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Alex couldn’t see her. They were too far up, the snow too thick in the darkness, for her to make out anything much farther than the nose of the plane. These were dangerous conditions to fly in—potentially deadly—but Alex knew this terrain intimately. She followed Kade’s directions, practically able to anticipate the path Luna was tracking along the Koyukuk, the most logical route the Ancient would have taken into the bush.

“Keep following the river,” Kade told her. “The trail is getting fresher now. We’re gaining on him.”

Alex nodded, focusing on her flying and the heavy gusts that blew down off the Brooks Range as they pushed farther north along the frozen river below. Although she could barely see the icy ribbon of water, she knew that they were coming up on a spot where the fleeing Ancient would have been forced to make a choice: stay low to the ground and trust the thickening woodlands to conceal him from pursuit, or veer to the west and take his flight to higher terrain, up into the craggy ridges of the mountains. Neither option would provide the best landing conditions, but in this weather, there was little more treacherous than attempting a short landing on high, potentially unstable rock.

“The trail is turning,” Kade announced. “We need to bank left.”

“Okay,” Alex replied, sending up a silent prayer as she changed course away from the river and headed toward the mountain range instead. “Hang on, everyone. There are going to be some bumps as we turn into the headwinds.”

“How you doing up there?” Tegan asked from behind her. “You sure you can handle this?”

“Piece of cake,” she said—not quite the truth—and felt Kade’s hand slide over to brush hers.

It felt good, the contact of his touch. Even though she still carried the chilling vision of what she’d seen in the woods, her stomach still coiled with ice from that experience and the even greater terror of having seen the Ancient at Jenna’s cabin, Alex could not deny her feelings for Kade. He was the one person who knew her, better than any other now. Despite everything that had occurred between them and around them, her heart could not completely seal itself off from the comfort that only he could give her.

Some of the betrayal and anger she’d had for Kade and the rest of his kind had melted when she’d seen how he and his friends from the Order had handled the awful situation at the cabin. Kade had been tender and loving with Alex, respectful and considerate with Jenna. The other warriors had been, too. Especially the one called Brock, who had stayed behind to tend to Jenna.

It was difficult to reconcile a race of beings that could show so much humanity yet belong to the same ruthless, otherworldly line as the creature that had killed Zach and so many others in recent days. Or the blood-addicted Rogues who’d killed her mom and little brother. Or the twin Kade had been too ashamed to admit he had until Alex had seen Seth’s savagery for herself.

But Kade and the other Breed males he’d introduced her to were different. They were good men, regardless of the genes that made them something other—something more—than men.

They had honor.

Kade did, too. And now, as she flew him and his brethren of the Order through a patch of gusty air, toward the jagged crag of the mountain and an imminent battle with a creature not of this world, she only hoped that she and Kade would have the chance to sort out the tangled mess of what they meant to each other. She could only pray there would be some kind of future waiting for them on the other side of the danger that lay ahead right now.

“Luna’s tracking the Ancient’s scent up the base of the mountain,” Kade said from beside her. “Ah, shit … it’s rough rock and it’s damned steep. Son of a bitch is escaping up the ridge. We’re gonna lose him on the mountain.”

“Just tell me where Luna’s heading,” Alex said. “I’ll worry about getting us there.”

She flew the plane along the dark ridge, following Kade’s directions, straining to see through the windscreen as the fine flakes of snow danced and rolled in her