Bethanie Hutchinson, a young woman without a family, finds a sense of belonging living and caring for her beloved barn owls on the campus of Ferra College in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She has reached her final year of her studies when strange things begin to happen. A mythological skinwalker is terrorizing the campus and complicating the lives of those who make their homes there. Shadow Walker is a man without a tribe in a world that labels him too white to be native and too native to be white. Making his living as a maverick instructor at Ferra College, his search for a life of purpose is nearly complete until he meets Bethanie. He offers her refuge from the looming threat of the skinwalker and finds his attraction to her simply too hard to resist. But can he let go of his past and make room for Bethanie in his hardened heart? And if Bethanie allows herself to be taken care of for the first time in her life, will she be able to accept the passion this dangerously sexy man offers her? Or will her fear prevent her from having the family she has always dreamed of?