Gray (The Boundarylands #10) - Callie Rhodes Page 0,2

that he was aware of being watched—he hadn't done a single thing worth watching, either. Olivia took dozens of shots whenever he came into view, but they were so mundane that she was starting to wonder what the government was hoping for.

There simply wasn't anything interesting happening on the alpha's property. Certainly nothing worth threatening her family over.

So far, she'd logged over a thousand shots of the alpha doing all sorts of unremarkable tasks—getting into his truck, getting out of his truck, chopping wood, picking vegetables from a fenced garden, lounging on his porch, and bathing in a hot spring.

Okay, that last one wasn't so mundane.

If Olivia was honest with herself, watching the alpha bathe was the one thing that made this whole bizarre mission bearable. Because while the government agent who'd conscripted her might be convinced that alphas weren't human, no tiger or gorilla that Olivia had ever captured on film made her heat up the way she did when the alpha started stripping off his clothes.

The alpha went to the spring every day around midday. It was located up the slope to the west of his cabin, and though parts of the path were obscured by trees, Olivia had total visibility of the spring and natural basin carved from rock.

When the alpha emerged from the woods, Olivia focused her lens on him peeling off his shirt. She had no idea what he'd been doing out there all morning, since the dense redwood forest obscured her view, but it must have been hard work because his shirt was always damp with sweat. Underneath was the impossibly broad, gorgeously defined chest that had become the single bright spot in Olivia's day.

Then the alpha reached for the fly of his faded jeans.

Olivia knew what happened next. This was the moment when her moral compass spun wildly, and she forced herself to look away. After all, she would be horrified if their roles were reversed, and she found out some random creeper was hiding in the bushes taking pictures of her bathing.

There was, however, the matter of the agreement she'd made with the agent. Olivia's survival instinct kicked in and, rather than fail to give him what he was expecting, she reached a compromise. When the alpha started taking off his pants, she closed her eyes and just kept hitting the shutter button for sixty seconds until she could be relatively sure that his body was immersed in the bubbling waters.

But when she opened her eyes this time, the alpha was nowhere to be seen. For the past two days, she'd photographed him soaking lazily on an underwater ledge, his huge, muscular arms resting on the smooth stone, the silver streaks in his dark hair glinting in the sun as the steam rose around him. But the basin was empty.

A jolt of fear shot up Olivia's spine, but she fought back her panic. There was no reason to freak out—she'd just lost sight of him for a moment. Maybe he'd remembered an urgent task that needed his attention or was distracted by an animal. Or maybe he needed to relieve himself. It could be anything.

Olivia widened the angle of her lens until her view encompassed the cabin and the land immediately surrounding it. The alpha wasn't there.

He wasn't anywhere to be seen.

This time it was harder to suppress her shiver of fear. Olivia moved the camera soundlessly on its tripod, desperately trying to find the dangerous subject she'd been sent to document.

A twig snapped somewhere nearby. Olivia had no time to react before a dark gray blur filled the camera's display screen. She could only watch as the camera was ripped from the opening in the blind.

Olivia froze, not even daring to breathe, even though there was no doubt the worst had already happened.

She'd been found.

Chapter Two

Olivia had long ago accepted the risks of her profession. Taking a job that required her to set up camp a stone's throw from a pride of lions or a polar bear's den meant that she gambled with her life on a regular basis.

If she was honest with herself, the risk was also part of the reward of her line of work. There was nothing like the exhilaration of getting the perfect shot, especially when no one else was willing to go through what she did in order to score it. The adrenaline rush was part of it, the way every nerve ending in her body went on high alert, her senses sharpened to the slightest