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“Are you sure you don’t need me to come, Laura?”
Laura smiled gently at her younger brother. Derek was normally a pretty independent werewolf, but he became slightly clingy whenever she had to travel away for any sort of alpha business. They were pretty much the only family either of them had left since the fire.
“Alpha business” rarely happened, luckily, ever since the two of them had moved to New York to try and get away from all the bad memories. Since they weren’t living in their own territory anymore, they weren‘t really an active pack. One of the New York packs permitted the two siblings to live safely in their own territory as long as they didn’t try to take over, but occasionally, Laura‘s presence was required at some meetings as another alpha.
Now it was one of those few times. But this time, she was returning to their family‘s old territory in California.
She didn’t tell the specifics to Derek so he wouldn‘t worry more than he normally did when she was away, but she’d found out about a spiral being burned onto a dead deer in their old town of Beacon Hills. It was the werewolf symbol for revenge, and she needed to know what it meant and who it was a message for.
“I‘ll be fine, Derek,” she told him gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t be gone long. I’ll probably be back in less than a week.”
Derek hugged her tightly and buried his face in her neck, despite the fact that he was now taller than her. She smiled fondly as he began scenting her. She turned toward her brother’s exposed neck as well and breathed in his scent as well, feeling a sense of contentment and pack as their combined scents washed over her. From the scents wafting off of him, she could tell that her brother felt the same way.
“You promise, Laura?” Derek’s voice was so soft, she might not have heard it if she didn‘t have enhanced senses.
“I promise.” She kissed Derek on the cheek, then picked up her suitcase and left their apartment to go hail a cab to the airport. “Love you, Der-bear!” she shouted as she pressed the button for the elevator.
“Don’t call me that, Laura!”
She chuckled at her brother’s whining as she stepped into the elevator. He was such fun to tease.
**********
She was back in Beacon Hills by that afternoon. Finally being back in her family’s territory - her territory - filled her with purpose. Her alpha instincts made her want to check out the town and the preserve and make sure that it was all still okay after all these years. She wasn’t expecting to feel this way upon her return. A wave of guilt washed over her not for the first time that maybe she and Derek never should have left.
She could tell that no other alphas dared to take the Hale pack’s territory while she was gone. Her mother had been one of the most respected alphas in California, so that probably had a lot to do with it. But she knew that someday, some pack or alpha was going to try to take Beacon Hills for themselves. Laura realized that she didn’t want that to happen.
Despite the fact that no other packs were present, Laura was on high alert that evening as she felt drawn to the preserve where the remains of her family’s burned down house were. If another pack wasn‘t here, perhaps hunters had left the deer in the hopes that she would return. She growled softly. A hunter was the one who had set the fire that killed her family, and she would make sure that no hunter would ever harm another Hale for as long as she lived.
She continued to slip soundlessly through the preserve, the trees still so familiar to her despite not being here for so long. As she neared the remains of the Hale house, she saw a figure in a robe standing with its back toward her, most likely a male judging by the silhouette. She slowed her silent steps to observe the man. But what made her actually stop in her tracks was that the back looked very familiar…
“U…uncle Peter?” she whispered in shock. “Is that you?”
Uncle Peter, her mother’s younger brother, had been the only one who had survived the massacre of their family. But despite the fact that he was a werewolf, his body had been horrifically burned, and he’d been in a coma which the doctors hadn’t been sure he’d ever wake up from. Laura had gotten reports over the years from the hospital when she was in New York occasionally updating her on his condition, but he had never shown any sort of signs that he was coming out of it.
The figure turned around then, and Laura gasped when she saw that it really was Peter. His face was still badly scarred from the fire, though it had healed somewhat from when his body had been first pulled from the wreckage of their house. It was likely that his body had also partially healed as well. She barely had time to inwardly marvel that he had finally come out of his coma before he leaped towards her, his clawed hand only lightly scratching her cheek as she backed up in shock. She could already feel her skin knitting itself back together.
“It’s me, Laura!” she cried out as she dodged another swing. “Your niece! Don’t you recognize me?”
A growl was the only response she got as his fangs dropped and he started to half-shift, his eyes flashing blue as his sideburns grew and his clothes tearing. He lunged toward her, aiming for her throat. Laura finally let loose her own claws as she prepared to fight one of the only living relatives she had left.
She didn’t understand what was happening. Uncle Peter had always been more sneaky and underhanded than her mother and the rest of the Hales, but he had always been on the family’s side and would have protected them with everything that he had. Laura didn’t know what Peter had endured during the fire, as she and Derek hadn’t been home at the time, but hearing his family, his wife and child, dying all around him couldn’t have been good for his psyche. But was her uncle insane enough to attack one of his only family left?
Peter was clearly fighting to kill. There was no doubt about that. He kept aiming for her neck, one of the most vulnerable parts of a werewolf. But Laura was only trying to subdue. She flung his body into a tree and tried to slip through the woods unseen while he was still getting his bearings.
But Peter appeared suddenly in front of her yet again, and Laura stopped abruptly in her tracks. He slammed her into a tree behind her with one hand, his claws digging into her torso. He lifted his other hand as he prepared to swung his claws towards her neck, an attack that Laura wouldn‘t be able to dodge.
Laura feared that this might be the end. Her throat would be clawed out by her uncle, and she would be joining the rest of her family in the afterlife. Derek would be left all alone in New York with no idea what had happened to her. Would he return to Beacon Hills, too, looking for her? Would he meet the same fate as Laura?
