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I gave her a small encouraging nod.

"Go ahead. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Enjoy yourself."

Taryn accepted his invitation and allowed him to escort her onto the floor, although she managed one final glance toward the black-winged stranger before disappearing into the dancers.

I shook my head, smiling.

She'd probably spend the entire ride home asking whether I'd spoken to him.

I intended to tell her I hadn't.

That resolution lasted approximately thirty seconds.

Across the ballroom, the stranger stepped away from the guests who'd been admiring his costume. He moved toward the edge of the dance floor, his wings drawing inward as people passed behind him.

Then he looked at me again.

My pulse quickened.

Up close, he would be imposing, but that wasn't what kept me looking. I'd spent the whole evening enjoying the freedom of being someone no one knew, and here was a stranger who seemed not to care what the room expected of him. I wanted to hear him speak to me.

I took another sip of sparkling water, though my attention kept returning to him.

The music changed to something slower and more intimate. Couples moved closer together beneath the chandeliers, their costumes brushing against one another as the musicians settled into a seductive rhythm.

He stayed near the edge of the dance floor, leaving enough space between us for me to decide whether to cross it.

I felt suddenly, wonderfully nervous.

I could stay beside the window and let the opportunity pass, which was what I usually did when something unexpected threatened to disrupt a perfectly good plan.

Instead, I could walk up to a man whose name I didn't know, wearing wings that might have stepped out of the gothic novels I'd read beneath the covers as a girl, and ask him to dance.

I wasn't promising him anything. I just wanted to see what happened when I followed an impulse instead of talking myself out of it.

I set my glass on a nearby table.

The stranger watched as I made my way toward him.

A couple passed between us, momentarily blocking my view. When they moved aside, he was still standing there, his masked face turned toward me.

He smiled as I approached, and for a moment I forgot the clever thing I'd intended to say.

At this distance, the feathers looked almost impossibly soft. His bare chest was broad and muscular, the dark markings across it more intricate than anything I'd seen in a tattoo. Half his face was hidden behind the black mask, and the rest slipped in and out of the chandelier light, but his attention was unmistakable.

He towered over me, even in my heels.

I tilted my head to meet his gaze.

"That's an incredible costume," I said. "I've been watching those wings from across the room, and I still can't figure out how you've made them move."

He studied me with an expression I couldn't quite read beneath the mask.

"Have you come up with a theory?"