When Detective Brettoni Rhodes is assigned to investigate a murder that occurred in the desert outside his city, he doesn’t anticipate the victim to be a man straight out of his past. Nor is he at all prepared to find cluess that the murderer could be an old lover he hasn’t seen for twelve years. An old lover who, once they reconnect, isn’t interested in staying an ex. With Luca Baino going from old lover to new lover all over again, Brett struggles with whether they’re on the path to something real. And if it they are, what then? Because in the desert city of DaSunder, death is the punishment for murder and Luca’s conjuring abilities have put him at the top of a very short list of suspects. In order to save the man he loves, Brett would have to go against the laws he’s sworn to uphold. But with evidence stacking up against Luca and conjured creatures appearing in the city, Brett doesn’t know if he can protect Luca...or whether he should even try.

Medical Examiner Salain Dusari doesn’t like chaos. He prefers things clean and uncomplicated, like the dead. Yet, when he discovers a yellow maze painted on one of his corpses, he gets everything but uncomplicated in the form of the Maze Killer—a serial killer reemerged to haunt the city once more. But that’s not the only person returning to haunt Salain. Detective Arman Omisto, Salain’s old lover, and his partner, Detective Jevette Tunalti, arrive to give the case another crack, bringing a desert’s expanse of memories and lust with them. Between the two detectives, only one is truly excited to see Salain. Problem is, it’s the wrong man. With Jevette seemingly uninterested in smoothing old hurts, Salain doesn’t think he has a chance of convincing him that the one night they spent together had been the real thing. Yet, when the hunt for the serial killer turns deadly and they only have each other to turn to, he thinks they might just find the trust they need in order to risk their hearts all over again. But with danger blowing in like a sandstorm, violent and sudden, neither of them might live long enough for it to matter.