[Rock]We loaded up into the truck with the large bowl of pasta salad and the bag with the gifts in it. Carmen would hold the bowl and I tucked the bag up next to her on the bench seat in the truck. She seemed excited for the visit. As we drove out of the fae lands, I checked on her a few times. If she started getting nervous, I wanted to be able to talk to her about it. Of course, if she second-guessed the dinner, at any point, I would take her home. Just because they were family, didn’t mean she had to put herself out for them. “You’re looking a little worried,” I said. “My mom’s younger sister doesn’t like me much and she’ll be there. Try not to get too angry if she starts up on her bullѕhit. My uncle, my mom’s older brother, is usually cool. My grandparents are… difficult to predict. My cousins are a mixed bag and some of them have smaller kids, so mom wanted you to wear your glamour so you wouldn’t scare them,” Carmen told me. “You didn’t realize what happened at the store earlier, did you?” “What do you mean?” “The little boy and all the screaming and crying kids? They weren’t being imaginative or crying for no reason. Glamour doesn’t work on kids under a certain age. Three is usually when they start seeing our glamour, but it can take all the way up to when they’re five for their vision to be blocked by our magic. Depending on the age of the kids, they would be able to see me no matter if I wore my glamour or not,” I explained. “Oh… I thought he was just reacting to you being so big and burly. I’ll explain it to Mom when we get there, but a couple of the kids are under five.” I understood where she was thinking the kids were reacting because of how big I am. You never know what is going to make kids react in certain ways. Babies could sense we were something that ate them at one point and were usually scared, especially human babies. Toddlers could go either way. “Anyway, my aunt moved to the next pack over, where her mate is from, and that is where she raised her family. My grandparents and uncle’s family still live in Hallowed Moon. They probably know about us, but I don’t know if they ever saw you. I’m sure my mother has prepared them for what you look like, though.” Carmen sighed deeply. “Don’t worry, Carmen. I’m not easily offended. I’m a troll, after all. Anything they could say, I’ve already heard from other people all my life. I may have even heard worse. If you don’t want to stay, though, I want you to tell me. We’re not obligated to stay here if you’re uncomfortable.” She nodded silently. I didn’t want her to have to suffer if her family decided to get nasty. I wondered if Corrine’s sister was worse than she was. That would be something to see. When we reached Corrine’s house, I took the bag with the gifts in it and went around to help Carmen out of the truck. She wouldn’t trade me the bag for the bowl of pasta salad. I knocked at the door when we got there. It didn’t take long before it opened. Corrine smiled tightly at me and greeted us, before stepping aside to let us into the house. I ducked under the doorframe as I entered. My glamour was basically taking away the more troll-like features, but leaving me looking mostly like myself. I didn’t want to go full glamour, but I did want to make myself less scary for the wolves we’d be around. “Everyone, this is Carmen’s mate, Rock Beaumont. Rock, that’s my sister, Cathy, and her mate, Fred. Next to them is my parents, Carol and Dave Lansing. Then my brother, Conrad, and his mate, Naomi.” Corrine then introduced me to some of the younger wolves, there were a lot more than I thought. Some little ones came toddling into the living room and stopped to look at me. It took a moment for them to decide how to react to me. Though I’d hoped werewolf pups would be different, they weren’t. They screamed and ran back down the hallway. “I’m sorry, Corrine. I think there was a hiccup in communication. Children can see through fae glamour for up to their fifth year. I didn’t mean to scare them, but that is usually the first reaction of soft children. It’s instinct,” I explained. “I’ll take this to the kitchen,” Carmen said, trying to hide her smile. She laughed a little when the kids screamed and ran. I could understand, it was pretty funny to me, too. My glamour could hide my reaction, though. “Give it to me, I don’t want you to knock something over or break something,” a woman’s voice demanded. I turned to see the