Page 5 of The Wulver's Bond
He began to walk and instantly heard Weed’s footsteps resume as well.
‘Oh, I wouldloveto oblige,’ Weed said, with what sounded like a skip in his step to keep up with Arran’s long strides. ‘But I simply can’t.’
Arran held in a sigh and stopped again. ‘What fool would bind a creature as annoying as yourself in such unwaveringly close proximity?’
‘The old hunter, Bryce,’ Weed replied in a sing-song voice. ‘Bound me as a favour to a boggart some eighty years ago. Then when Elsie killed him, she got me as a bonus reward.’ He spoke so casually, it was as if he wasn’t recounting his own enslavement at all.
Arran squinted closer and pulled in a quick breath through his nose to confirm his earlier appraisal. Weed smelled perfectly human. There was a whiff of magic about him, faintly metallic, like blood in the air, though not enough to suggest he was wearing a glamour to disguise his face. But no human should have a face that young after eighty years.
Arran beckoned him closer. ‘All right, you can stop dragging on the end of your chain. What manner of creature are you?’
Weed sauntered right up to him, so uncomfortably close that Arran had to look straight down his snout. Weed was already on the short side, maybe a little under five and a half feet, and the gauntness of his frame gave his appearance a very fragile, breakable quality.
‘Iwasfae,’ Weed replied, sticking a finger into Arran’s chest. ‘Just like you.’
Arran plucked Weed’s hand away and stepped back.Interesting,he thought.And troublesome.‘What did you do to get yourself trapped in this situation?’
‘Do?I didnothing!’ Weed’s vivid green eyes were the very picture of wronged innocence. ‘Minding my own business. I had a little patch of woodland to call my own, plenty of trees to keep me busy. I was a dryad, if you couldn’t guess.’
Arran regarded him with suspicion. ‘Do you have to tell me the truth?’
Weed’s grin spread wide. ‘Now, how would you know if I was answering that honestly?’
He had a point.
‘I see you’re good at sidestepping questions. Very fae of you.’ Arran ignored the smug look on Weed’s face and resumed walking in the direction of home. Weed skipped along behind him.
Arran wasn’t the least bit thrilled with this situation, nor with the thought of bringing a stranger into his home—and an untrustworthy fae, of all things. But short of tying Weed to a rock, Arran didn’t have an immediate solution. And as tempting as the rock option felt, he wasn’t going to leave Weed to waste away in the wilderness.
He had a heavy feeling that he would come to regret this decision.
Chapter Three
Weed was having the time of his life. He was free to walk at his own pace, and no one had kicked, slapped, or punched him in the whole hour since he’d become the property of the Wulver. The wolfman hadn’t told him to hurry up, or get a move on, or to work his bastarding feet faster, and instead stopped to wait for Weed to catch up every few hundred yards with no more than an impatient huff at his naturally dawdling pace.
Weed knew it wouldn’t last. The Wulver simply hadn’t worked out how best to utilise his command over him, or perhaps a thin moral veneer held him back from doing so. He’d crack soon enough. Until then, Weed would continue to tug at the rope between them and find out just how far he could yank it.
His favourite way to do this was by incessant, inane chatter.
‘… and Logan was always a snorer. Like, lawn-mower snores. Shake-your-bones-awake snores. Do you snore, wolfie? Hard not to with a nose like that, I bet. How sharp are your teeth? What do you even eat? Do you hunt like a wolf? Not that there’s much out here to hunt, I imagine. Rabbits and small rodents, maybe. Not like you can just walk into a supermarket. And I don’t expect internet shopping’s all that reliable out here. Mind you, I hear they deliver everywhere now. Depends if your postie’s willing to hop on a boat…’
If the Wulver was feeling aggravated by Weed’s verbal assault, he wasn’t showing it. Hewassteadfastly ignoring Weed, trudging onward with hardly a backward glance.
Despite the knife wound in his stomach—which had looked pretty nasty to Weed—the wolfman didn’t seem especially injured. He moved with a long, loping stride that suggested he could cross the landscape at thrice the speed if he weren’t being held back by Weed’s shorter legs.
Weed found him interesting to watch. Although he’d seen the Wulver before, this was the first time he’d really studied the beast up close. His profile was much less intimidating in daylight. Something about the clothes, Weed reckoned. A towering creature clad only in bristling fur would be difficult to see as anything except a monster. But a wolfman in faded denim jeans and a loose black hoodie, with his fluffy tail poking out from under a battered red hiking backpack… it was actually comical to Weed. The Wulver even walked with his hands stuffed in his hoodie’s pockets like a regular dude.
The wolfman was broad in the shoulders, but tall and lanky. Maybe Weed’s nattering about food wasn’t that far off the mark, and he really did find it difficult to scrounge meals. Even his wolf’s head was leaner than an actual wolf, sleek and pointed in the snout, with a mouth agile enough to certainly frown—and presumably smile, if the mood ever took him. His pointed ears twitched often, giving a sense of high alert even when the Wulver was stood still.
Weed paused in his current line of prattle and gave voice to the sly thought circling his brain. ‘You know, you’re a handsome mutt really. Do you shag much?’
Only the slightest tensing in the Wulver’s shoulders indicated that he’d heard him. Weed carried on, regardless.
‘Only, I heard you’re very into the shagging. Of humans, especially. Always wondered what that was like, what with thembeing so breakable. But you must be a pro, eh? All those wolfie children running loose in the world—’
‘Shut up.’ The order was so direct and heartfelt that Weed’s jaw clamped closed with such speed it hurt. The Wulver spun to face him. His amber eyes blazed with fury. ‘Do not speak of what you don’t understand. You are ignorant and a fool.’
Weed stiffened completely, inwardly curling into a ball inside himself. He’d finally struck a nerve. This was it. He braced for the blow, swipe of claws, or snap of teeth.
