Troy (The Boundarylands Omegaverse Book 5) Read online

  Troy

  The Boundarylands Omegaverse

  Callie Rhodes

  Contents

  Troy

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  The Boundarylands Omegaverse Series

  About the Author

  Troy

  Book 5 in The Boundarylands Omegaverse Series

  Alone and untouched, she’s an alpha’s perfect prey.

  No woman willingly travels to the Boundarylands.

  It’s where they are—the Alphas.

  Faith has come to the Boundarylands looking for her sister—one she thought died years ago. She’ll do anything in order to bring her sister home…even take down the massive alpha who threatens to stand between Faith and the only family she has left.

  But the massive devil isn’t afraid of Faith or her rifle. He wants something from her—something dark and primal. He craves to know if she shares her sister’s omega nature…and he knows his touch can bring her true essence to life.

  Omegas may be rare, but every woman knows their fates are hellish—held captive, broken, mated, knotted, and bred. Faith is sure she would rather die than be one herself…but that certainty fades the moment she feels the heat of her alpha’s touch.

  Chapter One

  Faith Johansen's heart hammered as she slipped through the automatic glass doors into the town library.

  The second she was inside, Faith raced over to the tinted windows—the ones that had seemed almost black from the outside—and peered up and down the street.

  She didn't see anyone she recognized. Not her mother or father. Not any of her four siblings. No one from the church. It looked like she'd managed to enter the library without being seen by anyone who mattered.

  Thank God.

  Faith should have been reassured, but for some reason, her pulse refused to slow down. Her hands still shook, and her knees still wobbled.

  That didn't bode well for the rest of her plan. How the hell was she going to save her sister if it took every ounce of her courage just to sneak away from her family long enough to visit the library?

  One problem at a time, she reminded herself.

  And right now the main problem she had to deal with was a lack of time.

  Faith's father came into town once every two weeks to buy food and fill up on gas. But every few months, the whole family packed into the van and helped restock other essentials for the household.

  Right now, Faith's mother was at the fabric store with her sisters, and her father and brothers were at the feed store, loading up the trailer with seed and hay.

  Faith was supposed to be at the plant nursery around the corner, picking out bulbs to plant for when spring came around…but instead, she was hiding in the foyer of the library, peeking out the window like a fugitive, and struggling to catch her breath.

  If she was really going to do this, she needed to be quick. Faith figured that she only had a few minutes—fifteen at most—to finish up here before someone came looking for her.

  Even though Faith was technically an adult—and engaged to be married, at that—her parents were leery of leaving her alone, especially in public.

  "It's not you we're worried about, darling," her mother had told her once. "It's the rest of this evil world. No one out there can be trusted. The men you see may look harmless, but they are like wolves, just waiting to corrupt someone as pure as you."

  But Faith knew that her parents were wrong.

  No one had to lure Faith into the library today. She'd come on her own, helpless against the sin of her own curiosity…and her lust for righteous vengeance.

  Taking one more deep breath, Faith retreated from the window into the cozy seating area. She scanned the floor of the library, the long aisles of bookshelves, the desks where people tapped away at computers or read, the librarians pushing carts and returning books to their places.

  Faith had passed by the building countless times, but she'd never been inside before. Neither her parents nor the leaders of their church approved of libraries, believing that the free distribution of ideas without oversight was the work of the devil.

  "God tells us all we need to know," her father often said. "Impure men who do not follow Him will pervert the truth with ego and self will."

  Faith didn't know if her father's beliefs were true or not. All she knew was that the same man who spoke those words had been lying to her for years.

  She hurried over to the large square desk in the center of the room with the word Information printed in large letters on the side.

  "Can I help you?" an older man in a plaid vest asked.

  Faith nodded timidly. "Is there any way that you can help me find a newspaper article from a few months ago?"

  The man nodded and smiled—a genuine smile that suggested deep reserves of kindness. "Of course," he said. "Come with me."

  The man led her to a row of computers along the far wall. More than a few people turned their heads to look at Faith as she passed, and she could feel their curious gazes following her.

  Faith knew they were staring at her plain blue and white dress, its skirt reaching almost to the floor, its neckline coming up to meet her throat. Along with her long, straight corn-silk hair, her clothing marked her as a member of the Church of the Beta Way.

  Faith was accustomed to being gawked at when out in public. Every member of her church experienced the same thing. The pastor said it was because the people who lived in town were sinners, and either hated them because of their pious ways or envied them because of their virtue.

  Faith had a feeling that the reason people stared was far simpler than that. In this modern world with its constant bids for people's attention, its screens and videos and bright colors and flashing lights, her plainness made her stand out—and people couldn't help staring at things that were different.

