Page 1 of His Unicorn Alpha (Shifters Sanctuary #3)

“ Y ou’re okay with doing the fertilization tests today?” Eric asked as I wandered into our shared clinic.

My life had both changed significantly and also not at all since I had moved to Shifters Sanctuary roughly two years earlier. I had always been a doctor and a researcher, honing my skills over my centuries of existence, but when I moved to the town my younger brother had established with the then-only known alpha in existence, I had been drawn into assisting him with his research into alpha/omega dynamics and omega fertility.

It had been the focus of Eric’s research since the last known dragon alpha —our father— had vanished, presumably killed by dragon hunters, though his remains were never found. Eric was determined that we could save our species from extinction.

We were an all-male race, dependent on the existence of alphas to impregnate our omegas. Without alphas, there was no longer any way for our omegas to have babies.

When Eric had called me, excitedly announcing that he had discovered an alpha —albeit a wolf shifter and not a dragon— his hope was infectious. For the first time in centuries, I imagined that maybe our race had a chance after all.

Beckett Smith had grown up entirely human until he had met his omega mate and they had been thrown into a whirlwind mating heat and bonding experience. What followed was a series of events which upended a great deal of the shifter community, causing an even deeper divide between the ‘new age’ of shifters, who believed in social equality, and the ‘old-school’ faction, who appeared to be led by a cult-like religion called Moonmusic, whose reasons for keeping things the way they’d always been seemed to be driven purely by financial greed and a lust for power.

Because alphas, it turned out, were just as powerful as legends suggested.

They radiated power, in fact. Their very scents were electric, buzzing and energizing. And, as we had discovered, they had the ability to compel and control betas and omegas through commands alone if they so chose.

I imagined just how terrible things could go if the wrong sort of person had those abilities and I shuddered. No wonder the Moonmusic-founded sect had wanted an alpha of their own.

So, to cut a long story short, I was working for Eric in the hopes that we could save our species, as well as find answers to the questions raised by the existence of all the new alphas.

“Yes,” I replied, making my way to our private lab, though I was convinced the task would be just as fruitless as with every other round of testing.

In the couple of years since Eric settled in Shifters Sanctuary with the first of the new alphas, people had been arriving in the hopes that they, too, were potentially affected by ‘hidden alpha syndrome’ or ‘locked alpha syndrome’, as Eric had called it. However, as time continued to pass, we were all losing hope that we would find more alphas.

From the start, I was skeptical that we would find any dragon alphas. Eric’s theory that the locked alphas had some genetic throwbacks to shifter lines made the likelihood of finding someone with dragon genes even slimmer. After all, our father had been gone for hundreds of years: even if he had sown his wild oats in the human community, those lines were likely far too diluted by now. Additionally, I didn’t believe that Eric, Sage, or I would be fated or compatible mates for someone within our genetic line. Yet, we still worked in hope. It was that or resign ourselves to extinction.

Eric and I had spent months working out the science on inducing egg production in omegas without being able to incite mating heats. In the end, it involved using similar chemical hormones to the birth control we had devised for Ollie, Damon, and Lena – mates to the town’s alphas. Not that Ollie or Damon felt confident in relying on our science to prevent future pregnancies, much to Eric’s frustration, and Lena was pregnant and unable to be our test subject for at least another six months.

With mild desperation to prevent our research from stalling, Eric convinced the Pack Alpha, Beck, to host social events between the growing numbers of potential alphas and the omegas in town, but none had sparked the kinds of connections that Beck, Rex, and Brandi had reported. Through a meticulous documentation process, we had decided to attempt blind insemination matches in the lab, using sperm donated from multiple potential alphas and even the town’s betas, and ovum from omegas who had been willing to undergo the invasive procedure to donate them to science.

Eliminating the combinations of omegas and potential alphas who had interacted at the social events left us with possible combinations of ovum donors and sperm. The plan was ultimately to alert any potential matches should any of the insemination attempts become successful and allow the parties in question to make decisions on how to proceed from there.

We believed that, under controlled circumstances, potential mates could meet and ride out the initial mating heat while simultaneously avoiding pregnancy.

It was beginning to feel like we were throwing things at a wall in the hopes something might stick, though. There were too many variables, even if Eric was convinced that fate and magic would be on our side.

