Chapter Twenty-Two
A rran’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.
His stomach lurched as Moss stood. The dryad’s fingers curled around him, keeping Arran safe as the creature pitched forward into a swaying gait across the moorland.
‘Are you really going to carry me the whole way?’ Arran croaked, grateful and daunted at the same time. Moss was near godlike. ‘What if anyone sees you?’
Moss’s gnarled face split into a smile. Cracked lines in the bark flowed over the contours of his expression. ‘ Then they shall have a story to tell. ’
Arran huffed, settling into the crook of one giant finger. He watched the land pass below him. Moss’s pace was swift. Green vines and creepers streamed from the crags of his body, caught in the wind. Arran spotted Moss’s frock coat hanging off a branch in his autumn-leafed hair.
Exhaustion swept over him. His skull creaked with pain. Soothed by the swinging rhythm of the dryad’s palm, and the knowledge that Moss was safe, Arran closed his eyes and slept.
* * *
Arran woke in his own bed, inside his cave. For a moment he felt he must have dreamed everything. Must have dreamed Moss, a giant dryad, carrying him across his island.
The smell of woodsmoke reached his nose, alongside cooked fish and nettle tea. Arran rolled over, and found a laden plate and full cup next to his bedside.
‘Awake at last, old dog?’
Hesitantly, fearfully, Arran looked up, afraid it may all have really been a wild hallucination.
Moss sat by the hearth, weaving a grass mat. Or, attempting to weave, as he’d managed to tangle several sections and gotten the tension wrong, so it bunched up in places. Moss waved it without animosity. ‘Another flawed thing, I’m afraid. Maybe it’ll do for a coaster.’
It was Moss, all right. His usual shape and size, and wearing his usual frock coat with nothing underneath. But his skin still sported the bark-like texture—though it seemed smoother now. Less rough and wild. His eyes turned to Arran, and they were a familiar emerald green. Concern tinged Moss’s voice. ‘Are you going to get up? You’ve been asleep for days, wolfie.’
Arran registered more imperfect mats and half-made baskets scattered around the cave. There was also a pot of water filled with plates, like Moss had started washing up then forgotten about it. Had he made food for Arran every day?
Arran sat up, muscles twinging on the way. ‘Did anyone see you?’
He kicked himself. Great first question.
Moss took it in his stride. ‘Maybe someone fixing a sheep fence. Hardly anyone lives out here.’
‘Are you hurt?’
Moss gave a peal of bright laughter. ‘Oh, you’re serious? No, wolfie. I’m not hurt.’ His expression softened. ‘How’s your head?’
Arran skimmed over the wound with a paw. The skin had healed over, leaving a knot of scar tissue and a slight bald spot in his fur. His mind was in focus, and the pain was gone.
‘Restored,’ he answered. ‘I am sorry to have been caught so unawares, Moss. I am sorry you endured Logan’s control for even an instant.’
‘Don’t be,’ Moss said cheerfully. He swept across the chamber, trailing leaves from his hair. Moss dropped onto the sheepskins next to Arran and lifted the wolfman’s arm around him. ‘You gonna eat, or what?’
Arran pulled Moss all the way into his lap, squeezing his deep relief into Moss’s firm body. Moss sighed happily and combed fingers through his fur.
‘I shall eat your food. And then I shall devour you . I will make you mine on my knot, and I will mark you with my teeth, and I will own you.’
Moss’s eyelashes fluttered and a little gasp escaped him. ‘My, my, wolfie. Such promises. You’re sexy when you say what you mean. I thought you’d want to catch your breath, first.’
Any thoughts of food dashed from Arran’s mind as he perceived the stiff prod of Moss’s cock digging into his stomach. He grasped it needily, and Moss reacted with a moan. Arran explored its strangely supple texture with his whole palm, then pulled back to behold it properly.
Moss’s cock looked like the finest antique dildo; as though it had been meticulously carved from solid wood and given a smooth, glossy finish. Yet it yielded under Arran’s touch like flesh. It leaked a fluid like precum, which smelled like sweet nectar. Arran growled instinctually and dipped his head to taste.
Moss arched his back as Arran’s tongue lapped around his cockhead. He tasted of honey and sweet tree sap.
Moss pushed his snout away. ‘Mmm. So impatient, wolfie. Don’t you have any self-control?’
