Iris Davenport hates the memories that come with world-shaking thunderstorms. She doesn't want to remember she's a member of the Hunt. She's perfectly happy with her adopted parents, helping run the lodge on Smokeytop Mountain, exploring the mountainside and working search-and-rescue. The last thing she wants is to face one of the Hunt and be reminded of the vows her parents made when they gave her to the guardianship of the Hounds of Hamin.

Then a plane taking a sick boy to a life-saving operation crash-lands on Smokeytop in a thunderstorm. One of the searchers who come to the lodge is a member of the Hunt, and he reminds her of everything she hoped to forget. She has her own life now—a home, friends, parents, and a boyfriend. She's not willing to give anything up for a world she barely remembers.

The past catches up with them in the form of a traitor to the Hunt. Pieces of an old puzzle threaten to get her and her boyfriend killed if they don't find all the clues in time.