Chapter Text
They run through the woods.
Malia’s fastest. Her feet are swift and light and it’s at times like these that Isaac remembers what Allison said about coyotes.
They tiptoe.
Now isn’t the time for tiptoeing. Now Malia and Isaac are running, feet pounding on the ground in time with their heart beats, the earth hard and cold beneath them. Malia’s fastest. It’s to be expected considering she used to live in the woods as a coyote. She ducks and weaves through the trees on instinct, and it’s all Isaac can do to keep up with her.
The trees end suddenly and the pair erupt out onto the tarmac of the road, frantic and wide-eyed. Malia spins around, head tilted in a way which suggests she is scenting the air.
“Where is she?” Malia is frantic. She paces several steps up the road and then turns, heading back the other direction. Her hair is loose, cascading over her shoulders in disarray. “Isaac!” Malia calls his name as if it makes their next move any clearer, “Isaac, what now?”
“I don’t know!” he looks both ways up the road, the sky dark above them, except for the moon which hangs, nearly full and illuminating the country road.
A howl rings through the air and both the werewolf and werecoyote whirl around to face the woods. Isaac’s eyes are golden while Malia’s burn blue. “We’ve got to go,” the coyote is getting antsy, backing away from the sound, “Isaac,” she whines.
“Just a little bit…” his teeth are gritted, and so it’s noticeable when he relaxes his muscles at the roar of an engine. A light flares around the road as the motorbike pulls up towards them. A woman kicks down a stand, sliding one leg over the bike and turning almost immediately to the limp body behind her.
“Hey!” Isaac feels a growl well in his throat as the woman on the motorbike makes a move towards her unconscious passenger, “Don’t touch her!”
The woman looks annoyed, hair windswept around her tanned skin, “Do you want my assistance or not?” she snaps, just as another howl sweeps through the chilled air.
Or maybe it’s not cold. Isaac’s sweating after all, but he’s terrified. He’s terrified and he’s being hunted. Cold shivers make his teeth chatter and he and Malia together grab hold of the unconscious passenger. Blonde hair slides out of her face and Isaac takes a moment to brush a strand out of her eyes.
“It will be okay, Erica,” he breathes to his friend. His pack mate, “We’re going to get you to Scott. To Derek.”
“To Stiles,” Malia adds, and Isaac just glares at her. Nonetheless the pair hoist Erica’s unconscious body between them, draping her arms around their shoulders and starting off down the road.
“Wait, wait…” Isaac pauses, turning to look at the woman who had shown up out of nowhere to rescue them. There is gunpowder clinging to her hands and she stinks of blood, “What about you?”
She shakes her hair out of her face with a laugh, “I’ll hold them off,” she says, “You go! Run!” she turns back, pumping her shotgun and grinning as she turns to the woods, “Come on!” she shouts, and Isaac stumbles backwards.
“Let’s go!” Malia’s self-preservation skills aren’t letting her stay much longer, “Isaac!”
He tears his gaze away from the woman who had rescued them, and together he and Malia begin limping along the road, half-carrying, half dragging Erica between them. He hears howls and snarls as their hunters descend towards the mercenary.
Isaac doesn’t look back.
The full moon is approaching. It’s a time of stress for all of them. Scott and Allison may not be dating anymore and things are sort of awkward between them, but Scott knows he can still control his shift when he needs to. Stiles is fine as long as his dad is around, and John Stilinski tends to make a habit now of taking the full moon nights off to spend the time with his son. Recently added to that is their adopted coyote.
Malia hates full moons. Stiles has managed to teach her tenuous control, but it’s still a work in progress. She had managed to control her shift last month, but due to her having a tendency to lash out, she had been forced to remain in handcuffs for the whole night and day leading up to the full moon.
Lydia had been a big help. “I thought you were done with supernatural creatures?” Stiles had joked, and Lydia had thrown the nearest available object at him. She was still against using her lake house, since her mother was beginning to worry about her spending lots of time down there, but considering the alternative was Derek’s ruined house, there sometimes weren’t a lot of options.
Isaac was insistent that Derek had an actual building of his own now, but their sporadic texts and phone calls to the other wolf meant they hadn’t actually been there yet.