My youngest brother had always been the dreamer of our family.

Two hours after walking into the lab, I was staring open-mouthed at successfully fertilized eggs. Three of the four in the petri dish were viable. My heart hammered wildly. This meant that there was another potential alpha among us after all.

Eric was right.

I couldn’t even be annoyed that he was.

I checked the numbers on the petri dish and pulled up the records to see whose samples had matched so spectacularly. Chances were, I would be on a first name basis with the omega, given the ovum-retrieval process was run out of our clinic. I had less to do with the potential alphas than Eric, who conducted all their interviews and collected their samples, but I might have crossed paths with them in town.

My mouth went dry and I felt dizzy when I saw my own name staring back at me from our records.

It can’t be , I thought. But, when I double checked the records, there was no doubt left.

They were my ovum. My eggs. The petri dish in front of me held my potential children.

Dragons .

I didn’t rush to look up the potential alpha, too shocked at the realization that I had three viable, fertilized dragon eggs —from my own dusty womb— sitting right in front of me.

Eric, Sage, Dexter and I had all undergone the ovum-retrieval process out of a sense of desperation to save our species, but I had never imagined that one of us would find a match, especially not me. I was one-hundred years older than Sage and Dexter, and almost two-hundred years older than Eric. I was practically middle-aged by dragon standards! (I appeared middle-aged by human standards, too.)

The urge to ensure the safety and continued viability of my test-tube created young rushed over me in a wave of overwhelming determination.

Even if they weren’t inside me, they were my babies. I had technically even made them, though through unconventional means.

But who was their other father? Who was my potential alpha?

Holy shit, I thought to myself, my heart hammering, I have a potential alpha!

After carefully returning my petri dish of hope back to the specialized, protected storage Eric had had manufactured for his lab, I turned back to our records and looked for the corresponding number for the sperm donor.

I blinked, then frowned deeply as the name registered in my brain.

Micah Hawthorne.

Beck’s friend and former roommate.

A beta .

How is that possible?

Sitting back in stunned silence, I mused over the discovery. I’d never met Micah. Even at Beck and Ollie’s wedding in front of the entire town, our paths hadn’t crossed. But from what I knew of the man, the contents of that petri dish should not be possible. Firstly, he was a beta. Secondly, unlike Beck, Rex, and Brandi, he had grown up knowing he was a shifter and he had the ability to shift. Finally, and most confusingly, he was a horse shifter.

Beck and Ollie were both wolves. Rex and Damon were both mountain lions. Brandi and Lena were both rabbits.

I was a dragon. Micah was a horse. How could we possibly be compatible?

If we were, and if the fertilization of my ovum wasn’t a fluke, this discovery would throw all of our theories to that point into the wind.

And, assuming Micah was also affected by locked alpha syndrome, did that mean inter-species breeding was possible between alphas and omegas after all, like it was between betas of different species? And, if so, would those fertilized eggs be dragons, or would they be horses?

I decided that, on that last question, I didn’t care either way. They were still my babies, made from my ovum — something I’d honestly thought was a daydream at best. They were precious, regardless of their species.

However, another realization hit me like a punch to my solar plexus.

Eric and I did not have the facilities to freeze the embryos. After a few days, they would need to be frozen or disposed of.

I felt sick at the idea of disposing of them.

Especially when Micah didn’t live in Shifters Sanctuary. As far as I knew, he lived in New York and traveled all over the world for work. Even if I contacted him, would he want to uproot his life to be saddled with a man he’d never met, or to have children simply because I was desperate to try to save my species and, if I was being honest, because I desperately wanted to be a father?

I’d wanted it for centuries, but had never imagined it possible.

The petri dish called to me, speaking to those desires like a siren.

I knew it was unethical. I knew it would be a breach of my Hippocratic oath as a doctor…

But I really wanted to be a father, and I didn’t want to dispose of my embryos. As far as I could tell, this was my only shot.

It was fate, as Ollie would say.

And so, under my brother’s nose, I prepared to break laws and oaths and ethics in order to fulfill that dream and potentially ensure my species would continue.

What was the modern saying? Seek forgiveness, not permission?

Well, I hoped I’d be forgiven for my next actions, because they were going to change history.