
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/581256.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Peter_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski, Lydia_Martin/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Peter_Hale, Stiles_Stilinski, Lydia_Martin, Jackson_Whittemore, Derek
      Hale, Scott_McCall, Melissa_McCall, Sheriff_Stilinski
  Additional Tags:
      Dubious_Consent, Polyamory, Biting, Angst, Mating
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-12-03 Words: 33570
****** Triumvirate ******
by ladyoneill
Summary
     What if during the beginning of episode 1.12, Peter made a persuasive
     enough argument that Stiles accepted the bite? And what if Peter's
     biting him on the wrist had a much greater meaning? None of it
     matters since Peter dies, right? Stiles is a strong wolf. Lydia's
     paying particular, if weird, attention to him, and then Peter comes
     back to life and comes to claim his mate. But, since this is Stiles,
     nothing goes quite to plan because Peter left something behind in
     Lydia and Stiles' wolf really wants to make its mate happy, and then
     there's the Kanima and psycho grandpa and creepy Matt and keeping all
     of this from his dad...
Notes
     My first Teen Wolf fic, written for the Polyamory Big Bang over on
     LJ, and it turned into a monster. Ten thousand required words became
     eighteen thousand words and then thirty three thousand (the final
     fifteen written in one weekend). Insanity! Those who know me well
     know I love the bad boys, the slightly psychos, so while I'm a big
     fan of Derek/Stiles, Peter/Stiles is my dirty bad wrong pairing in
     this fandom. Throw in Lydia...and I'm in heaven. While I used the
     rape/noncon tag, this is actually a lot less dubconny than I expected
     it to be due to wolves wanting their mates and Stiles being
     pragmatic, but it is there. A few canon divergences: Peter returning
     to life drained the Alpha from Derek; I explain the blue eyed wolves;
     there is no Alpha Pack; Erica and Boyd don't run away; my own
     theories on mates/mating and Alpha Mates.
"Do you want the bite?"
The question was so casual, so unaffected, that Stiles simply stared. For the
past hour he'd expected to be turned or killed.
He hadn't expected to be asked.
"What?"
"Do you want the bite," Peter enunciated, his eyes locking onto Stiles'. "If it
doesn't kill you--and it could--you'll become like us."
Stiles swallowed hard, the fear he'd been able to control--mostly--nearly
choking him. "Like you."
"Yes, a werewolf. Would you like me to draw you a picture?" He took a step
forward and Stiles forced himself to hold his ground. "That first night, in the
woods, I took Scott because I needed a new pack. It could just have easily been
you. You'd be every bit as powerful as him. No more standing by his side,
watching him become stronger, quicker, more popular, watching him get the girl.
You'd be equals." Peter paused and then added softly, "Maybe more. If you
accept me."
Frozen, Stiles watched Peter take his arm and slowly bring Stiles' wrist to his
mouth. His lips parted, there was a flash of fang, and then he smiled and his
fingers, claws retracted, caressed his arm through the thin sleeve of his
shirt. "I really do like you, Stiles. You're very brave. You even talked back
to me. I find you...intriguing."
Stiles swallowed again, his mouth dry, his legendary tongue silent. There was
something else going on here besides the offer to become a werewolf. Finally,
he choked out, "I'm not trying to be."
Peter grinned sharply then let his nose run across the bared wrist. Stiles
tugged but couldn't free himself and he stilled when he felt claws pierce the
shirt.
"I could bite you without your consent. Make you my Beta like Scott. Or you
could be so much more, Stiles, if you just agree."
"What...what would I be?"
The smile he got was enigmatic. The claws retracted and the hand holding him
slid down to his wrist, pushing his shirt cuff up. "Powerful. Powerful enough
maybe even to stop me." Peter made a dismissive noise. "Derek can't. He's too
bound by his instinct to be loyal to family and pack. He'll try, but his wolf
will stop him. And Scott? Scott's too young, too new, too desperate. Even
together they can't stop me."
"From doing what?" Stiles whispered. "What are you planning?"
"To finish it. All who played a part in the destruction of my family must die.
There's only one left. Well, except for Derek, and I forgave him because he's
mine."
Stiles was knocked out of his still state by that. "Derek?"
Sighing, Peter nuzzled against Stiles' wrist again. "He was seduced by that
Argent bitch while still a child. He told her all our secrets and she used them
to destroy us. His guilt and his survival with it are punishment enough."
Everything clicked in Stiles' head. It all made sense now, and he felt a blast
of fury at Kate Argent, because he was sixteen and stupid and male and knew how
easily a pretty girl could make him do anything.
"She...she still doesn't deserve to be murdered. My dad..."
"No." Peter spoke sharply and jerked Stiles towards him so that their bodies
brushed. "Jail isn't enough. We live by an eye for an eye. Let me turn you and
you'll understand. Or," he added coyly, "You can try to save her. You can try
to kill me. You're strong and determined. You might be able to fight your wolf
long enough to take down your Alpha."
"Why would I be able...Why, if Scott can't, why me? Why...?"
"You're smart, too. Accept my bite and figure it out."
Stiles shook his head and tried to pull back, but the claws came out again,
this time scraping along his wrist, across the back of his hand, and he winced
and bit back a groan of pain.
"You'd be strong, Stiles. You can protect your friends, your father. You know,
if he interferes..."
Anger flooded him and he used his free hand to push at Peter's chest. "Leave my
dad out of this."
"Then save him from me."
Their eyes met, Peter's full of sick amusement, Stiles' full of fear, but it
was no longer fear for himself.
He didn't want to be a werewolf, but he had to protect his dad.
The last thing his mom had said to him besides that she loved him was to ask
him to look out for his dad.
"Yes," he bit out. "Okay, yes, bite me, and you better hope it kills me."
Peter laughed, and as he did, his fangs came out, his face changed, and with a
movement too fast for Stiles to see clearly, he bit the wrist he held.
Stiles screamed.
*****
He awoke on the floor of the garage. The car and Peter were gone and his wrist
throbbed in agony. As he pulled himself to his knees, he swayed sharply at the
sight of the tacky blood pool where his hand had lain. A glance showed him the
four deep wounds still bled, but Peter had missed the major veins. Dizzy,
Stiles got to his feet and took the few steps to his jeep. Slumping against it,
he opened the rear window and reached through for his gym bag. Removing a
mostly clean towel, he wrapped it around the wound and pressed down hard. He
nearly screamed again and his sight dimmed, but he held on.
He had to find his dad, find out if Lydia was alive.
Stop Peter.
Digging deeper into the bag, he pulled out his spare jeep key. "Not so smart,
are you Peter," he muttered as he pulled himself behind the wheel. Now if he
could just keep from passing out again...
*****
Before Stiles entered the hospital he checked the wounds. They weren't bleeding
anymore, so he wiped away the drying blood and tossed the towel, before
changing out of his bloody shirt into a t-shirt and his favorite red hoodie.
Great, looked like he was going to live.
He headed into the hospital.
Stiles' dad was pissed but fine. Lydia was alive but seemed to be fighting the
bite. Jackson was a douche. Chris Argent and his hunters were even douchier and
stupid to threaten the Sheriff's son, but let him and Jackson go when Stiles
convinced him of Kate being behind the fire.
Grabbing Jackson's Porsche keys, because the car was so much faster than his
jeep, Stiles ran over what he'd need from the school and how little time they
had. As he drove the sports car, ignoring Jackson's cries of alarm and grabbing
for the bitch handle, his mind felt like it was in overdrive.
It wasn't until they were bouncing along the forest trail, that he realized the
pain in his wrist was gone.
On arriving at the Hale House, Stiles immediately took in everything--Allison
crouched over her father, trying to wake him; Scott on the ground facing the
monster that Peter had become; no sign of Derek or Kate. Honking the horn, he
jerked the car to a stop and bolted from it, arm already raised to throw the
beaker.
When Peter caught it, he felt his heart stop and he nearly stumbled backwards
as the Alpha roared at him. "Oh...damn..."
Before he could think of what to do, he heard Scott yell at Allison as he
tossed her a crossbow. She loaded it and shot, and the beaker exploded into
flames, setting Peter's arm alight. As he shook it and roared, Stiles glanced
back and watched Jackson lob the other Molotov cocktail, hitting the Alpha
square in the torso.
Peter's screams forced Stiles to stumble back. They were so loud, so painful.
They pierced right through his skull and, grabbing his head, he nearly fell to
his knees.
His wrist began to burn with invisible flames and he clawed at it, but there
was nothing there. Agony flooded him and he finally did fall. As he did, he saw
Peter fall as well, the flames consuming him. The acrid scent of burnt hair and
skin hit him and Stiles gagged.
Everything felt, smelled, sounded so much more.
Stiles felt his teeth elongate, fangs scraping his lips, and the hand gripping
his throbbing wrist grew claws.
It had only been an hour.
This was...too soon... too much.
He felt like screaming, but Peter's pain took his breath and voice, and all he
could do was whimper and start to crawl towards his Alpha, following an
instinct he didn't understand.
And then the pain vanished and he felt strong and angry, so angry. As he found
his feet, he felt his body changing, shifting, and he ran faster than he'd ever
run before, to Peter who was still burning, but had returned to his human form.
Their eyes met--red to gold--and Peter managed a smile. "So...beautiful..."
"I told you I'd stop you," Stiles growled as he straddled Peter's hips and
glared down at him. The burnt flesh made him want to gag but he forced that
instinct down and ignored the new, wolf ones that whined for him to help his
Alpha. With the pain gone, it was slightly easier.
"But...can you kill me?" Peter gasped out. "It won't turn you back. That's a
fairy tale. And you don't want to be Alpha."
He didn't want to be a werewolf, but he'd never believed that story about
killing your maker.
But, Peter was right, he didn't want to be Alpha either. Someone needed to be,
though, and while instincts urged him to drop to his knees and do what he could
to heal his Alpha, his intellect worked through scenarios to get rid of Peter.
Behind him, Scott seemed to finally figure it out, and gasped out his name in
horror, but Stiles ignored him, then a new scent pushed past those of burnt
hair and flesh.
Derek.
"Stiles? What...what did you let him do?" the older wolf whispered in shock.
With a small shake of his head, Stiles shifted back to human. It was so easy.
Why had it taken Scott so long to learn control? His eyes met Derek's also
human ones and neither blinked.
"Kill him."
"I...can't."
"We need an Alpha and I'm too young." And he didn't want it. It wasn't meant
for him. He was something...else. Annoyed at his weird thoughts, Stiles stared
down into Peter's glinting--was that pride?--eyes.
Behind them Scott was protesting, begging Derek not to kill Peter, something
about Allison and her family. He still believed the fairy tale.
When Stiles spoke again, there was power in his voice, a power that came from
somewhere new inside him. "Kill him, Derek."
"I wasn't meant to be an Alpha."
"Neither was he," Stiles lashed out, grabbing Derek's arm and jerking him
forward and down to his knees so easily. "Do it!"
"Oh, Stiles. I was so right about you," Peter sighed, then flashed red eyes at
his nephew. "Do it, Derek, but you know, in the end, you'll fail."
Derek growled and with a flick of his claws sliced through his uncle's throat.
Stiles stepped back quickly to avoid arterial spray, but Derek let it hit him,
his head bowed, his body trembling.
For several minutes, silence fell, then Derek pushed himself to his feet and
glanced over his shoulder at Stiles. "I'm the Alpha now," he mourned.
Stiles looked into the red eyes and nodded.
"Why, Stiles?" Derek's eyes drifted down to Stiles' right wrist, where the
hoodie had been pushed up, revealing the healed bite.
"Because he was right. You couldn't have done it alone and neither could
Scott." In his bones, he knew that to be true. He just didn't understand why.
He was new. It didn't make any sense. It...
A memory flashed through his oddly still mind, a random web page that had
yielded rather salacious information about werewolves and their mates and the
claiming bite.
On the wrist, a consensual bite creating a bond to make both more than they had
been.
Stiles felt himself go white and he swayed, nearly falling, until he staggered
against a tree. "What did he do to me, Derek?"
"Jesus, Stiles, you let him claim you as his mate."
Yeah, that was it. Inside his head, his wolf howled over the loss, but he shook
it off, denied it. He couldn't deal with that right now. "Well, then it's good
he's dead," he replied shakily and pushed away from the tree to walk towards a
stunned Scott. "Bury the bastard, Derek. We'll talk later."
He didn't even realize Derek didn't protest the orders coming from a Beta wolf.
"Stiles?" Scott asked, stunned.
Stiles shot him a grin and quipped, "Looks like I'll be playing first line
right alongside you." Deflect, ignore, those were his mantras right now, as his
mate--Jesus--lay dead behind him.
"But, you never...It's not what you wanted."
Shrugging, he gave his best friend a manly hug. "We had to stop Peter. It's
worth it. Come on, dad's already pissed at me. Jackson'll take us home."
He also didn't realize that Scott fell right into step with him.
Physically Stiles felt incredibly good. While he could hear and see and smell
so much better, it was easily controlled. He knew it shouldn't be this easy,
but maybe that was the mate thing. Emotionally he was a mess, but he couldn't
deal with that now. Much, much later. Right now home and bed and...An image of
Lydia flashed into his mind. "We need to check on Lydia."
Tossing Jackson the keys, he slid into the narrow back of the Porsche.
"Hospital."
Scott and Jackson both got into the car.
The last thing he saw was Derek watching them leave, his eyes red and so very
sad.
*****
Dad was still pissed. Lydia was going to be okay but the bite wasn't healing
quickly which didn't make any sense. His had healed in a couple hours but left
scars, which was not the norm. Scott and Stiles talked about everything but the
fact that Stiles was now a werewolf and Peter had taken him as his mate. Stiles
also resisted looking into that and, since Derek seemed to have vanished, he
didn't have a first hand resource to approach. He figured the scars were part
of it, and he found himself rubbing them when his mind would drift.
He practiced using his wolfy senses, listening to the new voice inside him,
and, if, at night, he had vague dreams of Peter and warmth and cuddling and
family, upon waking he managed to ignore them and focused on school and
pacifying his dad.
And then Lydia vanished from the hospital.
Stiles was the one to find her. Using his new abilities he tracked her deep
into the Preserve and then back to the edge, where he found her sitting, naked,
in a patch of wolfsbane, making a crown of the flowers.
As he crouched in front of her, careful not to touch any of the flowers, their
scent making him dizzy, Lydia looked up at him and slowly blinked.
"Stiles?" She began to shake and her eyes widened in fear. "What...? Where...?"
Frantically she looked around, then dropped the flowers and tried to cover
herself. Tears spilled from her eyes and she began to shiver as if just now
feeling the cold. "I was...Was I looking for you?"
Trying not to gape, Stiles yanked his hoodie over his head and handed it to
her. She slipped it on, scrambling to her feet and yanking it down, the top
long enough to cover her.
"What happened and why would I need to find you?"
Stiles didn't get the latter at all but he shook it off and addressed her first
question. "I don't know. You disappeared from your hospital room early this
morning. Everyone's looking for you. I think you must have been walking all
that time. You've circled around. The road's just about half a mile that way."
He pointed over his shoulder, then stepped back and waited for her to walk out
of the deadly flowers. "I can carry you."
She gave him a disbelieving look, the real Lydia suddenly back. "With those
scrawny arms?"
"I'm stronger than I look."
"I'll walk."
He shrugged and they began to head back down a deer trail. Carrying her
probably wouldn't have been a good idea anyway. The pollen on her was giving
him a headache.
"So, is everyone looking for me? Jackson?"
Stiles tried not to roll his eyes as he filled her in on the events of the day.
*****
When Stiles got home after leaving Lydia with his dad and EMTs, he found Derek
lurking in a corner of his bedroom.
Not quite seventy two hours had passed since he became a wolf and they'd killed
Peter. While Stiles hadn't sought out Derek, for some reason he'd thought the
new Alpha would come to him sooner. He wasn't sure why he thought that. The
wolf inside him seemed to expect certain things his human side didn't
understand.
"We need to talk."
"Sure, sourwolf. What about? Oh, yeah, that werewolf thing." Keep it light to
start. Let Derek lead them where Stiles wanted to take this conversation.
Closing the door behind him, he flopped onto his bed and turned on his bedside
lamp. He could see in the dark now but he still liked light.
Derek gave him a disgruntled look and sat down stiffly in the desk chair,
facing the bed. "I never thought you wanted to be a werewolf."
"I didn't, but I have this sometimes annoying need to protect those I care
about, and Peter was threatening them." Placing his hands behind his head, he
kicked off his shoes and scooted up to the headboard. "You don't need to worry
about me. I've got it under control."
Derek's look was now his skeptical one. "You've been a wolf for three days."
"I'm a werewolf savant."
"Don't joke about this," Derek snapped.
Stiles scowled. "I'm not. I have it under control. All the senses, the change.
It's easy." But, it shouldn't be, and he knew that. "Why is it easy?" He sat up
and leaned towards Derek and held out his wrist. "The location, the consent,
the fact that it scarred and didn't just vanish, I know what this is. Is it
what gives me control?"
"I don't know. I've never seen or heard of a mating and turning bite being
combined. In my family, the mating bites were always given after someone was
turned or to those who were born wolves."
"Peter was in a rush, but...why me?" That's the biggest question Stiles had
been trying to ignore. Why would Peter Hale, twice his age, and nuttier than
the proverbial fruit cake, want him as a mate? Yeah, he'd noticed the
hyperactivity was fading since the bite, and he'd experimentally not taken his
meds that morning with seemingly no consequences, but he still talked too much,
was annoying, and was sixteen. And not a ripped god like Derek.
Derek gave him a look of disbelief. "I always knew you'd make a strong wolf."
"Yeah, I can see that, but mate? Don't get that one at all." He ran a hand down
his body. "Not a thing of great beauty."
"It's not about that. Mating is an instinct. Sometimes it's someone you've
known for years, been with for years. Sometimes it happens on first sight with
a stranger. If it's between two wolves, both feel it or it doesn't happen. With
a human, it's different, but either way, outer appearance doesn't matter at
all. Neither does gender."
Stiles snorted at that, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it doesn't matter.
He's dead. The bond was never, um, y'know, consummated, so it'll go away,
right?" At Derek's nod, he continued, "Then good, I'll continue my five year
plan to get Lydia to fall madly in love with me. I found her naked in the woods
earlier, so that's a check on the pro side. And she was naked." He grinned
sappily in remembrance.
Derek stood and shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. "Do you
want to be in my pack?" The question came rather reluctantly and Stiles rolled
his eyes.
"You have a pack?"
"I will. I have to. I won't be an Omega."
"Can you be an Omega Alpha?"
"Yes, and I won't be one. I need to hold my ancestral land. You made me Alpha,
Stiles, I need you in my pack."
"I...made...?"
"As the Alpha Mate, you gave me the strength to..." Derek shook his head. "It
should have been you."
"Yeah, so not wanting that. And I'm not the Alpha Mate or whatever anymore,
but, okay, yeah, I'll be in your pack. Do we have a secret handshake."
Derek growled in annoyance and Stiles grinned unrepentantly. "I'm looking for a
new place to live since the Hunters have taken over my house. I'll text you
with the address in a few days and we'll start training." He held up a hand
before Stiles could protest. "You may be able to control your senses and the
change, but you still need to learn to use your abilities. Peter's gone, but
the Argents are still here and it won't take them long to figure out you're now
a wolf. With Kate's death, they're going to be looking for blood, our blood."
"I...Peter told me about you and her, I mean, what she did to you. She deserved
what she got." That came out a bit vicious, but Stiles felt no sympathy for the
bitch. When he saw the flicker of pain and guilt in Derek's eyes, he sighed and
stood. "It wasn't your fault, you know. You were a kid."
"I was stupid," the other wolf bit out before jumping out the open window.
Stiles rolled his eyes and closed the window, not that doing that ever seemed
to do any good. He really needed to get that lock fixed.
*****
Waking from a really good dream of walking in a field of flowers hand in hand
with Lydia, Stiles pried open his eyes to check his alarm clock. It was twelve
after four in the morning. He groaned and closed his eyes again, mumbling, "Too
early." And a really too good dream to waken from. Hoping to sink back into it,
he rolled over onto his other side and bumped into something. Frowning in
confusion, he opened his eyes again and, his night vision vastly improved, he
saw her.
Lydia, curled on her side, cheek on one hand, the other now pinned beneath his
body. She was under the covers and deeply asleep and...what the fuck was she
doing here?
