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The Healing Souls
Familial Connection
Familial Connection1921words
Update Time2024-11-01 09:40:53
[Rock]Monday was the first day of spring. Austin and Gemma had moved on Sunday so we wouldn’t be working on packing before getting ready for the first day of spring celebration. It was good of them to do that, but Carmen and I decided not to go to the party, anyway.There was a lot going on in March and we were tired of having to be around so many people. Carmen said werewolves weren’t usually introverted, but after finding their mates, they were less likely to go to every event the pack hosted. Instead, they would spend time with their mate and family.Last night, Carmen had stayed in her human form, but I was hoping we could play in her half-wolf form later. For now, I was content with cuddling on the couch while we both read.It was a long weekend. The first day of spring was a holiday for fae, so I didn’t make any of my crew work today. I thought it was perfect that we got to have a whole day for ourselves.“Are you still thinking about the goblin girl?” I asked, noticing that Carmen’s fingers stopped sliding across the page.She sighed. “Sorry. I know you don’t want me thinking about her, but she went through so much and she’s been thrown into this situation with Rhett. I wish he had let us stay for a little longer.”I frowned. My mate was very soft if she was feeling bad for a goblin. I’d told her before that they aren’t just carnivores, but cannibals. I was cordial to the goblins that lived in the fae lands. At least they were trying to be civilized.The ones who lived in the fae realm were little more than beasts. The roaming bands or ‘families’ of goblins in the human realm were somewhere between the animalistic goblins in the fae realm and the more acceptable ones in the fae lands. For the most part, they were cruel and disgusting.True, trolls would eat humans if they thought they could get away with it. That was something I kept from Carmen when I first told her about goblins on the night she met my mother. There were some fae who would say we weren’t any better than goblins.Orcs and ogres had the same issue. They would also eat people if it were an option. Not that I condoned it only in larger fae species. It wasn’t the same. None of us did to humans what goblins did. That was what made them so disgusting to me.It was one thing to kill and eat a human, but they bred their humans and took pieces off of them while they did it. A single goblin couldn’t eat a human in one sitting, so they were completely fine with eating them a piece at a time. It was torture for the human. Even the most animalistic troll killed before they started eating.“I don’t like the idea of you being around a goblin, even if it is a young one.”“Rock, she never ate any part of her mother’s corpse. I wasn’t able to see her whole life and I couldn’t experience everything she did. I could only see as well as a normal werewolf could. But…. I think she knew her mother, and that she loved her. “I don’t know how her mother died, but that little girl never moved away from her mother’s body and she never ate it. Isn’t it possible that her other half is stronger than her goblin part?” Carmen asked. Maybe she had a point. It wasn’t normal for me to judge someone as quickly and as harshly as I judged the little girl. It was my prejudice against goblins that made me decide the girl couldn’t be different. Perhaps she was different.She might not even be a half-goblin. She could just be a quarter goblin. Carmen was so worried about her. Maybe Carmen saw more than she could express. She was softer than I was in a lot of ways.“Did you want to call him and find out how she’s doing?”Carmen turned in my arms and climbed into my lap. She laid her head down on my shoulder and hugged me tightly. I wrapped my arms around her again, enjoying her.“You don’t have to offer that for me. It’s only been one night. We can try reaching out to him next weekend. By then, he should be willing to answer us. I feel he wouldn’t if we tried right now,” Carmen replied.I chuckled. “I’m sure he’s learning a lesson about what it’s like to try raising a fae child. There’s a reason the stories about changeling children exist.”“Did fae really do that?”“Yes, there were some fae parents who saw human babies that weren’t the little terrors theirs were and would switch off until the child was a ‘more reasonable age’. Though some got attached and decide to keep their human child. It didn’t happen often, not nearly as often as humans thought it did, but it happened. Fae haven’t done that in centuries, though,” I explained.“That sounds terrible. I would never give up my pup, no matter how difficult they were,” Carmen said in a resolute tone.“And I would never give up our child for any reason, either,” I murmured and kissed her sweet lips.Carmen hummed happily and kissed me back. The idea of having a child with her made me really happy. I wanted that more than anything, and I knew Carmen looked forward to it as much as I did.We’d decided we would wait about a year after we were married before trying for a baby. Gemma and Pyla saw the benefit of that plan as well. Both of them wanted a year with their mates before adding to their families. Austin and Forrest seemed to approve of this plan.I went along with it because I would always do whatever I could to make Carmen happy. Plus, I kind of did like the idea of having one more year with only the two of us. Once we had a child, it would be a long time before we had that again.