But she couldn't blame the terse, aggressive leader for what he'd left out—once those killer instincts had been tripped, your chances of survival were slim.
In this case, very slim indeed.
It wasn't as if a charging Kodiak was going stop midstride to determine if you were looking it directly in the eye or down at your shoes. All it cared about was ripping your belly open and feasting on your entrails.
Given what was happening right now, it seemed safe to say that alphas were no different. Maybe the government suit had been right to call alphas nothing more than animals. Judging by the menacing growl filling the air around her, making her squeeze her eyes shut in terror, this alpha was as aggressive and fearsome as any creature she'd ever faced.
The only thing left to do now was pray.
Olivia focused on her galloping heart and the knowledge that the massive beast was only inches away, his bulk blocking the sun entirely. Horrifying moments ticked past one after the next until…until…
Until nothing.
The cool autumn air around Olivia became eerily still. The birdsong that had stopped when the alpha destroyed the blind did not resume. Even the rustling of the trees was muted. The only sound was a low, threatening rumble coming from the alpha. The vibrations were so strong that they managed to travel through the ground and up into her body, overtaking her fragile stillness.
Second after torturous second stretched on, Olivia's terror preventing her from marking the passage of time. They might have stayed like that for a minute, or an hour…until the moment came when she couldn't bear the tension any longer.
In violation of every bit of training that Olivia had ever undertaken, she opened her eyes. She glanced up quickly, not daring to let her gaze travel all the way up to the alpha's face.
Nevertheless…holy shit.
Her eyes were filled with the sight of more than enough of the alpha to know that she was well and truly screwed.
The hours she'd spent observing the alpha through the telescopic lens of her camera did not do him justice. The creature standing before her right now was so much bigger, so much wider, so much more massive than he'd seemed on the tiny display screen. Vitality radiated from him in equal measure to his fury…all of it focused entirely on her.
But why hadn't he attacked? By now, Olivia would have expected to be wearing her insides on the outside, her blood seeping into the ground. As powerful as he was, the alpha could easily dispatch her with one blow, and, judging from the threatening tone of his growl, he was more than willing.
And yet, she was still breathing.
Suddenly something snapped inside Olivia. She wasn't about to spend her last remaining seconds cowering in silence. To hell with the fact that she had no way to fight back—she needed to know when the hammer was going to fall.
"I—"
That was as far as she got before the alpha cut her off, his voice as hard and sharp as any carbide blade.
"No. That's not how this is going to go."
Olivia didn't have time to respond before the alpha crouched down in front of her, his face inches from hers. Suddenly, avoiding eye contact was impossible, especially when she found herself gazing into unearthly violet irises lit with murderous rage. She flinched and nearly toppled off her stool when the alpha spoke again, so close she could feel his breath on her skin.
"You will not speak—you will not make a single fucking sound—until I ask you a question. Then the only thing you're going to say is the goddamn truth. If you lie, I will know, and I'll squash you like the fucking bug you are. Got it?"
Olivia nodded her agreement. She wasn't about to argue with him, not when she had the chance to stay alive for just a few more minutes.
"Good," the alpha growled. "Then tell me, who do you work for?"
Shit.
Really? That was the question he'd decided to lead with? Not who are you? or what are you doing here? No, the alpha had to choose the one question Olivia couldn't answer.
Her mind raced through a dozen responses, desperate to come up with an answer that wouldn't incite him to even greater anger, but her panicked mind rejected them all.
"Answer me." Though he didn't raise his voice, its tone was deadly.
There was nothing for it. Olivia saw no other option but to tell him the truth and face the consequences.
"I don't know," she mumbled.
It was the wrong answer. The baleful energy pouring off of the alpha intensified, his hands tightening into fists at his side. "I warned you what would happen if you lie."
Olivia opened her mouth to try to convince him that she wasn't lying, but she never had the chance. The alpha's arm shot out, and his huge hand wrapped around her throat.
She waited for him to crush her larynx and cut off her oxygen. But the creature wasn't content with simply killing her—apparently, he wanted her to appreciate his power over her first.
One second, she was sitting on her stool, and the next, she was swooped up in the air to dangle like a fish on a line. She kicked at the air and pawed at his hand around her neck, but it was useless.
Oh God…this was it. This was the end.
Olivia gave up and simply grasped the alpha's arm for support, instinctually trying to stop him from strangling her. But after a second of pure panic, she realized she didn't need to. The alpha was supporting her by the nape, careful not to crush her windpipe.
He held her effortlessly, close enough to look her straight in the eye. She didn't dare look away. Instead, she found herself cataloging his features like she might a rare bird, committing them to memory while she tried not to be swayed by their raw beauty.
His skin was a sun-burnished brown, with tiny lines around his eyes and mouth speaking to years in the sun. She guessed he was several years older than her from the silver glint of his beard's shadow. His hair was going silver around the temples, too, while the rest of it was an inky charcoal and luxuriantly thick, falling over his broad forehead to graze his brow. His nose was narrow, flaring to tapered nostrils, and his chin was broad and pronounced, the combination suggesting a Norse god.
