The Healing Souls

A Blind Werewolf

I focused on my drink for a while. It was a decent bottle. I almost felt bad for sending Tripp off into the arms of the hot troll. Then I decided he definitely deserved a little attention from a hot troll lady for getting me such a nice drink.

The people were starting to feel the effects of alcohol, music, and pheromones. I could see the dancefloor begin turning into an orgy of writhing bodies. I was sure something out there was making them all lose their inhibitions faster than the alcohol normally would.

Turning to the table, I poured myself another drink and went back to watching the dancers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Prince Rosario’s fiancé come out of the crush of the crowd with the blue-eyed brunette from earlier.

They had their heads together, talking about something, but he kept looking over at me. Maybe I was in front of something he was looking at. That had to be it… or that’s what I thought until she said something that made him laugh and they headed my way.

“Hey, Rock,” Sean said as they stopped near my table.

What were they planning? Maybe she wanted to see a troll up close and he brought her to the most polite one he knew. I had invited him and Prince Rosario to my coming-of-age party in hopes of getting more females there. We were doing everything possible to get them to Forrest’s house.

“Sean, I thought I saw you and Rosario. This doesn’t look like our prince, though,” I replied.

He grinned and shook his head. The girl on his arm smiled a little but kept staring at me. She didn’t look disgusted or morbidly curious. It was like she was seeing something else, something she liked. Must be a monster fuсker.

“This is Carmen. She’s a friend of mine. I was hoping I could leave her with you. She can’t see and her other friends abandoned her,” he explained.

Well, that explained it. She couldn’t see anything. Of course.

“That’s why she doesn’t look afraid or disgusted,” I joked.

“Carmen, did you meet any trolls while you were doing your looking thing?” Sean asked.

“No. I don’t know what a troll looks like,” she answered.

Goddess, her voice was sweet. It was smooth and confident with a little softness. If her personality was anything like that voice and the sweet smile on her face, then her mate was in trouble.

“Looking thing?” I asked.

“Yeah, she uses her hands to see what people look like. You should let her do it to you. Then she’ll know what a troll looks like.”

Her smile was now accompanied by a little blush and an eagerness I never thought I’d see in someone who was around a troll. People were looking over at us. I could talk to someone about something other than the fact that I didn’t look right. It was appealing.

“Maybe she can stay with me…. I’m just enjoying being out in public without my glamour. It’s been almost two months and I’m still not quite used to being able to go out in the neighborhood without it,” I said.

“Before the curse was broken, the fae couldn’t hide their neighborhood. Humans would decide to go check it out, so they couldn’t be comfortable in their yards or have their blinds open. After a hundred years of being confined to their own houses in their natural form, the fae are just getting used to being safe again.” Sean explained to her.

Carmen nodded. She may not have known our history, but she knew her own. I knew every supernatural was affected by the curse. I didn’t know everyone’s thing, but I knew vampires went crazy when they tried to leave and that we couldn’t use glamour at all outside of the state borders.

“We couldn’t find our mates until a year after we got our wolves and couldn’t leave the region without getting really sick. Some people lost their wolves permanently when they decided not to come back,” Carmen said.

“That’s frightening. Losing a whole part of your identity.” Sean shook his head.

“Yeah, go on back to your fiancé, Sean. I’ll watch your wolf,” I told him.

Sean guided Carmen to a chair, then patted her shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze before leaving. She sniffed a little and smiled in my direction. Using her other senses to track my location.

Her eyes really were beautiful, even more beautiful up close. She chewed the corner of her bottom lip. The rest of her was beautiful, too. And that red dress she was in was making me think of how soft her skin must be. It glowed golden against the deep, dark red of the cloth.

“Sean said you’re having your coming-of-age party next weekend. Are you excited?” she asked cheerfully.

She was so cute and tiny. The way she asked after my birthday party nearly made me laugh. It was refreshing, to say the least.

“Yes and no. When I come of age, I can finally find my true mate. Being half-human and half-troll isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Your true mate loves and accepts you for who you are. They aren’t disappointed in you. They’re your perfect match made by the goddess. You have fated mates. You understand,” I said with a smile.

Werewolves had soulmates, fated mates, or true mates in the same way we did. She would know exactly what I was talking about. I bet she was eager to find her own mate one day.

She nodded with a sad smile. “It was the one thing I was looking forward to when I turned eighteen. I wanted to find my mate and finally have that one person who would love me and would accept my love.”

“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there,” I replied.

“He rejected me because I was blind. That was years ago, now.”