Panicking, Stiles flung himself backwards and crashed to the floor which
awakened her with a muffled yelp.
"Where am I? Oh god, not again." As she whimpered, she sat up and wrapped her
arms around her trembling body.
Stiles scrambled back to his feet, then checked to make sure he didn't have an
inadvertent boner before turning on the lamp. He watched her blink in
confusion, then redden as she realized where she was.
"What's happening to me?"
Sitting carefully on the edge of the bed and dragging the sheet over his lap,
since he was only wearing plaid boxer shorts and a ratty San Francisco Giants
t-shirt, Stiles gave her a sympathetic look, but he was as confused as she was.
"This is your room? Your house? How did I get in?" Suspicion flooded her face
and her eyebrows drew together. "You didn't kidnap me, did you?"
"No! Jeez. I woke up to find you there. I have no clue how you got here or why
you're here." But his eyes drifted down to her side covered by a thin purple
nightshirt through which he could see the edges of the bulky bandage covering
her bite.
Her eyes followed his and her hand crept to the spot. She looked scared again.
"No one will tell me what happened on the playing field. There was...a man. And
then...there wasn't. He...it...something..." Making a frustrated noise, she
pressed her hands to her temples and took shaking breaths. "I think I remember
you yelling my name."
"I was too late."
"Did you see what did this to me? And what would make me come here?"
Huffing at that rather snide question, Stiles replied a bit snippily, "I don't
know. I was the one whose bed was invaded." When she gave him a wounded look,
he sighed and gentled his tone of voice. "Come on. My dad's on the night shift.
I'll take you home."
"You didn't answer my questions," she snapped as she slid from the bed. He
ignored her and jerked on jeans and stuffed his feet into old sneakers.
*****
New crises took precedence over Lydia's sleepwalking--and apparently her
ability to scale the side of his house and climb through his window which had
been open again. There was a murder and a kid he barely knew on the lacrosse
team was arrested for killing his dad, and then Stiles found out Derek had
turned the kid, Isaac.
The Argent pater familia arrived all glaring and wanting revenge.
Scott wasn't handling the loss of Allison well. He wasn't handling Stiles
becoming a werewolf well, either.
Stiles didn't know how to help with either of those things. He thought being a
werewolf was magnificent--well, the smelling gross things wasn't all that great
but the strength and speed and healing were super--and he couldn't help but
mentally kick his previous self for not wanting it.
Though, really, deep inside, he'd always wanted the bite, just not from the
rogue Alpha. At the revelation that Peter was the rogue, he hadn't wanted it
from him, either, but he was rolling with the punches.
Literally in the first training session with Derek and Isaac. Scott declined to
join them because he was being petulant and bitchy.
And that night, Stiles woke around five to find Lydia curled around him,
drooling a bit on his shoulder in a really cute way. For several minutes he
stared at her, then shook her slightly. She awoke, blinking in confusion, then,
eyes widening, pushed herself up to her knees.
"What the fuck is wrong with me?" she hissed.
He was as confused as she was, but it wasn't like he minded. "I don't mind."
Lydia glared at him and he shrugged helplessly. "Sorry, really don't."
"Your mouth really doesn't have a filter, does it."
He shrugged again. "You're stuck here till dad leaves at seven. Maybe we can
figure it out?"
She huffed and flopped onto her back. "Let me make it perfectly clear that I
still love Jackson despite him being a dick to me."
"Okay."
"I remember that I woke up in the hospital and was taking a shower and
everything was normal and then...it wasn't. I had like a waking dream or
nightmare of mud and leaves and...then you were in my head and...The next thing
I remember was you finding me in the forest and it just seemed right." Her head
rolled on the pillow as she shook it. "I don't understand. Is it because you
were there when I was bitten?"
"I was too late."
"Yeah, so you said, but you didn't say if you saw who did this to me."
"It was a wild animal."
"I said who, Stiles, because I'm not stupid, remember?" she snapped but kept
her voice low so as not to awaken his dad.
Stiles sighed and pushed himself up against his headboard, not looking at her.
"I probably shouldn't be doing this," he muttered, then braced himself, took a
deep breath, exhaled it, and bluntly said, "You were bitten by a werewolf."
He could feel Lydia's shock and slowly pivoted his head to look at her. Then he
quickly looked away, flushing, because she'd pulled up her nightgown and was
staring at the scabbed bite marks.
"Am I a werewolf then?"
"No. You didn't turn. We don't know why."
"We?" she asked sharply.
He sighed again. "Me, Scott, Derek Hale."
"You're all werewolves? Wait, is that why Scott suddenly became not only
excellent at lacrosse but oddly hot?"
Stiles grunted. "Yeah."
"You still suck at lacrosse."
"I just got turned, okay?" Glaring at her in frustration for a moment, he then
jerked his head back to staring at the wall across from him. "You were bitten
by Peter, the rogue Alpha werewolf. Alphas are the leaders of the packs, but he
was a nutcase." His wolf yipped a scold at him for referring to its mate that
way, and he silently shushed it. "Derek killed him and became the Alpha. Both
Scott and I were bitten by Peter, too, but I've joined Derek's pack because the
more, the stronger and safer."
"Why did this Peter bite me?"
"I..." Actually, that wasn't something he'd given any thought to, but... "Maybe
because you're important to me. Maybe he was trying to make me happy?" His
fingers brushed across the small scars on his wrist, drawing Lydia's attention.
"Yours is healed."
"Werewolves heal really fast."
"Okay, so I was bitten but didn't turn and now I'm sleepwalking into your bed.
This is weird, Stiles, right?"
"Seems pretty weird to me. Anything else weird happening to you?" Turning he
caught something flicker across her face, but then she shook her head and he
didn't pursue it. "Um, I can sleep on the floor."
"Don't be stupid." Now that sounded like the real Lydia. She settled down on
the bed next to him and pulled the covers up to her chin.
Slowly, he slid down onto the bed and reached over to turn off the lamp, though
no way was he getting anymore sleep. He'd probably drool on her or hump her leg
or something.
Great, now he was getting a stiffie...
*****
A couple more days passed. Derek continued to bite damaged teenagers--Stiles
was convinced he was trying to fix his own problems from his teenhood by doing
it--and Scott continued to whine about Allison's family and refuse to join
Derek's pack. Stiles found out he was really fast and surprisingly agile. After
a lifetime of falling over his own feet just walking across a room, he could
now scale walls, trees, and pretty much anything that needed scaling, walk a
narrow beam with no balance problems, and jump off a roof and land on his feet.
He wasn't the greatest fighter, but being quick and smart made up for it.
During the school day he kept his eye on Lydia and, to his surprise, often
found her watching him as well. They didn't talk, though--too awkward--and four
days passed without her showing up in his bed.
In the nights that followed her last appearance he began to have weird dreams
about Peter, dreams that were much more detailed than the earlier vague ones.
There were dreams of the house fire, so real he could feel the flames and smell
the burning flesh, hear the screams. He watched Peter desperately trying to
save the children, finally giving up and, on fire, crawling into a tunnel
whimpering.
The whimpers reverberated through him, making him ache.
Sometimes he'd dream of happy times. Peter with a pretty blonde woman, a little
blonde girl on his lap, as they picnicked and he read her The Velveteen Rabbit.
Peter in a suit, the woman in a lacy white dress, kissing in front of their
pack as their vows were blessed.
Other dreams were darker. Peter catatonic in the care facility, the madness
slowly growing in him as he healed cell by cell. His bursts of freedom.
Killing Laura.
The regret and sorrow and horror over that, which he buried beneath the driving
need for revenge.
And then the dreams of Peter with Stiles which were so erotic they forced him
to wake, hard and desperately needing to jerk off.
During the day Stiles tried not to think about the dreams, letting them sink
back into his subconscious. He tried not to wonder why he was dreaming about a
dead man, sometimes dreaming from the eyes of that dead man, as if he was
remembering things Peter knew with more detail than anyone had told him.
He didn't want to think about the possible implications.
But the dreams that did linger were the ones that involved Lydia. They were no
longer his pre-werewolf dreams of dates and kisses and even hazy sex with her.
In these, she was vivid and strong, and always naked. She'd climb on top of him
and ride him until they were both panting and sweating, and just as he'd come,
he'd look up into her eyes.
And they were red.
After those dreams he didn't need to jerk off because he always came in his
sleep like he was thirteen all over again.
So, when he woke one night in Lydia's bed to find her watching him, her fingers
stroking down his cheek, he didn't question. He wrapped one arm around her
waist and pulled her towards him, then closed his eyes and sank back into
sleep.
He hadn't slept so well since his mother's death.
When he awoke again it was early morning and he could hear Lydia in the shower
in the adjoining bathroom, her hands slipping over her soapy wet skin. As he
blushed and turned off his enhanced hearing, an image flitted through his mind-
-Peter wet beneath the shower spray. Stiles' soapy hands caressing his back.
Swallowing hard, Stiles shook that thought away and slipped out the window to
head home.
*****
"Okay, something weird is going on."
From where he was seated on one of the broken seats on the broken train car,
Derek just looked at him. "We spent two hours last night in a pool after I was
paralyzed by a giant lizard."
"Yeah, okay, two things weird, or probably more. Definitely more." As he
babbled, Stiles sat across from Derek and propped one leg up on the seat,
wrapping a hand around his knee. "But, I need to figure this one out because
dad's going to walk in on us, or her parents will, and then we'll be in deep
shit."
"Stiles."
The growl stopped his mouth, which, truthfully, didn't run as wild anymore.
Apparently wolfiness cured ADHD along with epilepsy, asthma, and overwhelming
shyness--though he was still trying to figure out what it had cured in Boyd.
Taking a deep breath, he righted his thoughts and tried to explain. "Lydia's
been sleepwalking into my bed and then a couple nights ago I did the same to
hers."
"Isn't that your wildest dream come true?"
Stiles nearly snorted at Derek's constipated look. "Yeah, but, no. I've been
having weird dreams, too. Like dreams from Peter's point of view."
That caught Derek's attention and he leaned forward. "Like what?"
"The fire. Peter watching his family burn. His wife and daughter. Her name was
Gracie, right?"
Derek's eyes widened in shock and he whispered, "How did you know that?"
"Because they're Peter's memories. How the hell did he infect me with them?"
"I don't know. I've never heard about anything like that."
"Lydia's sometimes in the dreams, too. I think it has something to do with the
sleepwalking. I've tried to get her to tell me if she's having weird dreams but
she avoids the subject and distracts me with her lips or her hair or her boobs.
They're really great, y'know. Oh, also I told her about werewolves."
"Stiles!"
"Hey, she was bitten and freaking out! I just gave her the basics. Didn't even
mention your new puppies."
"Don't call them that."
"All three of them are out there on a mattress curled in a big pile snoring."
Derek sighed. "I had hoped the bite would make you less prone to babbling and
annoying me."
Stiles grinned and spread his arms wide. "You love me and you know it."
"I can throw you into a couple walls to show how much."
"Gotta catch me first."
Shaking his head in frustration, Derek growled Stiles into as much submission
as the Beta wolf ever submitted.
"Okay, seriously, I need to know what's going on. Peter's dead. He's dead;
you're the Alpha. We didn't er consummate the mating thing and everything I've
read says that death ends it anyway, consummated or not."
"You really shouldn't trust the internet, but, yes as far as I know. Peter's
bond with Marta, his wife, broke with her death or he wouldn't have been able
to claim you. Werewolves mate for life."
"But, it's not just instinct or a mate at first sight thing, right? The bite
plays a part or you'd be mated to Kate."
Derek gave him a disgruntled scowl, but nodded. "The bite seals it. I was too
young to take that step. My parents would have killed me. And I'm not certain
Kate was my mate anyway. It's not like werewolves can't have sex without being
mated. And the claim can be with a human, it's just rare, so I was confused a
lot about how I felt towards her." He frowned even deeper, as if realizing he'd
shared more with Stiles than he normally would.
Stiles wasn't surprised. He seemed to be able to get his new Alpha to open up
more, even to do things. Something to be addressed later...or never. "So, since
Peter bit me, if he hadn't died, I'd be mated to him for life, even though I
wasn't a werewolf yet?" Stiles made a face. "He didn't tell me what he was
doing."
"But you consented."
"Yeah, because apparently I leap before I think. And, yeah, I can see that 'no
shit' look in your eyes, sourwolf. Okay, okay. Does the claim have to be, you
know, set by sex or something."
"No, but there's really no point in claiming a mate if there's no sex involved.
Usually it's between a couple in love who want to make the relationship
permanent when they both just reach that point. If a wolf feels that bond with
a stranger, wolf or human, they usually take their time to fall in love before
the bite so that, while the initial instinct to claim was one-sided, it rarely
is by the time of the bite. Biting without love can happen though, as you know,
but I've never known of any mated couples who started that way. There have been
instances of wolves claiming and biting humans they barely know, but humans
can't feel the bond, which is why they're almost always turned. If Peter had
survived, your wolf would have submitted to its Alpha and you'd have been his
in every way whenever he wanted. There's no going back. There's no stopping it,
and our wolves will push us to physically mate once a claiming bond is set. The
bite to initiate it has to be consensual, though, which is why you were an
idiot."
Stiles grunted in annoyance and Derek snorted back at him.
"Is it a mutual biting if they're in love?"
"Usually, if they're the same level in pack hierarchy, but an Alpha will always
initiate, even if their mate never bites back, and a claimed human can't bite
at all and, once turned, will be subordinate to its mate simply due to the
other being a wolf longer."
"You know, you could have told us all this months ago."
"Like I thought you'd be stupid enough to accept a bite from the rogue Alpha?
And on the wrist?"
"Oh, yeah, I wondered if placement had something to do with it."
"Turning bites are on the stomach, thigh or neck, never the wrist unless..."
"Claiming." Stiles sighed and lightly banged his head back against the window
for some clarity. "So, if Peter hadn't died, I'd be screwed, literally." A
horrific thought came to him and he blurted out, "Oh god, mpreg isn't a real
thing is it?"
"What?"
"Male pregnancy!"
Rolling his eyes, Derek rose to his feet and started stomping down the aisle.
"With that completely stupid and obviously fictional idea, this conversation is
over. Isaac, Erica, Boyd, wake your asses up," he yelled.
A bit queasy, Stiles followed him out of the train car to join in a training
session that mostly was Derek tossing his Betas around with little effort.
Stiles was secretly proud that Derek actually broke into a sweat knocking him
aside with a lot more trouble. Maybe someday Stiles would actually win.
*****
Another two weeks passed, every third or fourth night finding Stiles in Lydia's
bed or vice versa. It was becoming comfortable and neither one really
questioned it anymore. Usually they woke in each others arms, legs tangled, and
faces close on the pillows. Stiles wasn't even embarrassed by his morning
erections after the first few times and Lydia completely ignoring them.
But, they didn't talk much about it, and while the nights they spent together
were dreamless for Stiles, his dreams and nightmares grew more intense on the
nights he spent alone. Going by the circles under Lydia's eyes, he knew she
wasn't sleeping well without him either, but when he'd ask her if she was
dreaming, she always told him she couldn't remember what they were about
outside of Peter biting her.
A few strange things happened with her during the waking hours, too. Weird
messages in her hand on the chalkboard, her seeming to be listening to someone
who wasn't there, and one night he woke to find her crawling into his bed with
dirty feet and smelling of the forest. While her feet were often dirty from
walking the six blocks, she'd never taken the long way round through the forest
to get leaf mold stuck between her toes. She wouldn't tell him why she'd gone
into the forest, but there had been a flash of fear in her eyes when she looked
at her dirty feet.
During the waking hours, though, Stiles was too busy dealing with the whole
Jackson as the Kanima issue, trying to figure out who his Master was, trying to
keep Derek from killing him, trying to keep under the Argents' radar--despite
Derek's dire predictions, they didn't seem to have figured out he was a
werewolf and Allison swore she wouldn't tell them--and making first line.
And then he cost his dad his job, and Stiles felt like a complete failure.
Before he could even deal with that, Derek bit Allison's mom when she tried to
kill Scott and everything was up in the air. Stiles had no clue how to deal
with his dad or Derek or anything. He'd always thought becoming a werewolf
would make everything clear, but life was still just a shitty mess.
Even playing first line didn't make him happy anymore, nor did Lydia and their
weird sleeping relationship.
But, his first full moon as a werewolf was the next night and while he was
pissed he'd have to miss the first of Lydia's birthday parties he'd actually
been invited to, he knew he should spend it with the pack. While he seemed to
have control over his wolf, he wasn't willing to risk his dad, even if his dad
wasn't speaking to him.
A part of him desperately wanted to tell him the truth, but his wolf needed to
protect his human father from everything that might hurt or worry him, so
Stiles was torn and just remained silent.
*****
Chained at the front of the train car, Stiles watched as Erica and Boyd fought
their bonds, as they broke free and attacked Derek, as Isaac flung himself
through one of the windows.
The wolf inside him wanted to follow, to run free, but he remained in his seat,
not even pulling at the chains. The cuff on his right wrist rubbed against the
scar, sending odd tingles up his arm. Glancing down, he saw his nails turn into
claws, and felt the shift come, but he still felt at peace. The moon's power
washed over him, but didn't turn him mad like the others.
He could break free, go help Derek, but then Isaac was back, pinning down Boyd,
in control and all Stiles had to do was sit there and feel powerful yet
content. He wondered if this was how Derek felt, though the Alpha hadn't
shifted under the moon. Maybe being a born wolf was different. Of course, he'd
also had his whole life, twelve times a year to get used to the full moon.
It was the worm moon this month. Lydia had told him that before telling him
she'd miss him at the party.
Where had she learned that?
Stiles mentally shrugged. The girl was brilliant, full of esoteric knowledge.
He really shouldn't be surprised.
The other three Betas were chained down again, calmer this time as Isaac's
control seemed to infect them. Bleeding from several healing scratches, Derek
crouched down in front of Stiles.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm not the one who was mauled, dude."
Derek almost smiled at that. "I'd never have guessed you'd be the one with
natural control."
Grinning and showing fangs, Stiles replied, "I'm awesome, you should have
figured that out by now."
"Yeah. Try to get some sleep. I don't think you'll need the chains next month
but let's keep them on tonight to be on the safe side."
"You need real beds, Derek," he replied as he tried to get comfortable on the
hard bench and heard Derek snort as he left the train car.
He had just closed his eyes for a minute when he heard a thud outside and then
a dragging sound. Gold eyes flashing back open, Stiles sat up straight and
leaned towards the other side of the car. He couldn't see anything, but a scent
came to him that made him choke.
Wolfsbane, just a hint, not enough to effect him, but there was wolfsbane out
there. Straining at the chains, he opened his mouth to call for Derek, but then
closed it. He didn't want to alert the other three Betas who had drifted off to
sleep. As quietly as he could, he broke the chains and rose on silent feet.
Isaac opened his eyes, but Stiles only smiled at him and shushed him, and the
other wolf went back to sleep.
Stiles left the train and followed a trail of purple dust and drag marks out of
the warehouse and into the alley. The trail vanished, but there were signs of a
car having been parked there. Lifting his nose in the air, he caught a faint of
the wolfsbane and his Alpha, and loped down the alley towards the Preserve.
*****
Stiles realized where he was headed about the time he stumbled over the car a
few hundred yards from the Hale House. Overhead, the moon was full and huge.
The air smelled of newly growing things and the hint of char that always
surrounded the ruined house. It felt strange, though, as if there was a low
charge electrical current stirring. Shifting back to human, Stiles silently
approached the house. Derek's scent was stronger and it mingled with someone
else familiar. The wolfsbane had blocked it earlier, but now he recognized it.
Lydia.
Frowning, he made his way up the steps, avoiding the one that creaked, and
slipped inside the open door.
The first thing he saw was Derek sprawled on the floor on his back, blood
dripping from one arm.
The second was Lydia, kneeling next to him, gasping for breath and shaking from
head to foot.
Both were fixated on a third person rising from a hole in the floor, covered in
dirt and smelling like decay.
Stiles' breath caught in his throat as the figure spoke.
"I heard there was a party." He lifted his head, his eyes glinting with anger
and amusement. "Don't worry. I invited myself." His lips twisted into a nasty
smirk and then his eyes flashed red and locked onto Stiles'. "There you are."
Peter.
Oh fuck no.
