Merrick MacLochlainn is a powerful Druzai sorcerer who must pass through nearly 1000 years' time, and travel to 1826 Cumbria to find a special stone, an object of power that is his people's only weapon in combating a vicious sorceress. Eilinora's attack has already begun, so he must hurry and find the hidden stone, and use no magic while he is in the human world, else he draw the enemy to him. But he is injured when he arrives, and awakens to find that he cannot remember who he is or recognize his beautiful young wife Jenny eating. Only Jenny is not his wife. She's a desperate woman who has just escaped an abusive situation to go in search of a thief who stole her only valuable, an heirloom locket given to her by her mother - unaware that it contains the stone. When she comes across Merrik, Jenny seizes upon the safety and protection being his wife would afford her. Though their marriage was to be only temporary, the two strangers discover a passion impossible to deny.