Hungry Like Her Wolf (Hungry Fur Love #1)

Prologue-Evie

A Day in the Life of Castor’s Corner Mayor Evie Castor

It was the end of another very long day, the kind of day where your pantyhose itch, your spellwork fizzles, and your familiar glares at you like you’re the embarrassment to the bloodline.

So, when my phone buzzed as I waited for the world’s slowest elevator, I was already one minor inconvenience away from melting into a puddle of overworked Witch goo.

Then I saw the caller ID: The Tasty Tart.

Only one person in the world would name their business that and proudly slap it on aprons, mugs, and tote bags. Maribella, one of my two very best friends.

The other was Donatella—stylist extraordinaire and the town’s undisputed Queen of Highlights.

Together, we made up Castor’s Corner’s infamous Witch Trifecta. Emphasis on tri and freakin’ fecta—because there were days when keeping this magical Jersey shore town together felt like holding a wet cat in a burlap sack.

I thumbed the answer button, already bracing myself.

“Evie!” Bella’s voice burst through the receiver, breathless as ever.

She was always breathless. And in a rush. And probably frosting three cupcakes, scolding her sentient rolling pin, and yelling at the oven all at once.

That was just Bella. Chaos in a pastel apron. And honestly? I adored her for it.

“What’s up, Bella?” I asked, trying to sound patient while aggressively stabbing the elevator button again.

The ancient lift, complete with one of those clanky accordion gates, sat there like it was on a coffee break.

Castor’s Corner City Hall was as old as the town itself. Possibly older.

The place had charm, sure, if by charm you meant crumbling bricks, haunted bathrooms, and an elevator that moved slower than molasses in a blizzard.

Magic didn’t work inside municipal buildings—something about too many wards and not enough funding—so I couldn’t even zap the stupid thing into motion.

And trust me, I’d tried.

Repeatedly.

Possibly while hangry.

“Evie, are you even listening?” Bella chirped, snapping me out of my elevator-induced rage spiral.

“Trying,” I muttered, blowing out a breath and shifting the phone to my other ear. “Hard to concentrate when this death trap is giving me side-eye.”

Bella launched into one of her signature rambles. Something about burned lemon tarts, a mysteriously vanishing bag of flour, and a flirtatious customer who kept lingering by the bakery case like he was definitely not trying to get some free cookies.

Typical day in Castor’s Corner.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the cool stone wall, letting her voice wash over me like sugar-laced static.

I loved Bella.

I loved Donny.

I even loved this insane little town where Witches, Shifters, and Ghosts all played house like we were on some cursed reality show.

But I was so. Damn. Tired.

Being the mayor of a supernatural town wasn't all ribbon cuttings and parade floats.

It was damage control, diplomacy, and trying not to strangle your constituents when they insisted the library ghost was stealing their cardigans again.

And now? With the protective barrier needing reaffirming and me running late, I was feeling the pressure.

I mean, no mayor in the history of Castor’s Corner had ever missed a ward-strengthening night. Not once. And I knew better. I knew I couldn’t afford to slip—not with all the magical chaos bubbling just beneath our charming, pastel-painted surface.

Heck, the whole town couldn’t afford it.

But sure. Let’s talk about cupcakes. Priorities, right?

I tuned back just in time to hear Bella wail, “—and then the frosting exploded, Evie. Exploded. Do you know what pink buttercream does to a cashmere blend?”

I didn’t. But I had a feeling I was about to find out, possibly with photographic evidence and a rant about designer dry cleaning costs.

The elevator finally groaned to life with a wheeze and a thunk, like it too had given up on the day. As I stepped inside, gripping my phone and the last thread of my sanity, one thought spun through my frosting-deprived, mildly frizzed brain.

This town is going to eat me alive if I don’t figure things out—and fast.

Preferably before the full moon.

Or before my Witch Trifecta accidentally broke the supernatural world. Again.

Either way, the writing was on the wall. And in my planner. And probably scrawled in magical ink across the town’s ley lines.

In fact, I was sure of it.

