ONE
DAHLIA
Four in the morning, and Dahlia Moon was elbow-deep in croissant dough.
The kitchen of Honey & Hex wrapped around her in familiar darkness, broken only by the glow of the warded ovens her grandmother had installed sixty years ago. Flour dusted the massive wooden workbench. The scent of butter and yeast hung thick in the air. Marzipan watched from her perch on the ingredient shelf, golden gaze half-lidded with feline judgment.
Anxiety croissants. That’s what Junie called them. The pastries Dahlia stress-baked when sleep wouldn’t come and her mind wouldn’t stop cataloging everyone else’s problems.
Tonight’s batch numbered three dozen. A personal record.
She folded intention into the dough. Comfort. Ease. The gentle magic her grandmother had taught her hummed into flour and butter until the pastries practically glowed with it. Her hands moved on autopilot, turning and folding, turning and folding, the rhythm as natural as breathing.
The knock at the back door made her jump.
Marzipan’s tail flicked. A low, warning sound rumbled in the cat’s throat.
Dahlia wiped her hands on her apron—more flour than fabric at this point—and crossed to the delivery entrance. Through the small window, she caught a glimpse of silver-streaked hair and insufferable posture.
Perfect. Exactly what she needed.
She pulled open the door. “Elder Tidewell. It’s four in the morning.”
Sue Tidewell swept into the kitchen uninvited, ancient and sharp-eyed and dressed like she was heading to a garden party rather than conducting pre-dawn ambushes on unsuspecting bakers. “You’re awake.”
“I was baking.”
“You’re forever baking.” Sue swept her attention across the kitchen, taking in the mountains of dough, the cooling racks filled with this morning’s first batches, the shadows under Dahlia’s eyes that no amount of concealer could hide. “You look like you’ve been running on spite and caffeine for a week.”
“I prefer to think of it as dedication.” Dahlia returned to her workbench. The dough needed another turn. “What brings you to my kitchen at this hour?”
Sue perched on a stool like she owned the place. She probably thought she did. The Witch Elder had been meddling in Haven Shores’s business for longer than Dahlia had been alive, and she showed no signs of stopping.
“Bran Ursa is dying.”
Dahlia’s hands stilled on the dough. Bran. The old bear alpha who’d run the sleuth in the mountains above town for as long as anyone could remember. Quiet. Steady. A gentle giant who’d bought pastries from her grandmother, and then from Dahlia herself, every Saturday morning without fail.
Until six months ago, when the visits had stopped.
“I didn’t know.” Her voice dropped softer than intended. “I thought he was busy with sleuth business.”
“The sleuth has been keeping it quiet. But it can’t stay quiet any longer.” Sue’s mouth curved—that particular gleam that meant she was about to drop information calculated to cause maximum disruption. “His grandson is coming home.”
The name surfaced in Dahlia’s memory. Callum Ursa. The heir who’d left Haven Shores fifteen years ago and never looked back. The one the bear community spoke of in whispers, when they spoke of him at all.
The one who abandoned his people.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Sue’s smile was as sweet as poisoned honey. “Because, dear girl, your bakery sits on the boundary line between Haven Shores proper and Ursa territory. A technicality that’s never mattered.” She paused. “Until now.”
Dahlia’s hands resumed their work, folding and turning with mechanical precision while her mind raced. The boundary line. She’d known about it, vaguely—some old agreement between her grandmother and Bran’s father, before Dahlia was born. It had been a footnote. Background noise. Nothing that affected the daily business of running a bakery.
“What’s changing?”
“Magnus Ironwood.” Sue said the name like she was identifying a particularly nasty species of mold. “He’s been buying land on the Ursa borders. Making claims. And word is, he believes the original boundary surveys show his territory extending much farther than modern maps suggest.”
“Farther as in...”