But most arresting were his eyes, a purplish shade like the crushed petals of a violet, with a halo of silver that seemed to pulse with energy. If she had encountered this creature in the wild, it was those eyes she would have focused on, praying that her camera would capture what she saw.
But when those eyes narrowed in rage, Olivia remembered that the alpha was waiting for a response.
"I'm not lying." Somehow, she had recaptured her voice, and the truth poured out of her. "I swear to God. I have no idea who sent me out here. I'm pretty sure they were government, but they refused to identify themselves. All they told me was that they'd kill my family and me if I didn't do what they wanted. Please, don't kill me. I'm telling you the truth."
The alpha's expression shifted only slightly as Olivia spoke, incredulity replacing some of his fury, his mouth tightening. But when he spoke, his question was nothing she would have expected in a thousand years.
"You're a woman?"
Olivia tried not to let the alpha see how stunned she was by the question as she continued to dangle in his grip. Okay, so she wasn't some curvy pinup model, especially in this shapeless tactical suit, but it still should have been pretty obvious.
Then again, maybe not. Her hair and everything but her eyes were covered by a hood. The scent blockers infused through the special material made the suit stiff, obscuring her body. Even her voice was muffled by fear and the constriction of her neck.
The alpha pulled her in closer as if to get a better look.
But when his nostrils flared, and he drew in a deep breath, Olivia realized it wasn't a closer look he wanted—but an opportunity to smell her. She froze, not even daring to breathe.
Apparently, he was satisfied with whatever he detected because he released his grip on her, and she dropped to the ground in a heap.
So he wasn't going to strangle her—but that didn't rule out his whol
e squash-her-like-a-bug plan. Just to be on the safe side, Olivia scuttled a few feet away from him.
But the alpha had already turned away and was striding purposefully toward the wreckage of the blind. Rummaging through the debris, he picked up items one by one, examining them closely before discarding them into a growing pile.
Only a few things merited his further attention. Her sleeping bag was one; her rations another. But it was the hard black briefcase that seemed to interest him the most.
"What's this?" he demanded, without bothering to turn around and face her.
Olivia knew better than to tell him she didn't know again. "They told me it's the satellite relay equipment. It's locked, though, so I couldn't open it."
The alpha gave a dismissive huff before tearing the secured case open. Pieces of the steel locking mechanism shattered, falling to the ground. Whatever he saw inside made him scowl and toss the case onto the pile with enough force that it splintered.
"You say you have no idea who sent you here." Finally, he turned and looked at her directly.
"It's the truth." The hairs on the back of Olivia's arms stood up, and icy fear returned. There was something about his expression…something horribly wrong.
The alpha slowly walked back to where she was huddled on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees. This time when he crouched down, he was holding something in his hand.
He held it up in front of her face, so close that all Olivia could make out was a grainy photograph of herself.
"Then explain this to me," he growled, shoving the object into her hand.
Olivia looked down to see that she held a plastic ID card attached to a black lanyard. Printed under her photograph was her name…and the words Homeland Security — Alpha Control Division.
Chapter Three
Olivia J. Fowler.
That's what the block letters on the plastic nametag had spelled out—but Gray was having a hard time connecting such a pretty name to the camo-covered spy standing in front of him.
He'd been tricked by so many details—the blocky cut of her suit, the scent blockers covering every inch of material, even the rage roaring in his ears had managed to drown out the feminine lilt in her voice—but those eyes of hers should have been a dead giveaway.
Two pale hazel orbs, wide and round with long, soft lashes that fluttered as she stared down at the ID in her hand.
Her…she.
The fact that the spy was a woman made no sense. So, Gray did what he always did when presented with too much information to process at once: he compartmentalized the hell out of it. He stopped gawking at those depthless, long-lashed eyes, put aside the gender of the interloper, and focused on the real problem in front of him.
As an alpha, Gray had an arsenal of powerful senses at his disposal, but his finely tuned sense of smell was chief among them. He liked to think its sharpness came from growing up in his parents' restaurant. Gray could name every herb in a sauce from its aroma by the age of six—and as an adult, he could detect an intruder from farther away than any other alpha in the uplands.
But not today.
It was a disorienting experience not being able to smell someone who was inches away. Worse than not sensing her distinct individual scent was not being able to detect the shifts in her energy. Shit, he couldn't pick up a damned thing at all.
Whatever was in her head-to-toe gear—and from the look of it, Gray was certain it was military—it was too damned effective.
Over the course of the past year, he'd heard the stories that drifted up from the southern lowlands of the beta military breaking the treaties and illegally trespassing on alpha property. At first, Gray had thought they were just that—stories.
But when the most recent visitors from the south had spoken to him in detail about the technology that had made the intruders nearly imperceptible, he'd had no choice but to take their accounts seriously.
One key word had given him hope—nearly. The lowlanders' descriptions had made it clear that though the betas had come close to perfecting the technology, they weren't quite there yet. Up until now, the scent blockers the betas had used emitted a light but distinct chemical trace, and their lowland brothers had been able to catch every beta bastard who had dared cross over their borders.