I mean, here I was—thirty-something, single, slightly magical, and one more stressor away from turning into a feral raccoon in yoga pants.

My hair was frizzing from emotional instability and humidity, my under-eye bags had their own zip code, and don’t even get me started on my to-do list.

The font on that scroll of doom had shrunk three times just to fit the page.

What did a Witch have to do to get a little R&R, for fuck’s sake?

A weekend with no crises, no potluck-turned-portal events, no spontaneous hauntings in aisle five at Hex-Mart.

Was that so much to ask?

Apparently, yes. Yes, it was.

Because instead of a massage and a mimosa, I was stuck managing magical infrastructure, trying to keep our town from imploding, and dodging enchanted baked goods like they were grenades with frosting.

And don’t even get me started on the love life I didn’t have.

Where was my tall, growly, emotionally constipated fated mate? Huh?

Did I miss my cue?

Was he stuck in traffic?

Probably.

Knowing my luck, he was circling the town square trying to parallel park and questioning his entire life.

So yeah.

Things were unraveling, I was spiraling, and I had a bad feeling about the upcoming full moon bonfire.

It felt like life was about to get a lot more complicated than the usual chanting, spark showers, and fireproof panties.

And yet? I couldn’t shake the tiniest flutter in my chest.

Because deep down, in the weird, glitter-glazed center of my chaotic Witch heart, I had a feeling that something big was coming.

Something wild.

Something dangerous.

Something delicious.

Gaia help me, I wasn’t sure if I was ready.

Little did I know, ready or not, Castor’s Corner was about to get a whole lot messier.

And so was I.

“Evie, did you even hear what I said about the spell?” Bella snapped.

“Sorry, Bella, you’re cutting out,” I lied, with all the conviction of a woman who’d used that excuse daily since the invention of cell phones.

“Oh, hush up. I know you better than you think.” She wasn’t wrong. “Anyway, listen—I think I might have finally cracked the spell! You know, the spell to take the calories out of my Double Devil’s Food Delights!”

Just hearing the name made my mouth water.

Bella’s baking wasn’t just good—it was dangerous.

Her pastries had started more fights than the high school football team’s last three losing seasons combined.

One time, right before Easter, she’d made a batch of Chocolate Bunny Supreme cupcakes.

They sold out in under twelve minutes and sparked a literal fistfight in front of her shop window.

The sheriff had to intervene. And by the sheriff, I mean both the sheriff and his only deputy—poor old Charles, a Sloth Shifter who unfortunately did not have the heart for high-speed cupcake riots.

The funeral had been a quiet, somber affair.

Bella provided coffee and muffins afterward. They were lemon poppy seed muffins. And they were divine, which felt wildly inappropriate and also exactly right.

So yeah, when she said she was working on a spell to make her baked goods guilt-free?

Sign. Me. Up.

“All I have to do,” she continued, voice practically fizzing with excitement, “is enchant the batter at precisely 425 degrees while reciting the incantation à la mode—that’s the name I gave it, cute right?—and boom! Same rich flavor, zero magical weight retention!”

It was charming how optimistic she sounded.

Dangerous, but charming.

While she babbled on about sugar stabilization and calorie sigils, my brain wandered. Because that’s what it does when I’m faced with pseudoscience, Witchcraft and pastry-based miracles.

I was reminded of something Magdalena, the next La Befana, had once told me on a Swoosh call.

For the record, Swoosh is the magical world’s answer to Zoom, except we don't glitch, freeze, or spontaneously combust from spell interference.

Usually.

The app was created by a group of technomancers—Witches and Wizards who cast using technology as focal points instead of your average magic wand—who got fed up with blown routers and melting phones.

Honestly, bless them.

Anyway, during one of our mandatory leadership check-ins, Magdalena—La Befana, the curly, redheaded terror of the east coast coven circuit, second only to Sherry Morgan-McAllister, aka The Morrigan (capital T, capital M)—once gave me a nugget of profound magical wisdom.

“The point of something being so damn good is that there’s always a cost.”

She hadn’t been talking about money.

Gaia, no.

In this case, she meant love handles.