Her head dipped down and she fidgeted with her fingers. The pain she went through was apparent. How could he give her up for being blind? It’s not her fault that she can’t see. I thought wolves wanted their mates as much as the rest of us.

“That asshole,” I grumbled. “I’m never giving my true mate up.”

“That was the ‘yes’ of why you were excited. Why no?” she asked, changing the subject back to me.

I understood. She didn’t want to focus on her pain right now. I hoped she had a second chance. Someone better than whoever gave her up. Her resilience made me chuckle a little.

“Tradition, I’m going to be chained up in a dark room for three days and they’ll bring unmatched females in one at a time to see if I recognize them as my true mate. If I find her in the first day, we spend the next two days in bed,” I explained.

Carmen gasped and her eyes widened. “Why chained in the dark?”

“Werewolves have heat, right?” I asked.

She nodded with a slightly dazed look in her eyes. There were a lot of scents, but I was starting to learn hers. Trolls smelled blood better than we smelled other things. Learning her scent made me happy. A new friend. Maybe she was learning my scent as well.

“Well, at the coming of age, whether the troll is male or female, our libido is amped up like when you’re in heat. We’re chained up for the good of the community. The darkness is so we don’t lunge and risk ripping the chains from the wall. My friend, Forrest, is throwing my party. I trust him to take care of me if I end up chained for the whole three days,” I told her.

If a troll broke free, they would do terrible things to anything and anyone they could get their hands on. We fought and killed men, rаped women, destroyed property. I tried to tame it for her. Thank the goddess it only happened on our birthdays until we found our true mate. I kept that from her, as well.

I couldn’t stand the idea of being a burden on my friends. I needed to find my true mate before my coming-of-age ‘rage’ was over, or I’d be doing this again next year and every year until I found my mate.

“That sounds awful,” Carmen said, then smiled. “I know you’re going to find your true mate, though.”

Her smile was infectious. I couldn’t help but smile back at her. This was the longest, and most friendly conversation I’d had with a werewolf, hell, with any softie, in my entire life.

“Sixth sense?” I asked.

“Well, it would be a fifth sense if I had it.” She laughed.

Carmen’s laugh was like the tinkling of bells. It made me laugh, too. She had some sort of magic that was making me laugh and smile more than I had in months.

“So, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Mostly, drinking and just existing as myself.”

“I meant, why are you here instead of with the other trolls?”

Looking over at the other trolls, a few of them were watching me talk to Carmen. Others were more interested in my dark elf employee who didn’t realize he was flirting with a troll woman and she really looked like she was into it.

“Well, none of my friends wanted to come out tonight. Aside from that, I’m half-human. I’m smaller than them, softer than them, and uglier than them. That’s why I’m never giving up my true mate. She’ll see past all that and still accept me.” I sighed happily at the thought of my mate.

“You sound like you’re smiling.”

“I am. The closer I get, the more I daydream about it.” I admitted, without knowing why.

It was as if I could tell Carmen anything. She couldn’t possibly be entirely werewolf. There had to be something else mixed with her. That charm was magical.

“Does that mean that you’re keeping yourself pure for your true mate?” she asked.

Dear goddess, she was so innocent. I tried, Goddess knows I tried not to laugh, but I failed. I burst out laughing so hard I could barely breathe. When I tried to stop, I looked at her and she was blushing, which made me start laughing again.

Carmen looked embarrassed and I regretted laughing once I started to calm down. I shouldn’t have done that. She was going to hate me.

“Sorry. I’m nearly fifty years old and a troll with soft skin. It doesn’t matter if I’m ugly. What’s the saying? Everyone is beautiful in the dark. Female trolls put aside things like looks to touch and be touched by me.”

“Oh. So you’ve only ever been with trolls?” she asked.

“Yeah, my true mate is probably a troll. I’m not attractive by troll standards, but I’m hideous by human standards.”

“Can I look at you? I don’t understand what it could be that makes you ‘hideous’.”

Carmen smiled and I felt my ears redden. I didn’t want her to know I was as ugly as I was. I wanted her to imagine something and trust me. She looked so eager to ‘see’ me, though. At least it would be a different way of someone seeing I was disgusting and a softy would touch me willingly.

“I like your smile. You look like a nice wolf, but you’re going to run sсreaming when you see what I look like,” I replied.

She frowned for a moment but managed to get herself under control. At least I didn’t see the pity in her eyes that I saw in Tripp’s. There was something there, but not pity, more like anger. I didn’t realize someone who couldn’t see could have such expressive eyes.