Page 59 of The Wulver's Bond
Moss and the grass heaved. The bolt came free.
Logan leaned out of his window, glaring down at the grass enveloping the wheels. He tore back to Moss and seized him by the throat. ‘Are you doing this, you little shit?’
Internally, Moss smirked.Still not an order.
‘Might be,’ he crooned around Logan’s fist.
Logan smashed his face into the dashboard. Pain split through Moss’s nose and upper lip. He tasted blood in his mouth.
‘Make it stop,’ Logan demanded, pulling Moss’s head back by his hair, ‘or I’ll ruin your pretty fucking face.’
That was Logan all over. To still fall back on violence when a single word would do.
Moss held up his hands, reeling the grass away from the truck. ‘All gone,’ he croaked.
‘Don’t try anything like that again,’ Logan spat, slapping his face for good measure. ‘Or I’ll string you up at the back and drag you over the ground the rest of the way. You little prick.’
Moss nodded. His heart hammered on his ribcage. Had he done enough for Arran?
Gods, he hoped so.
Chapter Twenty-One
Night had fallen by the time Logan reached his first destination. He pulled up by an abandoned crofter’s cottage, built of grey stone.
Logan kicked Moss inside and ordered him to build a fire.
‘I don’t have matches,’ Moss said sullenly, picking up twigs from the dark corners of the room.
Logan threw a packet at him. ‘Get on with it.’ He rubbed his hands together.
It was a clear sky outside, showing off the simmer dim in its full pastel glory, but it meant for a chill night drawing in on them. Moss managed to get a fire lit, reflecting that it was a skill he hadn’t put to much use in Arran’s company. Arran had done so much to take care of him.
He was thankful when flames sprang from his meagre pile of firewood. Moss warmed his palms, keeping an eye on Logan as he cracked a can of beans into a mess tin.
‘Cook these,’ Logan commanded.
Moss complied, ensuring to burn them. He offered the tin of blackened beans to Logan.
‘You fucking idiot.’ Logan clapped him round the head with a thick-knuckled fist. ‘You never could fucking cook.’
Moss lay prone on the stone floor while Logan ate. He wanted to withdraw into himself, as he used to do. To become nothing for a while, so he didn’t have to be inside this situation.
No, it was important to stay present. Arran needed him. He needed Arran.
He tentatively reached out to a creeper of ivy by the cottage door. It obligingly slithered from its perch and inspected the contents of the truck bed. It felt Arran’s shape under the tarp, still motionless.
Please,Moss begged.You promised me eternity.
There was no answer.
Moss barely slept. He kept his feelers on Arran, waiting fitfully for signs of life. Logan’s snorts and snores echoed loudly off the bare stone. The crossbow rested on his thigh.
Moss blinked, and suddenly was being kicked awake by the steel toe of Logan’s boots. ‘Get up, weed.’
Moss dragged himself to his feet. He noticed an ache in the pit of his stomach—it was empty, a sensation which had been happily forgotten of late. It recalled to him the old emptiness of being bound to Elsie, of being nothing more than a hollow creature to be filled with her orders.
Moss shuddered and pushed the intrusive thoughts away. While Logan ate a dry breakfast, Moss felt for his vine of ivy still curled around the Wulver’s wrist.
