In early nineteenth-century England, long before he's a professor at the Tulsa House of Night, Bryan Lankford is a troublesome yet talented human teen who thinks he can get away with anything-- until his father, a wealthy nobleman, has finally had enough, and banishes him to America. When Bryan is Marked by a vampire on the docks and given the choice between the London House of Night and the dragon-prowed ship to America, he chooses the dragon-- a new name and a brand new fate.