A year had passed since I had last claimed the stallion's presence. A year in which my every waking moment had been filled with the care and raising of a child that baffled me each time I laid eyes on her pretty little face. A child that, by all rights, should not exist. A child that my family, should they ever reappear, would likely deny the existence of, if only to save face. And yet a child that I loved with every single fiber of my being.

A girl that I cradled close to my chest the night she was born while her father loomed in the distance, guarding us from the men he called brothers. A girl that I took everywhere with me, who I kept carefully hidden from even her own father.

A part of me resented that our arrangement had not changed after my attempt to escape in Salem, but that part had grown quiet in the wake of the gift he'd given me. Nazanin was perfect and precious, and while there was a part of me that wished to escape again if only so that the Lagoon's ever present malice didn't draw undue attention to her pretty face.

In the end, it wasn't Nazanin they came for, but for me. The challenge was brief and quickly aborted before blood was shed, but I heard it all the same. It pushed us deeper into the Lagoon, toward the pretty Cove that was often empty. Flowers sprang up through the spring grasses, tossed by the ocean breeze that managed to cut through these trees more easily than it did deeper in the Lagoon, bringing with a fresh brightness that I relished.

Nazanin played nearby while I grazed, my ears darting around as I kept watch over her as I always did. I might not have much strength to battle against another creature, but I knew this swamp better than I knew the whorls of my own coat. I knew the places to hide, the places to retreat to, the places to escape through. I had carefully passed such knowledge down to my daughter, mixing lessons in with play, hiding warnings in childhood stories. I knew that her presence or absence from the Lagoon would soon be outside of my control, and while that knowledge terrified me to the very core of my being, it also made me frantic to teach her what I knew so that when the day came, she would be as prepared as I could make her.

I could sense him before I could see him. I couldn't tell you how, only that I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel the way it made my skin prickle with something akin to delight, though the goosebumps were identical to those raised in terror. My head lifted as I felt it, my brow furrowed in concern for a moment, afraid that I was wrong.

A whole year had passed since he had last seen me. A year in which I hadn't been certain at all that he'd still cared, if it had not been for his stalwart presence at Nazanin's birth. A year in which I had mourned and missed and loathed and loved him, all from afar. Were it not for the tangible tie between us that Nazanin represented, the doubts might have crept in again, but she was remarkably adept at keeping them at bay.

The only time I had considered leaving had been when the entirety of last fall passed without a flicker of his interest. I had lingered on the Lagoon's beach that night, Naz sequestered in the beach grass behind me, and considered what it was that I wanted. What it was that I would accept.

His words had played in my head that night and on every morning since, and I had trusted in them even as I resented their uttering.

Never forget that you are mine.

When the golden beast finally emerged from the shadows, I turned toward him with wide eyes, shifting a few steps so that I could stand in front of our daughter. I don't say anything at first. Even if I had wanted to, there are far too many emotions clenching my throat taut for me to form coherent words. Even now, with a year and a child standing between us, all that I want to do is throw myself at him. His attention is so fleeting that I crave it in a way I have never craved anything in my life. Not the sweetest grasses or the sun on my back or the taste of cold spring water in the depths of a desert summer. None of that compares to the desire that floods back through me at the sight of him, even as it competes against the rage that exists there, too.

For a long moment, I only watch him, nostrils flaring rapidly as I take in every detail of his appearance. Mostly, he looked the same. The same sweep of thick, heavy mane over his broad neck. Old scars - and new - crisscrossing his back. More muscles than any one man should have any reason to possess. But it is his eyes, and the expression I cannot read therein, that hold my attention in a vice grip.

"I'm not running this time." I finally manage to murmur, my gaze locked on him even as an ear flicks toward our daughter, trying to gauge where she was and how she was feeling. I wasn't sure how well she knew her father, given that she hadn't seen him up close since she'd been a newborn. I'd pointed him out from across the Lagoon when his golden coat was prominent against the brothers, and we'd trailed his scent in the past so she'd know him, but those things were not the same as knowing him.

And I knew all too well what that difference was like.