Isabella shifted in the seat of her car, trying to find a slightly more comfortable position against the open window. The warm breeze of late spring wafted through the open window, dancing along her cheeks and fluttering her hair slightly. Absently, she glanced over at the clock on her dash and bit back a sigh. She still had fifteen minutes or so until Cassidy's classes were over for the day. Her foot tapped an uneven rhythm against the floor of the car, as her fingers drummed against her cheek.

She didn't know why she was feeling so fidgety. It wasn't like today was going to be the first time that she and Cassidy had gone over to see Percy. She tried deluding herself into thinking that her nervousness was entirely because of Cassidy's first riding lesson, but she knew that wasn't true. The more time she spent around the man, the more she began to realize how quickly she was falling.

It scared her.

Scared her to her core. She…she didn't know if she was ready for any kind of committed relationship. While it was true that Percy was kind, charismatic, handsome, and great with Cassidy, he was also so much of an unknown. Too much. The other night on the phone, she had the sudden realization that she and Percy was doing the same thing. Speaking evasively about their past, about who they really were. It was casual things, things that one wouldn't immediately notice in only one conversation, but which built up to something more as time marched on.

It started as minor things. He never seemed to mention names, or dates. He only gave vague answers about where he came from, never specifics. He was from New York, moved to California when he was a kid, but had never mentioned the place he'd grown up by name. He'd made references to a "camp" but never specified where, or what it was called. He said he'd had friends, but never mentioned surnames. It was always, "Jason," or "Reyna" and nothing more. He never talked about his family, every time talks moved to his mother or father, he would divert.

It was disconcerting.

She sighed, and rubbed at the side of her head.

But in spite of all the misgivings, there was still something about the way he spoke to her, the way he always met her eyes when they spoke, that told her he was being honest. He was being honest, he just was holding things back. There was nothing inherently wrong with that she supposed. Some said a lie of omission was still a lie, but she had to concede that everyone was entitled to their secrets. Besides, it would have been beyond hypocritical of her to confront Percy about his business, when he knew next to nothing about who she really was. About where she really came from, and about what the town he had unwittingly settled in truly was.

She let out a small groan and rested her head against the steering wheel of the car. The cool leather of the wheel was soothing on her pounding temples. She didn't know how long, but at some point, she was startled up as someone knocked on the window. Keith Montgomery, a tall and bald man with skin darker than shadow and piercing brown eyes and wrinkles dotting his aging face stared down at her.

"Hey Keith," greeted Isabella as she lowered the window, "Something I can help you with?"

"Have you heard what happened?" He asked, his deep voice a low rumble, like rolling thunder, as he spoke in a near whisper.

Isabella quirked a brow, "That sounds ominous…what happened?"

"Pegasi," whispered Keith. It took a moment for Isabella's brain to catch up to what she'd heard, and even then, she was all but certain that she'd misheard.

"Bullshit," she said immediately. "There aren't any Pegasi left, and even if there were, they sure as hell wouldn't be in middle of nowhere northern Michigan."

Keith had apparently expected her skepticism, as he was already holding his phone out for her to look at. Isabella snatched it out of his hand and stared intently at the screen.

"Holy shit…" she breathed. There was no mistaking it. It was dark in the photo, but it didn't matter, the light from the moon and the flash of the camera was more than enough to illuminate the brilliant white feathers of a magnificent set of wings. It was an honest to god pegasus. The first that Isabella had ever seen. Maybe the first live photograph likely ever. The animals were thought to have gone extinct some time around the fall of the Roman Empire. Sure, there had always been rumors. People claimed to have seen them flying over the skies of New York and the Bay Area, but Isabella had always tossed it up to simple rumors and exaggeration.

She was still having a hard time believing it.

"Where the hell…" Isabella muttered,

"Flew right over our house last night." Keith explained in an excited whisper. "Been doing it all week, but it's been so cloudy that I couldn't see anything. Thought it was just a group of the pixies or shifters going for an evening flight but the sound wasn't right. Then, last night I saw it, clear as day. It was massive, had to be like…thirteen or fourteen foot wingspan at least!"

