“Let me stem the bleeding.”
“There is no need. I am sure you are worried about my state for when nightfall comes, but the bleeding will have stopped by then. The Demons won’t attack.”
She hadn’t even thought about that. Ignoring what he said, she continued to tear at her skirt until she had destroyed the hem and had a few long strips.
“Just... I don’t know. Let me bandage your wounds?” She averted her gaze as she offered the strips of white cloth.
“You’re probably in pain.”
Orpheus peered at the woman as she tore strips of her dress. He’d told her he would be fine to keep the Demons at bay, so he couldn’t understand her actions.
Is she, perhaps, worried for me?
Curiosity was the only reason he held out his right arm to show her the cut down his forearm that was leaking dark purple blood. He’d never had a human care for his wellbeing before, so when she started wrapping his arm over his clothing, he cocked his head at her.
Her lips were pursed while her blonde brows were knotted together. The pressure was tight as she covered him from his elbow to halfway down his arm, then tied a bow. He didn’t need this, but he was sure it would aid in slowing the bleeding.
The more blood he kept, the stronger he would remain.
Even he knew this. And although he would be fully healed by the next day, he didn’t tell her that.
“Where else are you bleeding?” She nibbled her bottom lip as her green eyes moved over his large body like she was trying to find his wounds herself.
It would be difficult to see the purple blood seeping through his black clothing.
He would have opened his jacket and shirt, but Orpheus had no intention of showing Reia what lay beneath his clothing. Every human who had seen it had been horrified.
All of them.
With his silence, she hesitantly stepped forward and reached out with her hand. His head was tilted further down to watch her, and she peeked up to check it was okay before placing her hand to his chest.
She started patting his body, and his abdomen clenched in pain when she eventually found a stab wound. His blood coated her palm.
He expected her to yank her hand away and stare horrified at his blood on her, but she just looked at her hand for a moment before she continued to pat him until she found the second stab wound.
“Are there anymore?” Her voice was shaky, and although he could smell the scent of fear that was always present from her, it didn’t grow stronger. Something else, a different emotion, was shaking her voice.
“No. You have already bandaged my cut.”
“Okay.” She wiped her hand on her dress, smearing purple on it, before she started tying the remaining long strips of her dress together. “You are much larger than me. I won’t be able to reach my arms behind you. Would it be okay if I walked underneath your cloak?”
“I see no problem with that.”
“Could you hold this here then?”
She placed the end of a strip next to his side, and he did what he was told before she started circling around him to walk behind him underneath his cloak. Then she came back around, making sure she covered the tail of what he was holding so it was secured, before walking around him again.
She did it a few times until between his sternum and navel was strapped before she tied it all together. Like his arm, it was tight. Already purple began to seep into it, but as he thought before, it should help stem the bleeding.
“Urm... your shoulder?”
He tilted his head so he could see the broken, jutting shaft of the arrow still lodged inside it. He crouched down while giving her his back so that she could grab the arrowhead that had torn through him completely and was visible through the other side.
He was thankful it had lodged between the gaps of his bones rather than embedding into it.
“You ran away earlier. Why would you help me now?” he asked when she was behind him.
His eyes flared red when she yanked the arrow away.
“I ran for many reasons.” She quickly ripped more of her dress and started wrapping his shoulder and the junction of his arm pit. “I won’t say I wasn’t scared of what you turned into.”
His gut tightened with tension at her words.
She is warier of me now. He’d been hoping to ease her worries, not worsen them.
He couldn’t help turning into that state. It had been because of anger and a reaction to his pain, to danger. To her being in danger.
Once she was finished, she stepped away and allowed him to stand and face her once more. She promptly turned her head away from him before giving him her side.
“But I wasn’t particularly pleased with the Demonslayer either. He put a sword to me!” She threw her hands up in outrage. “Why would I have stuck around and hung out with him if he did manage to kill you? You probably also would have ripped a limb from him before he did. Then he would have attracted the Demons, and I would have been killed by a swarm of them when night came.”
“Most humans are scared to be by themselves in the forest. You thought you would be safer by yourself?”
She rubbed her arm from her bicep down to her forearm.
