“Oh yeah,” my brother confirms, like horned swine are an everyday occurrence. “They appeared after the first unicorns showed up—something to do with the ley lines in this town, I think.”There’s that phrase again.“But I haven’t heard of them in years. Not after all the supposed ‘magic’”—he makes quotation marks with his fingers—“dried up. I didn’t know people still sold the creatures.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t follow any of that. Unicorns aren’t real.”
“They’re real here, just without magic.” He shoots me a hard look. “Do you live under a rock?”
“No. It’s just that I don’t have time for fairy tales and fantasy.” I cock a brow in disbelief. “I’m sure theunicornsthat appeared are nothing more than horses with horns sewn on.”
“Your heart is truly black.”
I smirk. “No. It’s truly black and white. I see things for what they are. But those swine—they need to go.”
I get out and come around to the front of the vehicle, where the woman attempts to shoo the pigs across the road.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
She tosses out her arms. “Throwing a block party! What does it look like? I’m trying to get them across. No thanks to you and your reckless driving.”
Excuse me?“I was going the speed limit.”
“Sure you were. If the speed limit was a thousand miles per hour.”
This is the gratitude I get fornotflattening her into a pancake? “Get your swine out of here.”
Her cheeks, pink with frustration, puff out. “Why don’t you get your SUV out of here?”
“Because I’m legally allowed to be here.”
“Well, so am I,” she sasses, hand on her hip.
She points off somewhere in the distance, but my eyes don’t follow. In my world, one snap of my fingers and people fall in line. This woman isn’t falling into anything, and my brain can’t seem to wrap itself around the fact that she isn’tthankingme for not killing her.
Who is this woman, with pink lips that form a perfect bow and dark hair that’s woven into a messy braid? She’s got this whole girl-next-door vibe—prim and proper, easy and carefree. Sassy in the bedroom.
A primal urge erupts throughout my body. The desire to wrap my fingers through her hair and claim this woman nearly knocks me over.
“The sign,” she grinds out.
“I’m, um ...” My brain’s fogged up. Can’t think. Can’t form words. This experience is so out of my norm that frustration gushes through my bloodstream, which actually helps my focus return. “The sign ...?”
She jabs the air. “The one right there.”
I tear my gaze from her warm brown eyes to the yellow road sign stamped with the black silhouettes of two horned animals—a pig and a unicorn—with the wordXingprinted at the bottom.
A long exhale helps finish the job of getting my head screwed on straight. “Sorry,” I growl. “I didn’t see the sign because I was too busy trying not to kill you and your mutant swine.”
Her jaw drops and she sucks in air, her expression one of sheer disbelief that I would dare insult the small creatures she’s Little Bo Peep–ing across the road.
“Piggycorns,” she corrects, clearly flustered. “They are calledpiggycorns.”
Our gazes lock, and one side of my mouth ticks up into a smirk. “Mutant. Swine.”
She bristles, her hackles lifting like the delicate pink mohawks striping down the swines’ bodies. “They are not mutants. For your information, piggycorns are a rare breed of pig that just so happen to have a horn.”
I sense a sore spot. “Someone being mean to your piggies, Sunbeam?”
“What did you call me?”
“I called you Sunbeam.”
