"I know you're there, little boy," Jonathan shouted. "I'll be picking you up soon, little boy."
Neil rushed to the door, fearless and ready to do whatever needed to be done. And I could see his skin start to contort and a horn protrude from his head-- he was about to shift.
Shocked at the sight, Jonathan rushed back the safety of his truck and drove off. That was the only part that eased my worried mind, that he could feel fear.
Neil
I couldn't believe the bastard had the balls to try that shit with me. I held Tommy so tightly that I thought I'd Squeeze his spine out his ass, and the sensation of him trembling in my arms was both troubling and hot.
Man, it's hard to explain why. I guess it's because he was vulnerable. Someone was after him, something he couldn't realistically fight against, and so he needed me. He needed my protection and love. That satisfied my Alpha. And my inner Unicorn saw this as the greatest moment in our relationship yet. But my Human was disgusted. I didn't want this to happen to anyone, and the fact that Jonathan was such a royal scumbag as to do this to another person filled me with more hate and anger than I'd felt in years. Maybe my entire life.
I took Tommy and carried him in my arms back to his bed. Was that melodramatic? Damn straight it was. But the thing is, some bastard just threatened to drag him back to a life of abuse. A little melodrama's fine.
When I set him down, I made sure I was as gentle and ginger about it. And I said to him, "I won't let him do anything to you. If he so much as looks in your general direction, I'll make sure he regrets it. Dearly."
I held myself together when I felt someone tap my shoulder, having a strong feeling it was Scott.
"I don't think you'll like what I have to say..." And when he said it, I thought that I'd rather anyone else at that moment. "But I don't think he can stay here."
My nostrils flared and my head started to spin. "What are you saying?" I grabbed his shirt. "You want me to send him back out there?"
"No, no!" he said, forcing himself off me. "Just listen. It's not safe for him to be here. He's going to attract more of these assholes, and even if he wasn't here, they might eventually decide to trash the place."
"So?" I shouted. "I can't let anything happen to him. That's completely, utterly out of the question. I'd be betraying everything I believed in if I let him down here."
He rubbed his hair back. "That's not what I'm saying. It's your own life that's in danger if they get the wrong idea. And it doesn't matter if you keep Tommy safe. You have no ties to Steamy Cups as a brand, right? Just a hobby? Well you still have this house. What happens if you lose it?"
I retorted, "I promised to Tommy that I'd help him at all costs. If that meant becoming homeless just because of a wretched little wolf, then so be it."
I turned off and shut the door behind me.
I could sense Scott's sudden indignation and shock that his own brother had such choice words for him, but he didn't feel what I did. It wasn't just the tale of a lovestruck Alpha falling for a beautiful and vulnerable Omega. It was a desire to protect him. His life was in danger. If I didn't act, I didn't even want to imagine what Jonathan would do to him-- and on a fundamental level, no one should bring that upon another person, period.
"Shit, he's back!"
I swung the door open and followed Scott downstairs. Truck lights filtered into the lobby of the shop, and Jonathan honked the horn over and over again to the point it sounded like he was doing it on purpose, making a rhythm just to harass us.
This time, I led the charge. I shifted into my unicorn form-- my muscular body growing another pair of legs and losing my arms, my hair wrapping around my body, the feet becoming digitigrade, my forehead growing an alabaster horn, and the sheer wave of power flowing through me.
And I charged his truck, ramming my horn straight through the grille. He honked once, but kept it going for at least half a minute.
Would that cause him to charge out as a wolf and tackle me? Probably. I hoped it would, just so it'd give me the excuse to finally kill the bastard. But instead of wolfing up, he chickened out and pulled back into the street, then screamed away into the night.
I stepped back, scowling in his direction.
Scott and Tommy came out, and I wanted to scream at them to get back inside, but I had a feeling that things were over for the night.
Tommy stumbled towards me.
"T-that's you? The real you?"
