Page 8 of His Unicorn Alpha (Shifters Sanctuary #3)

I didn’t know what to make of the strange looks Rex and Eric kept shooting me and, even with my shifter hearing, I couldn’t make out any details of their hushed, murmured conversation over the din of three toddlers playing loudly on the living room floor.

Beck still hadn’t come out of the meeting room, and neither had Brandt, and my instincts kept telling me I needed to get my ass into that room.

I didn’t understand what was going on with me at all.

But then Beck appeared in the archway that led into the hallway, and he asked me to come with him to finally meet Brandt. Almost immediately, it felt like the tension inside me was uncoiling in one way and then building in a completely different —and kind of inappropriate— way.

What the hell was happening to me?

I didn’t have a lot of time to wonder about that, though, because Beck led me into the meeting room and made introductions between me and the oldest dragon, but I was too busy cataloguing every single visual detail I could.

His dark eyes, brown like my own but so much darker, were rimmed red, and his cheeks were flushed pink. His goatee wasn’t as immaculately trimmed as it had been the day I’d seen him through the windshield of Beck’s truck, and his hair seemed longer and more disheveled, too. It had only been a week, but it was almost like I was looking at a completely different man.

Even though I knew he was hundreds of years old, he didn’t appear to be older than his mid-to-late forties. He looked tired, and sad, and his dragon scent was smoky, like Eric’s, but also kind of sweet, too. Like sugar cubes. Or apples or…something equally as tasty.

When we shook hands, an electric shock traveled straight up my arm and seemed to wake up every nerve inside my body. My inner horse whinnied and stamped its hooves.

Mate , a voice inside my head whispered, and I gave myself a shake because…weird.

“I’ve gotta go talk to Eric, but you guys have the room for as long as you need it,” Beck said, like it was totally normal that two complete strangers would need a soundproofed meeting room for a casual introductory chat.

I turned to ask him what, exactly, he thought we would need it for, but he was already gone.

Also weird.

Inside, my shifter side was elated to finally meet Brandt. He was the dragon who had rescued my friend from a grizzly end, and also the elusive figure who had always evaded introduction. And now he was right there in front of me, almost literally a captive audience for my curiosity, and I…wanted to jump him?

Seriously, what the fuck was going on with me?

“Take a seat, Micah,” Brandt purred in an accent that made my heart thump, “we should…talk.”

It struck me, as I complied with his request to sit, choosing the chair at the head of the table and leaving the one to my right free, that I might get answers from this delicious older man. Perhaps starting with the reason he had been so dead set on avoiding me?

“I’ll confess,” he said as he sat down as well, “that I’m not entirely sure where to start. I don’t even know if you’re feeling the same pull that I am, but—”

“You’re feeling it, too?” I rubbed at my chest, in the spot at my sternum just beneath my heart, where the strange tension seemed to be building.

Attraction and arousal thrummed in my veins, and I blushed because I’d never felt this intensely horny before. I had been sexually frustrated since I arrived in town, but now I was getting hard just by being in Brandt’s immediate presence.

It didn’t make sense.

Nevertheless, he nodded. “Micah…” he began, and it felt good to hear him speaking my name in that sexy as fuck accent. “I have reason to believe that we are…compatible —or fated— mates. Like Beckett and Oliver, or Rex and Damon, or Brandi and Lena.”

The words made sense, but they didn’t compute. I blinked at him and leaned forward, steepling my hands on the table’s smooth surface. “Say what now?”

He arched an eyebrow. Gods, he was hot. “You heard me.”

“I did,” I tilted my head in acknowledgement, “but…I’m a beta. I’m a horse and you are a dragon . Your lifespan alone…” I sighed. “I don’t understand how that would work.”

Inside me, my instincts insisted he was right, but logic said it was ridiculous.

“I know,” he swallowed, then looked away, “but aside from feeling this pull towards each other, and that electric shock when we finally touched, I…have scientific proof as well.” He shifted uneasily in his seat. “When you were last here, you submitted a sample to aid us with our research. You remember that, yes?”

Nodding, I could feel heat rising up the back of my neck. Jerking off into a cup for science was a memory which would stay with me forever. “Yeah?”

“Yes, well,” he shuffled around again, and I didn’t think it was because he was feeling the same desperate need to touch again like I was. He didn’t want to look at me. “During one of our tests, your sperm reacted positively with an ovum sample.” He cleared his throat, and finally met my gaze. “ My ovum sample.”

“Reacted positively? What does that—”

“In layman’s terms, your sperm fertilized my eggs.”

I could feel my eyes widening. “ Whoa . But…I’m a beta. And a horse.” I couldn’t help repeating my misgivings. “How did that even work? Are you sure it wasn’t just a weird, like, glitch in the matrix, or something? Do you need to repeat the test?”

Was that why he was being so strange and awkward? Was it that he needed me to fill another cup with another sample? Because with the way I was feeling right then, still wanting to strip him out of his jeans and button-down shirt and take him right there on the table…well, I could probably fill a couple of cups for him.

