Chapter Three
W eed 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. He was steadfastly 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 them being 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.
The fire in the Wulver’s eyes retreated. His shoulders relaxed, followed by a long exhale through his nose. He scrubbed a hand over his face, mussing the short fur there. ‘Disregard any orders I just gave. I am not going to hurt you.’
Weed felt his jaw unlock, though the rest of him remained tense. He looked at the Wulver curiously. The wolfman’s anger had drained away, leaving behind a sense of deep exhaustion in the weary droop of his mouth and ears.
Without offering explanation, the Wulver turned and set off again. Weed hesitated before skipping to keep up.
‘You don’t like talk of shagging, then?’ he said lightly. He couldn’t help it. It was like discovering a painful cavity—try as you might, it’s utterly impossible to keep from poking it with your tongue.
The Wulver seemed to sigh. ‘I do not… shag.’
‘What, ever?’ Weed jogged to reach the Wulver’s side and looked up at him incredulously. ‘What about the werewolves, then? Everyone knows it was you who—’ He caught the warning in the Wulver’s glance and trailed off. Instead, he added in a mumble, ‘Everyone knows it was the Wulvers.’
The Wulver didn’t answer, and Weed was quiet for a short spell. Not out of respect for his new master of course: he was trying to remember what he’d heard about the Wulver’s species back in the fae realm. Aggravatingly, it wasn’t much. He’d never paid much attention to gossip, being quite content with his peaceful, trivial existence in his isolated little grove. The sexual exploits of other fae had been distant and unimportant.
Humans didn’t seem to know much about Wulvers, either. All Elsie and Logan had talked about was the prize of acquiring the beast’s pelt. They seemed to think the Wulver was some kind of superior werewolf. Which was close to the story Weed was familiar with, but not the whole picture.
Weed readjusted the rucksack on his back. It was unnecessarily heavy, full of Logan’s shit, bear traps and knives and rope and more of the man’s dreadful clothes. Weed hoped he could dump most of it at some point.
They reached a stone cairn, a small landmark in an otherwise barren landscape of peat bogs and moorland. The sea glittered on the horizon. In the distance, the tops of a few sparse trees were visible where the land dipped into what might be a rocky ravine.
The Wulver stopped, sniffing the air. His head tilted toward Weed. ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty?’
‘Yes,’ Weed said immediately. ‘Almost always, as a matter of fact.’ Not that Elsie starved him, technically, but she certainly hadn’t believed in wasting resources.
‘Is there food and water in your pack?’
Weed shrugged.
The Wulver gave a mild growl. ‘Open it and find out, would you?’
Weed slung off the bag and dug through it obediently. He turned up a large flask of water and several MRE food pouches, along with a stash of trail mix and protein bars. He laid them out on the ground and looked up at the Wulver expectantly.
The wolfman pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Do you really need me to order you to eat?’
Weed smirked. ‘Wouldn’t want to misinterpret your intentions, would I?’
‘ Please, just eat whatever you want.’ The Wulver waved a hand in frustration and slumped against the cairn. He watched Weed pick through the food—Weed moved very slowly, just to see if anything would happen—until he settled on a seed and nut bar coated in caramel.
The sugar hit Weed’s tongue with a shock of taste and texture. It was so sublimely delicious, and so unlike anything he’d been allowed to consume in years, that he couldn’t help a soft, erotic moan from escaping his throat. The Wulver’s ears twitched and he looked away. Weed wondered if the beast could blush under all that fur.
‘Didn’t Elsie feed you?’ the Wulver grunted.
‘She did. But, funny thing,’ Weed answered through a greedy mouthful, ‘I don’t technically need to eat. This body could go on living while starving near to death. It just slows down a lot. Like, a lot. Elsie never let me have the good food, though.’
He washed it down with several gluttonous glugs of water, then grabbed another protein bar, this one drizzled in chocolate, and consumed it with pleasurable abandon. This time Weed moaned louder, on purpose, arching his back and closing his eyes. When he reopened them, licking his lips, he found the Wulver had turned away from him completely. The wolfman’s tail twitched madly, though the rest of him was stock still.
‘Are you done?’ the Wulver asked gruffly, without turning his head.
‘Mmm. For now,’ Weed purred. ‘That was so… satiating .’
The Wulver’s shoulders hunched slightly, and Weed suspected there was definitely a blush happening under there somewhere. Tantalising.
Weed packed away the rest of the food. Before he could hoist the rucksack on his back, the Wulver stuck out a hand. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘You don’t trust me with the supplies?’
The Wulver swapped his own backpack to one shoulder and added Weed’s to the other. ‘You were struggling to carry it.’
Weed blinked. It clearly weighed nothing to the Wulver, but there wasn’t any need for him to double burden himself. Not that Weed was going to complain. ‘Knock yourself out, I guess.’
