Page 61 of The Wulver's Bond
Arran seemed too weak to grapple Logan properly. His jaws snapped ineffectively, easily knocked aside by Logan’s flailing fist. Arran’s weight more than anything seemed to be keeping the bastard down.
Logan turned desperate eyes to Moss. ‘Get the crossbow!’ he roared, spitting gravel from his teeth. ‘Shoot him!’
Moss’s heavy limbs wrenched into action. He couldn’t feel his fingers, but they closed over the crossbow anyway.
Arran’s gaze locked on Moss. Watched him helplessly pick up the weapon.
‘Move!’ Moss cried out to him. His body shook as he tried to fight off the command. ‘I have to, I have to!’
Arran went still over Logan. A perfect target.
‘No, no, no, no!’ Moss screamed even as his hands raised the crossbow—and fired.
Arran plunged a claw down as though catching a fish, and came up with Logan’s head in it.
The crossbow bolt thumped into Logan’s face with a sickening, wet sound. Blood spilled from his eye socket where the bolt jutted out. Logan’s mouth gaped and gulped like a goldfish for two long seconds, then fell still. A limp, grotesque mask on a lifeless body.
Arran dropped it and rolled off him. He crawled toward Moss, and it was obvious he was in agony. ‘Moss…’
Moss opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Something was wrong with his throat. With his body.
Looking down with bleary eyes, he saw the rope tattoos glow pinkish-purple on his arms. They lifted away, extending from his skin like a 3D mirage. The rope shattered, scattering transparent fibres in the air.
Freedom.
His eyes found Arran’s. The Wulver watched Moss smile and stand.
Moss opened his arms and spread his roots, declaring his truth to the earth.
I Am This One.
I Am Formidable.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Arran’s nose was filled with blood. Logan’s. Moss’s. His own.
His dazed brain only knew that it needed to protect Moss. That he needed help.
Now that Logan was dead, Arran struggled to make sense of what was happening. Moss was laughing, even as blood continued to spill over his white shirt. He seemed to split open, dark veins threading across his skin, revealing something else underneath. Green moss and silvery bark poured out.
Moss’s form grew and twisted, became a tree, a small shrubby willow and then a giant soaring pine. His shape changed over and over again, melding trees with bright flowers and spiked brambles and wet mosses. A whole forest spanned his being.
Moss’s shape turned humanoid again, though now it was gigantic. He loomed as high as a three-storey building, blocking out the sun as he gazed down on Arran.
He still looked like Moss, or at least the shape of him. But his skin had turned into weathered bark and was covered in many soft green things. His eyes gleamed down at Arran, two changing voids that held all the seasons in them. Arran knew his jaws hung open. He could do nothing but stare at Moss in awe.
Moss knelt on the ground, flattening swathes of pasture. He extended a colossal hand and tenderly touched a finger to Arran’s cheek. It was like being caressed by a tree trunk.
Arran shakily grasped it with both arms. ‘Moss,’ he whispered. ‘You are beautiful.’
Don’t leave me.
Moss silently placed his hand on the ground, palm up. As Arran watched, the surface of his bark skin sprouted a cushioned bed of moss.
‘Home,’ Moss said, in a voice that rustled like the wind through tree branches.
Tears stung Arran’s eyes. He climbed stiffly into Moss’s palm. The blanket of plant matter had a downy texture and was spongy like a pillow. Arran sank gratefully into the comfort of it.
