Dan stared at the scene in front of him and blinked, trying to clear his blurred vision.

Then, he blinked again, this time squeezing his eyes closed for a long, protracted moment, trying to tamp down the rising tide of confusion.

But when he opened them again, nothing had changed. He was still standing in the forest, Mina silhouetted by the setting sun to his right, and a dead eagle-man prone in the brush at his feet.

"Dan?"

Mina's voice seemed distant, like she was calling to him from down a long, echoing hallway. It didn't matter, though. He had no oxygen to voice even the most basic response.

“Listen to me, all right? I know it's confusing, but right now, we need to get rid of that body. Do you understand what I'm telling you, Dan?"

The sharp crack of her voice finally penetrated his fog and he snapped to attention.

Get it together, soldier.

He turned and leveled her with a steady stare, gears churning like mad.

"Break it down for me. Are we talking genetically modified soldiers? Or is this some sort of comic book-like experiment gone horribly wrong?"

He dropped to his knees and examined their attacker, taking in as many details as he could. Then, he hefted him over one shoulder and jerked his head at Mina, awaiting her answer and her next directive.

"Neither. I mean..." She blew out a breath and motioned for him to start heading toward the roadside. "It's a long story, better shared once we're out of danger."

He slowed to a halt and peered over his shoulder at her as the words sank in. "You mean to tell me there might be more of these fuckers?"

"Yes. No. I mean, yes there are more, but I don't know if they're here looking for me yet."

Yet.

Because they were coming. Any enemy that would send such a soldier after her wasn't about to just end it there. This was serious. Even more serious than a missing person and a murdered hotel clerk. This could be an issue of National Security.

"Are you government? Black ops?" He started walking again and he heard her footsteps as she followed behind.

"Neither."

"You're just a regular citizen whose ex happens to be a fucking birdman?" he practically snarled, the surprise of it all finally fading and letting the anger set in. "What do you take me for, an idiot?"

"Not at all." She pulled up close, lengthening her strides to catch up to him until she could look up at his face before she continued. "There are things I wasn't at liberty to tell you."

"Right. So instead you let me risk my town and my deputies while there was a pair of virtual killing machines after you instead. Sorry, but I don't care what kind of security clearance you have, I had the right to know so I could at least try to prepare and protect my people."

They had reached the edge of the forest and he hoisted the man more securely to his shoulders as he scaled the small hill back onto the narrow road. They'd come out twenty yards from where the car had skidded to a stop, and he made his way to the vehicle without looking back.

"We'll get him into the trunk and then out to my property," he called behind him.

Once he'd secured the corpse in the trunk, making sure to tuck the wings in, he slammed it shut and wheeled around to face her. She was standing just a couple feet away, looking world weary and miserable.

"I know you're mad, but I promise you this. If you think you and the people in this town were in danger before, it's nothing compared to the danger they would be in if the truth was revealed. Just knowing about the existence of shifters marks you for death, Dan."

He bit out a curse and fisted his hands at his sides in frustration. "Don't try it. I don't want to hear about how you did this for the good of the people here. You did this for you. Sure, maybe you feel bad about it now, but that didn't stop you from bringing this shit-storm into Styx without a thought to anyone but yourself. So now what?"

Her big blue eyes glimmered with tears, the first he'd seen since this whole fiasco had started. She blinked them away and held his gaze.

"You're right. And I know I fucked up by staying here, and I have no right to ask you for it, but I'm going to need your help. There's no way to undo what I did, but if something happened to you or one of your deputies because of me, I'd never forgive myself. So we get rid of this body. Then? I need you to let me walk."

The pleading in her eyes nearly undid him, but he kept his face stony as she leaned in and gripped his forearm.

"I'll lead them away from here. Take the fight somewhere totally remote. You alter the paperwork from the past two days and the hotel case and then resign." She was speaking more quickly now, her tone urgent. "Come up with a plausible scenario that will satisfy the public and your deputies, and close those cases as fast as you can. No one will even blink if you leave town after all this carnage. You're smart and resourceful. Without me leading them to you like a beacon, you can blend in. Have a life. There's nothing you can do here for Paulie or Stacy now, Dan. We got one of the men responsible and he’s in your trunk right now. Knowing that in your heart will have to be enough."

Rage threatened to choke him and he turned away, striding to the driver’s side door and sliding in the still open door.

She was out of her mind. Thinking he would just turn a blind eye to what he'd seen today and then run and hide. And for what? So she could run off after more of these...whatever they were and get herself killed?

Fuck that.

"Get in the car, Mina," he called, loud enough for her to hear him through the passenger’s side door.

She didn't argue, and climbed in silently.

