Chapter 1
Hailey
It’s my thirtieth birthday, and I refuse to get a cake. In fact, nothing sweet. No desserts. For today only, I am confection-free.
And since I’m determined to make this happen, all I see are reminders of the bakery. Like the shar-pei I passed on my walk to the salon, who looked like a walking cinnamon roll. Or the bleach that the stylist strategically places throughout my hair with its buttercream texture.
Juno’s right. I work too much.
The saddest thing about that fact is it never felt that way before. It had been a joy—with the exception of a few bridezillas and the occasional child temper tantrum over how we didn’t design their Avengers cake just right—waking up every morning and getting to work with Mom. She had energy and quips and never smudged frosting on her cleavage.
It’s been a hard year without her.
But I’m not thinking about that now. I’m not.
“Honey, are you crying?” the stylist asks, peering at me through the mirror.
“What? No,” I scoff. “I’m just—it’s allergies. I mean, the bleach. Bleach allergies.” I smile too widely.
By the time she uses the blow-dryer, I’ve worked myself out of my pity-party. I watch the color as it ripples through my hair. I hadn’t done anything fun with it in years. I forgot how much I missed it.
“I love it,” I tell her sincerely when she’s done. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie,” she says, whipping the cape off. “Now, let’s get you out of here so you can have some fun.”
“Whoo! You are so fucking hot!” my best friend shouts in my ear as I reach her at the bar.
Juno has breezed in and out of my life since college, always picking up where we left off. But since my mom passed, she’s stuck around, even got herself a job and a little apartment. She made me promise her that I would come out tonight, putting a wrench in my plans to finish off that bottle of wine I’d been saving and then falling asleep on my couch.
Melanie and Barb chorus the greeting. It might be weird to celebrate your birthday with your employees who also went to the same high school as your mom, but these women didn’t even bat an eye at the idea of coming out with me. I had barely mentioned it to them yesterday before they had demanded the time and location.
A location which I am not entirely familiar with. Without much of a nightlife, I knew the names of exactly zero bars, let alone one that I think may actually be a dance club?
“Toss this back, babe, and then we’re dancing,” Juno says, handing me a shot. When I hesitate, she clarifies with a wink, “Straight tequila, nothing fancy.”
It takes a couple more of those before she’s finally able to convince me to step out onto the dance floor.
About two years ago, my mom told me she was a witch.
“An abstract,” she clarifies when I don’t speak. “We’re classified by the nature of our gifts. Mine involve forces that aren’t tied to any elemental or physical aspect.” She told me this as she steadily mixed the color in the frosting. She always did it by hand.
I think I went a full two minutes without blinking as I stared at her across the wide counter, head propped up by my palm. She glanced at me with the same eyes as mine and quirked a brow, expectant.
“You’re a whatsit who does what now?” I stuttered. “A witch? Like, a witch witch?” She nodded. “Like, Practical Magic? Is that why you have such nice hair like Sandra Bullock?”
My mom snorted. “We have nice hair because that runs in the family. Sandra Bullock has nice hair because she’s Sandra Bullock.” The large spatula pauses as she considers something. “Maybe she’s also a witch, though.”
That had been a night I would think back on for a long time. After that confession, Mom gave me snippets of the world she participated avidly in, until she met my dad, a sorcerer—which I guess is not the same as a witch—who gave her the time of her life and a perfect “Pixar-pretty baby” before they parted ways. She told me about elves and demons and shifters and all kinds of creatures that I’d only ever seen on television or in the pages of a book.
I guess that’s why when Juno told me she was a siren, I was more curious than taken aback. It explained a lot, really. Juno has talked herself out of no less than ten speeding tickets.
This year.
It’s April.
Mom’s particular skills were in wards and protection. She apparently worked with and studied alongside the coven in the area and was pretty well-respected. She kept that world separate from her new life, though. Baking was what made her happy. Baking with her daughter was what made her fulfilled.
She told me I’m an abstract witch, like her, and made me promise to walk into the world with an open heart. In return, she would guide me, slowly and patiently, into a life that would now involve magic.
But then she got sick.
And then she was gone.
After that, I didn’t want to learn anything new. I was already full of memories and pain and loss. I couldn’t absorb anything else. So I turned away from magic and toward ganache. I made our bakery, Sugar and Crumb, my tether to her. I convinced myself that, eventually, I’d return to the world she introduced me to. All that paranormal stuff would just have to wait.
Several hours after drinking and a jaunt to the Cracker Barrel for the best grits in my soon-to-be-hungover life, Juno and I are more confident than we should be when we see a man being attacked on an unlit patch of the street.
“What the hell?” Juno says, leaning forward in the driver’s seat. She stopped drinking once I arrived, making good on her promise to be my designated driver. She knows I hate driving services. I hope everyone in their life has a Juno to rely on.
I can barely see anything outside the beam of her headlights. There seems to be three men, with one on the ground as the others stalk forward. Juno jerks the steering wheel so the headlights hit the figures with the bright glare.
I see a head of dark hair and flash of something metal. I see fangs and a face so beautiful it fills me with alarm bells.
Vampires.
“Stay in the car,” Juno commands a split second before she throws the car in park and gets out.
I’m still at least three glasses of water and just as many hours away from being sober, so by the time I squeak, “What?”—Juno is already approaching the two vampires.
I see them a little more clearly now as they face Juno. One of them has blood on his chin. The other’s shirt is torn. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but my ears tingle a little. Juno must be using her power to muddy their thoughts.
But then one of them snaps his fangs at her, and the tingling bursts into a painful stab in my brain. I shout in surprise and clap my hands over my ears. But the sound is already gone.
For several seconds, I sit in the passenger seat, curled over my legs. When I finally look through the windshield, the two vampires and Juno are gone.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper. Before I can think about it, I open the car door and stumble out, cursing when my ankle rolls from the stupid heel of my stupid shoe. I kick the offending things off and walk to the front of the car.
And stop dead in my tracks at the body lying prone on the gravel.
