PROLOGUE
It had happened all too quickly.
Too engrossed in her reading, Usagi failed to notice the red Mercedes speeding her way. It wasn't until the honking of the driver's horn, catching her attention, did she finally lift her face from the pages of her book.
Suddenly aware of her seemingly inevitable demise, she stopped dead in her tracks, paralyzed with fear, and eyes impossibly wide.
The book that had left her spellbound just seconds ago was now the last thing on her mind as it slipped from her grasp, hitting asphalt.
Legs unmoving, she accepted her fate. With eyes squeezed tightly shut, she waited for the painful impact she knew was to come.
It never came.
Seconds passed, but that expected gut-wrenching pain never occurred. Her fear soon shaped into an overwhelming curiosity, so slowly she opened her eyes, and there stood before her, the figure of a man.
A tall man of handsome features; one may perhaps even go as far as to say that he was the definition of masculinity.
Her first instinct was to thank him profusely for having saved her life, but before the words could pass her lips, a sudden sense of confusion struck her.
Thinking back, she could not recall the feel of his body freeing her from harm's way. In yet there she stood, in one piece, before a man whom she believed now held the title as her savior.
Taking note of her surroundings, she found that she was back on the sidewalk, within the same location. Other than the memory of her near death scene, and the fact that she no longer held that nearly life-costing book in hand, there was no sign that the near accident ever occurred.
But she knew otherwise. That intense feeling of horror with the realization that today would be her last day on Earth… that feeling would be forever engraved in her memory.
Then there was that man…
Turning back, she was shocked to find him nowhere in sight.
She was alone.