“Perhaps, but this Awakening felt very different from those in the past. A peculiar sensation seemed tospread throughout his body, propelled by the very beating of his heart. Within his veins, lycan bloodmixed with his own, merging in an unexpected alchemical reaction. He felt a change come over him, afundamental transformation in his very nature. Power such as he had never known surged through hisveins. His eyes snapped open, revealing a pair of jet-black orbs. Hybrid eyes.”

“He had to hold his body very still, very still, like some vessel about to slosh over from too much motion. Gradually he managed to get control of his breathing. His excited heart beat more steadily; the pounding of the waves inside him subsided slowly. And suddenly solitude fell across his heart like a dusky reflection. He closed his eyes. The dark doors within him opened, and he entered. The next performance in the theatre of his soul was beginning.”

“He felt like a man who, after straining his eyes to peer into the remote distance, finds what he was seeking at his very feet. All his life he had been looking over the heads of those around him, while he had only to look before him without straining his eyes. p 1320”

“He felt strangely numb. As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The last sensations of pain left him. He no longer felt anything, though very faintly he could hear the impact of the club upon his body. But it was no longer his body, it seemed so far away.”

“Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive, and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone...or at least, he would be gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were his eyes.”

“Still, he couldn’t reconcile with the way he felt every time their eyes met, a feeling he had never forgotten that resonated with his very being.”