Lawrence is one of the council assassins, perhaps the one who ended up with the worst ability—he's a snake shifter, and he secretes his venom even in his human form. He's never been able to eliminate it entirely from his saliva and bloodstream, and that means he's made sure to stay away from sex and hookups as much as possible—until now. When he's sent to kidnap the son of Gavin White, the man experimenting on shifters, he discovers Griffith is his mate. Griffith is a geneticist. He works for a shifter-owned company that tries to help the shifters and humans who were experimented on by the Glass Research Company. When he's kidnapped by a cute blond who tells him his father is doing the opposite—experimenting on shifters to turn them into war machines—he's horrified, and he wants to help. Lawrence has no idea what to do with the knowledge that Griffith is his mate. They can't bond, not with the venom in Lawrence's saliva, so he decides not to tell Griffith about it. He hasn't counted on Griffith's stubbornness, though, and when he has to rush to help his mate, he knows he won't be able to stay away, even though it would be the right thing to do.