I nodded. Though at the same time, I didn't really like either form being called the 'real' me. My Unicorn self and my human self were both me, and I wanted him to trust both of them.
But he needed to lay on me for comfort, and sometimes my Unicorn could behave in harsher and more animalistic ways than would be rational.
And I felt his face pull. "You completely kicked his ass!"
I made no motion for him because while I was very satisfied with what I had done, I only punctured his grille.
They both smiled at me.
Scott said, "Damn fine job, though. I wanted to do that earlier myself." He slapped my hindleg and said, "That's why you're the bigger Alpha."
I began to shift back and blush as I did. It felt good to be flattered and praised relentlessly, thought after a while it got annoying.
Tommy then brushed his knuckles along my crotch. I still assume that was by accident because of the odd way we passed each other, but I don't want to. It just felt so right for the moment, and I hoped that he was willing to take this further now that he saw how dedicated I was.
We went back inside, mentally recovering from Jonathan's three-pronged assault. Despite being the object of harassment, Tommy looked even more chipper than he did at any point in the past week. As if watching me handle his abuser was like confirmation that he really didn't need to worry.
And my unicorn deeply enjoyed that feeling, even if it was only an assumption. The more he needed me, the better I felt. It didn't make me feel powerful and I had no intention of exploiting his reliance.
I could see how someone like Jonathan could get addicted to that feeling, and in that moment, I made it my life goal to never follow in that same path. Never be like Jonathan. It's fine to be an asshole sometimes, but it's never okay to be a bully to the one you love.
Artemis swiveled in her chair, moving past a bookshelf and towards an alchemy table. "Gonna need to know who he's hiding from, then."
We both exchanged glances and then looked back to her. "Grover Family."
She stopped moving for a moment, and then resumed without asking.
"If you don't mind me asking," Tommy started, "what do you do here?"
While reading through ingredient labels, she said, "Alchemy and Witchcraft. The British kind especially."
Tommy's eyes lit up. "I didn't even know there were different kinds."
"Oh yeah." She licked her finger and turned the page of a book built into the table. "Three big schools are the European, Chinese, and Native American. And there a ton of little classes within then, you dig?" She then raised her voice and said, "Your brother doing alright?"
I recognized she was referring to me and said, "He's fine. He and Jasper are moving along perfectly."
"Wonderful."
Tommy tugged at my shirt. "They didn't used to get along?"
"It's not that. It's just that Scott had some, eh... deficiencies that hindered his ability to mate with Jasper. If not for Artemis, they'd might never have had Michael."
He looked suitably amazed. "Wow..." And his expression towards her softened tremendously. Not that he was apprehensive towards her before. Rather, I could tell that he wasn't 100% sure he could trust her.
"The guy who owned me was named Jonathan," he said.
"Doesn't ring a bell."
He balked, and some of that connection faded slightly. However, Artemis saved it with, "Better yet, don't give him the dignity of being known. That clan has assaulted many beautiful innocent Betas and Omegas, grooming them to be abused by acting so loving and
sweet..." Then she turned towards us. "But they would always push certain buttons to see whether to keep using them or snuff them outright. Some, like Maxwell Grover, stay under the radar, but I don’t trust the whole lot of them."
Tommy silently nodded. She went back to reading recipes and combining things into one green-colored elixir.
I folded my arms. "And they're so wealthy that they can get away with it anyway.
She finger-gunned me. "Exactly. You're not that poorly off yourself, but they're definitely in another tax bracket. Easily able to rival your father and Frederick."
I looked away, shifting my mouth around in a deliberate attempt to shrug off the compliment. Truth be told, I was a millionaire and had to get there on my own accord since my elder Alpha brother, Malcolm, received the majority of the inheritance. I had to be in order to keep running an out-of-the-way coffeeshop.
She snapped her fingers. "There are some real chinks in their power, of course. Like..."
I grinned. "Unicorns."
