Alpha Danger

Prologue

Amber

Let the record reflect: Crazy people subject to visions should stay away from crowded airports.

I roll my suitcase up to the sink in the bathroom and gaze at my face in the mirror as I wash my hands. My hair's still back in a no-nonsense bun, but my piercing headache has turned me into a monster, eyes bloodshot and sunken as if they're receding into my skull to get away from it all.

Great. A screaming migraine on interview day. Just what I've always wanted.

I dry my hands with a paper towel and pat the damp paper against my cheeks, suppressing a groan.

What was I thinking, flying here? Nothing triggers my hallucinations like being around too many people. A guy in a business suit bumped into me, and his memory flashed in my head: him in bed with a woman. He's cheating on his wife.

I don't know how I know, but I do. And I wish I didn't.

Maybe I'll just hide in the bathroom until they call my flight. Yeah, that's a plan. Crazy Amber, hiding in bathrooms because she has visions wherever she goes. I went to law school for this?

My phone beeps. Ten forty-two a. m.. Fifteen minutes until boarding time, and five hours before my interview. I dig for ibuprofen, wincing at the rattle of pills in the bottle.

Let the record reflect: I need to keep giant bottles of pain meds in my purse at all times.

"Excuse me." A warm voice sounds behind me, and an old woman touches my back as she reaches past me for a paper towel.

I mean to duck away without eye contact, but the woman has me trapped between the sinks and the paper towels, unable to escape. I glance up with my polite smile pasted in place.

The woman has long white hair but a surprisingly youthful face, and wide blue eyes. "How long have you practiced the intuitive arts?"

I look behind myself, even though I knew no one else is there. But the woman couldn't be talking to me, could she? "Excuse me?"

She still touches me, her fingers lightly resting on my sleeve now. "The intuitive arts? How long have you been practicing?"

A chill runs through me. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."

The woman's face clouds. "Oh." Her expression clears. "Well, you're supposed to, honey, and you're going to keep having headaches until you do."

My vision blurs with the fast-motion movie reel pictures I've been trying to suppress. Nausea blasts through me. I see a huge, muscle-bound man standing on a beach, brow wrinkled, fists clenched. Then a wolf in a cage, snarling.

I force the breath out of my lungs and draw in fresh oxygen, shaking my head as if that might clear the stupid visions. When my focus returns to the bathroom, I blink. The woman's gone.

Grabbing my suitcase handle, I wheel it out of the bathroom, scanning for the white-haired woman when the clock catches my eye. Ten forty-two a. m. That has to be wrong.

I check my phone just as the two changes to three. Almost no time passed in the bathroom, but there's no sign of the woman.

How did she vanish into thin air?

Chapter One

Three Years Later

Amber

I step into the elevator, propping the door open with my foot to hold it for the group approaching.

"Thanks." A deep voice resonates in the small space. A large hand tattooed with a the phases of the moon wraps around the door. It's attached to a blue-eyed giant of a man. Underneath his faded T-shirt and tattoos, he's got muscles like Conan the Barbarian. He could probably eat me for lunch and still be hungry.