Theta (Alpha #13)

Chapter 1

The Deluge

I'm pretty fucking tired of being in the dark. It's disorienting. I don't know what day it is, what time it is.

At least I'm not alone, now.

Of all the people in the world for these jackasses to toss in here with me, it's her? The luck of it is just unbelievable—to the point that I don't think it's luck. It's intentional. But it's also wildly, incredibly stupid. Story Binyamin is fucking terrifying.

Hotter than sin, sweet, caring, compassionate, competent…

and Uncle Anselm's greatest achievement.

The woman is a force of nature. All of us A1S kids can handle ourselves.

We can field strip any firearm and reassemble it with professional speed and efficiency.

We're trained in basic wilderness survival—how to find water, make a fire, build a shelter, and forage for food.

We're trained in hand-to-hand combat. We go to the range regularly with sidearms and long guns.

Story?

She's on a whole other level.

Her mother, Selah, was IDF in her youth—Israeli Defense Force.

She saw combat, and a lot of it. She transitioned to emergency medicine and saw even more violence as a triage nurse first on the battlefield and then in the ER, and that's a job she's done for the last thirty-some years.

She's now the charge nurse at a large hospital in Miami, where she and Anselm live—close enough to the family compound down in the Caribbean that Uncle Selm can pop down for briefings and ops but far enough that they have their own lives.

Anselm is…well, Anselm. And he raised Story from the time she was seven.

He taught her his craft—bushcraft, spycraft, combat…

she's as deadly with any weapon or none as any of the A1S operatives.

I've seen her spar with Sasha and Duke, and while they're holding back because it's a sparring session and she's five-five and one-twenty on a tall day, the only way they can truly challenge her skills is by going as hard as possible without trying to do actual damage.

I've seen her nail the bullseye from a hundred yards, one-handed, with a pistol, and from three hundred with a rifle; at three hundred yards, she can put a round through the hole left in a paper target by the previous shot. I’ve seen her do it.

But despite all that, she's an ER nurse like Selah. She'd rather fix people than harm them.

And she's fucking gorgeous.

It's been a few months since I've seen her, but I can call up a mental image of her at will. I may or may not have harbored a crush on her for…well…ever. It's a secret I've kept even from Cal.

As I said, she’s short, just barely clearing five-five in her bare feet.

She has long blonde hair in dense, tight curls that, left to their natural state, explode out of her head in a sunburst of golden coils.

They’re absolutely untamable, her curls.

Usually, she has her hair tied back in a ponytail, the curls a poofball at the back of her head.

Once, she arrived at the compound for a summer holiday fresh off a shift at work, having not even changed out of her scrubs before boarding the plane to Miami—she had her hair braided into what looked, to my dude’s brain, to be a hellishly complicated series of braids.

You could say, accurately, that Story’s eyes are blue, but that would only tell a fraction of the truth; they’re electric blue.

If you were to see a photograph of her, you could be mistaken for thinking someone had photoshopped them to look like that arresting shade of electric blue.

And then there’s her body.

I could wax poetic about her figure, but I’m not Wordsworth, unfortunately.

She’s a ravishing, hypnotic, mouthwatering combination of savagely fit and naturally curvy, with a fairly significant curve bias toward her lower half.

Meaning, her hips, thighs, and ass are…well, get a glimpse of her in a bikini and you’ll understand.

The round, firm, plump, jiggly, juicy spread of her ass haunts my dreams at night and my daydreams during the day.

The strength in her thighs, the bell curve ratio of her waist to hips to thighs…

I’m obsessed. No ivory skin for her, either.

Despite living in Minnesota, where the winters are, from what I hear, long and cold and brutal and keep humans indoors for half the year, she’s somehow always golden-skinned.

After a month in the Caribbean, where we spend 95% of the daylight hours outside either on the beach or on the water, she’s almost as brown as Brynnie; I’d say almost as brown as me, but I tend to run a bit naturally darker-complected than my sister.

God, Cal. I worry about him. We were snatched at the same time, but separated.

Why, I don't know. I guess they assumed, correctly, that we'd be trouble together.

The problem is that Cal has zero patience.

My worry is that he'll attack first and ask questions later, if he ever gets around to asking them at all.

Usually in our escapades, I'm the one to save his metaphorical eyebrows.

