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There was something different about this one. It was all Derek could think as they took advantage of darkness and heavy rain over D.C. and orchestrated the grab while the target was blinded by the low cover of his umbrella. Still, with such a trained target, there was more struggle than normal and Derek chopped up his uneasy feeling to the delay and not the firm hit against the man’s cheek that finally subdued him long enough to use the chloroform and then get him into the trunk of the Camaro.
Derek did his part begrudgingly, serving as the transporter, traversing the busy streets of the capital and getting to the abandoned train station an hour outside of the city in half that time, long before the others arrived in the back up van.
The train station was underground, and the stale scent of the decrepit place hit Derek in the face the moment he stepped into it. The platform that stretched out a couple hundred feet from the entrance was lit only by a few dim strip lights hung overhead and work lamps scattered on the grimy floor, leaving some corners of the place and the empty tunnel in pitch darkness. There was a small ticket agent office on one end and inoperable restrooms on the other, nearly every wall surface covered in garish graffiti.
The target was still out when they left him in the single empty train car left askew on the tracks, the sides lined with cloudy windows and the insides mostly gutted except for a couple rows of dirty seats and a few metal poles that were bolted to the floor and ceiling. He was blindfolded with his wrists tied around the pole furthest from the door. For extra security, they put him in handcuffs and a couple zip ties.
Derek guessed he was in his late twenties, buzz cut with several days of unkempt scruff across his mouth and jaw. But Derek hadn’t bothered with more than a quick glance at the case file, as slim as it was compared to usual. He knew that the target was a federal agent and had a first name that he couldn’t pronounce. He didn’t need to know anything else.
He had three rules:
- Never change the deal.
- Never reveal his name.
- Never get too close.
Those simple, failsafe rules had served him and his sister, Laura, well during all the long years it had been just the two of them. They had always done what they needed to survive after losing the rest of their family in a house fire sixteen years ago. At just sixteen and eighteen, they had been left with nothing but rage, a thirst for blood and vengeance before they left the ashes behind and fled to New York.
It had been just Derek and Laura for over ten years, until she decided to begin expanding their network. Over a couple years, she built up a team of rag tag kids from across the north east. She claimed it was to lighten their load and open them up to more lucrative endeavors. But Derek always suspected it was the innate alpha calling in her, so he hadn’t faulted her entirely, regardless of how annoying each of the betas were in their unique ways.
Isaac, sarcastic with an exhausting need for encouragement and praise, handled their tech. Boyd was the muscle and the mule, yet unnervingly quiet and surprisingly soft when it came to his mate, Erica. She was a keen researcher and tracker, quick witted and smart mouthed. And then there was Jackson, the last to join, and Derek wasn’t exactly sure what he did, outside of fixing his hair in any reflective surface and causing endless bounds of frustration. They were all dressed in black leather jackets and dark clothes, like Derek, and it was enough to give the impression that they were a real team. Though, it had been two years since Derek had actually seen them, not since Laura’s funeral.
It didn’t take him long, however, to realize that the first rule had been unceremoniously broken, and not by him. Their anonymous client was nowhere to be seen. They waited half an hour before a text message sent to Isaac’s untraceable burner phone told them to hold the package until morning. It would only be about a twelve hour delay, but it was enough of a change to put Derek and the others on edge, even as they adjusted to the new plan.
The target was knocked out for longer than intended. Boyd had to use more force than usual, and Jackson, of course, had used too much chloroform. But it gave Derek a chance to check for injuries while the others squabbled about their predicament a ways from the car. Per the plan, Derek was to be the only one to interact with him. The procedure protected the team and reduced the chances of being recognized later on.
The man looked small and vulnerable, slumped against the pole. His head was tipped to the side, chin hanging heavily against the wrinkled collar of his white button up that clung to his skin, nearly translucent from the rain. Derek kneeled down and with a careful hand, he reached out and righted it, immediately sensing the pain before he saw the physical signs of the bruise already forming under one of his cheekbones. He was also cold with a slight tremble in his bottom lip which was split at the corner, a bit of blood dried there.
As he drew the pain from him with one hand, he used the other to try to clean the area on his mouth. It was then that the man finally woke.
