Ryder: The Boundarylands Omegaverse: M/F Alpha Omega Romance Read online

  Ryder

  The Boundarylands Omegaverse

  Callie Rhodes

  Contents

  Ryder

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  Also by Callie Rhodes

  Ryder

  Times have never been tenser in the Boundarylands. Threats from the outside world abound, and there’s only one rule—trust no one.

  Welcome to the Boundarylands. A place where the only way to know your true nature is to feel the touch of an Alpha. Omegas may be rare, but every woman knows their fates are hellish—held captive, broken, mated, knotted, and bred.

  Raised on the streets, Mari has seen her share of horrors. A scrappy survivor, she’s fought for her life countless times, but she’s never known real fear until she washes up just inches from an alpha’s land.

  Now the only thing saving her from the touch of his wild beast is an invisible border—the thin line between his world and hers. Neither is willing to cross over…no matter how tempted they both might be.

  Chapter One

  Saltwater filled Mari's mouth, mixing with the bile rising in her throat and causing her stomach to violently churn almost as violently as the waves crashing onto the shore all around her.

  Coughing and gagging, she clawed her way up onto the beach, digging her fingers into the sand. When she finally reached dry land, her gut tightened and heaved one last time.

  But there was nothing left inside her belly.

  She'd lost every bit of its contents to the sea hours ago, but that hadn't stopped the retching. Her body didn't care that there was nothing left to expel. Tossed and turned at the mercy of the currents, Mari had given up fighting the involuntary cramps and spasms that gripped her.

  Now that she'd finally reached the shore and the fight for survival was over, pain swept through her body. Every part of her hurt. The muscles in Mari's abs and ribs ached. Her throat burned. Every breath tasted like acid.

  But at least she wasn't dead.

  Mari whispered a prayer of thanks, despite knowing that no answer would come.

  She'd learned long ago that God wasn't in the business of looking out for people like her: the abandoned and destitute, the criminals and thieves. If she believed what she saw on TV, he was too busy helping people win sports championships and music awards. Those who already had everything got all the divine intervention a soul could want while Mari's life continued its jagged downward spiral—one that ended with her in a roiling sea, completely on her own.

  But with or without help, she'd made it. She'd survived…for now, anyway.

  Mari collapsed. She had just enough strength left to roll over onto her back. The chilly waves lapped at her toes through the torn canvas of her shredded shoes.

  She closed her eyes and spread her arms out wide, trying to ignore the cold while soaking in the sensation of being on solid ground. It would take her body a while to recover, but already her mind was sharpening.

  Mari knew she couldn't afford to indulge in the luxury of rest for long. There was a compelling reason she'd plunged into the dark water three miles from shore…and that reason was still out there, looking for her.

  If they found her…

  Mari's eyes snapped open, panic returning in an instant. Standing was out of the question—her limbs felt like quivering jelly—so with a soft groan, she forced herself onto her hands and knees to take stock of her surroundings.

  The small, crescent-shaped beach she'd washed up on was no more than six feet at its widest, giving way to a rocky strip studded with the sea's detritus, flotsam mixing with seaweed and driftwood and trash. Beyond that was the dense coastal forest, dense and nearly impenetrable, the weak filtered sun unable to broach its thick canopy.

  Worse, it was miles deep, given to steep rises and impassable chasms carved by millennia of geological whims.

  Mari's heart sank as she eyed the boundary between the land and sea, considering her few options.

  Those dark woods were so damned tempting. All she'd have to do was take a single step past the tree line, and she would have all the cover she could ever hope for. No matter how relentlessly those bastards in the DEA boat searched, they'd never find her.

  All the tools in their arsenal would be useless against a forest that dense. It would swallow their searchlights, absorb the infrared from the thermal imaging cameras. Mari could disappear in moments.

  But there was no way in hell she'd ever set foot in there—not even if the DEA, Coast Guard, and the local sheriff had her surrounded. She'd endure whatever form of justice they saw fit to dish out rather than take her chances in the woods.

  Though there were no signs or fences or coils of razor wire to make it clear, that natural boundary between shore and woods, the unremarkable strip earth that looked untouched by humans, marked the western border of the Boundarylands.

  From Canada to the northernmost reaches of California, the Treaties assigned control of the forests to the alphas, while the betas retained ownership of the beaches. The betas had fought hard to retain these rights, not for the land itself—the cold, drizzly beaches miles from civilization were no one's idea of a vacation, especially with the threat of alphas just beyond the tree line.

  No, the betas had their sights set on the fishing rights. The land beyond the sand might be dangerous as hell, but the ocean's bounty was especially rich at these latitudes.

