Jarrah's arms shook with the weight of Rayne's large wolf after catching her mid-faint.

Dark blood—darker than he thought possible—oozed from the wound in Rayne's side. His fingers trembled into her fur as he gripped her tighter to his chest with a protective urgency that too closely resembled a scene that tore him apart.

He shook his head against the onslaught of memories that threatened to overtake him. Metallic blood. Life slipping away between his clenching fingertips. A still body. Someone's fault. His fault for never being fast enough. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Stop. Jarrah needed to stop if he wanted to help Rayne.

"Rayne," he croaked, voice raw. Gentle and swift, he laid her body down onto the grass. He called her name again, more urgent that time.

Rayne's wolf's breathing grew more staggered, and a whine fell past her unconscious muzzle. Her body convulsed and flinched with the pain of each agonized breath; a direct result of the enchantment constructed to enhance pain. Immobilization had seemed so important at the time.

His chest squeezed at the pitiful sound and he pressed his fingers to the side of her face. "Rayne, I need you to wake up."

He couldn't take the arrow out and risk her wolf waking up and attacking him on instinct. Until the arrow was safely out of her body, he needed her to fight through the haze of pain and focus on him. It didn't help that everything he was doing tortured him with images that scattered across his memory like leaves in the Fall.

Jarrah swallowed and shook her furry shoulder one more time, using the commanding voice he usually reserved for the royal guard when training the young ones. It didn't feel right using it on her, but he was desperate. "Wake. Up."

Rayne's wolf stirred.

He held his breath—waiting. Hoping. Still panicking.

She blinked open her big, silvery blue eyes after a breath of silence. She drowsily swiveled her gaze to look at him from out the side of her vision and whined again. He breathed out an anxious sigh of relief.

"There you go, wolf," he murmured, running his fingers along the side of her neck. "I need you to stay awake, okay? I have to get this arrow out of you, and then I'll need you to shift so I can tend to your wound. Can you do that for me?"

Rayne's confirmation came in the form of a whine, followed by the movement of her head. A nod.

Jarrah moved his hands down to the arrow sticking out of her side. His eyes roamed over the red area and assessed how deep the arrowhead was in. Perhaps a little more than an inch after the crescent-shaped weapon, which wasn't ideal, but it wasn't terrible either. The difficult part of the entire procedure would be making sure the arrowhead didn't snag on anything vital.

He wrapped a hand around the outside of the wound and she flinched, her chest rumbling. "I'm not pulling yet. But I have to cut some of the area around the arrow."

She bristled. He warned her not to move as he got up and hurriedly grabbed her backpack where there was a knife, a bandage, and a small bottle of alcohol her mother had packed for them in case of an emergency. He remembered scoffing at the woman at the time for the absurd assortment. But now, he was more than grateful for her quick first aid thinking.

Jarrah poured some of the alcohol over the length of the sharp blade. Rayne eyed him warily, but didn't try and move away from his touch when he positioned the knife over her flesh. He held the side of her belly with a taunt grip and shot her a look. "Just breathe, alright? I'll make it quick, but try not to move."

Rayne whimpered through anticipated pants. Jarrah shoved his tongue between his teeth and sliced the knife, slow and careful, through the damaged layer of her skin. Her echoed cry made the moon goddess weep and the trees shudder. And had it not been for his intense concentration on not harming her any further, he probably would have done the same.

It wasn't until he removed the blade that he could finally breathe again. The incision was only an inch in length, but it was big enough for him to carefully dislodge the sharp arrow from the flesh it latched onto. Her muffled cry resorted to soft whimpers when he grabbed onto the stick and moved it enough to dislodge one of the crescent edges from the tissue.

Jarrah's brown eyes found hers again. Her stomach stilled under his touch, but it wasn't what he needed her to do. "Breathe," he reminded her. "I'm almost done, I promise."

The other point was a little harder to dislodge. He had to push the arrow in just a little after making sure there was no organ he could puncture, and wiggled the tip off the flesh it snagged onto. Rayne shuddered, but before she could cry again, he opened the wound with two fingers and pulled the arrow out. The sound that followed was as unpleasant as one would expect, but the relief of removing the dreadful object from her body made up for it.

He grabbed the blanket from her backpack and threw it over her body. "I need you to shift for this next part, Rayne. The bandage won't stick to your fur and we need it to keep the wound clean."

Jarrah looked away to give her the privacy she needed when transitioning back to her human form. He didn't know what wolves were comfortable with in that regard. He supposed they could be used to the lack of clothing, considering they shifted around each other all the time he imagined. But he still respected her enough to look away until she was situated under the blanket.

