Soulmate

Chapter 5

DIVINE

I was up as early as sunrise that next morning, out in front of our yard, cutting timber with an axe for firewood. There was copper in the air, and a certain zest and burst from the flowers and citrus all around.

In day, Cilantro Falls was most beautiful. Clear blue skies, over-heading rolling mountains with small build ups of snow, and trees with leaves that had gone orange, brown and reddish from the autumn. Fall was always the most beautiful time of the year in Cilantro Falls.

I was on denim on denim, my jacket with its sleeves ripped off completely to expose my lean arms with muscles flexing as I axed the firewood for my grandmother. I had worn my hair in a low ponytail that morning, and the small breeze played with it.

My best friend, Fey came out of my house with and whistled to me where I stood at the backyard. “Hey Divine!” he called “They’re here!”

I gave a small sigh and nodded to Fey. He was more than just a friend, we were like brothers, grown together in the pack from cubs to men. His family and ours were good family friends and our bond continued to be unending. His house was just a stone throw from mine, and sometimes he spent the night at mine. We Southern pack tribe all lived in a terrace of tents and small ranch houses, sometimes igloos in the harsh winter, all at the edge of the town. The southern polar region of Cilantro Falls.

From where I stood that morning, I could see the hills as they rolled up ahead, with a trail of smoke coming off from a chimney in the distance. The chimney of the biggest house in those posh hills, a mansion built like a resort lodge. It belonged to Adrian Montana, pack leader of the Timberline pack, and his family. It was far enough, but sometimes I would just like to look at it from my distance, staring annoyed as their constant smoke polluted the crisp air of our small town.

I wiped a trickle of sweat as it came down my face with the back of my hand and I put down the axe, lodging it in a stump of timber. Fey had come to tell me now that Chief Lapis and his daughter had arrived from the other side of town, the northern region. The Northern tribe pack leader had informed us that he would be arriving this morning with my old friend, Ophelia, who I fondly called ‘Lia’. As winter drew nearer, both packs were establishing a season of bonding to strengthen the connection between Lia and I. It was laughable because Lia and I did not need any of that. Just like I had been friends with Fey since I had sense of reasoning, Lia and I had been inseparable too from young. We all did hunt together and lived like siblings growing up.

I set in back to the house to see that the table had already been set for breakfast. Chief Lapis, a big man with lighter skin than most of us, was already seated at the table, with Nana, Lia, and of course Fey. I joined them.

Lia was smiling at me. She was beautiful with sun streaked dark hair and olive skin that gleamed this morning. I was particularly excited to see her. Nana and Chief Lapis had agreed that we started a tradition of this morning breakfast meetings where we could talk on issues of the pack and bond better.

Before breakfast was over, as my grandmother and the chief chatted, I stood up and headed outside, knowing Lia would follow me so I could have a private moment with her.

She made it out of the house and I began a small walk with her.

“How have you been Divine?” she asked me.

“Been good. You seem to look even more beautiful” I complimented her. Lia chuckled and tucked a tuft of hair behind her ear.

She was one of the most selfless, bravest girls I knew. And I knew her all too well, we had had a friendship that sort of took a sibling dynamic, based on how close we had been. Betrothed to spending the rest of our lives together as mates was awkward to the both of us, and we had always joked about it much when we were younger. Now, many moons had passed, the universe was pushing on and we had this duty to fulfil.

“This seems to be the winter the entire pack has been looking up to” Lia said “Everyone believes there’s going to be a huge change…these stargazers, the astrologers…they believe they can see it in the air. That a prophecy is going to be fulfilled”

I looked at her as we walked “And you think this all falls on our shoulders?”

She met my eyes and made a little shrug with her shoulders “I mean, they’ve been grooming us for this moment almost all our lives. And even though the fall as just begun, I can feel winter closer than ever”

I was silent as I went. Something about the whole situation was dawning. I was not sure I was ready, but I would never let my people down. I had been built up as the mechanism that would liberate us all, and I had to stand on that mandate. It made everything such of a bigger deal when it was referred to as a ‘prophecy’. Nana had just called it that if I mated with Ophelia Moonbeam, I would have enough power to control both the Southern and Northern tribe packs, and we would serve as one. If the conflicts between us and the Timberline pack persisted, we would ride into battle side by side and reclaim what was really ours. Our land.

While my mind and body knew where the work was at, my heart and soul seemed to differ from every reality each time it sent me to that corporeal plane of a dream.

I had not told anyone about it yet, because I had always felt I was man enough to handle my own dreams. But night by night, these dreams grew stronger, became like visions of the future. I kept seeing her, this wolf. I would look around in my reality to think maybe she was out there somewhere, watching me. Whatever it was, I knew the purpose of the dreams were life defining. A message was being passed to me and I just had to find out.

Winter was coming was coming, and my life was about to take the biggest turn.

So this fall, however it was, I needed to interpret my dreams and find this wolf.

I needed to find her.