Stiles stumbled back against the wall, choking on the air and the fear flooding
him. Lydia and Derek slipped away from his focus as Peter filled it. Before he
could blink, the resurrected Alpha was in front of him, gripping his right
wrist, caressing the scars. Warmth shot through him but he was still scared. So
damn scared. He licked his lips unconsciously and flinched as Peter focused on
them.
"We have unfinished business, Stiles." His voice deepened to a growl that made
Stiles want to cower. "Go home. I'll be there soon."
"N-no."
Peter smirked again and his grip tightened. "Listen to your wolf, Stiles. He
won't let you deny me."
"I'm more than my wolf."
"Such bravado. In the end, so useless." As he spoke, he lifted Stiles' wrist to
his mouth and placed a kiss on it.
It felt like fire and Stiles heard his wolf, closer than it had ever been to
the surface, whimper in pleasure. A physical reaction went through his body,
weakening his knees, making him want to touch Peter, and he fought it, finally
pulling away but only because the Alpha let him.
"Go," he murmured and the order drove Stiles out the door. He was half way home
before he realized it, but he didn't stop until he was in his room, slamming
the door behind him and slumping against it, panting and shaking.
"This isn't happening. This isn't happening," he repeated over and over,
finally sliding to the floor and burying his face in his knees.
He didn't want to face it, but he knew what was coming. Stiles wasn't an idiot.
Peter hadn't just chosen him randomly. At first sight, his wolf had cried mate
and driven him to claim Stiles. Because Peter was Peter--crazy, rogue Alpha--he
hadn't even tried to fight it, and if he hadn't died a month ago, this would
have happened then, that night he finally attained vengeance for his family.
Would he have come to Stiles still covered in Kate's blood?
A shudder went through him and he whimpered into his knees. In his discussions
with Derek both had consciously avoided the subject of one party in the bond
being unwilling. Consent for the claiming bite had to be given and, apparently,
coerced consent still counted. Peter wasn't going to give Stiles time to
adjust, to get used to him, to know him.
And Stiles' wolf already had or didn't need more. With Peter's first touch,
Stiles' wolf had growled in pleasure and need and joy because its mate was
alive and wanting him.
He was going to lose his virginity tonight, but, to his wolf, that didn't even
matter because he was already Peter Hale's mate until one of them died. The sex
was just the natural result of the mating bond that had existed for a month and
he knew, unlike the bite, it didn't have to be consensual. What Stiles was
forced to do tonight he'd have to do over and over again for the rest of his
life.
Oh fuck, he didn't want it. Peter scared the shit out of him and...oh fuck,
Stiles had helped kill him. He had to be pissed about that. Would he...hurt
him?
His wolf whined softly, trying to bring him acceptance and the need to submit,
but Stiles was too scared and just shook and whimpered until a hand brushed
over the top of his head, stilling him. He didn't breathe until the hand
slipped away.
"I'm going to shower off the dirt and death and then we'll get to know each
other much better," Peter said conversationally, and Stiles felt the shift in
the air as he rose and padded towards the bathroom. He listened as the shower
came on, as water hit skin. Smelled dirt washing away, replaced with the clean
scent of Irish Spring.
And then the water turned off and a towel was rubbed over skin and hair and
Stiles had to move, get out, run and run and run...
The window closed and he jerked his head up to see Peter pulling the curtains
before turning to smile at him. He had the towel around his waist and Stiles
took a breath, smelling only soap and clean skin.
The decay was gone.
"How are you alive?" He had to know before they did this.
"Derek couldn't bring himself to bisect me. Did you know that?" He didn't wait
for an answer. "Too sentimental, too guilty, he buried me beneath the house,
but before he did, as I was dying, I reached out for a connection. You were a
wolf already and I needed a human. By pure luck I had one. Immunity to the bite
is so very rare."
Stiles' eyes widened in shock. "Lydia?"
"I placed a bit of myself in her, haunted her dreams, both sleeping and waking,
guided her to what I needed her to do to bring me back. I wasn't truly dead.
Werewolves will heal from anything but being cut in half or complete
cremation." His eyes hardened and he frowned. "And you weren't successful at
that. Really, Stiles, fire? I should be so angry at you for that, for making me
feel that agony again."
Peter stalked towards him and Stiles pushed himself up the door until he was
standing on shaky legs.
"Is Lydia okay now?" He was still more worried about her than himself. It was
his true curse--his need to put everyone he cared about before his own safety.
"She should be fine. I'm all me again." His hands slapped against the door on
either side of Stiles' head and he leaned forward until Stiles pressed his head
back, trying to make himself slide through the molecules of the wood. "Oh so
ready to claim my mate."
"Why...why didn't you tell me?"
"I wasn't sure you didn't know. You are the smart one of the bunch, after all.
But, also, because you might have balked, and I couldn't have that, Stiles."
Feeling unwanted tears sting the corners of his eyes, Stiles asked, "But, why
me?" even though he knew it wasn't a choice.
"We have the rest of our lives for me to tell you the million reasons why I
want you. Right now, I need to show you." One hand moved to cup Stiles' jaw,
fingers caressing the shivering skin. "You're afraid, but you don't need to be.
I won't hurt you. I can't hurt you. My wolf would never let me. It wants you so
badly, and your wolf wants me. Give into your instincts, Stiles," Peter
murmured as he leaned forward to press a soft kiss to Stiles' lips.
"I don't want...I don't..." A couple tears spilled free and Peter licked them
away before kissing him again, this time deeper, forcing his lips to part and
accept him.
His wolf howled in pleasure and need and Stiles felt an answering spark in his
body. He didn't want this. He really didn't. But, despite the denial and
repulsion his mind was screaming, his body was falling under control of his
wolf.
Maybe...maybe it would just be easier...
A thought intruded, and he broke the kiss to gasp out, "My dad."
"Is probably busy dealing with a large number of inebriated and stoned
teenagers. I doubt he'll be home before dawn, and I'll hear him coming. That
gives us plenty of time," Peter murmured against Stiles' throat before pressing
a heated kiss to his quivering Adam's apple as his hands found the younger
man's hips and pressed him harder to the door.
"I'll...I'll fight you."
Peter chuckled. "No you won't. Your wolf is howling at you to submit to its
mate. Our consummation's been long delayed, Stiles. Your wolf won't let it go
much longer. Give in."
"Fuck you." He started to struggle, despite his wolf's howling frustration.
"I love your bravado, but I'm going to win here."
Stiles caught a flash of red eyes, felt claws dig into his hips, and his wolf
whined.
"Submit," Peter ordered, his voice deepened by the Alpha wolf coming out of
him, and Stiles quivered and instinctively bared his throat, the hands that had
been pushing at Peter, stilling on his bare back, and he whined vocally. "Good
boy." Fangs scraped lightly over his throat and then retreated, replaced by
human teeth that worried the skin as lips suckled, and Stiles felt a heat flood
him that he'd never felt with another person before.
Before he knew it, his shirts were gone and Peter was kissing him again. Stiles
didn't want to respond, but he was caught up in something he didn't understand.
The wolf he'd been able to control so easily since turning was taking over
because it understood what the human refused to.
Peter was his Alpha, his mate, his forever.
With a sob, Stiles began to return the kiss and didn't do anything to try to
stop Peter from stripping the rest of his clothes from him or bringing them
both to the bed.
When the kissing stopped long enough for him to catch his breath, he opened his
eyes to find Peter naked and propped on his side, one leg curled over Stiles'
knees, one hand moving over the younger man's chest and trembling stomach.
"You are so lovely."
Stiles blushed uncontrollably, then flinched as Peter's hand wrapped around his
cock. The kissing and touching had brought him to the first stages of physical
arousal. Skilled fingers made his cock harden more.
"I don't want this," he managed to whisper, even though he felt paralyzed by a
mixture of fear and desire and a lot of instinct that he didn't understand.
Not replying, Peter leaned down to flick his tongue over one nipple, and Stiles
gasped in surprise at how good it felt. As he continued to lick and kiss, the
Alpha's eyes slid upwards to meet Stiles' and a dark smile creased his face. "A
part of you does. You need to let go completely. This was meant to be."
"I never wanted it!"
Peter chuckled and nipped at Stiles' stomach. "You didn't want the bite either,
and now look at you. So magnificent. I knew you would be the perfect Alpha
Mate." His fingers moved faster along Stiles' cock, aided by the precum that
had begun to leak from him.
Stiles began to gasp in pleasure. He didn't want it, but he seemed to be
helpless to stop it. A part of him still wanted to fight, to hit out, kick out,
but he couldn't. The wolf had him now, and it was easier, because he wasn't
stupid and he knew that even if he fought Peter to the end, all that would mean
was he'd be forcibly raped.
It was still rape. It was. He didn't want it.
Tears stung his eyes and he flung an arm over them to keep them in as his hips
bucked uncontrollably and groans of pleasure broke from his tight throat.
Just as he was about to come, Peter's hand stopped, tightening around the base
of his cock, and Stiles whined before he could stop himself.
"In time, Stiles," Peter crooned softly into his ear, his other hand prying
Stiles' arm away from his face. "I want you to come when I'm inside you. It'll
be amazing for both of us." His eyes flashed red again and he ordered, "Don't
come," and released his cock.
Stiles tried to disobey, his body shaking in need, but, at his Alpha's order,
he couldn't come. Fear flooded him. What if Peter never let him..."
"No, no, love, I'm not that cruel, I promise. Just hold on and it'll be so
good." As he spoke, his hands found Stiles' shoulders and began to turn him.
"This'll be easier for you on your knees."
Panting for air, feeling hot all over, Stiles let his body be maneuvered to its
knees and elbows, and, after a deep, short kiss, his head lowered to his
crossed arms. Closing his eyes and trying to breathe through the pleasure and
the ever present fear, he heard Peter fumbling in his night stand drawer, then
felt a slick finger slide between his ass cheeks. He flinched away, but Peter's
other hand took his hip, holding him still. With a push the finger popped
through the tight muscles. It stung and Stiles hissed, but a glance down showed
his cock was still hard and very interested.
Peter was crooning probably soothing words against his back, but Stiles tuned
him out, breathing deeply as the finger probed at him, and then was joined by a
second. His wolf slipped out, growling in pain and pleasure, and he heard
Peter's chuckle of pride. "Yes, your wolf knows. Your wolf wants this." The
fingers pushed and pulled and began to spread, and Stiles whimpered and dug his
fingers into the sheets. As a third finger pushed in, his claws popped out,
tearing at the bedding. It hurt. "You're taking my fingers like a champ. So
beautiful."
Lips brushed over his lower back and he arched into the touch, unable to stop
himself, and the pain eased as more lube was pushed into him. Another glance
showed him that his cock still hadn't diminished. The pain wasn't making his
hard on go away. His wolf wanted this too damn much.
But, he wasn't all his wolf and the human was scared. Stiles sniffled into his
arms and squeezed his eyes shut and just prayed this would end soon. He was
getting to the point that he didn't even care if his body was prepped enough.
He wanted it over.
The bed shifted behind him and his legs were pushed further apart. As the
fingers slipped from him, he felt Peter press his hips against his ass, and he
took a deep, shuddering breath. Something much broader than the three fingers
pressed against his loosened entrance, and he tried to squirm forward, away,
but Peter held him tightly, the claws again pressing into his hips, and then he
was breached, and a howl broke from him.
It hurt even more. Jesus! Stiles squirmed and kicked his feet and wanted away,
but Peter just pushed deeper and deeper, spreading him open despite his body
not wanting to give way, until his pelvis was flush against his trembling ass.
Stiles panted harshly and finally begged, "Please...please...just..." Do it.
End it. Stop.
Except when Peter pulled back and thrust carefully back in, the head of his
cock brushed what Stiles knew to be his prostate and stars burst behind his
eyes. Intense pleasure choked him and his cock throbbed.
"Oh, Stiles," Peter panted, and Stiles started listening to him. The Alpha, his
Alpha, was breathing hard, groaning with every thrust, and the wolf inside
Stiles felt suddenly powerful. Widening his senses, he felt Peter shivering,
his fingers trembling against his skin. He heard the slap of skin on skin, wet
with lube and sweat, and he realized he was sweating, too, and that his cock
was throbbing even harder. A glance down showed precum dripping onto the bed
and, even farther down, Peter's knees between his legs, shaking.
Both of them were shaking.
God, he needed to come. Propping himself on one elbow, he slid his other arm
down, his hand reaching for his cock, only to find it joined by one of Peter's
and they both jerked him off hard and fast. Unable to prevent himself from
responding any longer, too caught up in the sudden lust, Stiles realized his
hips were moving with Peter's, and it no longer hurt. He felt full inside, hot
and wet and needy, and his control shattered.
"Come for me," Peter growled, and Stiles' wolf howled and erupted into a
violent orgasm. As he shuddered and mewled, he barely felt Peter come with hard
thrusts of their hips together. His howl joined his mate's as they collapsed
together.
*****
What seemed like hours later, but was only a few minutes, Stiles came back to
himself to find his shivering body laying in a wet spot, held down by his mate.
His mate. Yeah, he couldn't deny it. His heart sank into his chest, and he
wanted to fight all this off, but it was hopeless.
"You're over thinking." As Peter whispered into his ear, he shifted his hips
and Stiles felt his softened cock slip from him with a gush of slippery fluid
and a new punch of pain that made him hiss. Stiles tried to move away, but he
was exhausted and aching and just buried his face in his pillow, wanting to
scream, but his wolf, his damn wolf, was so happy.
He felt Peter kiss his shoulder, then the bed shift as he rose to pad into the
bathroom. Not wanting to be surprised by anything, but not able to look at the
Alpha wolf, Stiles listened as Peter washed himself, then returned to sit next
to him. A warm, wet cloth slid over his lower back and then between his ass
cheeks, cleaning him. It hurt, the soap stinging, but he could feel himself
already healing.
"You didn't tear, and the bruises are fading. The impressions of my fingers
look lovely on you. I'm almost sorry they won't stay as evidence of our
joining."
"Yeah, not sorry here," Stiles grunted into the pillow, wincing as Peter
continued to clean him.
"I'm pretty sure there's nothing you can say right now that'll piss me off."
"Great." A light slap on one butt cheek made him gasp. "Jesus. And I'm laying
in the wet spot. Just perfect."
Laughing, Peter rose again, then reached down and lifted Stiles around the
waist and off the bed. He flailed, kicking, but found himself on his feet,
swaying, tired and sore and not happy. "Get some clean sheets. I want you
smelling of me, but they're getting crusty."
Stiles glared at him and limped with a lot of exaggeration into the hall to the
linen closet. The pain had faded quickly to a dull ache and while his body was
relaxed from orgasm, he felt different, too. Sated in ways he'd never felt
before.
His wolf huffed in sleepy pleasure, and Stiles yawned as well as he returned
with clean sheets. Peter had stripped the wet and soiled ones and helped him
fit on the new ones, then dragged Stiles down to the mattress, manhandling him
onto his side facing the wall and tugging the blankets over them.
"I always sleep on the window side," Stiles grunted petulantly.
"The Alpha protects his own," Peter replied, wrapping one arm around Stiles'
waist and pulling their bodies together.
Too tired to protest any more or pull away, Stiles closed his eyes and tried to
even out his breathing so he could sleep.
Maybe in the morning he'd feel like fighting this.
But...instinctively, he knew it was pointless. His wolf had always belonged to
its Alpha mate and even his human side was beginning to accept it.
He wasn't sure how he was going to deal with all this, but he didn't have the
energy to try to figure it out tonight or to have a nervous breakdown. Tomorrow
would be soon enough.
*****
A strident--but feminine--voice drew Stiles from a dreamless sleep and he
mumbled and rolled over half onto something soft and curved.
A deep and angry growl jerked him fully awake and his brain tried to process
what he'd heard.
Lydia yelling, "What the fuck, Stiles?"
And Peter growling, probably wolfed out, "Stiles, wake up and explain why Lydia
is in our bed."
"Urk."
Blinking sleep-crusted eyes open, he realized that, one, it was still dark
enough to mean it wasn't dawn yet; two, Lydia was curled up tight against him
on the wall side of the bed--which meant she had to crawl over both them while
sleep walking--and she was also glaring at him with her arms crossed over her
breasts--breasts he couldn't help noticing were barely covered by something
pink and lacy; and, three, Peter was wolfed out and his fangs were practically
dripping as he leaned over Stiles and growled at Lydia.
Who, to her credit, didn't back down at all.
Both of them were sitting and Stiles tried to sit, too, but Peter, with one
clawed hand, shoved him back down. Wincing as the claws pricked his chest,
Stiles fell into immediate and annoying submission.
He didn't whine though, really.
"Um...Don't kill her!"
"I should have noticed her scent here, all over this room and this bed, but I
was too consumed by you." Peter's voice rose menacingly and his hand pressed
down harder until Stiles could barely breathe.
"Air," he choked out, batting at the hand holding him, but then he watched in
amazement as Lydia grabbed Peter's wrist and jerked it up.
As Stiles panted for air, Lydia snapped, "Leave him alone. What are you even
doing here? And, God, it reeks like sex. You're old enough to be his father!"
Peter easily pulled free of her and, thankfully, his features and claws
retreated to human as he ordered, his voice clipped and still very angry,
"Explain, Stiles, now."
"Lydia's been sleep walking into my bed and a few times I've gone to hers, and
nothing has happened," he stressed quickly as Peter's eyes flickered red. "I
swear, not even kissing. Inadvertent boners only. Oh God, don't kill us!"
"Shut up now."
With a loud clack of his teeth, Stiles shut up and carefully watched Peter for
any sign that he was going to lose it completely.
Instead, he frowned and seemed to be thinking.
Apparently, so was Lydia. "This is your fault. It all makes sense now. You put
a part of your creepy self into me and that's what drew me to Stiles. He told
me he would have been your mate--and God is that just wrong in a hundred
different ways--if you hadn't died. But, you didn't die, did you. You stayed
alive in me. All the dreams and the weird shit, young you, they were all
because you really were there." Her eyes narrowed and then she looked down at
Stiles and cocked her head.
Peter cocked his head like that sometimes. Oh shit...
"Yes, but I shouldn't be there now. This must be a residual effect."
As he no longer seemed angry but was more intrigued, Stiles allowed himself a
soft sigh of relief, then, it finally hit him that he was naked and Lydia was
under the blankets pressed against him and, he turned red.
Peter snorted. Lydia frowned deeper. Stiles felt like curling into a ball and
disappearing.
Everything from the night before came back like a whirlwind and the next thing
he knew he was having a panic attack. Lydia's frown had turned to concern and
Peter was lifting him onto his lap, stroking him gently and urging him to
breathe. Over the ringing in his ears and his own gasping for air, he could
hear Lydia's harsh accusations.
"You hurt him, didn't you. He was a virgin. You're the big bad wolf and you
knew that and you hurt him and now you're scaring the Hell out of him. Jesus,
he doesn't want you! You're a psychopath!"
"I didn't hurt him," Peter ground back through clenched teeth, his hands
continuing to stroke over the trembling muscles of Stiles' back, and it was
calming him because the wolf inside him was being gentled and it wanted its
Alpha so badly. "I could never hurt him. He's mine. The first time I saw him,
so scared, yet so brave and defiant as well, I knew I had to have him. He's my
mate. It's rare for it to hit like that. Usually it's a discovery between
lovers, but it's not unheard of, especially for an Alpha, and the Alpha in me
knew at one glance. It nearly knocked me off my feet. Do you really think that
I wanted a teenage boy, the Sheriff's son, as my mate?"
Stiles whimpered uncontrollably at the odd pain Peter's words caused him, but
he was finally able to breathe.
"Stop that, Stiles." Peter's voice softened, his hands moved to cup the young
man's pale cheeks. "Don't get indignant that, initially, I didn't want you
because you don't want me either."
"So you raped him," Lydia declared flatly.
"I may owe you my life, little girl, but watch your mouth."
A strained silence fell, broken only by Stiles' harsh breaths, until he was
under control again and embarrassment returned. He was sitting in Peter's lap
and the blanket was around his knees, meaning his ass was bare to the world and
Lydia. Scrabbling for cover, he ignored Peter's amused chuckle and Lydia's eye
rolling.
"We need to figure out why you're still infecting Lydia."
Peter huffed. "I suppose we must." He glanced out the window, then slid from
the bed, reaching for a duffle bag that sat on the desk chair that Stiles
hadn't even noticed. "Dawn is only an hour away. Get dressed. We'll go to IHOP
and have a long chat." He casually started to dress.
