65. Rib

A/N: Sorry for the lack of uploads, lovely readers! I've been busy with life and another writing opportunity. Within the next month, expect a new story by me to be released on Webnovel! Details to come, but I hope you check it out and support my work! :)
___________

“We could take over the world if we wanted.” Even in her impaired state, Sona glared at Taos. He cleared his throat. “But we wouldn’t, of course. It would be our looks that could bring them to their knees.”
Sona snorted. “*Your* looks. I look like shit—like I don’t belong next to you.” Already forgetting that he was supposed to undress her, she started to strip and wriggle into the ridiculous outfit. It was like trying to wear a spiderweb.
She couldn’t keep her balance either. When she wobbled and swayed, Taos caught her arm to steady her, arresting her drunken movements. In her ear, he murmured, “A forgetful drunk as well?”
Her face flushed. “Apparently.”
“Let me untangle you, my dear,” he purred, immediately going to work doing so.
Making herself limp, Taos maneuvered her limbs as if she was a doll. Arms into these slots, legs in the others. Of course he had to feel her up with every motion; fingertips trailing up the inside of her thighs, hands squeezing her sides, rubbing himself on her when he could.
Panting breaths reeking of honey and alcohol, pounding heartbeats, rustling fabric, creaking wood…it was all intimate. All warm and sexy and awkward.
“There.”
Sona looked at their reflections again. She looked now halfway decent. “Are you going to change too?”
“Revelry outfits include lack of shirt,” he told her with a devilish smirk. “So you may remove it *if* you accessorize me.”
“What bones this time? That deer skull one?”
Taos took her hand and guided her out of the small room. They ignored Rossa lurking nearby as they exited back onto the street and promptly to the store across it. Sona glimpsed the sign above the door that read: *Lots of Bones.*
Sona sighed. “Everything is very to-the-point here, is it not?”
“If you haven’t noticed, trinket,” Taos said grandly as he ushered her inside, “we are a simple band of wolves. Ah, Rib, there you are. My betrothed requires something from your least gruesome collection to adorn my body. Something for tonight’s revelries.”
Inside the dimly-lit tavern-like room, it was true to its name: bones waited in every crevice. Leaning on the floor against the walls, stacked on long shelves, mounted to walls and the ceiling—there were three chandeliers made exclusively from yellowed bone—and even hanging from strings in a mockery of wind chimes clinking in the breeze that they let in from outside. There was no shortage of variation, either. From bird to deer skulls and every bone in between, in the center of the space was a full skeleton of a wolf.
The male that descended from a dark staircase might as well have been a second store to browse, he had so many decorating his massive body.
He was older and grizzled, his black hair striped with strands of white; as he lumbered closer, Sona withheld her gasp. Not only did he bear a deep, ragged scar nearly bisecting his face, but one eye was typical Redbone black, but the other… Both the iris and pupil were foggy white.
Sona had seen those injuries before. He’d been attacked by a stag.
“Curvy thing,” he addressed her gruffly, gaze taking her in with neutral judgment. “She doesn’t seem drunk enough yet.”
Taos went to speak, likely to defend Sona by insulting him, but she eased from his grip and approached Rib to interrupt, “If that causes you pain, I can create a poultice to ease it.”
Rib wrinkled his nose. “Bold thing. Back off. You reek like gold privilege—”
Taos put Sona behind him to get in Rib’s face and growl, “Your insult is unpleasing, friend. Respect your future Luna.”
The old male’s mismatching eyes widened. “*This* is who you’ve chosen?”
“We chose each other,” said Taos, dark tone not easing, “and I ask you again: help us choose appropriate accessories for tonight.”
Rib cleared his throat. How odd it was for someone at least two decades younger to boss around such a brutalized elder. “I’m too old for this shit to care anyway. Subtle, I’m assuming.”
“Something light,” Taos told him, tucking Sona under his arm to murmur, “That wolf skeleton?”
“Yes?” she asked hesitantly, watching Rib meander throughout the shop grumbling to himself as he rummaged through his stock.
“It was his brother.”
“What?”
“They went out hunting by themselves when they were fifteen. They tried to take down one of the largest bucks seen around that time. Long story short, the stag won.”
“They killed it?” Sona whispered, her mind trying to process possibilities.
“Rib did after it kicked Behm in the head so hard it broke his neck far beyond repair. Though not before the stag took another kick.” Taos tapped his cheek.
So his injuries were from the sharp hooves of their prey.
“At least it wasn’t antlers,” she said softly.
“I would have lost this eye, eh?” Rib barked. Sona winced when she realized he’d overheard. “You think I was lucky?”
“Not lucky,” she told him gently, again trying to appease the male, “but brave.”
Rib snorted and turned his back to her. “I live in pain every day as punishment for letting my brother die. I don’t want nothing healed so take these damn bones and get the fuck out of my shop.”
When he turned back, he stalked over to shove a satchel of clinking bones at Taos. He glared at his Alpha. “Don’t expect me to show up at the wedding, whelp.”
Taos’ jaw was clenched and Sona knew he wanted to knock Rib’s teeth out, but this was a worthless fight, so he took the satchel and nudged Sona toward the door. “I already took you off the list.”
They were on the street again. Taos took Sona’s hand tightly in his and weaved through the throng of wolves until they’d slipped into another shop. This one was ablaze with dozens of candles and full to the brim with females. When the door shut, all conversation ceased and suddenly Sona was frozen to the spot by a dozen pairs of black eyes.