  Usually, Faith didn't mind this sort of attention, but today it made her uneasy because she was afraid that word of her visit could get back to her parents.

  "You don't keep track of who uses these computers, do you?" she asked the librarian, keeping her voice to a whisper.

  The man shook his head, his smile warm with understanding. "Absolutely not. And we don't keep track of what you look up either. All you have to do is type in the search criteria, and the computer will show you everything we have. I promise you that no one will know."

  Faith thanked him before sitting down and getting to work. She quickly filled in the date and keyword areas, and, just like magic, the headline that had been haunting her for a month filled the screen.

  Missing Local Woman Discovered In Boundarylands; Tells Tale of Murder and New Life as Omega

  Faith's hand flew to her mouth in horror. So it was true.

  She'd caught sight of the newspaper clipping on the kitchen counter early one morning several weeks ago. Seconds after she spotted it, her mother came into the room and snatched up the slip of paper, shoving it into her apron pocket.

  That morning, Faith had barely been able to skim the article, catching only a few of the highly charged words and phrases that stood out: shooting… drug gang… lone survivor…emergence of her omega nature … presence of an alpha…now living in the Boundarylands.

  And her sister's name—Hope Johansen.

  At first, Faith couldn't believe what she was r
eading. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be true.

  Because the article was dated last November…but her sister had died five years ago.

  At least, that was what her parents and her pastor had told her. What they had told everybody.

  Faith would never forget the night that Hope told their parents she was leaving the church to live on her own in the city. The fight had lasted for hours. Faith had huddled in her bed with her four other siblings as shouts and accusations echoed through the house.

  Then came the slaps.

  Then the crying.

  And finally, the slamming doors.

  When Faith finally dared to come out of the bedroom after a sleepless night, Hope was gone, and their mother was standing in the kitchen with a vacant expression in her red-rimmed eyes.

  "Promise me that you'll never be like her," her mother had said when she spotted Faith. Her lip quivered as she started to cry again. "Tell me you'll always be our good girl."

  Hope's stomach twisted at the memory of her mother's words.

  A week later, her father had gathered all the kids together to tell them the news—Hope was dead. Murdered in the city…just as he had always warned.

  The story spread through the church community. Sermons were preached on the subject of temptation, her sister's fate used as an example of its dangers. Hope’s death became a cautionary tale about leaving the flock and venturing into the wicked world.

  Now Faith knew it had all been a lie.

  At first, she had desperately wanted to believe in her parents' innocence. Surely they wouldn't have lied about her sister's death, not to her siblings who loved and missed her so much… but with each passing day, when they made no mention of the news in the clipping, Faith began to realize that her parents were not as righteous as they pretended to be.

  And now she could see with her own eyes that they'd known the truth all along. It was right there in black and white, near the end of the article.

  The parents of the woman, who are active members of the local Church of the Beta Way sect, declined to comment on the situation other than this comment from her father: "Hope walked away from her family years ago. She is dead to us, and so we have nothing to say about her current predicament."

  Faith rubbed her eyes and read that last line a few more times just to be sure.

  Dead to us.

  Faith sat back in her chair, her shock giving way to anger.

  Hope might be dead to their parents, but she would never be dead to Faith. Her sister—who had cooked every meal she'd eaten as a child, who had allowed Faith into her bed when she had a nightmare, who had dried Faith's tears when their parents had announced they'd come to a marriage agreement for her with Peter Stockworth's family—was alive.

  More importantly, Hope needed Faith's help.

  As shocking as it was to discover that her sister was an omega, it was even worse to know that Hope was stuck in the Boundarylands at the mercy of a devil alpha. The torture her poor sister must be going through right now was enough to make Faith want to weep.

  Maybe her parents had been willing to toss Hope to the lions, but Faith wasn't.

  She didn't know how yet, but she would do everything she could to save her sister from a life of servitude to an instrument of Satan.

  The librarian had told Faith that she could find anything she needed by searching with this computer. It was time to put that to the test.

  Faith checked her watch. Five minutes had passed. Only ten left.

  She had better get right to the point.

  Faith clicked on the search bar, and with fumbling fingers, managed to type a question.

  What caliber bullet does it take to kill an alpha?

  Chapter Two

  Troy stifled a groan as the eight ball dropped neatly into the corner pocket, clacking against the other balls inside.

  "What do you know," the alpha standing across the table from him said with a smirking grin. Zeke only smiled when he won…and that was far too often for Troy. "Guess that's the game. Want to try again?"

  "I'm sick of pool," Troy grumbled, reaching into his back pocket. He pulled out a bill—one large enough to cover the next round of beers—and slapped it down on the green felt.

