24. Lies and Truths

Sona shared a horrified look with Arden. When he tried to go to her, Cerise growled and yanked him back by his arm. He didn’t expect her strength. It was apparent to the whole room that Cerise wasn’t going to let him out of her sight, so he nodded once at Sona and said, “Go.”
She looked at Taos. “Take me there.”
He’d lost his humor as quick as a snap of the fingers. “I will. Regrettably.”
Blocking out her surroundings, Sona followed Taos until she couldn’t take the pace anymore. She broke into a run. Taos sighed heavily and kept up with her sprint with a casual jog.
And then she blinked herself back into reality to find an open field, the grass browning in the summer heat, stretching in three directions for what seemed like miles. Only one hundred feet away were five werewolves. Four of them were undeniable Moonvalley with their white hair, but the fifth in the center of the small triangle formation had brown. 
She yelled before she could think about it. “Conri!”
“Sona!” 
It was hard to tell his tone, but when she jerked forward, Taos grabbed her wrist. She whirled and snarled. “Trinket,” he said in a low voice, and her snarl wavered at his expression. “I’m not one to apologize, but—”
“Do it later then,” she interrupted, yanking free and storming all the way up to Conri and slamming her palms into his chest hard enough to crack her wrists. “You are the absolute fucking worst! How could you—”
Conri caught her hands. “What the hell? I’m coming to get you and my brother. I was so worried—”
“Worried?!” Sona exploded, and now there were tears in her eyes. Her former mate was still handsome, still an immediate solid force to trust, the face she’d fallen asleep and woken to for twelve years. His gray eyes were wide with confusion.
“I—Yes.” Then they darkened and found Taos over her shoulder. “What did you do?”
Sona whirled. Taos was strolling toward them with that despicable smirk on his face. “Let’s get to the point, shall we?” he drawled. “Grayhide, Sona, I forged correspondence between the two of you. Altered the original letters to fit my objectives.”
Rage filled her heart to the brim, but she spun back to Conri. “What did your letter say?”
Conri’s chest was heaving with the same anger, but he responded steadily, “It was brief. You and Arden return to Moonvalley and stand trial. What did yours say? What I received was you shunning me in every cruel way possible and that you decided to stay in Redtown to heal sick wolves. And that, apparently,” he continued with a dangerous growl, “you’d taken a strong liking to the Redbone Alpha.”
She was so surprised that she barked a laugh. “I have no ounce of liking for him. Yes, I promised to stay and heal—”
“Then we don’t need the details of our true letters.”
“What?”
“Retract the promise and return to Moonvalley. Nothing more needs to be discussed.”
Just like that, the Conri she knew was nowhere in sight. This was now the Gamma, and he had no feelings but justice toward what he thought was right. All business. This was a male that shouldn’t be argued with.
Sona took slow steps backward. She wanted to put several more feet between her and the coldhearted bastard, but Taos stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She asked slowly, “Will I be able to be with my son and grandfather?”
“No,” Conri said frankly. “They are lodging with your parents.”
“My *parents*?”
“Yes. They’ve generously taken them in while we await your verdict. Auryn is not being tried.”
That was a tiny grain of hope, but it did not fix the overall situation. “Will Vallea be tried as well?” Conri’s jaw tightened, and Sona couldn’t fight her bitter smile. “Or are you going to defend her more than me? Protect her at whatever cost?”
Conri’s features started to look less humanoid and more wolf, fighting back his anger. She wondered what he was hiding when he finally growled, “She’s pregnant with my twin pups.” 
It was like he snapped his jaws an inch from her face. Taos swore under his breath. He understood the implication—Sona was just defamed. Insulted. Tossed aside like worn goods traded for, what he deemed, better. He’d shunned Sona long before these past two weeks, and here was the proof that she now meant nothing to him. 
“I thought you to be a bit of a bastard, Grayhide,” Taos noted blandly. “Now I know you’re a backstabbing, unfaithful, fur-brained—”
Conri snarled. “I don’t give a shit what you think, bloody tyrant. I stopped caring the moment I decided to kill you someday.”
 Taos’ eyebrows rose in interest. “Kill me? How intriguing. What’s kept you from doing that in the nineteen years you've had the chance?”
Sona was jolted from her daze. Taos was baiting Conri. They all knew why, and Conri’s answer would damn and make a fool of himself. 
The Redbone Alpha’s smile was wicked and fanged and his dark hunter’s eyes gleamed with a savage excitement at provoking an enemy whose anger could make him slip up. To anyone, he looked like a werewolf easily unhinged and prone to destroying precious things, someone to fear at first sight.
