A child is still missing. Chaos between two old friends erupts. Elders, bloodmates, and vampires are being murdered in mass attacks by mutated breeds. Only three guardians and one Elder remain. Dimitri de Fiammetta, a guardian all his life, knows no other way to live. He's fought and killed to protect his race. The only family he accepts are those he's fought with, side by side. When the prophet is born, many changes come in the midst of a war. While duty to the race comes first and protecting the last Elder and the prophet are his number one concern, one duty Dimitri doesn't believe he can handle is to test for, find, and bond with his bloodmate. He can resist, but can he fight a link forged in blood no matter how much he believes it is wrong? Claudia Wyborn, a bloodmate taken in and protected after the death of her family, has accepted her new life and the new role she has within the compound of the Guardians. Meeting Dimitri, she's fascinated by him, awakening a childhood fantasy of being swept away by her vampire, a Guardian, when Guardians had before been forbidden to bond and regarded as something horrible.