14. The Bathhouse

Sona scrambled to cover herself with the linen she’d started to unwrap and looked skyward. If she saw him naked… *This lying fucking bastard*.
“What the fuck!” she yelled before she could stop herself. Then she remembered, *Be respectful or regret it*.
“You can come in,” Taos offered obliviously, and that deep voice of his reverberated in her bones. That authoritative, conceited, obnoxiously sensual voice. “Or at least look my way. I’m below the water. Unless you’d like me above it. I’m perfectly willing.”
“No! No, thank you.” She had unfortunately seen more naked males than she ever needed with the nature of her profession—she’d be perfectly content only seeing Conri and Raff’s. She had no need whatsoever to *ever* see Taos’.  
“I appreciate you, you know.” Every word he spoke was slow and smooth and…disarming. “Your subtle honesty in responding to my question. So here I am, easing that sensitive nose of yours. Now, come bathe with me.”
Sona dared a glimpse. Taos was on the opposite side of the pool, a good dozen feet away from her side, arms braced on the edge. She could see him from the shoulders up. And goddess help her, she’d never seen biceps that large.
She scowled at his smugly satisfied smile, dark eyes roving up and down her body once more. “No thank you.”
“All that blood,” he purred, “marring your face. I’d assume it’s very uncomfortable. And I’d like to see what my new healer truly looks like.”
“I’m not your new healer. Kindly leave, Alpha.”
“My female packmates are uncouth as they come, but they don’t have the same…cheekiness as you. I sense you’re too stubborn in your beliefs to lower your guard. Sona.” 
Sona stared him down. “I would like some damn privacy, Alpha—”
“You can call me Taos,” he purred with a broad, fanged grin. 
“Alpha,” she repeated, “and while I appreciate you obliging my *subtle honesty*, I wish to—”
“Grieve for a moment?”
She froze. Taos’ smile had faded and dropped his arms under the water. Was it really so obvious that she was hurt? She wanted to confront his words as an accusation, but he interrupted again,
“Did you forget how our noses work, Sona Mai, former mate of the Gamma of Moonvalley? They can smell grief. Sorrow. Anger. Together they piece together a picture. An obvious one, albeit. You care that those Roshans died.”
It didn’t sit right that he knew more than she’d like. What did he know about her? What *didn’t* he know? It terrified Sona that he could know about her son and consequently assuming her desire to find him.
Anything she said could damn her. She said, “I was close to them.”
Taos looked uninterested, lifting his hand from the water to observe his hand. “Saw them as family, hmm? Parents, because you don’t have yours?”
Sona’s heart lurched. And then tightened in fury when he grinned. “That confirms my guess! A word of advice here, trinket: learn to control your expressions. Otherwise my beasts will eat you up like prey.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“No I’m not,” he said innocently, everything about him dangerously contradictory, “I’m all clean now. I could use a scrub behind my ears, though.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “Parents are hard to lose. Of course, I was never fond of my mine, so I can’t truly empathize.
“And that mate of yours. Lost too, I’d imagine. Cannot give a damn, as I haven’t found my missing soul piece.”
*Isn’t your soul too corroded for another to complete it?*
Sona knew that she was being unreasonably cruel. But that was the grief and sorrow and anger. She’d helped her packmates through many losses—could she apply her own techniques and remedies to herself?
She took a deep breath. On the exhale, she found her patience. “Fine. Please turn around until I say so.”
With a chuckle he obeyed. Sona hurried to slip out of the linen and into the warm water. The temperature made her gasp and shiver, but the warmth calmed her immediately, and she sank to her neck, finding a bench below her to sit on. Closing her eyes, she sighed, “Fine.”
The gently disturbed water indicated he turned back around. She peeked through her eyelashes to make sure he wasn’t coming any closer. She wasn’t unaware of the allegations of his tendency toward females. That terrified her too—what could he do to her, alone with him? What terrible thing could he…
Sona mentally shook her head. No. She would break her oath to do no harm if he even tried.
As much as she wanted to let her muscles relax, she kept them coiled. 
“Don’t mind me,” he hummed, resting his arms on the edge again.
That was a request Sona didn’t mind obliging. She fully submerged underwater, gently scrubbing away at her face, feeling the grime loosen and flake off. Her hair was a little more difficult. When she came up for air, she flinched at something heavy plunking into the water beside her. 
