Julian Savage, twin brother to Aidan (Dark Gold) is sent by Mikhail and Gregori to protect Desari, a Carpathian and a singer who is being stalked by human vampire hunters. The entire band - Desari and her brother Darius, Barack, Dayan and Syndil - are Carpathians, long lost as very young children centuries before.

As soon as he hears Desari sing, he knows she is his lifemate: he can see in colour again, and his whole being comes alive. No longer does he wish to meet the dawn and end his life. But she didn't grow up in the company and culture of other Carpathians, and knows nothing about lifemates. While they outrun the hunters, Julian must convince her of the bond between them.

There's something addictive about these books. The plots are thin, the writing is flowery and repetitive (and descriptions don't always make sense), the characters are pretty much always the same... and yet. And yet I keep reading them.

It must have something to do with a formula that works. You've got the dark, powerful, tormented sexy man and the sweet and lively woman (with a tiny waist - always). You've got a story that's really all about the intense emotional (and sexual) connection between them that's loosely supported by the structure of a very simple plot, and that's probably what sucks me in. These women are everything to the men. The stories are unrealistic, unnatural really - but this is fantasy, the characters aren't really human, and so new rules come into play. It's ingenious, really.

Julian brings some humour to this story; like his brother, he's less brooding and temperamental than most of the Carpathian males, but still very sexual in an intense, possessive way. Desari has more of a backbone than most of Feehan's heroines, though the end result is always the same.