Page 23 of The Wulver's Bond
‘Miss who?’
Weed waved a hand at the ornament-laden shelves. ‘All of them. You made loads.’
Arran’s heart clenched. Weed sounded unusually sincere, and it pierced through his gloom. ‘I have lived a long time.’
Weed sidled further round so he could stick his face under Arran’s. He smiled sweetly. ‘Will you make one for me?’
‘Perhaps.’
I hope not.
Arran scooped food onto a plate and ducked away from Weed.
It wasn’t Weed’s fault. He didn’t know what he was asking. He wasn’t to know that the figures were more than just souvenirs.
They were cenotaphs. Grave monuments.
Arran wouldn’t point out Elsie’s. He’d had trouble capturing the shape of a crossbow in dried grass, but felt it was the right thing to distinguish her.
It was important to honour the dead.
To atone for the sin of killing them.
He wondered whether Weed would understand. Did Weed feel any remorse for the lives he’d harmed while under Elsie’s command?
Arran surreptitiously watched Weed pick out his food, while trying to imagine this fiendish yet fragile creature hunting another being for sport. The idea didn’t align with the person in front of him.
Not really fiendish,Arran considered.Guileful, yes. Clever and canny. Coy, when he wants to be.
As if primed to catch him out, Weed glanced up and met Arran’s gaze. He winked and blew a kiss before heading toward the cave entrance with his food.
Arran hung his head, cheeks filling with fire. His tail gave a few patheticthwapsagainst the ground where he sat. That was how bad it was.
Apparently, his beast’s infatuation was now so strong that even the vaguest of flirtations from Weed could get his tail wagging.
And he wasn’t totally certain he could blame it all on instinct, any more.
Chapter Nine
Weed tried not to let on how shaken he was after the panic attack. Something like that had never happened to him before. It had felt as if his own body was fighting against him.
What could be worse than your body being outwardly under another’s control, than it not beinginwardlyunder your control, either?
Mind you, Weed considered, it hadn’t exactly been under his control for the past week, either. His dick seemed to be doing a lot of the steering.
After his lewd epiphany by the river, the mere prospect of watching the wolfman smoke fish and carry water around was apparently all it needed to get excited. Weed’s only defence mechanism was to double-down on being as aggravating as possible to his unwilling master. He’d heard of ‘malicious compliance’—but with the wolfman being so determined to not give any outright orders, Weed had invented ‘malicious apathy’ instead.
He’d got what he wanted, in a way. When Arran inadvertently snarled at him tostarve,his dick had shrivelled right up into his nuts. Turning the wolfman against him was certainly one way to snuff out the suffering of his newly awakened libido.
Besides the panic attack, today had been easier. The wind-swept journey to the old lady’s house had kept Weed’s entirebody preoccupied with not being blown away, and the aftermath of his conversation with Arran distracted him for the rest the evening.
Weed sat by the mouth of the cave, still draped cosily in his new coat, staring out at the simmer dim while night fell around him. Tonight, the sky was illuminated in pale shades of blue, casting a cool filter of colour over the ravine. His plate of half-eaten fish lay next to him. It was a strange thing, to no longer be constantly hungry. To feel he could pick at his food, rather than gulp it down in haste.
Weed leaned comfortably against the rock, basking in the fragrance of the overhanging honeysuckle. Rustles and chirps of life drifted on the relentless Shetland wind, muted though it was down here.
Weed realised he was being watched. Two beady eyes glinted among the rocks.
He threw out a handful of fish. ‘Don’t be shy. Come have a feast.’
