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The night was inexorably blind.
The deafening quiet was worse than the shrieking winds for it was unnatural for such a thick forest. Thorns kept grabbing the knight’s cloak, begging him to turn around. The moon laughed.
The knight kept going.
With sweat and grime covering his exhausted body, the man lifted his sword and hacked through the bushes. The annoying branches threatened to poke his eyes out on every corner.
At last, after hours of trudging, he caught a glimpse of the tower.
The knight smiled, breathless.
The coveted sight of it pushed a newfound energy into his lungs. Panting, he burst through the last barricade of sharp wooden claws and… stiffened.
It took a moment for him to relax again. He huffed in laughter.
“So…” he breathed heavily. “It is true, then.”
The stranger didn’t answer. Still like a statue and silent like a shadow, he stood on the knight’s path and glared at him with blood-red eyes.
“You want me to fight you?” the knight raised his voice and drew his sword. “I shall slay you, wretched beast, and free the great spark of your torment. Behold—”
“You stand on the forbidden territory,” the beast rumbled. His voice, deep and guttural, rocked across the meadow. “If you do not go away, I shall kill you.”
The knight grinned. “I am not afraid.”
The beast stayed silent. He lifted his head, allowing the moon to grace his face with its light.
How horrid it was.
The ridges of his brows stood out in a sick grimace, his cheekbones sharp and protruding. His beard served as a reminder of his savage nature, and the sharp glistening fangs — of the death that trailed after him akin to blood.
This wolf — this beast — was the one who held the spark captive.
The knight’s gaze shifted to the tower and back.
“I shall give you one more chance, mongrel,” said the knight, stepping back unconsciously at the sudden growl. “S-step away or meet your death.”
“No.”
The knight inhaled and jutted out his chin. “You have made your choice. Come close, then—”
“Why did you come for him?” the beast asked, tilting his head.
The knight spluttered. “To save! No man should be a captive of another.”
“Did you know he’s not a spark?”
“You— you lie.”
The beast sighed in frustration and grit his teeth. He rolled his massive shoulders hidden under a leather jerkin. “He is not a spark, but a witch.” He smirked as the knight’s face immediately soured. “Oh. Having second thoughts now?”
The knight frowned and took a better hold of his sword. The crow croaked.
“His Majesty King Scott III told it himself,” he began, but the beast interrupted him again.
“Your king is full of shit,” he spat. “I am tired of you. There is no spark, there is only me standing in your path. Get out of my sight else I tear your throat out.”
The knight shuffled on his feet, glancing at the tower. Dark and menacing, it pierced the sky with its peak. No light was seen inside.
The knight’s gaze slid down ribbed mossy stones until it froze.
Underneath the tower, bones lay.
Starkly white and fragile, glowing in the moonlight.
A cold like no other settled over the sweaty back of the knight.
He swallowed and glanced at the beast again. “A witch, you say?”
The man did not answer. Not that the knight needed him to.
If the spark was indeed a witch, he needed to regroup. No point in wasting his life on some filth.
“I shall speak to his Majesty,” he said. The branches cracked underneath his feet. “If you lied, I shall come back and make you regret it.”
“If you return, you shall die.” The beast sounded almost bored.
The knight bit his tongue, lifted his chin and his sword, and retreated into the darkness.
The grass crunched underneath his feet. The grinning young crescent stroked his face with paleness.
Leisurely, Stiles walked up to the silent wolf, weaved his hand around his forearm, and put his chin on the muscly shoulder.
“Who was it this time?” he hummed, gazing at the edge of the forest.
“Another idiot.”
Stiles closed his eyes and snorted. He glanced at the wolf’s face, and his treacherous heart lost its rhythm for just a tiny bit.
God, how beautiful he was.
Derek turned to meet his gaze, and Stiles’ lips stretched in a grin all by themselves.
“I made soup,” he muttered.
The wolf said nothing, yet his gaze softened. A warm thrill ran through Stiles’ body, settling somewhere deep in his stomach. Still grinning, he tugged the wolf by his elbow, back inside the tower.
They ascended past the fog of the musty stones, up the spiral staircase, and into the inhabitable part of the tower. The aroma of hearty soup and dried herbs greeted them with a homely welcome, pushing their shoulders to relax.
One wouldn’t expect the inside to be this warm and inviting, yet it was. The stack of books threatened to fall on the floor next to the made-up bed; bundles of herbs hung here and there from the ceiling, though both men ducked their heads long since used to it. The flames danced in the fireplace, blistering the walls with their light. Atop the fireplace, a human skull stared at them with a forced grin.
Stiles hurried to close the garret door in the ceiling to prevent weird smells of his potions from leaking into the main room, and walked up to the oven.
“Sit down.” Grabbing the ladle, he waved at Derek despite the wolf already sitting at the dinner table in his usual place. “I didn’t know you were coming, so I have already dined, sorry. I’ll have some tea with you, though.”
He put a big bowl of hot soup in front of the wolf along with the spoon and smiled when he saw Derek’s gaze trained on himself.
How riveting it was to always have that gaze.
“Thank you,” said Derek and began to eat.
Stiles nodded and turned away to hide his heated cheeks. His gaze caressed the relaxed slope of the wolf’s broad shoulders, his neck and the open collar of his milky linen shirt, the tantalizing V-cut of his jerkin, his brows, his pointy nose, and his thick beard. The heat spread further when his eyes caught the veins on his hairy forearms and bulging muscles.
Cursing himself, Stiles grabbed the kettle and banged it on the oven racks, cringing from the loud noise. He shoved a new log into the oven opening, between the red-hot coals, and closed it shut.
Soon, the tea was ready, and Stiles sat down as well, tucking his leg under his thigh.
“You did not tell me you would be around,” he said, sipping his tea and pinning the alpha with a stare. “You can come in any time.”
Derek glanced at him. “I heard your muttering so I thought you might be busy.”
“I’m always doing something, you know that. You are a welcome guest here. Besides, I drag you inside each time anyway.”
The corner of the wolf’s mouth lifted. He shook his head once and returned to his soup, leaving Stiles bubbling inside from giddiness.
His heart thrummed, and Derek certainly heard it. At least, he was kind enough not to mention anything, allowing Stiles to remain safe in his delusion of secrecy.
“You do not have to do that, by the way,” he murmured, tracing the edge of the cup with the tip of his finger. “The thing with the knight, I mean.”
He blushed at the glare the wolf gave him and pursed his lips.
They had this conversation many times, to the point where Derek just ignored the topic altogether.
Stiles told him he didn’t have to come. Derek kept showing up.
And, after everything that happened, Stiles couldn’t help but admire the wolf’s loyalty, his dedication, and unyielding stubbornness. He truly didn’t have to come and defend Stiles from all those fools, didn’t have to roam around the tower and glare into the dark. Yet, every time, his strong and silent silhouette among the trees made Stiles’ heart stutter.
He just wished the wolf came to him because he wanted to, and not because of the sense of duty.
Even then, it didn’t matter that much.
Stiles just wanted him here. Close.
At last, the spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl. Derek relaxed against the back of the chair that was creaking under his weight; his thighs were spread, his head inclined.
Stiles stared into his tea for if their gazes met, he would be damned.
“Tell me something.”
Derek’s request was low and quiet, as it always was. His voice lost itself in the crackling of the logs and the whispers of the books.
Stiles grinned again.
He had never smiled this much before he met the wolf.
“So I finally boiled the toad’s bones,” he began, trying not to snort at the small smile on Derek’s lips. Thank heavens, the wolf wasn’t squeamish. “And, guess what, they told me snakes had come to these lands.”
“Did they?” The wolf’s eyes were heavy-lidded.
“Mhm. Rattlesnakes, the western diamondback to be exact. You know I wanted a snake’s skull for so long…” Stiles wiggled in place from excitement, which only made Derek’s smile widen. “And all of them ran from me, so I truly cannot believe my luck. A rattlesnake? Here? A miracle!” He sighed dreamily. “Tomorrow, I shall go find it.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Derek.
God.
Stiles tightened his lips, yet the giddy smile broke out anyway. “Really?” The wolf nodded. “Ah! With your hearing, we shall find it in no time! Oh, I cannot believe— The snake’s skull!” Stiles leaned on the table with his eyes blazing. “Do you even know what I can do with a serpent skull?”
“What?”
Since the wolf requested it himself, Stiles went on a lengthy and probably too bloody tangent about the new spell he was developing. Derek hummed and nodded, not looking away the entire time.
The night was silent to the gazes exchanged between the two of them. The quietness was soft like heat from the fire, treading around them with a motherly touch.
When the logs in the fireplace broke apart under the weight of their own fiery decay, Stiles pushed himself to ask:
“I shall go early tomorrow,” he muttered. “When the snakes would be active still. If you want to go with me, you might as well as stay.”
The wolf’s gaze lay on him, heavy like the darkness on the cold grass outside.
He’d stay, Stiles knew it. He did before. Still, the anticipation stole Stiles’ breath.
“Since you ask…” the wolf murmured, and both of them smiled.
Stiles huffed and stood up.
How tender was the familiarity between the two of them, the comfort of their routine dance bittered by its friendly innocence. The fleeting touch of their elbows when they put the dishes into the empty cauldron for a later wash, the glances exchanged for the preparation for the night.
