Sigma

By Theodore Black

Cursed with an unusually aggressive alpha dynamic, Art Brennan is always careful about who he hires to work in his pub, if only to keep constant battles for dominance from breaking out on the clock. In dire need of a new bartender, Art thinks he's struck gold when he hires handsome, even tempered beta Charles Morgan to fill the position─ but it's not long before the alpha notices there's something strange about his new employee. Despite being a beta, Charlie doesn't hesitate to step between warring alphas to break up a fight and there's something oddly... soothing about his presence that the alpha has never felt from anyone before. For all Art has always maintained a personal policy of not dating employees in the past, his attraction towards Charlie rapidly becomes too much for the alpha to ignore, especially once the 'beta' opens up to him about the truth of just what he really is: a sigma.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theodore Black
• Release date: Oct 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005265472

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SIGMA

Copyright 2021 Theodore Black

Published by Theodore Black at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

About Theodore Black

Connect with Theodore Black

Acknowledgements

To my sibling, V, for their invaluable comma wrangling skills and constant support of my writing over the years. Love you, kid.

Chapter One

Twenty-one bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-one bottles of beeeeer-

Art Brennan winced as he walked into the main dining room from his office and detoured to where one of his employees was unboxing a crate of what was, in fact, bottles of whiskey. In a world of his own, the young man continued to sing in a high, reedy voice while he placed each bottle in a tidy line on the bar top to be shelved, completely unaware of his boss bearing down on him.

Take one down, pass it around-

Honestly, Art could deal with off-key singing if the guy would just choose a different song. He’d been raised in this pub, after all; if he had a penny for every time he’d had to hear that stupid tune he’d… well, he sure as hell wouldn’t be running a pub, family business or no.

Twenty bottles of bee- hey!

"I swear to god, Olly, if you keep on like that I’ll hang you from the wall," Art growled as he snatched the last bottle of whiskey from the younger man’s hand and loomed over him with a scowl.

Of average height with a slim build and big blue eyes, Oliver blinked up at him, then smiled impishly and asked, Is that some kind of new euphemism, or-

Barely an hour into his day and already fed up, the alpha rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose while Olly’s smile blossomed into a grin. Art sent up a silent prayer to whoever might be listening for the strength to deal with the young omega’s antics, then said, Go check in with Delilah, see if she needs anything done before we open. I’ll finish this. Oliver started to leave, but before he did, Art quickly added, "without the musical number!"

You’re no fun, Olly complained with an over-dramatic sigh before doing as he was told, leaving his boss behind to handle restocking the bar.

The alpha heaved a sigh of his own, mostly out of relief, then turned and started putting bottles away. For all his cheek, Oliver was a good employee; Art wouldn’t have kept him on this long if he wasn’t. A student at the university a few miles away, the twenty-four year old omega had a chronic case of procrastination when it came to settling on a major, but he was always on time for work and willing to pick up the occasional bonus shift as needed.

Probably to pay for all those extra classes he kept signing up for.

Granted, Art had long suspected that the kid came from money to be able to just jump from major to major the way he had been for the last few years; God knew waiting tables wouldn’t put much of a dent in a university tuition these days. Not that he didn’t pay his people well; Art had always prided himself on that much. It was a long, proud Brennan tradition to be more concerned with running their business to support their employees than running their employees to support their business, after all.

University was just that pricey these days.

Paying high wages didn’t guarantee you’d wind up with good employees, unfortunately, which was why Art had been tending bar for the last week despite not being terribly good at it. He got on well enough with people but he was terrible at the kind of multi-tasking required to make small talk while simultaneously mixing drinks the way every bartender worth their salt needed to, and he was short tempered to boot. At thirty-five years old, the pub owner had a better handle on himself now than he had as a boy, but he did have to take a moment to rein himself in to keep from lashing out sometimes, and people could tell.

Art’s alpha tendencies had revealed themselves early in life, and it’d taken a lot of years and self-reflection to tame them as much as he had. It was a battle every day, though one he was committed to- even if all he really wanted was an off switch for the raging animal it felt like lived in his head some days.

Luckily, being the owner of O’Brien’s Pub meant the alpha was able to curate his work environment to make himself as manageable as possible. Things were easier without other alphas around to prod the beast, intentionally or not, so he hired betas like Delilah or omegas like Olly wherever he could. His last bartender had been a beta as well, but unfortunately the guy had also been a thief, so Art had given him the boot and wound up having to shoulder bar duties himself until someone answered the job listing he’d posted.

It’d been an absolute gauntlet of a week since then, but finally, finally, someone had responded to his ad and was due to come in for an interview in-

Art’s phone rang and the man nearly fumbled an entire bottle of whiskey but saved it at the last moment. He then pulled out the offending device to turn off the alarm he’d set himself as a reminder for the interview. Five minutes ‘til show time.

Opening up the door, boss!

The alpha glanced around in time to see Anna, one of the other servers on staff, smile and wave at him to get his attention, and he nodded. Like Olly, Anna was a student at the university, though a year younger than her coworker and already on course to finish her engineering degree next year if she kept on at the pace she was going now. Also like Olly, the young woman was an omega; though rather than being a well-meaning imp, Anna was one of the sweetest people Art knew - if a bit on the naive side. Book smarts didn’t always translate to street smarts, unfortunately, and pretty as she was, all the staff had stepped in to ward off skeevy customers trying to take advantage of her good nature on more than one occasion.

Not that any of them particularly minded, given she was a regular ray of sunshine that even Art couldn’t get mad at.

The alpha raised a hand in acknowledgment, then said, Keep an eye out for the guy coming in to interview, would you? Bring him back to my office when he gets here.

Sure thing!

Art’s office was on the small side and a bit cramped thanks to all the filing cabinets left over from his da and grandda’s time running the pub. He’d transitioned the business’ book keeping to computer the first year he’d taken over, but the alpha was still wary of getting rid of everything, half convinced the moment he’d did he’d need a physical copy of something after all. The room was tidy at least, though Art took a moment to clear a few bits of paper from the surface of his ancient and surprisingly sturdy desk before settling into his chair to review the new applicant’s resume one more time.

His name was Charles Morgan: thirty-three years old and a certified bartender with years of experience, which was promising. Said experience was in a wild variety of places for the last year, however, and across multiple states, which was less promising. Still, Art was desperate enough at this point that he was willing to take the guy on no matter what…

Well, so long as he wasn’t an alpha.

He’d already been forced to cave and hire a fellow alpha when he’d brought Alice on to cook and he knew he wouldn’t be able to deal with a second on staff. Alice, at least, mostly kept to the kitchen during her shift and the pub stopped serving food at eight, so avoiding her was pretty easy. His head server, Delilah, generally acted as go-between for the pair of them, which smoothed the necessary lines of communication even further. A bartender, though… there’s no way he’d be able to avoid interacting with him.

Asking for someone’s dynamic on a job application was illegal in all fifty states these days, though Art wondered how much it actually did to prevent discrimination when you could generally tell what a person was within the first few moments of meeting them. It was in the way they moved, their scent, how they carried themselves…

Well, he supposed it probably helped people get their foot in the door for job interviews at least. Thinking about it, Art did feel a bit guilty since he basically made it a habit to cut anyone with an alpha dynamic out of the running for a job in his pub. Surely that was better than the toxic work place environment that would result for everyone involved if he brought another alpha on staff, though…?

A knock on his office door pulled Art back from the verge of a headache-inducing ethical debate with himself and he called, Come in.

The door opened and