Chapter Text
The Hale house was all sawdust and wet paint now, which was a hell of an improvement over what it had been a few months ago: ashes.
Stiles sat cross-legged on the half-finished kitchen island, chewing the end of her pen and pretending to take notes for Derek’s totally unnecessary and weirdly organized supply list. She wore cut-off jean shorts, a paint-smeared tank top, and scuffed Converse, her long brown hair piled haphazardly into a messy bun atop her head. Bits of sawdust clung to her arms and legs, and a smudge of paint streaked across her cheek, giving her the look of someone who had been working harder than she let on.
Scott was on a ladder, hanging drywall. “You know this is definitely against, like, three safety codes.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see OSHA showing up to bust an alpha werewolf for unsafe working conditions,” Stiles said, jotting down ‘more nails?’ on her list. “Anyway, you’d probably just heal if you fell.”
“Still hurts,” Scott muttered.
Erica was sprawled on the couch (well, what passed for a couch, since half of it was still covered in a plastic drop cloth). She looked up from her phone with a grin. “You know, for a bunch of supernatural badasses, we are terrible at construction.”
Stiles snorted. “Right? If it wasn’t for me, you’d all be dead from tetanus by now. Or accidental electrocution. Or carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“Or Jeep fire,” Isaac piped up from the doorway, dragging in a bucket of paint.
“That was one time!” Stiles shot back, waving her pen at him like a weapon.
Derek, predictably, ignored all of them and kept working. Rolled-up sleeves, scowl firmly in place, he was knee-deep in the toolbox like some grumpy HGTV host.
The thing was this weird little pack-bonding construction project actually worked. Only a few months ago, they’d been too busy trying to kill each other to even think about drywall. Now? They were almost a family. A strange, violent, sarcastic family, but still.
“Hey,” Boyd said suddenly, “we’re out of nails.”
Scott groaned and hopped down from the ladder. “Hardware store run?”
“Obviously,” Stiles said, sliding off the counter. “Because we all know if I’m not there to supervise, you’ll come back with the wrong size nails and Derek will throw a hammer through the wall. Again.”
Derek didn’t even look up from the toolbox. “I heard that.”
“You were supposed to,” Stiles shot back with a grin, already heading for the door.
It was stupidly domestic, and for a second, Stiles let herself enjoy it. The house was standing a little straighter than it had, less broken. So were they.
***
The hardware store trip was supposed to be quick. In and out, grab the nails, maybe a soda, and back to the Hale house before Derek could text them passive-aggressive “???” messages.
But somehow, Scott got called away to deal with some lacrosse thing, and Stiles ended up walking back with a bag of nails in one hand and a Dr. Pepper in the other.
It was fine. She did this all the time. Beacon Hills was small. Totally safe.
(Okay, not totally safe. But she had her bat strapped across her back like a weird nerdy knight, so it was fine.)
The sun was low now, throwing everything in that weird orange light that made Beacon Hills look like it belonged on a True Crime documentary. Shadows stretched too far across the cracked pavement, following her in long, thin lines. She was closer to the edge of town now, near the preserve. Most of the houses around her were dark, probably vacant.
Her pace picked up.
Totally fine. Totally normal.
Then came the sound. Something rustling just beyond the tree line.
Stiles froze.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Not creepy at all. Definitely just a raccoon. Or a possum. Or a serial killer who—”
Her grip tightened on the plastic bag.
Another sound, closer this time. Low. Wet. The kind of growl that didn’t belong to a raccoon. Stiles’s heart thudded so loud she swore she could hear it echoing in her ears.
And then, movement. Fast and low, out of the tree line.
“Oh, crap.”
She yanked her bat free just as a feral omega barreled out of the shadows. Too-fast claws, glowing blue eyes, and snapping fangs. His clothes were tattered and dirty, hair matted with something that could be blood.
She barely had time to get the bat out before the omega hit her like a freight train.
They tumbled across the asphalt, her shoulder screaming, nails and Dr. Pepper scattering across the street. She swung blindly, connecting once with a sickening crack that made the omega snarl but didn’t stop it.
And then it was on top of her.
This is it. This is how I am going to die. Bleeding out in the middle of the street with a broken soda bottle and a bag of nails for company.
She could smell it, blood and dirt and something acrid, feral. Its claws scraped the pavement on either side of her head, pinning her there. Its glowing eyes locked on hers, not wild but deliberate. And that’s when she realized. It wasn’t trying to kill her.
Her breath hitched. Panic flared inside her.
“Oh, hell no,” she gasped, shoving at its chest, kicking, twisting. “Not happening.”
The omega growled and leaned closer to her throat to breathe in her scent.
Just then, something slammed into it hard enough to knock the air out of both of them.
Stiles scrambled backward on her hands and elbows, heart jackhammering, as Peter Hale dragged the omega off her like it weighed nothing. His claws were buried deep, his face a careful mask of focus as he yanked the creature back and twisted.
There was a wet, final crack, and the omega went limp.
Peter let the body drop, then calmly brushed his hands off like he hadn’t just committed murder in the middle of a residential street.
“You’re welcome,” he said casually, turning to look at her.
Stiles gaped at him. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Would you rather I hadn’t been?”
