Chapter Six
A rran struggled to sleep, sensing Weed was also still awake. It put his animal instincts on edge to know there was another creature sharing his cave. Especially one that might prove dangerous.
He wasn’t sure what Weed might be capable of. How far did Weed’s mastery of plants extend? Did he have access to other magics he hadn’t divulged? Just how ‘creatively’ could Weed bend the rules of his curse?
Despite these reservations, so far Arran had observed nothing to suggest Weed meant him any harm. Weed mostly gave the impression of a scared rodent: just as likely to nip with its teeth as to totally freeze in response to a threat.
And if that’s all Weed really was—a cornered mouse in a wolf’s house—then it was also clear that he was an outrageously exhausted one. Arran had never known anyone to sleep so often and so deeply, aside from those he’d witnessed return from war. From devastation.
Perhaps Weed himself wasn’t aware just how far past the brink his human body had been pushed. He constantly woke up surprised, like the act of sleeping itself amazed him. Arran stealthily added more fleeces to Weed’s bed and tried not to stare at how peaceful he looked when he slept.
The fact that Weed was struggling to sleep now was like a warning bell to Arran. Something was wrong.
He’d noticed that Weed seemed fretful over the course of the evening and not so responsive to the prospect of food or rest. But, to be fair, it had been a tumultuous day for him. Arran needn’t look any further than Weed’s chaotic jumble of emotional reactions to be certain the young dryad was feeling unbalanced.
The incident by the river had been… vexing.
Arran turned over in his bed, pressing his nose into the sheepskins so as to drown out Weed’s scent. The memory of his scent.
Arran had no clue what was running through Weed’s mind by the river, but from the musky traces of lust and the way his body vibrated with arousal, Weed’s sheer desperation was both obvious and captivating. With his nose assaulted by that hot-blooded aroma, Arran himself had been thrown off balance.
And for the tiniest, most miniscule of moments, he’d considered ending Weed’s misery by planting him on all fours and railing him like the bitch in heat he’d declared himself to be.
Arran pushed the thought away immediately, with instant, intense chagrin.
He hadn’t entertained thoughts like that in centuries .
But Weed had a knack for being irritating. He was already making a hobby of attempting to bait Arran with his acerbic comments, and his sheer vicious persistence poked the beast in Arran. He feared it may even have woken up.
The little brat could do with being taught a lesson.
Arran almost choked. He dug his snout deeper into the fleece, muffling an appalled growl. What was he thinking ?
Weed was under his care. Arran had a duty —no matter how much he resented it being pushed upon him—to look after Weed’s wellbeing, and most of all to ensure he never exploited the power he held over him.
And, Arran told himself sternly, it wouldn’t change anything if Weed wasn’t cursed to do his bidding. Arran still wouldn’t contemplate the thought of bedding him. The carnal impulse had been fleeting; a brief loss of judgement, nothing more.
Not at all a symptom of his prolonged, lonely lifestyle.
Eventually, Arran fell into an unsettling dream.
It was a memory of the fae realm. A cold, glittering place where eyes and tongues were sharp, and all words and hearts were guarded. Arran walked alone under the crystalline boughs of its silver trees. He longed for warmth, for companionship. For change .
Eventually, he came to a pair of trees that formed a narrow arch, like a doorway. Through the arch, he saw a different landscape. A grey, stormy landscape. There were jagged cliffs and a black, crashing ocean. It looked volatile, even foul, when compared with the ageless beauty all around him.
Arran looked from the sparkling silver forest to the angry grey cliffs.
His path felt obvious.
Without a backward glance, Arran stepped through the arch, to the human world.
* * *
The next day Arran woke early and filled a large bowl with water. Weed slept just as soundly as he had every day before, and Arran felt safe in assuming he was unlikely to wake up soon.
He snuck past the pile of gently snoring sheepskins and stepped just outside the cave—but not too far. He daren’t risk accidentally yanking Weed from his bed.
Mostly immune to the cold air, Arran stripped off his clothes and hastily dunked a washcloth into his bowl of water. It was a quick and sloppy job of bathing, but it was a task he didn’t wish to put off any longer, and also one that he wished to avoid Weed’s presence for. He would normally bathe in the river, but the distance would necessitate bringing Weed with him and, by extension, Weed’s ogling eyeballs.
