A dragon shifter stirs and wakens deep in the Scottish Highlands. His cave is the same and his hoard intact, yet something's badly amiss. Lachlan ventures above ground—and wishes he hadn't. His castle is gone, replaced by ungainly row houses. Men aren't wearing plaids, and women scarcely wear anything at all, particularly the woman who accosts him with unseemly banter. What manner of wench is she to dress so provocatively?

In Inverness for a year on a psychiatry fellowship, Dr. Maggie Hibbins watches an oddly dressed man pick his way out of a thicket. He looks so lost—and so unbelievably, knock-out gorgeous—she takes a chance and stands him a meal. Lachlan's shock when he picks up a local newspaper is so palpable, Maggie jumps in with both feet.

The hard-to-accept truth bashes gaping holes in her equilibrium. He looks odd, sounds odd, acts odd because he's a refugee from another era. Born of powerful witches, Maggie runs headlong into the myth and magic that are her birthright.