Because nothing in life, not even a magically enchanted, zero-calorie chocolate cupcake with a ganache swirl and edible glitter dust, comes free.

Magic had rules.

Unfortunately, so did hips.

And in my case? Both were beginning to feel cursed.

But that was the cost of Maribella’s killer Double Devil’s Food Delights.

Those bite-sized chocolate cake-cookie hybrids—stuffed with homemade buttercream and whatever sinful filling she’d concocted that week—were what dreams and waistband regret were made of.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said people had been maimed trying to get their hands on them during Sunday brunch or holiday pre-orders.

Another time, her bakery got a write-up in the Castor’s Corner Chronicle calling it “more dangerous than an ogre biker bar.”

That gem came after last year’s Samhain Festival, when two Big Cat Shifters threw down—literally clawed each other’s clothes off—over the last Peanut Butter Delight.

It ended with one in the ER, one in jail, and Bella crying because someone crushed the cupcake during the fight.

“Sounds great, Bella,” I said, doing my best to sound supportive and not like I was silently reliving the trauma of her last magical baking experiment.

“It is, right?” she beamed through the phone.

“But how do you know it worked?” I asked, instantly suspicious.

The kind of suspicion that had you sniffing your drink at brunch because you just knew someone slipped a truth serum in it for funsies.

See, being a Witch came with rules. One of the big ones? You don’t use magic for your own personal gain.

It’s like Witchcraft 101.

Break that rule and the universe has a tendency to slap your face with irony—or slime.

Maribella knew that. It’s why she never tested her enchanted goods on herself.

Fool me once, I thought grimly.

“Well, um, I don’t, Evie Love,” she admitted sheepishly. “Not for sure. That’s why I wanted you to try them out.”

She whispered that last part like I wouldn’t notice.

“Uh uh. No way,” I said immediately, already tasting doom.

Or worse—salty sludge masquerading as chocolate.

“Come on! I’ll bring them to the field tonight, after we finish recharging the wards,” she said in that singsong voice she used when bribing us with sugar.

“Bella, I will not be your guinea pig,” I warned, stern and unflinching.

Not again. Not after The Incident.

Last time she asked me to “just taste this real quick,” I ended up with a mouth full of what I can only describe as cursed pudding.

Slimy. Bitter. Lumpy.

I’d gagged so hard I saw the veil.

Even now, my overactive gag reflex was threatening to rise like an angry sea god.

Gaia, take me now.

“Ohmygawd! Evie, stop exaggerating,” Bella growled, clearly offended by my totally justified food trauma.

“Not. Sorry. Gotta—” I clutched my stomach as another dry heave threatened to bubble up.

The memory was too fresh.

Too moist.

It took a few deep breaths and some mental shielding to calm down.

The taste might be gone, but the betrayal lingered.

Look, I knew Magdelena was right when she said everything has a price. I mean, La Befana was typically right about most things.

In this case, she wasn’t talking about money. She meant consequence.

Balance.

That’s magic, baby.

The bummer, though?

Witch metabolism was supposed to be off the charts.

Fast, efficient, the kind of thing that lets you devour a cinnamon roll and still zip your jeans.

But somehow, my besties and I had gotten the short end of the supernatural stick.

Maybe it was our Italian genes.

Maybe it was the carbs.

Or maybe it was the universe being petty.

Whatever the reason, Bella, Donny, and I were not your typical sleek and svelte Witches.

We were curvy.

Soft.

Sturdy.

Hungry.

But not just for cookies and cupcakes and salted caramel spells.

We were hungry for more.

For laughter that felt like home.

For partners who didn’t just tolerate the magic and the madness, but relished it.

For hands that didn’t flinch at hips or thighs or bellies but gripped them with reverence.

We wanted it all.

The cake, the coven, and the kind of love that felt like magic.

And maybe, just maybe, if we didn’t completely wreck the wards tonight, the universe might finally throw us a bone.

Or some sexy as all get men made just for us.

Preferably the kind with a jawline that could cut glass and a growl that curled toes.

Yes, please.