Arran shook the water from his fur and donned his jeans and hoodie once again. Back inside, he decided to give Weed the same opportunity, albeit with a greater measure of comfort. He heated a pot of fresh water, siphoning some off for tea, and the rest he poured into a large basin in front of the fire.
The sun had risen by now, so he hoped Weed wouldn’t mind being woken a little earlier today.
Weed groaned in his sleep as Arran gently shook his shoulder. Then without warning his eyes snapped open and he bolted upright, alert, and clearly propelled by adrenaline.
‘What time is it?’ Weed barked, glancing around like he was trying to get his bearings. Arran could hear his racing heartbeat—and the way it slowed as Weed apparently registered his surroundings.
‘It is a few hours past dawn,’ Arran replied, keeping his tone light and passive. ‘I have prepared water for you, if you would like to bathe this morning.’
Weed stared past him at the steaming basin. His voice was deadpan. ‘You want me to get naked for you?’
‘ No! ’ Arran jumped back, waving his hands. ‘Nothing of the sort. I shall wait outside. You’ll have total privacy.’
Weed sniggered, and Arran realised he’d been made to look a fool. ‘Calm your teats, wolfie. Didn’t realise you were such a prude.’
Arran folded his arms, holding in his exasperation. ‘I simply do not wish you to feel uncomfortable.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’m not shy.’
The smug way Weed said it should have clued Arran in. In a swift one-two motion Weed pulled off his shirt and snapped open his trousers.
Arran remained stoic as they fell around Weed’s ankles, baring all under the glimmering firelight. Weed planted his hands on his hips, grinning broadly. ‘What do you think, wolfie? Does this offend your sensibilities?’
Arran met his stare head-on, refusing to be cowed by such a ridiculous display. ‘Of course not. I know what a human body looks like.’
‘I bet you do.’
Arran made a show of rolling his eyes. ‘Wash yourself, or don’t. I shall be outside.’
He about-turned as Weed pouted, and left the cave inwardly cursing his infuriating lodger.
Infuriating, because Weed seemed intent on constantly testing his boundaries.
Infuriating, because he’d just learned that Weed was walking around bare-assed under his camo gear.
Infuriating, because the ass in question was pert and smooth and pale.
Infuriating, because the wolf in him wanted to take a bite.
Arran stifled a mortified growl. He remembered only just in time to stop a few yards away from the cave mouth instead of stalking off into the trees. His tail, freed of rigid self-control, began to wag.
Arran was furious with himself. This reaction was absolutely unacceptable.
Weed’s voice floated out of the cave. ‘ Guess you still don’t want to shag, then? ’
Arran closed his eyes, snarling some of his frustration into the air. Whatever Weed’s taunts, Arran wasn’t about to take advantage of him while Weed was under his command. He didn’t want to take advantage of Weed at all, Arran corrected himself.
His body was simply restless, his instincts agitated by the mere suggestion of some physical intimacy. It was a matter of self-regulation, not of any deeper need or desire.
At least, that was what he was going to keep telling himself.
Arran waited a long time for Weed to finish washing. Nearly an hour had passed when it dawned on him that Weed likely wouldn’t inform him when he was finished, out of spite if not mischief.
Arran raised his eyes to the heavens, lamenting the fickle fae.
Thankfully, Weed was fully-clothed when he stepped back inside. Arran cooked another fish for breakfast and watched Weed carefully as he ate. He was pleased to see Weed had regained his appetite. The strange melancholy that had come over him the previous evening appeared to have evaporated, perhaps cleared by another good night’s sleep.
It seemed the fog of exhaustion had also finally lifted from Weed’s shoulders. Weed’s body must have been desperate to refill all its reserves, taking every chance it got to catch up on rest. Now that he was fully awake, Arran invited Weed to join him in the day’s task of smoking the rest of the fish.
‘Haven’t got anything better to do,’ Weed drawled back.
‘Then, when you are ready, please follow me.’
Arran came to regret this. Weed turned out to be as useful as a shadow, and rather more of an incumbrance.
