The Cooper Brothers Camden ~ Find me BOOK ONE

I don’t know exactly when it happened. Maybe it was the first time I saw him leap down the stone steps of West Lake University as easily as the sun rises at dawn after a long night, illuminating the sky with warm, shimmering rays.

Or perhaps it was the way he ran his hand through his dark, full hair, trying to tuck an unruly strand behind his ear. The gesture felt as natural as raindrops dripping from the leaves of a fern before sinking gently into the moss below to become one with the earth.

More likely, it was his deep, scratchy voice that captured me right away. It reminded me of a cold winter evening in a snow-covered cabin hidden deep in an enchanted forest—as smoky and billowing as the embers of a slowly dying campfire.

Then again, it could have been his appearance. Tall and virile, his perfectly sculpted frame was muscular and resilient. Invincible, yet somehow vulnerable and lost. Maybe it was his inked skin that drew me in and fascinated me, each tattoo whispering its own story. Or perhaps it was his dismissive and rejecting behavior that made him even more interesting.

I have never met anyone who could go from being open, carefree, and almost exuberant when unobserved to being grim and intimidating in the blink of an eye. Ultimately, his disapproving frown made him seem as inscrutable and dangerous as the utter coldness of universal darkness.

I can pinpoint the exact second he came into my life, and I knew my future would never be the way I had planned. My path changed the moment he entered the picture.

Yet, sometimes the most unexpected, unplanned encounters are worth everything. Worth living and dying for. Sometimes the most irrational choices are the ones worth making.

Maybe fate brought us together. Maybe we belong together like chalk and cheese. Maybe I was born to find him, love him, and heal him. He was the dark prince of aloofness, the master of solitude and self-destruction. A phantom, locked away in the depths of his own castle, surrounded by thorns so high and thick that no one could reach him.

It was a place he thought was safe, believing he was doomed to bear his fate alone forever. Until I came along and slowly thawed his frozen heart with the love I carried for him. I was under his spell, completely overtaken and overwhelmed by his darkness.

When someone messes with your head so badly that you can’t think straight anymore, every decision is based on raw emotion—even when you know it’s the wrong choice, it remains the only one you can make. The only one that feels worth making.

How do you cope with being so emotionally drained that you can barely function? When the pain of his absence is a physical ache, you find yourself willing to do anything to numb the emptiness inside. You know that even when everything seems to be working against you, there is only one direction left to move. To be with him, no matter what.

When the whole world is against you, then it’s just us. We against all odds.