[Austin]On the second day of the project, I met up with everyone at the office and headed to the site with the crew. We finished the cleaning yesterday, and the trailer was ready to be installed. Carmen didn’t want to hinder the work by making someone stay with her in the office.She helped set up the coolers full of drinks, then Rhett said it would help him if she could stay at his house while we worked. Rock didn’t seem happy about it, but Carmen whispered something to him and he ended up agreeing to her going. His only condition was that I went too.Rhett frowned but agreed. He came over to me and made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone what or who I saw at his house. Carmen needed me to come with her, so I agreed.In the blink of an eye, we were in a living room. The place looked like something from a museum. It surprised me. Rhett led us to a room off of the main area. He opened the door, and I looked inside.A little girl was sitting in a bed. Her pointed ears and teeth told me she was some sort of fae. Her very thin frame told me she hadn’t had much food in the past. She smiled at Carmen and looked excited until she saw me. Her smile disappeared.“Dolly, you remember Carmen. This is her friend, Austin. He’s going to help look after you. Carmen can’t see, so she won’t be good in the kitchen. Austin will be much better,” Rhett explained.“Hi, Dolly. If you want, I can go out to the living room. I know strangers can be scary,” I told her gently.Her head tilted, and she smiled a little. I knew what it was like to be scared and in a new place. It was then that her scent hit me. I recognized it as goblin.While living in the fae lands, I’d met some goblins. They made some comments about my body that made me think they either wanted to eat me or have sеx with me. Gemma pulled me away from them because she didn’t like what they were saying. I wrote it off as goblins being like trolls and saying whatever popped into their heads.She was just a kid, so I knew she wouldn’t be like that. I smiled back at her. Rhett put a hand on my shoulder.“If anything happens to her, you won’t like what happens to you. I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said in a very serious tone.I had only met him a couple times since I started working at Rock’s office, but he had never seemed that serious before. He was powerful. I could feel it in the part of me that was a weaker wolf. I nodded silently, not trusting myself to sound anything less than terrified.“Rhett, don’t threaten Austin. I will look after Dolly. Don’t worry about it,” Carmen told him with a hiss.He grumbled but said nothing else before disappearing. Carmen turned to Dolly and made a face. The little girl laughed.“Have you had breakfast, Dolly?” I asked.“Yes, but I’m hungry still,” she admitted.“I’ll go make you a snack. I had to recover from not eating much, so I know how it feels to be hungry like that.”Carmen went to sit with Dolly while I sought the kitchen and dug around to find food for her. The stove was a wood-burning stove. There was a polished wooden box that I opened to find was like a refrigerator, and everything had an antique feel. I was almost afraid to mess something up.There was no running water in the house, so I headed outside to find a well or something. After some searching, I found a cold spring nearby and filled a basin with water. I knew goblins could eat pretty much anything, like trolls could, but I was still going to boil the water to make sure it was sanitary for her.After returning to the house and stoking up the fire, I poured the water from the basin into a pot. I’d make her something filling. I saw some oatmeal in the cupboards and decided on a thing I remembered eating in my old pack. It was like a parfait, but with cooked oatmeal, yogurt, raisins, and apples.When they made it for the ranked members, it had strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. I thought ours tasted better, though. I thought she might like it.As I worked, I thought about Gemma. She was so happy that we were living in the pack lands. My parents and her aunt and uncle came over on Monday night to welcome us home. I’d had time to clean up the apartment while Gemma was at work and we found places for all of my things. It wasn’t much, but I loved seeing how my life blended with Gemma’s.She was perfect. I couldn’t believe there was a time I was afraid to accept my mate. Now that I had her, I would never let her go. I couldn’t wait to see what the future held for us.Once the oatmeal finished cooking, I sprinkled cinnamon and brown sugar onto it before adding apples and raisins, then vanilla yogurt. I put more fruit on the yogurt and added another sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar. When it was done, it had two layers of oatmeal and yogurt and a lot of fruit.Rock needed to eat fruits and vegetables. If they didn’t taste good, he would be difficult. Carmen laughed when he was like that. She thought it was cute.I carried the food into the bedroom and handed it to Dolly with a spoon. She looked at the spoon and frowned.“I don’t remember how to use this one,” she admitted.“You just scoop. Here, I’ll show you,” I replied.She handed me the spoon, and I got a scoop of the mixture for her, getting a bit of everything. Dolly took the spoon from me and sniffed the contents before her eyes widened and she took a bite. Her eyes went up to me and I could see them glow golden.“This is just like the thing I liked. It has the specks. What are they? Papa Rhett said I can have whatever I like, but I have to know the names.”“The specks?” I asked.Dolly got another scoop and pointed to the cinnamon. I knew nothing about this girl, but something about talking to her made me hurt. There was a painful feeling to her innocent question. I didn’t know how she didn’t know things like how to use a spoon.