Jimin Pov

'Don't blush, Jimin! You're just helping an injured alpha. So it's nothing dramatic," I keep telling myself, but that doesn't help because it's not just any alpha, it's the one who makes my heart beat faster.

"Do you do this a lot?" the Alpha asks me, not taking his eyes off my hands.

"Umm, yeah. I often tend to my brother or the children in the village," I answer him casually, trying not to be distracted or ruffled. He just grumbles and so I turn around and am shocked at the muscles I see. It is the first time I have seen someone so close and so well toned.

He is even more muscular than the alphas in the village, which is hard to believe. My cheeks immediately redden and I stare at his stomach, adorned with an eight-pack and a very deep V-line. I can feel my inner Omega wanting to pounce on him, hence why I have to restrain myself from actually doing it.

"Want me to draw you my body so you can stare at it in your room too?" he asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest exposing his veins and arm muscles. His voice snaps me out of my stupor and our eyes meet, he grins goofily and amusement flashes in his eyes.

Inevitably, my cheeks turn bright red and I have to avert my gaze. I quickly turn around again, but the image is still in front of my eyes, therefore my noticeable blush does not fade from my face. I take several deep breaths in and out to calm myself, prompting the alpha to laugh.

Once I've calmed down, I turn back around.

"Could you please take your arms off your chest so I can get a better look at them?", I coyly ask him and he immediately complies with my request. I examine them more closely and see several dark marks as well as scars that surely can't have come from an animal.

Who did this to him?

Just thinking of the different possibilities makes my smell sour and shows how much I hate the sight. In one careful movement and with concentration, I apply an ointment to his bruises and gently massage it in with my fingers.

When I reach his ribs, I draw in a sharp breath and let my shocked gaze slide up to him, to which he returns with a neutral expression.

For they are not only bruised, but broken. I palpate them gently so as not to hurt him as much as possible, but he doesn't flinch. "Doesn't it hurt?" I ask worriedly, letting my gaze wander back and forth between his injury and his face.

He looks at me uncomprehendingly, as if I were the crazy one here.

"No, I don't feel any more pain," he says in a monotone voice and with a blank expression.

How can he not feel any more?

"You hissed 100% before when I fell on you. So don't try to talk your way out of it," I grumble at him incredulously.

"But it wasn't from pain, my body is injured because of which I can't move properly and that's why I hissed out of frustration," he explains as if it's the most obvious thing ever.

"It doesn't matter now, we have to fix this or it can only get worse," I say giving in, but giving in doesn't mean forgetting.

"It's never got worse before," he murmurs quietly, probably hoping I hadn't noticed. So it isn't the first time he's been battered like this either... I put the same ointment on the wound and bandage it so that the bones don't shift.

"There, now your back," I say and with a wave of my hand I ask him to turn. He turns slowly, almost hesitantly, and my breath catches in my throat in shock.

I don't know which is worse...

The broken ribs or that his whole back is a big bruise and that a deep, bloody claw mark adorns it. On closer inspection, I also spot that it must not be the only claw mark in his life.

"Why didn't I notice this before?", I ask myself, stunned. His entire t-shirt must have been blood red. "What my back muscles?" he says shyly, not knowing what I really meant or he knew and wanted to play it down.

"No, the fat bloody scratch and that your back feels blue," I get subtly upset.

Cursing inwardly, I begin to dress his wounds and ask, planned to distract myself a little from ripping someone's head off, "How did you usually tend to your wounds?"

"Well, when I was little my mum did it and after my parents died I mostly let them be," he replies so sadly that his scent turns sour, making me wrinkle my nose.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I say sadly too, hoping that my closeness would make him feel a little better.

"It's okay, it was many years ago. I like to think and talk about them. They were the best people I knew," he says with a gentle smile on his face, but it doesn't reach his sad, gloomy eyes.

"This is no longer part of your everyday life, sitting here alone with wounds that are very bad, even if I am not allowed to come to you, I do it anyway. Even if it's necessary to sneak out in the middle of the night so that I can come and treat your wound or just spend time with you," I say, convinced that I can manage it, and smile at him brightly. Immediately his scent becomes sweeter, indicating that he must have liked the answer as much as I like the sound and the idea of it.

His scent has such a beguiling and seductive effect on me that I feel like I could jump on him.

Jungkook POV

My heart skips a beat at his gentle words. If only he knew how much these words mean to me. Smiling and suppressing the tears, I watch him bandage the rest of the wounds.

"There, all done," he says happily as he bandages my last wound and hands me my bloody black shirt. I reach out to him to put the shirt on, but stop short. Either I put it on and get blood all over it again, or I leave it off and stand bare-chested in front of him.

It's better if I put it on, I don't want him to feel uncomfortable. As I put it on, sweet omega looks down at his hands and a low screech escapes him.

"Give that back, you're not putting it on," he says upset and snatches it back from me, later I hear him ask muttering softly, "So he really did lose as much blood as I thought."

He turns away from me to throw it in the bin and when I speak up he looks back at me in a flash and gives me his full attention.

"Thanks, I just don't know how to return the favour," I say, smiling sheepishly and scratching the back of my head lightly out of nervousness.

"By paying better attention and maybe guiding me through the forest next time," he says, eyes bright but unable to dispel the worry, washing his hands and dabbing his clothes off moments later.

'If there is ever going to be a next time,' I thought dejectedly and sadly, because I don't know if I will be alive until the next time.

Well, I have already survived 123 years, even if I have spent 110 of them out here alone. Apart from visiting the lead alpha and his son, this has been my only human contact in the last few years, until now.

"That can be arranged," I say sheepishly, hoping I can hide the doubt inside me well, because I don't want to cause him any more worry.

I wouldn't deserve that...

"Until next time," he chirps cheerfully, he doesn't seem to have noticed, and is about to walk out the door when I stop him by the wrist. I let go of it immediately later, feeling as if little sparks are flowing into me.

"I'll take you back to the border and roll in the lilies first, please," I whisper, changing into my wolf form as soon as I step out of my barren hut.

He looks at me in confusion, but then does the same when he realises that pleading is of no use. His snow-white wolf is a stark contrast to my pitch-black one; they are like the moon and the night or yin and yang.

Besides, he's so small he could easily stand under my stomach if he wanted to, of course. I nudge him with my big wet nose to tell him to run, because the longer we wait, the more dangerous it gets for us.

At first I let him take the lead so he could romp around a bit, I just couldn't forbid it, but when we were close to the border I took it over.

I led him to the lily field, where we never got snow because of the treetops and for some reason it blooms here every season. I showed him with a motion of my head that he should roll around.

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell him that via a mind link because I'm not officially a member of the pack and therefore don't have a pack tattoo and never will.