He stiffened, clearly trying to gather his bearings and surroundings with his limited senses. He tilted his head in Derek’s hand, against his will, Derek’s grasp tightened. It was like time stopped for a few moments until Derek forced himself to loosen his grip and the man seemed to realize that he wasn’t actually in any pain.
“Where can a guy get some dry clothes around here?”
At the sound of his voice, Derek withdrew his hand as though he had been burned. There was something off about the other’s scent. It had been masked by the rain and then the stench of the place, and still, Derek couldn’t get a full grasp on it. Nor could he trace any hint of nervousness or fear.
“You’re quite calm for someone bound and blindfolded,” Derek said lowly.
“This is my regular Saturday night,” he grinned, actually grinned, and it was so startling Derek stood to put some distance between them.
The man seemed to notice that his space was his own again and he shuffled around, as much as he could, to adjust his arms and then settled with his knees drawn close to his chest, the ankles bound together with a zip tie.
“My question still stands,” he said, “I’m freezing my tits off here. I’ll be a good abductee if you get me something dry to wear. For the sake of my boobs!”
Derek had never spared this many words with a human package before. He gathered that this one was not going to shut up easily, and his clothes were still uncomfortably damp, not helping the frigid temperature in the station. So he sighed as he shed his leather jacket. Then he tugged off his gray henley, leaving the white tank top underneath. It was better than nothing. The man’s black dress pants would have to dry naturally.
“I will release you,” Derek told him as he put his jacket back on, “but don’t do anything stupid. You’ll regret it.”
He removed the cuffs first and then popped the zip ties with two fingers, but he kept the ankles bound. The man held up his hands in surrender until Derek dropped the henley into them. When he slowly began to pull his wet shirt off, Derek realized what was going to happen a half second before it did.
But it was long enough for him to turn his back and pull on his black face masks which they had all worn during the grab. It covered his face except for his eyes. When he looked back, the blindfold had been dislodged, resting over the man’s nose in a way that could have been comical in another situation.
Their eyes met, and it was then that Derek was hit with a full breath of his scent. It was unlike anything he had ever smelled before, warm and deep, yet familiar somehow, like a place that he had been before but couldn’t quite remember exactly when. There was just something different about him, and it bothered Derek that he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Wow, what pretty eyes you have.”
Derek couldn’t wrap his head around the man’s incredibly out of place ease, nor could he find the exact name for the color of the gold and brown hue of his eyes.
“You talk too much,” he grumbled.
“So I’ve been told,” the man went on unphased as he tugged on the shirt. “It’s chronic. Even worse when I’m nervous. And this is a pretty nerve wracking situation.”
“You’re an FBI agent.”
He grinned again. “Exactly. What’s your name? It’s only fair since I’m sure you know mine.”
“Not that I can pronounce it,” Derek said as the man pulled the blindfold off entirely in a bold fashion that Derek let go after he put up no struggle when he secured the handcuffs and another zip tie back into place.
“You can call me Mischief, and I am going to call you…Miguel. How’s that? Do you do this often, Miguel?”
“Don’t make me turn that blindfold into a gag.”
Then Derek left him alone.
*
A couple hours slowly passed by, in which Derek tried and failed to drown out the noise of the others discussing how they were going to spend their pay from the job and wagering parts of it over rounds of poker, sitting around an overturned bucket on rickety folding chairs and crates they pulled out of somewhere. And it was a lot, the biggest any of them had ever been offered, an amount far too good to turn down.
He had no plans for the money, other than investing it and placing it into savings with everything Laura had left him. Between the two of them, they had several properties across the US and Europe, all of which kept a steady flow of income on top of their earnings from jobs. They had built a good life for themselves, considering much of what they did was highly illegal. But it seemed fair in the end after being failed by fraudulent insurance companies and incompetent police forces.
The incredible size of the payment didn’t seem quite worth it when Mischief began to shout and then sing about his need to use the restroom.
As irritating as it was, it was Derek’s duty. So he secured his hands in front, and then after putting the blindfold back on and issuing a sharp warning, he took one of the lamps and led him down one end of the tunnel into darkness.
“No peeking,” he said mischievously, which Derek realized should have been his birth name.