Stiles jerked his eyes away from Peter's naked body and ended up staring at the
lace barely covering Lydia's breasts. She huffed in annoyance and climbed over
the end of the bed to dig in his dresser for some of the clothes she'd taken to
leaving there.
"Stiles, get up. I need coffee to deal with any more of this, and it's not like
you have anything I haven't seen."
He was half way dressed in jeans and a Star Wars t-shirt before he realized how
easily he'd obeyed her order. Swallowing hard, he glanced at Peter who stood by
the window fully clothed in dark gray trousers, a burgundy shirt and a leather
coat and watching him closely. Nearly tripping over his feet, he dove in his
closet for a navy hoodie and then stuffed his feet into his shoes.
Lydia led the way out the door, somehow looking impeccable in leggings and a
tunic thing, even without makeup and after barely running a brush through her
hair.
Peter followed, in stalking mode.
And Stiles trailed behind wondering how this was his life.
*****
The IHOP was mostly empty--a few people coming off the night shift, a few night
owls, one of the two local hookers--and Peter took them to a corner booth,
crowding Stiles into one side with his hip and gesturing for Lydia to take the
other. After receiving coffee and ordering--huge platters of pancakes, sausage
and eggs for the two werewolves, a fruit plate and bagel for Lydia--she was the
one to break the silence.
"Do you think it'll fade?"
Peter shrugged. "You've been drawn to Stiles since I bit you?" At her nod, he
continued. "The part of me inside you saw him as your mate, but, you're human
with no understanding of any of that, so you kept it platonic." His eyes
darkened. "Lucky for you."
"Don't threaten me," she snarled, then added another sweetener to her coffee
and took a sip. "None of this was my choice. None of it was really Stiles'
either. He told me how you threatened his dad, seduced him into believing he
could stop you."
"He did stop me." Peter smirked. "For a while."
"Can we not talk about me like I'm not here?" Leaning on one elbow, Stiles
cupped his cheek in his hand and yawned, annoyed and a bit scared, and tired.
Even though he'd slept as well as he only had recently with Lydia.
"Don't be petulant, darling."
"Don't call me darling."
"Stiles, you can bicker with him all you want later. In fact, I encourage it.
But, I need to get him out of my life and my brain."
Giving her a chagrined look, he mumbled, "Sorry. Yeah."
"I should be out. Be completely honest with me, Lydia. Look at Stiles and tell
me what you feel?"
Her eyes locked on him with a laser focus and Stiles felt himself flushing. A
dozen emotions crossed her face, then she pursed her lips and turned her
attention back to Peter. "I want him."
Stiles choked on his coffee, nearly spewing it across the table.
"That's too bad for you," Peter snidely replied, "Because he can't want you.
When I was technically dead he may have been able to be aroused by others, but
now that I'm alive, he's mine alone."
"Are you so sure about?" Her shrewd eyes turned back to Stiles and then she
reached across the table and drew one soft finger across his wrist, across the
spot where the bite had scarred.
Arousal hit him and Stiles drew in a shaky breath. He was half hard.
"Impossible," Peter hissed, his eyes flashing red.
"Calm down," Lydia snapped, removing her finger. "Either a part of you is still
in me or something in me has changed, become like you enough that Stiles sees
me in a similar way as he sees you. I'll hypothesize that your possession and
your bite changed me on a genetic level. I didn't turn into a werewolf. I
didn't turn into that lizard thing Jackson's become. I'm something else, and
Stiles sees you in me, he sees his mate, but he's not gay, so he'll want me
more than you."
Oh, that pissed off Peter. He was seething beside Stiles, his whole body tense,
and his claws just starting to emerge, when Stiles place a careful hand on his
thigh and calmed him with one touch.
"That's not quite true, Lydia. I...I've known for a couple years that I like
guys as well as girls."
"Okay, but my point remains. You still want me."
"Um..." Unable to look at her, his cheeks flaming again, he turned his eyes to
Peter and read only a hard, blank look on his face. "Yeah. I'm still...yeah.
That hasn't gone away."
His wolf whined in confusion and Stiles felt like joining it.
"I won't accept your hypothesis without proof. Stiles is my mate, not yours."
"I didn't say he wasn't yours. I find it very creepy, but he's not cringing
away from you, he doesn't seem scared of you, so I'm guessing you didn't treat
him like crap his first time."
Stiles was saved from protesting by the arrival of their food and, after
coating his pancakes with blueberry syrup, he dug in, trying to ignore the
other two at the table who, between bites, continued to discuss him and his sex
life like he wasn't there.
When they were left with only suppositions, the subject changed, and Stiles
tuned back in.
"Okay, so how did I get you out of me and into your corpse?"
Surprised, Stiles was the one to answer her. "You don't remember?"
"What is the last thing you remember, Lydia?"
Her brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled and Stiles wanted to kiss it. Hoping
Peter didn't notice, he took another big bite of sausage, chewing like a
chipmunk.
"I...I was talking to Allison about the dresses I was going to change into
during the party. And then...I don't know. I remember seeing you rising from
that hole. I remember Stiles was there. Then I was back at home and the place
was a mess and I decided to ignore it and went to bed. I couldn't remember why
I was so tired, but I knew it had something to do with your possession. For the
first time I knew for a fact that I was possessed, not crazy or hallucinating.
You were real." She glowered at Peter.
He sipped his coffee. "It was the night of the worm moon, the moon of rebirth.
Years ago I learned a very powerful spell and I used you to implement it. You
drugged Derek for me and brought him to the house. You dug up my grave and used
the blood of my killer, the moon, and my own desire to live, to bring me back."
Derek. Stiles had pretty much forgotten about Derek. As Lydia was mulling over
what Peter told her, he asked, "Is Derek okay?"
"He's fine. He's brooding at Deaton's."
"Is he still an Alpha?" Stiles carefully broached the delicate subject.
"No. He never should have been. My mother birthed two potential Alphas, my
sister and I. At our father's death, the power went to Rebecca and I was fine
with being her second. I never wanted the power, not then, but I had the
potential. While any Beta can become an Alpha through killing, only those born
with the potential can truly handle the power. Bitten wolves who become Alphas
are why we have Hunters. They lose control too easily, kill too easily, and
lose themselves in the process. Derek was a born Beta. He was never meant for
the Alpha power or position. It would have driven him mad as well, though more
slowly than a bitten wolf." He sipped his coffee again and took a last bite of
eggs, savoring them. "I've missed the taste of, well, everything."
"So, what happens to Derek now?" Stiles drew Peter back to the topic at hand.
"He is mine again, my Beta, my second if he'll accept. His Betas, those
confused teenagers, are mine as well. If he accepts, they will as well. Scott's
the problem because he's been Omega for so long, refusing me, refusing Derek."
Peter sighed. "I really should have bitten you that night in the woods."
Stiles ignored that and gestured to Lydia with his fork. "So what about Lydia?"
"She's immune, it's extremely rare, and maybe her DNA has changed. I have no
issue with the two of your exploring that. I have an issue with you wanting
her."
At his mate's cold tone, his wolf cringed. Stiles held his ground. "Not either
of our faults."
Peter shrugged and pushed his empty plate away as he leaned back in the booth.
"I'm possessive, deal with it."
"If I'd wanted to, I could have had him any time in the past month," Lydia
declared, her voice dripping with sugar which just made Peter glare at her. "I
won't push it because I don't want him paying for something that's out of our
control, but I will figure this out, and if the attraction is because of the
two of you being mates and you remaining a part of me, we will come to an
amicable arrangement." She let cool eyes drift between the two men, then
frowned. "Because I didn't realize it until tonight, but since you bit me, I
haven't wanted any man but Stiles."
"You're not me," Peter growled.
"A part of me seems to be," she growled back.
Stiles swallowed hard and slumped into his seat. Fuck his life, really.
*****
It was nearly eight in the morning when they dropped off Lydia at her house and
Stiles turned to Peter. "So, um, what now?"
"Before you all killed me, I rented an apartment. It's over on Euclid." He
gestured to the East and Stiles put the jeep in gear.
"My dad's probably home, wondering where I am. I can't...I'm only sixteen,
Peter."
Peter had obviously given this some thought. "I have no desire to go to jail or
to kill your father, so we'll keep our relationship quiet until you're
eighteen. Don't think that gets you out of your responsibilities to me and our
pack. You're the Alpha Mate. You already care for the Betas. You already feel
protective of them, am I right?" He didn't wait for Stiles' response. "That's
natural. So, you'll come to all pack meetings, help us train and battle, tend
to wounds, and share my bed when I want and you can get away from your father."
He found it pretty weird that his heart didn't sink at Peter's cooly spoken
statement about sharing a bed, but Stiles simply nodded in acceptance. They'd
keep it all from his dad. That's all that mattered. And, while he didn't like
to think about it, let alone admit it to himself, being fucked by Peter hadn't
sucked. He could get used to it.
He'd have to get used to it.
"I expect you to challenge me, to keep me in check, as well, Stiles. My revenge
is complete, but killing is addictive. I don't want to be simply a killer. I
want a pack, a family again. You can help me with that and I expect you to."
"Mpreg isn't a real thing is it?" He'd asked Derek the same question and was
pretty sure the answer was 'no', but...
Peter snorted and gave him the address of his apartment. When they arrived and
Stiles stopped the jeep, Peter leaned towards him and Stiles found himself
echoing the move until their lips touched in a soft kiss.
"After school and practice, come to that death trap Derek calls a den for our
first pack meeting. We need to figure out who the Kanima's master is and how to
stop them both. Oh, and bring Scott."
Nodding, Stiles watched Peter exit the jeep and stroll towards the small eight-
plex and the right ground floor apartment. Once he was out of view, Stiles took
a deep breath, and headed home. He was going to be late to his first class as
it was. He just hoped his dad was asleep. The night security gig was draining
on him--maybe he hadn't even looked in on Stiles. Peter thought the older
Stilinksi was still the sheriff; he'd have to explain what had happened there.
He figured Peter would be happy--the night job would make it easier for Stiles
to be with him overnight.
At home, his dad was asleep and since there were no 'where the hell are you,
Stiles' messages via post-it on his door or left on his phone, which he'd left
in yesterday's pants, he must not have checked on him. Stiles took the quickest
shower ever, noticing that every mark Peter had given him was healed and the
soreness in his ass was gone as well, threw on clean clothes, grabbed his
backpack, and sped to school.
Mrs. Repogle, his English teacher, was amazingly tolerant of his tardiness,
probably because he shared her love for Shakespeare which most students found
untranslatable. Scott shot him a confused look then looked longingly at the
empty desk next to him. Stiles gave a brief wonder about Allison being absent,
then raised his hand to answer a question about Brutus' motivation for stabbing
Caesar.
After class, Scott grabbed Stiles and dragged him into the nearest boy's
bathroom. "Dude, I tried texting you a zillion times last night. Where were
you?"
"It was the full moon, genius. Where do you think I was?"
"Well, yeah, I know that. Chained up somewhere, but you could have answered
your phone. The party was freaking weird. Everyone got high on something, even
me. Allison was there with creepy Matt and creepy Matt is Jackson's master."
...Okay, that made complete sense.
"And Allison's not here today and not answering my texts. I hope she's okay.
She was freaked last night. We were all hallucinating."
A couple varieties of wolfsbane could do that. Peter had obviously taught Lydia
to use the stuff.
"Back to Matt and Jackson. That's very interesting. It has something to do with
the swim team, right?"
"Probably. Matt fell into the pool and he can't swim. He went completely nuts
and Jackson had to rescue him."
"Hm..." Stiles mulled over all that and theories started popping into his head,
and...he wanted to share them with Peter.
Shit. He was already thinking about Peter first to solve problems.
"We need to get into the sheriff's station to look at the files to make the
connections complete. After practice, we'll head to Derek's and bring him up to
speed. I don't want to involve my dad, but maybe he can help us get to the
files."
And with that Stiles managed to avoid telling Scott anything about Peter.
For now.
As they left the bathroom for economics class, Stiles got a text from Lydia.
She was staying home to start working on their problem and would use the
science lab after school to start running DNA tests.
Of course she would.
*****
Derek wasn't alone at the abandoned train station. His three Betas--now
Peter's--were there, squished together on one of the ratty couches they'd
scrounged from Goodwill, and they all looked uncomfortable. There was no sign
of Peter, no scent of him either, but Stiles could sense Derek lurking in a
dark corner. He figured the former Alpha hadn't told the pack anything yet, but
they could sense something had changed.
Isaac's eyes went to him first, quickly followed by Boyd's and Erica's, and,
almost as one they dropped them and submitted.
Stiles nearly fell down the last step in surprise, then jerked his attention to
the dark corner when Derek half grunted, half growled, and stepped reluctantly
into the light. As he and Scott crossed the floor towards the attempt at
hominess along one wall, Derek slumped onto a stool and didn't look at him.
Scott and the puppies were probably still too inexperienced to tell, but Stiles
knew Derek recognized the difference in him. Despite this not being a romance
novel where the deflowered heroine just knew everyone could tell with one look,
Stiles knew he didn't look any different, he wasn't acting any different, but
there was probably a change in scent or something, because Derek knew.
Of course, he'd also been there the night before when Peter had ordered Stiles
home with a smirk and an 'I'll be there soon', the bastard.
It felt good to think of his mate as a bastard, relieved him to know that he
was still himself with his smart mouth and thoughts.
Although he nearly tripped over his feet again when Peter arrived in the
building. Despite him being a floor above and behind two walls and doors,
Stiles knew he was there. His heart sped up and, mouth suddenly dry, he gulped.
Derek slumped even more, and Scott stiffened.
"What...?"
Oh, yeah, sometimes he forgot that Scott was Peter's, too.
His best friend was the first to turn, hands fisting at his sides, eyes
glowing, as Peter descended the stairs behind them.
And Stiles calmly stepped in front of Scott, forced him to meet his eyes, and
firmly said, "Stop."
Scott whimpered and his wolf retreated. "Stiles?"
"Go sit down," he directed, his voice gentling, before he moved to Peter's
side.
Peter smiled in pleasure and Stiles fought the instinctive eye roll, jamming
his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and watching the confusion rolling
over the Betas and Scott going to Derek's side, frustration and anger on his
expressive face. Derek just stared at the floor.
Boyd was the one to break the silence. "Who is this?"
"A dead guy," Scott spat, not ready to submit, although Stiles could see him
struggling, just as he could feel the power radiating off his mate as they
joined the pack.
"Never truly dead. You have Derek to thank for that. Too sentimental to cut me
in half." Peter took a seat in an easy chair, crossed one knee over the other,
and wrapped his hand around Stiles' wrist to pull him easily onto the wide arm.
"Dude," Scott hissed at Derek. "After all that 'you have to cut a werewolf in
half to make sure he doesn't come back' thing you made sure to pound into my
head, and you didn't do that to him?"
Derek grunted and his eyes snapped up, his flaring blue eyes, that sent Scott
stumbling a step back and made Erica and Isaac whimper in confusion.
"You're not Alpha anymore," Scott whispered in shock, then slowly turned to
Peter. Stiles felt his eyes fall on him first, felt the immediate and
uncomfortable surprise, as Peter still held his wrist, and flushed but didn't
try to get away.
Scott might be uncomfortable, but Stiles wasn't. His wolf was curled inside him
huffing in contentment.
They were right where they were supposed to be.
"No, he's not. He never should have been and he knows that, don't you, Derek."
Peter smiled flatly at the three on the couch. "I'm Peter Hale, Derek's uncle,
and I'm the Alpha now." Stiles didn't need to see it to know Peter flashed his
red eyes. Isaac submitted immediately, baring his throat, and Erica quickly
followed, though she growled in confusion. Only Boyd remained still, eyes
locked on Peter.
"What if we don't accept that?"
"You're free to leave the pack, but that means leaving Beacon Hills as well. I
won't have any Omegas in my territory. You're a smart one, Vernon. You know
you're better off here."
Vernon? What the Hell?
"How do you know my name?"
"This town isn't that big. I went to school with your dad, Vernon Boyd the
Third. He was a couple years ahead of me, but my abilities got me on the
varsity basketball team with him when I was a freshman. I'm assuming that you
don't want to leave your family..."
"...No." Slowly he lowered his eyes and head, but didn't quite bare his throat.
Stiles felt the hum of pleasure go through his mate and knew it was enough for
now.
While that minor power play had gone on, Scott had moved closer to Stiles,
still so very confused and angry.
"What did you do to Stiles?" he demanded belligerently.
"What I intended to do all along, Scott." Peter's fingers caressed Stiles'
wrist, then slid down to entwine with his own, making Scott growl. "He's mine.
He's been mine since I bit him. Now, are you going to submit?"
"Fuck you."
Peter laughed darkly. "Oh, Scott, weren't you listening? No Omegas allowed. You
either join the pack or you leave Beacon Hills...or I kill you."
"No," Stiles protested, jerking his hand free only to have Peter's hand clasp
his knee and squeeze him into silence.
Scott was turning purple, his wolf slipping in and out, his anger about to
explode, and Stiles reacted instinctively, wolfing out himself, gold eyes
flaring, as he growled, "Stop being an idiot! Next to Derek you're the
strongest Beta here, but you can't beat Peter this time. You're alone this
time."
Scott calmed, but looked so wounded, Stiles could only sigh. "You...?"
"I'm his," he sighed again and Peter's hand relaxed. "Dude, I accept it, okay?"
he murmured to his mate, before turning back to his best friend. "Scott, I'm
sorry, but this is Peter's pack now and he's not going to let you go your own
way like Derek did. He'll force you if he has to. Do you want him threatening
your mom again? Do you want him to kill Allison this time? Do you really want
to die?"
Whether any of that sank in, Stiles had no idea, because all Scott asked in a
weak voice was, "Did he...did you...um...already...?"
Stiles flushed and nodded which made Scott turn red again and finally back
down. He didn't publically submit but stepped aside and dropped his eyes.
"Okay...for now."
"Considering how stubborn you've been since the moment I bit you, I suppose
I'll accept that...for now."
Rolling his eyes, Stiles watched the pack come together as one. Not a family
yet, but he could feel the bonds forming, even if some were unwanted.
They discussed a lot of things over the next couple hours, including Jackson
and Matt, but not touching on Lydia at all except her part in Peter's
resurrection. They ordered pizza and when it arrived, Peter finally let Stiles
leave his side and he wandered over to where Derek was picking at a slice of
meat lover's.
He didn't look up from his seat, but he took a deep breath and, to Stiles'
shock, apologized.
"What for?"
"I should have cut him in half."
Stiles shrugged. "Yeah, probably, but...I'm okay."
Derek did manage to meet his eyes briefly, then nodded slowly. "Your wolf knew
the truth."
"Yeah, it wanted...Maybe I wanted, too. I don't know. It's all really
confusing." He shuffled his feet and then plopped down in a bean bag chair and
began to stuff pizza in his mouth, talking around his food. "I was scared to
death at first, but then it wasn't horrible. Instinct, I guess."
They fell into silence, except for chewing and swallowing--Derek finally
finding his appetite--until Stiles finished his last piece and wiped his greasy
fingers on a paper towel. Looking up, he found Derek staring at him, impressive
brows furrowed. "What?"
"How are you going to explain Peter to your dad?"
"Jesus, I'm not. Not until I'm eighteen. Peter's agreed, as long as I don't
ignore my responsibilities." He air quoted around the last word, sighing in
resignation, and Derek made his constipated face. "Don't worry. He has an
apartment. We won't be doing it here."
"You shouldn't have to do it at all."
"Did you just air quote it?"
Derek sighed and face palmed.
A loud clap of palms from Peter silenced the room and drew the pack's
attention. Stiles rose to his feet and joined his mate in the middle of the
sitting area. "So, that was a successful first pack meeting and we broke bread
together, a promising sign. Text me with any ideas for stopping the Kanima.
We'll meet again tomorrow afternoon to come up with a working plan." With an
only slightly creepy smile, he slid his arm around Stiles' waist and started
towards the stairs.
"I thought we had a plan. I convince my dad of Matt being the baddie and he
helps me get the files from the sheriff's station to prove it."
"I don't want you at risk, not yet."
"I can fight. Derek's been training me. I'm better than everyone but Scott."
"I'm not surprised," Peter replied proudly, "But, I just claimed you, Stiles. I
want to be selfish. This can wait for tomorrow." They exited the building and
got into the jeep. Before he could start the engine, Stiles' phone beeped and
he pulled it out of his pocket to check the message.
