Dura ka Woreki has always been a shieldmaiden of valor and duty. Fighting alongside her cousin, King Rognar, she can't imagine that she would ever have to pick between her honor and her heart. Until, in the heat of battle, her Mating Instinct awakens for an enemy soldier she has sworn to kill. When she makes an impulsive decision she can't take back, Dura saves the soldier and spirits him off into the woods where they can hide, abandoning her allegiance for the first time. Marvik Grimble has only one person in the world that he cares his sister Queen Adalind. Forced by oath to protect her abuser, the twisted King Yorian, Marvik finds himself in the middle of a war that he knows he can't win. When he is gravely injured in battle, he accepts his death, only to find himself saved by the very one that almost killed him in the first place. At first, all he wants is to escape from this strange orcress, but as he gets to know the brave and feisty Dura, he is no longer sure what he wants. Unable to go back home, they slowly fall for one another. But just as Marvik and Dura think they have found their happy end, they discover a danger that could rock the foundations of both Adrik and Orik. Can they warn the people they love and find a way to be together or will the duty they've both always carried bring their doom?