Soul Bound

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

A crick in my neck wakes me. My head is hanging off the arm of my armchair and drool has dried down the side of my chin. I feel like I've been asleep for days. It couldn't have been too far past 11:00 a.m. when we got back after River's little intervention. It's dark outside now.

I stand and stretch, working out the stiffness in my neck. Wolf is still asleep in my mind so I'm careful to keep my thoughts quiet.

But worry starts to nag at me. River, Dunn, and Hicks were all here when I passed out. Where did everyone go? I sniff at the air, hoping to catch their scents, but there's nothing. No one's been here for a while.

It bothers me most that River isn't here. He's supposed to be watching me, right?

Need watching? Wolf taunts.

Guess I'm thinking about this harder than I realized. No... but if he's going to I'd rather know exactly where he is. No more creeping around.

Outside, Wolf states.

River is? How do you know?

Can feel.

I rush outside and immediately smell a faint trace of his scent. He's here somewhere.

Up, Wolf urges.

I look up and see him laid out on one of Ban's branches, hood pulled over his head. He's really high up. If he rolls over he'll splat the ground and not be so pretty anymore.

My legs hold tight round Ban's trunk as I climb up towards him. The closer I get the stronger the burning in my head gets. Pausing, I suck in breath through my teeth.

We've got to work this out, I tell Wolf.

Not yet, Wolf snaps.

And after the whole grizzly thing, I'm happy to wait.

River must hear, or smell, me because he sits up and watches me climb the rest of the way. He offers his hand to help me up onto the branch and the burning subsides the second we touch. I sit next to him and run my fingers over Ban's bark.

"This is a good tree. They both are," he says. "Their souls are bright and healthy."

"The whole forest used to be that way." I gaze out over the acres of woods I can see from where we are. "Until they started tearing it down."

Ban's soul warms beneath me in response to my sadness.

"Humans will tear it all down one day. If we let them. If we let the vampires kill us off." River sighs and absentmindedly trails his fingers along the banyan bark too.

I want to argue that not all humans are bad, just misguided, but after telling him about the grizzly, and those resurfaced feelings still being so fresh, I can't muster up a defense for them right now.

"Why didn't you come inside?" I ask. I look away and blush. That question didn't sound general.

"Finn kept calling and I didn't want to wake you. You were sleeping like an angel," he says, and my blush deepens. "Though the drooling was less than angelic."

He pushes his hood back and I can see the grin. His hair looks almost silver in the moonlight.

My cheeks are hot. "Creep! Watching me while I sleep!" I shove his shoulder then rub at the corners of my mouth, nervous there might be some dried spit left over.

In what I'm quickly realizing is River's response to most things, his eyes crinkle and his smile widens.

"Is this where you sleep at night?" I ask, leaning into the embrace of Ban's soul.