But…the hand at the small of her back was the only thing keeping her steady. Light pressure grounding her to keep her from lashing out. The conflicting messages baffled her. Because it was suddenly difficult to be mad at him when Conri had just done what he did. 
Was…was Taos *protecting* her? *Defending* her? Why?
Conri’s teeth were grating and his furious glare was trembling. He knew the answer too.
Why hadn’t he taken revenge on the pack that decimated his home and murmured his family?
He looked at Sona. 
In completing each other’s souls, in having offspring together, in rising to the rank of Gamma…he’d found a life not worth ruining by killing someone even as vile as Taos Redbone.
“I was telling the truth, Sona. I still care about you—”
She looked back colder. “And yet look where we are.”
“What, your jealousy and pride will still keep you from returning home?” he spat.
*“Jealousy and pride?!”* 
Taos’ other hand took her wrist when she tried to lurch forward. She was struggling to retain her base form. The majority of her just wanted to Shift into her wolf body and slash her claw across Conri’s chest to expose his traitorous heart.
“It stopped being home the moment everyone I love is no longer there!”
The world went still at Sona’s scream. Not even Taos knew what to say in the following seconds. Until she went limp and Taos released her so she could stumble backward as if putting space between her and Conri would do a single damn thing.
Conri blinked away his surprise—not hurt, not regret—and said, “Then your home defaults to Goldwater. You’ll be tried there by Alpha Eldor. I will send for Gamma Eurig to retrieve you personally.”
Sona didn’t have any choice. Her goal this whole time was to return to Raff and Auryn, but at the risk of death by death. And if Conri was hellbent on preventing her from seeing them…the only thing she was doing was walking to the gallows. If she was found guilty, which she couldn’t decide her own packmates, whether Moonvalley or Goldwater, would deem her as such after all her years of pure-hearted service. There was still the possibility that Conri had painted her in a terrible light to turn them against her.
“Just do it, Sona,” sighed Conri in exasperation. “Let’s get this all over with—”
“There is a loophole to this shit, Grayhide, if you want to hear it.”
Sona jerked her head up. She could only see Taos’ profile, and it had transformed. No longer amused, just unsmiling. If his smile was to be feared, then the lack therefore of…even more terrifying. His heartbeat was steady and strong—and Conri’s stuttered.
“No—”
“Yes,” gasped Sona.
Taos didn’t look away from Conri but she saw his lips quirk. “Are you sure about that, trinket?”
How quickly he spewed a seed of doubt. “Yes?”
“It will solve all your problems.”
“Don’t listen to this lying bastard—”
“And who *should* I listen to?” she snapped. “*You*?”
“She’s a fiery soul, Grayhide,” Taos rumbled. “I hope you regret losing her. Because I can guarantee her innocence within my own borders. I am an Alpha. You are a Gamma. I have”—he chuckled appreciatively—“so much more power than you do. Mistress Sona Mai is Goldwater by birth, Moonvalley by soulmate connection. Goldwater is her birthright, solidified in her very bones, but if she chooses to renounce her status as a packmate of the Moonvalley pack…”
Conri’s gray eyes flashed. “Don’t you dare suggest that, Taos—”
“Suggest what?” Taos asked innocently. “That I can offer her denizenship here in Redtown, thereby making her a Redbone pack member, thereby repealing her from your shitty death sentence?”
 “*What*?”
“If you so wish it, Sona, you can swear allegiance to Redbone.”
“There’s an *if*, Sona!” Conri barked. 
“The singular thing you’ve been right about, Grayhide.” Taos finally turned to her, and she felt magnetized by him. His eyes, his voice. Conri had shunned her. Taos was offering an escape. “The precarious *if*. Sona…”
Taos crooked a knuckle under her chin, lifting her face toward his. For a moment, for better or worse, the world was just the two of them. “Do you find me revolting, trinket?” he asked softly. “Or *him*?”
“Him,” she whispered back, quietly enough that only Taos could hear. “He doesn’t complete my soul anymore. He took away my family. He fucked the female who poisoned our loved ones. Of course he’s revolting.”
“Want me to kill him?”
Moon goddess smite her, Sona hesitated. But only for the briefest of moments. “No. Not Vallea either.” Even though she’d considered his offer earlier. She remained still in Taos’ touch, distantly wondering why she wasn’t pulling away. Maybe she was distraught with the betrayal that any comfort given she would take. “What…what’s the if?”
Taos’ smile was fleeting, almost regretful. “You haven’t read up on any law, have you?”
Sona almost matched the smile and rolled her eyes. “Just tell me.”
“To officially be a member of a pack that isn’t your birth pack…you must marry into it.”