He hadn’t intended to lie to her.

The tea had been brewed to clear her head, not put her to sleep, though he doubted she would believe him when she awoke a second time. Alban dropped into a crouch, watching her, then lifted his own hand to stare at it dispassionately. She might believe him, he amended silently, if she would listen at all. In retrospect, he’d realized he’d never made the healing tea for a human woman before, and that the potency should probably have been halved for someone her size. He was unaccustomed to thinking in terms of how his people differed from hers, except the most obvious.

The way she slept, for example. Color flushed her cheeks, her breathing deep and even. He breathed imperceptibly when he slept, with no restless flutters of eyelashes or twisting in the covers. Margrit knotted and loosened a hand around the mug she still held, revealing bruises on her knuckles. He reached out to touch the injuries, then stopped, the gesture seeming an intrusion. Even slipping the mug from her fingers seemed rude, so he’d left it in her grasp. He would have to wonder, or ask, how she’d hurt herself.

He gave a snort of disbelief, skeptical that they might ever hold such an ordinary conversation.

But why not? For a woman seized by a stranger-a man wanted for questioning about a murder, no less-Margrit retained her equanimity wonderfully well. The head injury may have helped with that, pain giving her something internal to focus on rather than her situation, but her questions had not been those of a woman befuddled. She wasn’t presenting a bold face; there was no scent of fear about her at all. If she could face so much with such ease, perhaps the rest might be less insurmountable than he’d always imagined.

Margrit stirred and whimpered, lifting her hand toward her head. Alban reached to comfort her, then stopped again. Better to go out and get an ordinary drug like aspirin than to offer her another dosage of the tea that had always helped him. He pushed himself erect, hesitating a moment longer as she fell into a deeper sleep. She would be all right for the brief time he’d be gone.

A flash of humor creased his face. She would have to be. He couldn’t carry her unconscious body to the nearest convenience store. He brushed his fingers over her hair, not quite touching the tangle of curls, then was gone.

A nasal buzz erupted; Margrit flinched awake, hefting the mug she still clutched. The room’s shadows were blue, the only light the garish color from the neon sign outside. It hummed incessantly, making her wonder how she’d slept at all.

The answer came to her easily, and she tightened her fingers around the mug. Alban had drugged her, despite his assurances of wanting to talk. Anger rose, then dissipated as she realized the pain was largely gone, reduced to a dull throb in her forehead. For a moment Margrit counted out the pulses, ir-rah-shun-al. There was still no hollow fear in her belly. There hadn’t been since the flash of headlights and Tony’s panicked shout.

Tony. He would be worried sick. Margrit sat up, holding her head as she groaned. Her cell phone. Her purse. She fumbled on the table by the cot, searching for the purse without looking. Her fingers closed around a strap just as the window slid open, a hush of sound that let in a shaft of cold air. Margrit jerked around.

A monster perched in the window. Winged and clawed, it overflowed the frame. Neon lights backlit it, red and blue that cast demonic shadows across sharp, harsh features. Its eyes were wide and colorless in the gloom.

Margrit screamed, instinct driving her to fling her purse at the thing. The monster batted it away easily, then hopped forward, landing on the cot. The bed sagged and creaked, then collapsed. Margrit snatched Alban’s mug up and swung it as hard as she could into the monster’s temple. Shards exploded everywhere. The creature roared in pain, rolling sideways off the collapsed cot, and disappeared into the jumble of shadows and clutter. Margrit staggered to her feet, panting, and lurched out the window.

Metal bit into her feet as she scrambled onto the fire escape. She stared down, wondering where her shoes had gone, then swayed as the ground, twenty feet below, rippled and spun. She took another step forward, running a hip into the safety railing, and felt her balance give way entirely. Her feet scraped against the metal grating as she fell forward, grabbing feebly at the rail in an attempt to stop her fall. The alley floor below zoomed close, like a movie camera rushing in to examine a detail.

What a stupid way to die, she thought, and closed her eyes.

An arm, solid and muscular, snagged her around the waist and hauled her backward. Margrit spun upright again, her head snapping back and cracking against…something too hard to be Alban’s chest. A hollow sound popped in her ears, and she doubled over, vomiting through the fire escape grate. Bile spattered on the walkway below. The arm around her waist held her steady, then pulled her back in the window she’d made her escape through. Once on the shambles of the cot again, Margrit whimpered and slid out of the embrace, into the blankets.

“Are you all right?” Alban, standing above her, looked down with concern in his eyes and blood trickling from a crescent-shaped cut on his temple. Margrit scrambled into the corner, using the walls for support as she shoved herself to her feet.

Someone from the bar below pounded savagely on the little apartment’s door, cursing them both for the vomit. Neither of them moved, staring at one another. After several minutes, the pounding ceased and the irate bartender stomped away.

Only then did Margrit trust herself to so much as swallow, a hard raw gulp. “What,” she rasped, “the fuck. Are you?”

Alban hesitated. “That would be easier to-”

She shot a hand up, stopping the words with her palm. Her heartbeat pounded in her throat, thickening her voice with anger that overrode fear. “Not later. Now. Tell me now.” Her fingertips tingled as adrenaline rushed through her body, buoying her up despite the redoubled pain in her head.

“Easier to show you than explain,” Alban murmured. Margrit stared at him, her nostrils flared and her jaw thrust out in fury and distrust. She nodded once, shaking with too much flight-or-fight energy to speak.

Alban stepped backward, as if to give her space, and inside that step, transformed.

Margrit saw it, yet couldn’t see it, all at once. Space contracted around him, and he grew to fill it, like a sudden deep breath that strained the lungs. The blue light that had bleached fair skin to a sickly white now corroded pockets of gray with purple shadows. He dropped into a crouch, his weight on three points, right hand resting on his knee.

The harsh neon light made hard planes of his face. He shifted one shoulder, changing his weight, and spread wings with long narrow tarsals at peak and edge, like elongated fingers with paper-thin skin stretched between them. Slender blood vessels made black lines through fragile-looking skin, like etchings in silver. For a few seconds he held the pose, breathlessly larger than life, so very still it seemed there could be no life in him. Impossibility blurred into aching beauty, a sculptor’s Pygmalion dream made real by the gods as he settled into place, wings folding down so smoothly Margrit had to look twice to see them, even knowing they were there.

His shoulders were massive, his skin almost white. Not human white, but pure and rich, like carved alabaster. Literally, Margrit thought with a twinge of hysteria. This wasn’t the mock thrill of a late-night run through Central Park. Alien fear clenched her heart, making her feel every beat slamming through her lungs and chasing air away. She laughed, the sound high-pitched and frightened. Alban’s head came up, his lips pressed together. The wide mouth was beautifully shaped, even in the incredible new form he wore.