9. Enoch
ENOCH
There’s a peculiar gravity to familial obligation, and tonight I feel every microtremor as Daisy and I approach her parents’ house.
Thistlebrook’s old neighborhoods are all honey-brick and ornamental iron, tidy lawns glowingly compliant with local covenants.
I hold the bakery box like an offering, which I suppose it is, though the cinnamon swans inside are still cooling.
Daisy’s hand finds my forearm, her touch featherlight, but the way she threads her fingers through my sleeve says, Don’t you dare leave me alone in here.
She laughs nervously as we reach the stoop. “Promise if things go nuclear, you’ll abduct me and we’ll change our names?”
“I know a guy who prints passports,” I say, and she makes a grateful noise in her throat before ringing the bell.
The Flowers family presents itself behind the front door with the resolute cordiality of people about to interview the first extraterrestrial they’ve ever encountered.
Mr. Flowers, with his flannel vest and gray-mustached smile, shakes my hand firmly enough to signal that, if it came down to arm-wrestling, he’d give it a go.
Mrs. Flowers, more birdlike than her daughter, but with the same brand of brave smile, ushers us in, her eyes flicking to my horns, back to my face, then resolutely away.
Daisy’s sister, Violet, is already perched at the dining table: rigid posture, severe bun, a cardigan so pale blue it’s almost spectral. She stares at me as if I’m simultaneously a celebrity and an emergency.
“Everyone,” Daisy says, launching into hostess autopilot, “this is Enoch. Enoch, these are my parents, and that’s Violet—”
“Charmed,” I offer, because I sense Violet was not expecting me to possess language, let alone a professional handshake.
Daisy’s mother recovers first. “Would you two like something to drink? We have ale, white wine, and herbal tea—”
“Ale,” Mr. Flowers says immediately. “Real men drink ale.” Then he turns to me conspiratorially.
“Ale sounds perfect, thank you,” I answer, and Mrs. Flowers scurries toward the kitchen, her slippers almost silent on the parquet.
Daisy stands beside me, radiating so much kinetic energy I almost reach for her hand myself. I settle instead for placing the bakery box on the dining table, and Violet eyes it like a live grenade.
“Is that from the bakery?” she asks with a sneer.
“It is.” I open the box, letting the aroma of warm sugar and spice drift into the room.
Mr. Flowers leans in, breathing deeply. “You made these yourself, Daisy?”
Daisy smiles bravely. “Yes. Enoch helped today.”
Her cheeks pink. She looks pleased and mortified all at once. Violet makes a little tsk against her teeth.
“I thought you were in…management or consulting.”
“Violet,” Daisy warns softly.
“It’s fine,” I say, pulling out the chair beside Daisy. “I like helping Daisy whenever I can.”
I can almost hear Violet assembling her internal bullet points.
“And you’re…what? Originally from out west?”
“Out of state,” I say. It’s technically inaccurate for this continent’s evolutionary history, but it plays better in polite company. “Nowhere you’ve ever been before.”
“Do you mind if I ask…how old you are, exactly?” Mr. Flowers asks bluntly. “You look young, but…” He gestures vaguely at my face, my splayed hand, my horns.
I resist the urge to set the table on fire with a flick of my wrist.
“I’m older than I can explain, but think of me as thirty-five. Give or take. It’s sometimes difficult to convert the years exactly.”
Silence settles over the table for a moment.
Then Violet asks quietly, “But you’ll…age differently. Compared to Daisy, I mean.”
“Yes,” I say, because there’s no use lying. “I’m immortal. And my bonded mate would be too.”
Mr. Flowers whistles awkwardly.
“Plenty of time to break bad habits.”
“Speaking of habits,” Mrs. Flowers says as she reenters with the drinks, “we don’t mean to pry, but it’s not every day Daisy brings home a…demon.”
She sets the glasses down and attempts a reassuring smile. It’s a bit like watching someone walk a tightrope over a pit filled with their own anxieties.
Daisy nearly chokes on her ale.
“Mom, you can't just say—”
“It’s alright,” I say softly. “It’s not a slur in my case.”
Mrs. Flowers visibly relaxes.
“Our neighbor in college dated a satyr, briefly,” she confides. “We got used to the hooves.”
Violet fixes her gaze on me, then Daisy.
“So…you’re dating seriously?”