aunt getting up. She passed right in front of me and put her hands on the bowl. Carmen tugged it back. “I’ve got it, Aunt Cathy. I’ve lived here for most of my life, I know where everything is.” The woman looked like her sister, but it seemed like crying wasn’t her go-to move when denied something. She sneered and looked down her nose at Carmen, then pulled the bowl from her arms, making Carmen stumble back. I caught my mate, then turned to the woman and growled. Carmen once told me that the angry growl from a troll was a truly terrifying sound. It was like a landslide. There was nothing to stop the disaster and pain heading your way. Cathy started shaking and stared at me with wide eyes. I pulled Carmen to me and held her tightly while looking down at the woman who knocked her off her balance. “If you ever try to hurt my mate again, you will live only just long enough to regret it. Do you understand, wolf?” I snarled at her. Her mate stood up and I turned my attention to him. If he thought he could defend her physically, he was wrong. The other uncle stood up and grabbed Fred’s shoulder. “Sit down. Your mate isn’t in any danger and she deserves a reminder that she’s not entitled to better treatment than anyone else here. If anyone had knocked her down so roughly, you would have threatened them, too. Cathy, go put that in the kitchen and get back out here. I expect you to be more polite to our niece.” The woman turned in a huff and stormed off to the kitchen. Another knock at the door and the sound of the door opening broke some of the tension. Mike was peeking in the door. “Is it safe to come in or is someone else going to piss off the troll?” he asked. “Could you hear that from all the way out there?” Carmen asked. “The scent of Aunt Cathy’s fear is so strong, it’s leaking out of the door. I figured she pissed off Rock.” Carmen and her uncle Conrad laughed. I was still keeping an eye on everyone else. These wolves didn’t make it easy to like them. Mike and Beth came in. They hugged Corrine, then Carmen. Beth hugged me and Mike shook my hand. Everyone else seemed to relax. Apparently, Mike and Beth being that comfortable with me meant more than the fact that I was Carmen’s mate. I began to see the way her extended family was and I didn’t like it. “Sit over here, Rock, it’s the biggest chair in the house,” Corrine said, directing me to a large armchair. When I first visited the house, I wondered why there was so much seating for a family of three to five. Now that I saw all of their family here, it made more sense. There were a lot of them. “Queenie and her mate will be back in a little while. They went for a walk so she could show him around the pack a little,” Cathy said as she came back into the room. “What’s that you have, Rock?” Conrad asked, changing the subject back to us. “It’s a gift we bought for Beth and Mike’s babies,” I replied, handing the bag to Beth, as I grabbed Carmen around the waist and hauled her off to the chair where Corrine wanted me to sit. I put Carmen on my lap. She blushed but didn’t try to get away. No one said anything, but Conrad nodded and smiled as he headed back to his seat. At least one of her relatives seemed to be as accepting as Mike and Beth were. Beth pulled the bundles out and unwrapped them. She gushed over how cute the outfits were and showed them off to everyone. Cathy kept trying to wrangle the conversation to be about her and her family, but everyone kept redirecting. It seemed like this was the way their family gatherings went. She seethed whenever the conversation turned from where she wanted it. “Who’s Queenie?” I asked Carmen quietly. “My cousin. She’s the oldest of Cathy and Fred’s kids. She just turned seventeen and found her mate,” Carmen explained. She wasn’t exactly quiet, but it looked like everyone had heard me. I was still underestimating the sensitivity of wolf hearing. I tended to think it was only Carmen. I nodded and the conversation moved on. A while later, the front door opened and a girl entered with a boy. She looked almost exactly like Carmen, with brown eyes instead of blue. I stared at them. Even the way she moved was similar to how Carmen moved.