“Stop worrying!” Stiles punches Scott’s shoulder, appearing from behind him. Scott’s perched on a bank, looking out over the forest. “Everything’s quiet tonight,” Stiles says, cheerfully, “The border looks fine.”
“We’re not actual wolves you know,” Scott stands with a sigh, rubbing his hands together as if cold. He’s not - he’s a werewolf - but it’s the thought that counts. “We don’t need to patrol our territory.”
Stiles shrugs, “We both know it’s not about patrolling territory, as much as keeping an eye out for Erica or Boyd. Or…” he stops, chewing his lip, “Derek said there were alphas in town, right?” his voice is hesitant, “Well where are they? It’s been… it’s been four months. They - what? Kidnapped Erica and Boyd and then didn’t even ask for a ransom? That… that’s not what people do.”
“But they’re not people,” Scott reminds his friend as they begin picking their way back through the forest towards the cars, “They’re werewolves. Alpha werewolves. And if you were arriving in a new area wouldn’t you scope it out for a while? Stay low? Let your enemy worry and waste energy by staying on guard all the time?”
His friend snorts, “On guard,” he mocks, “We had a nice peaceful summer. Allison spent most of it in France and the few times I could drag Lydia away from Danny or the shops, we did nothing productive.” His grin is wide, “It was wonderful.”
Scott pouts.
“And you might not have got your tattoo,” Stiles pats Scott’s shoulder, making sure to pat the area that only a few hours before had been burned and scarred with ink for about thirty minutes, before healing. Stiles probably does it on purpose. Asshole. “But it was an ugly thing and I hated it,” Stiles may look like he’s appearing sympathetic, but Scott knows he’s just attempting to hide glee.
Scott glares at him and Stiles sighs, spinning towards the road with a flourish. His best friend is a jerk.
That doesn’t change the fact that they’d still die for each other in an instant.
“Where’s Malia?”
“Isaac was helping her with geography or something,” Allison hums, “And then they were probably going to look through the town again.”
Lydia leans against the door of the car, turning to look at where Allison sits in the passenger seat, a book and a flask of hot chocolate balanced in her lap. “They’ve look through the town about - how many times now? Twenty-four? Do they really think they’re going to find anything now?”
Allison sighs, dropping her head from the economics book she had been reading, “The moment we stop searching is the moment we may as well give Erica and Boyd up as dead,” she says.
Lydia idly twirls a strand of hair around her one finger, and she glances down at the text book. She wrinkles her nose, “Studying, Allison? Really? I thought this was meant to be a night out.”
“Really? You’re going to go there? How’s Jackson?”
Lydia winces, “The doctors looked like total idiots when he turned up alive,” she sighs, “He ran off to London as soon as Derek taught him the werewolf 101.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Have you seen him since?”
“No,” Lydia’s voice is like a taunt string, “But, whatever. He left. And seriously, an American werewolf in London? Like, that's not gonna be a disaster,” she rolls her eyes. Her tone is dismissive, but there is tension underneath it. Lydia is going to miss Jackson. She loves him still but she's not the same girl she was two months ago. She's more somewhat.
And sometime (in a few months once she's lost the urge to Molotov him again) she and Allison will pay Peter Hale a visit to learn about her immunity.
She notices Allison’s worry, “I’m fine,” she stresses, “To be honest, I’ve enjoyed it. I can see why you went so long in France without dating - it’s… kind of relaxing. Boring… but relaxing. This double date makes a nice change.”
Allison determinedly looks back at her book and begins reading, “It’s not a double date,” she says, without looking up, “Because Scott and I aren’t dating. And I don’t want to date Stiles.”
“What’s wrong with Stiles?” Lydia says, and Allison looks up because Lydia replied far too-quickly.
“Nothing,” she leans back in her seat, “I just respect him too much to want to date him.” She grins at Lydia’s puzzled frown, “He’s a friend, dumbass,” Allison teases her gently, “Anyway, all things considered it’s probably better than I’m not dating him. I mean… my aunt…” she coughs before she can finish her sentence, “…my aunt tried to kill him,” she says instead because it sounds better than ‘my aunt tortured him’. “And,” she adds, “I stabbed him with daggers.”