  The only problem was that the further you got from civilization, the fewer fishermen wanted to risk running into trouble off the coast abutting the Boundarylands. Being stranded on land even a few hours before help arrived meant the possibility of a deadly run-in with alphas.

  But the lack of legitimate seafarers left an opening for those who were not…namely, drug smugglers. A criminal crew could usually count on making a run from San Francisco to Vancouver and back again in a powerboat without being spotted by another soul.

  Usually…

  But not today.

  It took a lot of effort for Mari to keep her head up as she crawled the last few feet to cover. Just ahead was a tree trunk that had been uprooted somewhere along the coast and carried here as driftwood. The redwood log wasn't just big enough to hide her for the night; it was also inconspicuous, bleached by the sun and sea spray, sunk into the sand, and blending perfectly into the landscape.

  Mari nestled into the hollow at the tree's base where its roots had once grown deep into the soil of the Pacific Northwest, her back against smooth stripped bark.

  Damn. It had taken all of her strength to crawl ten feet. Her exhaustion was bone-deep, well beyond simple soreness in her muscles. The seasick vomiting had left her dehydrated as well. And now, in addition to her other problems, her stomach had noticed that it was completely empty and begun to growl.

  Mari pushed the thought out of her head. She couldn't dwell on such trivial troubles right now.

  Besides, after nineteen years of practice, she'd long ago learned how to push the sharp stab of hunger pangs into the background. You can't eat what isn't there, as an old homeless woman she'd known on the streets used to say.

  Instead, Mari took a deep breath and tried to focus on someth
ing useful—a solution to her dire situation.

  No matter how bleak things seemed, no matter how high the odds were stacked against her, life had taught Mari that there was always a way out. It might not be perfect or comfortable or pretty, and it most likely wouldn't be easy or legal either—but there was always a way.

  Another cramp gripped her stomach, and Mari dragged herself a few feet further to dry-heave onto the gravelly sand. Once the worst had passed, she pushed back her hair and scanned the beach for materials to construct a makeshift shelter. There wasn't much to choose from—pieces of driftwood, branches from the pines, clumps of seaweed.

  Fortunately, Mari didn't need much—only a means to block the view of search crews coming from the south and north. And it only needed to last a single night.

  There was no way in hell she planned on sticking around here any longer than she had to. The boat she'd been on had only been forty or so miles from Canada when they'd been spotted. It would be a hell of a hike…but it was doable.

  Not without food or water, a little voice in her head warned. She hadn't had anything to drink in almost twenty-four hours. In two more days, three at most, she'd be dead.

  Mari tilted her head up and looked at the grey sky full of swollen, tumbling black clouds. The same storm that had whipped the ocean up during her escape appeared ready to let loose on land.

  She was still wearing the rain slicker she'd grabbed on the boat. After she’d swum far enough away to evade the agents storming the ship, Mari had filled the sleeves with air and tied them around her waist. The makeshift floatation device had worked well enough to keep her head above water when the strength in her legs gave out.

  Now, it looked like that slicker would come in handy once again. If she tied the slicker up, leaving a well in the middle, she could collect the rainwater.

  Of course, it would also mean that she would have to spend the night without a jacket. But given a choice between shivering and dying of thirst, Mari would choose the former every time. She might be cold and uncomfortable, but she'd live to see the dawn.

  The problem of finding something to eat would be a hell of a lot harder to solve. She didn't see any berries or any other easily gathered edibles growing along the shoreline, and she certainly didn't have the energy or tools to fish. But that was all right. The problem wasn't an urgent one. A person could live much longer without food than without water.

  With her last shred of energy, Mari got to work. In her exhausted state, it took much longer to cobble together the shelter than it should have, and she'd just finished tying off the slicker to a tripod of branches when the rain started.

  Pulling her knees in tight to her chest, Mari huddled behind the safety of the trunk. She tried to relax as fat drops found their way through the gaps in her thrown-together shelter and dripped onto her skin. Yes, she was cold and wet—but she was still breathing. She'd escaped the feds, at least for now.

  How long would it take until they wrote her off as dead? The feds might have Mari’s name and image, but they didn't know her. Not really.

  The only information they had came from her record, and though it was long and colorful, it also painted her as frail and petite. Not the sort of person who was strong enough survive a storm like this, in other words.

  But she was going to make it, Mari told herself. For the last seven years, she'd been telling herself the same thing every night before she fell asleep. If she'd made through today, she could make it through tomorrow.

  She was going to be okay.

  "You'll be dead by morning if you stay like that."

  Mari froze at the sound of the deep voice coming from the forest.

  She stayed as still as possible, not even daring to breathe, her back flat against the tree trunk—but it was pointless to hide from the monster that had to be just a few feet away. She squinted into the darkness just beyond the forest's edge but didn't see a thing.

  Just darkness and more damn trees.

