“That’s the butcher’s son,” a voice whispered in her ear. “They say he makes a right good amount of gold each season. You’d do well to introduce yourself.”

The girl looked up at her informant. The woman stood tall with her nose slightly in the air as she scanned the crowd. The girl leaned over and fiddled with the strap of her shoe to stop it from digging into her skin.

“I think he’s headed this way,”

The girl looked up. The boy was approaching them with a drink in hand and a grin on his face. His blonde locks fell around his face with a carefully combed look. It was definitely a narcissistic arrangement without a single hair allowed to bounce freely away from the others. The girl looked back down until the woman, her mother grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her back to a sitting position. Slumping, the girl sank deeper into her chair.

“Madame,” he said curtly, passing by.

The woman took advantage of the close situation. The other wallflowers huddled close by parted slightly to allow him through. “Excuse me,” she twittered. “Aren’t you Allen’s son?”

The boy turned and looked back at her. “Yes,” he said abruptly, then turned and hurried away.

The woman wasn’t discouraged. Hurrying, she pushed ahead barely gracing the edge of the dance floor where gowns and coattails swirled in a beautiful unison. The orchestra at the head of the room glittered as the candlelight bounced off their wood and gold.

Catching up to the boy, as he reached his father, she composed herself. Before she could make her move, the father noticed her. “Bernice,” he chuckled, his portly frame shaking slightly. “How are you doing?” His chubby, red face exposed a wide smile of straight, white teeth.

“Wonderful,” she replied with a jovial smirk. “I’m here with my daughter. It was so kind of the Baron to invite us to such a gay event.”

“Your daughter?” Allen turned to his son. “Young man, I have someone for you to meet.”

Scrambling, she threw herself at the closed door, wrenching it open and throwing herself through.

“Get out of here!” came the drunken slur from the room. “Leave me be!”

With tears streaming down her face she ran. In little more than her nightgown, she bolted down the hall and out the front door. The servants lingering in the hall pretended not to see anything as the weeping figure fluttered past with blinding speed. With a single loud sob the front door was opened and closed.

The January air bit at her skin and the snow settled on her hair and skin. Her thinly slippered feet pounded across the cobblestone. The candle lamps lining the street flickered with barely enough light to cast a yellow glow on the panicked face as it swept past.

Her light brown hair was falling out of its braids and down her shoulders. A chilly breeze caught it and pushed it back revealing her tear-streamed face. All alone she sat on a frozen, granite headstone. The cemetery stretched out on all sides from her, but the moonlight was enough that the scene remained visible. Shivering she looked down at her feet with nowhere to go.

Another stronger wind blew and her nightgown’s gossamer layers floated like a ghastly apparition. The cold bit deep into her and she shook violently. The ache of the icy atmosphere eating away at her and the intense pain of her home life tore at her very core.

Holding her breath and breathing into her hands she closed her eyes. A simple prayer request uttered from her lips. “I need an angel. I need an angel tonight or there won’t be a tomorrow.”

The night deepened and the arctic gusts threw themselves mercilessly at her nearly exposed body. Her lips were blue from more than the pale light and her eyelids heavily closed as she listed sideways off the stone and slid off. Flopping down into the snow, her gown and snow settled down on top of her and around her.

“Mademoiselle?” a curious voice murmured.

Her eyes flickered open a sliver and looked up at the barely visible figure standing over her. “Help.”

Instantly two arms were around her picking her up. Within seconds she could feel a warmth, but it wasn’t coming from her new seraph. It was her own body heat regenerated by the hope of the stranger’s grasp. Instead his body felt even colder than the air had been, but it didn’t faze her in the least because somehow it was better.

“Mademoiselle,” he whispered to her. His voice was like silk. No, a daydream of perfect things. No, not even that touched anywhere close to it. It was as if the heavens had split open and the entire chorus of angels had majestically sang a short set of notes to her alone. The voice carried a smoothness that was almost indecently intimate and a dignity held only for the most powerful of royalty.

