Gray (The Boundarylands #10) - Callie Rhodes

Chapter One

Like many people who'd risen to the top of their fields, Olivia Fowler had an extraordinary talent.

Being a world-renowned wildlife photographer, she had an eye for composition and a knack for timing, but those weren't the skills that had lined her shelves with awards or created such high demand for her services.

Her talent wasn't learned. It wasn't something that she'd picked up while studying for her master's degree at Yale or from her mentor at the National Audubon Society. And even though it sounded ridiculously simple, for most people it was the hardest thing in the world—to sit completely motionless.

Sure, anyone could chill on the couch through an entire season of Supernatural—but they weren't as still as they thought. There were a thousand different tics and gestures and habits people weren't even aware of, not to mention breathing irregularities and throat clearing and blinking and scratching. Animals and birds and insects, whose senses were often far more sensitive than humans, picked up on all of them—and once a subject was spooked, the odds of getting a good photograph decreased to nil.

Olivia had no idea where she'd gotten her talent, but the fact that she could sit perfectly still for hours at a time had earned her a reputation in her field. Unfortunately for her, it seemed that reputation had expanded past her colleagues and peers into a very gray area.

That was the only explanation Olivia could come up with for the call she'd received a week ago. At first, she thought it was a prank played by her friend Nate, a fellow photographer who was her go-to date for all the boring black-tie parties hosted by the museums, foundations, and universities who hired her. Nate's biting sense of humor was the only thing that made endless conversations with the wealthy, pompous donors bearable.

"We're recruiting you to photograph an alpha for one week," the caller had said, after identifying himself only as working for a highly classified government agency. "Your background check identified you as uniquely qualified for this assignment."

Olivia had laughed, but she stopped laughing when the caller told her a few things about herself that there was no legal way he could have known. In a monotone voice devoid of emotion, he'd listed her parents' and step-siblings' addresses, their employers, even the names of their pets.

But it wasn't until he started talking about how unfortunate it was that her mother had chosen to lease a car with brake problems that it started to sink in—whoever this guy was, he wasn't really asking her to take the job at all.

That became even more clear when a day later, an unmarked black sedan pulled up in front of her house. The man who'd knocked on her door was every bit as vague as his nondescript, dark suit. He'd refused to answer her questions or tell her his name before pushing his way inside, but the confident way he held himself made Olivia suspect he worked for one of the intelligence agencies.

"Lovely home you have here, Miss Fowler," he'd said, striding into her kitchen. "Gas stove? Very nice. Fickle, though. I hear these older models are prone to faulty piping. You should be careful. I'd hate to hear about an accident happening to someone as talented as you."

Olivia didn't need her Ivy League degree to translate a threat like that.

Ten minutes later, she was riding to the airport with him in the back of his car. On the seat next to her were reams of documents that she wasn't given time to read before signing.

"You'll be escorted by an elite team to a location just outside the subject's property line tomorrow evening," he said as Olivia frantically flipped through the pages.

"Tomorrow?" she'd asked, aghast. Having her life threatened was one thing, but she'd never been sent into the field with so little time to prepare. "That isn't possible. It takes me weeks or months to get ready for a shoot."

"This time you have twenty-four hours," the suit answered flatly. "But don't worry, we have already arranged for every detail to be ready for you."

Olivia's brows had pulled together. "And who exactly is we?"

The suit stared at her for a long second without blinking, making it crystal clear that she was never going to receive an answer to that question.

"Once you arrive at the camp, you will remain there for seven nights. During this time, you will surveil the subject, capturing as many photos of his daily life as possible using a camera