Tommy looked to me and back to Artemis. "I heard about that. And I..." He rubbed his arm and looked to the floor. "I actually went to you hoping you might help out."
I raised an eyebrow. "So, you were trying to get me to help you?"
"Yeah. But I didn't want to come across as trying to force myself on you, which is why I threatened to run away. But I knew your shop was run by unicorn shifters and that you're the ones that the Grover family actually fears."
"Because we're in cahoots with their wolven rivals, for one. And we've been around here for longer."
Artemis threw her head back and laughed. "Ah, it's been so long since I heard from the Cullen clan."
Tommy's eyes lit up. The Cullen clan was a pack of wolf shifters who lived in Montana, but whose attachment to our region meant that their own members still played a role in our economy. The Grovers and Cullens have been at each other’s necks for decades.
If not for us unicorns already living here and keeping ourselves established, this town would've been trapped an in invisible civil war. And the cruelty of the Grover family's Alphas also didn't do them any good in our world. I knew there were many children of my generation, pups who were the heads of their litter. Jonathan was the most notorious, but there were also the likes of Jack, Maxwell, and Ralph. Beyond them, the only Beta I knew of was this ridiculously talented computer whiz named Jesse.
Finally, Artemis finished up the elixir.
Tommy
"Drink this and use an enchanted knife to sever all connections with this Jonathan character."
I held the flask in my trembling hands, looking into the syrupy concoction. It was reflective enough that I could see my face, as well as Neil's. We looked nice together. Natural, even.
"What would happen if I didn't use the knife?"
"As soon as you piss that out, it obviously won't have any effect. And I'd rather that you not render my time and efforts wasted."
"But you only worked for about ten minutes."
She grinned like a witch. "That's still time and effort, is it not?" Then she pat my chest. "You're lucky that it doesn't take much for an Omega to break their bond to an Alpha."
"It sounds like it could be abused, though."
"And it has. Trust me. I don't know if it's Omega psychology or just something innate in people to make bad decisions when emotional, but it's asinine how many times I get an Omega begging for a bond breaker after a bad fight or because their Alphas weren't 100% perfect, only for them to regret it a few days later."
Neil said, "I think it's because it's so easy that people do it."
Artemis started to say something, but Neil then added, "And I also think that it's because soul mates aren't common."
This got my own attention because I just wanted to hear where he was going to go with it. However, when Artemis nodded and he went to check his wallet, I decided to speak up: "What do you mean?"
"Hm? I mean that everyone has a true soul mate, but that doesn't mean they'll find them in life. You're lucky if you could walk down the street and find the love of your life, with whom you'll gladly spend eternity. In my time around, I've found that some people have to go all the way to Hong Kong or Timbuktu just to meet the person they know they'll love forever." He shrugged. "I can't explain to you why soul mating works that way, or why the spiritual soul mate bond doesn't automatically default towards that and instead guides you towards someone who just wants you a lot."
Artemis smacked her lips. "It's also bullshit."
Neil rolled his eyes and laughed. "Artemis can be used as a case study for what I mean."
"The spiritual bond is just meant to be a good bit of soulful adhesive for someone you love. It’s not the end-all be-all of love.”
“But you’re still obsessed with finding your soul mate.”
“Aggh! The entire Pacific Northwest, I swear. I've been around the block more times than you can count. And my soul still haven't found a mate! They're probably someone in the fucking Soviet Union."
"But didn't that break up?"
"Exactly." She shut her table book and rolled herself back to her front desk and used that momentum to get up and walk to the cash register. "$999."
"What are you doing to me, Artemis?" Neil said as he pulled out a fat wat of bills.
"Elixir plus the knife? Can't cheap out on that one, now can I?"
After he had paid, she added, "Oh, and the Harry Potter book was $20."
"Are you--" Neil slammed it on the table and said, "You can ring up that refund, sweetheart."
"And you can ring up those memories for Michael, honey. It's all yours now. And besides, I don't have any smaller bills for today."