Derek turned his back to him and shook his head when he started to hum while he handled his business.
“You know, Miguel,” he said, “I keep taking my clothes off around you, this relationship is beginning to feel a little imbalanced.”
Derek rolled his eyes and then said, “I’m rolling my eyes.”
He heard the sound of a zipper up and turned toward him again to see surprise over his half covered face that still managed to be animated.
“Is that a sense of humor I detect there?”
Derek just eyed him curiously and tried to figure him out but he couldn’t. Yet there was something so familiar about him.
“Go ahead and tell me, I’m not like your other abductees,” he said in a sing-songy way as Derek nudged him back the way they came. “Please tell me you brought some Germ-X.”
*
A few more hours dragged by, with no further word from their client. So they could only wait as instructed. Derek returned to the train car on and off. Each time, Mischief tried to engage him in some kind of conversation, which ended in being mostly one sided but Derek found that neither of them minded it. He went on and on about his work schedule and overtime, the outrageous cost of things like coffee, airfare, and lube, the good kind, how one could tell the difference between a male and female betta fish, and how his father was going to be so upset when he found out he’d been kidnapped, again.
Eventually, he went back to give him some water and a protein bar from Boyd’s stash. It wasn’t his normal practice, but they needed the man to be alive and well for the hand off. Derek put his own mask back on before he removed the blindfold once again. The man seemed more excited over the snack than having his sight back.
Derek had bound him to the pole with his arms to the side so that he was slightly more comfortable and had more movement, which he knew was risky but the man was being a stand up prisoner. Plus, if he tried anything, it was him versus five werewolves.
He handed over the bottle of water and then the protein bar. But as the man’s fingers clutched at the plastic wrapper, their fingers touched. It felt like crystal lightning, ice hot and electric, and it traveled from his fingertips, up his arm, across his heart.
He flinched back and tried to shake it off, but it was to no avail. The sensation remained in his body, tingling like every one of his limbs had fallen asleep at the same time. Except his body was fully awake. And judging by the wide eyes of the man in front of him, he too felt that shock.
But he managed to recover quicker than Derek. He settled back to the floor and opened his water and snack.
“Do you have any siblings?” He mumbled with a mouthful.
On its own, it was a startling questioning. But still shaken by the touch, Derek opened his mouth before he could stop it and said, “A sister.”
Mischief smiled with a stuffed cheeks. “That’s amazing. I wish I had a sister. Or brother. I have a best friend who’s like a brother but he’s in LA.”
He paused to take a sip of water, gulping in an unattractive way. “Was she older or younger?”
That made Derek freeze. Was. Past tense.
“How do you-?”
“She was older, right?” He interrupted and set the water aside. “I bet she doted on you but also dished out tough love when you needed it.”
“What-” Derek felt breathless and the train might have suddenly been brought back to life, as the floor beneath his feet felt unstable. Mischief went on unaffected.
“I bet she was your hero. Wasn’t she? The two of you against the world. She protected you until the very end, didn’t she?”
“Stop.”
Derek rushed to the door, trying to escape. It was like a thunderstorm had settled over him, and that lightning from before had darkened and was crashing over him each millisecond.
“It wasn’t your fault, Derek.”
He came to a halt, one hand on the edge of the entrance that once held a sliding door and the metal that was once intact, now left mangled under the shape of his fist.
On top of everything, he knew for certain that he had never shared his name. He wouldn’t break that rule.
“Who are you?” He asked, though he almost didn’t want to know the answer. Everything in him was telling him to flee, even while a small part buried deep inside somehow already knew.
He turned back to face the man who looked back at him with fixated eyes, and somehow, he still didn’t look like a threat. It wasn’t him that Derek felt he needed to flee from, but the memories of his sister.
Before he could demand an answer, Jackson’s loud voice alerted his approach.
“We’re locked in!”
Derek couldn’t even process his words, before he burst into the train without his mask. His face was morphed into beta form, eyes blazing gold.
“Goddamn it!” Jackson shouted as he whirled back around. But it was too late. He had already been seen.
The other three filed in, bumping into each other as they filled the small space. Boyd was in beta form too, but it didn’t matter. Their secret was already out.
“Why did you remove the blindfold??”
