Elthrinn and Gorren are not a match made in fate. 

Gorren is the youngest prince of a family that rules a nation of shapeshifters. He is forced to marry Elthrinn for respectability's sake, to please his father, to forge an alliance. She is forced to marry Gorren to protect the people that she loves, because she has no other choice. Her uncle, ruler of her country, will imprison and torture anyone she holds dear if she doesn't comply with his demands. 

Elthrinn, innocent in nature and torn from the chaste life of a priestess, has to learn to live in an entirely new culture, as well as adjust to married life. Gorren has to learn to accept her differences, and the impact that they have on everyone around him.

Somewhere along that journey of discovery, they fall in love, but that love might not survive a treachery that threatens to destroy everything that they know and love.