Cosseted heiress Keanna Backus is business-smart and street-naive. Something she's kept off her resume? That she's an untrained banshee armed with a unique-and deadly-wail. After an accident leaves Keanna with blood on her hands, she is snatched from the streets by criminals determined to weaponize the "beast" lurking within her. If Prague is a chessboard, Arwood Sayer rules one side-and he needs Keanna, his new pawn, to find his missing daughter. Forced into service alongside Arwood's henchmen, Keanna realizes that mastering her inner beast is the only way to outwit a man who is always two steps ahead of her. Her only ally is another prisoner, a mage called Silas. He's just as charismatic as he is secretive, and he has his own reasons for working with Arwood. As their forbidden relationship develops and Keanna sinks further into the world she is desperately trying to escape, she soon discovers earning her freedom may cost not just her heart-but everything she's ever known to be true.