What Blooms At Midnight

One

"You need to be held? Hmm?" My voice is kept soft and soothing as the trembling Angel I've coaxed from the depths of a disastrous fate nuzzles his sweet face into the crook of my neck while I gather him closer to me.

I get the most watery of nods as he straddles my lap in order to better his cling to me, my arms securing him as I allow myself to sink down onto the crisp but dusty grass, no care being shown to my clothes that had been so carefully tailored and embroidered as I rock the two of us back and forth in an effort to ease the tremors rocking my slight mate... Its all too easy to let myself get lost in the softness of the body pressing against mine as my dearest one weeps into my shoulder to relieve the tension and fear stored in his body.

"I can do that, Love. I can hold you as long as you need me to."

What a shock it must have been for this beautiful creature when he lost control of his horse... So lucky he was that I caught his scent on the breeze when I set out for my late afternoon stroll.

I had wasted no time setting out to find him, overwhelmed by the power his delicate floral scent as I followed it through the fruit trees that have added beauty and happiness to my palace gardens for nearly a century now and had been horrifically delighted to find this ashen human beauty struggling to slow the beast he was astride.

Slowing the horse had been no matter at all, the reigns easily caught, the rampaging animal brought to a stop with a firm hand, all the while being conscious and careful of my strength so as not to harm the beast.

The delicate young man that had been trying so hard to stay upright and somewhat in control had slid himself right off of the saddle and into my arms the moment I was able to pull the two of them to a stop which brings us to where we are now, the horse tied to the tree next to us while I hold the tender beauty close to me, encouraging him to take in deep draws of my scent in order to calm himself.

I'm not sure the slight human understands why he can't seem to get enough of my smell into his lungs... But there will be so much time to explain things to him... What it means go belong to me... To a vampire... But for now, I focus on his comfort...

On stroking his soft raven ringlets while he sniffles away and works through his residual fright... On the heartbeat pounding so swiftly away in his warm chest... The heat radiating off of his body...

Oh, how I have longed for this... For the sweet creature currently in my arms...

And now he's here, made known to me by a chance of fate and a runaway horse.

...
Jasper
...

I should have known better than to try and go riding by myself... Anything to get out from under Mama's thumb and Grandmama's reproachful gaze.

They keep insisting that fresh air and sunshine will do me some good... That it'll strengthen my countenance and help keep me healthy... But so far today the only thing that being outside has accomplished is nearly breaking my neck. Normally Annabeth, my speckled mare, is quite gentle and even-tempered... She would have had to be in order for us to make the massive undertaking of moving to the farm not so far from the palace grounds, the place that I am almost certain that I'm collapsed in now... But something had spooked the poor girl and now we're both the worse for it.

My weak heart is never up for a rough ride, and even now as it pounds away in my chest I can feel it trying to skip every other beat as the man whom I hope is one of the neighbors I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet and not someone who plans to turn out my pockets once my tremors have slowed enough for me to stand on my own... Or worse... Someone who works at the Palace or one of the Noblemen that wanders the palace's majestic halls.

"It's alright, Love. Just focus on trying to breathe... I've got you now..." A gentle hand finds its way to my currently free-flowing hair and encourages me to nestle closer to the comforting shoulder supporting my cheek, the ribbon that had tied it back surely strung up in one of the trees that had whipped by me so quickly on my mad dash across our property to wherever I currently am by now.

It seems so easy to lean into the cool hard chest of the man cradling me so carefully... The way he brings his lips to rest just out of reach of my ear to croon to me and lingering there as if there's something else he wants to say before pulling away and resting his chin atop my head.

It's much harder than it should be to try and ease myself away from the kind stranger that had rescued me from Annabeth's stampede, but eventually, I'm able to pull away from the broad chest I'm resting against, his hands sliding to my hips and stopping me from slipping off of his lap.

...
Edmund
...

The most stunning of dark sapphire eyes greet me when my beauty tries to pull away from me... I cannot resist the urge to stop him... To keep him on my lap while we examine each other truly for the first time...

Oh, the way his stunning face flushes when my palm finds its way up to caress his cheek... I do my best to commit his visage to memory... The soft fullness of his face... The freckles that dance their way across the delicate bridge of his nose... The fullness of his cupid's bow lips... From the slimness of his shoulders and the fullness of his hips to the sheer beauty that has stolen all breath from my old body, he could almost be mistaken for a woman if his scent wasn't so unmistakenly male. He could have had no gender at all and I would still be absolutely elated over the discovery of him in all of his gorgeous splendor, tremble harder though he might as he breaks the eye contact that shakes both of us to our very cores, his hand coming up to gently lay itself over mine while my thumb strokes the softest cheek I've ever had the pleasure of touching.

Who would have thought that so close to my coronation this Prince would find his Princess... A beautiful human who needs riding lessons and more importantly a hot cup of tea to warm his soul and soothe his nerves over the trauma he had only just been rescued from.