But whatever this intruder was using was different. There was no chemical scent coming off her, not even up close. There was no trace of sweat or beta stench. There was nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Whatever this new technology was, it was frighteningly effective…and it was everywhere. The blind he'd destroyed, the ridiculously awkward suit she was wearing, every piece of equipment he'd examined, it was all the same—completely undetectable.
Rage sparked anew in deep inside Gray's belly, sharpened and heightened by this assault on his pride. There was a reason Gray was the de facto leader of his settlement—in the two decades he'd lived there, no one had ever beat him in a fight or a test of skills, until, eventually, no one even bothered to try.
To be bested by a beta, however, was a humiliation he wouldn't stand for.
It was bad enough to be spied on, to have his sacred privacy violated by a being so far beneath him. If Gray hadn't been desperate for answers, this intruder would already be dead by now, shredded and scattered on the ground for the vultures to find.
It shouldn't matter that she was a woman. A breach of this magnitude made her the lowest form of humanity...but it was also damned confusing.
Betas were notoriously protective of their women. Though ‘protective’ wasn't quite the right word, since so many of them mistreated or abused their mates. It would be more accurate to say that male betas were greedy, endlessly trying to keep the female population under tight control and close at hand.
They sure as hell didn't arm them with highly classified technology and send them off alone on dangerous missions to the Boundarylands.
"Where is the rest of your group?" Gray demanded roughly, scanning the trees around them.
"I-I don't understand," she said, her voice quavering as she stared at the badge. "That isn't mine. I mean, that's my picture, and that's my name, but I've never seen it before, and I definitely don't work for Homeland Security."
"I know they're out here," Gray tried again, letting his anger show. "Tell me now, and you might survive this."
"I don't know who you're talking about," the woman stammered. "I don't understand any of this or why I'm mixed up in it. I'm a wildlife photographer."
Gray pressed his lips together in annoyance. She wasn't listening to him, wasn't answering his questions, barely seemed to be paying attention. Whoever she was, she was either stupid, or she hadn't been trained for shit.
He stuffed the ID in his pocket in disgust. Questioning her was pointless. It didn't matter which division of the beta government she worked for, after all, and he didn't give a shit about whatever flimsy cover story she'd worked up. All he cared about was getting her the hell off his land.
If this little lying spy wouldn't give him the answers he wanted, then he'd figure it out himself.
Gray stood up and tilted his head slightly, listening for the faint electronic beep that had led him here. It struck him as strange that, having outfitted her with such advanced scent-blocking technology, her handlers had missed such a critical detail.
Had it not been for that beeping—a sound that was too high pitched for any beta ears to hear—Gray might never have known that she was here.
He turned in a slow circle, vigilantly scanning for anything out of place…but there was nothing. No sounds of breathing, no whispers, no footfalls. Nothing but the ordinary sounds of the forest.
That, and the faint rustling of the woman's suit as she shivered in fear.
Gray's disgust deepened. What kind of spy behaved like this when they were caught? Still, he disliked watching a woman cowering pathetically in front of him, so he reached down and grabbed her by the upper arm. The suit's fabric was substantial and odd to
the touch. Gray couldn't figure out why until he realized it was impervious to the heat from her body, and it somehow muffled even her pulse. Just as with the scent blockers, the fabric worked to conceal the person underneath.
"You may be a photographer," he muttered, "and that may even be why you're on my land. But we both know you're not here to photograph any fucking nature. Now listen carefully, because this is your last chance to tell me the truth. Are you really alone out here?"
"So far as I know," she said. "The men who escorted me here left as soon as they'd unloaded the gear."
Then they were the smart ones, Gray thought—but also despicable cowards for leaving a woman to fend for herself. "When?"
"Three days ago."
Three days?
This woman had been spying on Gray for three entire days, and he'd had no idea. He hadn't a single clue that there had been someone watching his every move.
"Why?"
The woman was visibly upset by the question, her long, dark lashes fluttering.
"I don't know why they picked Wednesday," she said carefully. "I guess it just fit their schedule."
Was she being fucking serious?
"You know that's not what I meant," Gray growled, his body tensing with anger. In response, the woman shrank from him, but it gave him little satisfaction. "Why did they send you out here?"
Her eyes grew even larger. "To take pictures. That's all they told me—just take as many pictures of you as I could."
Now it was Gray's turn to be confused. The beta government went to all this trouble and expense just to take a few pictures of him on his land? It didn't make sense.
Gray bent down to pick up the discarded camera and examined it for several seconds before thrusting it toward the woman. "Turn it on."
She pressed a button, and the screen came to life. "You can use the arrow button on the side to scroll through the pictures if you want."
Gray did so, and sure enough, it was exactly as the spy said. She wasn't lying—at least, not about this. Snapshot after snapshot showed him going about his business: walking out on his front porch in the morning, hanging his laundry on the line to dry, unloading his truck after a trip to pick up supplies. She'd even captured half a dozen shots of him replacing a rusty screw on the screen door.
Gray: The Boundarylands Omegaverse: M/F Alpha Omega Romance Page 2
