Darren Recovery

Pain racked my body as I recovered. Bruises covered me like purple leeches. My cuts weren't too serious — the cold restricted the flow of blood — but they stung like crazy. I wished I had some of Seba's healing spider webs to apply to them.

The more I thought about my slide down the mountain stream, the more incredible it seemed. Had I really done it, or was this some crazy dream? If not for the pain, I might have believed it was the latter, but dreams are painless, so it had to be real.

More incredible still was that I hadn't broken any major bones. Three fingers on my left hand were broken, my right thumb was sticking out at an alarming angle, and my left ankle had swollen up like a balloon, but otherwise I seemed to be OK. I could move my arms and legs, my skull hadn't been cracked open, my spine hadn't snapped in two. All things considered, I was in astonishingly good shape.

***

A FEW MORE DAYS SLIPPED BY. I was so glad to be alive, I was savoring every moment of it. My body had healed almost completely, though faint bruises lingered in certain places. My strength had returned. I was full of energy, ready to go.

I barely noticed the cold. I'd grown used to the nip of the wind and the chill of the snow. The occasional strong blast set me shivering, but most of the time I felt as natural wandering about naked as the wolves.

I'd been accepted as an equal member of the pack now that I was back on my feet, and I was constantly out hunting — since I was able to run faster than the wolves, my services were in great demand. I was gradually coming to terms with the way they thought and communicated. I couldn't read their thoughts, but most of the time I had a good idea what they were thinking — I could tell by the way they hunched their shoulders, widened or narrowed their eyes, perked or dropped their ears and tails, growled or barked or whined. On the hunt, if Streak or another wolf wanted me to go to the left or the right, he only had to look at me and twitch his head. If a she-wolf wanted me to play with her cubs, she howled in a certain soft way, and I knew she was calling me.

***

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire Prince, Chapter 6-7