An adventurer unlike any other - the Raptor .. he boldly embraced the passion and violence of an empire as corrupt as it was magnificent. An abandoned waif, the blond, gray-eyed Goth was called simply Thorn. From his unorthodox sexual awakening in a monastery and a convent to his exciting journey across Europe in search of his people, he would learn a warrior's skills and the cunning of a survivor. And amidst it all a stunning secret would mark him forever as an outsider who knew too deeply and too well all the hidden desires of men's - and women's - hearts. In the great cities of a dying empire on the battlefields of Roman legions, and the opulent palaces of potentates and kings, Thorn would witness human beings at their most brutal andtheir most noble. His incomparable adventure bring to electrifying life a vanished age never again matched for its doers of great deeds .. and of chilling revenge.