Page 6

They sat in a corner booth with charm-dampening cushions and glowing menus that pulsed with their auras. Lyra’s cup shifted from orange zest to lavender honey with a sigh.

“You’re mellowing,” Calla said approvingly. “Last week, your drink tasted like fireworks and rebellion.”

“I’m trying,” Lyra said, cheeks flushed. “I like it here. The town’s weird, but the good kind of weird. The folks are strange in a way that fits.”

“And the boss?”

Lyra wrinkled her nose. “He’s… complicated.”

Calla’s brow lifted.

“He’s rigid,” Lyra continued. “Quiet. Probably allergic to compliments. Definitely allergic to me. But also… kind of noble? Like he’d throw himself in front of a hex bolt and then grumble about it for a week.”

“Sounds like Jace.”

“And I think he might be hiding something. Something big.” Lyra’s voice softened. “There’s pain there. I see it in his eyes when he thinks no one’s looking. Like he’s holding up a whole mountain on his shoulders, and if he shifts an inch, it’ll all come down.”

Calla’s face grew serious. “You always were quick at reading people. He’s had it rough. Took over after his father vanished. Packs don’t like uncertainty, and Jace… he never got to grieve. Just stepped up and never stepped down.”

Lyra’s chest ached. “That explains the weight in his stare.”

Calla smiled sadly. “Be careful, Lyra.”

“I always am,” she said, then winced. “Okay, I usually am. Sometimes.”

By the time Lyra returned to her little room above the apothecary, the stars were out, and the wind had picked up. She sat on the windowsill with Milo curled in her lap, watching the moon cast silver over the trees.

“You think he likes me?” she whispered.

“Jace Montgomery doesn’t even likehimself,” Milo replied.

“Comforting.”

“But he’s watching. I feel it.”

Lyra leaned her head against the window. Her heart beat a little faster than she wanted to admit.

Something had shifted the moment he looked at her. She hadn’t imagined the way the air had thickened. The way her magic had stirred like a cat stretching in sunlight.

Something was coming.

And whatever it was, a part of her hoped it started with a scowl and smelled like pine smoke.

4

JACE

Jace had once stared down a feral rogue wolf on the verge of shifting mid-market without blinking. He’d walked into a cursed grove alone at sixteen and come back with nothing but a scratch and a scowl. He’d faced dozens of threats, mundane and magical—and handled them with the kind of brutal efficiency that had earned him the loyalty of his pack and the grudging respect of Celestial Pines' supernatural council.

But apparently, he wasn’t equipped to handle one chaos witch with a soft laugh and a wardrobe that looked like a spellbook exploded in a thrift shop.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered, flipping through a field report on magical crop disturbances that somehow ended with sentient pumpkins demanding union wages.

He hadn’t even realized he was gripping the page too tightly until it tore.

With a sharp sigh, he tossed it aside and shoved to his feet, prowling toward the tall windows of his office. The view was serene, pine trees swaying, the mountains brooding in the distance, and Main Street twinkling with early evening charm—but his focus snagged, as it always did lately, onher.

Lyra.