As always, Stiles left Derek alone to shift and climbed into his garret to put away the research parchment, the quills, and the inkpot. His hands trembled, just like his heart, and the edges of his grin.
Leaning on the creaking table, Stiles closed his eyes and inclined his head, listening.
There it was. The crackling of Derek’s bones. Their clatter, oh, so delightfully fresh in their violent snap. Music, it was music to him.
Stiles would never tell Derek, of course. How off-putting would it be to say “I adore the sound of your bones breaking and mending”?
No, he shouldn’t.
Soon, when the lovely crackling settled into Derek’s wolfish groan, Stiles hurried downstairs.
The wolf already lay lengthwise on Stiles’ bed, his massive head on his paws. His red gaze followed Stiles as he walked to the bed. After changing into a nightshirt, Stiles left the worn grey linen tunic, the long leather belt, and the breeches on the chair, climbed onto the bed over the wolf, and settled under the cold covers.
“Good night,” Stiles murmured, gazing sleepily at the giant furry creature making an irreparable indent in his bed.
The wolf let out a low “boof” and closed his eyes.
Stiles gripped Derek’s forearm and barely kept himself from jumping in excitement. He turned his elated gaze to the wolf, grinning widely.
“It’s here!” he hissed. “I found it!”
Derek huffed out in laughter but Stiles was already hopping over to the crusty mossy log. Carefully, he picked up the snake, which curled in rings in the alcove under the tree, and immediately frowned.
“Oh, you poor thing,” he muttered, lifting it above his head to look at its belly.
“What?” Derek asked.
Stiles sighed and stood up.
“Now I get why it stayed so close to my lair.” He showed Derek the serpent as he came closer. “Here, see?”
The snake was completely emaciated. Its scales had long since lost their shine, and it barely wiggled his tongue out. It didn’t hiss, didn’t attack, but just lay there, struggling to move.
Stiles took Derek’s hand, uncurled his finger, and pressed it to the snake’s belly as gently as he could. There wasn’t much left of it; instead of a cylinder body there was a long skeleton in a form of a horse shoe all through its length.
“Feel this,” said Stiles, rubbing their fingers against an exhausted flesh. “It’s starving.”
Derek stepped closer, making Stiles’ feel the soothing heat of his body. “Can you heal it?”
Stiles glanced at him. “No. I fear, it is too late.” He released Derek’s hand and put the snake against his chest, rubbing its weak head. It felt like he was holding the skin and not a living creature.
“You’re going to kill it?” Derek asked simply.
Stiles didn’t look at him despite the lack of judgment in the alpha’s voice. He must have felt it, though, somewhere deep inside. After all, who was Stiles if not a wretched wicked witch about to carry out his murderous plot?
It wasn’t about that, never.
“It is in mercy that I grant death,” Stiles said grimly. “For its life is torment.”
Without looking at the wolf, Stiles walked back to the log and sat on it, caressing the skeletal triangle of the snake’s head.
“You know you are talking to a wolf, right?”
Stiles ignored him. Derek huffed and slowly walked closer. He lowered himself on the ground next to Stiles feet and looked at him from below, though Stiles didn’t meet his gaze.
“You never say a thing when I bring you rabbits or deer,” he said, his voice careful for some reason, but at the same time uncompromising. When Stiles didn’t look up, the wolf huffed and grabbed his chin, forcing him to turn his head. His eyes flashed red in a warning, shifting to Stiles’ pout for a breath of a second before he growled: “Don’t put me on par with those human fools. You killed for me before, and I killed for you.”
Stiles’ gaze roamed across the wolf’s face. His heart drummed against his ribs. The warmth of Derek’s fingers on his chin, his fiery eyes, and strong heart — all of it was maddening, but nothing compared to fieriness his words.
Stiles would never find another who would understand him so viscerally. He was damned.
Stiles lowered his gaze. “Sorry. It is a habit at this point.”
Derek’s gaze softened just a touch as he put down his hand. Stiles nearly whined at the loss of warmth.
“Your kitten claws are nothing to my skin,” said Derek. “Besides, what a pathetic excuse of a wolf I would be to judge you for having to kill?”
“Alright, I get it,” Stiles smiled lightly. “Big bad wolf and an evil witch—”
“Stiles.”
“—keeping an entire kingdom in fear. Let’s do the deed already.”
Derek waved at the snake as if to say ‘go on’.
Trying not to squirm from his never-ending stare, Stiles closed his eyes and lowered his head, pressing the snake to his chest. The creature bumped its nose against Derek’s fang that hung on a leather cord around Stiles’ neck — a present from the wolf, and Stiles had to push it away with his finger.
The incantation fluttered off his lips like a ripple of a far-away stream. He prayed to his mother, bringing alive the decaying language of their ancestors. He knew even with his eyes closed that Derek was frowning for the language irritated his delicate hearing with the noise and the scrape it surrounded itself with.
At last, Stiles put his thumb at the bottom of the snake’s skull where it met the body and pressed in. The magic trickled inside, searching for the bones, and, once found, wrapped itself around the brittle vertebrae like a lover would around the other’s neck.
It shattered with the last of Stiles’ whisper.
Quick and painless — it was done.
Derek offered him a linen pouch and Stiles carefully put the snake inside.
“I’m going to go for a run,” said Derek once they got up.
“Oh?” Please, please, please, come back. “Well, do not follow any doves.”
Derek looked at him strangely. “Doves?”
Stiles blushed. Why did he bring that up?..
“Well, you know… The superstition? If you follow a dove, it would bring you to evil.”
Derek huffed. “So, back to you? Alright.”
“No.”
“I’ll keep an eye on a dove, then—”
“No!” with his cheeks hurting from an effort not to grin, Stiles pushed his shoulder into Derek’s but the wolf, of course, didn’t move an inch. Gathering the last bits of bravery he had, he added as casually as he could: “I’m making a pie today, by the way, so if you want to…”
Derek hummed. “What’s it with?”
“Nettle and cheese,” said Stiles and snorted at the wolf’s sour expression.
“You’re such a witch sometimes,” Derek muttered and, before Stiles could squawk, added: “I’ll bring you something.”
The warmth spread through Stiles’ chest. He stared at the path in front of himself for fear of embarrassing himself by staring at the alpha too much. Even then, Derek had to catch the branch of the tree and push it out of Stiles’ path, shaking his head and grumbling.
“What will you bring?” Stiles asked.
“Whatever you want.”
God.
“We haven’t had partridges in a while.”
“Then I must bring you partridges.”
“You don’t have to,” Stiles added just in case.
Derek gave him an annoyed stare.
Fair.
With his face heating, Stiles hurried to reassure him. “I’ll make a stew if you bring two.”
“Just say you want to play with their bones again,” said Derek.
“… and make a stew!”
The wolf laughed.
“How are you so qui— Oh.”
Lydia pushed back the hood of her black leather cape and glared at him with her eyebrow arched.
“Expected someone else?” she sang with venomous sweetness and walked inside the tower, brushing her shoulder on Stiles’.
Rolling his eyes, Stiles hurried after her up the staircase.
“Yes, actually,” he said, huffing from exertion. “But your presence is delightful and welcome, I assure you.”
Lydia did not deign him with an answer. She shoved her coat in Stiles’ waiting hands, sauntered to the old sunken burgundy armchair, and lowered herself in it as if it were her golden throne. Her disdained gaze ran around the room. She pursed her lips.
“I sensed death,” she said at last and tucked her feet under her thighs, spreading the long skirt.
Stiles, who was busy shoving logs into the oven fire, hummed. “I caught a snake.”
“Mmm. Venomous?”
Stiles sent her a glare. “I’m not giving you the venom.”
Lydia sighed again as if Stiles was the most irritating person in the world, then closed her eyes and leaned her head on the back of the armchair.
“If it’s not a Western taipan, I don’t want it,” she dismissed. “Better give me your blood.”
Stiles clanged the kettle on the stove and glanced at her around his shoulder. “But your tea is not ready!”
“Don’t care. Come here.”
Stiles frowned. She did look paler than when he had last seen her, with shadows under her eyes. With her body still and pale, she looked like a corpse in that damn armchair.
What a dumbass. Not that he would ever call her that to her face.
Stiles harrumphed. He left the kettle above the fire and walked to the girl, rolling back one of his sleeves.
Lydia opened her eyes as soon as he lowered on the armrest and took his offered arm in her cold, cold hands. She inspected the veins running down his forearm, took a better hold, lowered her head, and sank her teeth into the skin.
Stiles didn’t flinch. Gently, he caught the lock of her fiery hair and pushed it over her shoulder so it wouldn’t disturb the process. Working his fist to keep the blood flowing, Stiles stared at her in concern.
They’ve been apart for too long. It wasn’t healthy for both of them. Looking back, Stiles could see how some of his jitteriness came as a consequence of their separation.
However, he didn’t berate, whine, or chide. He knew Lydia would always come to him in the end.
At last, she finished and wiped the corner of her lips with a delicate swipe of a finger. Already, the flush bloomed on her cheeks, bringing freshness that wasn’t there before.
“You are overboiling the water,” she reprimanded, lifting her chin high and her gaze on Stiles.
