Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Rust

I turned towards the voice, hating the tremble along my rattled nerves. A werewolf at least a head taller than me stared down at me. The sunlight shone through his dark hair, casting all of him in shadow, but the handsome lines of his face etched into my memory, and the intense amber of his irises. The strange shiver coursed through my body, outlining the shape of a want I could not name.

A shape... like him?

He reluctantly extended his calloused palm. He had a narrow triangle-like shard made of gold, like a very thin and narrow pyramid. As he did so, his gaze traced my form, lingering on the scars carved into my neck. He had his own scars. Nicks and bites. The hot sunlight had coated him in a faint layer of dust and sweat, settled into his roguish dark hair. His hand was huge, and the wrist it attached to carved of iron ropes twisted together to form a limb.

I extended my bloody palm to show him I was not who he sought. The sun hit both our Trinkets. It was close: his shard appeared as though it could have been part of my burr. The sunlight warmed the blood and gold, and his shard reflected the light at us, revealing the same intricate carvings as mine had. "Wait... they're matches?"

"They can't be," he said gruffly. "They're supposed to be identical."

"No, look," I said. "The carvings are exactly the same."

I could have plucked off a particular prickle off my Trinket and replaced it with his. It was an identical match. This strange wolf was... my mate? The shape inside felt like he fit there, but not exactly. Or was that just the hole Tynn had left?

Was he? The ache and humiliation from Tynn, and the laughter echoing through the square seemed to confuse everything. But this wolf... yes. No?

He looked at me warily, his eyes trailing over the scars on my cheek. I clapped my hand over them to hide them and looked down. He asked, "Who are you?"

"My name is Theia," I said. "And you're..."

A hesitation, then, tone guarded, he said, "Asund of Everfell."

"You are a long way from home," I said. Everfell was a large enclave a week's journey from here.

"I know," he said, lips thinning, and his displeasure at the prospect little scrawny me was his mate coming closer to the surface with every syllable. "I've been trying to find my partner for several years. I am Captain in Lord Perhon's retinue."

My eyes widened. I was no high-bred. The Churn had done its task. Even Tynn's family would not cross a Captain.

"He is my brother," Mirsaid added. "He made the political pairing, and I was to make the more devout pairing. To honor the Churn."

The heaviness of his tone pressed like a stone, the stiffness of his shoulders like he'd caught the whiff of a foul smell. In the corner of my vision, Tynne's family flung arms and greetings to the new lady of his family. Asund noticed—of course he did, he was a Captain, the most prestigious of warriors—and then curled his large fingers around his Trinket. He returned it to his pocket. He shifted, his presence rocking back and forth across my spine like a boulder tilting. "Who is your family, Theia? I cannot tell what you are. Shifter? Human?"

"Human," I said, although not purely nor exactly. I tried not to think about it, or the flicker of doubt on Asund's face. I couldn't have answered his question more accurately, because I did not know, nor could anyone say. "I'm a foundling."

Asund's attention whipped onto me like a lash. "A foundling?"

"Yes."

Asund cursed. "Then we have nothing to discuss."