For the next ten minutes, they drove in total silence. He had questions. Lots of questions, and withholding them was killing him. But he couldn't stomach any more lies, and he imagined she had told him all she was willing to. Which left him alone with his torturous thoughts.

They were just a mile or so from his cabin and dusk had turned to dark when she finally spoke again.

"I'm so sorry. I knew you wouldn't agree to that, but I had to try."

He gripped the wheel tighter and nodded. "All right."

She sounded so miserable, he could almost feel the despair pouring off her and it was hard to ignore.

She could've gotten your entire team killed.

What if they had pounced right at the scene of Stacy's attack?

Stacy's attack.

"So the lion...the ‘animal’ who killed Stacy, that's a hybrid too?"

He clenched his jaw and tried not to imagine Stacy's terror as she ran through the woods, prey to a predator that only existed in nightmares and horror movies.

"Shifters," Mina murmured, folding her arms around her waist before clearing her throat. "We call them shifters."

He let that sit for a long moment as he contemplated the word. Shape-shifters. Could that really be? There was a bird-man in his trunk that said yes. It was like he'd fallen through some portal and landed in another world.

He pulled down his long driveway, and then popped the car into park. Then, he stepped out wordlessly and Mina followed suit.

"Let's go inside and sit down with a bourbon. We've got to figure out where to go from here. He'll keep til then."

He led the way up the path, hyperaware of his surroundings. Every crackle of every leaf seemed magnified, just like it had in that other lifetime, when he didn't know what lurked around the next corner, friend or grenade.

He unlocked the door, satisfied to find his security system intact and working and all the locks still engaged. He blew out a sigh of relief as he remembered they'd dropped Susie Q. off at a friend's on the way to the station that morning so she wasn't left home alone all day. One less thing to worry about.

Mina trailed into the hallway behind him and he tossed his keys onto the side table.

"Take a seat in the living room. I'll be right with you."

She did as she was asked and he made his way into the kitchen, grabbing two rocks glasses and the bourbon he'd been saving for a special occasion, because this sure as shit qualified.

Shifters.

Son of a bitch.

He strode back into the living room and set the glasses down with a click before yanking the cork from the bottle. He lowered himself onto the ottoman across from Mina and poured, setting his gaze on her face.

"Start from the beginning, and don't leave anything out."

Her white teeth sank into her full bottom lip and he could tell she was still debating as to how much he really needed to know.

He had to nip that in the bud, immediately.

"I might not be able to let it go or forgive it right now, but I get why you hid the truth from me the past couple days. Now, though? Full disclosure is the only option, or I call in the National Guard and let them sort out the details, understood?"

She drew her shoulders back and tipped her head in the affirmative. Then, she reached down for her half-full rocks glass and drained the contents in one swallow. She swiped the back of one trembling hand across her mouth and took a steadying breath.

"I'm part of an elite team who work for a Council that oversees the actions of all the shifters in Europe. My job is to make sure things are going smoothly, both for our governing body and for our people."

He took a sip from his own glass before lowering it to the table between them. "Your people?"

She nodded and pursed her lips as she extended her glass for a refill. "Shifters."

Her tone was low but matter of fact. She was basically telling him she was no different than the bird-man in his trunk.

He refilled her drink with a steady hand as the past couple of days ran through his mind. The bar and the drinking...so much drinking, and although she'd seemed buzzed, she had been in full control pretty much the whole time.

And their sparring. He might be out of practice when it came to hand to hand combat, but he'd never seen a woman fight like that in his life. He hadn't been able to shake the sensation that, even then, she'd been holding back.

It made sense. And, for the first time since he'd met her, it felt like the actual, complete truth.

"How?"

She shook her head and shrugged, taking another long pull of her bourbon. "There is no how. We just...are."

He tried to process that and then asked the next question that had been lurking in the back of his mind from the moment he'd seen the man with wings.

"All right then, how many of you are there?"

Her intense, crystalline gaze drilled into his and he realized with bone-deep certainty, that this was one question he didn't want to hear the answer to.

But, at his directive, Mina had apparently turned over a new leaf and was committed to continuing down the righteous path of honesty.

"Hundreds of thousands."

Her words settled over him like a blanket made of lead and threatened to choke him.

Could that actually be right? Could he and the rest of the free frigging world be surrounded by shifters and be totally oblivious?

The thought sent the acid roiling in his stomach and he gunned down the rest of his drink, wishing it would douse the flame in his gut.

A million more questions swarmed his brain, like a hive of angry bees, but he pushed them aside for the most pressing one.

"So what did you do to bring down the wrath of your people? Was there really an ex or was that bullshit too?"