Stiles huffed a laugh and went over to the furiously whistling kettle.
They talked. Unhurried and somewhat bizarre, their conversations were an intimate thing. If someone were to listen in, they would understand very little — the two of them interrupted each other in the middle of sentences, for they already knew what was coming next.
Lydia helped him extract venom from the snake’s body but quickly got tired and snappy. Watching as her blinking got slower and slower, Stiles led her back to the armchair. A couple of minutes later, she was asleep.
All it took was a couple of drops of valerian root extract boiled along with the wings of a brown bat — a mixture he added to her tea and masked with the spearmint.
Lydia needed it. That’s why she didn’t point it out because no way Stiles was that stealthy.
Slowly, tension drained from his shoulders. Stiles gulped down the rest of his tea and went to boil the flesh off the snake.
The glare Derek sent Lydia ought to have burned her alive.
Sighing, Stiles came up to his stiff figure and gently extracted the wild birds from his hands.
“Quit growling,” Stiles murmured and took him by the wrist. “She is asleep, at last.”
He tugged the wolf towards the table but Derek stood in place. Tearing his flickering eyes away from Lydia’s slack figure, he blinked a couple of times at the floor, his jaw working. All of him was tense, like a tight string.
“I shall go,” he grunted, lifting his eyes at Stiles. “Don’t want to… interrupt.”
Stiles rolled his eyes and tugged Derek with more insistence. “Nonsense. Come on, you know I’m bad with birds. You have to help me. Ple-e-ease?”
Derek’s eyes slipped down on Stiles’ exaggerated pout before closing. His shoulders sagged, and, finally, he gave in.
Stiles didn’t mind his sudden grumpy mood, he was just happy Derek was the one hacking at those birds and dealing with all the feathers. Admittedly, Derek slammed the knife just a tad too harshly, but oh well.
Stiles was sure some food would shake him up.
Derek hadn’t liked Lydia since they first met. The two glared at each other like two hissing cats before Lydia left, though not without flicking her hair right in Derek’s face on her way out. She interrogated him later looking as scary as death herself.
After that first meeting, Derek simply didn’t come for a week. Stiles had to go search for him in the woods and had actually found his shelter — an old shack in the middle of nowhere that wasn’t at all fit to live in — before dragging him back. It took a long ramble about the necessity of a proper den and a polite attitude to Stiles’ friends for Derek to finally give in.
Even now, when Stiles had pushed Derek to sit at the table with a piece of pie and a cup of tea, the wolf glared at Lydia as if he could strangle her with his eyes.
Stiles tried not to get between them much, because, well, it was complicated. And sad, because those were two creatures he loved the most in his lonely life.
Derek’s hatred came from his instincts. The man didn’t know what Lydia was but he felt how dangerous she was, and was right to do so. Lydia was just pissed off Stiles didn’t tell her about his “romance” even though there wasn’t any romance.
There never would be, and he’d be a fool to hope.
Stiles glanced at Derek.
“Your eyebrows are going to fuse together if you continue sulking,” he said with light amusement.
Derek didn’t move. He barely drank his tea, and just clenched his fist around the cup.
Stiles sighed and turned back to the dough he was busy punching into shape. “She’s not an enemy.”
“She drank your blood.”
Stiles stiffened.
“How did you know that?” he asked incredulously, turning back with a hand on his side.
Derek looked at him, then pointedly lowered his gaze on Stiles’ forearm with a rolled-up sleeve and back onto Lydia.
He didn’t even need to say anything, because Stiles was already cursing himself.
Shit.
“It’s nothing,” he said, hurriedly rolling his sleeve down to cover the cuts.
“It’s not nothing. Every time she comes, you end up injured.”
“I wouldn’t call it injured…”
“And you let her come into your den as if she owns the place—”
“Well,” Stiles snapped. “As my familiar, she—”
Both of them froze.
Stiles felt the icy cold spread down his spine and Derek’s burning gaze at the back of his neck.
He said too much. He said the only thing witches are supposed to take to their graves.
Stiles revealed her.
Breaths came in short. Stiles blinked a couple of times, licked his lips, and carefully put the dough back onto the board. He felt numb.
He said it.
He said it.
“I am not going to tell.”
Stiles closed his eyes.
Derek’s chair scraped softly along the floor. His soft steps felt like the gongs about to announce his demise.
The wolf’s heat covered his skin, so close he was.
Stiles didn’t lift his head.
“You can trust me,” said Derek with a strangely intense earnestness. His earlier gloom was nowhere to be seen. “If there is one person in this world you can trust, it’s me, Stiles.”
Stiles shook his head.
“I know,” he croaked and cleared his throat. His heartbeat filled his temples. “I just… can’t believe I said it.”
“Come here.”
Without waiting for an answer, Derek took him by the shoulders and tugged into a tight embrace.
All tension left Stiles at once. Breathing in the leather scent of his jerkin, he sagged upon Derek’s front. His heart stuttered from the closeness. Stiles put his cheek against Derek’s shoulder and stared at Lydia’s tiny figure.
“I shouldn’t have said it,” he whispered.
The alpha rubbed his stubbly chin on the side of Stiles’ head. His hands settled heavily across Stiles’ waist.
On any other day, Stiles would’ve been elated to feel them. Now all he wanted to do was curl on himself to stave off the asphyxiating panic.
“It’s okay,” Derek murmured, his breath hot against Stiles’ hair.
He gripped Derek’s linen sleeves in his fists and tried to breathe. “It’s not. I betrayed her. How could I fucking do that—”
Suddenly, Derek leaned away and took Stiles’ face into his hands. Their gazes met — one strong and another terrified.
“Listen to me,” said Derek. “You did not betray her. All you did was put her under my protection.”
Stiles watched him with his eyes wide and scalding. He grabbed the wolf’s forearms, just to ground himself.
“I know, Stiles,” Derek rumbled, his thumbs stroking Stiles’ cheekbones. “I know how sacred of a knowledge it is. Your secret is safe with me, you are safe with me. And if she’s yours… Then I’ll protect her, too.”
Stiles gripped his wrists, overwhelmed.
Yes, Derek might never tell another soul what Lydia was to him, but that didn’t change the fact that Stiles told him. The forbidden words fell off his lips so easily it terrified him.
Derek sighed and pressed him to his front once again, holding tightly.
They stayed for a few minutes in thrumming silence, holding on.
“You know,” Derek murmured softly, pressing his lips to Stiles’ temple. Both of them were looking at the girl. “I thought it would be a bird.”
“What?”
“Your familiar. You’re always so weird around birds, and I thought…”
“No, it’s… no.” God, he couldn’t even come up with a joke.
Derek seemed completely unbothered by his silence. “Is she a vampire?”
“A banshee.”
The alpha let out a curious hum.
It made sense, really. A woman who predicted death and a witch who played with it. Both of them intertwined with death to the achingly intimate level.
Lydia didn’t tell him who she was when she first found him. It took Stiles months to figure out why she wouldn’t leave him alone and barge into his tower any time of day or night.
“Don’t growl at her, okay?” Stiles begged pitifully. “I know she can be difficult and scary but… I don’t like seeing you two fight.”
Derek sighed. “If you wish so.”
“Thank you.”
Someone’s harsh breath stabbed into the darkness. The two wandered along, not even trying to hide their steps. Dry branches snapped under their feet and the moon stared from above.
“Sit down. Here, come on. Just… wait for me, okay? I shall be quick.”
“You will not leave me—”
“Precious, I beg you, do not argue with me! The beast, if it exists, may stand in our path. I shall not risk you or the child.”
“But—”
“Stay here. If I do not come back soon, leave and do not look back.”
“Boyd…”
“Keep our child safe.”
A desperate whimper served as a grim farewell.
The man, tall and black, with blood running hot under his skin from the love and the fear so tightly entangled, marched through the woods. His jaw was set, his eyes narrowed as he struggled to see what was in front of him. His very being screamed at him to turn back, to run to his wife and feel her breath upon his cheek.
But if there was any chance of healing her, of seeing her arms holding their child in the future and not crossed on her unmoving chest…
He was ready to do anything.
He stopped. His breath came short at the man that now stood in his path.
There wasn’t any doubt as to who it was glaring at him, for the eyes of the beast were painted with the blood of those who came before him.
The beast didn’t speak, yet the threat was deafening.
Boyd straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin.
“If you’re here,” he said, “then the spark must be close. I was right.”
The werewolf was silent. He didn’t look tense, yet Boyd saw his muscles bulge under the thin linen of his shirt.
“Let me see him,” Boyd said, his voice breaking in the end.
“No.”
The coldness of the answer was merciless.
Boyd gulped. “I came not for his hand or his head. I have no fight to seek with you. If he cannot help us, no one can.”
The wolf inclined his head. His gaze scoured over Boyd’s stoic figure searching for a sign of threat and finding only empty hands.
“There is no spark,” he grunted at last, meeting Boyd’s gaze once more.
Boyd felt like the earth disappeared under his feet.
“Wh-what?” he breathed out.
“He’s a witch, not a spark.”
“I’ll take it,” he said quickly. “I’ll take anything. Pay anything.”