She scrambled to her feet, still clutching her bat. “No! I mean—yes—I mean, why are you even around right now?”
Peter’s mouth curved into that smug, infuriating smile of his. “Hardware store.”
Stiles blinked. “You were at the hardware store.”
“Yes.” He glanced down at the body, then back at her. “Lucky timing, really. You should probably work on your situational awareness.”
“Excuse me?!”
But Peter was already casually tossing the body of the omega into the back seat of his car, as if it had barely mattered.
“See you at the house, Stiles,” he called over his shoulder.
***
THE HALE HOUSE
Stiles opened her mouth, then shut it. She wasn’t even sure where to start. Hi, I almost got murdered or something, but then didn’t, because your creepy uncle just happened to be hanging around the hardware store? Yeah, no.
“Ran into an omega,” she said finally.
Derek’s shoulders tensed. “Are you hurt?”
“No. Well, bruised. Maybe a tiny concussion? But not, like, bleeding-out-in-the-street hurt.”
Derek stood, running a hand over his face, muttering something under his breath that sounded a lot like swearing in Alpha.
“That’s the third feral omega this month,” he said finally.
Stiles blinked. “Wait, third?”
“Erica and Boyd chased one off near the preserve last week. Isaac caught another one near the school.”
She sank onto the edge of the couch. “Okay, wow. Love that no one told me that. Super reassuring.”
Derek gave her a look. “It wasn’t relevant. This is Beacon Hills, feral omegas happen.”
Stiles glared at him but didn’t argue. (Mostly because her adrenaline crash was hitting hard and she wasn’t sure she had the energy.)
Instead, Derek sighed, and that was honestly more unsettling than the glaring.
“You’re human, Stiles,” he said finally. “That makes you more valu—uh—vulnerable. And now that the pack is a little more public, it will also make you a target.”
“I already am a target,” she pointed out. “See: near-death experience in the middle of the street.”
“Exactly,” Derek said. “Which is why I asked Peter to keep an eye on you.”
Stiles blinked. “Wait. What?”
“He’s not watching you all the time,” Derek said quickly. “Just when you’re alone. Until things settle down.”
Stiles opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. The truth was, as completely unnerving as it was to have Peter show up out of nowhere, she had been… a little relieved. She hated that.
Derek must have seen something in her face, because his voice softened. “It’s temporary. And I can have him run some training with you, self-defense, how to get away if you’re grabbed, that kind of thing. It’ll make you harder to catch next time.”
Stiles sighed, flopping back against the couch cushions.
“Fine,” she said, her voice muffled. “But if he gets all creepy serial-killer on me, I reserve the right to mace him.”
Derek’s mouth twitched, which, for him, was basically a smile.
“I’ll warn him,” he said.
***
THE STILINSKI HOUSE
It was a full moon and everything was quiet, the kind of quiet that made every sound amplified. Peter crouched in the shadows of the tree line, eyes trained on the small glow of Stiles’ bedroom window. From this distance, she looked fragile.
He hated that he was watching her. And yet, his wolf stirred beneath his skin, alert, restless, and it wasn’t just because of the full moon.
I am not supposed to want her. Peter’s thoughts snapped at him like a whip. I am not supposed to be affected. She’s human. And I—
He clenched his fists. The wolf in him snarled softly, frustrated. She wasn’t just any human, she was a pack human. Every instinct he had, every old echo of pack tradition, screamed at him that she was his.
The rising number of omega incursions into Hale territory were not random. They were drawn to Stiles like moths to a flame. It isn’t just because she is part of the Hale pack. It is because she is a fertile member of the Hale pack. Most werewolf pairs were infertile, some sort of genetic error. Humans of breeding age that are part of a wolf pack, both aware of the supernatural and not hunters, are few and far between. It makes her desirable… irresistible… Her scent…
Peter hunched lower in the shadows, jaw tight, teeth grazing his lower lip in irritation. Damn it, he thought, why is my wolf reacting to her the same way, no, stronger, than the omegas? Older, lonelier, and ready to breed, it coiled inside him like it was about to pounce.
He hated it. Hated the pull that made his instincts flare. And he especially hated the part of him that worried Derek would notice. He worried Derek would see his weakness and take her away, remove her from him before he even had the chance to try to. No. Stop that thought.
He pressed himself flatter against the shadows, forcing his desires down, insisting he was in control. It is just the full moon making me this way. Nothing else.
The old ways were simple: a female ready to breed, unclaimed. The alpha would select, and the rest of the pack would either resist or fall in line. Humans didn’t have that, didn’t have the marking, the scent, the claiming rituals. But his wolf didn’t care about human rules.
God, she smells like danger and warmth and herself.
He exhaled slowly, trying to steady himself. As he watched her ready for bed, nesting instincts surged unbidden. A need to protect, to make a safe place, to surround her with scent and strength so no one could touch her. I shouldn’t feel this. I’m supposed to be immune. I’m supposed to care about nothing but the pack and survival.
But he wasn’t.
The wolf in him whispered memories of wolf courtship practices. Ritual markings, the subtle pressing of scent along the neck, playful challenges and displays of strength, the protective positioning while the female learned to trust. All of it called to him now.
He hated everything about this and yet, he remained crouched in the shadows, watching.