Prologue, Pt. 1

I should have known better than to walk into the woods that evening. I'm normally not the kind of girl who lets herself get wrapped up in circumstances that might result in regret and I'm certainly not what many people would consider easily lovestruck. I went to college alone, within the city, only coming back to my hometown of Lancaster, PA on breaks and during summers when I needed to earn money instead of taking extra classes. Maybe I shouldn't have gone so long in-between relationships or stayed at school during fall break to find myself instead of returning home. Whatever the case, I will go to my deathbed saying that there was a damn good reason I found myself dodging tree limbs and dashing across the fallen autumn foliage that evening.

I blame it on the fact that he was perfect; the most gorgeous creature I'd ever seen before, with all of the right physical attributes in all of the right places. Boyishly handsome and tall, his long hair was a stunning brown color I didn't know existed in nature – reddish-brown with a hint of golden when the light hit it the right way. It was tied back when he walked into the bar and shot me a gaze with eyes the same color as his handsome locks. He looked strong, but gentle; toned without being stocky. And the moment he spoke, the faded European accent seduced me right into the palm of his hand.

He told me his name was Corey. It could have been Lucifer for all I cared. When he sat at the counter of my parents' tavern, he ordered a drink and immediately asked for my name after introducing himself. As I said, I'm typically a more cautious woman, but there was something about him; something that disarmed me and coaxed the answer from my lips as I placed the beer bottle onto the hardwood counter. “Charlotte,” I said, intending to leave it at that. But that was before he clutched my hand and stopped me from turning away.

“Tell me more about you, Charlotte,” he said. His eyes were pleading. The tone used to say those words sounded so inviting that I was spellbound. “It's been so long since I've talked to a woman like you that I'd almost forgotten what it feels like.”

The line could have been taken out of every guy's classic 'bullshit a woman out of her clothing' book, but Corey stated it sincerely. His attire might have been clean and modern – a simple, long-sleeved white shirt with a pair of blue jeans and brown boots – but there was a naïve innocence to him as well that seemed to separate him from the rest of the world, like this was the first time in a long time he'd come down upon our planet to interact with us. The brown coat he wore was made from leather and almost looked to be handcrafted. It reminded me of a Native American's handiwork, but there was nothing native about the white boy before me.

Corey had me too intrigued for me to back down now.

“What do you want to know?” I asked, sliding my hand away from his in favor of placing it on my hip.

He smiled. “How did a woman like you end up serving drinks in a place like this?”

I huffed a chuckle. “What do you mean by a woman like me?”

“You seem different than these people. Brighter than them.”

“Well,” I began, but the complement caused me to blush despite myself. Clearing my throat, I looked away from Corey quickly before glancing back at him again in time to catch a perked eyebrow from the stranger. “My parents own this place,” I said. “I help them out when I'm not at college.”

“Your parents run this establishment?”

“Yup. I am one of the Walkers of Walker's Tavern infamy.”

“Charlotte Walker.” He grinned to himself, tasting my name in his mouth while gazing around the tavern. “That's a beautiful name.” His eyes shot back to me as though he realized belatedly that he looked away. “Good Charlotte Walker, how old are you?”

“I'm twenty-one. And you?”

“Older than I look.” Corey winked. “And younger than I feel. Which makes me a bit beyond age at this point. I know, it's a confusing answer, but it's the best one I can offer you. Where I come from, things like this stop being relevant.” He finally acknowledged the beer I placed before him, pausing to take a long drink of it before setting it back down again.

“Where you come from?”

“My home, yes.”

“And where is that?”

“Close,” he said, his eyes drifting coyly to the wooden bar. “Probably forty miles north of this place.”

“It's nothing but woods in that direction.”

“Woods and a few rural communities.”

“I'm trying to figure out where age would be irrelevant.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I studied him as he looked back at me again. “You can't be Amish,” I said. “Your accent isn't right.”

Corey chortled one quick, abrupt laugh and shook his head. “No, no, no. Not Amish. And the accent is from France, where I was born.” His eyes lifted upward as he pursed his lips in thought. “Come to think of it, though, the Amish are not much different than us, in some respects.”

“How so?”

“We're a cloistered community as well.” He raised his hand, flipping it from side to side as he stared at the ceiling. “Sort of close, but not close at the same time. My community is a little more nomadic.”

I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “Gypsies, right?”

When Corey's eyes met mine again, his smile overtook his entire face, illuminating it with delight. He nodded. “Yes, gypsies. Very good. That's what we are.” However, saying the words reminded him of something and caused the grin to fade, taking the invisible light with it. It struck me as peculiar – almost making me wish I could provoke him to do it again to see if the same thing happened – but when he spoke again, the heaviness of heart that cast a cloud upon him drew my attention away from lighting tricks for the time being. “I've had to leave them,” he said with a sigh. “For now, possibly for a long time. I'm not sure when I'll be ready to face them again.”