The wolf stared at him with no emotion adorning his face beside the cold disinterest.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“My wife. She is with a child. She suffers from fits. Healers say—” Boyd choked and had to swallow around the lodge in his throat to continue. “They say she might not survive the birth.”
The wolf looked at him for a long time. His presence, his gaze was unnerving and so very disturbing, especially when Boyd saw the bodies that were recovered from these woods. The wounds on those bodies, sometimes quartered for daring to approach the wolf’s treasure.
“Show her to me.”
Boyd stiffened.
The thought of leading this beast with teeth and claws sharper than daggers, to his exhausted pregnant wife was agonizing.
In the end, he really had no choice.
Boyd nodded.
Stiles and Erica stared at each other, both suspicious. The girl had her hand on her belly, so big Stiles was amazed at how she was able to walk all the way here.
Her partner, Boyd, stood by her side with his hand on the back of her chair and shifted glances between him and Derek. His jaw was set, and his grinding teeth cut against Stiles’ ears.
Stiles exhaled, rubbed his sleepy face, and buried his hands into his hair, glaring at the couple lit by the light of the fireplace.
“I need to talk to you,” he said at last and glanced at Derek.
The wolf, who stood at the entrance of the room all this time, silent and apprehensive, nodded and walked out.
“Do not touch anything.” Stiles pointed his finger at the humans and frowned menacingly, though based on the dubious faces of the two, it didn’t have the desired effect. “And do not eat. Even if it looks tasty.”
“Why are you looking at me?” the girl squawked in anger.
Stiles waved his hands. “I don’t know you pregnant people!”
“I am not eating anything out of your hands!”
“Excellent!” Stiles marched to the entrance.
Quickly, he descended the stairs and flew outside.
The moon was cold, the trees silent. A resident owl cooed somewhere close like an old lady in her sleep.
“Why did you bring them here?” Stiles asked, putting his hands on his sides.
Derek met his burning gaze calmly for a few moments before turning to stare at the moon.
Stiles huffed and shook his head. “I am a witch, Derek. I deal with death. I do not save lives, or heal puppies or pregnant women—”
“You saved me.”
Derek stared at him, and Stiles felt every ounce of that gaze.
“I killed,” said Stiles.
“Her? Yes. And then you brought me from the brink of death.”
“That’s not—”
“I would have died from wolfsbane,” Derek insisted, holding his gaze hostage. “So don’t you dare tell me you don’t save lives.”
“Derek.” Stiles’ heart thudded against his ribcage.
“I can send them away,” said Derek. “If you tell me, I’d do it. Or, we can think of a way to help.”
One corner of Stiles’ mouth lifted in amusement.
“Imagine if I told someone you’re this soft.” Stiles pushed at Derek’s shoulder playfully and yelped when the wolf caught his hand in a lightning-fast move.
“Imagine if someone believed you.”
“Touché.”
He was right, though, because no one would ever believe the wolf was capable of sympathy. His claws were made to kill and not scratch gently on the thin skin of Stiles’ wrist; his fangs were meant to tear apart the flesh and not hang on a thread from Stiles’ neck.
“To hell with you, wolf,” Stiles shook his head and began pacing. Derek followed him with his gaze. “Let me think… There’s not a lot I can use with her. Passionflower, bacopa, kava, valerian— What can I use?”
He rubbed the back of his head and glared at the ground. If the girl wasn’t pregnant, it would be… not easy, but easier. The child forbade almost anything. The time wasn’t on their side as well, since Erica looked ready to pop.
“Perhaps, it’s not what you use, but how you use it?” Derek offered. Heavens bless him, for he didn’t know shit about magic besides what he saw Stiles do. Despite that, he still strived to give advice and guide — truly, an alpha to his bones.
Stiles stopped.
An alpha.
But that meant—
Oh, why did he have to think of that…
He cleared his throat.
“Have you thought about turning them?” he asked carefully.
Derek gave him a bored glance. “She’s too late in her pregnancy. The bite would’ve turned her along with the child in the early stages but now… She would be the only one to survive the bite.”
Stiles’ heart sank. He stared at the wolf and bit his lip in anxiousness.
Think, think, think…
Oh.
“What if I isolated the child?”
Derek arched his eyebrow. “How?”
“The child is encased in a sac, right?”
“I don’t— How do you know that?”
“Lydia. Doesn’t matter. What if I… turn it into a bone? Like a skull? It’ll protect the child form the bite since they would be on their own, detached from the mother’s organism.”
“But the child will die,” Derek said gravely, frowning.
“Not if the bite takes quickly and heals the connection when I turn it back into flesh.”
They stared at each other.
“It’s a risk,” Derek shook his head, his eyes pained.
“It’s a chance,” Stiles begged, stepping closer. “For them, of course, but… for you as well.”
Derek lowered his head.
He knew what Stiles meant. Couldn’t not know.
Derek’s life would change and turn upside down.
Nothing would ever be the same.
Stiles swallowed and walked closer, keeping his hands clenched into fists so as to not weave them around the wolf.
Stiles would lose him, inevitably. After this moment, his life wouldn’t be the same, either.
“Come on, alpha,” Stiles smiled softly, making Derek lift his gaze on him. His hazel eyes were full of desperate hope the one that hurt when it bloomed. “Once the girl is turned, the big guy would follow. He won’t leave her alone in this. So… two members of the pack? Well, soon-to-be three but… It’s pack.”
It’s something Derek would cherish for the rest of his life. It’s something that would break him if he lost it, just as it did to his mother. It would be something Stiles would never compare with.
Derek would have a pack.
“So you…” the wolf cleared his throat, looking at him with something heavy in his gaze. “You approve of them?”
Stiles grinned and tried to keep his voice from trembling. “They’re not bad. Brave enough to venture through the forest to the mighty beast.”
Derek huffed. “Brave, or stupid?”
“Right up your alley, either way.”
The night itself was warmed by Derek’s deep laugh.
Stiles gazed at him, at this selfless and loyal creature, and felt the first crack embed itself in his heart.
“Come on,” he said quietly, took Derek by his elbow, and tugged him inside the tower. “Let’s cheer up your pups.”
The child was saved. The girl, too.
As predicted, Boyd requested to be turned as well.
Derek acceded to the wish. He gathered his newly acquired pack and left.
“They need some time to settle. The moon is young yet, luckily for us.”
“Time should be gentle to them.”
“Mhm… You do know that I must remain close to the betas?”
“I do.”
“I will come back.”
“Yeah… I know.”
Wolves.
What intricate creatures, loyal and brave.
The pack prevailed above strangers, and the mate above the pack.
The loss of it would kill an alpha, but the acquirement would give the wolf a life of peace.
With his cheek on the cold stone of the windowsill, Stiles tore the petal off the chamomile, fiddled it around his fingers, and let go. Excited for its freedom, the white petal soared until the brutal wind snatched it away.
The night was quiet.
Derek didn’t come.
For the third night in a row, there was no sight of the wolf’s inky-black fur. None of his hidden smiles, no light from the fireplace caressing his skin.
Stiles didn’t mind loneliness, yet it was never this bitter and it never ached. Not since he met Derek.
Stiles glanced at the skull sitting on the fireplace, sighed, and turned back to the crescent.
He had never been to Derek’s newly built den, only seen it from afar when they strolled past it. One could never come inside unless the wolf gave clear permission. It was sacred and thus, the safest place in these woods.
Stiles wasn’t bitter that Derek only showed him the outside. He wasn’t! He respected the wolf’s traditions and Derek himself too much to complain or even ask for an invitation. Derek having free access to Stiles’ tower was enough to soothe his heart.
Derek knew he could come whenever he wanted — a permission Stiles so painstakingly drilled into his head — and did so, regularly.
Until now.
Without looking, Stiles caught the fang that dangled from his neck and rolled it between his fingers. It wasn’t even sharp anymore because he couldn’t stop touching it all the time.
Did Derek know what he had done by giving it to him? By giving his fang that he broke in one of the fights to a bone witch?
Perhaps, he thought it would be a funny trinket, given that his fang regrew in a span of a day. He even laughed at Stiles' loud gasp and his mesmerized stare, that’s how much it amused him.
Did he know that it became a habit for Stiles to touch it multiple times throughout the day?
Did he care?
“Get out.” Stiles marched towards the stunned man, shooing him away. “Come on, chop-chop.”
The knight, if he was honest, did not look very knightly. The armor was missing, the scabbard yellowed from rust, and the leather doublet was too thin to be that of a noble. The man lowered his crossbow as he saw Stiles, his frown prominent above his blue eyes.
“You are not the beast,” he said, confused.
“Get. Out,” Stiles hissed, stopping just a couple of steps in front of him, and placed his hands on his sides. “I do not have time to deal with your verminous ass — my toad has exploded all over my notes, and now everything stinks. And you do not help the matters, let me tell you that—”
“You really are a witch,” the man muttered, looking him up and down, then chuckled. “Where’s your mongrel, huh?”
Stiles’ smile oozed poison. “I slit his throat and drank his blood until the very last drop.” He stepped closer, grinning when the man notched an arrow once again. “It was so hot, it warmed me down to my bones. But it is getting chilly, again, don’t you think?”