Her glassy green eyes lifted to meet his immediately. She expected to see eyes as deep as the ocean, or as green as grass, or as dark as deep violets, but was shocked to see two shimmering copper glints reflecting her image back. Instantly brown eyes became her favorites and her heart melted along with the ice on her eyelashes.

“Mademoiselle,” he cooed softly to her, “what ever are you doing in a place like this, at a time like this, dressed in such a way?”

She noticed he was still holding her and had his cape wrapped tightly around the both of them. The pair were on steps of a mausoleum. “I…” she hesitated.

His eyebrows raised and his forehead wrinkled slightly. She realized that she was seeing more now that her eyes had readjusted. His long thin nose pointed down to a set of pale thin lips and a finely shaped chin. His dark brunette hair was just long enough to peek out from under the edge of his black top hat and brush against one eye’s lashes. A face like that held so much emotion that his every movement betrayed some small thought that flickered past.

“My husband forced me out,” she choked out.

“That’s terrible,” the stranger said with a pitiful look on his face. “Surely you could have chosen somewhere better than this though.”

She shook her head.

“Well, I can’t have you die here in the cold. May I walk you home?”

“I don’t want to go back,” she moaned and a single tear fell from her cheek.

He looked down at her sympathetically. “I heard you earlier.”

She looked up at him in confusion.

“You prayed for an angel. You prayed for someone to come save you tonight.”

“And God answered my prayer,” she pleaded clinging to his coat. “You answered my prayer.”

“I’m not sure it was God that brought me here,” he replied looking up to the heavens.

She sighed a little as the moonlight caught the angles of his features and accentuated his jaw line. This man was impossibly gorgeous. His features were striking from all directions and equally impossibly perfect. His pale skin reflected the white moon with almost the same shade. “God must have sent you,” she barely said aloud, “because no one could ever be as stunning as you unless they were heaven-sent.”

He looked down at her with shock written all across his face.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she instantly blurted out with a great blush across her face. Her skin radiated with a feverish heat. She closed her eyes and buried herself into his collar to hide.

Something cold brushed her skin. She jumped and turned one opened eye to see the source. A frigid beautiful hand was stroking her cheek with careful tenderness. Turning her glance upward she caught his amber eyes piercing down into her.

“Maybe God sent you.”

She opened her mouth a little to speak, but couldn’t find any words to fill the gap.

“This very night I wished deep down in my heart that I wouldn’t spend tonight alone. And what do I find here, but an ethereal goddess lying helpless in my arms. What else could this be, but a night of granted fancies and fulfilled pleas?”

A silence fell over the two of them. The stars above looked down at the two faces cast in cold light staring rapt at each other’s eyes and perhaps even into their souls. Slowly, he leaned forward toward her. Without a single thought of hesitation, she closed her eyes and met him halfway. His frigid lips touched her own oven-hot ones with only a slight reserve. Gently she pressed her’s tighter against his, breathing in his scent to the point of intoxication.

Breaking apart slowly her chest heaved with energy and life. A genuine smile emerged across his visage.

“I feel as if I have loved you for a hundred centuries.”

She smiled at his statement. “There’s something about you, too. I feel as if I’ve never loved before in my life.”

Together they looked up at the slight pink of dawn on the horizon.

“I don’t want this to end,” she pouted.

He turned her face to him. “It doesn’t have to. Besides, I can’t let you go. Not after I’ve finally felt my own dead heart beat like it hasn’t for a thousand years.”

Taken in by his words, she leaned close and placed her mouth near his ear. With steamy breath she replied. “Then don’t let me go.”

“Are you sure?” he said pulling her back and gazing straight into her eyes.

“Positive.”

With that, he sank his fangs into her neck as she uttered a small cry of surprise.

“Together forever,” he said as he finally drew back. In the remains of the icy black hours of the morning, he sat with her cold pale lifeless form in his hands and across his lap.

Suddenly, her eyelids fluttered open. “Forever,” she gasped and pulled him towards her for another kiss.