Gray (The Boundarylands #10) - Callie Rhodes Page 0,41

he said, as calmly as he could. "I'm just…thinking, like I said."

"Sulking," she corrected him.

Gray's hands tightened on the steering wheel. As much as he'd like to sit around having this pointless argument with her, he had more immediate concerns. Problems that had come to his doorstep first but now threatened to spread out into the community. Problems he'd be expected to help solve.

Gray liked his life quiet. He appreciated stillness and calm—in his truck, in his home, in his work. When his community was experiencing any kind of threat, he retreated into the peace of his own home to think things over for a few days before taking his conclusions and plans back to the pack.

He'd never had to deal with anyone interrupting his process, either by questioning and pushing him, or teasing and tempting him.

But maybe that just what he needed—someone to light a fire under his ass and make him see things a new way.

The uplands had faced plenty of problems before, but nothing on this scale. Maybe having someone to discuss these weighty matters with—especially someone as smart as Olivia—wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Gray sighed, knowing there was only one way to find out. "I'm not admitting to sulking. But I will say that this is the first time in a long time that I…can't figure out what to do next."

He sensed a subtle shift, an easing, in Olivia as she relaxed into the seat next to him. Obviously, she had been waiting for him to reach this conclusion and was ready for the conversation. "I take it we're not talking about the bite anymore."

"No, the betas. Between the scent blockers and their plans to throw this whole damn settlement into chaos and starve us out this winter, I'm worried this might be more than I can handle on my own."

Olivia burst into laughter unexpectedly, lightening the atmosphere in the truck like the sun melting the ice from the puddles on cold autumn mornings. "Of course you can't do it all by yourself. Whatever made you think you have to?"

Gray wondered how to explain how he had evolved into the leader around here. How it wasn't anything official—no one had ever elected him to the position or even acknowledged it except by giving him shit—but it had happened nonetheless, and it came with responsibilities. When there were hard decisions to be made, Gray couldn't let his brothers down.

"That's just how it is around here," was the best he could come up with.

"Well, now it needs to be different," Olivia said briskly. "That roadhouse was bursting with alphas tonight, Gray. Some of the things they were saying were, um, misguided, but their hearts are in the right place. They want to help—so let them."

Gray glanced at his beautiful omega. She made it sound so easy.

More importantly, she made him believe it was possible.

They kept talking all the way home and were still at it when Gray pulled onto the dirt road leading up to his house, discussing various strategies to attack the problems facing the settlement. But when they reached the end of the drive, and the truck's headlights landed squarely on the cabin, they both fell into shocked silence.

Lying in a dark, seeping pool on the slate patio was the bloody, rotting carcass of the deer Gray had buried four nights before.

Chapter Sixteen

What the hell was that thing?

Olivia recoiled, even though she was in the safety of the cab of Gray's truck. Whatever it was, it looked like a scene in a horror movie, what looked like bone and entrails lying in a pool of dark slime.

Then the smell hit her.

"Oh my God," she gasped, clutching her stomach in an effort not to hurl.

"Yeah," Gray concurred grimly, wrinkling his own nose. "A few days in the ground didn't do much to improve that deer."

A deer… of course. Now she noticed the dappled fur, the black hooves. But why—

A few days in the ground. Everything clicked into place in a horrifying instant. This wasn't just any deer—this was the one Gray had buried with Olivia's tracker, the one that was supposed to convince the betas she was dead.

The fact that someone had gone to the trouble of dumping it here proved that the ruse hadn't worked. This wasn't just a warning—this was a rebuke, the betas' calling card to convey that they were in control. The government wanted her and Gray to know they'd been on their property.

Gray didn't seem fazed by the horrid smell,