Footsteps, closer and closer still, hurried now, determined. “Is someone back there?” The man’s voice was slightly accented. Spanish, perhaps. “I mean you no harm. I heard voices and thought you might need some help.”

Victoria was off the dais, and a second later Aden was smashing face-first into the thin T-shirt she’d used as a cushion. A tall, lanky man with dark hair and skin, perhaps forty years old, stepped into their private sanctuary. Victoria latched onto the human’s shirt, moving so swiftly Aden saw only a blur. The guy’s backpack rattled against his canteen of water. With a flick of her wrist—see?—she flung him deeper inside.

He landed with a hard thud, skidding backward until he hit the wall. Instinctively he rolled and sat up. Confusion and fear battled for supremacy in his expression.

“What—” He held out his hands in a protective gesture.

Another blur of motion, and Victoria was crouched in front of him, gripping his chin. Aden’s blood dripped from the corners of her mouth. That jet-black hair was a wild tangle around her head, and her fangs extended past her upper lip, cutting into the bottom one. She was a hauntingly lovely sight, as nightmarish as she was angelic.

Little beads of sweat broke out over the man’s brow. His eyes widened, fear finally winning and glazing his irises. His chest rose and fell quickly, shallowly, his breath wheezing from his nostrils.

“I—I’m so sorry. Didn’t mean to…will leave…never tell…swear…just let me go…please, please.”

Victoria continued to study him as if he were a rat in a wheel.

“Tell him to go away,” Aden said. “Tell him to forget.” She would despise herself if she hurt an innocent human. One day. Not today, probably not tomorrow, but one day, when their wits returned.

If they returned.

Silence. Her fingers tightened on the man. So much so, he grimaced in pain, bruises already branching along his jaw.