Page 71 of His Unicorn Alpha
“That’s why he’s scared of you. Of this pack. Because you’re —we’re— proving that it can be done.”
“Yeah. Of course, we have three centuries-old dragons with deep pockets which makes it easier, too,” Beck sighed, “but it can be done. Look at your old pack: they’re not Moonmusic fanatics.”
“True.” I thought of the pack I had grown up in back in California. “But we also were heavily influenced by human communities, I guess. Morstein and his crew are all about keeping shifter society insular”
“Yeah, so they can control it. If we all had packs like this one —or like your family's pack— where everyone is treated equally regardless of their secondary designation, or of their shifted species, and where town councils get to vote for what’s best for the pack…that takes away the ultimate control. Morstein and his cronies don't want to give up that kind of power. And he’s probably afraid that we, as alphas, outrank him in his system, too.”
“And we can’t, like, use that against him? We can’t use the alpha powers and rank or whatever to stop him?”
“That’s what I personally think he’s most afraid of. That’s why he wants to end us. Right now, he’s still trying to convince his followers that we’re not true alphas because we weren't born alphas. That because those of us he knows about grew up human,and that our human-influenced way of life is a threat to theirs. He has stopped trying to nab one of us for now, but that only makes me think he’d rather eradicate us at this point.”
My stomach turned. “Eradicate?”
The word made me think of horrible historic events, both in human history and shifter history. Once upon a time, humanshad hunted shifters into what they thought was extinction because they were threatened by our existence. Then they had turned on themselves, also driven by power and greed and fearmongering.
“Which is why we can’t let our guards down. Especially while we still don’t know how to determine who has an alpha side locked away behind a human or beta façade.”
Years earlier, I never would have imagined my completely human roommate, a man who suffered from anxiety and claustrophobia when he was in too-large a crowd, would be an alpha. But now, hearing him speak so passionately about protecting a species he had never even known he was a part of, was humbling. Beck might have been uncomfortable accepting his role as pack Alpha, but he was born to lead. This conversation completely cemented that for me.
“I think Sage and Dex might be getting closer to finding more answers. Brandt was helping Eric go over some pictures from old journals a little while back…before the girls were born, I mean. But he said something the other day about Dex emailing more through from…wherever the hell he’s traveled to now.”
“Yeah, Eric’s keeping me informed on that. We’ll see what the new translations bring.”
In the end, while the translations were a bust, the entire person Sage and Dex brought back to the pack was not.
At first glance, he seemed to be an older man, possibly in his sixties or early seventies, with a thick head of silver hair and a perfectly trimmed matching beard. But his scent reminded me of my girls, and he was in fantastic physical shape for a man of his apparent age. He was tall and long-limbed, kind of lanky like me, but seemed to exude the same sort of grace as Brandt, rather than my clumsiness.
Still, it blew me away when Brandt stiffened at my side and scented the air, murmuring, “Another unicorn.”
I hadn’t put two and two together until that moment.
“Micah,” Dex smirked at me as he led the man further into the meeting room in Beck’s house (a room which would always make me smile when I considered what Brandt and I had done there), “please allow me to introduce you to Sergio.”
I rose from my seat to shake Sergio’s hand, the hairs on the back of my neck spiking as I felt a trickle of recognition somewhere in the back of my brain. But that was weird, because I had never met this man before.
“You know what’s fascinating about Sergio?” Dexter continued blithely, with that irritatingly smug tone of his. I kept my eyes on the pale blue pair in front of me, though, unable to look away. “Sergio,” Dex answered himself, “spent a great deal of time in California roughly thirty-something years ago.”
My heart rate increased and my mouth went dry.
“And Sergio,” Dexter was on a roll, “just so happens to be one of the last true magic wielders on earth, don’t you, Surge?”
Releasing the man’s hand, I took a step backwards, right into Brandt’s warm, steadying embrace.
“Dex,” Sage sighed, “we talked about this…”
“I apologize,” Sergio finally spoke, preventing Dexter from defending his actions. The older man hadn’t taken his eyes off me, either, but his expression was carefully blank. He made me uneasy, but that was probably because I was ninety-nine percentsure this was the shaman my mother had visited in order to get pregnant. This was my biological father. “I never intended to cause a scene.”
He seemed genuine enough, and his surprisingly American accented voice was low and calming.
“Dexter caused the scene, not you,” Damon muttered from further down the table.
Dexter sighed. “Who invited the kitty cat anyway? Shouldn’t you be playing receptionist at Eric’s clinic?”
“Eric and Brandt are both here,” Sage cut in, sounding surprisingly irritated with his best friend. “And Rex is his mate. Being one of only a few bonded pairs, it makes sense for them to be here.”
“Welcome to bedlam,” I offered the newcomer, my momentary shock rendering me numb as the others bickered around me. In that moment, I tried to remind myself that I still thought of my parents as my parents. Even if this guy was responsible for half of my genetic makeup, he wasn’t anything to me but a stranger who had helped my parents out. Trying not to give the troublemaking dragon the satisfaction of watching me freak out, I forced a weak smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Brandt squeezed my hip and offered his own greeting, then suggested we all take our seats. I leaned into the reassurance he sent through the bond. I would process this latest mindfuck later. In private. Potentially over a Facetime call with my parents.
