38. Revenge, Blood, & Ears

“You’re still mine,” Conri groaned into Sona’s mouth, body pressing to hers, starting to grind and rub against her; she felt his hard length against her pelvis. “Come back to Moonvalley. You don’t belong with that brute.”
Sona bit down on Conri’s tongue so hard that blood spurted into her throat. She shoved him off and snarled, “The only brute is you.”
He spat the blood on the ground and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. “I made a mistake, Sona, in letting you go—”
“Damn right.”
“—and I want to atone when you return home. Vallea will be my Luna, and you will be my—”
“You sicken me, Conri,” she hissed. “I won’t be your anything and I already told you Moonvalley is no longer my home.”
“Has one short week really changed you completely?! You think Redbone is your new home? Picking bones clean and wearing them in your hair as you plan war against other packs? Bathe in blood and worship the blood moon god? What about Raff? Are you going to demand he live here with you? With your new power as *Luna*?”
He mocked the word. As if it was a joke, something she didn’t deserve, that didn’t have any real weight compared to an Alpha’s.
“What,” she said in a low voice, “you think I can’t be good at it?”
“I think you can’t bear to live trapped here knowing Raff is safe without you.”
*Don’t let him bait you, Sona*, she thought to herself, struggling to keep her breathing even. “You lied. You said he was living with my parents. What was the point? Did you just want to make me angry?”
Conri’s smile was loathsome. “I always found your angry bouts attractive. Like now.”
He stalked toward her—the perfect time for her revenge.
Sona shrugged the dress off her shoulders so it pooled at her feet. Though it felt wrong to wear something that belonged to multiple deceased Redbone females, it was still a precious heirloom, and she would never ruin such a thing.
Conri halted at the sight of her naked body and growled wordlessly in interest. She used the moment to lurch forward and Shift into her wolf form in midair. He reacted too late, and Sona slammed him to the ground with her weight. He Shifted under her, but she was already snapping at his throat, digging her claws into whatever purchase she could find. If she gutted him, fine.
Sona wanted Conri to feel pain the way she did.
She made the oath not to do harm when she was fifteen. She’d never been driven to want to break it. She certainly never thought she would break it by assaulting her soulmate.
Former soulmate. *Fake* soulmate. The piece of Conri’s soul that filled the empty space of Sona’s had been some anomaly, and it had worn its course.
Nineteen years of love—gone in the span of a week.
Oh how fragile love was.
Sona and Conri rolled one over the other, teeth gnashing at throats, eardrums threatening to pop with their snarls, claws scraping chests and bellies, slobber and blood getting in noses and eyes. They attacked with no hesitation, pent-up emotions finally unleashed, regret and anger and guilt and sorrow, all fueling every muscle and bone movement.
Conri batted her muzzle with a paw so hard it snapped her neck to the side. Pain exploded in her cheek and blood blinded her sight. She yowled but kept fighting. Her mind and body were in a state of frenzy, unfeeling, unthinking, the true carnal nature of a werewolf showing her fury.
His hind legs started kicking her belly in an attempt to dislodge her; she started thrashing. His teeth were gnashing inches from her ears. What did he plan to do? Or was he just as mindless?
Either way, she would not let him get any further than a scratched cheek. In a wild flail and snap—she clamped her jaw down on his left ear and held fast.
Conri yelped and used the rest of his strength to buck her right off.
His own flesh with her.
The sound that ripped from his maw was like nothing Sona had ever heard before. She spat out the tip of his ear and sat back hard on her haunches to blink blood and saliva out of her eyes before collapsing onto her stomach in her base form. She started to shudder violently with adrenaline and blood loss. She couldn’t fully tell if any bones were broken yet, but the pain in her body was mostly exhaustion.
“You bitch!” Conri screamed. “You fucking bitch! You *tore my ear off!”*
Sona found it in her to wheeze a laugh. “Not the whole thing. Don’t be so whiny.”
She managed to blink enough liquid from her eyes that she could see him now in his base form clutching his ear. Most of his body was drenched in blood; she glanced down at herself to find she was too. The first and only time she’d seen herself bloody was when she gave birth to Raff.
The half-deranged male before her had given her the gift of a pup that they’d made together out of pure love for each other. It seemed like a different life.
“Conri!” Vallea’s shriek battered Sona’s already sensitive hearing. She held her bloated belly as she ran to throw herself to her knees. “Oh. By the moon goddess, my love—”
*For fuck’s sake*, Sona thought savagely, feeling delirious, *stop with the innocent act*.
“Trinket.”
She stopped shivering, stopped being angry, as her throat thickened at the deep, gentle tone. “Taos,” she rasped.
A fur cloak was draped over her nakedness. She didn’t care where it came from, grateful for both it and the cover it provided. She wrapped herself tightly as she sat up to find the Alpha crouched down with the light of dawn illuminating his intense look of…of *worry*, near-black hunter’s eyes scanning her face.
Yet his tone was as sarcastic as possible. “When I imagined seeing you naked for the first time, it was in my bed after I lovingly—or roughly, depending on your preference—removed scarce intimates with my teeth. Not in a godsdamned field in the middle of the night covered in blood from a brawl with a former lover. My, that was a mouthful.” He glanced over briefly. “You could say the same.”
Sona still felt tiny furs on her tongue. She did her best to spit it out but ended up coughing on it instead. “You’re the worst.”
“When I imagined you saying my name, it was also in the bedroom—”
“Get me out of here,” she interrupted tiredly.
His voice sobered. “As you wish, Mistress.” As easily as she could pick up Raff, Taos lifted her in his arms. She hissed in pain—something wasn’t healing—and she curled into his chest, tucking her head under his stubbled chin. His heartbeat, somehow steady, grounded her to sanity. “Anything you want to say?”
“Plenty.”
“Well, the bloodied cock is right here.”
Sona craned her neck to find that Conri, shamelessly naked, managed to stand, held upright by his Gamma and an Epsilon, Vallea hovering awkwardly, useless in her state and size. He was still covering his torn ear; the flesh had likely stopped bleeding and healed over already.
“Do you want to keep it or should I?” she asked blandly.
He snorted humorlessly. “Take it. A victory spoil to remind you that you maimed your own mate forever—and make an official enemy of me. Luna or not, Sona, watch your tail.”
“See you at the weddings.”
“Who said you were invited?”