Page 55 of The Wulver's Bond
He cut into the soil. Arran joined him with a second shovel, and together they sweated over the digging of a grave. The warm summer wind whisked around them, restless like a living thing. Perhaps her spirit rode on it, watching them.
Arran kneeled to gently lift her body into its final resting place. She was so small, nestled in the earth. A tiny piece of something much greater. A tiny piece that made the greater thing great.
When they were finished filling in the grave, Moss signalled to the rose with one hand. It uprooted and crawled over the ground, settling at the foot of the grave.
‘She didn’t say there couldn’t be flowers,’ Moss said, in answer to Arran’s impassive gaze.
‘I think she would appreciate it.’
Next, Arran turned his attention to the house. Or tried to. His heart was heavy, and in no mood to pick over the threads of a person’s life.
Looking through her meagre belongings, it was obvious just how lonely his neighbour had been. Her name was Ruth. She kept a phonebook with the names of telemarketers who had called her. A raft of useless utensils still wrapped in plastic was evidence of their vulture-like exploitation of her.
Arran sank deeper into melancholy, considering how empty Ruth’s final days must have been. That was the reality of living in the wilds of nowhere.
Meanwhile, Moss was bold and curious. He discovered clothes she had put into storage, perhaps her husband’s or a son’s. Moss danced into the kitchen in a new outfit: comfortable brown slacks and a loose white shirt that went well with his frock coat.
‘I’m going to burn these,’ he said happily, brandishing his old clothes in a screwed-up bundle. His smile dropped on seeing Arran. ‘Shall we go home, wolfie? We don’t need to do this now. We can come back tomorrow. Or the day after.’
Arran shook his head sharply. ‘No. We need to start our journey as soon as possible.’ He resumed packing tins at random from a low shelf into a carrier bag.
‘Do we, though?’ Moss asked, popping up over his shoulder. ‘There’s no hurry.’
Arran dropped his tins with a clatter and rounded on Moss. ‘I have explained this,’ he said savagely. ‘The seasons shall turn. Winter here ispunishing, Moss. You must leave before it arrives.’
‘Imust leave?’ Moss quirked an incredulous eyebrow. ‘I’ll bet I’ve been through worse, wolfie. A little bit of cold isn’t going to hurt me.’
Arran’s teeth grated against each other. Moss didn’t know the lengths he’d gone to, to keep him comfortable. Didn’t know how much tougher it was going to get.
But of course, that wasn’t the real issue, was it?
The beast snarled in agreement. His determination to leave was renewed by Ruth’s death, and his desire to protect Moss was inflamed by it. Her loss threw into sharp relief the bleakness of Arran’s life. An existence out here wasn’t worthy of Moss. He deserved so much better than this island. He deserved so much better than Arran.
Arran snatched up the half-full bag of tins and stalked toward the open door. ‘This will do. Let’s move.’
As his feet touched the earth, a burst of grass roots shot up and held him in place.
‘You clearly need to grieve.’ Moss slipped past Arran and conjured a mat of vines to form a mound so that he could step up and be face-to-face with him. ‘So, slow down, wolfie. Breathe. Let’s go home and start from there.’
Arrancouldn’tbreathe. Something like terror gripped him as he stared into Moss’s calm emerald eyes.
‘You must leavenow,Moss. You must befree.’ The words ripped out of Arran with a fierce growl. ‘Free of me, do you understand? You cannot let me own you. This curse must be broken and you must go home.’
‘What home is that, wolfie?’ Moss’s nose scrunched and a little bit of viciousness entered his voice. ‘My old grove? You couldn’t force me to go back there. It was taken from me, and now it harbours the traitor I thought I loved. I don’t fuckingwantto go “home”.’
The beast snarled, itching to sink teeth into whatever monster had hurt Moss before him. AndhadMoss, before him.
‘Back to the fae realm, then,’ Arran said gruffly. ‘You can build a new grove.’
‘I’ve already got one,’ Moss said matter-of-factly. He pointed into the distance. ‘It’s already calledhomeand it’s where we’re going.’
Arran’s heart swelled and shattered at the same time. ‘You don’t mean that—’
‘Stop fucking telling me what I mean or what I want,’ Moss yelled. ‘For someone supposedly so good at observing, you’re practically oblivious. Do you know what’s going to happen, after we break my chains—ifwe break them?’
Moss seized the scruff of Arran’s fur at his throat and pulled him closer. ‘We’re going to march right back here and I’m goingto sit on your knot like you want me to and you’re going to spend the rest of eternity shagging my brains out.Got it?’
Yes.
