Page 60

GIDEON

A top our horses, Gertie tips her head toward my house behind me, from where we’re gradually herding the cattle back toward the barn.

“Uh, boss…”

Beau, Levi, and I follow her gaze to find Winnow dashing across one of my fields in a full sprint.

Beau chuckles. “Damn. Girl’s got some speed on her.”

Anxiety is a familiar knot in my gut and has me urging Juniper into a gallop. Winnow, with the speed of Usain-fucking-Bolt, somehow makes it to the porch steps before I do.

“Winnow baby, you okay?”

She doesn’t respond. I was only mildly concerned before, but now my adrenaline is starting to pump. By the time Juniper reaches my house, I’m already climbing out of the stirrups and ascending the steps in one long stride.

Trigger’s on my heels as I burst through the front door, and when I slam it behind me with more strength than I’d intended, I vaguely hear the sound of the door’s weatherproof, double-pane glass shatter.

“Winnow!”

I hear the bathroom door slam shut from within my bedroom and march down the hall.

“Angel, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Do we need to go to the hospital?”

Bracing my hands on the frame of the bathroom, I let my head drop to the door as I test the handle, aaaand it’s locked.

Of-fucking-course.

My hand flexes around it as I try to restrain myself, and I feel the metal give into my grip. Well, that’s new.

“Winnow, baby, I need you to communicate with me. Are you hurt? If a snake bit you, we need?—

I hear a choked sob from behind the door. “I’m fine!”

The sound of Winnow’s sob has a tendril of fear for her striking through me like a lightning bolt.

“Angel, I need you to stand in the bathtub.”

Silence… Sniffles.

“… But why?”

“... Because I need to fix whatever is going on.”

A moment passes.

“Are you in the shower?”

Her voice sounds slightly further away, and I hear the ruffling of the shower curtain. More sniffling, more muffled sobs. “Gideon, I’m fine, I promise, please, don’t?—

The splintering of wood makes Winnow release a shrill scream as I kick the bathroom door so hard that the thing comes clean off the hinges and hits the floor with a thud.

Before I can even catch a full glimpse of her, she’s yanking the shower curtain closed. “Don’t come in, Gideon, please! I just need a few?—

Her cry is nothing short of panicked, and when I go to yank the curtain open she proceeds to wrap herself in it like a fucking burrito.

“Goddamn it, woman. What the fuck is happening?”

I’d laugh if she wasn’t sobbing inside her shower curtain burrito, and it’s when I’m in the process of trying to unroll her that I see it.

Her tail.

The spaded end of her precious little pink tail.

And my heart just about breaks.

“Oh, angel…”

Winnow’s sobbing turns unrestrained. I reach up to the curtain rod, push it up out of its setting, and slide it free of the rings.

It hits the floor with a loud clang just before I scoop Winnow, still rolled up in my shower curtain, into my arms and lay her on the bed to begin unrolling her.

She wails, but her resistance has waned; she already knows she can’t stop me from doing it.

“Gideon, don’t! Please!”

I unroll her to the edge of the bed and then straddle her with one foot on the floor. There’s only one layer hiding her face from me, and I can see her tiny little horns and flowers peeking out from the top of the curtain.

Bracing myself on my elbows, I gently tug just the very edge of the curtain so that her eyes are revealed. The second her eyes meet mine, she lets out a wail, and I’m tugging away the rest of the curtain and pulling her into my lap.

“Shhhhh, come here, baby girl. I already told you there ain’t nothin’ you need to hide from me.”

Winnow’s sobbing swiftly wanes and reduces to a sniffle. “You mean… You—You?—

Cradling her in my arms, I’m shaking my head at her, so fucking relieved that she’s okay. “Is this what all the fuss is about?” I nod at her horns and the strange, but no less beautiful, little flowers in her hair.

Her reddened, tear-swollen eyes search mine as if she can’t quite believe my reaction.

“What the heck were you so afraid of, angel?”

Her lower lip trembles and it makes my heart fucking squeeze.

“I thought that—that you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

I can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it.

“Baby, you could grow an asshole in the center of your forehead, and it wouldn’t change how I feel about you.”

Winnow bursts into a watery laugh that ends on a soft sob of relief.

“I mean, I might ask you to wear some panties over it because I’ll be damned if anyone but me gets to see your pretty little assholes, but I’d still love you all the same.”

A tremulous grin curls her lips as tears slip down her cheeks.

“You love me?”

I nod, brushing away the tear-soaked hair sticking to her cheeks and temple with my thumb. “Horns, tail, and all, angel. Until you, I didn’t even know what love was.”

My thumb sweeps across her jaw before I lower my head to hers, give her a lingering kiss, and lick my lips to savour the flavor of her tears.

“I was just so afraid that if…”

Her voice cracks, more tears streaking her cheeks.

“... Even in my world, a realm replete with magic, daemons tend to be shunned from society, so I thought that here it would be a million times worse. That as soon as you found out what I was, you’d change your mind and…”

Winnow’s words are cut short by a warble of emotion, and it makes my heart weep that she was ever afraid I wouldn’t love every single part of her.

Sweeping away her tears, I press a kiss to her forehead.

“Angel, you couldn’t possibly be more perfect than you already are.

All the parts of yourself that you doubt are part of what I love most about you.

Whether it be your horns, or the fact you’ve survived unimaginable horror at the hands of others, and yet somehow, you’re still sweeter than fucking honey.

I’ve never met another person so kind, warm, caring, affectionate, and loving.

Someone who has had so much taken from them, yet it doesn’t stop them from giving. Everything about you steals my breath.”

Winnow shakes her head as if in disbelief at my swift and unconditional acceptance.

“How is it that you don’t even seem surprised?”

I huff a laugh at all the times I’d seriously considered if I was having some kind of critical cerebral event.

“Since you arrived, I’ve seen flashes of your horns and flowers here and there. At first, I thought I was hallucinating or having an aneurysm, until one morning I woke up with your tail wrapped around my thigh… And every morning since.”

I can practically hear Winnow’s jaw clatter to the floor. “You mean, you knew?! This whole time?! Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Well, for one, the moment you woke up, your tail, flowers, and horns would disappear, so I just assumed you were hiding yourself out of fear. I didn’t want to corner you and force you into revealing something that you clearly were scared of telling me, and I don’t blame you, considering you’re in a world with no magic that’s filled with trigger-happy humans.

I figured I’d just continue proving to you in all the ways I know how that I love you in every way, and in all forms.”