"I told dad I was going out with Scott and some friends after practice. He's
heading to work. I...Do you want...?" Hesitantly he glanced over at Peter to
find him smiling.
"My place."
The deep rumble in his Alpha's voice made his wolf squirm eagerly. Taking a
deep breath, Stiles turned the key.
*****
To his surprise, he didn't immediately find himself naked on his hands and
knees in Peter's bed. His mate showed him around the apartment--surprisingly
clean and tastefully decorated--then into the well-stocked kitchen where he sat
Stiles on a bar stool and began to make coffee to go with what looked like
fresh baked snickerdoodles.
"I have a housekeeper. Her payments are automatically deposited for her so she
never knew I'd been missing for a month."
Missing was the new euphemism for dead?
Stiles picked up a cookie and took a bite, cinnamon and sugar bursting in his
mouth. "Wow. And did she bake these?"
"I did."
"You bake?" He knew he was gaping and talking with his mouth full but the
cookies were just delicious and his mate could bake?
"I have many talents." Peter handed him a cup of coffee with two sugars and a
dollop of real cream then pulled up a second stool across the island.
"Great coffee, too." It really was.
Peter smiled and took a drink then a bite of cookie. "I want to show you that I
can provide, and, more importantly, that I can do more than threaten and kill.
I want us to be happy together."
"I believe you."
"When I was...gone...I existed in a rather dream-like state. Sometimes I saw
through Lydia's eyes and sometimes I was myself in her dreams. I was active,
but also I had a lot of time to reflect. I regret how our relationship began.
Whether you believe me or not, I was so broken by the fire and my agonizing and
long recovery, that I was driven mad. The fact that I killed my own niece is a
horror that I have to live with. And when I saw you, all I knew was that you
needed to be mine and I went about getting you through threats and fear. Then,
last night, I was just so eager and so full of life again and I pushed you. I
don't regret being with you, but you were scared. I have to admit, that my wolf
enjoys fear as well as acceptance. We are predators, after all."
As he listened to both his words and his truthful heartbeat, Stiles set down
his cup before his shaking fingers dropped it. He wasn't sure if what Peter was
saying was making this easier or not.
He wasn't denying their relationship any more because he just couldn't, but a
part of him still wanted to see himself as having no choice, as being forced.
Peter's hand stretched across the island and took his. "You're a smart young
man, Stiles. You know what's between us will only end with one of our deaths. I
taunted you with that once, but I don't think you can kill me. Even that night,
as you stood over me, I could see it in your eyes, or, rather, I couldn't see
it. You didn't force Derek to kill me just because you didn't want the power
for yourself."
"I...I don't want to be a killer." He looked down at their joined hands. "I
know this is for life and I'm not actively hoping for your death and, yeah, I
don't think I can do it, especially when you're like this, but that's all I can
give you right now, Peter."
He was relieved when Peter nodded in acceptance and patted his hand as he
released it.
"So no fighting me?"
"No." And Stiles' wolf whimpered in delight.
*****
They watched a movie on Peter's large high def tv, sitting on a decadently
comfortable couch with Peter's arm over his shoulders and Stiles leaning more
and more into him as the night deepened. It was nearly ten when the movie ended
and Peter cleaned up the coffee and cookies, then stood at the entrance to the
hall that led to the two bedrooms.
Taking a deep breath, Stiles pushed himself up and walked over to join his
mate. He was a little scared, but his wolf was keeping him calm. As Peter took
his hand and led him down the hall, he felt the first flicker of arousal. He
tried to remind himself he was a teenage boy and sex was sex, but his wolf
grumbled and he knew he couldn't lie to himself.
Peter was different tonight. He was...human. He was being gentle and caring and
Stiles couldn't help but wonder if this was the Peter who had existed before
the fire, the one he had caught glimpses of in dreams.
The master bedroom was decorated with a subtle masculinity--dark woods, navy
and ivory bedding and curtains, seascapes on the walls, and brass lamps.
Turning on one of the lamps, Peter began to pull down the bedspread, then
glanced at Stiles who fidgeted just inside the doorway.
"There's a new toothbrush and your brand of toothpaste in the bathroom along
with other toiletries, if you'd like..."
Stiles nodded quickly and disappeared into the bathroom, quietly closing the
door behind him. He used the toilet and washed his hands, then slowly looked up
into the mirror that covered one whole wall. There was no fear in his eyes. A
bit of resignation, a bit of curiosity. He'd been so scared the night before,
yet he'd enjoyed the sex in the end. Would it be better without the fear?
Turning his head back and forth, examining his face, he still couldn't figure
out what Peter saw in him. He hadn't lied to Lydia--he was bisexual and Peter
was very attractive. He didn't even look all that old, and Stiles reminded
himself he probably should find out his age and birth date and stuff like that.
But, Stiles didn't find himself attractive at all. Even as a werewolf he was
goofy looking.
Sighing, he dropped the self-examination and reached for the unopened
toothbrush sitting in a brass holder.
When he left the bathroom, mouth nice and minty, Peter had his back to him and
was removing his shirt, leaving him only in his trousers. He glanced over his
shoulder and gave him an enigmatic smile, then moved to pull the curtains shut.
Stiles watched his back and shoulders flex and swallowed hard as the arousal
deepened in the pit of his stomach. Needing something to do, he sat on a
leather footstool in front of a matching chair, and took off his shoes and
socks, setting them aside, then slid his flannel shirt down his arms. When he
looked up, he found Peter still on the other side of the bed, still wearing his
pants, but watching him with dark, hungry eyes.
Blushing, Stiles rose to his feet again and shoved his hands into his jeans'
pockets. When Peter made no move towards him, he shuffled his feet into the
plush carpet and gulped, "Um...Can you like do something because I'm getting
nervous?"
Peter chuckle alerted him that the Alpha was circling the end of the bed and
when he looked up, he was in front of him. The momentary humor was gone and
Stiles realized what he was seeing on his face was desire and maybe even need.
"You don't think you're attractive, do you." Stiles shook his head and Peter
reached for the hem of his t-shirt, lifting it up with Stiles' help, as he
continued, "You're young and still developing, but all the good things are
there." As he dropped the shirt, his free hand brushed over Stiles' chest.
"Well-formed pectorals." The hand slid to his waist right above the low cut
jeans. "A slender waist." Then fingers teased across the trail of hair from his
belly button to where it was hidden behind denim. "And, this. Just enough."
Stiles' breath caught in his throat and his stomach contracted, making Peter
smile. "You're the first man I've ever wanted. Before you it was only women. I
loved their curves and smooth skin. There's nothing feminine about you, but
you're so beautiful." Both hands took Stiles' hips and drew their bodies
together. "Almost the same height, no need to bend my head to do this." He
kissed him and Stiles opened his mouth for it immediately. He was being
seduced.
He liked it.
His own hands went to Peter's back, feeling the bumps of his spine, the hollow
at the base and the kiss deepened.
When Peter moved them onto the bed, Stiles went willingly.
*****
Lydia was in school the next day. She came up to him at his locker before his
first class and cocked her head in that now eerily familiar way. "You don't
look as freaked today."
"Fighting the inevitable was just exhausting," he replied blithely, pulling his
English book out and then wincing as he remembered they had sonnets due which
he'd blown off for pack meeting, pizza, snickerdoodles and truly amazing sex.
After getting home around one in the morning, he'd slept like a log, woken with
a dream-induced stiffie and jerked off in the shower to memories of his mate
sucking his dick.
"You just like the sex." Stiles blushed and Lydia gave him a knowing smirk.
"So, the psycho behaved himself?"
"He's not...He's not really. Look, Lydia, he was horrible, I know that, you
know that, and he knows that, but I'm his mate," he lowered his voice as he
spoke quickly, "And that's for life and I'm going to make this work because I
refuse to be miserable and beaten down like some kidnaped harem girl."
"Whatever." Rolling her eyes, she dismissed his statement and changed the
subject. "I have permission to continue my experiments in the science lab in my
free period and over lunch. Since we have the same of both, meet me there. Even
if you're orgasm addled, you still the second smartest person in this school."
She stalked away before Stiles could agree, protest, or gibber.
*****
Free period and lunch ran into math which they had together and were both acing
with about 110% due to extra credit since they were both so easily bored in the
class aimed at D+ average students. Skipping it wasn't going to make a
difference. Finally, about twenty minutes before Harris would arrive to reign
holy terror over his second to last chemistry class of the day--he oversaw
study hall before lunch and after, for some inexplicable reason, taught a
graphic design course at the other end of the building--Lydia leaned back from
the microscope and jotted down the results.
They matched the last half dozen.
"Peter fucked up my genes."
Stiles sighed but agreed. There was definitely something different. Lydia had
run her DNA the year before for no other reason but that she was bored--and
suspected her dad wasn't her dad, though he was--and there were three unique
changes. They were slight, but there.
Unfortunately they couldn't determine what the changes did.
"I'm sending these results off to Stanford for analysis. My grandfather has a
colleague there who works with mutated genes." She gathered up one copy of the
print out, then handed Stiles the other set. "But, there's something different
and I still want you, so I'm going with Peter's creepy self is lingering in my
brain."
"Couldn't you just want me?" Stiles was actually kind of hurt, despite the
awesome sex with his mate the night before, and having been in unrequited love
with Lydia for most of his life.
Lydia's eyes softened. "Yes, but this is more than just teenage desire or
urges. It's primal and compelling."
"So, you think I'm attractive."
"Focus." She hit him across the back of his head and slid from her stool.
"Violence, I like it." He grinned.
"Idiot. Come on, let's skip the rest of school and go confront Peter."
"This isn't proof." Gathering up his back pack and stuffing his copy inside, he
trailed her out of the room as she strode quickly on three inch heels, her
short skirt swaying. His eyes strayed, he couldn't help himself, and, of
course, she caught him looking at her ass.
"Yeah, and that's not proof either. If Peter is right, you shouldn't be staring
at my ass, Stiles."
"I never do anything the way I'm supposed to," he whined, then grabbed her arm
and pulled her down a side hall away from an approaching hall monitor. "Can we
argue about this in the car?"
"But, you were staring at my ass."
Resigned, he sighed and trailed her out of the building and to his jeep. After
they were both buckled in, he started the engine and pulled out of his parking
space, before glancing over at her, and, for a split second, he saw Peter
sitting there.
Jesus, was she right or was he playing into her theory?
*****
"Stiles, I'd say this was a real pleasure, except you're truant and not alone."
Peter frowned at them like they were naughty children, but let them into the
apartment. Lydia strode past both of them and instinctively into the office to
boot up Peter's computer, using his password without asking for it, and
inserting a memory stick.
Stiles gaped at her and slumped into the second desk chair as she sat in the
first at the computer table, then glanced over his shoulder to see Peter in the
doorway, watching her from narrowed eyes, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Cute tricks, Lydia."
"Not tricks. I know these things. The more I push it, the more I know. Once I
realized you weren't a hallucination, I began to remember things I shouldn't
know." The data scrolled across the screen. "There are three distinct changes
to my DNA." She pointed them out. "I'm sending the test results away for
analysis--I want to make sure you didn't do anything harmful to me--but it's
clear to me that a part of you remains inside me somehow. I see Stiles as my
mate. He sees me as his. Partially," she added, holding up a conciliatory hand
as Peter growled. "So, what do we do about that? Because I'm not willing to go
without sex for the rest of my life, and I can't even get turned on by Ian
Somerholder, the only reason I've watched Vampire Diaries for the last four
years, and always a part of my masturbatory fantasies."
As Stiles flushed at his long time obsession revealing that she played with
herself, Peter grunted at him, then crossed the room to lean over Lydia's
shoulder and review the data. She held her ground, but Stiles could see her
fighting to keep her head straight and not bare her throat, which, because she
wasn't a wolf, was pretty weird, especially if she thought of herself as kind
of Peter-like and he was the Alpha and wouldn't submit to anyone.
All of this was pretty weird.
As Lydia pointed out various markers to Peter, Stiles carefully focused on both
of them and, when he closed his eyes for a moment, they merged into one.
It wasn't just his dreams come true. He was attracted to both because he saw
them both the same.
"When I look at Lydia I see you, Peter," he blurted out, then flinched as they
both spun to glower at him. "Erm..."
"Is he lying? He told me that werewolves can tell if someone is lying because
of their heartbeat."
"He's not lying," Peter reluctantly admitted, then ran a hand through his hair,
tugging on it slightly in frustration. "I don't want to share him."
"And I don't want to be celibate. Why don't you ask what Stiles wants?"
"Erm..."
"I know what he wants." With a frustrated growl, Peter stormed out of the study
and Stiles winced as something crashed and broke in the kitchen.
"Did you have to push him so fast?"
"Yes. There's no reason to pussyfoot around the subject."
"He's never going to let us...um...you know."
Lydia shrugged her shoulders and went back to the data. There was another crash
in the kitchen and Stiles winced.
"Jeez..." With a reluctant sigh, Stiles pushed himself out of his seat and
dragged his feet as he headed to the kitchen. There he found Peter leaning over
the island, hands spread and clenching around the beveled edges, head bowed as
a low, continuous growl sounded from him. A couple plates lay shattered on the
floor behind him and a metal canister of coffee beans was spilled across one of
the counters along with what looked like a twisted and broken tea kettle. There
was an obvious dent in a cabinet where something, probably the kettle, had been
thrown. Stiles skirted the glass and approached Peter from his side. When red
eyes shot to his, he stopped, hands held out in supplication and neck bared in
submission.
"This isn't the way it's supposed to be."
"You were supposed to be dead. You came back through magic and there's always a
price to be paid for magic."
The red in his eyes fading, Peter huffed in annoyance and released his death
grip on the counter. Stiles made a face at the sight of gouge marks in the
wood. Better the counter got it, though, then his tender flesh.
Or Lydia's.
"I won't hurt you." Peter was annoyed and frustrated and Stiles' wolf was
scrabbling inside his head, telling him to pacify his Alpha, but he still had a
too smart mouth.
"Yeah, but you'd hurt Lydia, right? Can't allow that."
"Allow?" Peter snarled and flashed his fangs.
"You told me to challenge you, to keep you in check. I'm not going to let you
hurt her for something that's not her fault. Not mine either." Crossing his
arms over his chest, Stiles stood his ground, although he was smart enough not
to look Peter directly in the eyes, and, to his surprise, his wolf supported
him. He could tell the moment some of the anger and frustration drained out of
his mate when Peter sighed and dragged his hand through his hair again. It
seemed to be a tell. The Alpha turned and leaned back against the counter, arms
mimicking his young mate's.
"You know I don't care if she ever gets laid again."
"Well, yeah, but I do." Damn blush heating his face. "Um, I mean, I don't want
her to be sad and lonely."
"Is that all due to you seeing her as me?"
"No," he answered honestly. "I still care about her. The bond here didn't just
wipe that out. I didn't fall head over heels in love with you, dude."
"Don't call me dude," Peter sighed, rolling his eyes at Stiles' youth, and
Stiles chalked that up to a win. Peter was calmer, making an annoyed joke. That
was good. "So, what do you want, Stiles?"
"To be with her, to love her," was the automatic reply, but then Stiles frowned
and listened to his own heart beat. "To be with you, to be a good mate, to
strengthen our pack. I shouldn't want both, Peter. The wolf knows, but it's
beginning to accept my wanting Lydia as much as I want you."
Peter laser focused on the last bit of that mumbled statement. "You want me."
"Dude."
Peter snorted back a laugh, then reached out and dragged Stiles against him,
burying his nose in his neck and wrapping him in his arms.
"Trust me to do the whole mate thing wrong," Stiles muttered into Peter's
shoulder as he held him back.
"It's not your fault. If it's anyone's, it seems to be mine, but we will figure
out how to deal with this." That was a promise, and for the first time since
arriving at the apartment, Stiles relaxed.
So, of course, Lydia interrupted them. "Have a temper tantrum, Peter?" As the
two men broke apart, Peter scowling at her, Stiles sighing, she glanced at the
phone in her hand. "I sent the data to my grandfather's colleague and he said
it would take about a week for him to review everything. I won't push this
until then and until we deal with Jackson, who I still love by the way, and
whatever's going on with Allison and her family because she finally returned
one of my texts and just snapped my head off for being friends with werewolves.
She was dating one, the hypocrite."
"Her mother died at the full moon."
Stiles and Lydia both rounded on Peter in shock. He shrugged. "She was bitten
by Derek, I thought you knew that, Stiles."
"I did. Been a bit busy to process that. Did the bite kill her?"
"No, she put a knife in her heart. Hunters don't become wolves. I assume by now
that Gerard has cut her in half."
"Oh God, poor Allison."
"I'm going to try to see her. She's still my best friend," she explained to
Stiles when he protested, then turned to Peter. "Figure out how to help
Jackson. We need to calm this town down before we can address any of our own
issues."
"You would have made a magnificent wolf."
"I make a magnificent anything." Shouldering her bag, she looked at Stiles.
"I'll let you know how Allison is and I'll...I'll stay away from you for now. I
mean it, I don't want Jackson hurt. I want him fixed. I can't be with him
unless something can be changed about this mutation, but I still love him
enough to want him to be happy. He's been turned into a killer and it all
started with Derek biting him so that makes him your pack's problem." Her
accusing eyes shot to Peter who nodded in acceptance.
"I have some ideas on how to do that. It may need your assistance."
"As long as I'm not a hallucinating dupe, I'm all for helping." With that last
biting comment, she spun and left the apartment.
Stiles finally met Peter's thoughtful eyes. "Can you save Jackson?"
"Maybe. I need to do some more research, but it's good she still loves him,
because I think that may be the key."
"You like to research?"
Peter smiled and reached out. Stiles' hand met his, twining them together.
"Want to join me? And I'm ready to listen to your ideas on how to prove this
Matt kid is the Kanima's master."
Smiling back, pleased to know that his mate was smart and liked something he
did--because he was the google/wiki master--Stiles followed him back to the
study.
*****
Three nights later, Stiles crouched by Peter's side at the end of the bridge
over the river watching Gerard claim the Kanima. He could feel the tension in
his mate, the frustration leaking from him, and Stiles couldn't help but wonder
if he was blaming him for their delay.
But, Stiles had to look after his dad. Matt had clocked the elder Stilinski
with the butt of a gun, knocking him unconscious and after the attack by the
Argents--and Allison, what the fuck?--once the EMTs had been called, he
couldn't leave him. Peter had Matt's scent, but was torn between following and
staying with his distressed mate.
He'd stayed. Stiles was still a bit amazed by that, and Peter had stayed out of
sight, but Stiles had felt his presence calming him. By the time his dad was
deemed okay and, at Ms. McCall's insistence, was on his way to the hospital,
Stiles had been ready to join Peter in the hunt for the psychotic teen.
But, they'd been too late. Gerard had just risen from the river where Matt
floated beneath the surface, quite dead, and called to Jackson.
As they watched the old man lead the Kanima away, Stiles cautiously leaned
against Peter's thigh and felt his mate's hand come down on his head. Not hard,
not punishing, but in a light caress accompanied by a disgruntled sound.
"Well, that would have been easier if I could have claimed Jackson."
"Sorry."
Stiles caught a glimpse of surprise on Peter's face, then he was lifted to his
feet and hugged.
"No, you don't have to be sorry to put your father's health over going after
Matt. I understand that. I approve of putting pack first, Stiles."
"But, my dad..."
"Is pack through you, even if he never knows." Lips brushed Stiles forehead,
then Peter took his hand and they began walking back towards town. "It's okay,
this is just a hiccup. I've nearly figured out just what we need to do to save
Jackson. It would have been easier to get him to where we need him if I had
him, but it's not over by a long shot. Now, why don't you tell me exactly what
happened? How did Matt get the drop on both you and Scott?"
Since he didn't sound like he was being reprimanded, Stiles launched into a
full explanation of the events of the night, ending with, "And, oh yeah, Ms.
McCall saw Scott all wolfed out, so we probably need to talk to her."
Peter sighed. "That'll be fun."
"Right, the last she knew, you were one night date guy."
Chuckling, his mate pulled him close in a side hug. "And we need to have a pack
meeting to discuss the escalation by the Argents. They attacked the sheriff's
station with, they had to know, several humans inside, and if Allison has fully
joined her grandfather, has she told him about you?"
