She laid him down in the cave. On her way back, his open wounds had left a trail of blood and was sure to attract wolves — but she was the most dangerous wolf in this part of the forest.

The handsome incubus had stopped making noise, but Rosalie could still feel his heart beating every so faintly. She thought that he should have died from his horrible wounds, but there was a stubborn frown on his brows — he refused to die.

When she tended his wounds, she couldn’t help but smile at the irony in what she was doing; usually wolves and wolf girls hunted and ripped stomachs open — and here she was stitching someone’s stomach back together. She had a needle and thread that she had stolen from a seamstress in the next human village; she had once seen how human girls used their delicate fingers to stitch together embroidered shirts and handsome dresses and she wanted to give it a try too. She never thought that she would use these things to tend to an incubus.

She made sure to brush off the dust on his guts before she pushed them back in. Her hands were soaked in blood and her sensitive nose itched with the scent of wounded flesh and fresh blood.

Once she had stopped the initial bleeding, she ventured into the forest to collect herbs and moss that would cool the wounds and freeze the blood that oozed through the stitches.

Even if she did everything she could, Rosalie didn’t know if he would survive; his wounds were far too deep and if any of his organs were damaged... there was no way for Rosalie to fix that.

When she came back to her cave with an armful of herbs and moss, she smiled. She knew that he was going to live. A few pebbles had been moved and his arms were in a slightly different position than when she left him. He had stirred while she was gone; if he had the energy to make unnecessary movements, then he would be able to live.

——————

Over the next couple of days, Rosalie battled his rising fever and cleaned his wounds to the best of her ability. She wasn’t sure if his blood had already been contaminated; she could only hope that the moss and leeches would do the trick. And despite the desperate fight for this stranger’s life, for the first time ever since she began to live in this cave, Rosalie felt her heart pound with excitement. For the first time in her solitary life, she had a purpose beyond living quietly while avoiding contact with other creatures. She had always thought that her contemplative life in this quiet patch of forest made her content and it was all she could ask for; but now that she had something else at hand, every fibre of her body tingled with purpose.

Her every thought was consumed by how she could improve her herbal mixture in order to keep the fever at bay and what she would do once the incubus awoke. In a matter of days, she had invented new herbal paste mixtures designed for the incubus body that would have otherwise been ineffective with her own body.

And so it was that when the incubus awoke, Rosalie’s heart leaped with joy at her success. He was alive and it was all because of her. This sense of achievement made her tail swish left and right and her eyes glitter with excitement.

——————

“I’m Rosalie,” she said when he opened his eyes.

He stirred and struggled to summon the strength to raise his eyelids higher, but the frown did not disappear from his face; in fact, it deepened and there was a curl of disgust on his lips.

To her sore disappointment, the incubus was anything but glad to see himself being nursed in the cave of a wolf girl.

It was to be expected, Rosalie told herself. In the days when she ran in the forest, excited with the task at hand, she had momentarily forgotten that her blood was despised by every race on this land; it was the reason why she found herself living in a cave in a quiet part of the forest. She even entertained fantasies about the incubus waking up and thanking her and embracing her — and perhaps giving her a taste of the legendary pleasure a woman could experience with an incubus.

“I found you dying in the forest,” she said. “I think a bear might have attacked you — it was a bear, wasn’t it? The gash was only something the claws of a bear could make. I took you to my cave, do you remember that? You’ve been sleeping for four days. It’s a miracle that you haven’t died from your wounds, they were so terrible, but luckily, I found you so..." 

The incubus’s eyes regarded her with quiet disgust. He eyed her ears and tail and if he had the strength, he would have shuddered and turned away. For a creature with a human body to possess wolf ears and a tail — it was the height of wickedness; an act of blatant sin on God’s holy earth.

There were so many things he wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her to go to hell; he wanted to tell her that he would have rather died than be saved by a wolf girl. But he did not have the strength to do so and remained quiet.

However the intensity of his thoughts reached Rosalie and she sighed profoundly as his silent malice cut into her heart. The fantasies of making a friend had gotten to her head and now she felt hurt by the expected rejection.

“I know you can’t stand the sight of me and you would rather be dead than be saved by someone like me,” she said with a slightly raised chin. “But I have saved your life and you should be grateful for it. What is your name?”

The incubus closed his eyes and snorted.

“If you don’t answer me, I will open your wounds and do what the bear should have done.”

As much as the incubus detested wolf girls, when the actual prospect of death faced him, a desperate need to live overcame him. This need was more powerful than any pride and ego an incubus could have.

“Ra…" he croaked.

“Ra - what?”

“Raener.”

“Raener,” Rosalie repeated with satisfaction for she knew how much it must hurt to speak with a throat that had not touched water in four days. “You shall live, I will see to that. And once you can walk, you shall leave my home.”

Author's Note: Hmmm, I thought that by Part II I would be able to work a sex scene in there, but the flow of the story just didn't allow for it! Please bear with me ^^" This is still an erotica story - and I promise that when the time comes for Rosalie, it will be good ;)