Man, too, is a primal creature, though he binds himself with the chains named Reason and Law, locked link by link from birth. Yet, those locks can be opened, the links broken, in both the savage world of the street-slum, and in the gilded cages of nobility.

One such creature is the countess-to-be, Alia duBois, who crouches within her golden jail, a puma waiting paitently to maul her captors...