Chapter 3 3. Isabella and the Werewolf

Isabella

I sit up in cold sweat. The familiar room made my panicked heart palpitate even more to the point that I could feel it beating on my fingertips. The late afternoon light lit the room with its orange glow, and it is soon partnered with my hopelessness. I was taken and I have in no way of getting out of this place soon enough to find my sister.

It usually takes me days to find her but I need to be on her tracks the moment she texts goodbye or the trail would be cold, my apartment is large and busy. Too many faces come in and go that security won't be able to keep an eye on my sister and billy going out of the complex. It's too late.

I lay back down. The weight of loss weighed me down as I thought of junky houses that I have gone through over the years and it was a lot. I have been looking for my sister in houses like that since I was in college.

"I thought you would be hungry"

I flinch. Sitting up as fast as I can and just noticed him standing by the open door. Large man with a plate filled with food. He's in a new shirt but it's thin enough that I could see the brown bandages I wrapped around his torso. "H-How did you get here?"

He raises a single brow. "I walked"

I give him a hard look.

He chuckles. "Okay, I'm quiet even for my frame being non-human and all. Here, this is your food." He places the plate on the foot of my bed, now that he isn't soaked in blood and clean I get to finally see his face. It was rugged still as he has been mauled by something and he was just bleeding on the floor for...some odd hours ago. "I didn't poison it if you're wondering"

"Glad to know you're willing to feed your prisoner"

"You're not a prisoner. You're free to leave the cabin all you want"

I grab the plate and glared at him. "Where I could die off a cliff or get lost and starve in the mazelike caverns"

He scratches his nape almost sheepishly. "I swear, I would get you back as soon as I heal from this"

I eat quickly. A terrible habit of mine that always causes the food to lodge in my throat and painfully and slowly drop down my throat at times. I cough

"Hey, no rush. Here, water" he pours me a glass of water from the dresser. I didn't notice that there was water there either. I truly need to fix how I see things. My mind has just been preoccupied with something else. He hands me the glass and I gratefully drink it down. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take you. I couldn't stay in a human hospital or else I'd be discovered."

I lick my lips and place the glass steadily between my legs. "Right, the being a werewolf thing. Say, what did attack you? Another of your kind?"

He crosses his arms over his chest, not in an intimidating way but more pensive. Shifting from one foot to the other. "It's a long story"

"You don't have to tell me, it isn't my world at all but it would help if I know a little bit about what happened"

He tersely nods. "Right, well, I was attacked out of nowhere when I was summoned to town. My pack lives very far from here around the mountains, but I was making a supply run and I felt something as I was driving. It was my mistake that I stepped out and was attacked. I think some rogues did this, but I would normally heal already" he pulls up his shirt, and right enough his bandages are bled through again. his wounds look as if it's never ceasing

Almost immediately I find myself on my feet and tugging at his bandages. "We need to change those"

"okay," he takes a step back his hands grasping my wrist and pushing my hands away. "Okay"

I blush. Suddenly conscious of what I've done. "Sorry" I take a step back too. "Reflex"

He stares at me with a measured look and a guarded one at that too as if he's unsure of me as if I'm the one who made a world-shattering revelation between the two of us. He takes a step back again as if he didn't want to crowd me, emerald eyes suspiciously regarding me now. "You're...not scared of me?"

I stare and oddly enough I wasn't. sure, it was a shock but I'm not. "No" I say confidently. "I think there are far scarier things than another species living on this planet" almost immediately I see my sister's face. Her rage and hate. Her arms with marks that I recognize all too well and the fear that someday, she's just not going to wake up and it would be my fault. "I won't hurt you" I promise

He huffs then soon become laughter. Loud belly laughs shakes his shoulder.

I turn flush. Repeating what I just said to him and I would have laughed too if I wasn't so embarrassed. He should be the one saying those words, not me.

He's two feet taller than me and though, I admit, he's handsome in his ruggedness even though he's pale, due to the bloodloss, he's still a man. A werewolf man, while I'm tall than other girls my age or my colleagues, I'm still called frail by most of the people I know. My mother even laughed at the irony of me turning into a nurse. Her sickly daughter becomes a healer that needs some sort of strength yet I don't have that.

