[Rock]Stopping in front of the Alpha, I stuck out my free hand. He smiled confidently and took it.  “Alpha, it’s good to see you again.” “Please, call me Trent. Carmen is like a little sister to me. I welcome you as her mate, Rock.” Trent replied. Her mother started crying, though, I didn’t know if the woman ever fuсking stopped. She was crying the last time I was there, too. What sort of people raised my mate? An angry man and an overly emotional woman? I was surprised she turned out as normal as she did. Carmen’s brother stepped forward and put out his hand to me. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look pissed off like his dad did, so it was something. I accepted his hand. “We didn’t get a chance to formally meet last weekend. I’m Mike, Carmen’s actual big brother. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Beaumont.” “You can call me Rock, Mike. My mate has nothing but good things to say about her relationship with you. You are one of the people she trusts most.” “But she didn’t trust me enough to tell me she found her second chance mate,” Mike muttered. “I didn’t want to jinx it, Mike. Not after what happened the first time. Please forgive me,” Carmen murmured. Their father pushed forward from the back. His face was red and he looked really pissed off. I didn’t see anything about him that made me worried, though. He was a werewolf, no match for a troll in a fight. “Enough of this! Enough of this farce pretending this is okay. I’m not going to stand here and pretend that this is okay! My daughter belongs with a wolf, not with some sort of monster fae!” Her father growled. “Matt. Calm down,” an older man, who looked like the Alpha, ordered. “I will not calm down! From the moment I saw her with him I knew there was something fishy going on. He seduced my daughter and made her think he was her second chance mate! If Trent goes along with this, I’m reporting it to the Association. I demand this troll be arrested for what he’s done!” Carmen put her hand up as if to stop the conversation. I made brief eye contact with Forrest. He gave a slight nod, he understood who the threat was. “Dad!” Carmen shouted back. “He really is my mate. He had no clue. I told you, he hadn’t come of age yet. I wasn’t allowed to tell him that I even suspected it.” “After everything we’ve done for you. You come here wearing only a t-shirt, in front of our pack, and dare tell me I’m wrong. I’m your father. I’ve been around long enough to see when some good-for-nothing punk tries to take what doesn’t belong to him. Beta Roald was willing to come all the way here just to meet you. Do you know how hard your mother and I worked to find you an acceptable mate who didn’t care that you were blind?!” Rage coursed through me, but I had my mate to calm me. He had all of our attention now. Being blind wasn’t an excuse for what they were doing to her. Plenty of trolls were born blind and they didn’t have a single problem finding their mates and living pretty normal lives. “Mr. Rosen. If you speak to my mate like that again, we’ll have a problem. We are here to collect Carmen’s things and speak with the current leadership about her living in the fae lands. Nothing more. Your opinion is neither desired nor required,” I said coolly. The conversation was stopped when Carmen turned to look behind us. We turned to look and saw a young redheaded werewolf pulling on the arm of a blonde werewolf. She couldn’t get her friend to move.“Ash. Come on. We’re late.”“Mate?” the blonde squeaked. This was what I thought their meetings were like. Elbio and Forrest looked at each other, but the dark haired man we assumed was Beta Roald stepped around us. “Mate,” he replied. My friends relaxed. They might like Carmen, but that didn’t mean they wanted a werewolf mate of their own. Both of my friends wanted attractive troll women for their mates. “Is that your friend Ashley?” I asked, remembering that she told me about her two best friends. “Yeah. What’s happening?” Carmen whispered. “The guy we think is Beta Roald is the one who answered her back. He looked really shocked. They aren’t moving. I thought you wolves threw yourselves at your mates when you found them.” Carmen giggled. “Not all of us.” “I guess I’m just lucky then. Seems like she’s shaken loose of it. She’s approaching him like a little kid seeing Santa for the first time. He’s touching her face. They started kissing….”I was amused as I related what was going on. It seemed like a very sweet beginning for a relationship, but then they gave into their ‘wolfy’ urges and she jumped him. “Oh. Okay, there she goes. She jumped on him and he’s carrying her into the packhouse. They’re totally going to do it.” I snickered quietly. “Dirty old man.” Carmen laughed.Carmen was jerked away from me suddenly and I turned just in time to see Forrest grab her father’s hand and pull it off Carmen’s arm, then lift him up by the throat. He raised the man up to look him in the face. Her father shook as he grasped Forrest’s hand, struggling for a breath. “Matt!” Carmen’s mother sсreamed. “You don’t touch my friend.” Forrest rumbled. “If you do that again, I’m gonna rip your arm off. You got that, boy?”Her father nodded while mouthing ‘yes’. I checked to see if Carmen had been hurt when Forrest dropped him on his ass. The man had the audacity to glare at me as he gasped, trying to fill his lungs with air. Two of the other older men, Landon and the other, went to help him up while his wife sobbed on the sidelines. The other women tried to comfort her, but there was no comforting a drama queen when she could get attention and sympathy from others. How had this pack survived with people like this in leadership? At least the current leadership had the good sense to look ashamed of the elder’s behavior. “Please come into my office. I have a team of omegas who are packing up all of your mate’s personal effects from her parents’ home. We can negotiate the terms of her living off pack lands. It usually doesn’t take long. Of course, I want you to know that you are an honorary member of the pack as Carmen’s mate.” Trent said. “Dad, please take Matt somewhere to calm down and heal. I’ll have a word with him about some disturbing reports I’ve recently had about him.” Good. The fuсker needed to have some damned punishment for the things he did to my mate and the things he planned to do. I couldn’t be the heavy for everything. I waved my friends off to go watch over the loading of things and guard the van. We followed the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma into the packhouse. Carmen didn’t need any information about the place. She knew where every step up and turn was. This was her home for much of her childhood. She grew up here and she knew every inch of it. I loved seeing her in her element. If I didn’t know she was blind, nothing about her