Jesse Collins may be the only one of his kind. It's not easy being a half Landian, half human on the Confederation of Planets' world Sparta, especially when your human father was actually a vampire. Adopted at the age of 12, Jesse grows up in a military family and follows his older adoptive brother Anton into a special military unit called the Shadowmen. The Shadowmen are tasked with being a front line unit in the expected war with Landa. Although Provine has a small group of people who had experience with Landians, none seem willing to share their knowledge with Jesse. Going to the vampires for information was out of the question. They believe the offspring of vampires, known as dhampirs, should be killed for being able to walk in the sun. While waiting for the team to be activated, Jesse moves to Freetown, a city south of the Spartan capital Provine, to attend college for his engineering degree. He's drawn to the large werewolf population there. Rooming with several, he learns more about preternaturals than he would have had he stayed in Provine. What he learned was it wasn't a good thing to have a werewolf stalk you.