“Can’t escape it,” West was telling you, voice low in an attempt to get you to drink more water. “Just gotta live with it now.”

He pressed his other hand to your forehead. Still warm. West clicked his tongue and hoped you’d sweat the fever out by morning. He had no medicine, never figured he needed to carry any. It wasn’t like he took it whenever he got sick. There was no pack around for him to care for either. You were the first.

Once he thought you’d sipped enough water, he went back to wiping your face clean. The windows had been thrown open since he managed to drag you back to his cabin. It was a poor attempt at keeping you cool. West remembered his first full moon. He’d stumbled around for hours in agony feeling like he was boiling from the inside. And unlike most werewolves, West had no one to help him. He’d stayed moon sick for two weeks afterwards despite waiting for death to take him.

As gently as he could, he lifted your arm to check the bite mark there. The wound was still fresh, maybe a day or so old. His gut turned uncomfortably. What werewolf turned someone so close to a full moon and left them alone? West knew there wasn’t a pack anywhere near him, he’d made sure of it long before he settled into the shitty little cabin.

That left him question who you even were.

He’d found you half-transformed yesterday in clear pain. The moon had guided him right to you, so while his first instinct was to flee, he stayed.

West had never helped someone through their shifting. His contact with other werewolves was rare and brief, mostly for trade or information about hunters or vampires. He never lingered too long with packs, too afraid he’d find himself wanting to stay. All werewolves had that call within them to find home. West had learned to ignore his nearly twenty years ago.

“Throat hurt?” he asked after he finished tending to the bite. It needed to be left out to dry on its own, otherwise he risked it getting infected. You wouldn’t be able to fight it off, not with your fever. Part of him wanted to ask why the werewolf who’d bitten you hadn’t taken care of it, why you were alone, but he found he couldn’t. It didn’t feel fair. “You were howling so loud earlier. Thought someone shot you.”

The worst of it was over, at least. Sunlight was just beginning to peek through the moth eaten curtains he kept telling himself to replace. He’d done his best to keep you away from bright lights. His bed, more like a cot with an abundance of blankets and pillows, had been pulled to the darkest corner. “Water’s next to you.”