The Wulver directed Weed down the slope, toward the half-hidden treeline. Weed’s spirits lifted at the prospect of trees. Trees gave more possibilities for mischief. But they also held a comforting quality. Most of the Shetland landscape he’d traversed was so austere in its flora. None of the plants here rested. Every organism struggled for survival, battling constant wind and fierce storms. Weed longed for soothing conversation with old, deep roots, accompanied by the gentle background whisper of young leaves.
He heard them before he saw them properly. A grove of stocky dune willow. Small, scrubby trees that tended to grow more out than up. They were hardened by their coastal home, yet had retained some gentleness, sheltered in what was indeed a deep ravine. Weed reached out to them with joy. Their roots tunnelled deep through the warm earth and around rock: grounding and solid. He could smell the life in their sap, taste the sunlight on their leaves. A little piece of home.
He was pleased to find the Wulver descending into this ravine. Along the bottom of it ran a wide but shallow freshwater river. The air became cooler further down, and yet less cold, due to its cover from the wind.
Eventually they reached the wide mouth of a cave, accessed by a brief scramble over mossy rocks. The Wulver paused at the entrance, cocking his head at Weed.
‘This is my home. I welcome you into it as my guest and friend.’
Weed snorted. ‘Friend? What’s with the formalities, wolfie? It’s as much a prison to me as anywhere else.’
Ignoring him, the Wulver reached into the mass of flowering honeysuckle that hung over the cave entrance and pulled down three black solar lanterns. He switched them on.
Light bloomed into the stony darkness. It caught on sharp, angled shadows from deep marks gouged over the rock walls. Some looked like runic letters, and others more like geometric patterns encased in circles.
Weed recognised them as powerful warding spells, designed to steer away unfriendly visitors. Humans called them Witch Marks.
‘Clever,’ Weed said, inspecting the nearest pattern. ‘These keep you hidden from humans, I suppose?’
The Wulver didn’t answer and ducked inside. Weed followed him. The passage turned a narrow corner, cutting off most of the light from outside and temporarily throwing Weed off balance in the dark. When his eyes refocused under the light of the solar lanterns, Weed was surprised to encounter a comfortable living area.
The chamber he’d entered appeared to have been painstakingly carved out of the living rock. A long work surface lined one wall, while the other edges of the room sported lower incised surfaces which were the right height to be used as benches. Higher cuts in the rock acted as shelves.
The furnishings were sparse, but deliberate. Weed squinted at two shelves of books, wondering what kind of literature a wolfman would read. They were a mix of ancient brown volumes with flaking spines and shiny modern covers, though Weed couldn’t make out the titles at a distance. He was intrigued by the presence of a number of ornaments: small figurines in the shape of people dotted the shelves. They appeared to be made from the dried and twisted stems of marram grass.
On the largest stonework counter sat a modest array of bowls, plates, cups and kitchen utensils—another peculiar mix of eras and materials on show. Weed guessed the heavily worn enamelware was Victorian in age. A clean chef’s knife could have been bought from a supermarket just last week. As for the simple clay bowls, they might have been a thousand years old, for all Weed knew—if the stories about the Wulver were true.
A large woven grass mat covered a portion of floor in front of an open hearth that was set into one wall. Similarly woven grass baskets filled carved alcoves under the stone workbench.
In the far corner of the chamber, a shaggy pile of animal furs gave the impression of a bed. The Wulver strode to this pile and separated out several fluffy sheepskins and a woollen blanket. He held them out to Weed. ‘Make yourself a bed where you please.’
Weed held the fleece in both arms. It was thick and soft, and smelled comfortingly of warm earth. He scanned the room again, then sauntered past the Wulver and dumped the sheepskins on top of the Wulver’s bed. ‘Here looks good!’ he announced.
The Wulver regarded him silently. His amber eyes were eerily bright in the dim light of the lanterns.
When he stepped forward, Weed flinched back automatically. His smirk wavered for a split second as the Wulver’s clawed fist reached toward him—then past him, as the wolfman stooped to pick up the sheepskins once again.
‘You will sleep here,’ the Wulver growled. He dropped the fleeces to the floor several paces away from the bed.
‘Yes, Master,’ Weed replied, with over-exaggerated woodenness. ‘I will sleep where I am ordered.’
He was sure the Wulver’s fists clenched. ‘ Please sleep over here. If you wish to sleep at all.’
‘Of course. I will sleep where my master prefers.’
The Wulver said nothing, but shook his head. Weed was sure he was grating on the wolfman’s nerves by now. It was only a matter of time until the beast snapped. And that would put paid to his lofty nice-guy act. Weed saw right through his benevolent bullshit. It was easy to pretend to be kind on the first day.
‘My name is Arran, by the way,’ the Wulver said, dumping both backpacks onto the stone workbench. ‘Not Master, or any other asinine title you come up with. Just Arran.’
‘You got it, boss!’ Weed replied with a grin.
The Wulver gave a snarl in response. His upper lip curled, revealing a sharp canine as his eyes flashed with irritation.
Yeah, that’s right, Weed thought grimly. Not long until you snap.