Page 19 of His Unicorn Alpha
“Well, we’re not going to get answers by hiding in here.” Beck pushed to his feet. “I’m going to talk to Eric. I’m sure, once he calms down, he’ll be excited to have new data and theories to work with. In the meantime, I’m going to find Micah and send him in here so you two can meet properly. You don’t have to tell him today, but you know he deserves to know soon, and he does deserve to hear the whole story from you.”
I was back to feeling like a chastened schoolboy caught vandalizing school property or something to that effect. I chewed on my bottom lip and nodded. “This is why you’re a good Pack Alpha, Beckett,” I told him as he reached the door. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugged and gave me a lopsided grin, “I told you a couple of years ago: I’ve got your back, Bran. No matter what.” Then he paused and scrunched his nose. “But that doesn’t extend to babysitting. You’re on your own for that.”
For the first time in weeks, I laughed loudly and freely.
It hadn’t happened quite the way I had planned, but my secret was mostly revealed. I could focus on the future instead of hiding, and I swore that I would do whatever I could to rebuild my brother’s —and my pack’s— trust in me.
Chapter Eight
Ididn’t know what to make of the strange looks Rex and Eric kept shooting me and, even with my shifter hearing, I couldn’t make out any details of their hushed, murmured conversation over the din of three toddlers playing loudly on the living room floor.
Beck still hadn’t come out of the meeting room, and neither had Brandt, and my instincts kept telling me I needed to get my ass into that room.
I didn’t understand what was going on with me at all.
But then Beck appeared in the archway that led into the hallway, and he asked me to come with him to finally meet Brandt. Almost immediately, it felt like the tension inside me was uncoiling in one way and then building in a completely different —and kind of inappropriate— way.
What the hell was happening to me?
I didn’t have a lot of time to wonder about that, though, because Beck led me into the meeting room and made introductions between me and the oldest dragon, but I was too busy cataloguing every single visual detail I could.
His dark eyes, brown like my own but so much darker, were rimmed red, and his cheeks were flushed pink. His goatee wasn’t as immaculately trimmed as it had been the day I’d seen him through the windshield of Beck’s truck, and his hair seemed longer and more disheveled, too. It had only been a week, but it was almost like I was looking at a completely different man.
Even though I knew he was hundreds of years old, he didn’t appear to be older than his mid-to-late forties. He looked tired, and sad, and his dragon scent was smoky, like Eric’s, but also kind of sweet, too. Like sugar cubes. Or apples or…something equally as tasty.
When we shook hands, an electric shock traveled straight up my arm and seemed to wake up every nerve inside my body. My inner horse whinnied and stamped its hooves.
Mate, a voice inside my head whispered, and I gave myself a shake because…weird.
“I’ve gotta go talk to Eric, but you guys have the room for as long as you need it,” Beck said, like it was totally normal that two complete strangers would need a soundproofed meeting room for a casual introductory chat.
I turned to ask him what, exactly, he thought we would need it for, but he was already gone.
Also weird.
Inside, my shifter side was elated to finally meet Brandt. He was the dragon who had rescued my friend from a grizzly end, and also the elusive figure who had always evaded introduction. And now he was right there in front of me, almost literally a captive audience for my curiosity, and I…wanted to jump him?
Seriously, what the fuck was going on with me?
“Take a seat, Micah,” Brandt purred in an accent that made my heart thump, “we should…talk.”
It struck me, as I complied with his request to sit, choosing the chair at the head of the table and leaving the one to my right free,that I might get answers from this delicious older man. Perhaps starting with the reason he had been so dead set on avoiding me?
“I’ll confess,” he said as he sat down as well, “that I’m not entirely sure where to start. I don’t even know if you’re feeling the same pull that I am, but—”
“You’re feeling it, too?” I rubbed at my chest, in the spot at my sternum just beneath my heart, where the strange tension seemed to be building.
Attraction and arousal thrummed in my veins, and I blushed because I’d never felt this intensely horny before. I had been sexually frustrated since I arrived in town, but now I was getting hard just by being in Brandt’s immediate presence.
It didn’t make sense.
Nevertheless, he nodded. “Micah…” he began, and it feltgoodto hear him speaking my name in that sexy as fuck accent. “I have reason to believe that we are…compatible —or fated— mates. Like Beckett and Oliver, or Rex and Damon, or Brandi and Lena.”
The words made sense, but they didn’t compute. I blinked at him and leaned forward, steepling my hands on the table’s smooth surface. “Say what now?”
He arched an eyebrow. Gods, he was hot. “You heard me.”