The strawberry-blonde just shrugs, “So you have your issues,” she lauds, “What about Isaac?”
Allison’s head snaps up, and she is about to open her mouth to indignantly protest Lydia’s attempts to pair her up with a boyfriend, when her eyes focus suddenly on the gloomy road in front of her. She spots the shape and she squints to see it better, seconds before it slams straight into the car.
Her hands fly to her face as glass shatters and a scream escapes from her throat. Her hot chocolate spills to the floor, but that’s the least of her worries. Lydia is flinching back, and Allison practically throws herself out of the car and onto the tarmac.
“Oh my god!” Lydia is saying over and over, “Oh my…”
Allison’s heart is racing and she staggers backwards, gaze fixed on the large body of the deer, its head still stabbed through the car windscreen. She steps around, spotting the blood welling up. “What the hell?” she whispers, “It didn’t even swerve…”
There is the sound of pounding footsteps and Stiles and Scott crash out of the woods, eyes glowing. Stiles is faster by a good several metres, and he skids to a halt, glancing between the girls, “Are you okay? What happened - we heard screams…”
“The deer,” Lydia’s tone borders on hysterical, “It just came out of nowhere…”
“It went straight through the windshield,” Allison adds. Stiles’ nostrils flare as if he’s scenting her. He probably is, and judging she seems okay he turns towards Lydia. The strawberry blonde meets his gaze as if his help is unwelcome for a few seconds, before slumping, going limp against him as she allows the blue-eyed wolf to check her over.
Allison blinks and Scott is there, hovering in front of her. “Are you okay?” his brown eyes bore into hers and Allison just wants to sink into them.
She holds herself back, “I’m fine. Just startled… I… the deer didn’t even swerve. It was running like it couldn’t even see us…”
“Like it was scared…” Stiles whispers, “Terrified. It was running from something.”
“Maybe we spooked it?" Scott offers.
“Or maybe there are other wolves.” Lydia suggests darkly, and in the night there are distant howls.
“Yeah,” Scott gazes into the distance, “Probably.”
It’s Lydia’s car, but Allison can still yank open the trunk and pull out a bow. Their friendship is on that level. “Well?” she glances between the wolves and Lydia, “Are we going?”
Scott looks apprehensive, but Lydia looks determined. Stiles grins, “Hell, yeah.”
“Are we nearly there?” Malia has no sense of direction, and Isaac peers ahead of them, up the road. He can see lights that may or may not be where the rest of their friends have parked.
“We better be,” he says, feeling Erica’s cold fingers against his neck. He hoists her up and walks a little faster.
“She weighs a tonne,” Malia grumbles.
“Hey!” Isaac chides. Erica is his friend so he is indignant on her behalf, “She’s just dead weight at the moment.”
“If she is dead when we get there,” Malia spits out, “After all this carrying, I am going to kill her and eat her.” She’s barely finished her sentence than a dark shape appears through the gloom of the night, eyes blue. Isaac almost trips over himself in alarm, but Malia relaxes.
“Stiles!” she says, and Erica almost drops off her shoulder before the coyote rescues her. Behind the blue-eyed wolf gold eyes flare and Scott jogs into view, “Scott!” Malia’s tone notably dims in enthusiasm, “We found Erica.”
“I know we say we like some meat to eat, but this is taking it to a whole new level,” Stiles hurries forwards to help them with the weight, “What the hell happened? Where was she? Did you find Boyd?”
It’s a sea of questions Isaac is swimming in. He lets Scott take Erica’s weight from him gratefully, stumbling to the side as Allison and Lydia appear, both breathing heavily.
“Oh my god,” Allison’s hand flies to her mouth, “Did you find the alphas?”
“Yes,” Malia answers, eyes wide, “They almost killed Erica. And then this woman appeared with a gun and...”
“She helped us!” Isaac blurts out, “She took Erica on her bike while we ran. Once out of town she gave us Erica and stayed behind to hold them off!”
“Is she dead?” Stiles was looking with worry at the blonde, “Holy - I can’t hear - can you hear her heartbeat? I can’t hear a thing, not with the moon this close to full…”
“She’s alive!” Scott whispers, “We need to get her to Derek.”
