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“So, what are we supposed to be hunting again?” Stiles asked, looking lazily over from the passenger side to where Peter was cruising through the streets of Beacon Hills on their way out to the Preserve.
“Well, I thought you knew, considering Scott is apparently your best friend.” Peter shoots him a skeptical look.
“Don’t give me that face, Creeper, he just told me to go with you to check something out. Put the eyebrows away.” He rolls his eyes and Peter chuckles.
“There’s a couple of minor reports from hikers saying they’ve been finding slaughtered animals in the middle of the trails, Scott thinks it might be someone warding people away from their hideout. He probably thinks it’ll be a good chance for you to practice using your magic.” The last part is said with thinly-vieled distaste.
“Something tells me you don’t agree.”
“When do I ever agree?” Peter scoffs. “But, you’re right; something about this feels off.”
“Typical day in Beacon Hills!” Stiles quips, but as they cross the threshold into the Preserve a sense of unease settles in his stomach.
All is quiet when they reach the first hiking trail. They’d abandoned Peter’s little sports convertible back at the entrance and had picked their way through the thickening trees and underbrush until they got to a narrow dirt trail that, according to Peter, smell like old blood and rot. Sure enough, a little ways off the path they found the corpse of a deer, probably around two days old, decaying and surrounded by hundreds of flies.
“This is so gross, why the hell would someone do this? The damn thing looks like a bite was taken out of it.”
Peter, who’d turned away from the stench to survey the rest of the woods, whips back around. “Did you say a bite?”
“Yeah, why?”
A frantic look overtakes his features, entire demeanour changing from bored disgust to tense apprehension in a split second. “I knew something was wrong,” he growls frustratedly to himself. “Stiles you need to get out of here, now.” Peter reaches to grab Stiles by the shoulder and drag him away from the deer.
Stiles resists. “What? Why?”
“Stiles! Don’t argue with me, we need to go-”
There’s a roar from behind them and then something dark and quick bursts onto the trail.
An alpha, they both realise, far too late.
Peter has already shifted, blue eyes blazing and crouching protectively in front of Stiles. He roars back as the alpha charges, the thirst for blood writ clearly across his face.
They collide and the alpha throws Peter aside but not before Peter can dig his claws into the man’s side and rake them across his abdomen. He’s slammed against the nearest tree with a loud thud accompanied by the creaking and cracking of the wood as it strains under the force.
Red eyes turn themselves on Stiles. He dashes away from the alpha and his lungs burn with the rate of his panting as he stumbles over roots in his haste to get away. There’s a moment where he almost thinks he’s done it when the scenery is racing past him as runs faster than he ever thought possible through the forest, but then he feels searing hot pain in five jagged lines down his back as the alpha catches him. He falls to the ground, writhing in pain as his wounds weep red hot blood with every agonising breath in.
He’s going to die.
Stiles can feel the heavy weight of the alpha standing above him, slathering over his next kill. He squeezes his eyes shut, breaths coming in shallow bursts, and braces himself for the alpha to finish him off.
Only, that’s not what happens.
Peter comes up behind the alpha, able to catch him unawares, and slices his throat in one concise move.
The rush of alpha power is sticky-sweet as he revels in the feeling of invincibility for the first time in years. A pained whimper to his left distracts him though, and he looks to see Stiles, bleeding, pale, and almost certainly dying. His back is a mess, the skin torn and hanging off in shreds.
“Stiles,” Peter manages to gruff around his fangs. The decision is the work of a moment: If he doesn’t bite him, Stiles dies; if he does bite him, Stiles might live.
Peter attempts to soothe Stiles as much as he can, but he knows there isn’t much time - he can only hope Stiles will forgive him if he survives. He sinks his teeth quickly into Stiles’ shoulder.
Stiles lets out another groan and passes out.
When Stiles can open his eyes again, he’s shocked to find himself staring up at a ceiling and laying on something soft. He doesn’t recognise the room at all and for a second he thinks he really has died, but then he feels a twinge in his back and thinks he can’t possibly be in heaven if he’s still in pain.
His suspicions are confirmed when not a minute later he hears what he thinks is a door opening, and a person comes in to sit beside what he imagines is probably a bed. A very large, very comfortable bed that absolutely cannot be his.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
He knows that voice.
Chancing a glance over to his right, he frowns as he sees the ever-smug face of Peter Hale sitting nonchalantly in a conveniently placed armchair as if having half-dead teenagers waking up alone and confused in his bed is somehow an everyday occurrence. For all Stiles knows at this point, it might be.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I almost died,” he grumbles, voice thick with disuse.
“Yes, but you didn’t die, as you’re hopefully now aware. What do you remember?”
Stiles thinks for a minute. “Not much… we went out to check something in the Preserve, there was a deer I think? And, and- Oh shit.” It clicks as he remembers the alpha that attacked them, and the claws being dragged down his back. “How the freakin’ hell am I on my back!” He shouts as he goes to roll over, only to find that moving is actually more painful than just lying down.
“You healed. That’s what wolves do; the new skin is just a bit tight.” Peter explains.
“You said ‘wolves’.”
“I did.” Peter grins and flashes red eyes at him.
“You turned me, you bastard!” Stiles wrenches himself up into a sitting position and immediately regrets it when the skin of his back contorts with the movement.
“Stiles,” Peter levels him with a serious look and suddenly all of Stiles anger fades away. “I either bit you, or you died. So forgive me for choosing the option that kept us together,” he sneers, but Stiles hears what he doesn’t say.
His eyes soften as Peter looks down, unable to meet his gaze again.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
Peter shrugs in an unfamiliar gesture of vague avoidance. “Whatever.” He stands to leave.
“Wait!” Stiles calls after him. He stops in his tracks but doesn’t turn back around, waiting for Stiles to continue. “Thank you, Alpha.”
Some of the tension leaks out of Peter’s shoulders. “I’ll be back soon,” he murmurs and continues out the door.