[Rock]On Sunday, Carmen and I went to town to pick up a gift for Beth. Her mother said the dinner was also going to be a celebration of the pregnancy. The way Carmen said it made me think there was more to it than that, but she would tell me what she was thinking when she was done dealing with the emotions around it. We went to a store that was just for buying baby things. I’d seen stores like this but never went in. Not that I never bought anything for friends who were having babies. I didn’t have many who were old enough, but my mom and her friends had older children. When buying clothes, we went to fae clothiers. They used magic to make the clothing more durable, which was needed for trolls. Our skin could destroy non-magical clothing. Carmen held my hand as we went into the store. It was brighter than it was outside. I winced. All of the colors in the place were also bright. Almost everything was some sort of pastel color. I didn’t realize they used such pale colors for babies. Were they that easy to lose?“We’re going to the clothing. Werewolf pups grow fast, so we’ll get something for three to six months.” Carmen explained. “Got it.” I made sure her arm was wrapped securely around mine and started guiding her over to where the clothes were. I could feel little eyes on me as we made our way through the store. Some of the kids started crying. I was used to it. Glamour was a strange magic. It was used to obscure us from human eyes, but it didn’t work on small children. Sometime between three and five years old, human children lose the ability to see fae. Before that, all of them could see through our glamour. No one knew why they could see us, but they could. Some said they thought it was innocence, but my mother believed it was because they were still new and the magic didn’t realize it was supposed to work on them. I thought it was because they hadn’t been convinced that otherworldly things didn’t exist. As we reached the place where all of the tiny baby clothes were hung, we were stopped by a little boy who looked like he was torn between fear and something else. He blocked our path, and I came to a sudden stop. Carmen looked up at me curiously. “There’s a child,” I explained. She sniffed a little. “He’s afraid. What are you afraid of, buddy?” The boy mumbled something and clenched his fists. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Carmen sighed. “He’s not a mean monster. I promise, he won’t eat your sister,” Carmen told him. “I think he is. Monsters eat little kids. Tha’s what they do.” “Aiden! Where did you go?” A woman called out. I waved her down and pointed down to where the kid was. My glamour was about six and a half feet tall, so she saw me easily enough. She rushed over and grabbed the kid, turning him to her. “Aiden, I told you not to run off.” “Mommy, he’s a monster. I was saving Mackenzie. I’ll fight the monster and keep her safe,” he said. She seemed exasperated. “I’m sorry, he does this a lot. I blame my sister-in-law. She tells him scary stories about monsters who eat children. I told her to stop, but my husband says it’s just how their family is. Aiden, this isn’t a monster. He’s just a very tall man–” Carmen squeezed my hand in a way that made me think there was something more to what she heard. True sight could give her visions when she touched someone, but maybe this was it evolving and she was seeing something from talking to these people. “No,” Carmen interrupted her. “He is a monster, but he doesn’t eat children. He only eats bad guys. We’re here because he wants to buy a present for three babies. It’s because not everything that looks like a monster is a monster. Some of the scariest monsters look just like people. He protects people from other monsters.” The mother looked at her like she was crazy, but the little boy seemed to be contemplating what she was saying. He considered it for a bit, then nodded. “Okay,” he said slowly. He went back to the basket his mother had been pushing, which had a little girl sitting in the seat. The little girl looked up at me with big eyes, but she didn’t look scared. The mom sighed again. “You don’t need to pretend that what he said was true. His imagination is going to get him into trouble one of these days. He ran off and anything could have happened to him. Someone could have taken him.” She was tearful as the thought came out in words. “Right now, people will look like threats. Big brothers protect their little sisters, no matter how old we are. He was being very brave. My fiancé scares a lot of small children. He doesn’t mean to, but he’s so much bigger than they are. For right now, it’s best to agree with their imaginations and just keep telling them that those are nice monsters. Scary doesn’t mean evil, sometimes, it’s just misunderstood,” Carmen told her. “This way, maybe he’ll keep an eye out for anyone who looks normal but acts shady. It’s important to teach them that different doesn’t mean bad.” She smiled at the woman, who smiled back at her and nodded. The mother thanked us and returned to her children. I took Carmen in the opposite direction of the woman and her children. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?” I asked. “When we’re out of here. I don’t want anyone to overhear. Come on, I want to find some clothes and get home. We have to head to the pack lands at five and I want to spend as much time with you as possible,” Carmen said. We went to the circular racks and Carmen started feeling the material of the onesies on the rack. I’d never seen how she shopped, but it looked like she figured out what she liked from the texture. “I like this one, what does it look like?” she asked. “It’s pale yellow and it has a duck embroidered on the left side in darker yellow.” “That sounds cute.” Her fingers went over the embroidered animal. She smiled. “I can tell it’s a duck. Are there others like this with different animals?” I looked at the other colors. Yellow were all ducks, the green ones were frogs, the blue ones were puppies, the pink ones were kittens, and the white ones were bunnies. I reported this to Carmen as I looked over them.