Gray (The Boundarylands #10) - Callie Rhodes Page 0,6

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