"Okay" he chuckles. Calming a bit from his laughing fit and almost immediately the bloom of bloodstains on his bandages worsens. "I trust-hey, no rush!"

I ignore him as I take the bandages off and looked at his wounds. "It doesn't make any sense, there are no arteries and at best it's a flesh wound but it's still bleeding. I just stitched you together and..." my nose twitches. There is something strange in the scent of his blood. The fresh blood bleeding out of his wounds doesn't smell quite right. "Let's get the first aid kit and open you again."

"Are you sure?" He looks down with raised brows. He's pale and his jaw is tight from the way I'm handling his wounds.

"Yes, there is something missing here even though I made sure to close the vessels and arteries. It doesn't help that you keep moving around" I grumble the last bit.

I drag him to the kitchen and made him lie on the island counter. He does what he's told obediently, but I sensed that he's not used to taking orders with the way he was about to open his mouth in retaliation, but he shut it again.

Good choice.

He lays down and he's just at the right height for me to open the stitches that I made before and opened them. Almost immediately large clotted blood pours out of him in large volumes. "What is this?" I insert my finger into the opening.

He groans. Fisting his hands on his sides as I notice his nails becoming claws again.

"keep that paw away from him"

He grins "I'll try" then grimaces when I start feeling around inside him.

With limited medicine and the likes, I don't know what to do other than figure out what's making him bleed this way. "Are you sure it was just a normal attack?"

"I wouldn't say being attacked is normal but-Agh! Careful" he growls inhumanly. His teeth turned into canines with his eyes flashing gold. I stand my ground, ignoring my own rising fear. He catches himself. "Sorry, it...hurts"

"Yeah, it's okay. I deserve as much" I touch the flesh and sure enough, there are no nicked vessels or the like. "Think what else was there?"

He sighs in relief when I let his wound go. Relaxing on the counter again. "I...do-let me think" he pants.

I nod. "I'll close this again"

The best I could do is drain his wound and wish that he doesn't bleed out. I hope his inhuman body would be able to replace what he lost in a matter of days or hours. I watch his claws still in a fist, new fresh wounds opening from it, better his hand than me.

Slowly, almost fascinatingly his claws turn back to human. In the quiet of his thinking, I could hear his bones popping and skin sewing itself together. I could hear skin! When it's a full human hand, I can't help but touch it and it twitches.

With my index finger, I open his hand with his palm out. It feels rough but human and soft flesh. It was truly a human hand when seconds ago it was far from it. my disbelief seems to be bothering him because he's staring at me now rather than thinking.

I clear my throat. "Thoughts?"

He sighs. "there was a strange smell, but I...I'm not sure. It could just be their scent"

"Ah, heightened sense of smell. Makes sense" I nod to myself. Staring at his hand again and watching it twitch again. I frown. "Is...this a natural shade of your skin?"

"What?" he sits up and stares at his hand. "This? No, why would you think that?"

I nod. "You are poisoned."

"They must have laced their claws with something" his eyes widen in realization.

"Most likely...is...is Silver your kind's weakness?"

He studies me again, his thoughts are obvious.

"I won't use it against you" I scoff and roll my eyes. "You're the first werewolf I have seen. I don't have a personal vendetta against your kind. Calm your tits."

He scoffs but catches himself. Swallowing his laughter and coughing instead. "Yes, but humans could be poisoned with Silver too"

"Hmm good point" I look around his shelves again. "Then using human medicine on you would work, right?"

He nods. "We're still part human"

I nod. Slowly absorbing this. "Yes, sorry. You are were-wolf."

I rummage through the cabinets and before I knot it I'm on my knees in the bathroom to look for anything close to an antidote. The cabinet under the sink had another first aid kit behind all the cleaning supplies and I take it out. Frantically hoped for what I needed.

"Got it" I sigh in relief. Clutching the bottle in my hands as relief sets in my bones and I pull myself off the floor. "You're a lucky wolf"

He looks at me, a strange look in his eyes as he sits on the counter. Large body slumped over the edge with his legs dangling. He still looks for wear but there is a strange look in his face that made me pause. "Maybe" he says.

Suspicious. "Okay"