Exactly one week before my best friend's wedding, I was claimed by a man in the pouring rain-James Pierce, a fiercely protective stranger who turned my world upside down over the course of a single unprecedented night. Offering myself to him freely, he ravaged both heart and flesh and took from me what he pleased. I still have the marks on my body and an impassioned heart to prove it. But the monsters I was warned about my entire childhood, whose existence I chalked up to my father's delusions and-dare I say it-insanity, are, in fact, real. And they found me. Seizing the opportunity to strike like a serpent in the grass, they have taken me far beyond the reach of James's protective grasp. The one in charge-a man with burn scars on his face and an antique key hanging from around his neck-says he has plans for me. And come the first snowfall of winter, he promises those plans will come to fruition. But by then, it will be too late-for me, my freedom, and the life I knew before.