  Still, she knew he was there.

  And more importantly, she knew what he was.

  An alpha—who else had a voice like a baritone echoing through a canyon? Who else would be standing on the other side of the invisible border between civilization and a land ruled by murderous beasts?

  Mari realized that she was shaking, her teeth chattering together, something that hadn't happened since the night her mother left home and never came back.

  She'd been twelve when that had happened—not grown up, but still old enough to identify her mother's remains in the morgue the next day.

  Since then, Mari had survived on the streets of LA, raised by hard souls who'd taught her how to avoid even harder ones. She'd learned how to survive. She'd escaped the DEA, kept herself from drowning, and figured out a way to not die of thirst. But now she was facing the one threat she knew for certain she couldn't survive—an alpha.

  And for the first time since she was a child, Mari couldn't honestly tell herself that she was going to make it out alive.

  Chapter Two

  Ryder had been watching the girl for at least an hour. With his back against a tree trunk, he'd settled between two towering redwoods, staying as close to motionless as he could manage.

  It was a skill Gray, the older alpha who served as his unofficial mentor, was helping him work on. Gray had insisted that stillness was often just as important as stealth, especially when tracking a foe. Given the shit that was going down in the Pacific Northwest Boundarylands lately, Ryder was doing everything he could to be ready.

  He just hadn't imagined that the first threat he'd encounter near the edge of his land would be a pathetic, shivering beta woman.

  Ryder first detected the disturbance—a faint shifting of sand on the beach along the westernmost part of his property—while he was resetting traps on a hillside two miles away. Other tell-tale signs of life quickly followed—crunching gravel and branches rubbing together. Even after living in the Boundarylands for nearly a year, Ryder was still amazed that he could pick out sounds that had traveled so far through the dense trees. The incredibly sharp senses that his alpha brothers often seemed to take for granted still felt like nothing short of a miracle to Ryder.

  Ordinarily, he would have dismissed what he was hearing. The odds were good that it was only an animal—a deer or a wild boar visiting the shore. The females who'd given birth over the summer would be nudging their young toward greater independence now that it was almost winter, teaching them where to drink and feed and find cover.

  But when he picked up the unmistakable sound of retching, Ryder knew instantly that it wasn't wildlife he'd heard. Only humans made that horrible sound.

  Which was bad fucking news.

  Over the last few weeks, the alphas of the Boundarylands had been dragged into a nasty, covert battle with the beta government. They hadn't started it—alphas kept to themselves and prized their self-sufficiency—but they damn sure weren't about to back down, especially when their very existence was threatened.

  The situation was made worse by betas' cowardice. After creating scent-blocking technology, they'd begun sending agents to trespass onto alpha property to conduct various scientific tests and to destabilize the local economy. Only a couple weeks ago, Gray had discovered three of the bastards on his land after a botched raid. The older alpha had taken care of them, of course, burying their remains on his land where they would never be found.

  But everyone knew that wouldn't stop the betas. More would come, and now every alpha from the northern to the southern border was on high alert, looking out for any sign of beta agents and soldiers.

  Ryder was no different.

  The moment he realized those were human sounds coming from the beach, he dropped his bait and spring-loaded traps and ran like hell to the source. His muscles tensed, his lungs taking in the cold late afternoon air. He was primed to fight—even if that meant clawing and tearing his way through a whole squadron of soldiers.

  What he wasn't prepared for was to find
a lone, scrawny woman on her hands and knees, looking more like a drowned rat than a member of the special forces.

  Wet, straggly brown hair was plastered to her face and neck, obscuring her features as she gasped for breath. Her clothes—a cotton sweater and tight-fitting jeans—were the worst things she could wear in these conditions, retaining water and clinging to her skin. For a second, Ryder was distracted by the generous breasts and curvy ass underneath before remembering that he was here to deal with a problem and protect his land.

  Even though there was no way that this pathetic creature would be able to mount an invasion, not unless she had a loaded submarine offshore.

  Suddenly more curious than guarded, Ryder had settled in to watch what she would do next—which turned out to be finishing her painfully slow crawl toward a large fallen log. Given that she had to stop every few feet to catch her breath, Ryder figured she'd either been treading water for a while or wasn't trained for shit—or both.

  Ryder gazed out at the sea, looking for a vessel that she might have come from, but saw only the brisk, white-capped waves behind her. Low tide was a couple hours away yet, but no debris or wreckage had washed up on the beach and no jetsam bobbed offshore to signal a shipwreck.

  Ryder turned his attention to the horizon, but there wasn't so much as a speck. Which meant that—assuming she hadn't swum all the way here from Canada—whatever craft this woman had been on was long gone.

  Everything about the situation was strange, but ultimately, it wasn't any of his business.