Keith spread his arms wide across his body as though he could mimic the actual size of the creature. Then, he glanced up and down the street. Isabella followed his gaze, and Keith waited for a moment as a pair of moms walked by on the sidewalk, before he leaned a little closer,

"I think we need to contact the feds," he whispered.

Isabella knew he was going to say it, but it didn't quite stop the guttural growl and pang of panic that surged through her.

"Are you insane?" She hissed, leaning halfway out of her window as she got into Keith's personal space. The bald man recoiled and took an anxious step back but Isabella didn't let him retreat as her arm shot out and coiled around the the lapel of his jacket, drawing him back to the car.

"The absolute last thing this town needs is a bunch of federal agents wandering around and poking their noses into things that are better left alone."

"I know that!" Keith rumbled back, "But don't you think we should at least inform the wildlife preserve? If there's even a chance that there are more of these out in the wild, then we need to let people know! You know what's going to happen when word starts to really get out that there are pegasi roaming the skies. You think that's not going to attract any attention?"

Isabella worried at her lip for a couple of moments. It was a fair point. If there was one thing nobody in Paradise could do, it was keep a secret. Let alone something as world-changing as this. It wasn't a secret that would stay secret for very long. Sooner or later, people would come investigating, and when they did, it would become a problem. But there was a pretty substantial difference between plausible deniability, and welcoming the damn feds in with open arms.

As far as the town and more importantly her daughter was concerned, Isabella was far more willing to take the added time offered to her to prepare contingencies, before federal agencies came knocking on doors.

"Give me your phone." She demanded, brusquely. Not waiting for willful compliance, she pried the device free from Keith's grip. He squawked in indignation but Isabella ignored him as she deftly deleted the picture from his phone. Thankfully, Keith's lack of technical acumen was working in her favor, as he didn't have a phone capable of uploading data to the cloud.

"Who else have you told about this?" She demanded, her tone sounding slightly more slurred and guttural than normal.

"Just my wife," said Keith, who was staring down at her, wide-eyed and fearful. Isabella glanced down and noted with a twinge of regret that her nails had elongated, and had dug into the older man's skin, drawing a minor amount of blood. Forcing herself to calm down, she felt her nails return to normal and her canines retract back to a normal, less threatening size.

"Don't breath a word of this to anyone," Isabella demanded, "Keep it to yourself."

"It's why I came to you before anyone else," nodded Keith enthusiastically, "Wanted to make sure it was okay before I did anything…" he trailed off, a twinge of disappointment in his expression. Isabella tried not to let her exasperation show. Keith was good people, kind, and had lived a long life. But like with most forest spirits, he tended to lose his focus when matters of the natural world were at stake. Poor man was just excited that something as monumental as a pegasus spotting had occurred in his backyard, and Isabella had jumped down his throat for it.

But she squashed the feeling of guilt before it could become to powerful. She had more to consider than the feelings of a tree sprite. Namely, making sure that she and Cassidy had an escape route and plausible deniability should the feds come knocking around. After all, it really could only take something as innocuous as a pegasus to bring their entire little world down around their feet. And if that happened, then Isabella wanted both herself, and her daughter to be as far away from the fallout as possible.

Keith took her silence as a dismissal, and when Isabella continued to stay silent, he scampered away at a quick trot. Disappearing down the street and away from view. A moment later, and a loud bell rang. Within moments, the still quiet of the mid-afternoon was shattered by the excited chattering of some one hundred children as they dawdled out of the school.

It didn't take long for Isabella to find the shock of red hair that belonged to her daughter. In a sea of blacks and browns, her daughter's fiery mane stood out like a beacon, even if she hadn't been able to smell the little one.

The moment her daughter saw Isabella, little Cassidy broke into a dead sprint, leaving her friends behind her. In the blink of an eye, Cassidy had rammed open the door to the van and had thrown herself into her car seat shouting,

"GO!"

Doing her best to fight a smile at her daughter's excitement, Isabella turned in her seat and eyed her carefully.

"I don't think that's how we ask for something, is it little lady?"

