Deceit and desire, and a treasure beyond price... When struggling Scottish writer Nell Black accepts a one-off job with the police, translating for an arson suspect from the isolated ex-Soviet republic of Zavrekestan, she stumbles into a terrifying world of organized crime and paranormal abilities that turns her whole belief system upside down. Faced with an incomparable thief, hit men who spontaneously combust, gangsters, drug dealers, British Intelligence and a fiery goddess, Nell no longer knows who to trust. The man who saves her life is a criminal to whom deceit is second nature. He has more smoke screens and more plans in motion than anyone else can keep track of. He is, moreover, probably insane. Even his fellow gangsters are afraid of him. So why is he the one man Nell wants to touch her? Rodion Kosar is in trouble. His convoluted plans all lead to one goal - the retrieval of his treasure - and to achieve that, he needs Nell to believe he isn't the bad guy. He has many reasons beyond his own desires to make love to her. Especially when a plan goes wrong and he has to play dead before someone really kills him - either the police, the menacing Russian crime lord known as the Bear, or the powerful Guardian of the Gifted whom he's defied once too often. Nell's burgeoning gift of second sight could be his best route to the treasure, and yet keeping her with him spells danger. For Nell has her own agenda, her own mission, and she could just as easily cause his final downfall.

Darkness and light in one dangerous, irresistible stranger... Down to earth psychologist Jenna Hunt arrives in obscure Zavrekestan to find her missing friend, Nell, last seen with notorious gangster Rodion Kosar. But nothing goes the way Jen intended. Complete strangers want to harm her. She shoots one man and travels with another who may or may not be the elusive Kosar, but who's constantly pursued by armed secret police. Dangerous attraction flares, adding excitement as well as unexpected fun to her search. But Jen's dark, mysterious travelling companion is both gifted and cursed. A powerful healer with blood on his conscience and a terrible tragedy in his past, he's now suffering agonies whenever he exercises his gift, and in this he's not alone. As Jen is drawn deeper into his world of radical dissidents and the paranormally gifted, she discovers the terrors of a ruthless government which will stop at nothing to hold onto power. She finds herself risking all to help the very people she came to rescue Nell from, and neither common sense nor principles can keep her from the arms of the sexy, tormented Nikolai.