It wasn't until she cleared her throat that he turned his head back around. Her face was a paler brown than it usually was, and her frizzy curls were already sticking to the sides of her sweating face. Her soft brown eyes flashed with agony and her pink lips that were usually rosy with life, now ashened to a muddled carnation.

"T-that enchantment," she stammered, offering a faint smile. "Is no joke."

Jarrah's short laugh was strained and full of wild worry. "It's not," he agreed. "Do you mind if I move the blanket? Just enough to clean the wound."

Rayne bit her lip. She wrapped a shaky hand around the front of her body to hold the blanket in place of her bare chest and moved the blanket from her side. Most of her was covered, but he could still make out the soft roundness of her hip before it met her thigh when moving the fabric to present the wound again.

"I should be healed up by the morning," she admitted, wincing. She ran her tongue over her lips. "I just need to heal for the night."

Jarrah nodded. "Of course. I still need to get rid of the bodies and finish the elk while you rest."

"I'm sorry I can't be much—"

"Don't even finish that thought," he dismissed. He grabbed the bottle of alcohol again and ripped off a clean edge of the blanket to use to dab the outside of the wound with. Gently, he patted the damp cloth against the ragged cut, hating the way she hissed and flinched beneath his touch. "You've been more than enough help. If anything . . . it's me who has to ask you for forgiveness."

She shuddered. "M-me?" she asked, her voice weak.

Jarrah swallowed, his eyes moving up to hers. Despite the sickly twist of pain edging on the intricate features of her face, and the vulnerability leaking into her voice, she was still absolutely beautiful. And he knew nothing, not even getting shot, would ever change that.

"I'm sorry for what happened back there, Rayne. I didn't mean to—to leave you to fight them all off on your own," he admitted, guiltily. The memories at that moment were too much to bear when he saw the three vampires. Sias, Percy, and Theo had been there the night Zephyr was murdered—laughing and encouraging Ambrosius. So when Jarrah saw them, he was transported mentally back to that night and was forced to watch his best friend getting slaughtered all over again.

Rayne had surprised him, though, when she jumped to his defense and took it upon herself to protect them. The alpha influence was more than impressive, especially when she took down two of the vampires on her own before the arrow incident. It was her howl of pain that finally broke him out of his dissociative state.

"Oh, Jarrah," she breathed. She reached out and rested a soft, unsteady hand on his forearm. The kind understanding in her eyes overwhelmed him enough to blink. "You don't have to apologize for that."

"You were hurt because of me," he said, shaking his head. His throat clogged at the image of Sias shoving the arrow into Rayne's side with that familiar smirk of triumph on his face. He could have killed her had Jarrah not snapped out of it when he did. It took everything in him not to shy away from her touch when he didn't deserve her understanding.

"I was hurt because of Sias," she corrected. "And grief doesn't have a set schedule, Jarrah. It comes and goes at any time, whether we want it to or not. Kings aren't immune to pain."

They should be, he wanted to say, but didn't. Instead, he picked up the bandage, peeled away the back, and carefully molded it over the wound. "Well, if you won't let me apologize, then let me at least thank you for saving our asses. That first move with the arrowhead was pretty badass."

Rayne glowed under the compliment. A smug, little grin teased at the edges of her full lips—a much welcomed sight after seeing her in such discomfort. "Caught that, did you?"

Jarrah laughed. "I did," he agreed, smoothing his thumb along the tan edge of the strip before gently covering her hip with the blanket. "And I was more than impressed."

Her smile melted into something softer; something more radiant. His eyes lingered on the curl that tumbled over her cheek and the few dirt streaks that smudged the edges of her face. The urge to curl the stray coil behind her ear and rub away the streaks warmed his eager fingertips. He squeezed them into a fist; knowing damn well he couldn't.

Even if everything in him was screaming to.

"Thanks, King of Fae," she breathed. The oranges flourished, the wildflowers bloomed, and all things sweet exuded from her abundant scent. He found himself breathing it in for comfort, but then stopped.

Terryn. He couldn't betray the future of his kingdom.

Even if denying Rayne betrayed him more.

Jarrah cleared his throat and moved away from her fairly covered nude body that still emitted enough warmth to entrance him. He wouldn't lay with her of course, but he wasn't immune to the soft curve of her smooth brown skin or the dip of cleavage her blanket tortured his gaze with. It'd been awhile since he was with a woman, and Rayne was a rather beautiful one at that.

"I'll uh—go and take care of the bodies," he stuttered, standing up.

The journey was proving to be harder and harder the further along they got.