"Yeah, I saw her and Scott and she gave me a really bad look, like if he hadn't
been there, she'd have put a crossbow bolt through my head," Stiles said sadly.
He'd thought Allison was his friend, but that look of hatred... "I can't see
her keeping my secret. At least she doesn't know about you."
"Unless any of the hunters saw Derek's eyes are no longer red. Logically they
wouldn't jump to the conclusion of my resurrection, but they'll know something
has changed. And, speaking of Derek, did you notice that something seemed off
with him after the battle was over?"
Stiles shrugged. "He's always out of sorts."
Peter snorted in agreement. "Now, let's get you to the hospital and your dad.
Tomorrow is soon enough to decide our next step."
Giving his Alpha a grateful smile, Stiles changed with him and they began to
run.
*****
"Dad, they just want to keep you overnight for observation. I'm just going to
go home and crash."
"Stiles, I can't leave you alone. That kid is still out there." As he
protested, his dad tried to sit up in his hospital bed and Stiles easily held
him down, cheating just a bit with his strength. "Huh. Okay, maybe I'm a bit
weaker than I thought. But, still, I'd feel better if you weren't alone."
"Okay, I'll stay at Scott's. I'll be back in the morning to spring you from
here."
"I can't believe his wound was superficial enough that he's out of here
already," the former sheriff muttered then he looked up at his son. "Maybe you
shouldn't stay there. He should get some rest."
"Well, I'm not staying here. Ms. McCall will probably be glad that I'll be
there to make sure Scott doesn't try to run around and rip his stitches."
There was a snort in response and Stiles grinned. He and his dad had the exact
same, dry sense of humor and smart mouth, though his dad controlled the latter
better. Leaning down he squeezed his dad's shoulders in a semi-hug. "Get some
sleep, dad. I can tell you have a headache."
"Could have been much worse." His face tightened. "Stiles, it could have been
so much worse."
"Yeah, I know."
They exchanged a long look, and then nodded at each other, and Stiles slipped
out of the room. Down the hall in the waiting area, Peter sat flipping through
a magazine, appearing nonchalant, but Stiles knew he was completely aware of
his surroundings. Their eyes met immediately, then Peter glanced the other way
and Stiles saw Scott shuffling down the hall, shoulders drooping, looking
completely beaten. With a nod from his mate, Stiles went to his best friend
first and drew him into the otherwise empty waiting area.
"All healed?"
Scott nodded, one finger poking at the bloody hole in his shirt. "Dude, my mom
won't look at me. She won't even talk to me. She just told me to go home. I
don't...what am I going to do?"
"Stiles and I are going to talk to her," Peter interjected with surprising
gentleness. Scott stared at him in surprise.
"I don't think that'll help."
"It's our duty to you." Setting aside the magazine, Peter rose to his feet and
approached the two Beta wolves. "You didn't plan to tell your mother, but you
revealed the truth to protect her and the sheriff."
"Former," Stiles pointed out with a sigh.
"I've already written a strong email to the city council members and mayor
stating my belief that he should be reinstated immediately with back pay."
Not knowing what to say, Stiles could only smile in delight and press himself
to his mate's side.
"As I was saying, I'm your Alpha and Stiles is my Alpha Mate. We protect our
own and that includes your mother. Explanations should come from us."
"Still don't think it'll help," Scott muttered, but lowered his eyes and
fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "She's scared."
"Of course she is, that's only natural."
"Stiles wasn't scared."
At that, Peter chuckled. "Because he's a teenage boy. Of course he finds the
supernatural to be, what's your word for it, Stiles?"
"Awesome."
"Awesome. Your mother is scared for you as much as scared of you. It may take
her a while, but she'll come around. She's a very strong woman."
"You're not going to try to date her again are you?"
"I think my mate would protest that," Peter replied dryly, and Stiles nodded
automatically.
"Don't be stupid, Scott. I'm pretty sure I explained that wolves mate for
life."
"Yeah, I pretty much tuned all that out because just the thought of the two of
you is really gross."
Smacking his best friend over the back of his head, Stiles huffed, and Scott
smirked, and then they hugged.
Peter rolled his eyes and Stiles knew he was wondering for the hundredth time,
though fondly, why his mate had to be a sixteen year old, goofy boy.
*****
Ms. McCall's first reaction was surprise to see Peter, then wondering why he
was with Stiles, then, when they told her they were werewolves, she threw an
ear thermometer at Peter's head and yelled at Stiles for being stupid.
After explanations and a lot of yelling--luckily the nurses' break room was
deserted this late at night--she finally slumped on a low couch and buried her
face in her hands. While Peter stood against one wall trying to appear non-
threatening, Stiles sat down next to her and carefully placed a hand on her
shaking shoulder.
"It's okay, Ms. McCall, really."
"No, it's really not, Stiles. Not for you and not for Scott. He's my baby and
you might as well be my kid, too. And now you're both..." Her accusing eyes
shot up to Peter. "You bit my baby, turned him into this thing against his
will, and you did the same thing to Stiles, threatening his dad to get him to
accept it." They'd told her that much, but not that they were mates. Stiles was
still underage and she was a medical professional with a responsibility to
report such things. She probably couldn't do it without revealing the whole
werewolf issue, but if she knew that they were together it would just make this
even harder to discuss.
"I was barely conscious of what I was doing when I bit Scott, Melissa. And I
was still broken and angry when I forced Stiles to accept the bite. I don't
regret either. They're strong wolves and I need a pack to survive. I know this
is hard to understand, let alone accept, but they aren't monsters. They're kids
who love you. Scott loves you. His greatest fear has been that you'd find out
and react exactly as you're doing."
"You son of a bitch!"
"Well, technically..."
Hissing, "Peter, not helping," Stiles replaced his hand on her shoulder after
her jerking forward had knocked it off. She turned to look at Stiles and he
nearly flinched from the fear on her face. "Ms. McCall, I'm still me. Scott's
still Scott. We're just a bit more now."
"He wouldn't have told me if I hadn't seen, right?"
"Probably not."
"And I'm guessing your dad has no clue."
Stiles shook his head. "And please don't tell him."
"You have to, Stiles. He's the sheriff, or he was and he should be again. He
needs to know. You're out there fighting things we don't even know exist and
you're a kid. Scott's still a kid and he's getting shot and there are crazy
hunters gunning for him and a lizard thing attacking him and..."
Instinct drove him to pull her into his arms and rock her, despite her being
more than twice his age and his friend's mom. He was the Alpha Mate and she
smelled like Scott, like pack.
Over her shoulder, Stiles caught a glimpse of pride on Peter's face and nodded.
Yeah, all this was getting easier and easier to accept.
When they left Ms. McCall she was calmer and had promised not to tell anyone
about werewolves. She hadn't promised she could face Scott yet, but she hadn't
flinched away from Stiles, so he figured that was a promising sign.
Dawn was only a couple hours away when he and Peter exited the hospital and the
older male turned to the younger. "Come home with me?"
Stiles nodded. That had actually been the plan all along. He didn't want to be
alone and, while Scott might need him, hopefully his mom would be ready to talk
to him now and she might not if Stiles was there.
The apartment was quiet and Peter lit only a few lamps, keeping the light dim.
As the adrenaline from the fight and everything that followed finally drained
away, Stiles felt exhaustion overtaking him.
"Bed," Peter murmured, guiding a drowsy Stiles into the bedroom and undressing
him. "Need the bathroom?"
Yawning, Stiles shook his head and slid into the pajama bottoms Peter held out
to him, then climbed onto what had so quickly become his side of the bed, the
one away from the windows. Peter changed into a pair of knit shorts and slid
beneath the covers behind his mate, wrapping him in his arms.
"I can...I mean, it's okay if you want." Stiles stumbled over his own thoughts,
his cheeks reddening even as he yawned again, so very tired. But he could do
his duty and his hands started to push down his pants.
With a gentle touch, Peter stopped him. "You're more than a bed mate, Stiles.
So much more."
"But, we've never just slept." Dopey and confused, he still felt he should let
Peter have him, because that was his job.
And he must have said that out loud, because Peter nuzzled the back of his neck
and murmured, "It's not your job, my darling mate. I'm sorry if I made you feel
that way. I'd have you here in my arms every night if possible, but even an
Alpha wolf doesn't want to mate all the time. You're tired. So am I, and I just
want to hold you and sleep for a few hours."
Stiles finally let his eyes droop shut and nodded in acceptance. "'kay." He
could feel Peter's smile when he pressed a kiss to his upturned cheek.
It felt good.
It felt right.
Not even a week had passed and Stiles felt comfortable with Peter. While he
understood the need to pacify him when he was angry, he also wasn't scared of
him any longer.
Peter was his mate.
Stiles was okay with that.
*****
Waking up to find a hot mouth wrapped around the tip of his cock was definitely
the best thing ever and the only way Stiles ever wanted to wake up again. He
must have babbled that, because Peter chuckled, which just sent a shiver
through Stiles and made him squirm and buck.
"Morning sex. Morning sex is really good."
Licking a stripe up Stiles' cock, Peter grinned salaciously up at him. "Yes, it
is. And we have an hour before you need to get to the hospital."
Dad. Stiles tried to sit up, wondering where his phone was, and Peter easily
held him down and ran his tongue around the aching head of his dick before
using his fingers to pump him a couple times until he was completely
distracted. "I called the hospital. He's fine and will be released at ten. It's
just nine."
"'K, 'K, okay. Oh, holy Jesus, Peter do that again." That was his talented
tongue flicking into the slit as his fingers squeezed Stiles' balls. He did do
it again and Stiles howled in pleasure, but then Peter sat up and wriggled out
of his shorts, revealing his own erection. "Why'd you stop?"
"Pouting?" Peter gave him an amused look, then flopped onto his back and
dragged Stiles over him.
While his first thought was that he was going to get to fuck Peter, he knew
better, but, still, he was confused.
"I want you to ride me. I want you to ride me and jerk off and come all over me
so that I smell like you just like you always smell like me."
Cock jerking in eagerness, Stiles nodded quickly, then scrambled to straddle
Peter, being careful not to knee him in the groin. As he did so, his mate
pulled the lube from the night stand drawer and poured some onto his fingers.
"Lean forward." When Stiles obeyed, he reached behind him and slid one finger
into him.
It was still uncomfortable and Stiles wondered if that would ever change, but
since he knew just how good it would feel eventually, he rocked onto Peter's
finger until he added a second and finally a third, stretching the tight
muscles and opening him. While he was doing that, Stiles pressed heated kisses
to any of Peter he could reach and rubbed their leaking cocks together until
they were both gasping.
"I'm good, so good," he crooned, then moaned as Peter pulled his fingers out.
Together they got Stiles in the right position and Peter guided himself inside.
"Oh fuck, this is amazing." With a loud grunt of pleasure, Stiles sank all the
way down and stared into Peter's hooded, lust-filled eyes. He watched as Peter
released his hip and folded his hands beneath his head. While he appeared
casual, the beads of sweat across his forehead and lip betrayed his desire, but
he didn't move.
Realizing bringing them both off was up to him, Stiles enjoyed the flood of
empowerment and arousal that thought brought. Placing his hands on Peter's
chest, he lifted his hips, dragging the cock inside him along his prostate and
making his own dick ache, then he dropped back down, and a gasp burst from him.
"Wow." He did it again and it was even better. What little pain he felt as he
adjusted to the size and position was wiped out by the intense feeling of being
full and the almost electrical bolts of pleasure zinging through him. As he
began to bounce in eagerness, he moved one hand to his cock and began to pump
it, his hand slick with his own pre-cum making the glide easy.
All the while, he watched Peter watching him, felt him shudder minutely beneath
him and his cock twitch inside him, heard his barely contained growls and
grunts. This was power.
This was sex and it was great.
His hips began to churn faster, circling and rising and falling, the angle
driving Peter's cock against his prostate, and his own cock throbbed in his
hand and he was so close.
"Gonna...gonna come," Stiles moaned, arching his back and shaking as the
pleasure burned through him. Eyes falling shut, hips never stopping, he spilled
all over them with a loud cry. As he gasped and panted, his hand slowing on his
tender dick, he opened his eyes to find Peter's red, his head arching into the
pillow, and then his hands grabbed Stiles hips and he lifted them both from the
bed with one powerful thrust as he came.
The next thing Stiles knew he was curled next to his mate, panting into his
sweaty chest, his back being lazily stroked. "Wow."
"Yes, wow." Peter kissed his forehead then nuzzled behind his ear. "Sadly we
have to get up and shower or even your human father will smell me on you."
That thought was both disturbing and amusing, but it got Stiles out of the bed
and stumbling towards the bathroom. Peter followed at a much more sedate and
dignified pace.
*****
Much to Stiles' relief, his dad was okay and almost immediately called into the
sheriff's station by the distraught mayor. Matt's body had been found. Four
deputies were dead, including the acting sheriff, and the city council
basically begged the elder Stilinski to take his job back. Stiles still felt
guilty for so much of what had happened to his dad, but having him back where
he belonged helped.
Allison didn't come back to school and from all they could tell, remained holed
up with her family, probably throwing darts at pictures of Derek. From her
brief conversation with Scott that night at the station, her demand to know the
location of what she believed to be the Alpha, Stiles was sure she blamed the
broody Hale for her mom's death. He could understand that, but he couldn't
understand her becoming a complete whack-job killer.
Derek was being really cagey about something and Scott was keeping secrets.
Scott, who usually couldn't do that to save his soul.
One good thing though, it didn't seem that Stiles had been outed by Allison or
her dad to psycho grandpa--and, Stiles would never think of Peter ever being a
psycho after dealing with both Matt Daehler and Gerard Argent; he was nowhere
in their league. As he patrolled around the school with that sick smirk on his
face, the Principal never looked Stiles' way.
Still, he figured he was living on borrowed time, and, after winning the
championship game and finding himself tasered and dragged off the darkened
field, then waking to being shoved down a set of stairs to crack his chin on a
cement basement floor, he figured that time was over.
Groaning, Stiles pulled himself to his knees, then stiffened. The room was
dark, but as he blinked, he could not only see, but sense that he wasn't alone.
Just in case his secret was still safe, he didn't dare scent the air, so he
appeared to stumble over to the wall and flick the light switch.
He'd sensed pack, but he was still shocked to find Boyd and Erica bound with
wires from the ceiling and gagged. There was blood on their clothes, obviously
theirs from the holes there as well. They'd been shot, but he didn't think with
wolfsbane.
The last he'd known, Peter had them patrolling the Preserve, while Isaac, Scott
and Stiles played in the game to keep track of Jackson, and Derek lurked
wherever Peter sent him.
Tears leaked from Erica's eyes and she was whimpering through her gag. Boyd was
being stoic, but Stiles could tell he was in pain. Going over to them, he
reached for the wires and heard them both give muffled yells as he touched
them. He wasn't really surprised when they shocked him and he fell, moaning,
though the pain wasn't all that severe.
If Gerard still thought he was human, he'd play that up as long as he could,
giving Peter a chance to find him.
Because his mate would find him. Stiles knew he had to be going crazy. He just
hoped the Alpha didn't charge in fangs and claws a'blazing without a plan.
Slowly he pushed himself to his feet and tried to convey confidence and concern
to his Betas, but they were scared and in pain. When the door upstairs opened,
his gaze was jerked in that direction and he watched Gerard descend.
He began to monologue, and Stiles back-talked, and wasn't surprised when the
first punch came. He took it, grunting from it and each successive blow,
letting them hurt him. One of the first things he'd learned as Peter's mate was
how to slow the healing process. Peter said it came in handy when trying to
pass as human. The way Gerard was mocking him and beating him, Stiles was
pretty sure he had no clue about the truth.
An hour later, when he was dumped out of a van on the edge of town, he was
sure.
Their mistake.
Peter was there in an instant, picking him up, cradling him on his lap as he
knelt in the dusty weeds along the deserted road. His hands were everywhere,
stroking and petting, and Stiles let himself revel in the concern for a moment,
then freed his healing.
"It's okay, it's okay, Peter. See, I'm healing."
"I followed you there, to the house. I heard everything. Smelled your pain. It
nearly drove me mad, but you were being so brave to pretend you were human, I
couldn't interrupt. If he'd moved past his fists, I would have, I swear. I'd
have ripped his head off," Peter muttered, pressing kisses all over Stiles'
head and face, carefully tasting his bruises.
"I know. It's okay. I knew you'd find me. I felt you outside, and it's okay you
didn't come in. I'm an ace in the hole, right?"
"My best."
Stiles smiled, wincing as his split lip cracked open again, then gasped as
Peter kissed him, tasting his blood and drawing out his pain. When his mate
drew back, Stiles remembered and blurted out, "Gerard has Erica and Boyd. He's
torturing them."
"I know," Peter soothed. "I felt them there as well, heard everything he did to
them, but they're okay. Chris approached me outside his house, and, while he
seemed surprised to find me alive, all he said was that he would set them free.
That they were innocent. I believe him. Of all the hunters I've ever known,
he's the only one who truly follows the code."
"Man, I'm surprised he didn't try to kill you."
"He has a lot more important things on his plate. His daughter has gone to the
dark side."
Stiles managed a grin. "Star Wars reference? Dude you are the perfect mate."
He could tell he'd surprised Peter, how he huffed in pleasure and buried his
nose in Stiles' neck, scenting him and wiping out the odor of old man. After a
few minutes, after Stiles healed completely and started rubbing his own nose
along Peter's neck, Peter softly said, "All I want is for you to be happy,
Stiles. When this is over, when Gerard is defeated, when Jackson is either
saved or killed, if you still want her, it's okay. I'll live with it."
Surprised, Stiles pulled back and looked into his mate's concerned eyes.
"What?"
Peter responded with a chagrined look, then lifted Stiles from him and them
both to their feet. "You need to let your dad know you're okay. Make up a story
about being kidnaped by the other team or something, and, by the way, you
played brilliantly."
"Um, way to change the subject, but thank you, and you were there?"
"Of course."
Basking in Peter's pride didn't mean he was dropping this. "I can be with
Lydia?"
"The attraction is my fault. Something I did went wrong. I don't want you to
suffer."
"I'm not suffering," Stiles protested. "You're my mate. You're enough."
"You called for her in your sleep last night," Peter explained sadly, and
Stiles flushed in embarrassment.
"I...I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. There's no need to apologize."
"Are you sure?"
Peter nodded. "I can't promise I won't get jealous and that I won't put
restrictions on your time with her, but I've been thinking about it, and there
is something she can give you I can't."
"Well, yeah, being on top," Stiles mumbled, "Though knowing Lydia..." He really
wasn't surprised when the older man rolled his eyes and started them walking
back towards town.
"No, idiot." It was affection, pure and simple, and Stiles snorted a laugh.
"I've seen you with the pack, how you treat them like your own cubs. She can
give you that, Stiles. Your own cubs."
Stiles nearly fell over his feet. "Children?"
"Yes."
"You'd let me be a dad?"
"I had thought, in a few years, to use a surrogate. This is even better,
because, in a way, your children will be mine. That is, if you truly believe
Lydia's DNA has combined with my own somehow."
"I do, so does she, oh man, really? Kids? And, you're okay with raising them? I
mean, after Gracie...?"
Peter stopped and turned towards Stiles, taking his arms and looking into his
eyes. "I will love my baby girl until the day I die, but I always wanted more
children. I have to continue the Hale line so we'll still go the surrogate
route, but, when I rebuild the mansion, I want to fill it with our cubs. I
won't care who fathered them, who bore them. They'll be ours."
A brilliant smile crossed Stiles' face and he leaned in to kiss his mate. When
they separated, he couldn't help but get a bit smart mouthed. "Let's just not
tell Lydia you plan to breed her, okay?"
The ensuing snort was loud enough to muffle Stiles' giggle.
*****
The sheriff bought Stiles' story. Lydia came to him to talk about bringing this
whole mess to an end, and when Stiles got a signal from Peter, they left
together in his jeep. The next few hours passed so quickly. Running over
Jackson--and he had to admit that felt good--Chris siding with them against
Allison and Gerard, the fighting between wolves, hunters and the Kanima, the
truth about Gerard coming out and his threats to kill his own granddaughter.
The revelation of the old man's terminal cancer wasn't really a surprise. He
smelled off.
As he was pondering how to take advantage of that, Scott turned on them,
grabbing Peter from the shadows and dragging him into the light. Stiles began
to panic, but then he frowned in confusion. Why wasn't Peter fighting harder?
