Page 40 of His Unicorn Alpha
Dad nodded. “Sure is.” Then he looked into the camera. “Do you have any theories on why your designation changed?”
While Mom was more of a hippy than Dad, it was a little out of character for him to ask about ‘theories’.
“Not really.” I narrowed my gaze and leaned forward, feeling mildly suspicious of the question. “Doyouhave any theories? Because, honestly, I didn’t think there was anything that really set me apart from other betas at all. Aside from…y’know.”
Dad winced and nodded, while Mom rolled her eyes the way she always did when I so much as alluded to my smaller-than-average size.
“I hardly think your body issues —which aresounfounded, baby; you’re perfect as you are— anyway, I doubt they would have anything to do with being an alpha.” She bobbed her head as if punctuating the statement.
Dad’s expression twisted. It was hard to really read him through my phone screen, but I knew him well enough to tell that he disagreed with her.
“Dad?” I prompted, an irrational sensation of dread welling up inside me.
The sensation increased when he sighed heavily and gave the camera a baleful, apologetic look. He opened his mouth, but Mom interrupted him, pleading, “Jeff, no. Please.”
He physically turned sideways in his seat on the patchwork couch inside their shabby-chic cabin and threw his hands into the air, “We should have told him years ago, Hannah. He’s in his thirties now. Almost forty. Hell, he’s analpha. He can handle it.”
“Handle what?” I leaned in closer to the phone, feeling Brandt’s large, warm palm land on my back in a bracing, comforting gesture. “Should have told me what?”
“Mikey,” Dad began, raising his voice over the top of Mom’s protested “Jeff, don’t!”
“Mikey,” he repeated in the tone that told me I was not going to like his next words, “there’s a chance —a strong chance— you’re not my son.”
I…what?!
I slumped back against the couch, feeling like the world was spinning.
There were so many certainties in my world. Things that kept me grounded. Truths I could rely on to maintain the chill outlook I was proud to possess. Things like ‘grass is green’, and ‘the sun rises in the east and sets in the west’, and ‘Hannah and Jeff Hawthorne are ridiculously, stupidly in love with each other’.
Mom would never, ever cheat. Even if they were all about free love or whatever…their relationship was solid. And Dad…Dad was my dad. He had raised me from birth. He’d taken me for my first shift. He…he…
“What?” I heard my own voice croak while thoughts and emotions spiraled in my brain. “How is that…I mean…were you, like…swingers, or…?” BecausethatI could potentially stomach. If they’d participated consensually together and…ugh.I didn’t want to think of my parents that way.
“Oh, no, baby,” my mother’s answer was firm and sweet all at once. “No, nothing like that. I…well, you know we tried for years to have a baby, don’t you?”
Brandt rubbed my back as I nodded.
Mom smiled sadly at me from the phone screen. I didn’t know whether I wanted to hug her, or throw the phone at the wall.“Well, we…I…got desperate after my third miscarriage. I…the universe directed me to a Shaman…”
At my side, Brandt straightened, but he didn’t stop rubbing my back. “Okay…?” I prompted.
Mom’s expression shuttered. “He gave us —Jeff and me both— some potions and tonics. Rituals to perform at certain phases of the moon…” Licking her lips, she exhaled. “Then, after the final new moon in the cycle, we had to return to him. We…don’t remember a lot from that night, but six weeks later, my pregnancy was confirmed. And it was perfect; I didn’t even have morning sickness. Then you were here, andyouwere perfect. But…well.” Her face fell. “You didn’t really look anything like Jeff. Didn’t scent like him, either.”
“It didn’t matter to us. You were ours, one hundred percent, even if you might not have been mine genetically,” Dad took over. “But…with the tonics and potions and moon-magic rituals…I think you’ve always been different from the rest of the pack, Mike. And I think—”
“That that’s why I’m an alpha,” I finished for him. “That’sthe difference.”
I had always felt like an outsider in my pack, after all. Maybe there was something different inside me. Something at a molecular level. Something influenced by magic.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Mom sniffled. When I blinked and focused back on the screen, she appeared distraught. My heart panged. “It…we didn’t see it as any different to using a sperm donor or having a mix up with IVF or something. You were our baby. Are still our baby, regardless of how you came to be.”
My thoughts shifted to my own children — the trio of embryos I hadn’t actually been involved in creating, unless masturbating into a cup counted as participation. I didn’t feel like I would love them any less for not having come about the traditional way, andI certainly didn’t resent Brandt for his desperation to bring them into the world, either.
“I’m not gonna freak out, Mom. A little shellshocked,” I admitted, “but…you’re right. You both raised me. You both loved me. I’m not…I mean, I am a little upset that you didn’t tell me, but…it doesn’t change who I am. And I am who I am because of you two.”
It might explain why I didn’t look anything like Dad, though. But I still took after him in personality. There was something to be said about nature vs nurture, or whatever.
“This Shaman,” Brandt spoke into the awkward silence descending over the call, “do you recall anything else about him? His species? Whether he remained in the area? Anything?”
