Page 49 of His Unicorn Alpha
The mention of my mate made me smile. “He would.”
“I thought you said you liked kids,” Beck teased.
“I said I’d always wanted kids of my own. Your monsters are your problem, dude.”
He snorted. “Oh, in that case, let’s see if I’m sympathetic when you’re getting negative three hours sleep a night.” He shuddered exaggeratedly. “There’s a reason they use sleep deprivation as a torture device.”
“You’re my Pack Alpha now,” I reminded him, giving his shoulder a nudge with mine as we made our way back up onto the porch, collecting our lukewarm beers, “you have to be sympathetic to me.”
He took a draw from his beer and made a face at the bottle before asking, “Are you okay with that? Me being your Alpha?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
I followed him inside and he took my beer from me as we entered the kitchen, replacing it with a cold bottle from the refrigerator. “Well,” he replied, then gestured for me to head through to the living room, “we were roommates. Equals. Friends. I wasn’t even a shifter. And now I’m the official leader of the pack you’ve moved into and that…well, it might make things awkward. Especially with you being another alpha, and one of such a unique breed…Like, I mean, I haven’t learned all the rules yet, but you could probably challenge me for my spot here.”
Only just having sat down on the couch, I almost choked on the mouthful of cold, crisp alcohol I had just taken. Coughing and spluttering, I shook my head. “Challenge you?” I asked incredulously. “Dude, no. I don’t want that kind of responsibility. It’s enough coming to terms with being an alpha at all,andthere’s the ‘gonna be a dad’ thing on top of that. My dance card is full, your position as the pack’s boss is safe.”
“I’m not your boss,” he protested, then groaned and rolled his eyes when he realized I was teasing him. “Dick.”
I shrugged. “You’re the one making a big deal out of the Pack Alpha thing. I just want to settle down with my baby mama and live the life that makes my inner alpha content.”
“Oh, please let me be there when you call Brandt your baby mama in front of him.”
“You don’t think he’d find it endearing? He likes my nicknames and sweet talking.”
It was Beck’s turn to cough over a mouthful of beer. “Dude,” he complained, “I don’t need to hear that.”
“I didn’t mean in a sex way…but he does like that, too, I guess.”
“Anyway,” he pushed on, ignoring my childish attempts to make him uncomfortable. “You never got a chance to answer earlier: do you think you’re the only unicorn out there? Some sort of…magical anomaly?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. Eric and Brandt seem to think that’s unlikely, as surprised as they both were by my new form, but seeing as they can’t find any records of unicorn shifters at all…” I shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Have they reached out to Sage and Dex? Asked them to add ‘find unicorns’ to their ‘find magic’ mission?” He paused and screwed up his nose, leaning his head against the headrest of his faded armchair. “Listen to the words coming out of my mouth. This sounds surreal.”
“Yeah,” I bobbed my head and took another sip of my drink, then leaned forward and let the bottle dangle from my fingertips between my spread knees. Tilting my head in his direction, I added, “I grew up as a shifter and this all sounds far-fetched to me, too.” Taking a breath, I continued, “As for Sage and Dexter…yeah. Eric called them the day I shifted. We’re all working blind here at the moment.”
Snorting, Beck brought his bottle to his lips again, “Story of my life, man.”
Chapter Seventeen
In the following weeks, Eric, Ollie and I continued to research, searching old records for any mentions of unicorns or the old magics. Word traveled through the pack about the existence of unicorns, specifically the unicorn living in Shifters Sanctuary, and Micah spent a substantial amount of time meeting our neighbors and other members of the town and patiently promised that he would attend the next pack run if only to sate their curiosity. (And, when he followed through on the promise, there was no chance of him and I having any alone time until we took flight.)
Meanwhile, Sage and Dexter checked in from various international locations, where they were presumably meeting with other dragons who might be hording old texts or, better still, personal knowledge of the magic or old ways.
In my personal life, Micah and I grew closer. He returned to New York for a few days to retrieve his clothes and personal belongings, organized the termination of his lease (apologizingto his roommates for the sudden and short notice), and then formally moved into my home.
My omega preened at the knowledge that our alpha —myalpha— was staking his claim so officially and publicly. After hundreds of years without alphas, I considered myself an independent omega, but there was still something comforting on a cellular level in feeling so wanted by my alpha that he would restructure his entire life for me and our pups.
Speaking of our pups, I woke one morning, roughly a month following our bonding, to a much rounder belly than the one I had gone to sleep with. It was mind boggling to experience, but I had most certainly ‘popped’ overnight. At almost eighteen weeks pregnant with triplets, I was surprised that it had not happened earlier…but then, my belly had been soft and rounded to begin with.
My mate and I had fallen into a routine where he would wake early, go for a jog in human form, return and shower, then crawl back into bed with me. On this particular morning, I woke while he was still showering, and he emerged from the ensuite bathroom in a billow of steam with his towel cinched around his waist.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, closing the distance between the bathroom door and the bed. “I felt surprise from the bond and—oh,wow.”
I was rubbing the pronounced swell of my belly, still awed by my sudden overnight change of physiology. We slept naked, but I did not bother to cover up. My mate probably knew my body better than I did by that point.
I had yet to feel the babies move, but now it felt so much more real just seeing the evidence of their existence. Looking up at Micah, I blinked back tears of awe and happiness. “It feels very real now.”