Taos interrupted before she could curse, “Soap. Hard to come by when I’m around. I like dirty things—”
Sona snatched the bar before it could sink to the pool bottom and submerged herself again to lather it into her tangled knots. It smelled like honey, a soothing object in itself contradictory to Redbone’s reputation. but it helped, and she didn’t need to put more meaning into it.
When she rose, Taos thankfully hadn’t moved. What the hell was he thinking? What the hell did he want? What was his intent—especially with her?
“Your hair is gold. Who knew?”
“Wipe that smirk off your face.”
It only grew wider. “You don’t like my smile? The females of my harem say it’s handsome.”
“I say it embodies your sickening need to inflict pain.”
His dark brows rose in surprise. For a moment Sona feared he would do exactly that—until he threw his head back at barked with laughter. She couldn’t help her flinch either way. “I’ve heard Goldwater females are assumptious.”
“Maybe I just hate you.”
Taos *tsk*ed. “Why do you hate me, trinket?” he murmured, and Sona tensed at the look in his eyes—predatory. “We’ve only just met. I’ve offered you an esteemed position in my pack. That is not something I do lightly.”
“*Why*?” she demanded. She hugged her arms tighter around her chest, locking her legs closer. She couldn’t see anything below the surface and Taos’ gaze was boring into hers, but his presence seemed to extend beyond what he was looking directly at. “Why are you doing this? Just let us go. You don’t need us.”
“But I do, Sona Mai. I told you, I want to expand my territory to Moonvalley’s. All your resources could be mine. My pack would thrive—think of all the offspring it could conceive—”
“You are *disgusting*.”
Taos’ mouth skewed as if disappointed. “Now that Moonvalley’s Alpha and Luna are dead, that pack is in chaos. Your former mate—”
“Stop saying that.” *Former*.
“—is all that is keeping it under control. I’d assume, anyway, since I’m a decent enough male to not infiltrate your streets and its goings-on. You should be proud of me for that, at least.”
“Having common decency? No.”
“Fair, I suppose.” Taos slicked back his hair and scrubbed his jaw—preening. “They’re vulnerable. You and banished Beta are my pawns to play. But if Grayhide keeps refusing my demands—ah, requests—then it’s a good thing I have better use of you as a healer.”
Conri was third in line for the title of Alpha. Artem was dead; no one would know what happened to Arden, even if Taos conveyed it to Conri—he would never let that information get out.
Vallea got what she wanted: Conri to lead the Moonvalley pack.
Goddess, it was too much to take in. Sona couldn’t even know if her grandfather was all right—or even alive.
She banished the thought. She had to focus, for right now, on herself.
“Why would you need a healer?” Sona asked carefully.
Taos lifted a broad shoulder. “Why did Moonvalley need a healer?”
“What, you don’t have one of your own?”
“Look, trinket.” The Alpha swam forward.
“Don’t get any closer,” she snarled, putting her feet on the bench in case she needed to leap out of the water.
Though she saw a flash of irritation on his face, he stopped a few feet away. “Females usually do not move away from me. This is a new experience.”
Sona bared her teeth.
“I just want to show you my arms.” He lifted them out of the water, palms up. “See?”
Her werewolf eyesight allowed her to see him at a distance—see the whitish scars that laced his richly tanned skin, some small, others thick and ropey. It was a new experience for her; neither Moonvalley nor Goldwater mutilated their injuries no matter the size, to keep them so prominent. Even she didn’t like the look or feel of marred flesh. Call her haughty…but she still had no right to judge. Scars were important to this pack; she would not denounce that.
She couldn’t fight her curiosity, either. “What are they all from? How do you keep them from healing?”
“I’m sure you can think of a few…activities,” he said with that damned smirk. “Soot. I want you to fix them—heal them.”
 Sona raised a brow. “Get rid of them completely? I thought Redbone was proud of their scars.”
Taos lowered his arms and looked at her with impressment. “At least you got one thing right,” he mused. “We are. But times change.”
She found that hard to believe; every werewolf was too stubborn to shift their ideals so quickly. “You don’t have a healer who could do it? Why me?”
“Well, that songbird told me you’re renowned for your healing abilities.”
*How much did that Epsilon reveal?!*
“You have no faith in your own healers.”
“Trinket,” Taos sighed loudly, “we *have* no healers. That is why I am recruiting you.”
“Recruit someone else.”
Suddenly his voice dropped into darkness. A voice even the strongest of wolves couldn’t escape. “Yes or no question, Sona Mai. Can you heal my scars?”
*Your outer ones maybe*, she thought, *but not the ugly ones inside*. “Yes.”