She settled back into the couch and folded her legs up like origami as she cupped her rocks glass. Her swanlike throat worked and she swallowed hard, her shoulders slumping some in resignation.

"That was bullshit. I turned a woman into...something like me."

He frowned, trying to decode the sub-text that surrounded her vague admission.

"Like you?"

"I'm a Valkyrie."

He stared at her, nonplussed. "Come again?"

"Valkyrie. Historically, our kind would fly through the fields of battle, assisting the side of the righteous, killing those we deemed unworthy. Nowadays, there are only a few dozen of us left. Not many wars like that being fought, and there is too much tech out there now to just go dive-bombing soldiers during battle without winding up on the news or the business end of a Tomahawk. That said, we're still called on to negotiate sticky diplomatic situations in the shifter world."

The softly spoken words made perfect sense, but his brain kept rejecting them.

Surreal.

Maybe this was all just one lone, bizarre nightmare continuing from the night before. Maybe he would wake up and find that Stacy was still alive and Mina was sleeping on his couch.

He settled back in his seat and the sharp sting of the talon lacerations bisecting his shoulders cut that little fantasy off at the knees.

Unaware of his mental gymnastics, Mina continued.

"Until a few days ago, I worked for the European Council of Shifters but also acted as a liaison for our people. A checks and balances system. I try to help the powers that be keep the shifter world in order and safe from prying human eyes while at the same time keeping the Council from overstepping their boundaries and reigning through tyranny. Power is corrupting when it's not shared."

"And you can turn a human into a Valkyrie too?"

"Theoretically, yes."

"Literally. Because you just said you did it."

"Right, well, that's the point isn't it? I wasn't supposed to. None of us are supposed to."

He shifted in his seat as he tried to digest this latest bit of intel.

"Who decides that, the Council?"

She nodded with a grim smile. "Yes. They decide pretty much everything."

"And what are their reasons? Wouldn't it effectively eliminate the chance of people hunting shifters down out of fear and panic if there were more of you? If you were able to make it mainstream or even..." He trailed off, loathe to say the words out loud because they were unsettling as hell.

"Take over the world?" she finished dryly. "Yeah, been there, done that. We tried. Not me," she corrected, tucking a long lock of inky hair behind one ear, before continuing. "But my ancestors back in the Middle Ages. After a few really nasty incidents involving pitchforks and the torture of some young dragons, there was a huge uproar. Our people banded together far and wide. Beefs between clans and packs were squashed as we came together to try and defeat a common enemy."

Her lips twisted in despair.

"It's a strange thing. As strong as we are physically, and as many animalistic characteristics we posses, you'd think we could win a battle against a bunch of weak-fleshed humans. Even outnumbered a hundred to one. But you'd be wrong. And do you know why?"

He had the sinking sensation that he wasn't going to like her answer, but he nodded anyway.

"Because humans are far more vicious than animals. The things your kind is capable of?" She shook her head slowly, pain clouding her eyes. "It never fails to shock me. And, considering what I've seen my own brethren do? That's saying something."

He wanted to argue. Wanted to remind her of how brutal those two shifters had been with Stacy and Paulie. But when he looked at her face, he knew she didn't need reminding. She would never forget. He let his mouth snap shut and waited for her to continue.

"You should read the tales. Hear the stories we were told as children. Of young cubs torn from their homes and experimented on. Of women being kept as sex slaves and raped, under threat of murdering their babies if they tried to fight back. It was a terrible time and we just didn't have the numbers to compete. Payback was swift and brutal. Since then, most of my kind has felt the Council had it right. Keep to ourselves, blend in and follow the rules. No changing humans, because humans couldn't be trusted, and moreover, we didn't want to be monsters like they'd been to us. But with Taya, it was different."

"How so?" he asked, hoping she would give him something he could dig his hands into. Something that would make the cold pit in his stomach go away.

"She wanted me to change her." Mina let out a short, harsh laugh. "Actually, she needed me to. She didn't know it at the time, but if I hadn't, she would've eventually wound up dead. She'd fallen in love with a comrade of mine. A dragon shifter named Etienne. He'd saved her from an attack and later was forced by circumstances to tell her about our kind. He'd hoped he could protect her, but from that moment on, she had a target on her back. That's where I came in. I was supposed to bring her back to the Council for them to neutralize her."

She stumbled over the word, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that neutralize was just a nice word for "kill".

"Once I met her, and saw she and Etienne together, I know I couldn't do it. So I did the only thing I could to save her life."

"You turned her into a Valkyrie. Like you," he said, the ache in his gut fading like magic.

It was a noble gesture.