Story, though.

I hear her beside me—sitting, breathing, thinking. Waiting.

I'm conflicted about it being her in here with me.

If it had been Cal or Rinny, or even Brynnie, it'd have been one thing.

I know them well enough to know exactly how they'd react.

What they'd do. Bryn, my lunatic sister, would already be on the offensive, tearing through this ship like a hot knife through butter.

I still can't believe my dumbass sister ran off like that.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. And then she went and vanished, and Mom and Dad and Uncle Val and Aunt Kyrie pulled everyone to look for her.

Which left Cal and me with one guard apiece.

Both of whom are now dead; I shove that away because I keep seeing Roger, my bodyguard, dead behind the wheel of the car, sightless eyes staring at nothing, blood trickling down his forehead from the small black hole.

"Fuck," I whisper, as the image crops up in my brain again, nauseating me.

A warm something nudges my bare bicep. "Okay, Killy?"

"Yeah," I say, my voice a bit raspy. "Good."

I hear her sigh. "Killy, c'mon. It's me. You don't have to act all tough."

Yeah, it's Story—the girl I've crushed on my whole life. I only get to see her a few times a year, which honestly is what makes the whole thing bearable. She doesn't see me that way, I know. I'm her buddy. Friendzoned, if not quasi brother- or cousin-zoned.

"I'm fine, honest."

She snorts. "Okay. Whatever." I hear the amused irritation in her voice—she doesn’t believe me.

That's worse. She knows I’m full of shit, but she's too damn nice to call me on it.

Fuck.

I'm not as confident or charming as Cal, not as badass as Bryn, and not as driven to succeed as Rin. I'm not as anything as any of my extended family. I'm certainly not as competent in any field as Story is in the medical profession.

I desperately want to impress her. To be cool. To protect her—not need protecting.

To know that she knows I'm freaking out? It sucks.

"It's just…" I thud my head against the container wall with a dull, hollow thunk.

"Roger. My bodyguard. I…I keep seeing him dead.

Like, Rog has been my guard my whole fucking life.

Y'know? I don't…I never joked around with him that much. He didn't want to. Wasn’t his job to be my buddy. But he…he was a constant in my life. And now he’s dead.

And for what? I just keep seeing his face.

The way he stared at nothing. The hole in his head.

Brains everywhere." I shudder and have to hang my head between my knees to keep from upchucking what little food I have inside me.

A small soft hand rests on the inside of my forearm, warm and tiny and gentle.

"I'm sorry, Killy. I can't imagine how that must feel.

" I usually hate being called Killy, even though it’s been my nickname my whole life to anyone who knows me well, but from Story it somehow feels different.

More intimate, maybe. Meaningful, somehow.

The touch of her hand on my skin makes my heart thud in my chest. Despite growing up with Story, I've only made physical contact with her very, very rarely. We don’t hug, and we also don’t shake hands—we’re too close for handshaking and not platonically close enough for hugging.

The closest we ever get to touching is sitting next to or near each other at a table or in a vehicle, boat, or aircraft, the occasional jostle of an arm against arm or thigh against thigh, and even that little bit of contact usually leaves me tingly and short of breath, like a pathetic fucknut.

Which means this is the first time she's made direct, intentional physical contact with me.

And my heart is slamming in my chest, out of control. Which, I know, is beyond idiotic. It means nothing.

It's stupid to even think that way.

We're hostages. My concern needs to be getting us out of here in one piece, not worrying about being attracted to someone so far out of my league.

However, I leave her hand on my arm. Hesitate, and then I cover her hand with mine. "Thanks, Story. It's…it just sucks. This is all so stupid. Like, why do our parents' enemies keep pulling this shit? You'd think they’d learn at some point."

Story giggles—it sounds involuntary. She's not a giggly girl, for the most part. "Right? It never goes well for anyone. Yet these idiots keep doing it."

Her hand stays on my arm, which is nice.

I rest my hand on hers, and I can't seem to stop myself from brushing my thumb over her knuckles, exploring the back of her hand, sliding the pad of my thumb over the crease between fingers.

"Killy?" Her voice is so quiet I can barely hear her even in the stifling silence of the pitch-black container.

"Yeah?"

“I’m terrified."

"Coulda fooled me."