The man took aim and said in a grave but shaking voice. “Step away from me, witch. Else—”
“Else what? You’d burn me on a stake? Please…”
“No. But I shall put this arrow through your filthy—”
Suddenly, a hand reached out behind the man right out of the dark. It grabbed the man’s hair in an unforgiving grip and pulled him back. The man yelped and let the arrow go by a simple instinct.
Stiles flinched away just as the raging roar broke the calm silence of the night.
Something stung his cheek, making him hiss. He slapped his hand on his cheek and upon lowering it, saw it covered in blood.
The fucker got him.
Lifting his eyes, Stiles saw none other than Derek pummeling the man’s bloodied face. All fight instantly went out of him, and something trembling took over his tired soul, an overwhelming relief mixed with melancholic sadness.
Derek hadn’t said a word. He simply kept the man pinned to the ground and brought down blow after blow, again and again, with a detached anger on his shifted face.
Stiles didn’t interfere.
At last, the wolf stood up. He gave the man’s bloated red and blue face a disgusted look, tore the crossbow out of his slack hands, and broke it as easily as one would snap a toothpick.
Then he turned to Stiles.
“Stay here,” he growled, his eyes blazing red.
Stiles lowered his gaze from the blood splatters on his face and neck, and nodded, too tongue-tied all of a sudden to say a word.
With one last glance, the wolf grabbed the man by his neckband and dragged him away. The wolf would go to the very edge of his territory, Stiles knew that, and drop the moaning fool there.
Well… he better get the toad’s stink out of the walls before Derek comes back.
The door slammed open, causing Stiles to yelp and drop the fang pendant he was fiddling with.
“Hey! I only have one door— What are you doing?”
Derek, who marched across the room in a span of two seconds, grabbed Stiles’ chin and turned his face up. His gaze ran all over Stiles’ features and zeroed on the cut from a loose arrow.
Stiles swallowed and cautiously put his hand on Derek’s wrist. The wolf’s warm angry breath coated his face, sending shivers down Stiles’ back and redness to his cheeks.
“I am fine,” Stiles said in a hoarse voice before clearing his throat. He was afraid his body would betray him if he dared to look up at the alpha. “It’s just a graze.”
Derek huffed and let him go but remained close.
“Why did you come out to him?” he asked with an unkind edge to his voice. “He could have killed you in seconds.”
“I am capable of defending myself!” said Stiles and squeaked when Derek grabbed his chin again.
“What’s this then?” the wolf bared his teeth and let go once again.
Stiles clenched his jaw and didn’t answer. Derek shook his head and stepped away. The absence of his warmth felt as jolting as his cold anger. He watched as the wolf paced across the room glaring at every corner as if he expected another assailant to jump out any minute.
At last, he stopped and pinned Stiles down with a stare. “You thought I wouldn’t come, didn’t you?”
Stiles’ heart plummeted. “Derek…”
“You thought I would abandon you? How low do you think of me?”
He couldn’t bear to hear this voice, so dear to him, tremble at the poorly hidden anger and hurt. Unable to stay still, Stiles stepped towards the wolf.
“I think of you as an alpha loyal to his bones,” he said with heat. “Loyal to his pack first. Priorities, Derek.”
“You—” Derek snapped his mouth shut and closed his eyes.
Stiles’ heart melted just a bit. His bones were filled with warmth once more.
Slowly, he walked up to the wolf and placed his hand on his tense shoulder. Derek didn’t react apart from shifting his gaze to him.
“I am not your pack,” Stiles said as gently as he could, even though the words felt like nettle against his tender throat. “And I do not expect you to come running to my defense every time another idiot stumbles upon my home. I appreciate it, but I do not expect. Especially not when you have two newly turned pups running around…”
“They are grown adults,” Derek noticed in a low voice.
Stiles arched his eyebrow. “Then why are there shadows under your eyes?”
Derek looked at him for some time before the corner of his lips tugged up.
Stiles grinned.
“Sit down, alpha.” He patted Derek on the shoulder and pushed him towards the chair. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
“I’m not—”
“Do not tell me you are not hungry.” Stiles pointed a knife in his direction sending crumbles of cheese he was cutting flying on the floor. “There is no wolf without the hunger.”
Derek gave him a weirdly intense stare, and Stiles quickly turned away to the kitchen board. It was quite late for a proper dinner, and the stove was hot enough only for the kettle, so Stiles cut the wolf some cheese, bread, and cured meat with translucent threads of fat throughout.
“Is that the deer I caught for you?”
“Yes.”
Derek hummed. Stiles could feel the waves of satisfaction rolling off the wolf and smiled a little. He was such an alpha.
After leaving Derek to his food, Stiles busied himself with making tea. The late night called for some good old wine but he drank it all with Lydia on Beltane.
He returned to the table perfectly aware of the wolf’s gaze following his every move. Derek always watched him; it hurt at first when Stiles thought Derek didn’t trust him until the wolf revealed that Stiles just triggered his predator instinct. Apparently, being all jumpy and fussy made him look like a prey.
“Stiles?”
“Mm?”
Derek’s blinks were slow, his eyes glistening in the low light of the fireplace. He looked relaxed, sitting in his usual chair.
“Tell me something,” he asked quietly.
Stiles grinned and folded his hands on the table. “Did I tell you how my cauldron leaked?”
Derek’s chuckle was small and soft. “No.”
Excited, Stiles went on a long rant about the new poison he was developing to aid him in his war on slugs that ate three of his cabbages. It was the same poison that somehow sensed the nearest life — thank god it was a toad and not Stiles himself — leaked through the thick iron and exploded the poor creature.
Perhaps, the topic wasn’t fit for a dinner table, but Derek seemed entertained anyway. His blinks got slower the more he sat there, and he could barely hide his yawns.
When Stiles chuckled at him, Derek pointedly lifted his eyebrows. “You thought I wouldn’t taste the valerian you put in here?” He tapped his empty cup.
Stiles smiled. “You looked like you need it.”
“Thanks.”
“Mm.” He gently extracted the plate and the cup from Derek’s hands. “Stay here,” he said with his heartbeat increasing. Traitor. “I know your betas need you but they kind of need some time to themselves.”
Derek groaned and rubbed his face. “Don’t remind me.”
Stiles huffed in a burst of silent laughter. Taking Derek by his bicep, he tugged the man towards his own bed.
“Go to sleep,” he murmured, watching Derek struggle to keep his eyes open.
“I think I’ll fall asleep half-shift,” the wolf mumbled.
“You don’t have to shift,” Stiles said lightly. “Stop resisting. Rest.”
For whatever reason, it put a strange smile on Derek’s face. “If you say so.”
Stiles’ face flushed. Ignoring the heat pulling in his lower stomach, he helped the wolf out of his clothes. He did it before (granted, Derek was barely conscious from the blood loss and poisoning at the time) so there was no awkwardness between them.
When Stiles turned away, however, Derek caught his wrist.
“Stay,” he murmured.
Stiles’ breath hitched. The hope blossomed inside his soul with the naivety of the frailest plantlet. He shouldn’t let it grow. How cruel would it be? Yet, it couldn’t help but yearn for the light.
“I’ll stifle the flame,” he said in a fragile whisper.
Derek hummed.
When Stiles returned to him, the wolf seemed to be halfway to the land of dreams. Careful not to disturb him with his touch, Stiles climbed over and lay on his side, staring at the wolf’s relaxed face.
He clenched his fists to not trace the familiar lines, the wrinkles, and the poignant slope of Derek’s eyebrows. His lips longed to get closer and press themselves to his skin, just for a fleeting moment, lighter than a wind…
Derek opened his eyes just a bit and huffed a silent sleepy laugh. Before Stiles could die from embarrassment or turn around, the wolf put his heavy palm on Stiles’ red cheek, his thumb just under the cut.
The annoying sting disappeared into Derek’s black veins.
“Sleep,” he mumbled.
With his heart thundering inside and the petals of hope brushing against his ribs, Stiles put his gentle hand on Derek’s forearm and closed his eyes.
The sleep embowered him surprisingly quickly after that.
“How does she know I like blueberries?!”
“She doesn’t.”
“But—”
Derek smirked. “She wanted to bake you something and asked about your favorite berries.”
“And you said—”
“— and I said blueberries, yes, Stiles. I’ve seen your jam cupboard.”
Stiles grinned even though his cheeks flushed with redness. “So that’s where two of my jars went — right in your gluttonous stomach, you wolf.”
Derek clicked his teeth at him. Stiles snorted and let out an indignant shout when he snatched a handful of berries out of Stiles’ basket.
“Not fair!” he cried, watching as Derek gobbled all of them.
“Calm down, sweet tooth,” muttered the wolf with a smirk and dumped more than half of the berries from his basket into Stiles’. “Here. Pleased now?”
Stiles’ cheeks hurt from how hard he tried to keep his smile from going madly wide. “I am, alpha.”
He laughed at Derek’s suddenly red eyes, feeling lighter than ever. “Come on, let us gather some more, and then—”
Derek caught his hand.
Stiles turned to look at him in confusion but the wolf didn’t meet his gaze. Derek turned his head just a touch and narrowed his eyes, listening to something.
“Someone’s here,” he murmured, and before Stiles could stiffen, added: “Calling for help.”
“Help?”
Derek nodded, clenched his jaw, and marched forward, tugging Stiles after himself. “Let’s go.”
