From gifted storyteller Julia Phillips Smith comes a darkly seductive tale of vampire horror, where creatures of the darkness are engaged in a bloody battle for supremacy in a Dark Age world... It is a time when only an elite brotherhood of immortal warriors stands between humans and vampires, preventing the complete annihilation of the human race. Who are called to this service? Only those warriors who curse God with their dying breath.... Bold and courageous Welsh warrior Peredur is one such man. He falls to a spear on a raging battlefield before he can claim his beloved Tanwen for his bride. In those final moments Peredur utters the curse that seals his fate and leads him to another life. Using the power of a saint whose bone makes up an amulet, Peredur takes on the trials to become a true member of the brotherhood-and wage war against the dangerous prowling creatures of the night. Yet his need for Tanwen still burns.... Tanwen resists her father's command to take a husband. The only one who understands her sorrow is Cavan, the wise woman's son. When he promises to use dark forces to reunite her with her beloved, she agrees to his terms. But does Tanwen truly understand the depth of the price that must be paid?

No one is safe when the dragon glides low over the Eighth Dominion. Not the high born who plot and spill blood. Not the low born who serve with one eye to the sky and the other glancing back. Young Scorpius is fetched from the estate nursery, once raised to live among the nobility--claimed finally not by his family, but by a falconer to serve as his apprentice. Scorpius soon learns that a noble hides his monstrous appetites beneath velvet and jewels, while the leathery-winged dragon is honest about his own. His master does his best to shield Scorpius from the world outside their cottage, but the falconer is merely a servant who must obey his own masters. An attempt on the life of a young lord while on a hunt sends the falconer's apprentice on an abruptly different path, bringing Scorpius into the service of the House of Pruzhnino. Court intrigue sinks its talons into everyone, even Scorpius--especially a former falconer's apprentice once raised to be a lord in his own right.