"There's a remedy kit in the cabinet," Henry told Layla through gritted teeth. "You should find everything you need in there."
Layla immediately moved to the cabinet and found a small brown box with smaller bottles inside of them. Henry would need far more than just bandages and gauze to help him through this.
She found roan, mistletoe, and wolfsbane. She also grabbed some silver dust and liquid silver. She set the silver dust and liquid silver aside. She would only use those if he became too severe to manage otherwise.
Silver could heal them just as great as it could harm them. There was always the dual result, and it was risky. She would have to wait until nothing else worked before she tried something so dangerous.
She staunched the worst of the cuts and bruises and began wiping the blood off of him. She would need to clean him properly. For now, she just had to make sure that she stopped his injuries from becoming worse.
Her injuries from her attack were gone entirely.
They had been gone before she even woke up the next morning. That was a wolf's normal healing ability. Normal cuts and scratches healed even as they were being inflicted.
They were strong and fast, and their bodies healed at an exponential rate. It was just what it meant to be a wolf, but Henry wasn't.
He wasn't healing on his own, so Layla knew that something more than just bites and scratches had gotten to him. His body would need help healing.
Few things healed a wolf. A pack was one of them.
"Talk me through this," Layla said. "Tell me about your family. Think about them. Focus on them."
Layla knew that he was too far away from a proper pack, so he wouldn't be able to pull from their strength to heal himself. But she knew that he needed to heal. Hopefully, talking about them would be the next best thing.
"I have..." Henry winced as Layla wiped a piece of cotton wool over his wounds. "I have family. I have a pack. My dad, my dad's an Alpha."
That was no surprise. Layla would have been more surprised had it been different. The way Henry was built, his strength and stature, he couldn't be anything other than an Alpha's son.
"And your mom?" Layla asked uselessly. If his dad was an Alpha, his mom was either a Beta or an Omega, but that was very rare to be found.
"She was an Omega," Henry said, his voice going soft. "She died a long time ago now. And a sister, but I haven't seen her in a while."
Layla bit down on her lip. This wasn't good. It sounded like all he had left was his father, and he was an Alpha. That meant his father belonged to the pack as a whole, not just to Henry. His family was very much not what he could depend on to heal.
Layla looked at the wounds inflicted on him. This would never have happened out in the forests. If it did, it would normally be the work of an encounter with a feral wolf or a loner. She had never expected that a wolf could be so badly hurt in the city.
They were supposed to be more civilized here, far removed from the customs that dominated their culture in the forests for centuries. It seemed like they had only regressed, becoming more violent and more aggressive.
Layla struggled to understand it, but here was the proof of it. She had been attacked just two nights ago, and now Henry too.
"What happened to you?" Layla asked, frowning.
It was so strange for his wounds to heal at such a slow pace. Had something else happened to him to make him heal so slowly? She wondered what had been used to hurt him with.
"It's nothing," Henry assured her, wincing as he tried to move.
Layla quickly pushed him down. Now was not the time for him to be moving, expending more energy than needed.
"This is just the way things are in the big city," Henry said, half-joking, half-irritated.
He didn't seem too pleased with the level of safety in the city, and Layla couldn't exactly blame him.
She'd been attacked her first night in the city, and she probably would have died if he hadn't come around to save her.
"I'm going to put wolfsbane on your injuries," Layla said. "I can't tell what was used to hurt you, but wolfsbane will cover the basics."
Henry seemed to be in too much pain to answer, so he simply nodded. Layla felt apprehension pull through her. Wolfsbane would heal him, but it would do it painfully. There was just nothing else that could be done about it.
She took some of the pieces of cloth and quickly dosed some of the wolfsbane cordial inside of it. She slowly removed some of the bandages she had put on him and wiped them with clean water again.
Henry hissed as she went over the open wounds. Layla gave him a minute to recover. She then placed the wolfsbane-soaked cloth over his injury, and he screamed in pain.
Layla pressed her hand firmly down on the wound, keeping the cloth in place. This was the only thing that would work. He would just have to be patient through it. She waited for him to adjust to the feeling before she lifted her hand, placing another bandage over the wound.
"Alright," Layla told him, her voice firm. "I'm seeing at least six other places where something might have gotten in, so we're going to do this six more times."
Henry gritted his teeth and nodded. Layla quickly worked through the other places, not pausing or giving him a chance to feel relief between each one. She needed to work through everything and get them done. The sooner she finished, the sooner he could rest.
She covered every piece of cloth with wolfsbane and then covered it with another piece to make it hold firmer. Once she was done, she sat back and breathed.
Henry was struggling for breath by the time she was finished. She knew he must be in an intense amount of pain right now, but that wasn't what concerned her the most. Layla looked at his ravaged body. Worry started to well in her.
Layla realized that his wounds weren't healing.
She watched as blood continued to soak through the bandages. She wasn't surprised. With a dead mother and missing sister, his family was fragmented. That was the core sense of a wolf's strength.
She knew he would heal slowly because he had to heal on his own. Even though he was part of a pack, his body acted much more like that of a loner wolf.
Layla felt his forehead, feeling a fever settle into him.
"Layla," Henry said. Layla stared at him in alarm.
His words were slurred, and he seemed to struggle to keep himself awake.
"I'm here," Layla assured him. She wasn't sure what else she could do other than patch his body up where the wounds had become too much. She wasn't part of his pack. He couldn't pull strength from her like he could from one of his packmates.
She wished she knew who she could call. She thought of asking him, but she wasn't sure if that would be the right thing to do.
"Please," Henry begged, his speech still slurring together. He didn't seem like he was going to be able to keep himself awake for much longer.
"Please don't leave." He pushed himself up on his forearms. Layla rushed over to his side to keep him from falling over.
She put her arms around his chest, catching hold of him just as he lost the strength to support himself. His arms came around her, pulling her against him. Layla felt his entire weight collapse right on her.
She held him carefully and gently laid him back down. He was heavy, but she was a wolf. She was strong. She was actually a little grateful that he had passed out. She went over all of his wounds again. She washed them all down. She even washed the parts of his body that weren't covered in blood, only sweat and dirt. She then reapplied wolfsbane to all the wounds.
He flinched even in his state of unconsciousness.
Layla felt terrible about the pain, but she knew that this was the best thing for him. Once she was done dressing all of his wounds, she settled back against the sofa, completely exhausted. She knew that there wasn't much else that she could do after that. There wasn't really anything else that anyone could do after that.
She just had to watch and wait...
And hope that he pulled through the night.