Page 2 of His Unicorn Alpha (Shifters Sanctuary #3)

“ C an’t you, I don’t know, make the hair…poofier?” Bertram, the designer whose collection was about to walk out onto the catwalk in less than five minutes, stood back with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face as he looked into the mirror at the model I’d just finished working on.

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, big everything .” 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 '90s tacky. 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 la The 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. “ This is 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 enjoyed my 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, my herd , 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 freaking Iowa of 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 got wind of the existence of an alpha, and then dragons had 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 a real beta. 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 least something was 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. Like gay gay. 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 down with 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 of course that 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.

In the human world, my differences weren't as much of an issue. They were definitely something I had a chip on my shoulder about, but at least human men didn't automatically assume I wanted to top, and I had a pretty great sex life despite my (dear god, I’m sorry about this pun) short comings.

Still, it was all a part of the simmering concoction of emotions making me feel uneasy about myself.

Being flirted with by men who couldn't understand the word ‘no’ only seemed to make the feeling worse.

As I finished packing up my kit, I bid goodbye to the assistants who had been working with me behind the scenes and I headed out onto the busy Manhattan street. If I wasn’t lugging around thousands of dollars’ worth of makeup and hair products, I might have taken the subway to get to my next destination, but I opted to hail a cab instead. It was going to cost more, but was safer and easier.

Thankfully, the cab driver had just as little interest in talking to me as I did with him, and I used the drive across town —to the on-location filming spot for an episode of a new TV show— to relax and center myself.

I am calm.

I am content.

I am —

The shrill ringing of my phone cut into my silent affirmations and I sighed before looking at the caller ID. Mom . It was as if she had a sixth sense for any time I was getting too lost in my wallowing.

“Hey, Mom,” I greeted with enthusiasm I didn’t quite feel.

“Baby,” she cooed, “are you well? I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”

For an airy-fairy hippie, she was still really good at laying on the mom-guilts, but I knew she only did it because she really did miss me. I missed her, too. Just not the rest of the pack.

This time when I smiled, it was more genuine. “I’m fine, just busy.”

“You work yourself too hard, Mikey.”

“I can’t help it. I take the work when and where I can get it.”

“You know if you need money, your dad and I—”

“Mom, I’m thirty-six. I am beyond the age of calling my mommy and daddy to pay for things.”

She sniffed. “You’ll never stop being our baby, Micah. You’d know how that feels if you ever hurry up and give me grandbabies.”

I take it all back. She’s a monster.

“Mom, I’m—”

“Don’t give me the old ‘I’m gay’ excuse, Micah Hawthorne. Omegas in our pack have been known to adopt babies from all over the world. And Mitchell and his human partner, Daniel? Yes, I think that’s his name. Anyway, they’ve just announced that they’re having a baby through a surrogate. There’s no excuse for you, Micah.”

“Aside from the fact that those options are hella expensive, how about the fact that I’m single?” I offered her, along with a long-suffering sigh. “I like kids, Mom. I do. But I don’t want to raise them by myself.” I studiously ignored the cab driver’s raised eyebrows in the rearview mirror. He could butt the hell out, too.

“Well, find yourself a man. The clock is ticking.”

Oh, sure, because everyone was lining up to settle down with the guy with the tiny dick and no money to his name.

“What clock?”

“Your biological clock.”

I laughed. “Don’t you mean your biological clock? I’m content the way I am.”

Liar.

Oh, great. My inner voice was ganging up on me, too.

“Forgive me for being blunt, baby, but that’s not true and we both know it.”

I swallowed and looked out the window at the grays and tans of the buildings swishing by as the cab weaved through traffic. “Mom…”

“The last time you sounded even close to happy was when you visited your alpha friend for his wedding a few months back. Oh, I got such good vibes from the universe while you were there…”

“I called you while I was drunk, Mom. It wasn’t good vibes; it was too much tequila.”

This time, the cabbie snorted, then averted his gaze when I caught his eye in the mirror and frowned.

I’m so glad I can provide someone with amusement today.

“I know what I felt, sweetheart,” she dismissed me. “And I know you’re not happy now, either.”

I never really bought into my mother’s hippy-dippy ‘in tune with the universe’ crap. I believed in magic to some extent —I was a man who turned into a horse at will, after all— but that was just a step too far. Still, I played along with her because it made her happy and it wasn’t hurting anyone.

The conversation in the cab was no different. I sighed. “Fine. I’m feeling…” I searched for the right word and could only come up with: “unsettled, I guess.” And she was right: the last time I felt content and settled had been at Beck’s wedding months earlier.

“I knew it!”

“Mom…”

“Do me a favor, baby. Call your friends. Go visit them. I’m getting the feeling you’re supposed to be there.”

Shoulders slumping, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a little holiday. Maybe I’d sublet my room and see if staying in a small-town for a couple of months might be enough to fix whatever misguided notion my instincts —and my mother and her universe — were stuck on.

“Fine, Mom, I’ll go. But I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’ when it’s a bust.”

“And I reserve the right to say it when it turns out that I’m right.” She paused to blow air-kisses down the line. “ Mwah , baby. I love you. Let me know when you get there safe and sound.”

We said our goodbyes and I sat in awkward silence for the remaining few minutes of my car ride. When the cab pulled up to the curb and I paid, the driver turned in his seat and extended a card with his number.

He smirked and shrugged. “I’m not looking for anything serious, either,” he said, adding, “and I get it: my Mom’s Jewish. The guilt is strong in that one.”

I took the card, sharing a chuckle of commiseration. The guy was cute, with dark curly hair and eyes that glimmered with mirth, but he was far too young for me.

Because that was my other issue: I had a type. It was just a pity that even the older men I’d dated had gotten bored of me for one reason or another.

I was destined for singledom and Grindr hook-ups.

I tucked the card into my jeans pocket as I climbed out of the cab with my makeup kit, reminding myself that, in the end, beggars couldn’t be choosy.

My inner shifter huffed and my skin prickled with renewed unease. Apparently, he disagreed with my life choices more and more with each passing day.

“Fine,” I muttered to myself, feeling like an idiot, “I’ll text Beck.”

Oddly, that seemed to settle my inner beast.

Weird.