Soul Bound

Chapter One

Don't need. Humans bad, Wolf says as I push myself up onto my feet.

Not all of them, I remind her.

Not all, she remembers.

And the issue with humans isn't that they hate nature. I don't think it's anything as purposeful as that. It's indifference. Which is far more dangerous. And it's that indifference that has us out here every night, looking for campfires or garbage dumps or any signs of foul play. This forest, the Refuge, is protected land. And the only home I've ever known.

Streams of air glide around my stomach, through my knotted hair, and past my shins as I carve through the forest, humidity clinging to me. My eyes have to adjust as the as the Refuge grows darker. Thick canopies of pines, oaks, and sabal palms draped in Spanish moss dilute any light from the moon and I'm careful to focus on my path as I pick up speed. But just because there's no light from the moon, doesn't mean Wolf can't feel it there, full and bright above the canopy. Her excitement is a whirl inside of me, deep in my gut, buzzing like the mosquitoes that dance, ghost-like, along my skin.

A wild boar and her piglets run across the trail ahead and Wolf perks up, alert.

Chase, she insists, testing my dominance.

The urge to chase and eat the boars lasts only a moment before I inhale and pull her consciousness from my own, untangling them from each other like releasing a knot. All at once she's gone, pushed down into my subconscious.

Her absence weighs down on my chest, like a piece of me has been carved away. But she has to learn. As much I'd love to give in to her, to run on four legs, breathe the woods, see the moonlight through her eyes, she needs to be reminded that I'm alpha. I'm in control. I wear the pants in this relationship.

Though I rarely wear pants at all.

My pace slows to a walk and I stick my hands behind my head to slow my breathing, taking the time to look up at the stars through a break in the canopy. Wolf taught me how to get my bearings by using the stars. She teaches me a lot of things. Things one would normally learn from their parents.

The thought stings. You're probably the reason why I don't have parents.

It's an unfair statement that I immediately regret, spurred on by leftover anger over her stealing control.

Wolf is quiet, no quip ready to reply with. She always clams up when I try to talk about my life before her. But I really can't imagine my real parents were excited to find a wolf pup in the cradle where a human baby should be. Do you give it a bottle or a slab of ribs? Who would want to deal with that? Who wants to find out that their child isn't actually a human child?

I push the thought from my mind then take a moment to look over the trees for their souls. Like taking off a pair of sunglasses that tint the world, I allow my eyes to see things the way they truly are, looking deeper than human eyes ever could. But nothing seems to change.

There's a darkness that rests in the shadows that shouldn't be there. I listen closely and hear none of the whispers, none of the voice of the forest on the wind. I suddenly realize why it's so hard to see. The Refuge is usually aglow with souls.

There's a large and perfectly healthy oak to my right, its low branches hang like hardwood hammocks. I run my hand along the oak's thick, dark bark, tracing my fingers through the ridges. Its soul glows at my touch, the barest of lights that only soul binders can see. Only I can see. The rest of the tree souls are hidden within their physical forms. Normally they'd be reaching out to me, their glowing tendrils curious and kind.