Can you heal old scars?

Chapter 20

When Quin woke, he was no longer in the circle. From what he could tell from the sterile looking room, the beeping monitor attached to his arm and the uncomfortable bed he was laying on, he was in a hospital.

There were curtains drawn around his bed and quiet voices coming from beyond them, but he felt so weak he could barely move. He strained to listen to the voices beyond the curtain, he could hear Soraya and a man he didn't recognize.

"The true bond is still in place, yes. Frankly I'm surprised, from what you told me I had expected it to be far weaker than it is. Mr Carter must have been able to bond with the rest of the pack as would be normal, perhaps even a little with Mr Langston himself..."

"And the intrusive bond?" Soraya said

"Gone, it's no longer present. Mr Carter's essence and natural development will resume, he will come into his power as he should have. It will be an accelerated process due to his age, he will need support to adapt to the changes..."

"We will take care of him, I still can't believe the intrusive bond was able to block so much that he appeared fully human..."

The voices seemed to get further away, a soft click of a door cutting off the sounds. Quin lay in shock, what did they mean? He was human, his whole family was human. How could he not be fully human?!

It took everything in him to force sound from his throat, it felt like he had swallowed razors...

"Xa....Xander..?" He finally managed to croak out, desperate for the comfort of his friend as his body still refused to move.

He heard movement but couldn't see anyone as the curtains shifted, then something cold and wet snuffled at his hand.

He strained to look down and froze as he spotted a large brown wolf, licking his hand.

The wolf wagged it's tail when he met Quin's eyes, it's overly fluffy ears pointing up as it whined happily at him. It's big orange eyes blinked at him, and Quin relaxed.

Zeke put his huge paws up on the side of the bed so Quin didn't have to strain his neck, and they both just looked at each other.

Zeke was a huge wolf. Big, brown and fluffy he could almost be mistaken for a bear at a glance. Quin had only met Zeke 3 times, twice during his time in the prison as part of his therapy, and once when they had gone hiking and Zeke had wanted to run in the woods.

"Zeke... Why are you here..?" Quin managed to say.

He wasn't sure why he was asking, Zeke could only speak if in human form. Some Weres inner beasts couldn't speak words, some could only do it if in human form, and in rare cases even their human form was unable to speak. The more powerful the Were the more likely they were to be able to speak in any of their forms, but Zeke could only speak through Xander.

He whimpered at Quin and nudged his arm, burying his nose under Quin's hand. Quin gave a weak smile and gently stroked Zeke's huge muzzle, his eyes filling with yet more tears.

He was sick to death of crying, of feeling so useless and lost. His whole body felt like it had been thrown down a mountain, every bone and joint throbbed painfully. It even hurt to stroke Zeke.

He wanted to sit up, wanted to see for himself that the awful mark was gone from his neck. He could feel the muscles throbbing angrily, but then everything in his body was doing the same thing. Was it truly gone?

And what did they mean when they said he wasn't fully human? He had never shown any sort of supernatural predisposition, no unusual skills... The only thing that was odd about him was all the headaches, but inheriting headaches was hardly grounds for suspicion of inhuman abilities was it?