“The specks are cinnamon and brown sugar. If the part you like is the sweet part, it’s the sugar. If it’s the spicy flavor, then it’s the cinnamon. The white part is yogurt and the pale brown part is oatmeal. The little shriveled, brown things are raisins, and the white chunks with the red on them are apples,” I explained.“Cinnamon…” she quietly whispered as she dug around in the bowl, finding each thing, saying its name, and eating it.For a moment, I watched her, but then I had to leave. I excused myself to go clean up the kitchen. That was painful to watch. I understood why Rhett was so protective of the girl.I went and got more water, then cleaned the kitchen to the best of my ability. I took the leftover oatmeal once it cooled, put it into a container that looked older than me, and covered it with plastic wrap. After looking around a bit, I found some paper and a pen. I wrote the recipe for what I made her. That way, Rhett would know what to do.It seemed like he was being a good dad to her. He was probably going to end up spoiling her. Gemma spoiled me to make up for my past, so I wasn’t judging. It was nice to be treated well after having such a hard life.When I went back into the bedroom, Dolly was sleeping and Carmen was sitting next to her, humming a song. I collected the dishes and went back to the kitchen to clean them.I spent the rest of the day talking to Carmen while Dolly slept, feeding Dolly when she was awake, and cleaning up. Rhett popped in to check on her a few times. He seemed satisfied whenever he left.Late in the afternoon, Carmen and I were telling Dolly a story. It was one of the ones every little werewolf knew. I took some of the talking parts and Carmen took others. Dolly was enthralled. A noise came from the living room, so I excused myself and went out to check.Rhett was there with Echo. She pulled her hand away from him and headed straight for me. I moved to the side so she could get into the room. If he brought her here, she wasn’t a threat to Dolly.Echo went in and sat on the floor next to the bed. She introduced herself to Dolly, who wasn’t as wary as she was when she met me. It didn’t bother me. There were a lot of people who were more worried when they met a man than a woman. Especially one as small and gentle as Echo.“Hi, my name is Echo.”“I’m Dolly.”“It’s nice to meet you. I’m going to help Rhett move everything over to the new house. We’re going to move you last. There are still workers there and we want to keep you a secret, so you’re safe, okay?” Echo said.“What’s a secret?”Echo straightened and blinked. “So that’s what that feels like. A secret is something you only share with people you trust and no one else.”“I’m going to be shared? I want to stay with Papa Rhett.”Carmen picked up Dolly’s hand, drawing her attention to her. “You, personally, aren’t the secret. The fact that you are here and you exist is the secret. It won’t be the case forever, but for now, we don’t want anyone to know about you. It’s so you can be safe.”“But I get to stay with Papa Rhett,” Dolly said.“You get to stay with him,” Echo assured her.Dolly looked at Carmen and me. I nodded at her. I didn’t know what their plans were, but if everyone else was saying she could stay with him, then I would say it, too.Rhett came into the room and Dolly lit up. The change wasn’t lost on Echo. Dolly lit up every time she saw him. Like a little kid when they got to see their parent. It was obvious that he made her feel cared for and protected.“We’ll stay in here with Dolly while you get things moved,” I told them as Echo got off the floor.“Thank you for taking care of her today,” Rhett said before turning to leave.Dolly’s face fell when she realized he was leaving. I grabbed his wrist. He stopped and turned to me with a deadly look on his face. I let go of him.“Give her a hug or something. She misses you and that’s what dads do,” I whispered as quietly as I could.Rhett’s face relaxed, and he went to the bed to hug Dolly. It looked awkward. I wondered if he had hugged her before. Maybe I overstepped a little. She just looked like she needed a hug.When he pulled away, she looked thrilled, and I could see him melt a little. He put his hand on top of her head and ruffled her hair.“I’ll get us pizza for dinner tonight. A special celebration of our new home, okay?”“Is pizza good?” Dolly asked.“I think so. I have had frozen ones, and they were okay. We’ll have fresh ones, though. I know exactly where to get some,” Rhett replied with a thoughtful look on his face.“Pizza is very good, Dolly. I’ll call an order in to the pizza place in the pack lands and I’ll pay for it,” Echo told Rhett. “You can go pick it up before Carmen, Austin, and Rock leave. I’ll make sure they include drinks and a dessert.”“Something with cinnamon. She likes cinnamon,” I said.Rhett looked at me with an expression that made me a little nervous. He schooled his face and nodded. Echo nodded, too.“Spencer said Rhett will be more possessive of Dolly than a normal parent. He doesn’t like that someone other than him learned something about her. You’re fine, Austin. We’ll go get that done,” she said.I moved back to where I’d been sitting while they headed back to the living room. Echo closed the door behind her. I looked over at Carmen.‘Should we be worried about that? He’s not like an obsessed ex-pack who’s gonna try to raise her to be his mate, right?’ I asked her in our link.She was quiet for a little while. ‘I don’t know. Their feelings for each other are weird right now. I think we’ll have to wait and see how things settle. I don’t get that feeling from him. We’ll be here to make sure he doesn’t do something that creepy.’I nodded. I didn’t know much about him, but if Carmen thought he wouldn’t, then I wouldn’t worry about it. We went back to telling Dolly stories until it was time to get the bedroom stuff moved to the new place.