Chapter 3 Molars, the Most Romantic of Teeth #3
He gaped at the jewelry. The Clansmen wore jewelry to celebrate deeds. To showcase feats of strength or cunning. This one surely must have been the prize of a great battle.
“But…but I haven’t earned it,” he’d said, still looking down at the stones as they rested against his collarbone.
Restrina chuffed, tweaking his chin. “The toughest battles aren’t fought with swords or won with blood. You’ve earned it.”
Corric clutched the necklace in his hands and found he wasn’t able to thank her. She didn’t seem to need it, scenting him before shooing him out.
As winter approached, Chief Restrina told the boys that she would take them on their first overnight hunt.
They redoubled their efforts, becoming more proficient with bow and arrow and working on their tracking skills.
Ridan showed Corric how to use a sling, and while he was not as accurate with it as some of the others his age, he enjoyed practicing with it.
After a particularly long day of training, Sehleh turned them away at the door, insisting she would not have three dust bunnies mucking up her clean tent.
Grousing, the three trudged to the spring where they could bathe.
While temperate, the waters still had an icy chill. A portent of the winter to come.
Jonen bathed first, quickly scrubbing through his curls before dressing and allowing the two omegas to come in.
For privacy, he stepped past the tree line.
He wouldn’t leave completely. His alpha might not have presented yet, but it was there, just enough that he didn’t feel safe leaving his pack members without protection.
Ridan just rolled his eyes, tossing off his clothes and splashing into the spring.
As time went on, Corric was better able to read the blonde.
Previously, he thought him impervious to cold or discomfort.
But now he realized it was just stubbornness.
Ridan was too proud to acknowledge the goosebumps rippling up his arms or the way his jaw clenched.
They’d brought a bar of soap with them and shared it between them. Corric took extra time to disentangle his long hair, running his blunt nails through the wet strands. It was a tedious process and not for the first time he found himself envious of Ridan’s much shorter hair.
It was cut roughly, the blonde unable to sit still long enough for Sehleh to make it even.
His hair was a pretty color, but it was constantly tangled around his face.
Sometimes he’d allow Oosa or Derry—the shaved head omega they’d met on Corric’s first day—to trace small braids into the sides, looping ceramic beads or teeth into the plaits.
“Do you ever think about mates?” Corric asked as he reclined against a rock, picking at his hair.
Ridan swiped the wet hair from his eyes, grunting at him.
“Mates.”
He made a face. “Do you?”
“Sometimes,” Corric admitted. “My father said if an omega wanted a good mate, they had to be soft. Quiet. Comb their hair and—”
Ridan snorted. “My father didn’t have any of that. He was tough and strong. And my Ma fought three alphas for him.”
They rarely spoke of Ridan’s dam. Jonen told him the loss was still painful to Ridan and his mother, and to speak of him would bring emotions to the surface neither was willing to share with others. He said when her mate died, Restrina took Ridan into the mountains for two months to grieve.
“How did they meet?”
Ridan grew quiet, eyes downcast as he poked at the suds from his bath. “He was from a different clan. She saw him at the Equinox Festival. My father wasn’t a showy man, but he was damned good with a sword.”
Corric had seen Corenus’s famous sword. It hung above their nest, nestled on fleece lined hooks, ready for Ridan to grow into.
“She jumped into the ring, grabbed him by the shirt and told him he was going to be her omega.”
Laughing, Corric shook his head. “Sounds like the Chief.”
A small smile graced Ridan’s face. Corric was always amazed how it changed the way he looked—from jagged lines and aggression to something warm, soft. The mere curvature of Ridan’s lips could transform him.
“My father just shrugged, said if she were a worthy alpha, she’d prove it.” He grinned then, not the soft smile from before but the big ugly crooked smile that ripped across his face like a laceration. “She presented him with the claiming teeth of three alphas who had petitioned his chief for him.”
Privately, Corric didn’t think that story was as romantic as Ridan seemed to. But he could see the merit in differing courtships.
“Do you think an alpha will want me?”
“Why not?” he asked with a shrug.
“I’m not…” I’m not from the clans.
Corric wasn’t a tough omega. He could still barely hold on to his sword.
He had no heritage to claim, and no wealth.
There was nothing to endear him to a clan alpha.
And a Kaledonea alpha would never even look at him—from his tanned skin to his calloused hands, he would be considered unsuitable at best and probably left to rot on a street corner at worst.
Ridan splashed him. The icy wave hit him in the face like a slap. Spluttering, he stumbled back only to open his eyes and realize Ridan was right in front of him, eyes narrowed.
“You’d think all the times I tossed you to the ground would have knocked some sense into you,” he growled, baring his small pup fangs. “Didn’t you hear what I just told you?”
Corric shook his head dumbly.
Ridan rolled his eyes. “It isn’t about what they want. It’s about you. Do you want the first weakling alpha to come sniffing around or are you going to make them earn it?” he poked Corric in the chest hard enough to bruise. “Clan or not, know your worth and be sure they pay it.”
He’d never really considered it like that. Back in Kaledonea, an interested alpha would speak to the omega’s pack alpha. It would be organized through them. The omega in question was never consulted.
But in the clans, it was different. The omegas had nothing to prove. It was the alphas. They had to court the omegas, prove to them they were fierce, strong, and capable.