“Micah…” The apologetic tone should have been a giveaway that I wasn’t going to love whatever else he had to tell me, but I was still too busy marveling at the idea that my sperm —from my smaller-than-average dick— had fertilized dragon eggs .

I mean, yeah, I was more than aware that the size of my dick had nothing to do with the quality or even quantity of my sperm —that it was my balls doing the hard work on that front— but this still felt supremely ironic to me.

“I…” he looked away again. “I made a decision when I discovered those fertilized embryos. One which you have every right to resent me for.”

I frowned. Were we finally about to get to the reason he had been avoiding me? Maybe the fact that I was a horse shifter was distasteful to him. The gods only knew omegas had been disappointed in me as a potential partner for less understandable reasons.

“You didn’t want us to meet,” I said, fighting against my continued biological drive to touch him, to kiss him, to make him mine. The sadness at feeling rejected helped keep my head on straight. “You knew that I was, uh, am a horse, and—”

“What? No,” Brandt’s interruption was quick and vehement. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath before saying, “I chose to implant the embryos. Our embryos. Inside me.”

Wait.

He…what?!

I watched in stunned silence as he placed a shaky hand over his soft midsection, stroking his thumb lovingly over his own belly. “I…I’ve wanted children for hundreds of years. I never dreamed…” Trailing off, he shook his head again, then looked me in the eye. “I am aware it was not ethical to use your genetic material in such a manner without your consent. That I have created life — children — without your knowledge. But I had very little time to make a decision before they became non-viable, and I couldn’t let my potential babies just…slip from my grasp.”

Inside me, my beta was cheering. He was delighted, the chant ‘ mate, mate mate!’ practically thundering in my soul and in my ears.

My heart was racing, and my mouth was dry.

“Micah.” There was that stupidly sexy accent again. “I apologize for breaking your trust. For taking such a large choice out of your hands. I understand if you resent me. If you hate me. And I understand if that means you don’t want to pursue whatever this…this…mystical connection between us might mean. However, I would still make the same choice a thousand times over.”

I knew that I should be upset. That I should be freaking out. That I should be asking what the actual hell he meant by children in the plural sense.

But the first words out of my mouth were “My mom is going to be so happy about this.”

Brandt’s mouth dropped open, as if he couldn’t believe that that was my reaction.

To be fair, neither could I.

Then again, hadn’t I been lamenting the fact that I wanted kids but had to acknowledge that they just weren’t in the foreseeable future for me? This resolved that issue, if nothing else.

I mean, it wasn’t in the conventional way, or any remotely believable way. Also, it meant that I didn’t have a whole lot of time to prepare for having kids, either, seeing as they were already inside this ridiculously sexy dragon omega. But I couldn’t help thinking that maybe my mother and her hippy-dippy connection to ‘the universe’ were right after all.

I started to laugh at that thought while Brandt looked on with an expression that suggested he thought he might have pushed my sanity beyond its reasonable limits.

“This isn’t a joke, Micah. I—”

“No,” I managed to wheeze out between near-hysterical laughter. “No, I know. I just…” I couldn’t actually explain why the situation had tickled my funny bone. “It’s…it’s just ironic to me, is all. In so many ways. I…God, Brandt, you’re getting the short straw here.”

At my own unintentional, self-deprecating size pun, I lost it again, slumping on the table as I laughed the myriad of conflicting emotions out of my system.

When I felt calm enough to face him again, he was staring at me as though I was the one likely to turn into a dragon and eat him. “Sorry,” I wiped at my eyes, feeling like the inappropriate hysteria had done me a world of good. “I needed that.”

“I am extremely confused,” he said, but his own shoulders were no longer tense, and he even seemed mildly amused. “You…you’re not…repulsed by me? By what I’ve done?”

“Not even a little bit,” I answered honestly. “My beta is thrilled. I’m…well, not gonna lie; I’m going to need some time to actually wrap my head around the fact that I’m apparently going to be a dad because that was not on my bingo card for this year, or at all, but…no. No repulsion. No anger. And I still feel this…this pull to you. Not that that’s influencing how I feel about the baby thing.”

“It’s…not?” He didn’t sound like he believed me.

“No,” I assured him. “I, uh, I’ve wanted kids of my own for a while. But I never thought I’d find a man willing to settle down with me.”

He scoffed, looking me up and down with skepticism. “You are a very attractive man,” he said, “and you are being quite kind and understanding when you do not have to be, so forgive me if I find such a thing difficult to believe.”

Shrugging, I told him, “I’m not as impressive as I am pretty.”

He frowned. “It sounds to me as though you have been seeing the wrong kind of men if their expectations are purely based on your appearance.”

I shrugged. “There’s that, too.”

Snorting, Brandt shook his head. “You’re not at all like I anticipated you’d be.”

“What? You thought I’d freak out?” I supposed most men in my situation would, and it would be understandable. But then, I had often been accused of being too chill.

It wasn’t that things didn’t get to me, because they did, but I picked my battles. Besides, if this gorgeous man really was my mate, it would be counterintuitive to get upset over starting a family together when it was clearly something we both wanted.