Derek didn’t bother to look at the finger he knew Jackson had jammed in his direction. Instead, he watched Mischief who didn’t look surprised or scared. His silence alerted the others and they all looked over at him, waiting for any reaction.
“Oh. Sorry,” he said, then cleared his throat as he let out a low, monotoned Ahhhhhhh that lacked any true horror. “Was I not supposed to know you’re a pack of werewolves? I’m not supposed to know that this place is lined with mountain ash and it means you’re all just as trapped as I am?”
Unspeakably, Derek felt compelled to remove his own mask as well. To hell with it. They were already identified as werewolves. What did it matter?
Mischief immediately focused on his exposed face, staring in a way that made Derek feel uncomfortably hot. He could feel his wolf fighting its way to the surface, his eyes a split second from burning red. He had to look away so as not to lose control and let it out.
Truth be told, he hadn’t shifted outside of a full moon since Laura. It was a horrible struggle, like suffocating oneself over and over and over, a cruel depravity of something that was so intertwined with every fiber of his being. But the alpha power wasn’t his gift to hold. It was never meant for him, and he couldn’t bring himself to unleash it.
“You guys didn’t do your research,” the man went on, despite Derek’s internal struggle, “or you’re just plain stupid. Don’t you know who I am?”
Erica took a step forward, fearless as always, forced to be as a young girl who survived half a dozen chronic illnesses before Laura gave her the bite.
“You’re Miecyzslaw Stilinski,” she said. “A sheriff’s kid turned FBI agent who has been investigating some pretty powerful people who don’t want you snooping around anymore.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he was unperturbed, a grin taking over his face. “My name is Stiles, and I am protected by the McCall pack of Beacon Hills.”
A sinking feeling flooded Derek, simply from hearing the name of his hometown lost so long ago. It hadn’t crossed his mind in years, intentionally blocked for self preservation, and Derek couldn’t speak. It was Isaac who found a voice to say something.
“Oh shit.”
*
“We are in the deepest of shit,” Isaac reiterated a few minutes later after they left Mischief- Stiles in the train car alone. They stood a safe distance away in a circle, but Derek wasn’t certain if it was far enough not to be heard. There was no telling what the man was capable of.
“What’s so special about him?” Jackson snapped, his beta form tucked away but anger still prevalent across his human features. He was always so quick to anger, after being abandoned by his parents due to his sexuality.
“There are rumors about the McCall pack, about a powerful witch in their midst,” Isaac said, then looked at Derek. “You were born there. Don’t you know?”
Isaac had grown up in Beacon Hills too, that Derek knew. He had been moved with his foster family to Newark when he was fourteen, before he learned about werewolves. He apparently knew more than Derek.
Derek vaguely remembered stories of a new alpha laying claim to Beacon Hills that Laura had mentioned a couple times over the years. But neither of them had been back home since he was sixteen. It wasn’t home anymore.
But now, he couldn’t help but think of the place where he was born and raised. The memories flashed through his mind, his parents and their laughter and the last hugs they ever wrapped him in. Full moons with the entire family and chasing after Laura with their little sister, Cora, rambunctious and with a smile Derek missed more than he could say. Countless nights spent out on the preserve, training and learning about their kind and other supernatural beings like them, soaking in everything their mother had to teach before they even knew she would be taken away.
A scent suddenly filled his memory, the one carried on the wind through the woods of the preserve, and that same scent currently occupied the inside of the empty train car.
“He’s a witch?” Boyd’s deep, dry tone broke through Derek’s haze.
Jackson tutted. “Witches aren’t real.”
“You’re a werewolf,” Isaac pointed out as he nervously fiddled with the end of his scarf.
“But magic? Spells and potions? A bunch of Hocus Pocus? Seriously?”
Derek took a deep breath and silenced the bickering that rose.
“They’re called a spark,” he said. “I’ve never encountered one before. But my mother knew one. They can be incredibly powerful. If I’m right, this one doesn’t need any spells or potions.”
There was a long silence before Jackson grumbled at Erica, “How could you miss this?”
Boyd growled and took a step between his mate and Jackson.
But Derek didn’t stay to see that fight.