Arran showed him the way to the smaller cave he used for smoking, and demonstrated how to prepare and hang the fish over the smouldering embers below. Weed spectated from the entrance, unhelpfully blocking half the daylight.
‘That’s a lotta fish you gotta get through, wolfie,’ he said, smirking. ‘Boy, I bet you wish you had a servant to help you right now, eh?’
‘Would you like to help?’ Arran answered mildly. In truth, he enjoyed the work. But he’d enjoy it more if Weed left him to do it in peace.
‘Do you order me to help?’
‘No.’
Weed tutted with a grin. ‘Well, gosh, I guess I’m not going to, then.’
‘That is fine.’
‘Hm.’
Next, Arran offered to teach Weed how to pickle a few fish he’d kept back from the smoker.
‘Are you ordering me to learn?’ Weed asked, leaning over Arran’s shoulder as he sat mixing salt with water in a large jar on the ground.
‘No.’
Weed stuck his hands over his ears and gleefully shut his eyes. ‘Then I shan’t!’
Arran got the feeling Weed was keeping score on some imaginary tally between them. It didn’t seem to be sinking into Weed’s brain that Arran had no intention of using him. Or, perhaps it had, and the cunning fae was going out of his way to abuse that very notion.
Whatever the case, Weed played the same game over the next string of days.
Everything Arran suggested, Weed did the opposite. He took great delight in loitering outside the cave when Arran invited him in; in standing when suggested to sit; and most of all in being stubbornly idle, and yet maddeningly determined in the way he followed Arran around during the course of his daily chores.
It was far worse than when Weed simply fell asleep while Arran worked. He hadn’t been in the way then, nor obstinately talkative. Weed seemed to talk about anything , from patterns in the dirt and musings on the Shetland landscape to unwelcome studies of Arran himself.
‘What are your teeth for, if not for hunting?’ Weed asked, while trying to all but shove his head inside Arran’s jaws to inspect them up close.
‘Eating, like yours,’ Arran growled, shoving him away.
‘But they’re so big. ’ Weed fluttered his eyelashes coquettishly. ‘Ooh, Mr Wulver, what big paws you have, too. All the better for holding me down with, maybe?’ He preened against a tree, conjuring a slender plant root to slide alluringly over his body like the fondling of a lover.
Arran met this with silence. But internally, his wolf sat up on its haunches, dangerously intrigued by the challenge.
While lugging a heavy urn of water from the river, Arran dearly wished that Weed would find something else to amuse himself. Weed skipped behind him empty-handed, practically treading on his paws.
‘ Please would you consider at least walking next to me?’ Arran grunted at him.
‘Is that an order, wolfie?’
‘You know it isn’t.’
Arran suppressed an aggravated snarl as Weed’s toes grazed his heel yet again.
When it came to dinnertime that evening, the joke finally wore through Arran’s patience.
He placed a bowl of hot stew in front of Weed more forcefully than necessary. ‘Here is some food,’ he growled. ‘Perhaps you wish for me to order you to eat it. I shall not.’
Weed’s smirk wavered—had Arran just called his bluff? But then his grin was back, and so was the snark in his voice. ‘Looks like I won’t be eating tonight, then.’
‘Fine,’ Arran snarled, turning away. ‘ Starve, for all I care.’
Weed gave a sharp inhale behind him. Arran sensed something wrong in the sudden stutter of his heartbeat and turned back in alarm.
Weed looked fine. Though his eyes were fixed on the bowl of stew. He glanced at Arran, then immediately away. The smirk had fallen from his face.
Starve.
Arran released a long breath. He was such a fool.
‘That was not an order,’ he said evenly. ‘I do not wish for you to starve, or to come to any harm at all. Please. If you would like to eat, then eat.’
Weed stared at the floor. He nodded mutely, and Arran sensed that some of the fight had left him. In that moment he wanted the irksome Weed back, the one who would respond to this incident with some mocking comment about how a beast like the Wulver couldn’t help but be his master.
A protective impulse shivered over Arran. Perhaps his frustration with Weed was unfair. The fae creature was learning how to live without being under the rule of someone else. Of course he was continually testing boundaries.
For the first time, Arran wanted to sweep Weed up in a hug. To reassure him that he was no slave here, that he would never be used again.