  Zeke's grin widened as he swiped his winnings off the table.

  "No problem," he said. "I'm happy to kick your ass at darts too."

  "Fuck that." Troy had had enough losing for one night. He slammed his cue in its slot on the wall with a little more force than necessary as Zeke collected the balls.

  Troy had come to Evander's tonight to ease his dark mood, not make it worse.

  "You must be out of money," Zeke said with a chuckle, clapping a brotherly hand on Troy's shoulder. "Come on, let's see if Ty's got something behind the bar that can take away the sting of losing. I'll buy."

  Now, that sounded more like it.

  Troy followed the other alpha to the bar, where Ty already had two mugs of cold beer waiting—along with a couple of shots of moonshine to chase them down.

  "I told you to stop playing him," the bartender said, shaking his head in mock sympathy. "I don't know how the surly son of a bitch does it, but nobody beats Zeke at pool."

  Troy grunted in response, then downed his beer in one go. He was even less in the mood for an I-told-you-so than for more losing.

  "Another," he ordered, the shot glass halfway to his lips.

  Ty complied with no more than a raised eyebrow, then moved down the bar to serve other customers.

  Zeke waited until Troy had tossed back his shot to speak.

  "Tough day?"

  Troy shrugged dispiritedly. That was the thing--it hadn't been.

  There'd been nothing special about the day. Nothing terrible either. He'd worked on Aric's transmission. Replaced the ignition coil on Maddox's clunker. Trapped a rabbit and made stew. The day was pretty much indistinguishable from last Monday or the one before that.

  The only reason Troy even knew it was Monday was because of the ticking clock that was always in his head. The one that was now telling him he still had four more nights of this boring bullshit before Nicky and her girls came back to Evander's for their weekly visit.

  Maybe that was his problem.

  Waiting a week to fuck a beta prostitute for a few hours in the back of his truck was tiresome during the best of times, but during midwinter, it was almost unbearable. By Saturday afternoon, the temporary sense of calm that followed getting his rocks off began to lift, and by Saturday night, Troy felt just as restless and dissatisfied as before.

  Troy had been a virgin before coming to the Boundarylands, and often thought that every kid should be so lucky as to be with one of Nicky's girls the first time.

  But it didn't take long to realize that they were just doing their job. Sure, Nicky had a great crew—Troy had even come to think of some of the girls as friends—but he could no longer pretend that those nights in the back of his truck were anything more than a business transaction. A damned pleasurable transaction—for both sides—but a transaction all the same.

  The trouble was that those few hours were the highlight of his week. If he wasn't at home fixing another alpha's truck in his garage, he was counting the hours until he could lose himself between a beta prostitute's legs.

  And now that winter had set in, Troy was left with a lot of hours to count. Short days and long, cold nights meant his only choices for passing time were drinking at the bar or sitting alone in his cabin.

  That was why he was here tonight, so sick of his own company that he was willing to be hustled at pool by Zeke, of all assholes.

  But that didn't mean he was going to sit here with the guy and let him play therapist.

  "I need some fresh air," Troy said as Ty slid another full mug of beer in front of him. He picked it up and started toward the door.

  The biting cold hit him hard in the face, stinging his skin and cooling his blood. Troy drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the scents of pine and snow and e
ven the distant spray of sea salt from the coast miles away.

  He'd only been outside a few seconds when he heard the stomp of heavy boots on the porch boards. Without turning, he knew it was Zeke.

  Strangely, Troy didn't really mind. He and Zeke had come to the Boundarylands within six months of each other around five years ago, both of them with a chip on their shoulders and an itch to lock horns.

  The other alphas gave Zeke and Troy their space as they tangled during those early years, knowing from experience that that kind of restless energy would work itself out in time as the two men settled into life in the settlement.

  Sure enough, the hard work of building a home and establishing his place in the settlement eased Troy's need to go around provoking people. Eventually, he and Zeke stopped nipping at each other's heels and largely left each other alone.

  Recently, Troy had found himself warming to the grumpy bastard. A few months back, he and Zeke had been involved in a bloody episode when they'd come to the aid of a reclusive alpha named Maddox, who had an intruder problem on his land. There was nothing like destroying a couple of trigger-happy beta bastards together to make you appreciate a guy.

  It also helped that Zeke knew when to hang back and keep his mouth shut. Troy didn't need to turn around to know the other alpha was settling in, getting comfortable leaning against the weathered wood siding of the joint.

  "You don't have to stand out here and freeze your balls off, Zeke," Troy grumbled. "You've won all the money you're gonna get off me tonight."