Now Stiles’ heart was racing for a very different reason. It couldn’t be the betas, right? No, Derek would’ve felt it. And it couldn’t be Lydia, either, because Stiles would crumble without her.
He shivered unconsciously from the thought and clenched his hand around Derek’s.
They ran for quite a while before they reached their target.
“What—” Stiles opened his mouth.
“Oh, thank heavens!”
Both men stared at the girl who was scrambling inside the net which was hooked up on the heavy branch. She looked… very beautiful and very distressed, with tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. Her dress was torn at the bottom and dirty. Her chestnut hair that came down to her slim waist were in disarray, her big brown eyes wide and begging.
She pushed one of her hands through the hole in a begging gesture. “Help me, please!”
Stiles and Derek glanced at each other.
“How did you end up there?” Stiles asked in wonder as Derek began to climb the tree with the graceful strength of his ripping bulging muscles.
“I…” the girl stared at Derek, too. Stiles frowned. “I was running. I— I should have looked under my feet, I know but I was so worried!”
Stiles glanced behind her into the whispery green of the trees. “Should we hurry as well?..”
“No,” the girl sighed and yelped when the branch creaked under Derek’s weight. “I got far enough.”
“Far enough from—”
“AH!”
It was amazing how fast Derek was. His claws sliced through the net like a knife through the tender belly, but before the girl could smash into the ground, the wolf jumped down and caught her in his arms right in time.
The girl’s blush deepened. She gazed at Derek with her lips half-open, her palm resting gently on the wolf’s chest.
Suddenly, Stiles got cold.
“Nice catch,” he said cheerfully.
The girl jumped from his loud voice and winced.
“Can you put me down?” she asked shyly.
Derek lowered her silently so her back was against the tree and stayed on his knees next to her.
“Are you injured?” he asked.
The girl nodded, for some reason unable to meet his gaze, and rubbed her left knee. “It hurts, I don’t know—”
“Your ankle is broken.”
Both of them looked up at Stiles who was growing annoyed and bitter with each second. He walked towards the couple, trying not to think how lovely they looked together, and fell to his knees on the opposite side of the girl.
“I can sense it here.” He poked the girl’s bare foot and tried not to look too pleased at her hiss. “Broken in two places, actually. I can heal it and then you’d be free to go.” …and never get close to Derek ever again.
“No.”
Stiles and Derek stared at her.
“It’ll be quick,” Derek reassured her, arching her eyebrow as if questioning her sanity.
The girl licked her lips and looked up at Stiles with just a bit of apprehension. She would have probably scooted away if she had somewhere to go. “You’re a witch, right?”
Stiles lifted his eyebrows. “Yes?”
“Well,” the girl winced. “I am a fey. The touch of a witch as dark as you will do more harm than good to someone like me.”
Stiles clenched his teeth. “So you refuse?” he bit out.
The girl stared at him with her blush slowly dissipating. “I shall heal on my own. Thank you, though.”
“Fantastic!” Stiles pushed himself to his feet and put his hands on his sides. His smile dripped poison. “You shall die from exposure in… hmmm… five days? Seven? Then I’ll come and collect your bones. I don’t think I have ever handled feyan bones. How truly exciting!”
“Stiles.”
“What?” Stiles snapped.
Derek shook his head with a sigh and a frown and turned back to the girl.
“Is there somewhere I can take you? Your home?”
The fey went pink again and picked at the bottom of her dirtied skirt. “No. I ran from my home. I shall not be a nuisance and if you have a place for me…”
Stiles stared at Derek with bitter dread filling his lungs. Here, in the open forest full of fresh green air and sunshine, he found it hard to breathe.
The wolf looked over the fey with a thoughtful frown before humming. “I think, I do…”
If Stiles’ heart was made of bones it would’ve shattered with the loudest crack.
This was it, then, huh? It was that easy for Derek to invite someone to his den. Someone other than Stiles.
He healed the wolf. Stiles killed his tormentor, mended his blood and bones, and let him sleep beside him. But none of it was enough.
He wasn’t a spark, after all, but a witch.
Witches didn’t get happy endings.
Stiles lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders. His heart was trashing and screaming so hard it made him deaf to anything but the thunder of blood in his temples. He was burning, just like a witch was supposed to.
“Well,” he cleared his throat and grinned when both of them looked up at him. “Do not let me interrupt. It seems you have a journey to go on. Here.” He dropped the basket with berries onto the girl’s lap.
“Stiles…” Derek went tense.
“See you later, Derek.”
The girl looked between them in concern and cupped the basket in her hands. “I did not mean any offense,” she said, glancing at Stiles with a gentle frown. “I am honored to be offered your help but I truly cannot have you touch—”
“The witch is bad, I get it. I also don’t fucking care,” he spat at her, turned around, and marched back into the woods.
“Stiles.”
Derek’s voice was hard and every bit alpha-like. The sound of his name felt like an order.
Stiles shivered but did not turn around.
“Please.”
Clenching his teeth, Stiles pulled off the wings of a dried-up butterfly one by one before plucking them in a bowl.
“She shouldn’t have said that. I had a talk with her. Come on, Stiles, open up.”
The pestle let out a loud clang as Stiles dropped it into a mortar. He marched towards the tall shelf full of glazed fat glass bottles, pushed some of them aside uncaring of the noise, and grabbed the vial with the dry blood of a fox.
“Stiles. Please.”
The wings mixed viciously with the burgundy blood. Pinching his nose with his fingers, Stiles dumped the mixture into the bubbling cauldron and quickly stepped aside so the poisonous puff of steam wouldn’t touch his skin.
“Okay. Alright. You are mad at me. Don’t get why, but—”
Stiles swiveled towards the attic door and curled his fingers in a choking gesture, baring his teeth, and cursing up a storm without making a single noise. Red and short of breath, he snatched the ladle and a clean jar off the table walked up to the cauldron, and poured some of the poison into the jar.
“You want time? I’ll give you time. You are not hiding from me in the end, you know? I’ll come back for you.”
Stiles flicked the latch, opened the window, cringing at the creaking, and flung the jar on the ground. It smashed in thousands of glistening pieces, sending the poison all over the tower walls and the front door.
“What the—”
“Tell that little distressed damsel that if she comes here she’ll get a nice whiff of the fey poison produced exclusively by Stiles Stilinski. Oh, and if she does so, I’ll get to keep her skull ‘cause there is no way she would survive it.”
The window glass rang as he smashed it close.
He didn’t want to think about why Derek stopped coming.
Stiles saw the moon getting fuller each night, which meant the betas first turning was coming close. It was only after their first full moon that they would be able to turn at will.
He thought about Erica and her baby. He thought about how viciously protective Boyd would be of her and whether it would affect his relationship with their alpha.
He thought about Derek.
He knew the wolf got along with his betas, and that they had become good friends. Still, the full moon would be harsh for all of them. Stiles would have offered to help but it seemed like it wasn’t his place.
He doubted it ever would be, now.
Still, after a few full days of being all by himself and stewing in his own bitterness and growing despair, Stiles couldn’t believe Derek invited that fey into his den that quickly. It must have been some inner instinct, for the only person who would be granted that privilege besides the betas, would be the alpha’s mate.
Stiles hated her guts. He despised her for the distance she put between him and Derek.
He would never be able to sit down with Derek’s pack like he wanted to, or even visit them for the sight would break him. Derek and her together, side by side, with his arm around her waist.
They would write tales about their fortunate meeting and their love at first sight, the brave strong savior and the beauty personified.
And a witch would remain a witch, evil and alone, locked up in his tower.
However, what broke him more were the little gifts left each day on his porch.
It was Derek, because who else would it be? It was always food or little things that appeared in the early morning when Stiles got ready for a venture in the forest, or in the evenings when he came out to feed the crows.
A lizard in a jar. A small satchel of mint and blueberries. A raccoon skull with earth still clinging to its teeth.
Stiles stared at them with his heart throbbing from the loss. Derek was nice. He just didn’t want to fight with his friend. And, truly, it was none of Derek’s fault that Stiles couldn’t bear the thought of him with another.
With a heavy soul and stinging eyes, Stiles would touch his pendant for a fleeting moment then collect the treats gently and carefully, each and every one of them.
Something told him he wouldn’t get them for much longer.
Stiles jumped at the sudden knock on the door. The wards he put around his tower didn’t alert him so it couldn’t be an enemy. That, or the spell didn’t work, which was doubtful. Besides, neither Derek nor Lydia ever knocked.
“I know you’re there,” said the newcomer. “If you don’t accept this pie and thus upset my pregnant wife, I will strangle you and care little what Derek would say.”
Stiles breathed out, his entire body sagging. He dropped the fang out of his mouth — he prayed no one would ever find out he did that — put the book on the floor, jumped up from the bed, walked to the door, and opened it.
Boyd lifted his eyebrow at him.
“Hi,” said Stiles awkwardly and stepped aside. “Come in.”
“I was ordered to watch you eat a piece,” said Boyd, walking to the table. He glanced around curiously even though he’d seen the inside before. Perhaps, he was too stressed to look at it closer at the time. “Else you do not respect my wife.”
Stiles couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Tea?” he asked as he walked to the stove.
“Please.”
