Page 18 of His Unicorn Alpha
“But now I believe that it was not an improbable fluke. I think…I think he is my compatible mate. Perhaps even my potential alpha. And he has every reason to loathe me now.”
The hold I had on my tenuous emotions slipped and tears trickled down my cheeks. I hung my head, trying to at least keep the sobs contained. It was largely hormonal, but also my emotional reaction to the reality of what my actions had cost me.
My mate. Myalpha.
From where he was still seated on the table, Beck sighed heavily, then I heard him move. The chair beside mine rolled towards me and then dipped as he sat in it. With his hand on my back, he patted consolingly.
“For the record,” he said after I had calmed somewhat, “I don’t think Micah has the capacity to hate anyone. He’s always been pretty chill. But this is…something else.”
Swallowing roughly, I nodded. “I know.”
“And I’m caught in a pretty tight spot here because he’s one of my best friends and you…well, I owe you my life, Bran.”
I shook my head and finally forced myself to look him in the eye again. “We were never going to allow the zealots to harm you. You owe me nothing for doing the right thing when you were taken.”
“You still saved me,” he argued. “And you made sure I was back here for Ollie as he gave birth. I—” Stopping suddenly, he gave me a sharp look. “Did you say children? Plural?”
Throat working convulsively again, I nodded.
“Twins?”
I shook my head.
He paled.
“More than twins?”
“Three,” I acknowledged, shifting my palm over my bump. “Triplets. I couldn’t…”
How was I supposed to explain that I couldn’t choose to save only one or two of the fertilized ovum? That the very idea hurt my heart and made my stomach roil?
“Hey, shh,” I hadn’t realized I was breathing heavily, on the verge of an anxiety attack, until Beck’s hand began rubbing soothing circles over my back. “It’s okay. I’m not pissed, Brandt, and Micah…well, I think this might give him a heart attack, but—”
“I don’t expect anything from him.” I don’t know why I said it, but I needed Beck to understand that I wasn’t trying to…what was it the humans said?...baby trap his friend. “He…he can pretend they don’t exist. I have centuries of savings, and—”
“If he’s your mate, that’s not going to make a difference. The way I felt after I met Ollie…” He paused and rolled his shoulders, then shook his entire body as if throwing off an uncomfortable feeling. “Are you feeling drawn to him? Like…a desperate need to find him and, uh,bewith him?”
“Yes…and no. It’s...strange. For you and Ollie, I know your meeting set off his heat and your rutting instincts. But I am already pregnant, so going into heat is unlikely.” I inhaled after I said it, realizing it was the first time I’d said the words out loud, despite thinking them many times over. I cupped my belly and softly repeated, “I am pregnant.”
“Yeah, that’s still a mindfuck,” Beck chuckled lightly. “You’re a brave man going for triplets. I still get palpitations at the thought of adding even one new one on top of our two little gremlins, and they’re becoming kind of self-sufficient. Sometimes.”
“I’ve always dreamed of having children,” I responded in the same, quiet, near-reverent tone as when I’d repeated myself moments earlier. “As many as I could. Not just because of our species being close to extinction, either. But because…I felt born to it, you know? I have yearned to carry my own young since I was barely considered an adult myself.”
“Well, that explains the impulse decision even more, doesn’t it?” I didn’t bother answering and, after a beat, he mused, “Micah is a beta. And a horse. Both of those things are so different to everything else we’ve experienced with the locked alpha stuff…”
“I know,” I dropped my chin. “These children may not even be dragons. But I will love them fiercely no matter what.”
He was silent again. Then his tone was low and serious as he said, “You have to tell him, you know that. And if he’s feeling the same pull towards you that I did when I met Ollie…”
I nodded. “I’ve already broken his trust. And I have put you in an awkward position should he demand some kind of restitution through pack law.”
“I’m telling you, Micah’s not like that. I mean, I can’t say for sure that this isn’t going to freak him out…but he’s got a leg up on me, seeing as he’s already a shifter and the concept of alphasand omegas isn’t new to him. Learning that he might be an alpha himself, on the other hand…”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I cautioned, though I couldn’t imagine that a stock standard horse beta could impregnate a dragon omega. That made zero sense. But then, neither did an alpha horse shifter, either. Unless he had recessive dragon genes?
But how could such a thing be possible? Until now, we had theorized that mixed matings between shifters was unlikely. Matings with humans, resulting in human children with recessive genes, on the other hand…
I was getting lost in hypothesizing.