Arran caught the sly gleam in Moss’s eye. He rolled and pressed Moss into the fleeces under him. Arran’s cock was swollen, his pulse beating a hard rhythm into his skin. But he would make Moss work for it.
Breathing hard, Arran snarled in his ear. ‘I shall do nothing unless you command me.’
He heard Moss’s breath hitch. ‘Is that so, wolfie?’
Something thin and reed-like curled around Arran’s throat. He jolted upright, almost throwing Moss out of bed with the movement, before realising it was a single vine of honeysuckle coiling loosely about his neck.
Moss stared up at him, illuminated by the red embers of the hearth. The humble light flowed over his lithe sapling body, kissing it on the tops of his leaf-speckled shoulders and spread knees. His needy little cock twitched under Arran’s glare.
Arran stuck a claw under the collar. Already, his beast bayed for release. ‘Tighter.’
Moss obliged. The vine dug into Arran’s flesh, making the unspoken promise that he’d be choked if he disobeyed. Arran gave a raw groan. His cock jerked in reaction to the tantalising pressure.
‘Good boy,’ Moss said softly, and Arran almost went for him.
He was equal parts thrilled and infuriated by the pleasure those words shivered up his spine. His tail even wagged, hitting the bed with a rhythmic thump.
Arran willed his beast and body to be still, to be cold like iron even as Moss continued to stoke the fire in him. He sat on his haunches, waiting for Moss’s command.
Moss was clearly going to make Arran work for it, too. He reached forward and pressed his palm firmly between Arran’s legs. Arran shuddered as Moss’s hand cupped his painfully heavy balls, squeezing through the denim of his trousers.
Arran’s limbs trembled with the effort of holding himself together. He knew Moss must be feeling the same. He reeked of need. Of desperation. The leash between them was the only thing keeping either of them in check.
‘You like that?’ Moss slunk forward on his knees, so small compared to Arran, and yet intimidating under the memory of his goliath dryad form. ‘Let’s see how you do with this for a command… Stay still.’
Arran’s beast roared within. He kept it trapped inside, concentrating on the smooth surface of the vine collar and the leaves that brushed the underside of his chin. He looked straight ahead at the cave wall, not even daring to watch Moss’s fingers as they unbuttoned his trousers and peeled the fabric away from his cock. But when Moss’s mouth closed around it, he had no way of fighting the way his whole body rocked under the strain.
The collar tightened again, morphing his instinctual growl into a muffled grunt, and then finally a whine as Moss sank past the head and took at least half the shaft down his throat.
Don’t move. Don’t move. Don’t move.
Arran didn’t know if he was begging himself or Moss. All he knew was that he was near his limit and being on Moss’s leash was so fucking delicious and he desperately wanted to be called a good boy again, and all the while the thoughtless beast part of him was in a hot rage, urgently calculating just how hard he was going to slam his cock into Moss’s tight little body just as soon as he was free to do so.
All the while, Moss sucked slowly, using his tongue to tease the grooves around the head of Arran’s cock, and then over the thick veins near the base and his knot. When Moss’s teeth gave a light nip at the skin over his knot, Arran released a strangled howl.
‘You wanna come, wolfie?’ Moss asked, lapping up a gush of precum from Arran’s cock. ‘If you’re a good boy, you can come.’
Arran could barely speak. He realised his claws were clutching at the collar, though it wasn’t restricting his breathing just at that moment; more like it was the only thing he felt he could hold onto. He nodded helplessly.
Moss sat up on his knees, stroking Arran’s cock with one hand, and running his fingers through the fur over Arran’s throat with the other. ‘Good boy,’ he whispered, almost reverentially. ‘You’re such a good fucking boy. You know how to be even better? You know what would make me really happy?’
Arran’s tail wagged so hard it hurt. His cock thudded with pleasure in Moss’s hand. Moss stretched up as high as he could and pulled Arran’s head down so that he could whisper in his ears.
‘You’re going to come . And then you’re going to shag me onto your knot, and you’re going to keep shagging me ’til I beg for mercy. Can you do that for me, wolfie?’
YES.
Arran’s cock fired a thick jet of cum over Moss’s chest, followed by several more. Moss grinned, lapping a stripe off the back of his hand while Arran watched hungrily, waiting like a predator.
The brief release was hardly enough. His cock was still hard. His body tensed for the hunt. Moss looked up at him, full of na?ve, smug innocence.
The leash around Arran’s neck slipped away.
And he pounced.