Ransom by Callie Rhodes

Chapter Four

What the hell?

Ransom may not have exercised his voice much for the last eight years, but he was pretty sure he'd told the beta woman to go and stay gone. And yet, here she was strolling back toward him like she didn't have a care in the world.

Okay, that wasn't exactly true. She looked plenty worried, even from a distance, and she was hustling along with grim determination, as though there were about a thousand places she'd rather be.

"I told you to run," he snarled when she was within a few dozen yards. He could sense her heart pounding in her chest, but her fear did little to cover up her intoxicating scent, and as she grew closer Ransom felt it winding around him like ribbons around a maypole.

Where the hell had that come from? The only maypole Ransom had ever seen was back in kindergarten, something he hadn't thought about for years, the same way he avoided any pleasant childhood memory. Failing to do so made being imprisoned that much more wrenching.

He could leave. He ought to leave if he had any sense left in his fool head. He wouldn't have to go far—maybe just beyond the crest of that little hill—and she'd give up following him. Even the most persistent beta would be forced to admit defeat when they figured out he could outrun them all day long.

Yesterday, all he'd had to do was duck behind the reeds in the creek bed, and she'd given up. No reason it would be any different today.

And yet, Ransom didn't move.

Notbecause of that ginger-sweet scent and those ridiculous curves. There would be plenty of that kind of entertainment waiting for him after he carried out his revenge. No, there was only one reason Ransom was sticking around: if he hadn't run from a murderous tyrant like Fulmer, he sure as hell wasn't about to hide from a scrawny beta woman with questionable survival instincts.

She came to a stop, fidgeting on her feet a good distance away, giving him every opportunity to track the signs of her fear. Shallow breathing, rapid pulse, perspiration, tension in the muscles—there was every indication that she was terrified. Which begged the question of why she returned.

"You said 'Fulmer.'" Her voice, at least, was steady. Bold, even. Ransom couldn't help but be impressed; if nothing else, this girl was brash. "Is that the name of the man in charge down there? The one in the black suit?"

"Why does it matter?"

Apparently, that was all the answer she needed. "You know him, don't you? Fulmer?"

Ransom bit back a curse. Weren't beta women supposed to be afraid of alphas?

According to the odd bits of conversation he had picked up from Fulmer and his director of security, Harlan Cavendish, the beta government's campaign to turn its citizens against alphas had been a resounding success so far. The beta females Fulmer brought in for his experiments were certainly terrified to see him and his brothers. And yet, this young journalist was behaving as though interviewing alphas was all in a day's work.

He might have expected as much from the powerful scent of pure determination that had lingered behind her yesterday. Whatever Gretchen Conrad was after, she wasn't going to back off easily. In fact, she was inching toward him even now, her pained expression suggesting what the effort cost her.

"You're the one who started that fire," she said without breaking eye contact.

Ransom growled again to cover his surprise, sending her tripping over her own feet. At least he'd found the limits of her stubbornness. "Why do you care?"

Now it was her turn to be frustrated. "It's my job to ask questions," she said crossly. "And your job to answer. I'm the journalist here. And like it or not, I can't help get your story out if you don't help me."

"My story?" Damn, she made a lot of assumptions. Ransom kicked himself for encouraging her. "Let's get one thing straight. There's no story, at least none that concerns me. You don't need to know anything about me. If you're smart, you never saw me."

"You want something," she responded slyly. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be sticking around."

"You're a woman," Ransom said menacingly as he took a step toward her and watched her hurriedly back up. "Making demands of a rogue alpha. You already know I won't hesitate to kill, and there's no one around to hear your screams."

Gretchen's foot came down on a rut, and her ankle twisted. The next thing Ransom knew, she'd tumbled backward onto her ass. Her honey-gold eyes widened as he closed in until he was towering over her and breathing the undiluted scent of her fright.

And still that damn fool girl wouldn't give up!

"You're also the alpha who saved my life," she stammered defiantly. "I'm willing to bet you didn't go to all that trouble just to kill me now."

Ransom took his time studying her face, trying to see past that pouty mouth and creamy skin. He'd missed something in his earlier assessment, something underneath her fear and stubborn fool courage.

This woman had seen things. There were scars and disappointments that she was working hard to hide. But there was a resilient quality to her beauty that made him believe that though she was used to falling on her ass, she was also used to pushing herself back up again.

It was clear Gretchen Conrad meant to make her mark on the world. But Ransom feared that with her appetite for risk, she might not get the chance.

"What if you bet wrong?" he asked gruffly.