Instead, he turned away abruptly and said, “I’m finding a way out of here.”
“You can’t leave us here to deal with this ourselves,” Erica yelled after him. “What if McCall shows up?”
“That’s your problem.”
“It’s just like you, Derek Hale. Abandoning us yet again!”
“You’re Laura’s pack,” he said, not bothering to shout as they would all hear him. “Not mine.”
*
Over the past two years, Derek had been running alone, taking quick, uncomplicated one man jobs just to feel some sense of purpose. But recently, he realized how much he was over the lifestyle. The risk and danger didn’t seem worth it anymore when he was set up for a comfortable retirement. As he hunted across the station in search of some sort of exit, he settled into that decision.
He caught Jackson’s voice as he retreated from one side of the tunnel after running into a thick, unbreakable line of mountain ash. Jackson suggested that they kill the spark.
In an instant, Derek was filled with a searing pain that nearly brought him to his knees. He shifted into his beta form in one second and in the next, he was racing back down the tunnel to the others. To Stiles.
He made it back to the train car just as Jackson wrapped a hand around Stiles’ throat.
“Do you ever shut the fuck up??” Jackson yelled.
“No, sarcasm is my only defense,” Stiles said, without a trace of fear, even though Jackson’s claws dug into the thin flesh of his neck.
It took every ounce of strength in Derek not to throw himself at Jackson and rip him apart, limb for limb.
“Jackson, let him go!” He demanded, fully extended teeth morphing his voice to an even more deadly tone.
“Nah, if he’s the reason we’re trapped here, I say we get rid of him.”
Derek’s control slipped from his grasp as a drop of blood dripped down the side of Stiles neck, and he took one step toward Jackson. But it was for naught.
Suddenly, Jackson’s body was flung across the train, the upper half of his body slapping viciously into a window, shattering the glass. He dropped to the ground with a sickening thud, blood pooling from the back of his head, out cold.
Stunned silence fell over the train, as Stiles casually tugged on his bindings and they all fell away as ash.
He stood, seemingly in slow motion, and then dusted himself off in a showy fashion.
Boyd was the first to move, lunging at the man, just to receive the same treatment as Jackson. He bisected a pole near Erica, the welded metal snapping clean in half, before he crumpled to the ground. His mate folded over him protectively as she stared at Stiles in a mix of rage and utter disbelief.
Isaac moved next, though Derek knew it was pointless. Before he could reach Stiles, the scarf around his neck tightened and tightened until he was forced onto his knees, hands gripping at the fabric in an attempt to free himself. But even against his sharp claws, the material wouldn’t budge.
There was a palpable electric buzz in the air, making the hairs on Derek’s arms stand up. It seemed like Stiles was manipulating the electric charges in the room, like the static found on their clothes.
“Stiles, that’s enough!” Derek shouted, open palms raised. “I won’t let them try to hurt you again. Let them leave and then you and I can talk.”
It seemed like a hopeless attempt. They were clearly overpowered.
Stiles looked over at him, reading him as Isaac began to turn blue in the face and gasped for air.
Erica and Boyd slowly rose back to their feet and Jackson, who was slowly blinking back to consciousness, let out a pitiful moan.
It took some effort, but Derek managed to reel his wolf back in and returned to his human face.
“Please, Stiles,” he begged.
In an instant, Isaac’s scarf turned to tatters around his shoulders and he inhaled a deep, strained breath and broke into a fit of coughs.
Erica helped him up as a limping Boyd did the same with Jackson. Derek didn’t drop his hands until they were safely outside of the train, and he and Stiles were left alone.
“I’ll let you go,” Derek told him. “If you break the mountain ash, I will take you back to D.C. and you will never have to see me again.”
Inexplicably, saying those last few words had the wolf inside him howling as a painful tightening occurred in his chest. Like a fist clutching around the organ pumping blood throughout his entire body.
Stiles frowned, a miserable thing that did nothing to ease the pain in Derek’s chest.
“You realize this is all a trap,” he said, “you know that, right? And it isn’t one set for me, but for you. For all of you.”
With a sinking feeling, Derek realized then that this was never about Stiles. It was about him and the betas, the shattered remains of a broken pack of werewolves who had wronged countless people on the behalf of the highest bidder.
