Page 8 of Delivered to My Shadow Unicorn Alphas

Him and me. It was taking a toll on my thoughts. I obsessed about being ready for that sound from my phone that might never come.

“There are other matches,” he answered as we walked up to Tucker’s cottage. He would never ask for help, but we did what we could for others.

“There are no other matches, Shaman. There’s Amber and…I’m not explaining this again.” It was rare when Juven took a tone with anyone but especially not me.

“Then let’s keep busy and wait. We’ve waited this long for a mate, we can wait a few more hours.”

Couldn’t we?

We made quick work of Tucker’s fence and then helped him get all his sheep back inside. We were rewarded with cheeseand some of his mate’s strawberry cobbler. We never expected payment or anything in trade for our help, but we had the best neighbors around.

That night, Juven went to his room early, muttering something about leftovers for dinner so I didn’t have to cook. Probably so I didn’t burn our supper, wrapped up in my thoughts about Amber and the what-ifs, which were many.

Against my better judgment, I got on the app and checked our message. Just in case. The message had been read but she didn’t reply. I thought up a thousand excuses, trying to think positively, but the proof was in the pudding. She wasn’t responding and we had no idea why.

Her failure to respond probably had nothing to do with us at all.

She had a life. A book club. A job. Friends and family, probably. Maybe she’d gotten on the app and then lost hope as I had. Then again, I didn’t have a lot of faith in it in the first place.

I sighed, looking at her pictures. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And there were a lot of women on this app.

A lot.

For myself and for Juven, I took a chance and sent her another message. A second message. Desperate? Maybe. Persistent? Yes.

I looked out the window and saw Juven change into his unicorn and take off into the night. He was frustrated and upset, and running was the best way to relieve some of that.

If Amber was our mate, and Juven was sure she was, she would answer. Otherwise, this was it for us. No mate. No children. Our line would end here.

Chapter Eight

Amber

Despite my cocky attitude when leaving work, when I got home, the first thing I did was pull my phone out of my bag and plop down onto the sofa to check the app. The desire had been building from the moment I climbed in the car, but parking at the side of the road to do so seemed too needy.

Besides, what was I checking for? Two shadow unicorns had taken the time to say hello to me, and I hadn’t replied. So unless I was going to hear from someone else, they would either be waiting to hear back or have lost interest. And that shouldn’t bother me nearly as much as it did because my previous unicorn experience hadn’t been inspiring.

I wasn’t dull if I was chatting with unicorns late into the night and then not bothering to reply to two of the rarest kind of all, was I? This was a great story to tell at book club, although probably not Mom, who I didn’t think believed in shifters and if she did, might be worried about me marrying them. She still hoped I’d marry someone from her church. But I could leave out the unicorn part and tell her I’d signed up for a dating service, and she’d be reasonably happy with that.

So, done deal, and I didn’t need to do anything else to convince people I was more than someone who spent her day buried in books and the internet doing research. No more necessity to prove myself as an interesting person. Amen. The end.

Except…maybe I never needed to prove it to them. Sure, Mom wanted me to meet someone, but who else had ever called me boring? Nobody but…dammit! Nobody but me. And one conversation with a unicorn duller than me was not going to prove anything to the person who was dissatisfied with me.

Ugh! I hated to admit it. Me. It was me.

If I didn’t let go of expectations nobody but me had and stop judging myself, how would I ever take steps forward in life? These two unicorns thought I was worth chatting up, and it was time I replied. At least see if they were still interested in talking to me. What was the actual time frame when a person should reply to someone on a dating app?

Having spent plenty of that time in my head, I swiped the phone screen and opened the app. Another notification had come in, but I hadn’t heard it. I understood sleeping through the first one but not the other. A check of settings showed that I had somehow silenced notifications from apps. Not the only time I’d managed to do that. I adjusted the setting and opened the notification.

Shaman, one of the shadow unicorns, had sent a follow-up message. Nothing pushy, just hoping I’d gotten their previous notes and hoping I would like to talk soon. Nothing from the other guy, Juven. How odd. Or maybe not. What did I know?

Beyond the fact that I wanted to talk to these unicorns as soon as possible.

What should I say?

Hi, Shaman. Thanks for the follow-up. I did get your first message, but I had to get to work, so I didn’t have time to reply this morning. Isn’t your friend going to say hi?

A long moment passed while I wondered if they might keep me waiting just because I had done that to them. Sure, I had to work, but they had feelings too and might have been anxious.

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