“Let’s get a yellow, a green, and a white. Dog prints aren’t really done back home and we don’t know if any of the babies will be girls. These are all good neutral colors,” Carmen said. After checking the sizes, I grabbed one of each and put back the one Carmen was holding. I handed them to her and she held them to her chest with one arm. I took her other hand and we went to the section with gift bags, where we got a bag and some gift tissue. Once we checked out, I took Carmen out to the truck. She carried the bag with everything in it. One day, we’d be shopping for our own baby and I knew now what it was like. I’d be more prepared for this shopping in the future. “So, what was that about back there?” I asked. “The little boy’s aunt is a hunter. When the mom told us about the scary stories, I could see the aunt telling him about how anything that wasn’t human only wanted one thing, to eat humans. I don’t think the father is a hunter, but becoming a hunter is a family thing, so he might be.” “A child who has the potential to become a hunter. I never thought of it that way. I suppose they have to come from somewhere. There’s nothing we can do, either. He’s not a hunter yet.” “I would never do anything to a child who comes from hunters,” Carmen said. “That would make us just as bad as them. They don’t care if a werewolf is a child, an adult, a man, or a woman…. None of that matters to them. All that matters is killing as many of us as they can.” I took her hand and kissed it. “If hunters ever come anywhere near you, I will become exactly what that child was afraid I am. You understand that, right? I’ll kill and eat them.” She smiled. “I appreciate that. I just hope they never do. Being blind helps. As much as werewolves can’t believe there’s a blind werewolf, hunters also don’t believe I could be a werewolf.” We drove back home and I was grateful that nothing could find its way into the fae lands. There was a lot more safety there than in the pack lands. When we arrived home, the first thing Carmen wanted to do was pull the tags off the clothes and wrap them in tissue paper. She wanted to have the bag ready to go when we left. We also had to make something to bring to the dinner. Carmen said she would teach me how to make a pasta salad with cheese, olives, eggs, and salad shrimp. Carmen was teaching me her recipes since she couldn’t cook yet. This was a recipe she said she wanted to be able to make for the next barbecue. I didn’t know if my friends would eat any, but non-troll guests would.I learned what I did wrong when I made the pasta the last time. I didn’t put salt in the water. It didn’t say that on the instructions, but Carmen told me how much salt to put in the water for the amount of pasta we were making. Why wouldn’t they put an important instruction on the damned bag? She peeled the eggs while standing on a little stool. I kept an eye on her, so I could catch her if she fell. Carmen knew I was watching, but she didn’t get frustrated at me. She understood that I was taking care of her in the way that felt right to me. When I bought her the stool, I told her this would happen, but she said it was worth it to be able to help with cooking. Carmen handed me a peeled egg. I looked at her. “I hear your stomach. We can be one egg short.” She giggled. Carmen was always trying to find ways to take care of me. I knew it came from the same love that kept me watching her when she was standing on something. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust me to eat when I was hungry. She gave me a little lecture after we reconnected. She was pissed that I starved myself. Though she was just a little wolf, she was pretty scary when she was mad. Carmen made me promise not to ever do that again. She made it a promise because of how seriously we take promises. I was more than willing to make that promise. I didn’t like it when she was mad at me. I never thought I would care that much if someone smaller than me was mad, but it hurt my heart when she was upset at me. It must be the mate bond because it hurt a lot. I didn’t know how Carmen’s father could stand upsetting his mate. How could he deal with the pain?According to the letter from Trent, Matt had disparaged the goddess, even though his mate believed that everything good they had was given to them by her. Fae were the favorites of the goddess, so we almost never doubted her. Upsetting your mate and your goddess at the same time had to have been painful, but he didn’t care. Viola and Forrest were on the lookout for Carmen’s father. I even contacted Rhett to let him know what happened, but he apparently already knew. He told me Carmen’s father was holed up in a motel on the edge of town. I would be passing that along to Mike today at dinner. Rhett was keeping an eye on him, which made me feel, oddly, better. I never thought I would depend on the warlock, but I was doing that. He promised he would reach out to me if he had any hint that Matt would try to come after Carmen. I shook my head and focused on all the parts of making this food. Carmen moved her stool over to the counter and diced up the eggs, then shredded the cheese. She was confident with a knife and I was in awe of my talented little mate. She was better than I thought she would be. We worked together until the food was prepared and put it in the fridge. I pulled out some meat for lunch and made some sandwiches with the partially cooked meat, some vegetables, and some bread Carmen picked out when we went shopping. Bread was another thing that I never really ate before I had Carmen, but I found myself enjoying it. She was showing me different ways to enjoy all the foods I liked and all new foods, as well. Food was important to troll culture, and Carmen loved introducing me to new foods. In all, it was a pretty good day, after an afternoon of cuddling and reading together, we started getting ready to go to the pack lands. Neither of us really wanted to go, but Carmen was trying to give her mom a chance. She really wanted her to accept me. Part of me wanted Corrine to accept me, as well. The part that wanted Carmen to be happy. The rest of me couldn’t possibly care less if the woman liked me.