Cassidy sighed in exasperation and, with what appeared to be tremendous effort, fought the urge to roll her eyes before saying,

"Can we please go, I really, really, really want to see Mr. Percy's horses!"

"Thank you," smiled Isabella, before turning back in her seat and starting the engine. Her daughter chattered the entire to way to Percy's homestead. Rambling semi-coherently about the kinds of horses, and the riding and the nature of the lesson. Although Isabella tried to be an active participant in her daughter's excitement, she was only half-listening. Her mind was far too pre-occupied with thoughts of the mysterious pegasus, and what the implication behind its sudden reappearance could mean.

She blinked, hardly even realizing that she'd brought the car to a halt in the circular drive in the middle of Percy's homestead. Her mind might have been preoccupied, but her body was absolutely on auto-pilot.

Shaking the cobwebs from her head, she had to all but physically restrain her daughter, who was quite literally vibrating with excitement.

A sudden waft of sea spray danced under her nostrils and she turned her head, just in time to see Percy open the nearest set of stall doors and meander out into the mid-afternoon sun, a wide and eager grin on his face.

"There she is!" He called out excitedly. Cassidy let out a shrill squeal of jubilation as she tried to rocket past him, only to be swept up into the air, and dangled precariously over Percy's broad shoulder. Cassidy giggled, and Isabella didn't bother trying to fight her smile. It was nice to see her daughter so happy and carefree. It was a side of the girl that even Isabella rarely got to see anymore, and that she was already so comfortable with Percy after only a handful of weeks told Isabella everything that she need or would ever want to know about her daughters feelings for the man.

Not that the girl even recognized or understood them herself.

Chuckling, Percy repositioned Cassidy as he swung her up and onto his shoulders as he turned to face Isabella.

"I figured we'd start out simple today," he explained without further greeting or preamble, "Just get her associated with the animal, get her acquainted with some of the gear and how it works. Then get her fitted, and maybe if we have some time and she's not too tired, we can get her saddled up and we can go for a little ride around the grounds."

"Yes please!" Said Cassidy happily, and Percy shared a bemused look with Isabella, before gesturing for her to follow him as he carried Cassidy inside of the stable. It was the first time that Isabella had ever been inside of them before, but her attention was to drawn to something before she'd even set foot in the door.

There was something…off about the door. Something that didn't quite match the rest of the building. It was just…the wrong shade of color perhaps? As though someone had tried to replicate the color of the rest of the building, and had missed the mark. Not enough to be noticeable from a distance, to be fair, but as she drew even with the frame, Isabella noticed that the shade of blue around the frame was a maybe half a shade lighter than the rest of the building.

Then there was the wall itself. Someone, likely Percy, had recently re-plastered the walls. Isabella could still detect the faint scent of material Percy had used, and as she squinted, she could make small lumps and indentations in the wall, from where Percy hadn't quite repaired the building well enough.

Though repaired it from what…that was the real question.

"Do some remodeling?" She asked, doing her utmost to appear casual. Percy was far less subtle, flinching slightly as he glanced back at her over his shoulder.

"Uh yeah, something like that," he said, scratching at the back of his head. "Don't really know what happened, but I think I must have accidentally took a couple of chunks out of the wall moving equipment in and out of the stable. I tried to put it back together myself but…well, I'm better with horses than I am with carpentry, and let's just leave it at that."

He tried to chuckle, but Isabella was barely listening to him. She was distracted, as a number of things happened all at once. First, a scent perforated her nostrils. A familiar scent, one she'd smelled damn near every single day for the last several years.

Dog.

Wolf.

And they were familiar scents at that. Painfully familiar. Rage swelled up, she began to physically shake as her vision blurred and breathing became slightly laborious. They had been told to stay away. That Percy was off-limits, and yet they had ignored that direct order. A simple, easy command.

And they had ignored it. Had tried to harm him. Had tried to harm Percy. Had put his life in danger. She closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down. Doing her best to focus on his scent, forcibly reminding her that he was still alive. Still breathing. After a couple of seconds, she had enough of a grip on herself that she opened her eyes. Her gaze shot over to where Percy was standing a few yards away. He was still holding Cassidy in his arms, and was pointing out to various pieces of riding equipment laid out on the table, describing each one and their function and importance in detail.

