Strength can be drawn from pain...if the heart can heal faster than it bleeds. Dara Khan Androcles was trained from childhood to be a healer. But as a demon-possessed invader threatens Safehold, and she defends a wounded warrior on the battlefield, her hidden inner dragon thirsts for blood. When she lifts the warrior's blond, blood-encrusted hair away from his ear, she discovers he is more than King Hengist's outlander ally. He is an immortal. The elven heir to the throne of Cymry. Loren ta Cedric senses something different about flame-haired, falcon-eyed woman who saves him. A healer, wreathed in raw, dark power, who wields knives with deadly skill. A mortal who prays to the Lady, not the human gods. Now he owes this thoroughly distracting female a Life-Debt. Which, in the heat of their flight to Loren's homeland to raise an army, somehow becomes Life-Mate. Dragon-human and elf, peasant and prince, logic says they have no future. Yet the power of their unlikely bond could be the only thing that saves their world from a demon poised to tear it apart.