They had been brought there so that someone more powerful, a spark, would kill them all.
Before he could find some way to respond, Stiles’ eyes darted toward the exit of the train.
He said, “There’s someone else here.”
And then there was an explosion.
*
Derek’s ears were still ringing as he and Stiles made it out onto the platform. Smoke billowed in from the entrance of the station, and rubble fell to the ground in the hall surrounding it.
Boyd, Erica, and Isaac were on high alert, facing the entrance in a battle line to the right of them, ready to fight whatever had finally come for them. Jackson was slumped over in a folding chair, still looking a bit faint, but aware enough to realize that something was very wrong.
A single man made his way through the rubble, the smoke around him adding an eeriness to his arrival. He wore a long, leather trench coat and heavy boots that clunked along the floor as he approached. His dark hair was combed back with pomade, and the smirk on his face took far too long for Derek to recognize. He hadn’t seen this face in sixteen years.
“Uncle Peter?”
The smirk broadened as he came to a stop a few yards from Derek and the others, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat.
“You’re dead,” Derek said, voice sounding distant and unlike his own. He couldn’t believe his eyes, and the pieces were slow to fall into place.
“Evidently not, my simple minded nephew.”
Boyd growled off to the side at the offense. Though he was quiet, he and Derek had a mutual understanding of each other. They knew the same pain. He had suffered the tragic loss of his own younger sister when he was a teen, and it made him even more of a protective force over Erica and the rest of the pack, Derek included.
Derek held up a hand to settle him and the others.
“You did all this?” He said. “For what?”
Peter’s smile dropped and turned to a more stern expression. “I should be alpha. It was always supposed to be me. I had no choice but to take it for myself. But my first attempt did not go as I intended.”
“What?”
“That’s right, Derek. I was the one who lit the fire. It was only meant to weaken Talia, but the flames got a little out of hand.”
Derek shifted into beta form with a snap. The white hot rage overwhelmed him, but it only seemed to egg Peter on. He looked thrilled by the reaction.
“You murdered your own sister?” Derek growled. “Her husband and your niece? My- My family.”
“I suffered significant injuries of my own that took a long time to heal. But I was back on my feet a couple years ago and was finally able to track you down. My second attempt didn’t go exactly as planned either, but Laura is dead, nonetheless. And you are a much easier target to take down.”
He felt Stiles shift closer to him, like he wanted to offer comfort but there was absolutely none to give. Though he did start to feel a bit warm when he was reminded of his presence. But that may have been the pure rage flowing through him, so strong the edges of his vision were tainted in red from his alpha eyes.
The pain of his parents and Cora was something he would never fully heal from. It defined him. But Laura was somehow even more devastating. He had spent thirty years of his life with her, as her little brother, her beta, her best friend. Losing her was like losing himself. And Peter had been the cause of it all.
“You’ve always been so weak, Derek. I am the real alpha, and I need a pack. I think this lot will do,” he said with a nod towards the betas. “I just have to kill you and then I’ll be alpha. And with a powerful spark like him, I’ll be invincible.”
Stiles had been wrong. It had been a trap for all of them. On the surface, it seemed like Peter’s current plan was a decent one, though convoluted. But like the others, it wouldn’t go exactly as Peter intended, that Derek knew. He had seen Stiles’ power. He knew that Stiles only remained in cuffs as long as he did because he allowed himself to be. He had never truly been their prisoner, and Derek was sure that he would never be.
“What makes you think you can control him?” Derek asked.
With an impossibly quick move, Peter unearthed a gun from his right pocket and fired off one single bullet in their direction. But the bullet didn’t strike him or Stiles. Instead it crashed into the ground at Stiles’ feet, sending tile and cement debris flying as well as a haunting plume of deep, magenta smoke rapidly expanding upward. It was no normal smoke. It seemed to know its intended destination, as it funneled up into a thin column and aimed at Stiles. It quickly filled his nose and mouth, and he gagged as he crumbled to the ground.
The room filled with its warm, floral scent, but it affected no one but Stiles.
“That will keep his powers at bay for a while,” Peter said, smug. “The red hyssop in that bullet is to sparks as wolfsbane is to us.”