“Do you think we were meant to adopt that girl?” Carmen asked. “Orella said the goddess would give us a second child. If I can only have one child with you physically, then that would mean they would have to come from somewhere else.”Without meaning to, I tensed. Though I trusted the goddess, I didn’t want her to force me into a family relationship with someone I couldn’t care for. Even if I gave the girl a chance and grew to like her, it wouldn’t be healthy for the child. She would always remember a time when it felt like she was unloved by part of her support system.My mother hated goblins even more than I did, and neither of my brothers liked them at all. They were like vermin to them. To my family, the only good goblin was a tamed one or a dead one.“I don’t think the goddess meant us for her. The goddess wouldn’t do that to us and she wouldn’t do that to the child. Perhaps she meant the girl for Rhett,” I suggested.Carmen laughed. “Rhett? I’m pretty sure the goddess doesn’t watch over him at all. He’s human with a dark spirit. I don’t think he falls under the purview of the human god or our goddess. I wonder why the cult never approached him….”“Because the only being Rhett worships is himself,” I replied with a laugh.We laughed for a while at that. Rhett was probably listening unless he was busy trying to tame the goblin girl.I wondered about what her mother was. Carmen said there were no bites taken out of her. That wasn’t possible. Goblins didn’t leave sources of food untouched. Even if she got pregnant, they would have already taken a few chunks off her.If her people were powerful enough supernaturals, they might take in the girl. Her mother's people could raise her. Carmen's peace of mind was important to me, so I felt it was necessary to ensure the girl was taken care of properly, even if Rhett didn't agree.“Carmen, you said there were no bites on the mom at all?”She tilted her head at me. “That’s right. None at all. Why?”“And Oberon was hitting her full force?”“He certainly didn’t seem to hold back,” Carmen scoffed.Oberon was a high-elf. They were a lot stronger than other species of elf. No goblin could survive a full-strength hit from one, not even the toughest ones. A human couldn’t have either. They were almost as strong as a smaller species of troll.Perhaps Queen Maeve did need to get involved. Rhett’s threat echoed in my mind. If he found out I was trying to talk to her, he would erase my memory. If I managed to work around it so he wouldn’t know, there was no telling what he would do in retaliation.“What’s going on, Rock?”“You could smell that she was a goblin, couldn’t you? You knew what she was before I saw her ear.”Carmen blushed. “Are you mad at me about that?”“What else did you smell, Carmen? What else did she smell like?”“Rock? You seem really upset. I don’t understand what this has to do with anything. Are you thinking that her other species might be important?” she asked.“There are very few fae who could take a full hit from a high elf. Mostly big ones. The girl doesn’t look like any of the species who could take that hit,” I explained.The girl looked human. Her skin was reddish brown and her hair was black and wavy. Her eyes, though. They were a dark brown that looked almost black, but there were a few times they flashed a golden color I thought was my imagination.“I don’t know. There was another smell, but I’d never smelled it before. I know the scent of almost every type of fae in the fae lands. It wasn’t any of them. The undertone of shifter wasn’t there, so she isn’t one of us. Why are you so eager to figure this out?”“If she didn’t eat her mother’s body, then she feels a familial connection. If we could find her mother’s people, we could see if they would adopt her. Humans wouldn’t, but another supernatural might. I hate seeing you sad and I can tell you’re worried about leaving her with Rhett,” I told her.Carmen smiled and hugged me again. “You’re always trying to solve my problems. We might be able to see if we can bring her to the house and have one of the other seers look at her. Their powers are stronger than mine. They might see more.”I nodded. “Maybe once all of this is over. Let’s give Rhett some space with her. With how he is, I think he won’t last long with a little goblin child. We can have a plan to help him when that time comes.”“Or he might stick it out forever just to spite you for doubting him,” Carmen suggested with a giggle.If there were family out there for the girl, I would encourage him to give her up. If not… I’d give him a reason to keep raising her. I would mock him and doubt him all he needed to find the motivation to give her a good upbringing.I still didn’t like goblins, but Carmen cared about this one. She would be the exception. As long as I didn’t have to raise her, I would make sure someone cared for her.