Yes, in my mind, I’d always thought I would get to know someone before we actively planned a family. However, I had seen Beck and Ollie’s connection, and Rex and Damon’s, and even Brandi and Lena’s, too. Some part of me —the part that sounded like my mother— said that I should trust fate. I should trust the universe.

“I am pregnant with your children,” he replied slowly, in a tone that suggested he most certainly did expect me to flip my shit, “and you didn’t even have the benefit of…well, the traditional and, I’d assume, enjoyable method of conception.”

And then I was right back to wanting to lay him out on the table and claim him all over again. I cleared my throat at the images in my head, amazed that my beta desperately wanted to top him when I’d spent the better part of my sex life bottoming for men who looked like him, and enjoying it, too.

“Yes, well, you’d probably enjoy a test tube more than me anyway,” I muttered, then cringed as the self-flagellating thought slipped past my usual filters and out of my mouth.

He frowned. “Seriously,” he asked with irritation, “what kind of men have you been involved with that you think so poorly of yourself?” There was an edgy, angry growl to his voice that did things to me.

My omega was the hottest man ever .

Despite not actually having a claim on Brandt, and him not even suggesting that he would be interested in pursuing whatever mystical connection existed between us, my beta was determined to think of him as mine. I should probably fight those instincts, but even my human side wanted to be selfish and possessive.

I didn’t think I could be blamed for that. I mean, Brandt was stunning . And he was a dragon. An honest-to-God dragon! He was perfect . The embodiment of every fantasy I’d ever had, all rolled into one.

“I…” I started, then faltered as he pushed from his seat and loomed over me. I swallowed and my mouth ran dry, even as my cock woke all the way up, straining in my underwear.

Over the years, I’d told myself that size didn’t account for skill or enthusiasm. I’d even started believing it once I left my pack and started sleeping with human men. But with the desperate, all-encompassing need to impress this vision of a man —of a dragon — standing over me, I had never wished for a larger dick more in my entire life.

Sadly, even our shifter magic didn’t work that way. The organ straining in my pants, while harder than he had ever been, didn’t suddenly grow any extra inches just because I wanted my mate to be happy and, more importantly, satisfied with the hand (or, rather, cock) fate had dealt him.

“Stand up,” he demanded in that same, sexy growl, and I complied.

Standing nose to nose with Brandt, his eyes searched mine before he closed the scant distance between us and slanted his lips over mine.

If I had thought that shaking hands with him had been electric, the feeling had nothing on the fireworks his kiss ignited.

Kissing him was indescribable.

It was as if a thousand lightbulbs were bursting to life above my head. The sheer rightness of this connection, needy and fiery and raw, was a revelation.

My beta was right; Brandt was mine. He was meant to be mine.

Only mine.

I let my omega control the kiss. I parted my lips and let his tongue tangle with my own. I let his big, beefy hands cup my jaw while my useless, awkward fingers dug into his hips.

He tasted delicious, almost exactly as he smelled. Smoky and sweet; like burnt caramel or a marshmallow which had been left just a little too long over the flames of a fire. He was decadent and passionate, and I knew without a doubt that I would never find another man whose kiss could live up to this one.

His hands slid down from my jaw, beginning a slow, sensual exploration of my body. Meaty palms caressed my shoulders, my toned —but comparatively puny— biceps, my lean torso, and my not-exactly-fleshy ass. Then those same hands slid around to my thighs and I gasped, pulling away before they could reach for what I was certain would be a disappointing bulge.

“Shit,” he cursed, then stepped back. I immediately hated the space he created between us, missing the radiating warmth from his soft belly against my flat one. “I apologize. I…the pull was so strong, and the hormones…”

“Don’t…don’t apologize. I want this — you — too. But…” I closed my eyes and sighed. “You should be warned, I guess. I’m not…uh…it’s just most shifters assume that because I’m a horse, I’m hung, but…”

Fuck, explaining my issue was difficult. This was why I didn’t date other shifters. Humans didn’t make the same assumptions, nor did they seem as concerned about what I was packing, especially not as a bottom.

“You realize that I am half a millennium old, don’t you?” he spoke gently into the awkward silence I’d left hanging, still trying to spit out what I saw as my biggest (no pun intended) personal failing. “And I am a doctor. I have seen it all, and then some. And I am more aware than most that one’s species does not correlate to one’s physical attributes in human form. Besides, we all have something we are self-conscious about. I am…cuddlier…than either of my brothers. And, now that I am carrying triplets—”

I’ll admit that I might have collapsed back down onto my chair, dramatically gasping, “ Triplets?! ” while my hand covered my racing heart.

Some na?ve part of me had assumed ‘children’ plural equated to twins, like Beck and Ollie had. Like Lena and Brandi were having. Not three .

That part where I said I was chill? That I wasn’t going to freak out? I might have spoken too soon.

Brandt bit his lip, appearing far more adorable than a man who looked as intimidating as he did had any right to be. “Surprise?”