Beneath the table, Daisy squeezes my knee. She’s shivering ever so slightly.
“Yes,” she says. “We are.”
Violet’s lips part, but she appears to reconsider whatever she was about to say.
I can guess, though.
I always can.
After a brief tour of the living room—heavy with family photographs, participation ribbons, and an entire shelf devoted to bird figurines—we're corralled around the dinner table, where conversation resumes with all the forced lightness of a hostage tape.
It’s obvious what they want to know. The questions are the same ones every protective family asks—intentions, ambitions, long-term plans, threat assessments—only with considerably more concern for Daisy’s well-being than a standard parental grilling.
After performing the solemn ritual of carving the roast, Mr. Flowers passes me a generous slice.
“We’ve always trusted Daisy’s judgment,” he says. “But she tends to trust the world too much. You understand?”
I do.
Daisy’s optimism is both her greatest strength and her greatest vulnerability. I’d like to believe the world has never punished her for it, but I know better. She’s lived close enough to the wild edge to understand monsters aren’t always what they seem.
I nod.
“I won’t let anything happen to her. Ever.”
Violet cuts in, her voice brittle.
“But you’re a…demon. Demonic. How do we know you won’t…revert?”
The word tastes poisonous.
It’s the same word they use on the evening news after incidents.
Daisy’s fork clatters against her plate. I want desperately to spare her this conversation, but not at the cost of pretending.
“My nature is what it is,” I reply. “But my loyalty is to Daisy. I’d sooner harm myself”—I glance toward her—“than let her be hurt by me. Or by anyone else.”
It’s the first truth I dare speak at this table.
After dinner, things somehow become even more uncomfortable.
The women clear the plates while Mr. Flowers corners me with beer and genealogy.
Violet follows us into the sitting room, apparently unwilling to let me out of her sight.
I stand near the fireplace, studying the rows of family photographs, and wait for the inevitable interrogation.
Violet begins.
“Why my sister?”
It isn’t an accusation.
Neither is it casual.
I set my drink down.
“She’s the first person I’ve met in a very long time who made me curious about something other than work.”
She snorts.
“She has a habit of bringing home strays.”
I smile because I know she means it.
“I’m not looking to be rescued. If anything, she’s the one who found me.”
Violet studies me for another long moment.
“Do you love her?”
It’s so blunt I almost laugh.
Then I catch Daisy’s reflection in the glass. She’s standing around the corner, listening.
“I do.”
The words escape me—volcanic, desperate, utterly beyond my ability to stop them.
Daisy’s hands fly to her mouth, her eyes shining with a kind of astonishment that steals the breath from my lungs. Violet goes pale.
Mr. Flowers raises an eyebrow.
“That’s a big word.”
I nod.
“It is. And I mean it.”
The rest of the evening is surprisingly anticlimactic.
Daisy and her mother disappear into the kitchen, the clatter of dishes providing a hopeful distraction.
Violet claims an armchair and spends most of the evening texting someone—presumably a Thistlebrook group chat dedicated entirely to my existence.
Eventually, Mr. Flowers invites me outside to “see the shed,” and I quickly realize it isn’t a threat at all, merely his way of getting me alone.
He closes the door behind us, leans against the weathered wood, and sighs.
“You probably get this a lot,” he says finally, “but I don’t know how to feel about…all this. About you.”
“That’s fair,” I reply. “But you don’t have to like me. You just have to trust your daughter.”
He considers that.
In the slanting porch light, he looks older than he did inside—less stubborn, more tired.
“You strike me as honest,” he says. “So here’s my honest fear. My Daisy is too good for this world. I don’t want to see it break her. Not even a little.”
I swallow.
“Neither do I.”
He nods once.
“Treat her right,” he says, then grins, wolfish and weary. “Or I get to shoot you with the old crossbow.”
“Deal.”
He laughs, and it breaks the tension so cleanly I almost admire him for it.
The drive back to Blackthorn Bay is quiet.
Daisy’s hand finds mine somewhere along the dark stretch of highway between her parents’ porch light and home, her fingers threading through mine and staying there.
Trees blur past the windows. The radio is turned down so low I can barely make out the melody.
Then, softly, without looking away from the road, she says,
“I love you too.”
I don't answer.
I simply tighten my grip around her hand and keep driving.