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spacious quarters with a muted glow. Alex seemed anxious somehow, walking through the place like a whirlwind and talking too fast. "I want you to make yourself at home, Jen. Relax for a minute in the living room, if you like. I'll get you some fresh clothes and start the shower for you. Unless you'd rather close your eyes for a little while? I could give you one of Kade's T-shirts to sleep in and turn down the bed for you."
    "Alex."
    She disappeared into the adjacent bedroom, still talking a mile a minute. "Are you hungry? Would you like me to fix you something to eat?"
    Jenna walked over to the open doorway. "Tell me what's going on here. I mean, what's really going on."
    Finally, Alex paused.
    She pivoted her head around and just stared for what felt like a full minute of silence.
    "I want to know," Jenna said. "Damn it, I need to know. Please, Alex, as my friend. Tell me the truth."
    Alex stared at her, let out a long exhalation as she slowly shook her head. "Oh, Jen. There's so much you don't know. Things I didn't know myself until just a couple of weeks ago, after Kade showed up in Harmony."
    Jenna stood there, watching her normally frank and forthright friend struggle for words. "Tell me, Alex. What is this all about?"
    "Vampires, Jen." The word was whispered, but Alex's gaze didn't waver. "You know they're real now. You saw that for yourself. But what you don't know is that they're not like we've been taught to believe from movies and horror novels."
    Jenna scoffed. "That thing that attacked me was pretty horrific."
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    "I know," Alex continued, imploring now. "I can't excuse what the Ancient did to you. But hear me out. There are others of his kind that are not so different from us, Jen. On the surface, of course, we aren't quite the same.
    They have different needs for survival, but deep down, there is a core of humanity inside them. They have families and friends. They are capable of incredible love and kindness and honor. Just like us, there is good and bad among them, too."
    It wasn't that long ago--a mere week, in fact--that Jenna would have burst out laughing at hearing something so outlandish as what Alex was telling her now.
    But everything had changed since then. A week ago felt like a century from where she was standing now. Jenna couldn't laugh, couldn't even muster a word of denial as Alex went on, explaining how the Breed, as they preferred to be called, had come to exist and then thrive for thousands of years in the shadows of the human world.
    Jenna could only listen as Alex told her how the Order had been founded centuries ago by Lucan and a handful of others, most of whom were long dead. The men headquartered in this compound were all warriors, including Kade and Brock, even the charmingly geekish Gideon. They were Breed, preternatural and deadly. They were something other , just as Jenna's instincts had told her.
    To a man, the Order's members, then as now, had pledged themselves to provide protection for both the human race and the Breed, their mission hunting down blood-addicted vampires called Rogues.
    Jenna held her breath when Alex softly confessed that when she was a child in Florida, her mother and younger brother were attacked and killed by Rogues. Alex and her father had narrowly escaped with their lives. "The story we told everyone about my mom and Richie when we moved to Harmony was just that, Jen. A story. It was a lie we both wanted to believe. I think Dad eventually did, and then the Alzheimer's took care of the rest. I almost could have believed our lie, too, until the killings began up in Alaska.
    Then I knew. I couldn't run from the truth anymore. I had to face it."
    Jenna closed her eyes, letting all of these incredible realizations settle on her shoulders like a heavy cloak. She could hardly dismiss what she'd been through, no more than she could dismiss the raw pain of her best friend's experience as a child. Alex's ordeal was in her past, thankfully. She had carried on. She had