Tired and footsore, they scrambled up to the top of the ridge just as the sky in the east began to lighten 'Take a good look,' Rana Shaan-Bahadur said. 'And welcome to your new home Taboo Valley!' Rana Shaan-Bahadur, alpha-male tiger of Sher-Kila National Park feted around the world after being filmed by a wildlife photographer is also father to four cubs, Hasti, Masti, Phasti and Zafraan.

When their mother, the beauteous Raat-ki-Rani falls to a poacher's bullets, Shaan-Bahadur suddenly finds himself a single parent, a matter of great shame for a male tiger. To escape the taunts of the other tigers, he moves to the dreaded Taboo Valley, an abandoned area with a dark history inside the national park. But Khoon-Pyaasa, the poacher, is on the prowl, determined to kill the magnificent Shaan-Bahadur, as are Shaan's rivals for the position of alpha-male. And deadliest of them all,