Stiles makes an abortive flailing motion for his car keys, “Get her to the jeep?”
Allison scoffs, “Really? We’re not throwing her in the back seat, Stiles.”
“So what, we go in yours which still has the body of a deer draped across the front bonnet?” Stiles scoffs, “Look - it’s my car or no car,” he jangles the keys, “Take your pick.”
It’s not his alarm that wakes him.
That’s what he’s expecting. That’s what is going to ruin the end of Stiles’ holiday; a loud beeping dragging him from sleep.
Instead it’s the quiet creak of his window opening and the soft groan of wood as someone moves closer, fingers brushing over the glass.
Stiles moves in an instant - a single surge of motion throwing off his duvet and spinning around, his eyes glowing blue and his fangs bared and…
He relaxes back down when he suddenly realises who it is. Malia freezes there, looking alarmed at his reaction. He sinks back down onto his bed, thinking that he’s getting rusty. His senses are normally better than that, but then again he’s in his own home and he can hear his dad slumbering a few rooms over, his heart beat quiet and rhythmic in his head.
“Don’t do that,” he scolds Malia, even as he gestures for her to come in. Without hesitating she pushes his window open and slides through, feet padding lightly on his carpet as she makes her way over to the end of his bed and curls up there. Stiles remembers when she used to sleep there as a coyote. She doesn’t fit there now, but she sits cross-legged and hunches her weight to keep her anchored down, “We’ve been through this,” he tells her, patiently, “We don’t use the window. We use doors.”
She pulls a funny little face at that, as she tries to understand it, “But doors…”
“Are totally unnecessary and unwieldy and it hurts way more than it should when you try to knock it off its hinge with your shoulder, but they are something you are going to have to get used to.”
“Like cutlery?”
“People have standards. And most people don’t like you using your fingers at the table. Unless it’s fries.”
She pouts at him.
He sighs, “What are you doing here anyway? It’s…” he peers over to look at the clock, “One o’clock in the morning. We have school tomorrow…” and Stiles actually wants to get some sleep before the new term. That’s going to be hard enough as it is without worrying about alpha packs roaming Beacon Hills, but at least Erica is safely at the hospital. Stiles downright refused to just leave her with Derek because that guy was honestly a black pit of unhelpful at the best of times.
Melissa was going to phone later with an update. Derek had been moping around the hospital when Stiles had left with the girls. He’d apparently been the go-to driver with Lydia’s car out of commission.
“Why…” Stiles sighs, when Malia makes no effort to leave his room, “Why do I even bother dropping you at your house when all you do is come straight here?” He shifts over, thinking sometime him and Malia need to have a proper conversation about her dad.
Now isn’t the time though.
“We need to find the girl,” Malia says.
“What girl?”
“The girl who helped us.”
Stiles squints a little at the coyote before he realises what she’s talking about, “You mean the girl who helped you escape from the alphas? The one with the motorbike and gun who kicked the alphas’ asses and could potentially be dangerous?”
Malia doesn’t understand sarcasm, “Yeah,” she nods her head eagerly.
“Mal, it’s the middle of the night.” She doesn’t appear to get his point so he elaborates, “We have school in the morning. We’ll look tomorrow, okay? I’m sure the girl will be fine.”
“I don’t even like school.”
“You’ve spent the whole holidays practising just so you can be in the same grade as us,” Stiles reminds her, “Not only that but I don’t want to be out tonight. Not with alphas around.” The coyote still looks like she wants to argue, so he shuffles to one side, pulling his covers back so she can lie down beside him, “Besides, I’m tired,” he says, “Go to sleep.”
“Fine,” Malia agrees, petulantly, like a sulking child. Despite that she settles down next to him but not before extracting a promise from him, “But we go out tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” he agrees, “Now go to sleep.”
“Can I…?”
“You can sleep here,” Stiles says. He doesn’t know why Malia seems to be such a social person, especially since coyotes tend not to be social, but the girl has apparently attached herself to him. He used to find it awkward, back when he still woke up screaming from nightmares, but the longer she’s been around and the more he’s gotten used to her; the less times he wakes up with thoughts of PeterKateAlpha running through his head.
