Deep in France's Swan Forest, Briar Rosalie and Achilles Leroux nurture their secret friendship. The inevitable love that sparks between them is everything Briar Rosalie wants, but Achilles is uncertain. He worries about his Briar Rose. She is naive to the ways of the outside world, and has been sheltered by her three mothers.

Achilles encourages Briar Rose to find out the truth about her real identity. What she learns is far beyond anything she expects. She hides the information from Achilles, in fear that he will not want her when he knows that she's to take her place as queen on her eighteenth birthday. She doesn't want it. Nor does she want to face her three royal sisters, notorious for their brutality, evil ways, and the slaughter of their parents.

When Achilles and his brother Paris, attend a ball at the palace with their mother and her new detestable fiance Raoul Marcourt, Achilles has a sickening run-in with the famous royal sisters. Achilles does not like that his promiscuous brother has eyes for the younger sister who shows interest in Paris as well.

After a horrid encounter with two brutes in the forest, Briar Rosalie's anonymity is no longer intact. In a turn of unfortunate luck, the brothers learn that Marcourt is appointed by the queen to lead the search for the lost, beautiful princess.

As events, both cherished and feared, begin to unfold, Briar Rosalie and Achilles find themselves in the middle of chaos, danger, secrets, a Trojan Horse, and end up face-to-face with the Dragon Queen, herself.