Feral

viii. ☾

EIGHT
t e a s e

ELEANOR was conscious but silent, eyes closed. She was too shocked to speak, anyhow.

She was still being carried, that much she could tell; her feet dangled above the ground, leaving her uneasy at the way she was carelessly being handled.

She felt snapping beneath the ground as she hovered over it, praying that they were merely twigs instead of bones like she feared.

Eleanor swallowed her tears of frustration, shaking with anger.

From the start, she had always had trouble containing her emotions.

Now here she was, helpless and trapped within her own body, all over someone that she knew nothing about.

Even so, she reveled in Jack's hold, allowing herself to ease her pain with his embrace.

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Jack placed Eleanor onto his bed, deciphering her pained face.

"We must stop meeting up like this, Red. Let's schedule a real date sometime soon, what do you say?" Jack laughed, echoing in the room.

He reached his hand out to her bloodied pant leg, when she asked,

"What are you... doing?" Her voice was groggy, as if her eyes would shut at any given moment.

"Healing you." His tone was rather cool, very matter-of-fact.

"You can heal others? What of yourself?" Eleanor asked curiously.

"Yes, I can." He answered both questions, paying more attention to her torn up ligament.

"Why did you come to my house when you could've healed yourself, then? And why did you kill those wolves back there?" She asked again, suspicion rising.

"Shh, you must be silent. Don't waste any of those precious breaths." Jack coaxed her, cursing himself for being so messy.

He was being reckless, with no precision. This was not his nature, not in the slightest.

And he knew the cause.

"This discussion is not... over." Eleanor sighed in relief as the pain in her leg subdued.

By the time he had focused his energy on her arm, her eyes were closed, and she slept peacefully.

Jack grunted, sweaty from the consequences of healing Eleanor.

Taking away his own pain did nothing to him, though healing others left him physically drained. He hadn't healed another in ages.

He felt compelled to take care of Eleanor, who was currently delirious from the loss of blood in her leg.

He didn't have his full strength himself; it was transferred to Eleanor, who required it more than he did.

For reasons he could not understand, it was worth it.

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Eleanor woke up just a few minutes after Jack walked back into the room, naked in his human form.

She could not help but stare, though she was distracted by the thoughts of the attack running through her head.