“Oh! They’re here! Braxton, this is my cousin, Carmen, and her mate, I assume.” She giggled. “And that’s my other cousin, Beta Mike Rosen, and his mate Beth.” “It’s nice to meet you,” the boy responded. “We’re running low on seats, so Queenie will have to sit in your lap, Braxton,” Cathy insisted. The boy blushed and sat in an empty chair with his mate in his lap. He looked like he trained, with bigger muscles than most of the other men had. Being a taller woman, like Carmen, Queenie didn’t look terribly comfortable on her mate’s lap, but there was an air of determination about her. She seemed to be like her mother and saw interactions as a chance for attention. And, by the look in her eyes when she saw Carmen with me, she chose to be competitive with my mate. I picked Carmen up and shifted where she sat, so I could keep an eye on the new additions. “This is my mate, Rock,” Carmen said to her cousin. “I heard you got rejected. I’m so happy you had a second chance, Carmen. This is Braxton, he’s the Alpha’s third son in our pack.” Queenie replied. “How old are you, Braxton?” I asked. “Seventeen,” he answered. “So you’re still in high school. What are you planning to do with your life when you graduate?” He brightened and smiled at me. I was guessing the rest of the family showed little interest in him beyond the fact that he was Queenie’s mate and the Alpha’s third son. “I’m going to be a warrior for the pack. I’m one of the best fighters in my age group and it’s a good job to have if you’re not born into one. We’ll get a house and the pack will pay me for my work,” Braxton said. “Sounds like it’s good work. It will help you take care of your family.” “What do you do for work, Rock, you don’t smell like a werewolf,” Braxton responded. Cathy tittered. “I heard you’re a construction worker.” I kept my attention on the boy, ignoring the attempted jab by Carmen’s aunt. I was raised around trolls. There was nothing a werewolf could throw at me that I couldn’t handle. “You have a good nose. I’m a troll. I own my own construction and renovation company. Most of my work is in the human lands, but I get a fair bit of work from other fae, as well. Just last week, I bid for a construction job for the Master vampire of the territory.” “I’ve never met a troll before. That’s cool.” “Thanks,” I chuckled. “Owning your own company at your age is impressive, Rock,” Conrad said. “Did you inherit it?” I looked at him curiously, then at Corrine. She blushed and her lips tightened into a thin line. “I’m sorry, I didn’t tell them how old you were. I think my brother is assuming you’re Carmen’s age,” she told me. “No problem, Corrine. I’m fifty years old. I started my company about fifteen to twenty years ago. I spent a lot of time learning as much as I could before I started it. Carmen’s my office manager, now, so I can go back to spending the bulk of my time getting my hands dirty,” I replied. Conrad asked more about trolls and Braxton added a few questions. There wasn’t really a chance for Cathy or Queenie to redirect things to them. And they tried. At some point, the little ones came out again and slowly approached the chair where I sat with Carmen. They were startled when I looked over at them and ran to their parents, some of Carmen’s other cousins. “Carmen, how is living on the fae lands?” one of her other cousins asked. “It’s fantastic. I’ve met so many other people. There are even fae who change into animals, so I have people to run with in my wolf form.” She smiled at him. “That’s good since you ended up with a non-wolf for your second chance. It would suck if you couldn’t have time as a wolf,” Queenie said. “I spend plenty of time with Blanche and with Carmen. There’s no need for her to keep her other form from me. I may not be able to do everything a wolf mate can, but I have other benefits a wolf doesn’t have.” I smirked at her. “What could a troll have that a wolf doesn’t? The ability to scare small children?” she scoffed. “I can scare big children as well,” I replied, dropping my glamour. She squeaked in fear and buried her head in her mate’s neck. Beth snickered as the fear in the room built. Carmen turned to me and ran her fingers over my jaw, turning my head to her. She stared into my eyes. “Rock, please put your glamour back on. Scaring the adults makes the pups even more scared.” “For a kiss, I’ll put the glamour back on,” I replied. Carmen giggled and kissed me gently. I put my glamour on while I kissed my mate. We didn’t get dirty or passionate, but we did linger longer than I’m sure Mike liked seeing. “How can you kiss that thing?” Cathy sneered. “She does a lot more than just kiss me, Aunt Cathy,” I told her with a wink.