that was hard to resist.
Olivia wasn't quite ready to admit that her feelings toward him had softened. But that look? Yeah, that look was all right—especially when he bent down and picked her up again, nestling her comfortably in his arms.
She couldn't deny that she fit perfectly there—but when he headed for the front door, a frisson of worry returned. She'd almost forgotten about the trip that couldn't be put off.
"Where exactly are we going?"
"To the roadhouse."
"You woke me up to take me to a bar?" Olivia lifted her head enough to shoot him a glare.
"It's more than a damn bar. And I promise you, I wouldn't be taking you there unless it was absolutely necessary."
Olivia sighed and waited to be deposited into the passenger seat of the alpha's truck.
"They must serve one hell of a beer there," she muttered, mostly to herself.
"Actually, it sucks," he said before shutting the door.
Chapter Fourteen
The alpha was right. The beer did suck. It wasn't the worst Olivia had ever tasted—but it was close.
At least it was cold…ish.
After only a few sips, Olivia was beginning to think that maybe this sub-par beer was the real reason alphas were so grumpy. Maybe if they had access to an ice-cold glass of craft ale that didn't taste like bear piss, they might cheer up a little.
But as it was, every alpha in the place was most definitely on edge, including hers.
Gray, Olivia reminded herself. Her alpha had a name, and it was Gray.
When they entered the bar, a couple of younger alphas called out a greeting from over by the pool table. At first, Olivia thought it might have been a nickname referencing the few strands of silver hair at his temple. But when she heard everyone call him that, including the bartender, she figured it must be his real name.
Olivia felt a twinge of guilt for refusing to learn his name or anything else about him earlier. It seemed petty now, a stupid gesture that only served as evidence that she had no one to blame for her current situation except the betas who brought her here, so she'd taken it out on the one man who'd helped her instead.
Still, she reminded herself, she'd been acting in self-defense—at least, at first. She'd fought him with her fists when escape still seemed possible, and then with her words to keep an emotional distance that was getting harder and harder to maintain.
Who would have guessed that the latter would prove even more impossible than the former?
Olivia slid her barstool a little deeper into the darkness at the end of the bar where Gray had set her down. It was bad enough being carried in like a sack of groceries, and if she'd had the energy, she would have rebelled—but she wasn't about to draw even more attention to herself.
Besides, it wasn't like Gray would have listened. If there was one thing that she'd learned during her time here in the Boundarylands, it was that no one was more stubborn than an alpha.
She could forgive him that—but what she couldn't forgive was being left there alone to endure being stared at by every alpha in the place as she was a fresh piece of meat. In the course of her career, Olivia had stared down a female lion protecting her cub and a nest of pythons she accidentally disturbed. Right now, she'd take either of those over this barroom full of alphas.
The hairs on the back of Olivia's neck had stood on end when they entered the plain, dark roadhouse. Every head in the place had turned their way, their sharp eyes all zeroed in on her.
There were so damn many of them. Three dozen at least—Olivia hadn't even known that many alphas lived in the northern part of the Pacific Boundarylands.
One possessive growl from Gray, though, was all it took for the alphas to avert their eyes and return to their conversations. Once he had her settled at the bar with this sad excuse of a beer, he had gone off to talk to them all, leaving her feeling alone and exposed.
He never went farther than a few steps away, and he checked on her every moment or two, catching her eye with a faint nod to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her. She tried to hear what he and the others were saying but was only able to catch snippets of their conversations—the ones that were so important that had to drag her here when