Rosamund is an Earth Master in the Schwarzwald, the ancient Black Forest
of Germany. Since the age of 10, she has lived with her teacher, the
Hunt Master and Earth Magician of the Schwarzwald Foresters, a man she
calls "Papa." Her adoptive Papa rescued her after her original Earth
Master teacher, an old woman who lived alone in a small cottage in the
forest, was brutally murdered by werewolves. Rosa herself barely
escaped, and this terrifying incident molded the course of her future.
For like her fellow Earth Masters of the Schwarzwald Lodge, Rosa is not
a healer. Instead, her talents lead her on the more violent path of
protection and defense--"cleansing" the Earth and protecting its gentle
fae creatures from those evil beings who seek to do them harm. And so
Rosa becomes the first woman Hunt Master and the scourge of evil
creatures, with a deadly specialty in werewolves and all shapeshifters.
While visiting with a Fire Master--a friend of her mentor from the
Schwarzwald Lodge--Rosa meets a pair of Elemental Magicians from Hungary
who have come looking for help. They suspect that there is a dark power
responsible for a string of murders happening in the remote countryside
of Transylvania, but they have no proof. Rosa agrees to help them, but
there is a catch: One of the two men asking for aid is a hereditary
werewolf.
Rosa has been taught that there are three kinds of werewolves. There are
those, like the one that had murdered her teacher, who transform
themselves by use of dark magic, and also those who have been infected
by the bite of these magical werewolves--these poor victims have no
control over their transformative powers. Yet, there is a third kind:
Those who have been born with the ability to transform at will. Some
insist that certain of these hereditary werewolves are benign. But Rosa
has never encountered a benign werewolf!
Can she trust this Hungarian werewolf? Or is the Hunter destined to
become the Hunted?
