Decades ago, a businessman drilled into the earth looking for a new source of fuel, and unwittingly released dragons. The beasts proceeded to destroy the world, and although all but one were killed, far more people were lost in the effort. When the destruction more or less settled, a triumphant group of nine men emerged from the ground. They claimed that they had found a way to control the Cursed One, as the final, immortal dragon was now called, and anyone who wished to live had to seek protection in the nine city-states the men would now set up on the only continent still populated by people. Now, fifty years later, Commander Jason Chase rules his city of Baalboden as a tyrant. The rules he set up years ago set strict gender roles that cannot be broken. Women must have a Protector, and are expected to behave docilely and obediently.
But Rachel Adams doesn't fit the mold of the ordinary Baalbodenese sixteen-year-old girl. Her father, the city's best courier, trained her in fighting, and she's fierce, independent, and the exact opposite of what Baalboden girls are supposed to be like. Unfortunately, Jared Adams has gone missing on a mission to Rowansmark, a rival city-state, and the Commander has declared him dead. At the reading of Jared's will, Rachel expects that her Protectorship will be assigned to Oliver, an old baker who has been like a grandfather to her, but instead, her fate ends up in the hands of Logan McEntire, Jared's inventor apprentice, who two years ago Rachel confessed love to, and he shut her out. They haven't really spoken since, and now they're expected to live under the same roof, see each other every day, and work together. They both want Jared back, and they both suspect that the official declaration of Jared's death is not at all reality. So much stands in their way, mostly the result of the Commander and his regime. Rachel can't stop thinking about her lost father. Logan can't get the image of his mother, dead at the hands of the Commander thirteen years ago, out of his head. Written in two perspectives, Defiance tells the story of these two young adults trying to get back what's important to them and looking for a life together.