Before Derek could go to Stiles’ aid, Peter pulled out another gun and aimed it at him.
“This one is full of silver bullets, so don’t be stupid.”
The next few minutes passed in a blur. Stiles gathered himself, the hyssop only purging his spark powers once it settled, not impacting his human functions. Peter unearthed a sealed bag of mountain ash from his coat and demanded that Stiles encircle the betas. He truly was a sorry excuse of a wolf who didn’t deserve the powers he was born with, stooping so low to use the three curses that could harm their kind.
As Stiles moved robotically to pour the ash, Boyd tried to step out of the cage forming around them.
“Ah ah,” Peter warned as he pointed the gun at Erica. Apparently, he had studied them, he knew that threatening her would keep him in line.
Just before the line was completed, Derek took the only chance he knew he had while Peter’s attention was focused on Stiles. So he lunged.
He and Peter met in a clash of stone bodies that dislodged the gun from his hand. There was blood within seconds from lethal claws and vicious teeth, and Derek took a hit that flung him clean across the platform. But he returned it by crushing Peter into the train, leaving the imprint of his body in the metal.
The betas, he noticed in a quick glance that gave him three sharp slices across the cheek, were no help. Stiles had completed the circle, and he crouched down just outside it, wide eyes watching Derek’s every move. He looked like he had in the beginning in the train car, small and vulnerable. The slim chance that Peter might get what he wanted was enough to push Derek harder.
In a sudden burst of energy, he morphed into his true wolf form. Something that had only happened once before on the night Laura died and he was hit with the full power of his alpha status for the first time. His clothes fell to shreds around him, revealing a coat that was thick and black, wide paws and claws even longer than his beta form. Standing on all four, the tips of his ears reached just under Peter’s shoulders.
The transition only seemed to excite Peter more, like he was looking at a gift with his name on it.
They fought and fought, and more blood was spilled.
As an alpha, the fight should have been an easy win. But Derek hadn’t shifted in so long, and he quickly felt the strain on dormant muscles. Peter was able to grab the upper hand and pinned him over the tracks, unleashing a barrage of slashes over his chest and abdomen, tattered fur flying all around them, each one deeper than the next until it felt as though he were reaching inside of him and touching his bones. He cried out, pitiful whimpers escaping him before he could stop it.
“Peter!”
Stiles’ guttural scream stopped the onslaught, and Derek could barely keep his eyes open through the pain while Peter got off of him and slowly faced Stiles who stood on the platform a few feet away from them. He looked enraged, fists clenched at his sides and eyes deadly.
Before Peter could make a move, Stiles raised his hands, palms out toward him, and then the man’s body began to lift off the tracks. As it rose, his limbs folded and gathered close, like some kind of cocoon forming around him.
It felt like Derek’s insides were threatening to tumble out as he found strength to lift his head and upper body slightly. Just to watch as Stiles moved Peter onto the platform, away from Derek and the betas, who watched in horror.
Derek blinked and then it was like invisible flames were lit all around Peter. He screamed and screamed as every inch of his clothes and flesh burned away. His face distorted and became unrecognizable as his hair, nose, mouth, and eyelids burned away. Then his eyes. His fingers were nothing but thin bones, each piece falling away as the tendons keeping them together burned away entirely. He no longer looked like a human being, but a shriveled up corpse.
And yet he was still alive, screaming. It seemed as though whatever power Stiles was using to bestow excruciating pain onto him was the same power he was using to keep him alive.
Stiles let out a yell that went on and on, a piercing sound that nearly drowned out the inhuman noises escaping Peter, and then, the entire surface of his eyes turned bright, pale yellow, glowing with the very light of the spark shining from within him as he unleashed the full capacity of his power.
Derek tried to get up, to go to him, pull him back to reality, to a place where he could control his power and end the excessive torture, as much as the victim deserved it.
He used what little strength he had left to shift back into human form. But the movement was too much. The pain was too much.
“Stiles,” he called, weakly, and hoped it was enough.
Then, there was only darkness.
*
When Derek came too, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He was laid down on his back with something soft pillowed under his head and something spread over his naked lap.