But of course, that wasn’t really the truth, was it? How must Weed feel, knowing that at any moment Arran’s mood might swing, that he could choose to take Weed’s control away from him on a whim? Arran had done exactly that, just now.
No wonder Weed’s natural reaction to everything was impudence. It was probably the only act of rebellion he’d ever had available to him.
‘We shall find a way to free you,’ Arran promised quietly. Weed seemed to shuffle away from the words themselves. Did Weed not believe his intentions? Maybe all promises rang false after eighty years of servitude.
Arran huffed, lightening his tone. ‘You are a nuisance, and I shall be glad to be rid of you. Until then, I’m sure you will find many new ways to exasperate me. But your time is your own here, and I shall not dictate how you spend it.’
There didn’t seem to be much more he could say. Weed would either believe him, or he wouldn’t, and Arran had no power to change that.
He withdrew to sit by the fire, giving Weed some space. His ears pricked to the sound of Weed sitting on one of the wooden stools and dragging his spoon through the bowl of stew.
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ Weed asked.
‘I must run an important errand,’ Arran replied. He winced, realising he was already contradicting his previous words. ‘It requires some travel, and I appreciate that you will have no choice but to follow me. I hope you will tell me if you become tired, or cold, or otherwise uncomfortable.’
Weed snorted into his stew. ‘Whatever.’
The rest of the evening passed with no further words between them, and Weed retired to his sheepskins even earlier than the night before. Arran slept dreamlessly, though he woke several times with the phantom feeling of a chain tugging at his neck.
The next morning dawned blustery and overcast. Arran frowned first at the weather, and then at Weed’s attire. His short-sleeved T-shirt and pocketed vest was no match for Shetland’s northern climate, even in summer.
Arran growled to himself and dug out a storage basket from under the workbench.
‘Is this your wardrobe?’ Weed asked with amusement, watching him pull out old items of clothing.
Arran spread them over the floor for Weed to see. ‘Please, take your pick. You will fare better if you are dressed warmly.’
Weed poked through the odd assortment with open incredulity. Arran only collected new clothing when he had outworn his previous apparel, so much of what he had to offer was littered with holes or unravelling at the seams. They were kept for rags, and he felt bad that this was all he could offer Weed.
Weed’s eyes lit up. He pulled an item from the bottom of the pile. It was an Edwardian frock coat, made of now thread-bare velvet in what was once a deep, rich green. Arran remembered it well—it had never quite fit right, being too small across the chest, so he’d always had to wear it open. As such, he’d only ever used it as an overcoat, thrown on top of other layers in particularly inclement weather.
Weed pulled it on and twirled on the spot. The coat flapped merrily around his legs, and for a moment he looked genuinely joyful.
‘When did you ever have a reason to wear this fancy article?’ Weed asked, twirling back in the other direction. ‘Bit grand for you, isn’t it?’
Arran chuckled. ‘Yes, it is. It was gifted to me by a gentleman whose wife I saved.’
‘Saved from what?’
‘She fell from a cliff, and I caught her.’
Weed’s eyes narrowed. ‘And what, these people were totally cool with meeting a giant werewolf monster?’
Arran huffed another laugh, deciding to overlook the werewolf jibe. ‘Actually, they were looking for me. Not many people know the name of the Wulver today, but a hundred years ago the island folk knew enough to stir the curiosity of visitors. The man and his wife were holidaying here, and she was an enthusiast of folklore, thinking to prove my existence.’
Weed stroked the velvet, running the lapels through his fingers. ‘What were their names?’
Arran shrugged. ‘I do not know. I did not ask.’
‘No wonder you’re such a loner, wolfie,’ Weed scoffed. He buttoned the coat, which was double-breasted with three rows of brocaded buttons. One of the buttons was hanging loose, and Arran made a note to fix it for Weed later.
‘I will prepare us some food for the journey,’ Arran told him. Weed nodded, still distracted by the coat. Arran smiled privately and left Weed to it.
It was good to see Weed smiling in a way that was not derisive or deceitful. Arran felt the urge to tease that smile out of him again, to provide for Weed in a way that could satisfy his soul.
Arran quashed the thought. That way lay peril.