She settles down next to him and instinctively he curls into the warm body, relaxing and trying not to think of himself like a dog, curling up against his pack mate.
He’s a werewolf, dammit. He should probably start acting like it.
“Hmmm, not bad,” Lydia says critically as another guy walks down the school corridor past them, “I’d give him at least a seven out of ten.”
“Lydia,” Allison hisses, hiding her face in her locker and thinking that she’s going to die from embarrassment, “They’re fourteen,” she hisses, because, hello, jailbait.
“Hmm,” Lydia frowns, “I thought they looked older.”
Further down the corridor, Scott is staring at Allison. He must have made it too obvious or something, because Stiles clears his throat and glances pointedly between them. “You managed the whole summer,” Stiles says, “You even got a tattoo to celebrate the lack of pining.”
“I did not pine,” Scott says, pointedly. He rubs at his arm though, still feeling like the pain, the mark should still be there.
“No,” Stiles’ voice is dripping with sarcasm, “You were the picture of manly composure and never one made me suffer through your love poetry.”
“It's weird, because she's right there. But we're not together and…”
"Is it freeing?"
Scott frowns, and he thinks he probably looks like he’s constipated. It’s hard to put his feelings into word. "It hurts," he says, "But it… I kind of like it?" Judging by Stiles’ expression his friend doesn’t understand it. But then again Stiles’ dating experience is a bit limited, considering the only girl he’s ever kissed was Lydia and that was only due to some freaky power play between them that Scott never quite understood.
There is a confused voice from down the hall and for a moment Scott and Stiles pause, heads angled towards where their new principal is checking out his office.
“Someone needs to fix up the library, it’s like a pack of wild animals got in. Not to mention the swimming pool and… what is this…?”
The pair pause, just in time to see a large broadsword being tugged out of a desk drawer. Exchanging a pair of awkwardly glances, Stiles shoves Scott away from the open office, “Hey,” his best friend says, “At least Gerard’s gone.”
“We don’t know where,” Scott complains, moodily, “You know I really thought it was going to be better this term. A fresh start.”
Stiles laughs, and there is a note of bitterness to his voice that still makes Scott flinch, thinking about Peter and Stiles with blue eyes and bloody claws and -- “You don’t need to start a new term at school to make a fresh start,” Stiles shakes his head.
"But it's not just me. It's Allison, Lydia…"
Stiles snorts, and Scott turns to look at him, "You didn't hear?" Scott asks, "Jackson went to London?"
"Really?" Stiles' interest perks for a moment, and then he dismisses it, "Nah."
"What do you mean: 'nah'?"
"That's because Jackson is like a venereal disease. Just when you think he's gone, he comes raging back. We're never going to get rid of him."
"Well, I think we might have actually succeeded this time," Scott shares.
Now Stiles just looks slightly sympathetic, "I guess the kanima thing was too much, huh? Well at least he’s out of our hair. Now we can kick back, relax and concentrate solely on these alphas and… why do you look like that?”
Scott tries not to look guiltily at the floor, “I may need my grades to improve,” he sighs, “And I can’t do that with all this… stuff… interfering with my life.”
“Well,” Stiles pats Scott’s shoulder in what is supposed to be reassuring, but just turns out to be slightly awkward, so Stiles stops after only two pats. “I’ll tell you one thing - Allison tracked down Gerard. He’s in a hospice just out of Beacon Hills. Ironically I think that may be the same place Peter stayed in. I may be wrong.” Scott is watching Stiles’ face frowning in confusion, so he sees the moment something changes. Stiles’ head snaps up, eyes narrowing.
Scott has to wait those precious few more seconds before it comes into his hearing. Fresh heart beats entering the building don’t immediately send up warning signals, but then he angles his head and all he smells is wolf.
“Oh no,” Stiles whispers, eyes flaring blue. Scott glares at him, and Stiles ducks his head, blinking them back to brown, gaze flickering up to the end of the corridor.
Scott turns, taking in the pair walking forwards. Twins. They look older than school age, but walk down the corridors as if they own the place. Lydia leans back against her locker to admire them, but then Scott meets Allison’s gaze and he watches Lydia’s smug grin fade.
The new arrivals are werewolves.
And they’re not just any werewolves.
They’re alphas.