Suddenly, Corric understood why Ridan’s dam accepted teeth as a proposal.
“Maybe your alpha will give you molars,” Corric teased, looking up at Ridan through the wet fringes of his hair.
He scoffed, crossing his arms. “If they know what’s good for ‘em, they’ll bring me the whole head.”
When they returned to the tent, Corric burst through the tent flaps and demanded Sehleh cut his hair. She looked up at him, surprised, but then stood to get her shears. Settling him in front of the fire, she finger combed his hair back and asked him how short he wanted it.
Corric paused. No one had ever asked him to make a decision about his appearance before. He was always told what to wear and how to wear it. Distantly, he fingered one of his strawberry strands.
They hadn’t asked him before, but they will now. Corric was going to find his way—not as a Clansman, or as a walled omega, but as Corric. His decisions, right or wrong, would be his and his alone.
With more confidence than he felt, “I want it off my neck.”
Sehleh hummed in assent, nimble fingers beginning to cut.
Corric watched his hair fall into his lap, feeling lighter with each snip.
Sehleh’s scissors were sharp enough to cut through his hair and right into his past. With her sure grip she severed all the ties Corric had to his old life, letting them fall away.
When she finished, Corric looked into the mirror and didn’t recognize the person looking back. He smiled, running his fingers through the shorn strands.
Two years passed from the time Momma Sehleh cut his hair.
In that time, Ridan presented and Jonen moved into the unmated alpha tents.
Corric presented soon after, holding Ridan’s hand and breathing in his new, yet familiar, sweet scent.
They comforted each other and came out the other side with a new understanding of themselves.
Corric grew more confident. He stopped trying to copy Ridan and Jonen and found his own way. Over time, he learned to wield not one, but two swords. And he quickly became one of the best riders in the clan.
He liked the noble creatures. They were quiet, but strong.
Their soft lips never failed to make him smile, and after a bad day, he could bury his face in their neck and just breathe.
Animals don’t have pheromones like people do, but there was something so calming about the mixture of dirt, hay, and horse that he breathed it in.
Most afternoons after training found him leaning on the fence, hand outstretched as he took his fill of peace from their somber eyes and seeking whiskers.
One in particular always caught his eye.
She was young, just backed, but she was wise beyond her years.
A pasture accident when she was a foal cost her an eye, but you could never tell.
Her coat was a painted mixture of brown and white.
She seemed to sense his fondness, always coming up to him. Often leaving lush grazing areas just to rest her muzzle on his shoulder and let him stroke her big cheeks.
That’s where Chief Restrina found him. “She’s nicely built,” she commented, resting her arms on the top rail of the fence.
Corric ducked his head. Of course she was. The Stone Blade didn’t breed anything but the best. “I think she’s the best of her year.”
Restrina hummed in agreement.
Despite living with the alpha for the last two and a half years, he never could quite relax around her.
She had been nothing but kind in her unique way.
She’d fed him from her own stores, clothed him, treated him as if he were her own.
Yet he never could settle. Even when he buried his head into the nest and picked out her peppery scent, letting it comfort him. The woman herself was intimidating.
His shoulders stiffened and he released the mare, stroking her forelock into place.
“She’s yours,” Restrina said casually.
Corric whipped around. What? Surely she couldn’t be serious. He watched her face for any sign of a jest.
“B-but,” he spluttered, tongue too big for his mouth. “You just agreed she was the best of her year.”
The chief nodded. “I did.”
“So why…?” his fingers dug into the wood railing until splinters threatened to lance his skin. “I don’t have any money—”
“A boy needs a good pony,” she answered simply, as if it was obvious. As if she wasn’t offering him a horse worth more than most families made in a lifetime.
When he finally looked up, he found her watching him, shrewd eyes assessing. He quaked under her gaze, trying to find the right words to say.
“I will pay you back. It might take a while but I’m learning to trap, and I will—” a hand on his chin silenced him, Restrina pinched the skin and forced him to meet her unrelenting stare.
“You will pay me back,” she said, voice firm. “But the price will be greater than you know.” He swallowed and something in her eyes softened. “You’ll pay me back in strength.”
The weight of the swords on his hip was suddenly greater than it had been a moment before.
“Grow up strong, Corric. Find happiness. Become the man you want to be. That is how you’ll pay me back.”
With a final pass of her wrist, she was gone. Walking off as if she hadn’t just changed his life. Again.
Reeling, Corric stared after her. He watched as she wound her way through the throng of people, stopping to chat or just to drop a hand on someone’s shoulder.
She met up with Ridan just before she disappeared from view, dropping a heavy hand onto his head, ignoring the way he tried to squirm out of her grip.
Laughing when she dragged him into a forced scenting.
I’ll pay you back, he promised to himself.
And later, when he was riding alongside Ridan and Jonen, he made another promise. One he wouldn’t repeat, not just yet. One he was going to keep in his heart so he could feed it. Slowly. Build it up until it was as large as the mountains in the distance.
“I can’t believe you got such a fine horse,” Ridan groused. “Only to name her Strawberry!”
Jonen defended his name choice, only to be told by Ridan that he has no say in naming things. They bickered until Jonen challenged Ridan and him to a race.
Gathering his reins, he leaned over his pony’s neck and let her bi-colored mane tickle his cheeks in the wind.