She never thought her ability to communicate with wild animals was anything more than a unique gift. But this gift is tied to a long history of secrets that threaten to shatter her one chance at true love... Laken Sumner isn't your average teenager. Ever since she realized that wild animals could hear her thoughts, she's spent more time in the woods with them than with other children. Even her wolf is a better friend to her than most people. She trusts him-so much so that she follows him out into the wilderness in the middle of the night to find a lost little boy. But the boy's disappearance...

Eighteen-year-old Laken Sumner has just escaped from a stranger and a pack of wolves in the dark rain on a lonely mountain road. Normally, with her ability to communicate with wild animals, who can understand her thoughts, she wouldn't worry about encountering the predators. But these wolves didn't respond to her. She tries to shrug it off, afraid to reveal her fears to Noah, her boyfriend and the deputy sheriff. But that's not all she's hiding. Drawn to Xander Payne, like a moth to a flame, she warns herself to stay away from him. She's convinced he knows something, and she doesn't trust...

On her own since Noah walked away, Laken finds her resistance to Xander crumbling. As she turns to him for comfort, the stranger in the woods reappears, threatening Xander and his father, Caleb. When Caleb reveals the secrets he and Xander have been protecting, Laken realizes she must stop at nothing to help them defeat the stranger. But Xander eludes him, and Laken is captured instead. Facing an unknown fate at the hands of a mad man driven by greed and jealousy, she resolves to fight to the bitter end for her life and her love. The stakes are high, and no one, including Dakota, is safe....