman even approached me. There's a disturbance at the edges of the island's wards, something that made my magic stir in warning. "
"Describe it." Damien spoke for the first time, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd seen too much to dismiss anything.
"I don't know exactly. But residual magic feels different, it's static, like an echo.
This felt active. Like something pushing at the boundaries.
Pushing at us." She hesitated, then added, "Like it’s warning people away.
Whatever's affecting those tourists isn't leftover damage.
It's something else, and I get the feeling it doesn't want all these people here. "
The silence stretched longer this time. Willow watched the pack leadership exchange glances, communicating in that wordless way wolves had. She was outside of it, as always. Trusted enough to be in the room, but not enough to be part of the conversation happening beneath the surface.
"The festival is economically critical. We can’t cancel.
" Diego's voice cut through the tension.
"And if supply vehicles can't get through and tourists keep leaving early, we're looking at significant losses.
We can't afford that—not this year. Despite the harvest event being a succes, it’s not enough. "
Damien nodded, and Dante shifted in agreement. The alphas were aligned.
Diego looked at Ryker, then at Willow.
"I want the two of you on this. We need a full investigation, starting with the north shore.
Ryker, you know the island and you've got the instincts to spot what doesn't belong.
Willow—" He paused, something shifting in his expression.
"Your magic can sense things wolf noses can't. If this is supernatural, we need to know what we're dealing with. "
The two of you.
Willow's chest tightened. Across the table, Ryker's face had gone completely still. Not neutral, but locked down, like he was holding something back by force of will.
"I can handle the investigation myself," Ryker said. His voice was flat. "Cal can help with—"
"Cal's running security for the festival grounds. We are going to need all hands for this." Diego didn't leave room for argument. "You need someone who can identify magical signatures and I’m not sending Lily out there while she’s pregnant. That leaves Willow."