The pie was exquisite. It was more of a tart than a pie, with blueberries and cream and lemon zest; Stiles, who didn’t have much appetite for the last days, struggled not to eat the entire thing in one sitting. Based on Boyd’s smirk, he knew what he was thinking.
“It’s really good,” said Stiles in awe.
Boyd took a sip out of his mug, not looking away from him. “Uh-huh. Everything she makes is good. You’d know if you visited.”
Stiles cringed. “Yeah, that’s… not happening.”
“Erica hoped you’d come.”
Great, now Stiles’ stomach was churning with guilt.
Sighing, he put his elbows on the table and rubbed his forehead. “How is she?” he asked quietly.
Boyd’s smile softened. “She’s fine. It’s hard, you know, at the late stages, but she’s fine. Cries at every little inconvenience then gets pissed off that she cries since she doesn’t usually.” Both men chuckled. “We really hope she gives birth after the full moon when her body settles. But we’ll see.” Boyd glanced at him. “Derek misses you.”
“Don’t.”
Boyd ignored him. “I feel like I know you already with how much he talks about you. ‘Stiles this’ and ‘Stiles that’…”
“Did you come here to vouch for your alpha, or something?” Stiles arched his eyebrows.
“No, I came here to tell you how it is,” Boyd shrugged and leaned back on the chair, staring at him with his head inclined. “He sulks all day. Like a thunder walking.”
“Well, that fairy ought to lift his spirits,” Stiles stretched his lips in a sarcastic smile.
“Who, Paige?”
Stiles’ heartbeat climbed up. “I do not know her name. I do not wish to know.”
Boyd narrowed his eyes and folded his big arms. “Did you know she’s a feyan princess?— ”
“Great.”
“— She was running away from her tribe who forced her into a marriage, when you two stumbled upon her.”
“Don’t care.”
Boyd fell silent for a while, observing his tense face, stranded gaze, and fiddling fingers. “You care.”
“I—”
“You love him.”
Stiles stiffened. They stared at each other, one calm and another ready to explode into the tiniest pieces.
He lifted his chin and met Boyd’s studying kind gaze.
“And?” he rasped.
Boyd lifted his eyebrow. “Don’t you think he deserves to know that the person, who was closest to him for almost a year, loves him?”
Stiles chuckled darkly. “Oh, he knows.”
“Does he?”
“Listen,” Stiles licked his lips. “You’ve seen me for less than a day, and you already saw through me. We spent months side by side without him saying anything. I know that he knows, so I’m just… grateful he doesn’t mention how much of a fool I am.”
“There is nothing foolish in love,” Boyd said quietly.
Stiles clenched his jaw. “Sure, when it’s reciprocated.” He swallowed around the lodge in his throat and shook his head. “Look, I… appreciate the concern. But it’s all settled between us. He’s a big boy, he’ll come around. He has you and Erica, and… whatever her name is, his mate—”
Boyd barked a laugh so hard it made Stiles jump. “She is not his mate.”
Stiles pursed his lips. “Uh-huh.”
Boyd groaned and rubbed his face. “Do you even know how a wolf looks around his mate? How he treats them? He’s not courting the girl, Stiles.”
“It’s none of my concern what he does with her.”
“But she started to court him.”
Stiles froze and looked up sharply at the wolf.
Boyd smirked at him. “So, if you care — which, I know you do — think about it, too.”
Stiles’ heart was beating double, his mouth dry.
“He wouldn’t care,” he muttered in a hoarse voice.
“You only know if you try,” said Boyd wisely and stood up. “My wife is waiting and I shan’t leave her for long. Think about what I said.”
Stiles remained sitting in his chair and silently watched as Boyd made his way to the door. His mind buzzed and rumbled with thoughts, his soul pulsing from the wounds of ruined hope.
“Oh, by the way.” Boyd turned around and walked back to the table, searching for something in his pocket. “Here. From Derek.”
The wolf smirked, shook his head at him, and went out.
Stiles stared at the present. The tiny white skull of a dove stared back with its big eyes empty and questioning.
“I didn’t know you are nasty when you’re jealous.”
“I wasn’t nasty.”
“Pathetic?”
“Shut up.”
Lydia hummed. She carefully put the golden spoon on the porcelain saucer and lifted a teacup to her lips.
“You wished for her to die… how many times?” she inquired innocently and sipped the tea.
Stiles stopped rolling the dove’s skull in his fingers and glared at her from across the table.
Every time he came around to Lydia’s, he was afraid to ruin some antiquate trinket. Her house was always pristine and bright, it breathed nobility — the same one Lydia was so used to since her childhood until her nature caught up to her.
The fine china, the red cherry, the pillows, and the velvet valance, the expensive leather-bound books all sorted by themes and then by authors. Her house was hidden from the stranger’s eyes by Stiles per her wish, and thank heavens it was because it was certainly a treasure for a random wanderer.
It was also the reason she and Stiles could not cohabitate like a proper witch with a familiar should. Lydia’s home was clean and airy like the last breath of a dying man, close to earth — to the dead, as she liked to say. Stiles was all about chaos and spiral staircases that left heads spinning.
They would’ve killed each other were they to live together.
The tea was all gone from the cups and the big ornate plate held only crumbles of Erica’s tart. The midnight was slowly crawling across the forest, and Lydia’s roses under her windows were shivering closed from the chill.
Lydia looked fresh and beautiful as she always did after the feeding. She eyed Stiles up critically, hummed, and folded her hands on the table.
“So?” she asked with an insolently lifted eyebrow. “What are you going to do?”
“Die alone?” Stiles grumbled.
“I do not sense your death, and I do not appreciate your sarcasm.” Lydia lifted her nose. “The wolves require proper courting. Alphas, even more. You have to show your appreciation of them as a leader, your respect, and your ability to hold yourself as their equal. For, if the alpha dies, the mate takes their place, or, in your case as a non-werewolf, you would hold the position until the next alpha comes along.”
Stiles cringed. “Can we not talk about him dying?”
“Not the point,” Lydia pointed her finger at him. “You have to be able to protect the pack, to keep them in order, to provide for them. It is the alpha’s place to do that, sure, but the mate should be able to do all those things as well in case of emergency. An alpha has to rely fully on their mate.”
“That is all very interesting,” Stiles mumbled. “But have you considered that he just doesn’t see me that way?”
“Have you considered that you’re blind?”
“Huh?”
Lydia snatched the skull out of his hands and showed it to him. “What’s this?”
“A skull?” Stiles grew concerned over her weirdness.
“A gift,” Lydia rolled her eyes. “From your wolf. Just like that thing around your neck. How much of this useless stuff he gave to you, knowing how hard you’d obsess over it?”
“I—”
“He feeds you all the time. He protects you. He allows himself to sleep next to you, and I get that you are used to it, but have you ever stopped to think how much of a trust that requires for a wolf?”
Stiles clenched his teeth and lowered his gaze. His heart stumbled.
“And after your little stunt in the woods, he came to you to smooth things out. I would never be this patient,” Lydia pursed her lips. “And I would certainly not send any presents or pies.”
Stiles exhaled harshly and hid his face in his hands. It all got overwhelming very quickly. He questioned everything now, every interaction and small gesture.
When put like that, it sounded very much like courting.
“Why didn’t he say anything then?” Stiles asked quietly. “Why did he take her to his den?”
“Did he tell you where he took her?” Lydia asked with a condescending tilt to her voice as if she thought him stupid.
Stiles huffed. “He doesn’t have any other property.”
“You have no evidence of that.”
“Lydia.”
The banshee inhaled deeply as if praying for patience. “All this infatuation makes you stupid. Stop it. He is not human, so whatever romance books you hide under your bed are not applicable to him.” She politely ignored his pink blush and continued lecturing. “He is a wolf. He has been screaming of his attraction to you for a while, just in his own, wolfish ways. You did not know these ways, and he somehow forgot you were raised by humans. Ergo, both of you are idiots.”
“Fuck,” Stiles dropped his forehead on his folded hands and closed his eyes. His chest throbbed with newfound hope. It ached. “He is probably mad at me now. I can’t stand it when he’s mad. He was never mad at me, you know, but what if I offended him so much that he gave up? What if—”
“Burn the witch.”
Stiles frowned and lifted his head.
Lydia blinked at him.
Everything in Stiles grew cold.
“What did you say?” he breathed out.
“Burn the witch.”
Oh no.
Stiles jumped from the seat, ran around the table, and leaned over Lydia. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.
“Come back to me,” he ordered in a quiet but firm voice, cupping Lydia’s cold cheek.
She breathed deeply and blinked slowly as if asleep, only her eyes remained open, though vacant.
“Lydia,” he shook her a little. When no reaction followed and no more words of death slipped off her lips, Stiles cursed. He grabbed the knife they used to cut the tart with and poked at his finger. Instantly, the droplets of blood welled up on the tip and dripped right onto Lydia’s skirt.
She’d kill him for ruining it.
Quickly, Stiles swiped his cut finger across her nostrils, smearing the bottom of her nose with blood.
Lydia flinched away, blinked rapidly, then stared at Stiles with comprehension dawning on both of them.
Both knew she wouldn’t be able to stop it.
Lydia opened her mouth and screamed.
Stiles ran.