She took a deep breath, with the distracting effect of her full breasts straining the pearly yellow buttons of her flowery shirt. "I had a choice between an alpha who might want to kill me and a beta who definitely does. I stand by my gamble."

Ransom slowly shook his head. She was wrong—the correct choice would have been to run away and never look back. But he was quickly learning that the safe course wasn't an option for this firebrand of a woman.

No wonder she'd infuriated Fulmer before she could even learn his name.

"You're a reporter," Ransom mused, resigned to the fact that unless he wanted to watch her cut down on the field by Fulmer's men, he was going to have to figure out another way to steer her to safety. As he thought about it, he realized that maybe she actually could be an asset to him. "Do you still want to tell the story of what happened here?"

"I do," she said fiercely, convincing him that she would do it with or without his blessing.

"The whole story?" he pressed. "Even if there are parts of it that you don't want to hear?"

She fixed him with a steady gaze, and he sensed her fear recede. "My job is uncovering the truth. I don't have any other agenda."

That was mostly true…as long as Ransom discounted her powerful drive to prove herself. The scent of her resolve was bright and invigorating. She wasn't only after facts; she hungered for recognition and acceptance. But she was also honest. Ransom was confident that she wouldn't lie to get what she wanted.

"So if I answer your questions," he said carefully, "you'll leave? You'll give me your word that you'll get the fuck away from this place and never come back?"

She wasn't so quick to answer this time, chewing her lip as she came to a decision. "I can't promise that I'll never come back, but yeah, I won't bother you again. You have my word."

Ransom nodded. It would have to be good enough.

With a resigned sigh, he held out his hand.

* * *

Gretchen stared in horror at the alpha's massive outstretched hand, yet again involuntarily backing away from him. Damn this skittishness—she probably looked like a greenhorn covering her first story instead of the experienced reporter she knew herself to be.

She'd held it together while negotiating an interview with the alpha, but the moment he agreed, Gretchen had let down her guard. And when he offered his hand, she hadn't been quick enough to cover her instinctive panic at the thought of touching him.

Good going, she scolded herself. Letting her subject know she found him disgusting was really going to help him open up to her.

Except…it wasn't actually disgust that she felt when she looked at him. Yes, he was an alpha. One she already knew was capable of brutal violence. Hell, there were streaks of blood all over his shirt. And yet none of that obscured the fact that he was also hot as hell.

Gretchen did an internal doubletake at the thought. She had a vocabulary to be proud of; she could easily have described him as striking or well-formed or stunning or handsome or attractive or appealing—any of those nice, distancing words.

But those wouldn't come close to the undeniable truth was that he was fucking hot.

His dark eyes and strong chin—hot. His thick, dark, wavy hair—hot. The arm muscles peeking out from his sleeves, teasing the ripped perfection underneath—too hot to imagine.

The increasingly irritated look he was shooting her as she refused to take his hand—not so much.

But he couldn't have been surprised. Even though the man standing in front of her was an alpha now, he hadn't always been. Alphas usually came into their true natures between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, meaning he'd grown up a beta, just like her.

He had to know how the fear of an alpha's touch was drilled into the head of every beta girl, because—unlike alphas—a dormant omega’s nature didn’t reveal itself unless she came into contact with an alpha. Until the government had developed the screening test in the last few years, beta women lived with the fear that they weren’t really betas at all, but dormant omegas.

And all it would take would be one touch from an alpha to ignite their true nature.

There wasn't a woman on Earth who wanted that.

It had been almost five years since Gretchen had taken a high school nature studies class, but what she'd learned was etched firmly into her memory. An alpha's strongest drive was his urge to mate. Once he had his omega, he'd imprison the poor thing and breed her until she was literally worn out.

Fortunately, Gretchen knew that would never happen to her. Even though one couldn’t get much further from the Boundarylands than Nebraska, she'd still been first in line to take the dormant omega test when it hit the market.

But even though the results had come back negative, she was still hesitant to take the alpha's hand.

"It's fine," he growled. "I can't awaken you or anyone. I have your friend Fulmer to thank for that."

"Wh-what do you mean? How could he…" Gretchen trailed off at the blaze of fury in the alpha's eyes, even though it made no sense. After seeing how easily he had destroyed her would-be assassins, she couldn't imagine a beta as unremarkable as the man in the black suit forcing him to do anything. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"I never lie," the alpha said coldly. "If you want me to trust you with my story, I'm going to need a show of trust in return. You've got three seconds, and then I'm walking away."

Oh, God. Barely daring to breathe, Gretchen placed a trembling hand in his.