But she couldn’t leave Derek behind. She was his alpha and he needed her. And despite the fact that he was trying to kill her, she knew that Peter needed an alpha, his alpha, too.
She remembered her mother telling her about an alpha’s roar which would make everyone of lower rank, and possibly some other alphas, submit immediately. It was the only thing she could think of to try. As Peter’s claws neared her neck, she gathered up every ounce of alpha power inside her and roared. She could feel her face transforming into her partial shift and she knew her eyes were glowing red.
Peter immediately stopped and released her, baring his neck to her in submission and flashing his blue eyes. “Alpha,” he murmured, lowering his head.
Laura was silent for a few moments, trying to catch her breath and processing the fact that the alpha roar had actually worked. Her face transformed back to human. “Uncle Peter, why?” she asked quietly.
Peter was breathing heavily from the exertion of the fight as well. “Had to…” he said.
“Why?”
“Had to become alpha,” Peter explained. “Can heal faster as an alpha. And then kill everyone who killed our family. I want revenge!” he roared out.
“Revenge won’t bring them back!” Laura shot back at him.
“Talia would have said something like that, too,” Peter mused. “But I had six years of just laying there in that coma, abandoned by my alpha,” he spat derisively. “I had to take control myself.”
Laura was horrified as she realized what Peter said was true. She’d abandoned a packmate who needed her to a long-term care hospital because she couldn’t stand being in the town where her family had died, despite it being their territory. “We… I… I didn‘t mean to,” she whispered.
Peter snorted. “Yeah, that’s why you and Derek visited me so many times in that hospital.” He shook his head. “Stupid, foolish boy,” he muttered. “Got everyone killed.”
Laura knew that Derek still believed the same thing, that it had been all his fault that Kate Argent was able to kill their family because he‘d given her information about them, thinking that she’d been in love with him. After he’d finally admitted it to her a few months after they had moved to New York, she’d worked hard trying to convince him that it wasn’t his fault, that he had been deceived, too. “It wasn’t his fault,” she told her uncle. “Kate would found some other way.”
She reached out to her uncle, but he jerked his arm away. Laura didn’t let that deter her. “Uncle Peter, I did abandon you, and for that, I’m so sorry.”
Peter looked surprised that she was admitting to that. Laura was relieved to see him listening.
“I was an alpha at eighteen, barely out of high school. I was scared because my family was dead, and my only relative who had survived the fire was in a coma, and we had no idea if you would ever come out of it. That doesn’t usually happen to werewolves, so we had no idea what was happening to you. So I just ran away with Derek. I know now that I never should have done that. I can feel the land calling to me. I wasn’t ready back then, but I think I’m ready now.” She reached out to Peter, but this time, he allowed her to touch his arm. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to make it up to you, but I want to try. It’s just the three of us now, and we should stick together like family should. I‘ll become the alpha I should have been.”
Peter stared at her for a few moments, then started chuckling. “That was a good speech, niece,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes that Laura remembered from before the fire, when Peter was the cool uncle who let them get away with things.
But then a faraway look came to his eyes. “I didn’t want you to die, Laura,” he said. His heartbeat was steady, so Laura knew that it was the truth. “All I could think of was killing an alpha, and you were the only one I could think of. I… I just wanted to make them pay. Make them all pay. That‘s all I could think of for years.” His head bowed forward and his voice took on a watery tone. “My sister and her family. My wife. My child. They didn’t deserve this…” A sob came from the man as his shoulders shook
Laura immediately wrapped her arms around Peter as tears streamed down her cheeks as well. “None of them did,” she whispered back. She could feel the pack bond with Peter growing stronger as she gently scented. He smelled of smoke, sadness, and regret, but underneath it all, he smelled like pack and family.
The two separated, and Laura could see Peter’s burns looked a little better. “I won’t leave again, I promise,” she vowed. “I’m going to call Derek, and we’re all going to be together again. We’re going to stick together like a family should.”
Peter grinned. “I like the sound of family.”
“Me, too.” A thought occurred to Laura. “Were you the one who burned the spiral on the deer? How long have you been awake?”
“Well,” Peter drawled, looking embarrassed. “A nurse at the hospital helped me. She burned the deer for me and she helped me get out.”
“She doesn’t know about us, does she?” Laura quirked an eyebrow, shooting Peter a stern look.
Peter’s response was to whistle innocently. Laura didn’t buy it for an instant. “Well, we’ll worry about that later,” she said, waving her hand. “For now, I’m going to my hotel and calling Derek to return here as well. Do you need to get back to the hospital, Uncle Peter?”
“I suppose,” he shrugged in response. “They’ll be missing me, I’m sure. I’ll have you know I was quite popular with the nurses, even in a coma.”
Laura laughed. Now that sounded more like the Uncle Peter that she knew and loved.
**********
Laura sighed in relief as she sat on her hotel bed. It was all over with no blood being shed and the living Hales were unified once again. She mentally vowed to become the sort of alpha that her mother had been, now that they were back on their own land.
She grabbed her phone and called Derek, who she knew that, despite the fact that it was about 4am in New York, he was probably anxious with his alpha and sister away.
“Laura?” came her brother’s sleepy yet anxious voice. “Is everything okay?”
Laura smiled. “Everything is perfect, Derek. Our uncle is awake and healing.”
She could hear rustling as she pictured Derek sitting up in bed. “Uncle Peter‘s awake?” he asked, sounding a little more alert.
“Yes,” Laura said. “Now pack up whatever is absolutely necessary and come back home. The Hale pack is returning to Beacon Hills.”