Sugar, Spice, and Spellcraft


 
 
 Table of Contents
 Blurb
 Dedication
 Acknowledgments
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Epilogue
 Keep Reading for an Excerpt from Shortbread and Shadows by Amy Lane
 About the Author
 By D. E. Paulson
 Visit Dreamspinner Press
 Copyright
 Sugar, Spice, and Spellcraft
 
 By D. E. Paulson
 
 Jakob Kuratowski is a lot of things—a witch, a baker… and a lightweight. Which is how, after a rare night of drinking and dancing, he becomes the mate of an alpha werewolf.
 Jakob doesn’t trust his new mate, Erik Lindstrom, any farther than he can throw him, and he’s not about to give up the life he’s built and the job he loves and go live with a bunch of werewolves just because his accidental husband wants him to. Werewolves might have a mystical instinct about their mates, but Jakob needs time.
 That doesn’t stop him from helping their pack, as Erik insists on calling it, when they have magic trouble. He even lets Erik woo him a little. But when the deadly threat of the unlife—ravenous abominations who dwell in the dark place between the living and the dead—set their sights on Erik, Jakob has to step up and into his role in the pack to save the man he’s coming to love.
 To Bug, my constant companion in the writing of this work. You are missed.
 Acknowledgments
 
 
 IT IS rightly quoted that nobody writes alone. Sugar, Spice, and Spellcraft received a lot of help from many different hands throughout its drafts to become the book you are about to read. While not a complete list, the following are some of the many people who helped my story along its way, and I owe them all (and you my readers) more than is easily put into words—Kit Haggard and Jules Hucke, who helped edit this book, gave me feedback I needed to hear, and made sure I told a story worth reading; Tyson J, who was an early beta reader and helped shape some key elements of my story; Audrey B, who sat with me through many rounds of cider as I worked on my solo edits; the staff of Waldschänke ciders, who wanted to know just what sort of romance I was writing; Annie S and Laura S, who encouraged me to submit the story to publishers over delicious Afghani food in Cambridge; everyone at Dreamspinner who helped Sugar, Spice, and Spellcraft reach publication; and lastly, Leo, for putting up with hearing Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre and Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead at all hours of the morning while I worked. Thank you all for helping this book become what it is.
 Chapter 1
 
 
 “YOU’RE GOING out? What’s the occasion? Purim’s in March, right?” Rashid asked.
 “I do go out, Rash,” I said.
 “The only time I got you out of the apartment when we lived together was when you were apprenticed at Schwa. What’s going on, Kuratowski?” Rashid asked. Despite a time zone and some four hundred miles, it was all too easy to picture the look on my former roommate’s face.
 “I got a house,” I gushed.
 “You got a house?” The stud in Rashid’s eyebrow would have been sky high if I were looking at it.
 “I got a house,” I confirmed.
 “Fucking hell, Jakob! That’s a great reason to celebrate. Is Cara giving you the day off tomorrow?”
 “You know I set my own schedule.”
 “Shit. You’re telling me this now, Kuratowski? Why didn’t you bother… no, wait. Fuck it, I’ll start driving and—”
 “Don’t worry, Ibrahim. You can come out after I finish all the renovations.”
 “Kuratowski, that’ll take you years.”
 “All right, you can come after I’ve at least got hot water consistently.”
 “Sounds like a plan. Go out and make bad choices,” Rashid said. He hung up before I had the chance to say anything else or object, and I rolled my eyes. Rashid knew I was the sort of guy who would, at most, have a single beer during the course of a night—sipped slowly, savored, and enjoyed at leisure. For once, as I tapped my foot waiting for the Lyft, I would listen to my former roommate.
 I would go out and get whiteboy wasted.
 This would turn out to be a Poor Life Choice.
 As the rideshare pulled up to a relatively nondescript brick façade with pride flags (LGBTQ, leather, and bear) hanging from the windows, the muggy May air washed over me, promising all sorts of things. It was easy to imagine the waters of Lake Erie, the faintest hint of a breeze, and a late night under the stars. Not that I would get that lucky, but it was nice to imagine it anyway.
 I was celebrating my “first real adult endeavor.” After over four years of saving, I wasn’t renting anymore. I had a house—a place that would become a home of my own. My parents had been over the moon when I called them with the news, and my father’s family in Pittsburgh was already threatening to visit. I wasn’t engaged (as Rashid was), nor was I a parent (as my elder sister had been at twenty-eight), but being a homeowner at twenty-eight was something I could be proud of. As I strode across the floor to sit at the bar and stare at shelf upon shelf of bottles against the lavender wall, I made my second Poor Life Choice of the night.
 I ordered a shot of well tequila.
 It was cheap, it went down like water, and when the bartender asked me if there was an occasion for the shot, I told him, and he gave me three more shots on the house. This led me to order yet two more shots, and by the time