A savage Florida storm brings them together. But before Mala Bey can respond to the challenge in Laird Jaeger's black eyes and muscular body, he's sucked into the Everglades. She fears for this shadow man's life and despairs of seeing him again, but that night, his essence, his power, reaches out to ensnare her...

He seems to exist only in her sex-starved imagination, and yet his message is overpowering. He needs her as much as she does him. Only she can save him. Beset by equal amounts of fear and the need to feel him inside her, she begins a search that takes her into the past...toward her warrior mate.