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Decadent Rome at the dawn of the Dark Ages is mired in crumbling grandeur. Now, into the Eternal City comes Regeane, a beautiful young woman distantly related, through her dead mother, to Charlemagne. Regeane's regal blood renders her an unwilling pawn in the struggle for political power. But unknown to those plotting against her, the blood she has inherited from her murdered father makes her much more than a child of royalty. Possessed of preternatural agility and strength, primal memories extending back thousands of years, and senses so keen they can pierce the veil of death itself, Regeane is a shapeshifter: woman and wolf, hunter and hunted.

Betrothed by Charlemagne's command to a barbarian lord she has never seen, Regeane is surrounded by enemies. The most notorious, her depraved uncle and guardian, will not scruple to betray her to the Church unless she aids him in his sinister schemes. And if the Church discovers her secret, Regeane will burn at the stake. Yet Regeane finds allies as well: Lucilla, rumored to be the private courtesan of Pope Hadrian himself; Antonius, a wise and gentle soul trapped within a body grotesquely disfigured by disease; and the little Saxon girl Elfgifa, brave beyond her years, with a tongue as sharp as a blade.

Outside the gates of Rome, baying on the moonlit expanses of the Campagna, there is a mysterious dark wolf whose scent makes the animal in Regeane tremble with desire. Now, as an infamous stranger prepares to claim his bride, deadly plots and counter plots tighten like a noose around her neck, Regeane must fight to live with dignity as the proud creature she is: civilized and savage, woman and wolf, partaking of both yet infinitely more than either...

The fearsome legions of Julius Caesar have crushed resistance to Roman rule. Watching the tragic aftermath through yellow eyes afire with curiosity and intelligence is Maeniel, a gray wolf... and a shapeshifter unaware of his preternatural duality. But a new Maeniel is about to be born from the ruins.

The sight of the beautiful Imona fills Maeniel with unfamiliar feelings and desires, triggering his transformation from wolf to man. In her arms he learns what it means to love. It is a knowledge that will change him forever. When Imona vanishes, Maeniel follows her trail--unaware that he is being pursued by a warrior-woman sworn to kill him. But the hunt upon which the two adversaries embark will lead them farther than they can imagine: to the gates of Rome itself - to the gates of their very souls...

The armies of Charlemagne are poised to conquer Italy. The human side of shapeshifter Maeniel owes allegiance to Charlemagne. But the wolf acknowledges no master. Still, it is as both wolf and man that he embarks on a hazardous mission for the emperor. Captured, Maeniel is condemned to death.

Now, with the help of a Saxon warrior whose love poses dangers of its own, Maeniel's soul mate, Regeane, will brave the icy crags and crevices of the Alps to rescue her husband, only to find that he is the bait in a trap set for her by a villainous man from her darkest past. But there is another enemy at work. Behind the tangle of ambitions and animosities driving kings and commoners alike, an ancient evil thirsts for a revenge of its own: a revenge that demands the blood of Maeniel and Regeane... and of all humanity.