"Well, this is an interesting turn of events. I've never heard of a Beta
becoming an Alpha without the death, somehow, of the previous one yet your
nephew's quite alive. And how did you come back from the dead, Hale? Did you
know your aunt's butcher was alive again, Allison?" Held by the Kanima, almost
choking, she still managed to shake her head, her eyes wide in shock. "Chris?"
"I found out tonight. This has to stop. Scott let him go." Chris raised his
gun, pointing it at Scott, and Stiles finally unfroze and moved in front of the
barrel. "Get out of my way, kid."
Letting his wolf free, Stiles snapped over his shoulder, "Not a kid," and was
almost pleased by the surprise on Chris' face at the sight of his gold eyes and
fangs.
"Well, well, so the useless human is actually a wolf. It takes a lot of control
not to heal. You must be a lot older than Scott to be able to do that. Or were
you born a wolf?"
"Neither," Stiles snarled at Gerard, then moved towards his best friend who was
wrestling his Alpha to his knees in front of the old man.
"Stay back," Peter commanded and Stiles skidded to a halt, confused.
"Peter..."
"No, let this play out." His eyes flashed red, his fangs lengthened and his
face shifted. Before anyone could make another move, Gerard stuck his arm in
Peter's mouth and the Alpha bit.
"What the fuck man?!" Stiles wasn't sure who he was questioning. Something
crazy was happening here. Peter should have easily been able to free himself.
He didn't need to bite. He could have shifted back.
As soon as Scott let him go, Stiles was at his mate's side, dragging him half
onto his lap. Peter spit blood and wiped his mouth as his features returned to
human, then he raised one hand to Stiles' cheek.
"Shift."
Another command that Stiles instantly obeyed, letting go of his wolf.
"Now watch." What the hell was that smirk?
"What the hell are you smirking for? Do you think the bite'll kill him?"
"Not the bite."
At that satisfied sounding comment, Stiles jerked his attention to Scott who
was watching Gerard, and, following the direction of his gaze, he saw the old
man's pleasure fade, his face turn purple, and then his wound began to leak
black, foul smelling ichor.
"Mountain ash," he howled and then spewed up a couple gallons of black yuck.
Feeling his stomach turn, Stiles buried his face in the top of his mate's head.
All around him was confusion, and then Gerard was demanding Jackson kill
everyone, and he pulled Peter up, preparing for another fight.
But, before anyone could attack, Lydia, her face streaked with tears, was in
front of the Kanima, holding out a key.
Everyone watched as it took the key. Everyone listened as Lydia coaxed and
soothed and pled. The Kanima faded and Jackson returned, his face betraying all
his confusion and loss.
And Peter and Derek moved as one, Peter from the front and Derek from the back
and they stabbed their claws through Jackson whose body arched in agony and
then collapsed when they retracted them. They stepped back and Lydia, sobbing,
fell to her knees and reached for the limp body of the boy she loved.
Stiles yelled, "Peter, why?" and started forward, only to stop when his Alpha
shot him a silent command from red eyes. Trembling in confusion, feeling
Lydia's pain as if was his own, he waited and he watched.
Jackson stirred and Lydia jerked back in surprise. He rose above her and tilted
his head and howled as he wolfed out.
Blue eyes. Stiles filed that away as one more thing to ask Peter--this night
was raising a lot of questions. As Lydia laughed in joy and hugged Jackson,
Stiles noticed that someone wasn't watching this whole scenario with varying
levels of surprise and shock and horror. "Where's psycho grandpa?"
Peter glanced over to the pool of blood and black ichor where there were
obvious drag marks towards the doors, then walked over to his mate. "He won't
get far. He's dying."
"Did you know about the mountain ash?" Stiles accused, a frown on his face that
he switched back and forth between Peter, who was kind of gloating, and Scott
who looked kind of sheepish.
"Of course. I'm the Alpha. As a Beta should, Scott told me of Gerard's threats
to his mother, and, along with Deaton, he came up with the plan to switch his
pills with ones filled with the ash. It was easy enough to see that Gerard was
sick, dying. Couldn't you smell it?"
"Didn't really like sniffing the creep, though I noticed something once he told
us."
"And it was obvious that his end game was to become a werewolf in order to
survive. He expected the Alpha to be Derek, but that didn't really matter to
him as long as he got the bite."
"I wanted to tell you, dude." Scott sounded apologetic and Stiles half way
forgave him because it was Scott, but his mate was just too damn smug.
So, he turned his disgruntled attention completely back to Peter. "And I helped
you with all that research on how to save Jackson and you didn't fill me in on
what you planned there either. We need to work on your sharing skills."
"Your pouting is adorable." With a chuckle, Peter reeled Stiles into his arms,
ignored his squawking, and kissed the stuffing out of him. Stiles heard Scott
gag, heard Derek's long-suffering sigh, but it was the sound of a gun cocking
that had him pulling back and spinning in front of his Alpha to protect him.
A dark look on his face, Chris Argent aimed his drawn gun at Peter's head, his
finger tight on the trigger. "You mated with a teenage boy. That's why Stiles
is so strong and capable. You perverted..."
"Stop it," Stiles growled, releasing his wolf and raising his claws in a
threat. "If you know anything, you know mating is an instinct. He couldn't stop
it anymore than I could." He felt Peter press against his back, his hands cup
his shoulders.
"If you want to speak of perversion," he began his voice soft and so deadly,
"Look to your own sister. At least I have my wolf's needs to answer to and
would never, ever hurt or betray my mate. I couldn't. Unlike your human bitch
of a sister." As he spoke, his eyes drew Chris' to Derek, who dropped his own
to the floor, shoulders slumping in humiliation.
Stiles felt like face palming and hissed at his mate, "Timing, dude," before
shifting back to human and going to Derek. He took his arm, ignoring the
attempt at shaking him off, and drew him into the shadows. "Not the best time,
Derek, but it needs to be out there. You were a kid, a stupid, horny kid. I'm
intimately acquainted with the type."
Derek didn't laugh or roll his eyes or do anything but try to curl into a ball
while standing up. "It doesn't matter. I'm still responsible. Peter's right not
to forgive me."
"If we're going to survive as a pack, a family, we both need to forgive each
other." Stepping into the shadows, Peter reached out and dragged Derek into his
arms.
Giving them both happy looks, Stiles turned and walked back into the main area.
Lydia and Jackson--him still disturbingly naked--were clinging to each other,
but her eyes turned to Stiles and there were questions there. He remembered
what Peter had said and wondered if she still wanted him. Yeah, questions they
both needed to address, but tomorrow.
Scott was staring at Allison who was being held by her dad who was looking very
disturbed, while Isaac was on the phone to Erica--she and Boyd were back at the
den but remained shaken by their torture.
Time to get out of here, head home, talk to his dad and see if there was an
official story on Jackson yet. He really hoped he didn't have to give his best
song and dance yet tonight. Walking over to his jeep, he examined her front
grill and frowned at the sight of scales stuck there. Yuck.
*****
An hour or so later, which made it well after midnight and some day Stiles
would like actually to be asleep at that time of night, he walked into his
house to find his dad stripping off his gun belt, yawning, which made Stiles
yawn as well.
"I know tomorrow is a Saturday but, really, Stiles?"
"Sorry dad, Lydia, y'know." Vague, be vague, about the girl he supposedly
loved.
"She okay?"
Stiles shrugged. "You said you were just running into the station to check on
the status of the Jackson investigation. That was hours ago."
The sheriff ran his hand over his head and sighed. "Yeah, about that. Jackson's
body disappeared from the morgue."
Stiles managed to look shocked. "Huh. Weird."
"I had to raise holy hell in there. The ambulance attendants have gone missing,
too, and I found out they'd only been hired a few weeks ago, so that's not
suspicious."
Gerard's men? Probably.
"Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out after a good night's sleep, which is
something I'm going for, too. See you for lunch?"
"I'll let you sleep in. You're the MVP, after all."
Grinning, Stiles bade his dad goodnight and took the stairs two at a time to
his room. He was a bit surprised and maybe disappointed to find it empty, but,
then Peter had said they wouldn't be together here very often, and definitely
not with his dad in residence, and Peter had been the one to send him home.
But, they really hadn't spent many nights apart and while Stiles wasn't sure he
was up for sex, he'd begun to realize he liked being held when he slept.
As he started to undress, his phone beeped, and he pulled it out of his jeans'
pocket to check the message. A smile crossed his face.
*I miss you already*
Quickly he typed back a reply saying the same, then set his phone on the night
stand and climbed into bed. He really was tired.
His dreams, though, were of Lydia, and, when he awoke late morning with the sun
annoyingly in his eyes, Stiles remembered Peter's promise and the questions in
Lydia's eyes the night before, and he eagerly jumped out of bed and hurried
through his shower and dressing.
His dad was at the table going over a report on his iPad and frowning as he
drank coffee.
"Been up long?"
"A few hours. I got a call from Mr. Whittemore. Jackson's alive."
"Bwhhuh?"
"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction." Tiredly, the older man rubbed his
eyes--it was obvious that while Stiles had slept pretty well, his father
hadn't--and set down the tablet. "I have no clue what is happening in this
town. I do know I wish you weren't neck-deep in most of it."
Holding up his hands, Stiles back-peddled, "Not me, not this time, promise. I
was comforting Lydia, which now appears to have been unnecessary, but, hey, I
got Lydia time. Six months ago she didn't know I existed."
"Are you sure you can't...? I mean, she seems like a very nice and smart girl."
"Despite her love for that douchebag, Jackson."
"Language."
"Right, sure. How about jerk off, Jackson? I kind of like that, it's
alliterative." That made his dad chuckle, and Stiles went to pour himself a cup
of coffee--caffeine didn't have an adverse effect on him anymore but it helped
him pretend he still had ADHD. "Anyway, they're not together, but maybe now
that he's not dead, I dunno. They might get back together. They might not. I'm
not giving up hope."
"Good for you, son."
"So...you don't think she's out of my league?"
The sheriff gave him a surprised look. "You didn't see or hear her cheering for
you at the game last night? She wasn't cheering for Whittemore."
Stiles beamed.
*****
Around lunchtime--his dad having gone back into the station to meet with the
Whittemores and try to figure out what weird shit had happened to make it seem
like the boy was dead--Stiles was eating a sandwich when he got a text about a
pack meeting later that afternoon.
At Peter's apartment.
Recalling his mate's statement about rebuilding the Hale mansion, he wondered
how soon that would start. The apartment wasn't really big enough to host their
growing pack, assuming Jackson would be joining, and Lydia.
He really needed to talk to Lydia.
Another text came in, this one from Scott, who babbled in barely understandable
text speak about how he and Allison had broken up but how he had hope that it
was only temporary while she got her head on straight--and stopped being a
whack job killer, in Stiles' opinion, which he kept to himself--and that her
dad was okay with them seeing each other when she was ready because he wasn't
evil like his father, though Allison wasn't ready to forgive Derek and didn't
understand the whole Stiles/Peter mating thing and he really didn't want to
give her the 411...
Reading Scott's texts was exhausting.
Stiles finished his sandwich before responding with a :|
Because he was kind of glad that Scott and Allison were broken up right now.
He'd talked to Erica earlier that morning and found out that Allison, over her
father's protests, had been the one to shoot her and Boyd full of arrows, even
once they were down and Erica had been begging her to stop. Logically he
understood how screwed up she'd been by her evil grandpa, and he knew very well
how crazed the death of a mom could make one, but you didn't do that kind of
shit to Stiles' pack.
It felt good to think of them as his.
*****
Derek was at the apartment already, frowning as he set out a tray of sliced
cheese and crackers on the coffee table. It was embellished with sprigs of
rosemary.
A big step up from cartons of take-out and pizza boxes or the remains of
woodland creatures.
As Stiles shrugged out of his hoodie, Peter came out of the kitchen with a
plate of still warm oatmeal raisin cookies, and he stopped to press a kiss to
Stiles' mouth, before placing the plate on the table, but not before Stiles
snagged one of the perfectly round, perfectly baked perfections.
"Oh god, this is so good," he moaned around the cookie in his mouth. "We're all
going to get fat."
"We'll run it off...or work it off in other ways." Peter waggled his eyebrows,
Stiles giggled, and Derek looked constipated. Stiles just smirked at him and
Derek sighed but slowly smiled back.
Good, it looked like he and Peter were working through their issues.
Isaac came out of the powder room--Peter actually referred to it that way.
"Hey, Stiles. There are little soaps shaped like puppies in there, did you know
that?"
"Peter has a wry sense of the ironic."
"Ooh, cookies."
Stiles followed his mate back into the kitchen to help fetch a pitcher of
lemonade and glasses. "I hope you made plenty of those."
"I remember how much young wolves eat."
"Were you serious about rebuilding the house?"
"Yes and I've talked to Derek about it. Legally it's his, but he accepts that
it's time to move out of the past and away from those memories. Rebuilding is
not denying our family or their deaths. His parents loved that house. So did I.
I don't want it to be completely the same, and it never could, but the Hales
have been on that land for nearly two hundred years. We belong there. But,
there are a few remaining issues to address first. Hopefully we can start about
the time school ends in a few weeks."
"I hope you don't expect me to wield a hammer. I usually end up with sore
thumbs or broken toes from dropping the damn thing on them."
Peter grinned. "I'm hiring a contractor. Do I look like I would enjoy manual
labor? You do know that before the fire I taught history at the Beacon Hills
Community College, right?"
"No, but, y'know, I shouldn't be surprised. It's not like you all just hung out
in the forest howling and chasing rabbits."
"We were fully integrated into the town. Since he returned, Derek's been a bad
example of a born wolf. I'm working on that with him. He's a bit anti-social."
"You think?" Stiles snorted and lifted the pitcher off the counter and headed
back to the living room.
Everyone else had arrived, including Jackson, who looked incredibly
uncomfortable, and Lydia who was sitting on the opposite side of the room from
him, looking everywhere but at him.
Peter set down a stack of plastic glasses, then held out his hand to the former
Kanima, who looked at it hesitantly, before jumping to his feet and shaking it.
"I'm Peter Hale, Jackson, Alpha of the Hale Pack. As you were turned by Derek
when he was Alpha, you're his, but as he's my Beta now, you're mine as well. I
won't force it, though, but I don't allow lone wolves in my territory."
Giving him a confused look, Jackson drew back his hand. "Which means?"
"The whole of Beacon Hills and the Preserve are mine so if you don't join my
pack, you'll have to leave. Trust me, you don't want to be an Omega. You have
no idea how to control and use your abilities. You need the pack and we need
you."
"Why would you need me?"
"I understand you were adopted." At Jackson's hesitant nod, Peter continued,
"You were born to at least one werewolf parent, Jackson. You were born to be
one of us."
The room had remained silent during Peter's speech but now everyone started
babbling at once. Everyone except for Lydia who seemed stunned and Derek who
wasn't surprised at all.
"So, is that what the blue eyes signify?"
Turning to his mate, Peter smiled in pride. "Figured that out, did you?"
Stiles shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Derek has them and none of the other
bitten werewolves do. Were yours blue?"
"Yep."
"Do you know who my parents were?" Jackson asked in a small voice.
Peter turned back to him and gripped his arm then patted it. "Not yet, but we
can look into it. That is if you join our pack."
"...Okay." Instinctively, he bared his throat and Peter leaned in and scented
his submission.
"You know what this means," Scott whispered to Isaac, as if anyone but Lydia
couldn't hear him. "We're going to win every game next year."
Isaac grinned.
"No, what you're going to do is learn to tone down your abilities so you don't
stand out," Peter said, shaking his head at his Betas who looked too smug for
their own good. "I played basketball at Beacon Hills High, and, yes, my senior
year we won State, but we didn't win every game, and my sophomore year we
didn't even make it to regionals. I can and will teach you to integrate better.
You've all been lucky." As Isaac and Scott hunched down at their Alpha's light
reprimand, Peter nodded in satisfaction that his point had been made, then
clapped his hands together. "Everyone help yourselves to food and drink, we
have several things to discuss."
The two hour meeting passed quickly. Gerard was missing. Peter believed he had
to be dead or at least dying and not going to recover, but he wanted him found.
Chris Argent had control over his daughter and Peter had spoken on the phone
with him to set a meeting for the next Tuesday to discuss a truce. Scott said
that his mom was okay with him now and having a nurse on their side could be
useful. There was some discussion about informing the sheriff of the truth, but
Stiles wasn't ready for that and Peter agreed it had to be his decision. There
was no mention of Derek and Kate and, as the meeting progressed, Derek
obviously relaxed to the point he almost smiled a couple times.
As he had with Stiles the night before, Peter petted and scented both Erica and
Boyd to remove the smell of Argent, and praised them for their survival. He
also apologized for not realizing how far Gerard would go. He'd thought the
Preserve would be safe. He also praised Scott for his ingenuity and ability to
keep a secret concerning the mountain ash pills.
Sitting back and watching, Stiles began to understand that this was how an
Alpha should act with his pack. Derek hadn't been born to it and had so
obviously struggled. He'd been too desperate and moved too quickly, too easy
with a harsh word or action and giving very little comfort or congratulations.
It wasn't his fault, though, and even he was getting something out of the way
Peter did things.
It must have been like his mom.
Stiles hoped that, like many of his own memories of his mom, Derek could now
remember the good times and not just wallow in the loss and misery of his
family.
As the meeting began to wrap up, he realized one person hadn't said a word or
been addressed, but before he could think of something to say to her, Erica
asked, "Why is Lydia Martin here?"
"I asked her to come," Peter replied. "Lydia, would you like to explain the
analysis of the DNA results?"
She looked surprised and sat forward in her chair, her head cocked in mimic of
Peter's. Stiles knew that would always be a bit freaky, but he doubted anyone
else noticed. "You really want me to tell everyone?"
"The pack doesn't keep secrets this big, and there's going to be need for an
explanation anyway." At Peter's minute nod in Stiles' direction, Lydia's eyes
widened even further and then she both smiled and nibbled on her lip as she
glanced at Jackson. He wasn't even looking at her, though, concentrating on
stacking several pieces of cheese and crackers.
"Okay, well, I assume you all know that when Derek killed Peter, and I say
killed with the loosest meaning possible, he placed a bit of himself in my
brain. It infected my whole body, altering my DNA in ways we don't understand
but are quite obvious to the trained eye. I had a geneticist analyze my test
results and, while he couldn't explain exactly what the mutations do, they are
there and they resemble the distinct differences in a werewolf's DNA. Before
you all freak out, I didn't send off anyone else's results, but it was easy
enough to compare Stiles' and Peter's to my own and, before you ask, it was
easy enough to get hair samples without you knowing." She ignored Stiles and
Peter's very similar disgruntled looks.
"Stiles and Peter share two of the differences with me, and Peter and I share
the third. He has two other mutated genes from normal human, probably due to
being born a werewolf. The changes in me enabled me to bring Peter back using
magic, but the mutated genes continued to affect me. A part of me is Peter. At
least, a part of me that has to do with Stiles."
Most of the pack frowned in confusion, but Derek seemed to understand. "Lydia?
Give me an order."
Cocking her head again, Lydia demanded, "Derek, come here."
He was halfway across the room to her before anyone, including himself,
realized it. Shaking off the order and jamming his hands into his jeans'
pockets, he turned to his uncle. "When I stop thinking about her as Lydia, when
she looks a certain way and speaks a certain way, it's like she's you, Peter,
or rather she's my Alpha."
"Yes. Somehow I left a bit of the Alpha wolf in her mutated genes."
"Wait, so Lydia's like you somehow and can order us around?" Scott whined,
making Stiles want to throw up his hands in defeat at his best friend, like
ordering people around was all an Alpha did.
"She could, but she won't," Peter said strongly, and, if you knew to see it,
Lydia shifted back to herself and nodded in agreement.
"That's the last thing I want. I only want..." Her eyes went to Stiles, then to
Peter, questioning.
Peter was sitting in an easy chair, Stiles perched on the arm as was becoming
their custom, and he took his mate's hand, smiling down at him. "Thank you,
Peter," he whispered.
It was obvious his Alpha wasn't thrilled but he was accepting. He addressed the
entire pack rather than just Lydia. "I haven't explained much about mating and
I'm not going to go into the details. Either you'll find your own mates in time
or you won't. It doesn't happen to every bitten werewolf, nor even to every
born one, and you can be perfectly happy without one. Two of the facts of
mating are, though, that it's for life and it's monogamous. Mated wolves can't
even feel physical attraction to anyone else. Except..." He sighed softly and
squeezed Stiles' hand. "Stiles sees me in Lydia and is attracted to her, and
she sees the Alpha Mate in him and returns the feelings."