I furrowed my brow at him and frowned. “Why did you have to leave them, Corey?”

Corey waved his hand dismissively. “It's not worth talking about. They're stuck in their ways and I'm stuck in mine. Perhaps one day, we'll see eye-to-eye, but for now it's a hopeless cause.”

The melancholy remained pronounced on his face as he finished off the rest of his drink. Without thinking about what I was doing, I patted his hand reassuringly and leaned against the counter. He was so beautiful. God, why did he have to be so beautiful? It made me sad to see him unhappy. “You know, I sort of know what you're going through,” I said. “Not so much in being alienated from an entire group, but I'm the black sheep of my family.”

Corey made eye contact with me again. “But, you're one of the infamous Walkers.”

I chuckled. The response forced a wan smile from Corey. “Yes, I am,” I said. “But I'm an outcast just the same. My parents are Catholics and I'm an atheist. Well, no. . . that's not entirely true.” I sighed. “I don't know what I believe right now, but I'm not one of them any longer. Ever since my father found that out, coming home has been very difficult.” I looked away and shook my head. “Truth be known, I'd rather be anywhere else right now.”

Part of me couldn't understand why I'd just bared my soul to a complete stranger, with something that I'd never told to my closest friend let alone anyone else. However, Corey nodded sympathetically and looked at me with a gentle, soothing gaze. “Why aren't you somewhere else, then?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Because I love my family.”

“I love my family, too. I know your pain. I wanted to be away from them as well, but stayed with them until they forced me to leave home.”

“Why did they force you to leave?”

When he hesitated again, I feared he'd try to change the subject again. However, Corey forced himself to take a deep breath and exhaled it. “You're too easy to speak with,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow. When his fingertips moved, I became aware that my hand was still touching his and so I slid it away. Carefully. Just so that it seemed accidental. “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“I want to tell you secrets,” he said, the corner of his mouth curling upward. “Things I'm not supposed to tell other people.”

“I won't say anything to anybody. I don't have anyone else to tell.”

“My people are hard to understand from your point of view. There are some of us who assimilate themselves into your culture, but the pa. . .” Corey forced himself to stop. “The people I belong to are isolationist. This is why they live away from civilization. They do not trust outsiders at all.”

“Which is what makes you the black sheep?”

Corey nodded. His smile became brighter again. “I like your people. You have so much charm and vitality. I don't know why they think your kind are wicked when I've had the chance to see so many of you with so much to teach people like us. I learned this all when I ran away several years ago, which made returning home so difficult. I returned, though. And they. . .”

I leaned closer to Corey. “They what?”

He fought against the frown this time by holding my gaze captive, as if using my eyes to keep a subdued grin upon his face. “They were arranging to have me marry a woman, so that I would not leave. I'd spoken with the elders about integrating with the outside world and they feared I was about to flee again. Marriage ties you to the community.”

“They wanted you to marry someone you didn't love?” I shook my head. “That's terrible.”

“Yes, they did,” Corey said. The shimmer returned to his eyes to accompany his melancholy smile. “Why do you care, Charlotte?”

“Well, I just think that it's an injustice, you know.” I nodded, adamant. “Nobody should be forced to marry someone they don't want to be with.”

“Why not?”

“Because, you don't love them.”

“Well, I'd never been in love.”

“Neither have I. But, it's the principle of the matter.”

Corey sighed. “With my people, love is irrelevant, too. You marry to have children. Love in marriage is a concept that belongs to the outsiders, they say.”

“Weren't any of them ever outsiders?”

“Some were. I wasn't. I was born a. . . gypsy.”

I shook my head and sighed, trying to wrap my head around this world of his while still not fully understanding who they were. “I just don't get it,” I said to him. “What kind of people they are. It's no wonder you wanted to get away from that, if they were trying to dictate how you should get married.”

“I would like for it to change. This is what I tried to tell them, that the outsiders have set the right example even if they are flawed.” For a moment, I wondered what he was going to say or do next as he got quiet and lost in his thoughts. However, when his ethereal brown eyes met mine again, a strange premonition came over me, making the background noise of the other patrons seem pushed into the background all of a sudden. I'm not sure when his hand shifted over to touch mine again, but I could sense his fingertips upon me and my breathing slowed beyond my own volition. “And you, good Charlotte Walker,” he said, cocking his head slightly eschew to size me up. “You have always been an outsider. And yet, have never been in love?”

“Love is complicated,” I said.

Corey nodded. “I agree. Even more so when there's something special you're looking for. I wish I would have. . .”

He stopped suddenly, but our eyes remain locked. My voice was strangely quiet when I spoke again. “You wish you would have what?”