And was instantly hoisted up to her feet—and released. The alpha wiped his hands on his pants as though it was her touch that was dangerous.

Gretchen felt weirdly wounded. Nothing was making sense—not the fire, the government response, the presence of this alpha, the attempt on her life—but for some reason, her mind was focused solely on what this alpha thought of her. Not only that, her skin where he'd touched her felt oddly warm, almost humming with a sort of anesthetizing, spreading calm.

But Gretchen didn't have time to dwell on that because the alpha had already started back toward the gully, disappearing into the cover it offered. Panicked at the thought of being left behind, she rushed after him, skidding down the rough earthen wall.

"I'm Gretchen, by the way," she said breathlessly. "Gretchen Conrad of the Omaha Register."

"I know."

The alpha was walking away from her, already disappearing from view around a bend in the creek bed.

Gretchen hustled after him, trying to come up with the question that would get him to open up and tell her what was going on, and fearing that her gaffes would make it impossible. She'd never imagined talking to an alpha, much less interviewing one, but it was already clear that her work was cut out for her.

She didn't even know his name.

"And…you are?" she prompted when she caught up. The gully had narrowed and deepened, at this point maybe eight feet deep with steep earthen walls carved by long-ago flooding. Gretchen couldn't see out, and she'd lost track of the direction they were going. She stepped up onto a huge fallen tree to get a better look, but the trunk was rotted, and her foot sank into the loamy bark and got stuck, tripping her.

Gretchen let out a yelp as she started to fall, certain she was about to break her ankle. But then two strong hands gripped her waist tightly, steadying her.

"Brace yourself," the alpha said, and she pressed her hands to the dirt wall.

The alpha knelt and wrapped one hand around the ankle of the trapped foot as he tore chunks of wood from the log. In no time, he'd freed her…leaving her ankle tingling with that same spreading warmth she'd felt in her hand.

This time the alpha wasn't so quick to pull away.

What was more, Gretchen didn't mind. She looked up at him—even kneeling, he towered over her—and found herself transfixed by his unreadable expression. In the cool, dappled shadows of the gully, his perfect features took on a dangerous cast, as though he had been sent to do more than save her. As though he meant to…

Stop that!

Horrified, Gretchen banished the image that had come unbidden, of the alpha cradling her up against the wall while she wrapped her legs around him and…no, no, no.

He'd saved her life twice now—if she'd broken her leg, she'd be a sitting duck waiting for Fulmer to find her— and that was all the explanation required. Gretchen could try to rationalize the situation with her intellect all day long, but her body was conditioned to respond to the protection offered by a powerful man. The continuation of the species depended on it.

It's unnatural, a voice inside her nagged, sounding a lot like her old nature studies teacher.

Gretchen surprised herself by squashing that thought with another: he's still human.

The alpha abruptly released her and backed away until he hit the opposite wall. And thank God, because Gretchen was a damn professional, not the easily distracted, pea-brained twit Jeremy seemed to think she was. She took a steadying breath and reminded herself that though the conditions might not be ideal, she was still here to cover a story.

"Thank you," she said coolly, attempting to compose herself as she brushed dirt off her skirt. But when she looked up, he was watching her with intense interest.

There was little room in the narrow gully, their bodies only inches apart. It would be so easy to touch him, to run her hand over his chest, let her fingertips trail down over his abdomen, up over his powerful shoulders. After all, how else could Gretchen report to the world how hard an alpha's muscles were, how warm and taut his skin, how soothing the rhythm of his pulse?

Her mouth was dry when she spoke. "You don't have to worry about telling me your name. I promise I won't use it in the article unless you give me permission."

What she didn't say—couldn't explain—was why she really, really needed to know it.

His eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't care what you write. But my name is Ransom."

Ransom. Gretchen had to resist mouthing it so she could test how it felt on her lips. She desperately tried to remember what they had been talking about.

"So, um, how did that guy Fulmer make it so you can touch beta women?"

All the life drained from his face at her question, leaving it a hard mask. "No," he muttered, taking off again, following the twisting path of the gully.

Gretchen hurried after him. She knew she should leave it alone, but instead she blurted, "What do you mean, no?"

"That's not where the story starts," he said, whirling to face her so that she almost ran into him. "Sit."

Meekly, Gretchen sat down on the flat rock he indicated. They had stopped at a point where the gully widened again. He settled with his back against the slope of the other side, an expanse of granite smoothed by the rush of water, and drilled her with a stare intense enough to take her breath away.

"Before I tell you anything else, I want to get one thing straight. Fulmer has never 'made' anything. The only thing that son of a bitch knows how to do is tear things apart."