There was also a soft caress over the back of his hand, a slow back and forth that eased him back into consciousness, and another more firm press against his bare abdomen.
When he cracked his eyes open, there was a man he didn’t recognize leaning over him. Dark features, shaggy brown hair, and a slightly crooked chin.
“He’s awake,” he said as he moved back, thick lines of black trailed over his arms before they dissipated away.
Stiles was there, kneeling on the ground at his side, and he kept a strong hold of his hand. His eyes were back to their magnificent natural shade of brown with flecks of amber around the edges.
“This is my alpha,” Stiles explained in a quiet voice. “My pack. They showed up just in time.”
McCall stood and gave them a little space while he kept an eye on the other members of his pack across the platform. A beautiful strawberry blond woman was helping clean the back of Jackson’s head, and a few werewolf betas who looked college aged eyed Boyd, Erica, and Isaac skeptically. Derek could see the weariness in his own betas, and he could tell they were all still pretty shaken up and were still prepared for a fight at any second.
But they looked over at him and each seemed to take in a deep, relieved breath. Erica’s eyes were even a bit teary, though she would never admit it. Isaac and Boyd were no longer wearing their jackets which Derek sussed were the pillow under his head and blanket over his body.
With a jolt, he realized that they were, in fact, his betas. They were a pack, and he owed it to Laura to try to be the alpha they deserved. He made a silent vow that he would.
A older man dressed in jeans and a fleece pullover sweater appeared at his feet. There was something in his scent that smelled like Stiles, so Derek had a good guess as to who he was.
“Normally, if you’d abducted and tried to murder my son, I would unload a clip of silver bullets into you before I buried your ass under the jail. But there appears to be some extenuating circumstances, so I’ll save my loaded gun for future use.”
“Daaaad,” Stiles warned, drawing out the name in the way only an embarrassed child could.
“You should be more careful,” McCall spoke up, a clear warning of his own, “Make sure not to kidnap someone else’s emissary or their best friend.”
“Scooooott,” Stiles whined again and then used his free hand to shoo them both away to join the others.
Then it was just the two of them, a little bubble quickly settling around them, as Stiles wrapped Derek’s hand in both of his.
He realized that his body didn’t ache as bad as it should, giving his state before he blacked out.
“Between me, Scott, and your alpha powers, we’ve mostly healed you,” Stiles explained. “But you may still feel a bit of phantom pain and exhaustion.”
Derek looked down at himself and noticed there were just a few pale pink lines left across his chest, but other than that, the were no other visible injuries remaining of Peter’s attack. There was also no sign of the man’s body left in the train station. Stiles had completely obliterated him.
“But the hyssop…?”
Stiles chuckled. “Peter really isn’t the brightest tool in the shed. He didn’t use nearly enough for someone like me. You kept him busy long enough for me to recuperate. I know your betas could’ve helped you, but I had to keep them in the circle to protect them. I didn’t want to accidentally kill them too. My power has never felt that…strong before.”
Derek blinked up at him.
“Why?”
Stiles smiled and reached out to rest his finger across the side of Derek’s face, his thumb trailing over the edge of his brow.
“It’s you, silly. I recognized you the moment you touched me. I felt you,” he said and slowly moved their joined hands to rest over Derek’s heart. “You’re my mate.”
It seemed impossible that they could find each other in a situation like this, not when Derek was so prepared to spend the rest of his days alone. But he knew that Stiles was telling the truth. There was no physical sign, no matching tattoos, no red string, or bells to announce that one had found the other half of their soul. It was just a feeling, one that Derek knew he could not fight. And he found that he didn’t want to.
“I felt you too,” he said.
That smile grew as Stiles leaned down toward him. He paused for a moment, seeming to check for any resistance in Derek, but there was none. So he pressed his mouth over Derek’s in a kiss that was unlike any other, their lips aligned perfectly, like they were made for each other. It was a deep breath, a remedy, a warm light that felt like home.
When Stiles pulled back, Derek feared that he would go too far. So he clutched at his hand desperately. He wanted him to stay close, closer than Derek had ever allowed anyone, and just like that, his third rule was shattered to pieces.
“Don’t worry,” Stiles whispered just to him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Then he kissed him again, and Derek knew that he meant it.