A gesture born of kindness and compassion.

And one that had effectively moved the target from that woman's back to Mina's.

"That was a few days ago. I had planned to hide out until I could get in contact with a friend in France and figure out my next move. Unfortunately, they moved much more quickly than I'd anticipated. And now here we are."

Three days ago, he would have put the cuffs on her as gently as possible to keep her from hurting herself, helped her to his squad car, and drove her to the nearest rubber-walled hospital. But now? After all he'd seen and heard? He had no doubt that she was spitting straight facts.

"Show me."

She didn't bother to ask what he meant. The knowing look in her eyes told him she had no doubt what he was asking. Her lips quirked for a second before she turned her head to stare at the flames in the fireplace.

"People are so funny sometimes. I just told you that we're both pretty much marked for death by a squad of paranormal assassins and you want to see my wings."

"Yeah, well, I'm a ten-year-old boy at heart and you've admitted that you're basically a fucking superhero, so forgive me for not being able to play it cool."

He was half-joking, because there were far more serious concerns at play, but the other half? Was dead serious. She had wings. Amazing.

She seemed like she was about to deny his request but then stilled for a long moment and then shrugged. "In for a penny," she muttered as she stood and set her drink down.

The fanfare was minimal. She stripped off the sweatshirt he'd given her and stood before him in only his loose-fitting tank top. Then, she gave a little shimmy of her creamy shoulders and there they were.

They were nothing like the brown, eagle's wings the bird-man had displayed. These were meant to carry the full weight of a person. Wide as a man was long, thick with gleaming, blue-black feathers.

Gorgeous.

She'd been a bona fide stunner before. Just that black hair and those jewel-like eyes would be enough to bring a man to his knees. But now? It actually hurt his stomach to look at her.

He swallowed hard and drained his glass, trying to tear his gaze away for even a second just to get his shit together. He finally managed it, for all the good it did. Because eyes on her or not, it was a done deal. That vision would be seared into his mind for eternity. Mina, proudly standing there, glossy, glorious wings spread wide behind her, hair streaming down her back.

She wasn't a superhero at all. She was a living, breathing goddess and it took every ounce of strength he possessed not to reach out and touch. Trace his fingertips from that porcelain skin down--

"Did you want to touch or are we done here?" she asked. The question was spoken lightly, but there was a husky quality to her voice that sent a hot burst of lust throbbing through him.

Focus, man.

She'd shown him what she was, and now he knew the truth, but the battle had just begun. They still had to figure out what to do from here.

It killed him to say it right now, but no good could come of getting closer to this woman than he already had.

"No, that's okay. You can put them away."

She flexed her shoulders back and her wings retracted. It took only a few seconds and then there she was, a regular human again. Just like him.

But nothing like you at all.

He shoved the thought aside and lowered himself back to his chair, surprised to find his was standing at all. He'd been so entranced with Mina, he hadn't realized he'd even gotten up in the first place.

She sat across from him and waited silently, clearly giving him time to let this new bit sink in some.

"I appreciate you showing me," he said quietly.

"At this point, you'd already seen so much, it hardly matters. I want you to know that I wasn't lying just for the sake of it. The reason I didn't tell you all this before was because I wanted to keep you out of it if there was any possible way for me to do so. But I can't protect you anymore." The regret and sadness in her eyes made his chest ache. "Once they showed themselves to you, there was no point in continuing the charade."

That might be hard to hear for some people, he imagined. For him though, it was a relief. He'd known it all anyway once she’d filled him in on the rest. But this just solidified his confidence that she was telling him the truth now. That was key. He could actually determine a plan of action based on all the facts and that might be the very thing that kept them both alive.

"Let's start from now, as a team. You're the expert. What's their next move?" he asked.

She must have been untangling that problem since they'd left the forest, because she didn't hesitate.

"They'll send in reinforcements. We've got two options and, because I've been calling all the shots up until now, I'm going to let you decide. We can hunker down here. Use the time they spend regrouping to build up an arsenal, see if we can't take advantage of your knowledge of the area and our combined combat skills."

The idea of allowing a second, unquestionably stronger and larger team of assassins into his hometown made every muscle in his body tense, like a tripwire.

"Or?"

"Or, we make a run for it at first light. Lure them away from here and take the fight to somewhere more remote. We'll lose your home field advantage, but there will be less chance of collateral damage."

Collateral damage.

Meaning death of innocents.

If they left, the townspeople that had put their trust in him to protect them and keep their families safe would be okay. They'd mourn the losses of the people they’d lost, and there would be lingering fear for a long while, but there would be no more violence for them.

For him, it was a no-brainer.

"Okay. Where to?"