Knox (The Boundarylands #12) - Callie Rhodes Page 0,3

had seen enough movies to know that the villain didn't spill the beans unless he was about to make sure his victim couldn't tell the tale.

"Why are you telling me all this? Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Bad Suit sneered, his patience fading. "The last thing we need is to turn you into a martyr. Do you have any idea how that could galvanize your little movement? No, there's a much tidier way to get rid of a problem like you."

Josie's heart pounded as the helicopter pitched into its descent. "Some secret black site?"

"I suppose you could call it that." The man flipped open the file on his lap again. "Tell me, Miss Price, have you heard from Dr. Lagerfeld since your checkup last week?"

Josie didn't like where this was going. "How did you know I went to the doctor?"

Bad Suit picked up a sheet of paper and scanned it. "Your cholesterol levels look good. So does your iron. Says here your Vitamin D is a bit low, so you might want to get outside a little more. Though I don't think that's going to be a problem for you in the future. But this is the part that's truly concerning."

He turned the paper around and tapped his finger against the bottom of the page….right on the words Dormant Omega Status: Positive.

Josie's cheeks flushed with shock. How could she be positive? She'd never felt anything but perfectly normal her whole life. Sure, she'd considered the possibility—every woman did. But the odds were so low…

Fury edged out her shock as the truth sank in. "You had me tested, you bastard?"

"Of course I did. Haven't you been listening? We're going to test everyone."

"And now what?" Jose demanded, hysteria lacing her voice. "You're going to sterilize me so you can make an example of me? Use me as your poster girl?"

The man rolled his cold eyes. "We have no need for theatrics, believe me. History has proved time and again that there is one foolproof way to bring down the leader of a movement like yours." He barely flinched as the helicopter landing gear touched down, slamming Josie against her impassive seatmate for the second time.

The door slid open, and Josie blinked against the darkness, making out a snowy forest landscape buffeted by whistling winds and bisected by an empty two-lane road.

Oh no. Oh, fuck no.

"You just make the people's hero out to be a whore," Bad Suit said as Josie was lifted from her seat and forced out the door, landing unceremoniously on hard asphalt. "Enjoy the Boundarylands, Miss Price."

As Josie scrambled to her feet, the door closed, and the chopper lifted, leaving her behind on the frozen blacktop in the dead of night.

Chapter Two

Unless they were hunting or balls deep in a prostitute, most alphas had little reason to be awake at three o'clock in the morning—especially in the dead of winter. This was the time of year they tended to need every last precious minute of daylight for outdoor chores. Evenings were for mending fishing nets and repairing tools, maybe a little reading. Some still took the occasional trip down to the roadhouse to blow off steam. But even nights out tended to end earlier in the winter when no one felt like freezing their asses off on the porch.

No one besides Knox, anyway. He was always in the mood to toss back a few beers and shoot the breeze…maybe stir up some shit if the night felt too quiet.

And, of course, he wasn't above joining in if fists started to fly. Not that he had any real beef with his brothers. He just figured it was better to go home with a busted lip than to spend the night bored.

But until spring rolled around, Knox had a feeling that's exactly what he was going to be.

Not only was most of the uplands in near hibernation, but the damn betas had also put up blockades at the border—meaning the liquor shipments had dried up, and there were no more weekly visits from the local working girls. To add insult to injury, the last of the beer kegs at the roadhouse had run dry weeks ago, so now most of the brothers were content to stay home and drink their own moonshine.

All this meant that Knox was pretty damned sure he was the only alpha awake in the Boundarylands…right up until five minutes ago. That's when he'd heard the faint chop of helicopter blades, still miles