Centuries ago...two ageless and terrifying races -- the aristocratic vampires and the feral lycans -- are bound by a cruel, ancestral relationship between master and servant, and eternally separated by the ongoing, violent rivalry between their two species. But unknown to both nobility and enslaved alike, a clandestine -- and forbidden -- affair between the lycan servant Lucian and the beautiful vampire noblewoman Sonja burns brightly with an unbridled passion. Seeking to escape Sonja's tyrannical father, Viktor, and a future in which their love is considered an abomination, Lucian risks the ever-present machinations of the court and his very life to cast himself and his beloved free of their bonds...a daring tactic that will eventually give all lycans the courage to rise up against their oppressive vampire overlords. New alliances are forged even as the chains of slavery are broken...and all that Lucian and Sonja hold dear will be threatened with utter annihilation....