Justin Sterling is a loner. Formerly Justinian, Lord Sterling, he has lived for centuries in, but not of, our world, serving an ancient entity known only as the Dragon. Justin's reward is immortality, but to keep it he must keep killing. He has grown to hate his interminable life, soaked in blood, almost as much as he fears the hideous death that will be his if he refuses to do the Dragon's bidding.

Sandra McCormick is also a loner. A dedicated Chicago cop, fleeing a twisted past as a victim of abuse, McCormick devotes her scant free time to studying the martial arts--and occasionally cruising the grunge and punk nightclubs for anonymous one-night stands.

These two loners are about to meet.

Lieutenant McCormick has been assigned a high-profile case. Two men are dead. One a lawyer, one a cop. Both murdered in a mysterious and particularly gruesome manner--their still-beating hearts literally torn from their chests.

It was Justin who killed the cop, after another disciple bungled the lawyer's death. Now Justin must eliminate the second cop assigned to the case. It little matters that she's a woman. He has done the Dragon's bidding for so long that the slaughter has become routine.

But there is something different about this assignment--for both the cop and the disciple. It is a difference they both reject, and then embrace more and more passionately as the closing circle of Destiny draws them together.

For these two dedicated killers, these two confirmed loners, each assigned to stalk the other . . . are falling in love.

And love is the one vice the Dragon does not allow.