Academia can be ruthless. Academia in Russia... can be perilous. An internship overseas at a Moscow university becomes so much more when Ella Trigiani is invited on an expedition to the Gobi Desert. Torn between her mammalian studies and the opportunity for real fieldwork experience, she joins the search for an elusive and deadly creature most consider the stuff of legends. Led by what may or may not be love, driven by what is definitely ambition, will Ella thrive or become one more secret lost beneath the sands?