Even Derek was surprised by that as he obviously hadn't made that connection,
but the rest of the pack erupted into questions and babbling, until Peter
barked 'enough' and they all shut up.
"While I firmly believe I can make Stiles happy all on my own, the attraction
and desire he's felt for Lydia for years remains and it's not going to fade now
that she returns them."
Jackson finally seemed to realize some of what was going on and he looked over
at Lydia who shrugged a bit sadly. "So, we're really over? But, you had to love
me or..."
"I do, Jackson. Maybe I always will, as my first love, but the fact is that the
Alpha in me is mated and I can't want anyone else."
"But Stilinski?" he asked incredulously.
Lydia and Peter both scowled in exactly identical ways.
"Freaky," Boyd whistled and several others nodded, staring wide eyed.
"The rest of this will be between Stiles, Lydia and I, but I don't want you to
be surprised if the two of them are together sometimes. In fact, she makes the
perfect so-called beard while Stiles is underage."
"I should resent that but since you're obviously giving us the okay to be
together, I won't," Lydia replied with a certain amount of satisfaction in her
voice.
Stiles just sat there blushing.
As the pack began to clear out, Lydia went to talk to Jackson, and Derek
stopped Stiles as he started to clean up. He shuffled uncomfortably and huffed
out a breath as Stiles patiently waited.
"You can use your words." Okay, not so patiently.
Derek glared, then huffed again. "You realize how very weird this is, right?"
He didn't wait for an acknowledgment. "But, my uncle, the one from before the
fire, he would have done this. He would have done anything to make his mate
happy, but then he loved Marta and she loved him. I wouldn't have expected this
new Peter...It has to be hard for him. Mated wolves don't share."
"I know and I've told him that I'm okay with just him, but he knows I still
want her. I can't help it. It's not even the same as it was when I just had a
crush. It's too intense for that and that's because she's my mate, too. My wolf
even accepts it now and it didn't at first because it was so confusing. I don't
want to hurt Peter, though."
Derek's eyebrows went up in surprise. "You really mean that."
"Yeah. I know, it's not even been two weeks and I was so scared at first,
but...Just look at this meeting today. He's changed and we can all see it. I
watched you, and I could see that you grew more and more comfortable. This is a
pack and he's an Alpha as he was meant to be. He's not the murdering rogue any
more. He's hardly even gotten angry with me. I know it's not going to ever be
perfect because what relationship is, but I'm not unhappy, Derek. I haven't
been since pretty much the second day."
"Yeah, I see that. You're so stubborn I'm surprised, but, then, when I look at
Peter now, he's my uncle again, and maybe a lot of that is due to you."
"It is." Peter came up behind them, startling them both as they'd both been so
deep into their conversation. Wrapping his arms around Stiles, he pressed a
kiss to his shoulder blade which sent a shiver of contentment through the
younger man. "What I did to survive brought us to this point so I'm accepting
Lydia's place in our relationship. While I may always be jealous, I'm also not
cruel and she's mated to Stiles as well as I am. It's not fair to her to keep
them apart, and I owe her so much."
Lydia joined them, overhearing the last bit of Peter's quiet speech. "Thank
you, Peter. I promise not to make a lot of demands on Stiles. I have a feeling
that neither of us share well, but we can learn for his sake, right?"
Peter nodded.
"I'm going to head out," Derek said, backing away from the threesome with a nod
to all of them. "I'll patrol looking for Gerard and put Isaac on Jackson
training for now. He's been the quickest learner of all the Betas, though now
that Scott's accepted an Alpha he's gotten a lot better."
"Jackson's hurting over me. I tried to explain but I don't think he really
understood. If you could help him, Derek..."
Nodding at Lydia, Derek slipped out of the apartment, leaving the three of them
alone.
Almost as one they moved to the dining room to sit around the table, Peter and
Lydia automatically taking the head and foot and Stiles sitting on the side
closer to Peter. Lydia was the one to break the silence.
"So, how will this work?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Peter admitted. "I think it has to happen
organically. We can't force anything. I've forced enough with Stiles," he added
ruefully.
"Yes, you did."
Stiles felt like thunking his head on the table and they'd only been talking
for twenty seconds. "We're past that. Let's move past that, 'k?"
"I think Stiles and I should start publically dating. You were right about the
beard idea. It'll keep any suppositions far away from you until he's eighteen.
I turn eighteen two months before he will which will be after graduation by,
what a couple weeks?" Stiles nodded. "By then we'll know what is working and
what isn't. I hope that we'll have learned to get along well enough that we can
all live together. I understand and I accept that I will only ever desire
Stiles. I'm actually fine with that. Every other boy in school is an idiot
compared to him."
"He is very intelligent." Peter beamed proudly.
"He's sitting right here," Stiles grumbled, making the other two snort in
exactly the same way. "Boyd's right, that's freaky."
As Peter indulgently patted his hand, Lydia narrowed her eyes shrewdly. "So,
what's the catch, Peter?"
"I don't know. I don't know how I'll handle any of this. I think we're going to
have to take it day by day. I do know I'm possessive and jealous. I'm not sure
I can take you monopolizing his time, so we may need to make a schedule."
"A time chart. That works for me."
"Oh geez..."
"Do you have anything reasonable to add or are you just going to mumble and
mutter to yourself?"
He looked at Lydia, then Peter and moved his chair equal distance between them.
"I think you're both going to drive me nuts."
Similar snorts sounded again and Stiles gave in and thumped his forehead down
on the table, leaving it there.
"While our mate is having some kind of breakdown," Peter teased softly, "I do
have a question for you, Lydia." His voice grew serious. "How do you feel
knowing that I've made love to Stiles several times since claiming him the
night of my rebirth? Have you been jealous? Wounded? Angry?"
Stiles peeked at her and saw her slowly shake her head. "I've been lonely. It
doesn't bother me that you've been with him so maybe, for me, the sharing won't
be difficult after all. Where you're concerned, I've seen him change so quickly
from that first grudging acceptance to someone really enjoying sex. I know he's
happy with you and, after listening to you and seeing you interacting with your
pack, I think I understand why. You, this you, is so different from the creepy
one in my head. You're more like teenage you. I liked that boy. Maybe I can
grow to like this adult version, too, but if you hurt Stiles..."
"I can't. I don't want to. You feel like an Alpha but you don't have a wolf. If
you did, you'd understand how much he means to me, how he's everything to me."
"It's harder for me to accept what you can so naturally, yes, but I've been
trying to understand it, what draws me to him, and I have accepted it's real
and not going to go away. I think if you hadn't said yes soon, I'd have had to
leave Beacon Hills. It was becoming too painful not to touch him."
Stiles could feel himself flushing and sat back up, licking his suddenly dry
lips. "You really want me or is just the Alpha?"
"Is it okay if it's both? I can't tell the difference any more, and I know a
part of me is a selfish bitch and I don't want to be alone. You're it for me
and I'm not going to fight that because it's a waste of energy. I don't know if
I'll ever love you, Stiles. I know you've had a crush on me forever, but you
don't really know me. That's not love for you, not really. And I can't believe
Peter loves you yet, either. If we let this evolve, as Peter said, organically,
maybe love will come. I can guarantee the sex will be fantastic."
Stiles couldn't help grinning as her words brought with them the first heat of
arousal. Silently he tried to will himself from getting an inappropriate boner.
Really not the right time.
"I'm impressed, Lydia." Peter side-eyed Stiles as he spoke, and his mate ducked
his head in embarrassment because, of course he knew. "You're farther along in
your understanding of the mate dynamics than I expected. For me, once my wolf
accepted the fact that you exist as some kind of extension of it, it was easy,
well, easier for me to accept as well. Maybe the jealousy won't be as bad as I
fear. Maybe it won't exist at all and we can share him without tension."
"I've always been very advanced for my age," she preened, making Stiles choke
back a laugh.
"We'll make this work, for Stiles' sake."
There were nods all around the table.
*****
During the next two weeks school ended, Stiles and Lydia officially became a
couple and started dating--much to his dad's delight and the pack's continued
confusion--Gerard's desiccated body was found deep inside a cave in the
Preserve, Allison started attempting to make amends, though she still wasn't
back with Scott, and Derek sometimes even smiled as he became human again.
The pack trained and bonded, even Jackson integrating pretty well, though he
still occasionally moped over Lydia. The blame for his 'near death' was being
placed on the suspiciously missing EMTs and the Sheriff closed the file.
Things calmed down in Beacon Hills enough that Peter began to interview
contractors and have architectural plans drawn up. He also was making contact
with neighboring packs, ones the old Hale Pack had bonds of blood and treaties
with, and Stiles caught him matchmaking Derek a couple times like an old Yenta.
Stiles and Peter were together a couple nights a week. More wasn't possible as
the Sheriff mostly worked days again now that there weren't murderous lizards
and rogue werewolves around to up the town's body count, but Stiles hoped that
with school out, his dad would be lax about curfew and he could get away with
the 'staying with Scott' excuse more. With him dating Lydia hopefully his dad
would be okay with him just being out all night sometimes.
He and Lydia hadn't done more than kiss a few times on their dates and Stiles
was very careful to monitor Peter's reactions, but the Alpha really did seem
okay with the kissing and touching. Not wanting to push him, though, they
didn't do it much in his presence. Still, Stiles wasn't going to go farther
with her without getting Peter's, well, not permission because that was too
weird, but approval. Or, just letting him know because he didn't want to hide
anything.
"So, tonight," Peter repeated, meeting Stiles' eyes, his wolf pleased that his
mate didn't duck his head submissively, but met him as an equal more and more.
He knew this wasn't defiance nor was Stiles asking permission, and he approved
of that courtesy. "I appreciate you telling me."
"Right thing to do, right?"
"Yes." Peter set aside the blueprints he'd been viewing at the dining room
table and walked to where Stiles stood just inside the doorway. Cupping his
cheeks, he pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Enjoy yourself, but I really don't
want the details."
Stiles flushed but nodded, then kissed him back. "Thank you, Peter."
"No need. It's the right thing to do. I'm content with this decision. It's
enough."
"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow for training and then, maybe dinner?" There was a
bit of hesitation in Stiles' voice, a bit of wistfulness, and Peter's brow
furrowed.
"Are you sure you want this?"
"Yeah, but not if you don't, Peter. I don't want to hurt you."
"A month ago you would have been happy to see me dead again. We've come a long
way..."
"Just don't call me baby," Stiles interrupted, his lips twisting into a smirk.
Peter grinned and drew him into a deep kiss.
"I really am okay, Stiles. My wolf's in the driver's seat. It wants our mate to
feel happy and whole. Lydia will only add to what you already feel for us. I
know that now."
"So does she. I worried the two of you would like fight over me or something,
but this can work, right?"
"It will work." Stepping back, Peter reached into his pants' pocket and drew
out a couple foil wrapped squares. "Just remember you're only sixteen."
Blushing, Stiles protested, "Only for another week, but, yeah, I can see both
of you killing me if I get her knocked up now! Oh, and my dad would so help."
As they both chuckled, he stuck the condoms in his pocket, then, with a smile
at his Alpha, left the apartment.
*****
Stiles worried it would be awkward or weird, but none of it was. Lydia picked
the restaurant and ordered steak for him--he enjoyed red meat a lot more than
he had before becoming a werewolf--and fish for herself, in French. They talked
about everything but what was going to happen later, laughing easily, even
lightly discussing Peter and Jackson.
Her mom was out on her own date and had informed Lydia she didn't plan to be
home till the next day, so they went to her place. The bedroom was just as
Stiles remembered it, but the bed was turned down and as he sat on one side,
Lydia lit a couple unscented candles and put on some soft music, then turned
off the lamp and closed the curtains.
Then she straddled his lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Stiles
cupped her hips to keep her from falling, and they kissed softly.
"I've only been with Jackson," she admitted when their lips parted, both of
them breathing a bit harder.
"I've only been with Peter."
"So I really am you first woman?"
He nodded and smiled slightly. "And I'm your first wolf."
"Just don't claw up my sheets. They're eight hundred thread count Egyptian
cotton."
Of course they were. Stiles had no idea what any of that meant but he figured
it meant expensive. He kissed her again and she pushed him back on the bed,
pressing her knees against his waist and tickling his nose with her long hair
before she rose and pulled her top over her head, leaving her in a lacy pink
bra.
Stiles may have drooled a bit, then he grunted and arched into her when she
lifted her skirt and revealed she was naked beneath it. "Oh...fuck..." He was
already cement-drilling hard. The hair between her legs--red like that on her
head--was trimmed into a heart shape and it was wet. With a laugh she pulled
the skirt over her head as well, then slipped out of her bra and kicked off her
shoes.
"Now, since you're a sixteen..."
"Nearly seventeen," he gasped out, making her roll her eyes and smack her hand
across his chest.
"Whatever. You're a teenage boy. I assume you've seen lots of porn and not just
gay porn." As he nodded, eyes goggling at her naked breasts which swayed above
him when she rotated her pelvis against his crotch. "So, do I need to explain
how to eat me out?"
Stiles avidly shook his head and grabbed her hips to pull her up over his chest
until she was kneeling over his face and, god, she smelled so good. A hint of
citrus mixed with musk and heat. Experimentally, he flicked his tongue out and
tasted her. It was different than Peter, but good, so good. He licked her again
and maybe he hit her clitoris because Lydia moaned above him and her thighs
trembled against his cheeks.
"Yeah, right there."
Must have been right. He licked there again and used the tip of his tongue to
map out the swelling nub before lapping at it, cautiously at first, until she
encouraged him to go harder and he saw her hands cup her own breasts, her
thumbs flicking her hard nipples.
Oh Jesus, he was going to come in his pants. Trying to control his throbbing
dick and breathe as well, he licked and kissed up and down her hot, wet cleft,
paying most attention to her clit until Lydia cried out and pressed her hips
down, smashing his nose against the bone just above her cleft and his lips
around her clit. Just as he figured passing out might be an issue--but what a
way to go--she shuddered and more slippery liquid covered his tongue and
dripped down his chin.
When Lydia toppled off him, Stiles gasped for breath, but knew he was grinning
stupidly. His cock was still hard as a rock so he hadn't come, which meant...
"Good, that was really good," Lydia moaned, one hand slowly caressing a breast,
the other gliding over her heaving stomach. "Get your clothes off now."
"Yes ma'am." He couldn't help himself. She was more an Alpha than Peter!
Scrambling to his feet, Stiles yanked at his clothes and tried not to fall over
or get stuck in any of them. He had a moment of panic as his pants caught
around his ankles, then remembered to toe off his shoes so he could get out of
them. His cock was trapped by his boxer briefs and he was careful to ease the
elastic over the sensitive head, then dropped them to his ankles and kicked
them aside. Naked, he clamored back onto the bed, then saw her pointing and
followed the direction of her fingers. "Oh, yeah, socks." He flushed and pulled
them off, flinging them in random directions, then remembered the condoms and
leaned over the side of the bed for his pants. As he found the rubbers, he felt
Lydia's hand caressing his ass, and nearly came again.
When he turned back to her, he saw her watching him from beneath thick lashed,
lusty eyes. "So, as a werewolf, how's your stamina?"
"Um...I'm not going to last long, sorry, but refraction times almost non-
existent."
He liked the predatory smile that crossed her lips, then she snapped her
fingers towards the condoms. "Give me one of those. Keep the other one handy."
Obeying, he scooted toward her on his knees, and watched her tear the foil and
take out the rubber circle. He was so slick with pre-cum, there was no need for
lube, and Lydia sat up enough to pull him towards her and slide the condom down
his dick.
Praying he wouldn't come from her fingers alone, Stiles panted harshly to get
himself under control, then let her move him between her spread legs. Kind of
surprised she didn't want to be on top, he had enough sense left not to mention
that because he really wanted to do this the first time the traditional way.
Her hands on his ass and her legs wrapping around the backs of his thighs
pulled him closer and Stiles braced his hands on either side of her, and thrust
forward.
Naturally, he missed the first time, and when she laughed, he turned red and
started to twitch away, but she shook her head. "No, not laughing at you. Sex
should be funny sometimes. Come on, it'll be great." Her fingers wrapped around
the base of his cock and guided him to her entrance and he thrust again and
this time...
"Oh holy fuck!"
Being fucked was super fantastic, but this...Being inside her...She was so
tight and hot and wet--he could feel her even through the condom--and her
muscles did something to make him see stars. Stiles knew it wasn't going to be
pretty and he was going to come really fast, but his hips wriggled and pumped
and her hands guided him and her hips rose to meet his and they were fucking.
And then, with a shout and a shudder, he was coming in hard spurts that left
him weak and breathless and collapsed on her, panting into her really perfect
breasts. Dimly he felt her stroking his head and all he could do was grin and
mumble, "That was fantastic." Slowly he tilted his head to look up at her and
found her cocking an eyebrow at him. "Um...?"
"Lesson number one. Girls don't usually come just from the fucking." Since
Lydia wasn't frowning, didn't sound angry, and was, in fact watching him with
amused indulgence, Stiles pulled away from her and pushed himself up onto
trembling knees. He caught the condom before it slipped off.
"Oops?"
Lydia chuckled and showed him how to tie off and dispose of the used rubber,
then drew him down next to her. As their legs entwined, she caressed his chest,
teasing his nipples and scratching through the trail of hair down his stomach.
"You know, those baggy shirts really don't do you justice. We're going to have
to go to the mall in a couple of days so I can dress you."
"Must we?" Stiles whined, then caught his breath as her hand found his cock and
it began to harden again.
"Peter will thank me. The man has good sartorial taste. And, yes, I do
appreciate your short refraction time, but this round, play with my clit while
you're fucking me, okay?"
"How come I never knew you had a dirty mouth?"
"I'm a lady outside of the bedroom." Leaning forward she pressed a heated kiss
to his mouth, then murmured, "And I'm yours inside it."
"Okay, yeah, I'm really good with that," he laughed and kissed her hungrily.
This time he wasn't surprised at all when Lydia rolled him onto his back and
climbed on top of him with the other condom in hand. He also didn't mind a bit.
*****
Stiles found Peter sitting on the half-burned porch of the Hale Mansion,
watching Derek tossing the other Betas around what used to be the front yard.
Parking the jeep half mile out, he'd walked in, wondering how this was going to
go. Would Peter really be okay?
"Lydia didn't come with you?"
"Um...no?"
"Stiles. It really is okay." He patted the step next to him and Stiles went to
sit, then leaned into his Alpha, pressing his nose against his neck.
"I thought maybe I'd feel like I should apologize, but I don't. My wolf was
with its mate. I felt like I was with my mate. I mean, I knew it was Lydia and
it was very different, but it felt right."
"I'm glad," Peter murmured, rubbing his own nose over Stiles' forehead. "You
smell like me."
He sounded surprised and Stiles was as well. "Huh. I only took one shower and
figured you'd end up rolling all over me to scent me again."
"One more quirk, I guess." Lifting his head, Peter smiled and gently kissed
Stiles, then gave him a nudge towards the battling Betas. "Go on, join them."
"There should be perks for sleeping with the Alpha," Stiles grumbled but
grinned through it.
"Oh, there are. You knock Derek on his ass and I'll let you fuck my mouth,"
Peter teased, his voice low and husky with promise.
Across the yard Scott made a face and let out a loud, "Gross", but Stiles
ignored him, already loping towards Derek, who turned, crouched and waited.
That was quite a prize. While Peter gave him blowjobs, Stiles was always on his
back so his mate could control the depth and speed of his thrusts. One of his
greatest fantasies was Peter on his knees or back and Stiles pumping into his
mouth like a jackhammer.
Too distracted, half-hard, he was knocked onto his back by Derek barely
flicking a finger at him.
"You're going to be an old man before you get to do that, Stilinski," the head
Beta smirked and jerked Stiles to his feet then did the 'come get me' hand
gesture.
Stiles concentrated and charged...
Behind him Peter shouted encouragement, from down the road he heard Lydia's car
approaching, and around him his pack battled good naturedly. The land was
returning to life and in a few years the rebuilt mansion would be filled with
cubs and a strong, happy pack. And, maybe the relationship begun with threats
and dark promises would be solidified by love. A love between three life-long
mates.
Everything felt so right.
The End
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