Page 66 of Primal Hunger
“I’m making sure you’re okay. You came to help me. This is me returning the favor, as you seem so keen on reminding me.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to let you die protecting me.”
He bares his teeth in his version of a grin. “Are you trying to tell me we are even now?” he asks.
Without waiting for me to answer, he gently pries at the edge of the cloth around my ankle, unwinding it to check the scratches underneath. The memory of the Ech’s tail around my skin returns with startling clarity, the way it burned where it touched.
Rather than the massive burn I expect to see, there’s only a thin red line marking the area.
I gawk at the healing that’s already taken place. “What’s going on?” I want to know. “How have my wounds healed this fast?”
I glance up sharply at his chest and see the exact same thing. The deep gouges carved into him from the Ech’s claws have healed to the point where only missing fur and pink skin mark where the wounds were.
“How is this possible?”
“I thought about what you said, a healing salve. Truthfully, I didn’t know if it would work. I mixed some herbs with the gollilock plant and cooked them into a paste. It appears to have been a success.”
I stare up at him in awe. “You did all that… for me?”
He’s silent for a long moment before answering, “I didn’t want you to be in pain.”
Warmth spreading through my chest, I sit up straight, surprised to find I’m not as dizzy as I expected to be. I work my wrists in circles. No aches there, either.
“It sped up the healing, as long as the wound wasn’t too bad. I used it on you and on myself,” he says. “You were right.”
I stare up at him, my attention focused on his chest. Those wounds certainly looked bad when I was cleaning them out. Yet they might as well have been scratches for all the evidence left behind.
The longer I’m awake, the better I feel.
It’s the strangest sensation and, with Syros watching me, I drag myself to my feet.
The fur covering my lap falls away as I twist my arms and legs like there are kinks to work out, only there aren’t—I’m stronger, faster.
“Some miracle ointment,” I mutter.
A miracle in more ways than one. I feel brand new. The adrenaline in my veins buzzes and fills me with electricity.
“Oh wow.” I don’t mean to say the words out loud, but they somehow slip out of me, my excitement evident. “This stuff is like a drug.”
I’ve never been one to try any of those things, but there are always moments in a person's life where it feels better to drink the anxiety away than deal with worry. I definitely fell into a little bit of a hole after my dad died and the clerks at the liquor store one block over began to greet me by name. A bottle of wine every couple of days made the pain take a backseat.
That’s no way to go through life, though. After about a month of losing myself to the numbness, I got my act together, and got back to work, using the money from my inheritance to fuel my investigations.
Whatever plant Syros used, this is way better than any kind of artificial high.
“I’m sure it is having a different effect on you as a human,” he says, “but I’m pleased to see it is still speeding up your healing.”
Syros watches me, crouched over the pile of furs.
I spread my arms out to the side and spin in a circle, sucking in breath of air that reaches the bottom of my lungs.
I’m rejuvenated. There’s no other word for it.
This is the best I’ve felt in too long to remember, and I don’t want it to change anytime soon. There’s a certain wall of numbness between me and the fear, the underlying sensationthat seems like it dogs my very movement since I got out of the car on the solstice.
When I finally slow, I lock eyes with Syros, finding him watching me.
It’s odd how I’ve gotten used to the changes in expressions although his face is a skull. There can’t be any real change but, for some reason, I’m adept at knowing what he’s feeling or thinking.