His smile turned subdued again. “What I mean to say is. . .” As if the man could not possibly look more endearing, a slight blush developed on his cheeks. “I have only just started to talk to you, and here we are, kindred people. I wouldn't have minded even the arranged marriage if she would have been like you.”

I smirked. “You don't know someone like me,” I said. “I'm a firecracker. It sounds like the kind of woman you're used to are the calm, demur type. I'm a lot more feisty than that.”

“Feisty is good.” His hand slid up to my wrist and stopped. “I think a man should want a woman that speaks her mind.” Corey leaned forward in his chair, drawing me a bit closer to him again. “Do you know what I can tell about you, Charlotte?”

I shook my head. “What can you tell?”

“That you would be a breath of fresh air every morning. One wouldn't know what to expect from day to day.” He smiled. “I like that about you. It's something I could certainly let myself get used to.”

From my point of view, I was mesmerized and at the time, I had no idea when I got tangled into Corey's spell. All I knew was that I could feel him gently caressing the skin of my wrist and every compulsion I should have had to back away was overridden by the thought that no one had ever touched me like that. I'd slept with a few men before, knew what it was like to desire someone and picked up my share of guys at the bars I frequented at college. But I didn't want half of them as much as I wanted Corey. It wasn't because of his looks, although that alone had me from hello. It was that Corey's soul was so transparent that it made me wonder if he was wrapping his fingers around my psyche and enchanting me with the same magic that caused his face to shine or darken depending on his mood.

His supernatural wiles drew me closer still until his breath hit my face and our lips hovered inches apart. No, it wasn't all Corey's doing. I could feel it in my bones. He might have been provoking it, but I responded and I was the one who closed the gap between us and touched his lips with mine. The kiss started off tentatively, but became a bit deeper for a few seconds. Just long enough for me to taste him and want more.

Corey pulled away from me and opened his eyes just as I opened mine. “Why did you do that?” he asked in a whisper.

“Because I wanted to,” I said in the same tone of voice. “I'm a bit impulsive as well, I guess.”

“You sound like a woman finding herself for the first time.”

“Funny, that's exactly how I feel.”

“Does this mean you do not normally kiss strange men?” Corey smirked.

I chuckled and blushed a bit. “Not unless I'm drunk, no.”

“And you are not drunk right now?”

“I suppose it depends upon what you mean by drunk.”

When he reached up to touch the side of my face – to brush my short, brown hair away – I closed my eyes as if on impulse and opened them only when he cupped my chin in his hand. “If I asked you a question, would you answer it honestly,” he whispered again, “Charlotte Walker?”

“Yes, I would,” I said.

“Do you believe in destiny?”

“I don't know what I believe.”

Corey chuckled. “The undecided atheist. I forgot.” He nodded. “Fair enough. I have a proposition for you, but you will have to determine what you believe in order to accept or reject it. Are you ready? ”

I nodded and listened intently.

“If you think there might be a reason why I've come to this place and why we've met one another, then I can show you my world. I can bring you in – not to my people, but just you and I away from this place – and let you know my secrets.” The hand upon my face ran down my neck and caused me to shiver. But I refused to look away. “You sense it, don't you?”

I had no idea what he meant, but I knew the answer just the same. “Yes, I do.”

“I'm not a gypsy.”

“I know you're not.”

“It was an apt comparison. I can show you what I really am though, Charlotte. Do you wish to know?”

I nodded despite myself.

Corey nodded in response. “Do you believe in destiny?” he asked again.

“Yes, I do,” I said. All at once, an aching feeling bubbled to the surface with a door opening in front of me, showing me some place I was supposed to be while letting me know I was stuck in this ordinary world for now. Corey's dimension stood on the other side of the doorway and called for me to step though and I wanted to step through. I wanted to taste more. I stood upon the precipice and was ready to take his hand and explore his realm with him.

“Come and find me when you're done with work, Charlotte. I'll be waiting for you.”

I furrowed my brow, intending to ask him what he meant and how I'd find him, but the moment the question formed in my mind, I heard the answer clear as day.

'I want to show you a little magic. You'll know what to do when the time comes.'

He let go of my face and produced his wallet to slap the money for his beer onto the counter. Our eyes remained fixated on one another throughout the whole motion, even when he slipped the wallet back into his pocket and stood to leave the tavern. I wrestled with the notion of telling him to stop and vaulting the counter so that we could depart together, but something prevented me from following through with the motion. Within seconds, Corey departed and I was left standing there, dizzy after the whirlwind conversation with my newfound mystery man.

Under normal circumstances, I might have shaken off the hypnotism or the seduction or whatever that was, but for some reason I felt special now. Untouchable. No, he wasn't a gypsy, he was so much more than that.

And he was willing to show me what truly did exist out there.



Prologue, Pt. 2