Neil threw up his arms, and I could not help but laugh.
"Besides, you didn't care when you thought it was free. And did you hear they changed the title just because they thought kids would think it's boring?"
"Why, what was it before now?"
"Philosopher's Stone," she said, pointing to the cover of the book she was reading. "It's supposed to be 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.' But we Americans are just too dumb for that. And they aren't even wrong if we're accepting that change."
Neil then said, "When things move into other cultures, they're often changed."
Artemis shrugged and waved us off as we left.
"So, that was Artemis. What did you think?"
I said, "She's kinda sarcastic."
"Sarcastic? I never got that from her. She's more a goth girl, so maybe that's what you were picking up?"
I shrugged. "I never followed that scene or listened to that music."
"I don't think you were missing much. I've never been into it either. But she was."
"I mean..." I wanted to tell him why exactly I never followed the grunge rock scene, but I didn't feel like bringing up the name again. Not when I had to deal with holding the keys to my chains all the way back to the shop.
“She’s also a witch.”
“I picked up on that.”
“No, I mean, she’s literally a practicing witch.” He had a serious expression on his face as he looked onwards, while Scott walked with his head down in thought. “She used to do some serious astrology for Dad when she was just a little girl.”
My eyes went wide. “Your Dad? Wow, how old was he by that point?”
He rubbed the back of his head. “By that point, he was already in his 70s. But you know Unicorns. He barely looked older than 30, and that was going to be his fate until he found Mom. And the Malcolm came first. I was the second youngest of the foals, actually.”
I laughed and rubbed his arm. “You’re a runt!”
“Not a runt!” And he sounded genuinely offended. “All I know is that, when I was a youngling, she was always there with her two mothers, learning how to become a witch. Dad took her divinations surprisingly seriously. It took him almost a century to find a soul mate, so maybe it drove him mad by the end of it.”
That was a scary thought, even
though it was a typical case in many stories of Alphas searching for mates: they’d spend a majority of their life looking young but wind up wasting upwards of 100 or even 200 years searching for any mate they could get with no luck. Man, was I lucky to find Neil. If it was up to my own actions, I’d have probably faded away myself. I thought of school and how I had yet to meet many new faces and friends, all because I felt no drive to do so, and cursed Jonathan for taking that social thrill away from me. It's not that I was asocial. Just that I was too afraid of making connections.
Yet here I was about to finally break the worst connection yet. With that elixir and knife, I'd have my life back.
Also, Neil kept grumbling about that British kid's book, 'Harry Potter,' all because it cost him $20 (when he paid $1,000!!), so I decided that I'd read it and enjoy it just to tease him. Was it for Michael? Yeah, but that didn't mean I couldn't hold it for a while. It would be a nice read, and maybe even an easy one if it was for children. Considering she was also a witch, it probably meant a lot to her, and a story about kids at a magical school was about as inoffensive as you can get.
I just couldn't read it at that particular moment because I had a whole colony of butterflies in my stomach. What was severing the connection with Jonathan going to feel like? Would I feel anything? Would it tickle? I didn't know and that alone was exciting.
But the thing I was waiting the most for was to feel what it'd be like to form a soul mate connection with Neil. We both knew it was there. Even Scott teased us about it. So the fact my pre-existing bond with Jonathan muddied it was the worst feeling. Yet what had Artemis said? Spiritual bonds didn’t matter anywhere near as much as we always said they did.
As I watched the pines pass on by, another thing I wondered about was whether I was cheating on Jonathan. Technically, it was true. We were still spiritually bound, and yet I was living in another man's house, spooning with that man (little spoon for life), and otherwise enjoying his presence. If not for the existing of spiritual soul mate bonds, we'd have done it like the nonshifters of the world. Yet maybe calling it a 'soul mate bond' was the worst part of it. You could still form that bond even if the other person wasn't your soul mate. So why did it exist at all if it wasn't even accurate?
The Unicorn's Dearest Omega Page 5
