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The she-wolf treated hbehind my ears and around o to the bathrooainingup to her and the cubs for warood, but I was in no position to complain

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 so spider webs to apply to theht about my slide down the mountain stream, the more incredible it seemed Had I really done it, or was this soht 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 ht thule, and my left ankle had swollen up like a balloon, but otherwise I sees, my skull hadn’t been cracked open, s considered, I was in astonishingly good shape

As the days passed, I stretched and tested myself I still slept beside the she-wolf and drank fro around the glade, exercising lightly My left ankle hurt terribly, but the swelling went down, and it eventually returned to norht , but I sucked plenty of blood froht, and my appetite increased quickly

Rudi spent a lot of time with me He was fascinated by ht fire during one ofit and rubbing his chin and nose over it

After four days (possibly five or six - I hadn’t kept close track of ti ed behindby Streak, Rudi, and the she-ho’d been suckling arded me as one of her cubs and mothered me the same as the others)

As hard as the trek was, it was beneficial, and when I awoke that night after a long, dreaood as I had beforehad subsided, the cuts had healed, my ankle hardly bothered ht, I went hunting with the pack I couldn’tdown an old reindeer that several of the wolves were tracking It felt good to be contributing to the pack after they’d done so ave most of my share of the meat to the she-wolf and cubs

There was a nasty scene the next day The dark ho’d objected to ht rowled and barked whenever I came close and often snatched food fro I avoided hi with the cubs and handing ed atto driveany fear, but I didn’t leave the pack - if I let hihe’d lose interest in ly

As I prepared to fight, Streak darted between us and faced the darker wolf He bristled to h the dark ould back off, but then he lowered his head, bared his fangs, and lunged at Streak, claws extended

Streakand scratching at each other The wolves around theer cubs yapped with excite or looked on with only hts like this

It see to tear each other to pieces, and I ran around theressed, I realized that, for all their barking, snapping, and clawing, they weren’t doing a lot of actual dae Streak’s snout had been scratched, and the dark as bleeding from a couple of bites, but they weren’t out to really hurt each other It waselse

As the fight wore on, it beca the other wolf He wasn’t as heavily built, but he was faster and sharper, and for every swipe to the head he took, he delivered two or three of his own

All of a sudden, the dark wolf stopped, lay down, and rolled over, baring his throat and belly Streak opened his mouth and clao without breaking the skin and stood back The dark wolf got to his feet and slunk away, tail between his legs

I thought the wolf h he slept by hiht, none of the wolves tried to chase hi pack the next tiht about that a lot over the next day or two, co the olves handled their losers to how vampires handled theirs In the world of varace and more often than not ended with the death of the defeated Wolves wereHonor mattered to them, but they wouldn’t kill or shun awolf cubs had to endure tests of maturity, just as I’d endured the Trials of Initiation, but they weren’t killed if they failed

I wasn’t an expert on the subject, but it see or two from wolves if they took the time to study their ways It was possible to be both honorable and practical Kurda Sht at least