Page 3 of His Unicorn Alpha
He might have been great with fashion, but he needed to learn to leave hair and makeup to the professionals. That is, me.
Reminding myself that this was his vision, I plastered a not-entirely-real smile on my face and tilted my head, trying to see the model through his eyes. “Poofier?” I repeated.
“Yes,” he nodded emphatically, “I see my collection as an ode to the '90s. Big hair, big makeup, bigeverything.” He leered as his gaze switched to me and swept over my body from my feet to my face.
You’ll be bitterly disappointed if you try to climb that tree,I thought, but kept the words internal.
Instead, I bit my lip and looked the model over again. I’d met the brief I’d been given. The makeup was bold, but not '90stacky. She had what I thought was ‘big’ hair, though, as Bertram whipped out his phone and brought up a photo of '90s Fran Drescher a laThe Nanny, I realized too late that he wanted exaggeratedly big hair.
Grabbing the ridiculously oversized can of hairspray I carry in my kit, I nodded. Some extra teasing and an ozone-destroying amount of spray later, and I could definitely say that the model’s hair was ‘poofier’.
“Perfect!” Bertram cheered and even jumped up and down with his glee. “Thisis why you come so highly recommended,” he said, ushering the woman from the chair and shoving her towards the group of people armed and ready to get her into the outfit she was debuting. “Micah, darling, you’re magic.”
“I’m not,” I shook my head and headed towards the line of models waiting to step out onto the catwalk, double checking that none needed any touch ups. “I’m just good at what I do. Oh!” I plucked a soft brush and some translucent powder from the toolkit slung around my waist and leaned in to add a bit more coverage to one very pretty model’s cheek.
They smiled at me and winked as I pulled back to inspect my handiwork. They were pretty, but not my type, so I smiled back with a little less enthusiasm, then moved on. When I reached the end of the queue, I turned to find Bertram standing far too close to me, his eyes level with my pecs. I neatly sidestepped him and headed over to my station to start packing up.
“You should come sit and watch the show with me,” he said, the offer coming out smarmy and kind of gross.
I shook my head again and checked my watch. “I can’t. I’m due across town in an hour. Besides, you should get out there now.” I gestured with my chin. “Your first outfit has already hit the runway.”
Eyes widening, the creepy little man rushed away without so much as a goodbye, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I enjoyedmy job, but some people, like Bertram, often overstepped boundaries and made it very uncomfortable. However, because I needed the money, I had to be careful about how I rebuffed their advances. It was an exhausting balancing act and I felt sorry for any other professionals in the same position.
On days like that, I often wondered why I bothered. I knew that my pack, based outside of Susanville in California, would welcome me home with open arms…but that kind of life had never been for me. My pack, myherd, weren’t the omega-oppressing kind, but I found life with them wasn’t satisfying. I was bored there.
Then again, I was becoming bored with my life as a traveling makeup artist, too. It was almost as if I didn’t know who I was anymore.
In my mid-thirties, I was unsettled. I missed my younger days, when I felt wild and free. I had an itch under my skin, not unlike the need to shift into my horse form and run, but…deeper somehow. More intense. Like even shifting couldn’t fix it.
Maybe I just missed my friends. A couple of years earlier, my two closest friends and former roommates had moved to a no-name, speck-on-a-map town in freakingIowaof all places. Beckett and Sandy, who were foster siblings growing up, were people I never had to pretend to be anything other than myself with.
I’d known Sandy was a wolf shifter, having been able to scent it on her the day I’d knocked on her door in answer to her ad for a third roommate, but Beckett had been completely human…until he wasn’t anymore. His discovery that he was actually a shifter —and an alpha at that— had been the beginning of the end of our stint as roommates. I couldn’t blame them, though. Not with everything that happened after that.
Beck’s omega mate had gotten pregnant, and then the cult religion that a lot of packs seemed to be indoctrinated into gotwind of the existence of an alpha, and thendragonshad gotten involved. It was a crazy time. Beck and Sandy had left and settled down in a shifter town where they could not only better defend themselves from the people who wanted to harm Beck and his mate, but also where Beck could raise his kids with a little more space than our poky little apartment in New York could provide.
I missed that apartment, though. And my friends. Keeping in touch via texts and messenger apps and the occasional phone call was not the same thing.
Also, I had started to feel the weird, unsettled feeling after visiting their pack-slash-town for Beck and Ollie’s wedding. It had been great seeing my old friends and hanging out with them as they celebrated, and even Beck and Ollie’s twin toddlers were fun to spend time with, and even though small-town life had never appealed to me before, I’d hated to leave.
Life had gone back to feeling unsatisfactory after I returned to New York for work.
At first I thought it was because I was just overdue a proper vacation, but now I wasn’t so sure. My gut was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t great at listening to my instincts.
I kind of sucked as a shifter, to be honest.
I’d never felt like I was arealbeta. That sounds dumb, I know. But I wasn’t born with the crescent moon birthmark of an omega, and I didn’t get slick like an omega, either. But I didn’t feel right as a beta. I didn’t have the confidence or grace of my beta brethren. I certainly didn’t have the expected build, either.
Instead of being strong and masculine, I was just tall and lanky. Long-limbed (at leastsomethingwas long) and awkward. Gangly. Like a perpetual teenager. I felt like a wobbly-legged colt and not a sure-footed stallion.
Plus, I was gay. Likegaygay. Gold star gay. For a beta, that’s nearly unheard of. Omegas? It’s expected. But betas? If anything, we’re usually bi, though most beta men settle downwith beta women to keep their packs growing. But not me. Oh no. I had to not only be physically unimpressive, but I had to also be solely interested in men. And, to the omega men in my pack, I was a dud because I, like them, preferred to bottom. I didn’t fit in at all, and I was miserable because of that.
I mean, okay, let’s lay it all out there right now. I have, in layman’s terms, a micropenis.
Yep.
I’m a freaking horse shifter and I’m not hung like one. It felt like some kind of cosmic joke. And ofcoursethat was a source of disappointment to the omegas I attempted to hook up with…so, eventually, I gave up.
That’s part of why I left my pack. My parents are amazing, supportive people. They’re total hippies, actually. Always upbeat and never judgmental. But I could tell they were disappointed that I always felt out of place at home. And I hated upsetting them simply by existing, so…I left.
