The ultimate sacrifice, a love that lasts forever ] Five hundred years ago, facing extinction, a group of powerful witches united to create a pact with the Were to save witch-kind. The pact expelled an ancient evil, known only as the Darkness, that was blocking the Were from their wolves. With the Darkness destroyed, the Packs and their Covens grew strong as they thrived beside each other in their brand-new world. But the Darkness was not destroyed. Shelley Conners has good reason to hate and fear the powers that connect her to the spirit world and the insanity they foretell. But with the Pack's Trickster, Adam McVale, transformed into a Shade, a creature caught between life and death, Shelley holds the only key to saving him. Opening herself up to the world of the dead will only speed up her descent into madness, but Shelley never expects an even darker evil within - the Darkness, waiting patiently for her and the opportunity to destroy the world.