A floorboard creaked behind him. Ben whirled and saw her in the doorway. Flecks of snow were in her hair. And her eyes…they were golden now.
The gold of a vampire.
But when he looked at her, Ben just saw his angel.
“Merry Christmas,” Simone whispered.
Ben could only stare at her.
“Hey!” Cale’s voice cracked with excitement. “It’s my angel!”
Simone shook her head. Sadness flashed in her eyes. “Not anymore…”
Ben ran toward her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could. She was real against him. Warm. Not a dream. Not a memory.
“Always,” he said as he squeezed her, and he knew the squeeze was probably way too hard. “You’ll always be my angel.” Ben kissed her. Deep and hard, wild and desperate. With passion. With love. With everything that he had.
Because to Ben, Simone was everything. Every hope. Every dream. The reason he had to fight the darkness.
She tasted like heaven. Her arms wrapped around him. She met his kiss with the same wild hunger that consumed Ben.
His hands slid over her back. He caressed her delicate muscles and—
Ben lifted his head. “Your wings?”
Her golden gaze held his. “It was a fair trade.”
He wasn’t so sure. “I’m not worth them.”
“To me…” Her fingers slid over his jaw. “You’re worth everything.”
The cold air blew in behind her. The snow was falling again.
“Um, are you two…like a thing?” Cale asked nervously.
Ben dropped to his knees before Simone. This was so long overdue. He pulled the ring box from his pocket. “I kept this…it was all I had of you.” He opened the box. The ring gleamed. A ring he’d had made just for her.
The woman who’d stolen his heart, and held it tightly for ten years.
He lifted the box toward her. “Will you marry me?”
Simone smiled at him. A smile that lit her whole face, and had made Ben’s heart race in his chest. “Yes,” she said, laughing. “Always—yes!” Then she tackled him.
Ben fell back onto the hard floor, and he found himself laughing as she held him. The cold didn’t matter. The darkness he’d known—it was gone. There was only light.
Love.
Hope.
There was only Simone.
He hugged her, keeping Simone close to his heart, and Ben knew that he’d just been given the best gift of all. A second chance, with the one woman who made his vampire life worth living.