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“Stiles..?”
The fear in Lydia’s voice was plain, unadorned with hysterics or attitude. It was just fear, creeping up, vibrating up and out of her throat. Stiles turned to gaze again on the circle, heart skipping once. A familiar coolness swept across his brows and through his sinuses; the witch eyes. Deaton had said that the coolness would persist for a long while, until his body became more accustomed to pulling in and pushing out earthly energies.
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” he looked around, face blank and serious, before licking his lips. His nerves were biting at him, screaming for him to run.
She nodded, exchanging looks with Erica and Isaac. Stiles nodded, too. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I can’t… control all of this yet. So promise me you’ll stay back.”
Her eyebrow quirked upward, admonishing even in the face of terror. “What about Derek?”
“I guess he’ll just have to take his chances.”
She was already standing, grouping with Erica and Isaac and Boyd and their defensive line alongside the crumbled half wall of Derek’s gutted home. They had to keep her safe; there was no telling what the Fortune Group would do if they caught her now.
Above, here were dark clouds hurling themselves together with gathering purpose. He heard Isaac murmuring, “Chances with what?”
And Erica, just over the low rumble of thunder, “Oh, you know, darkness, torrential rain, and lightning.”
Stiles felt the earth shift beneath his feet, warning him of their approach; he felt the air spark around his neck and fingertips. Fear scraped up and down his back, trying to pull him from the chill in his eyes and the rush of energy he felt building in his solar plexus. And he felt himself praying that Derek would take his chances, because, gazing into the woods, where pinpricks of guiding light began to form, he knew he’d need all the help he could get.
Exhaling, he pushed his feet into the ground, dropping out of his normal, human existence with a rush.
Later, he would only remember flashes, as if illuminated by the return fire of lightning bolts: Lydia screaming, Derek slamming through wave after wave of archaic-looking soldiers, Boyd’s endless warning growls, and the taste of something heady and strong in the background noise of his aching body. A coppery, biting reminder of power, and how easily it had pinballed through him, unerring and possessive.
Later, he would remember wanting more.