Gray (The Boundarylands #10) - Callie Rhodes Page 0,7

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.

Why the fuck would the beta authorities want these photographs?

Gray wondered if they had figured out that he was a leader among the alphas here. Conceivably, that might be reason enough for the authorities to take an interest in him, but if that were the case, why wouldn't they send a couple of agents to talk to him at the roadhouse? It was neutral territory. Beta merchants made regular visits, and local cops occasionally came by looking for information about crimes committed near the border. There was no reason to put together a whole covert operation to take surveillance photos of him while he…wait.

Gray froze after flipping to the next picture, fury making his blood run hot as bubbling tar.

On the screen was a picture of him by the hot spring. In the next, he was kicking off his shoes. In the next, pulling off his shirt…in the next, his pants. Yep, standing