She examined him closely. Eyeing the way he was standing. The way he was holding Cassidy. He didn't appear to be favoring one side over the other, and it didn't look to her as though he were struggling to hold Cassidy at all. She bit her lip, but in spite of his apparent lack of injuries, she found herself feeling even more anxious, than relieved. Wolves hunted in packs. Usually anywhere between four to eight. Which would either imply that Percy somehow managed to fend off an entire pack of super-powered shape-shifters, someone had stepped in, or someone had been doing some reconnaissance.

Given that Percy was still breathing and none of the horses pens looked to have been disturbed, Isabella felt fairly certain that whoever had been there, had only been interested in doing a bit of scouting.

She didn't need a crystal ball to know what a wolf-shifter would be doing light reconnaissance for. Another swell of indignation threatened to overwhelm her judgement, but she managed to control herself and tried to focus on the lesson with Cassidy. It wouldn't do for Percy to see her so on edge. It would seem suspicious. She need to calm herself down, and after a couple more seconds of steady, meditative breathing, she managed to keep herself from growling. She would be paying a visit to Alex. He would likely love to know that his boys were running around without authorization and against the direct orders of the chain of command.

She was pulled from her thoughts as her daughter squealed in boisterous excitement and her eyes were unwittingly drawn away from the doorframe and to the stables housing the rows of horses.

Only they weren't horses.

Not all of them at any rate.

Isabella sat dumbfounded, and more than a little horrorstruck as she stared out at the nearly dozen or so winged pegasi, lined up in neat rows along the walls of the stable. She blinked, and she rubbed at her eye quickly, as though her eyes had made some kind of horrible mistake and hadn't seen things properly. But after rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hands, the winged horses didn't disappear. Her gaze shifted, moving from the horses back to Percy. Percy was chatting quietly to Cassidy, who didn't seem to be thinking or noticing anything different or wrong with the scene whatsoever.

Was she going insane? Had she finally cracked? It was certainly possible. Schizophrenia often didn't begin to show its signs until the mid twenties, and she was reaching that age where it would start to rear its ugly head. Maybe she had completely lost it, stemming from the picture of the pegasus that Keith had showed her. It would make some sense, she thought absently. The picture had finally pushed her over the edge, and she was seeing pegasi everywhere.

She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, doing her best to level her breathing and calm her racing heart. She opened her eyes again, but the winged creatures were still there. Taunting her. Mocking her. Her head turned slowly, as though of its own accord, finding the back of Percy's head. She stared at him. Her mind racing.

There was no way. There was absolutely no way in hell that this was happening. Percy. Her Percy? He had…he had pegasi? Not just one, but multiple. Multiple creatures from mythology thought lost to time immemorial?

No, she refused to believe it. Refused to accept that he had any idea what was actually happening. The thought was far too absurd to be real. Percy was too simple, too conforming too…normal. Not in the suspicious kind of normal either. She was familiar with the fake kind of normality that the Bureau tried to cultivate. Percy was just an honest to goodness normal guy. A little weird, but weird was normal. It was familiar.

This? This wasn't real. She closed her eyes, her shoulders shaking softly, and she tried to steady her breathing as Percy led her daughter over to the paddocks and guided her hand through the mane of a nearby horse. He was whispering hushed instructions to Cassidy, who was listening with rapt attention, as her fingers danced through the mane of the fine creature. Pausing in his speech, Percy turned to look over his shoulder and looked at her.

He smiled. A casual, carefree smile. The kind of smile that always made her knees a touch wobbly, and stole just a hint of her breath from her throat.

Then he winked, and turned his attention back to Cassidy.

Isabella's heart raced.

And her mind went numb.

AN: Shoutout to Double for helping me with this idea and for being the best beta on the planet. Check out the link in my channel for the discord server I'm in. My upload schedule is there and you can come hang out with me a bunch of other really awesome and talented authors. Thanks for all the love, and hope you're enjoying the ride thus far.

Love,

LilDB