confidence in this place would give it away.I ducked down to enter the Alpha’s office. It had high enough ceilings that I wasn’t uncomfortable, but there was no way my friends could have come in here. I guess being the shortest troll had some benefits. We went to the desk and I sat Carmen in the chair. I may not have felt threatened, but I also didn’t feel comfortable enough to put myself in the vulnerable position of sitting. I stood next to Carmen’s seat, instead. Her brother came and sat in the chair next to us and leaned over. He made a move to reach out to her but realized he caught my attention and pulled back. I wasn’t in the right state of mind for other people to touch my mate. Someone had already tried to take her from me in this very territory. “Carmen. Are you doing alright?” Mike asked. “I just want to go home, Mike. I don’t know why dad’s being like this. Is it really so bad that my mate is a troll?” she whispered. “Much like my grandfather holds prejudice against vampires, your father has some against fae. This is something that is not as widely known as my grandfather’s distaste.” Trent sighed. “I’m so sorry. If I had known that your second chance was a fae, I would have taken extra steps to protect you. I’m not saying this is your fault. I completely understand why you kept your first mate a secret and I understand why you didn’t say anything about your second chance. We instill the rules for a good reason. Sometimes, it backfires.” “I had no idea. I never heard him say anything good or bad about the fae.” “Dad will need time to deal with it, but he’ll come around. You still have me. Can you remove your glamour, Rock? I’d like to see the man my little sister is mated to,” Mike requested. “Sure,” I replied. I let my glamour go and his eyes widened. All three of the men were looking at me. Not looking, staring, as softies normally did when they saw my true form. “Honestly, you aren’t nearly as scary as I was afraid of after seeing your friends.” Mike chuckled. “It’s because I’m only half troll. My human side makes me look less frightening. That doesn’t mean I’m someone to be messed with.” I said in a stern tone that made Carmen squirm a little. The other two men hid smiles and looked away from us, but her brother looked disgusted. “Oh goddess, can we get this over quickly? I don’t need to smell that.” Mike groaned.Smell? Werewolves did seem to sniff a lot. Carmen said it was a special scent that let her know I was her mate. Could they smell when people were aroused? Carmen was getting turned on by me being stern and forceful. That lined up pretty well with what I experienced over the last few days. She loved when I ordered her around and when I got off the phone earlier, after asserting my dominance over her Alpha, she was ready for me to take her. Much more of this and I’d start doing it all the time. Maybe that was one of the reasons why the goddess gave Carmen to me. To make me a better man. Carmen blushed. She knew what her brother was smelling and it confirmed my theory. I was going to do so many things to her when I got her home. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit, Mr. Beaumont?” Trent asked. “Someone tried to take my mate away from me rather recently, Alpha. I’m still angry about how Carmen has been treated and I’m on edge. I’m far more comfortable standing. You can sit if you like. I’m not going to harm anyone while we speak unless they try to take her from me again,” I replied. He nodded and took a seat, the Gamma pulled another chair over and sat as well. Trolls could stand perfectly still for days on end if we needed to, so standing didn’t bother me much. “As a werewolf, Carmen will need to have time in her wolf form. As you may know, she can see in her wolf form, but not as well as a werewolf in wolf form. She shouldn’t go out at night too much in that form, daytime would be best and full moon nights. A safe place in the fae lands to run will be important. I can talk to Queen Maeve about a place for her to run.” “There are some fae who have animal forms. They may be willing to let a werewolf run with them from time to time. I’ll talk to Queen Maeve as well,” I answered. “Good.” He nodded. “Carmen has probably already told you that our diet is high in protein, but she will still need vegetables. I don’t know if fae have a mind link, but werewolves do. We form a bond with our mates and can talk to them mentally. Any children you have will have this bond with her.” “I don’t know if we can have kids. It can be dangerous for softer species to carry troll children. We’ll talk to the doctors in the fae lands.” We hadn’t talked about kids much. I definitely wanted at least one, but if it would harm Carmen, we could adopt. There were plenty of supernatural children who needed homes. We’d get there. “Once a female werewolf is marked, she goes into heat. When Carmen is in heat, she is most fertile. Pack born wolves have monthly heats, but Queen Bellamy has been having her people work on a birth control that will make women only have one heat a season. If Carmen wants, we can get her on a list for testing once it’s available. Until then, you will need to avoid mating while she’s in heat.” Trent said. Carmen blushed hard at that information. I didn’t realize she was in heat. She didn’t tell me. Was that why she was so horny?“How do I tell if she’s in heat?” I asked. “She’ll become more… amorous. Though, your mark is different. Her heat will start in a day or two. It starts about three to five days after marking. Her temperature will rise and her scent will change. Cross-species mating is different. I don’t know how it will affect you, but most mated male werewolves are unable to resist their mate. I have a packet here about werewolf biology. I hope it will help. The phone number for Lily, Beth, and Darla are all in there. They’re the female leadership and can answer all your questions.” “Thank you,” I said as he handed me the packet. “Now for the pack obligations. Since you aren’t living on the pack lands or using pack facilities, there is only a small fee to help out with the pack hospital. That will ensure she can always come here for medical treatment and helps us fund free health care for our pack.” “That makes sense. I don’t want Carmen’s parents in my home. They have proven that they’re willing to act inhumanely toward my mate. They arranged a marriage behind her back and hit her when she objected.” “They what?!” Mike snarled. “Dad hit me and said I couldn’t protect myself. When I told him I was going to move into the pack house, he told me that he linked Alpha Trent and told him I was acting out and telling lies about him hitting me. He said no one would believe me,” Carmen said in a small voice. I stroked her hair and took her hand in my free hand. I would never let that happen again. My mate would be safe in my care.