29. Misuderstandings

Sona had mended how many broken bones, but never had to fix her own. While Taos barked with laughter, she hissed in pain. “You absolute ass.”
“Yours is quite fine,” he told her with a smirk as he reached out to help her. “Here. I’m shit at all understanding your plants that often smell like that, too, but I do know how to set a bone right.”
Her trust in him was thread-thin, but this was something Sona could lend belief in. She granted him permission to take her wrist; he did so gently, and she couldn’t help but hone in on how rough his skin was for the first time. Little scars marred even his palms. She was so focused on them that she didn’t feel the pain of her bones popping back into place.
“There. How does it feel to be—”
Sona yanked her healed wrist back and turned to look at the new surroundings. “Fine, thank you. Where are we?”
He seemed unoffended. “You’re not going to ask me to apologize?”
“Will you?”
“Hm. No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You do not like when I try to woo you.”
Sona barked a laugh and whirled on him. “*Woo* me? *Flirt* with me? That’s what smacking my ass, pointing out your erection, and simply provoking me with your vulgar comments is your way of trying to *attract* me? To you?”
“Well, yes,” Taos said, confused. “Redbone females are attracted to those sorts of things. That is why I have so many willing courtesans. So it’s confusing when teasing you doesn’t work on you. What *does* work?”
She narrowed her eyes, hating her own mind as it conjured up a legitimate answer, and said, “Good luck getting me to simply *like* you, Alpha.”
He closed what little space was between them; she swallowed hard as he smirked down at her. “We’re to be husband and wife, trinket. Was I wrong to believe that married pairs did so because they more than liked each other?”
“This,” she told him softly, “is a marriage of convenience. It doesn’t have to be like a normal marriage. We don’t have to like each other, much less—”
“Love?” Taos wondered. “Love each other?”
Sona was so thrown off by his own softness, this carnal male whose legacy was cruelty and blood, whose very presence was one to fear, that she could only whisper, “You said love was useless.”
He gave a small shrug. “I found an exception.”
“You—” She had to clear her throat. “You mean…*me*?”
Taos nodded, his smile disappearing as he leaned forward, murmuring, “Yes, you. Sona Mai, I—”
“What if I wanted to kiss her first?”
Sona flinched at the loud voice. Taos snarled and straightened, savagely pushing his hair out of his eyes and barking at the voice, “That’s too damn bad, Dog Rose Princess.”
Cerise was stalking toward them. Even in the near-dark, Sona watched her hips sway with every step, bone jewelry clinking and swinging. She was wearing impossibly fewer clothes than last time—the bolt of red cloth was banded around her chest and crisscrossed her shoulders barely covering her tits and the “skirt” was mere inches from exposing her pleasure area; she didn’t want to know how much of her ass was showing.
Two large males flanked her. They were equally objectified—no shirt and oiled skin to display every glorious inch of muscle, and low-slung pants. Like their young mistress, they wore smears of red paint. Sona had yet to understand its purpose.
There was no one else around them on the broad dirt street, the windows closed on every decrepit house and shop. It made sense; it was likely approaching or past midnight. The streets of Moonvalley and Goldwater were often still alit with activity during night hours. They were werewolves, of course; they thrived off the moon and the beauty the night brings that the moon goddess blessed them with.
So why was the Redbone pack not bustling with revelries? The music? The drink? Laughter and singing and talking? Not even trysts happening in alleys?
Both Redbone siblings were definitely the kinds of wolves to sing and dance and fuck from dusk till dawn. 
Nothing made sense here.
*I have to heal them from the wolfsbane*. It was why she came; she couldn’t forget her purpose. There were benefits to fulfilling that purpose. One of them could be to bring midnight festivities to this desolate town.
Sona’s destiny was to be a healer. With healing came relief to her and her patients, and as a result, happiness. If she could bring happiness to even this place, she could live and die well.
“You taught me to *take* what I want,” Cerise simpered, flipping her thick red curls over her shoulder. The torchlight around them limned her in red-gold; she looked like she emerged from a fire without a scratch. “And fuck anyone who gets in my way.” She quirked her head at Sona with eyes dark and cold as coal. “Did I misunderstand?”
“‘Fuck’ as in gut them balls to throat,” Taos said, “not bed them.”
Cerise looked at him and hummed in consideration. “I could do both. Not in that order, obviously. Besides, she seems like she’d be boring.”
Sona didn’t expect to be miffed, but for some reason, she took offense to the accusation. “Cerise,” she began, but the princess snapped her teeth.
“I gave the pretty idiot permission to call me that, not you. You call me Princess and nothing else.”
Sona respected higher ranks. But they had never disrespected her in return. She had no qualms about talking back to Taos, but she couldn’t make an enemy of this dangerous young heir. She had a feeling that she was smart and quick about revenge.
And she couldn’t risk Arden being a part of that.
“Cer,” Taos grumbled, but Sona interrupted, “No, that’s alright. My apologies, Princess.”
Cerise *hmph*ed. “I don’t like groveling bitches, either. You’re too beautiful to act submissive. In speech and in the act of fucking.”
“My former mate would say otherwise,” Sona told her, surprised to find herself smiling coyly. She couldn’t make an enemy of Cerise Redbone; she just had to impress her.
A beat of silence, and then Cerise smiled too—and it was fanged and wicked. Yes, she was definitely Taos’ sister. It wasn’t coyness she responded with, however; it was an underhanded jab. “So would your scorned lover.”
Sona frowned; Cerise’s grin broadened. 
“You’re right,” the princess beamed at her brother, “she *is* fun to provoke.”
Taos’ massive arms were crossed and his expression was far from being humored. Cerise’s good mood dimmed. “Here I thought you two could become friends. Lover or idiot, Roshan could give you something to bond over.”
Cerise mirrored his irritated stance. “He’s mine now. He’s already agreed to be.”