The forest went harsh on him this time. The sharp branches grabbed him as if trying to stop, then whipped his face and hands when he disobeyed. Stiles stumbled and caught himself on the trees, got tangled in the bushes but continued to run. He knew the path for it was painfully familiar to him. Familiar, and long.
“It’s not you.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.”
Perhaps, that’s why she let him go.
His lungs burned and his calves yearned for a cramp. He smelled the smoke as he got closer, heard the crackling and the rumble of the heat. He was close, but not enough.
Burn the witch.
Damn, they finally got it.
Suddenly, the loud mournful howl broke through the night. Stiles’ heart shattered from the pain in it, the despair, and the grief.
“M’here,” he rasped, but there wasn’t nearly enough air to talk. “I’m comin’.”
He ran.
The howl quietened and resumed again.
Hot tears burst from Stiles’ eyes. He could hear Derek’s pain, and it was torturous, it tore his soul apart.
“M’here…”
Breathing harshly and coughing from smoke, Stiles burst through the edge of the forest.
The tower was engulfed in flames.
The scalding tongues of fire licked the night sky in an intimate gesture of an unwanted lover. The stone was black from the soot, and the windows shattered from the heat.
Underneath the tower, among the dozens of mutilated bloody bodies, was Derek.
He kneeled like a sinner in front of the altar and stared at the tower with his shoulders sunken. His entire body was red from blood, his shirt torn. His arms were covered in blood.
“Derek,” Stiles whispered and ran toward him. “Derek!”
The wolf’s head swiveled towards him, and Stiles nearly sobbed at the sight.
He looked shattered.
“Stiles…” his mouth whispered silently.
He stood on shaking legs just in time to catch Stiles in his arms as he threw himself on the wolf.
“I’m here,” Stiles said, his voice shaking. God, the heat was unbearable this close, burning his face. He buried his hand in Derek’s hair and gripped his shoulders. “Derek, it’s alright.”
The wolf tightened his arms around him to the point of pain and buried his face in Stiles’ neck. He breathed in greedily with his mouth open and his lips touching Stiles’ neck.
“Stiles…”
“Shh…”
“I thought you were… there…”
“I know, I’m sorry, Derek, shh…”
“I killed them all.”
Stiles gulped and looked down. One of the humans — the intruders, most likely — was still gurgling with blood pouring out of his torn throat and staring at him with his eyes big and bloody. As soon as he met Stiles’ gaze, he stilled and never breathed again.
Stiles pressed himself to Derek’s shaking body. “I see.”
Derek huffed out a wet laugh and put him down. He didn’t let Stiles step away and cupped his face with a shaking hand, leaning his forehead against Stiles’.
His eyes burned red, standing starkly against his soot-covered face. The tear tracks glistened in the light.
“You are alive,” he whispered harshly, as if trying to convince himself.
“I am.”
Derek nodded and took a sobering harsh breath.
“You are coming with me,” ordered the wolf, his voice weighing heavily with the denial of any possibility to refuse. “I care not for what you say, you are not leaving my side.”
It was at this moment when it dawned on Stiles.
How stupid it was, his delayed reaction? It was as if his mind refused to accept it. Until now.
He didn’t have any home.
Stiles’ gaze shifted to the tower.
His home. His place of many years. His work, his bestiaries he spent his entire life writing. His books, and clothes, and his jars, and herbs, and all of his bones. He could hear them cracking.
He didn’t have anything anymore. Any of it.
Just clothes on his back and Derek’s pendant.
Stiles had never felt this vulnerable, bare, and out in the open. A prey with an aim already on it. He had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
A careful hand guided his chin away from the sight until all he saw was Derek’s determined face.
“I’ll take care of you, do you hear me?” he rumbled with an intensity that was never this strong in the past. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Derek—” a weak sob burst out of him like a pleading. He couldn’t see anything behind his tears.
“Come here, sweetheart.” Derek gathered him in his arms.
Tears burst out of him and once they did, they never stopped. He pressed himself to Derek closer than ever before, so close that he felt his chest rising with every breath and vibrating with every rumble.
He had nothing left. Except Derek.
It was his embrace he could hide in. His arms to cover him from the world.
Stiles weaved his trembling hands around Derek’s waist and gripped his shirt in his fists.
The only thing left to do was to hold on.
Derek’s den was just a house. A two-story house, with the smell of fresh framework still clouding over it. It wasn’t Stiles’ tower nor Lydia’s doll house. It was the house of an alpha werewolf.
Stiles dug his heels a few steps before the porch, making both of them stop. For the entirety of their journey, Derek hadn’t let go of his hand and now glanced back at him with an arched eyebrow.
Stiles swallowed and shifted his gaze from the front door to the wolf.
“Is she there?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
Derek sent him a studying gaze. “Who?”
Stiles’ heart skipped a bit. “You know who,” he said harshly.
Before he could answer, though, the gentle voice he despised so much, reached his ears.
“Oh, heavens! What happened?”
Paige seemed to appear right out of thin air behind Derek’s shoulder. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked over both of them covered in blood and soot.
“I’m staying with Lydia,” Stiles bit out and swiveled around, ready to march all the way back into the woods. He didn’t care. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with… everything. Least of all, her.
The tears that barely dried up began to gather behind his eyes again, for it was unbearable to see the fey here.
However, Stiles didn’t make it even a couple of steps before Derek grabbed him. One arm wrapped across his thighs and the other around his waist, and then he was lifted off his feet. Stiles squeaked and grabbed at Derek’s broad shoulders for stability and swayed as he was carried inside the house.
He and Paige stared at each other.
“Derek!” she blinked rapidly and hurried after them, almost floating above the earth. “I beg you to consider before you let a witch into your house. He can—”
The door shut right into her face.
Stiles blinked at the door, trying to understand what was happening. He couldn’t see anything in the dark, only grip Derek’s shoulders as the wolf carried him god knows where.
“Duck your head,” Derek said quietly and Stiles obeyed on some deep-rooted instinct.
A couple of steps, and then he was lowered onto something soft. No one had ever handled him so carefully.
Derek searched for something noisily until at last, something sparked in the dark.
He lit the candle.
Stiles stared at it.
Wolves didn’t need candles to see in the dark, so Derek did it just for his comfort alone.
He watched as the alpha shoved the candle clumsily into the candlestick, likely unused to handling it, and turned to him. The light wasn’t enough for the whole room — and, god, how large it was — but it surely was enough to cast shadows on Derek’s naked abs.
Stiles lifted his gaze to his face, meeting Derek’s eyes.
“Stay here,” the wolf rumbled. He went to the wardrobe, opened it, and pulled out a handful of clothes. “It’s late. You might as well settle to bed.” He walked up to Stiles, put the clothes next to him, and cupped Stiles’ chin once more, looking him over.
Stiles couldn’t talk, for once in his life. He just sat there and stared up at the hard angles of Derek’s poorly lit face. He felt like he would agree to everything Derek ordered. He didn’t want to sleep, or drink, or eat, but if Derek told him to, he would.
“Change and lie down,” said the wolf, stroking his chin. His voice was soft but no less authoritative. “I’ll wash off this grime and come back to you. Want to drink?”
Stiles shook his head.
“I’ll get you some,” said Derek and let him go. He walked to the door, glanced at him once more, and left the room.
As Stiles changed with his fingers numb and uncontrollable, a new voice reached him.
“Gosh! What on earth happened to you?” It was Erica, her voice croaky from sleep.
He didn’t hear what Derek murmured to her, but he definitely heard her gasp.
“Go,” she said in a choked voice. “There’s no hot water left, but there’s enough in a barrel outside. Does he— Yes, I’ll prepare it. Go.”
The door didn’t squeak as Stiles’ did, but it shut with a quiet clasp. A few moments later it opened again.
“What is—”
“Derek forbid you entry multiple times,” Erica sounded pissed off. Her voice traveled from one room to another as she walked. “Chop-chop, Miss Princess.”
“But—”
“Do not argue with my wife,” Boyd’s annoyed voice suddenly interrupted the fey’s squawk. “Off the porch and of the land. The alpha was gracious enough to find you a shelter so you do have somewhere to go. Leave.”
The door closed once more.
Stiles swallowed and finished his change. Quietly, he lay on the bed.
It was strange. His bed was different, firmer. He didn’t make it before he—
Except, he would never make that bed again. He didn’t have “his” bed.
Stiles curled in on himself, staring at the flame of the candle. It swayed despite the lack of flowing air. The droplet of wax caressed the candle as it went down.
“Who’s that?” Erica’s voice reached him again.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, Derek’s coming…”
The front door opened.
“Is he here?”
Stiles’ heart stuttered. Lydia. Weirdly, he wanted to cry again.
“Yes,” Derek grunted.
“If you don’t let me in now, wolf—”
“Do not do that!”
Erica groaned, her voice closer than the rest. “Is that fairy stupid or something?”
“Definitely,” Boyd hummed.
“She is a bringer of death!” Paige’s voice trembled. Her feet pattered up the steps and onto the porch. “A banshee, Derek! Think twice before—”
“I will cut your fly wings off and turn them into stained glass.”
“I know who she is,” Derek’s voice interrupted them, tinted with anger. “Come inside. You — off my property.”
The door shut again.
“Who is she?” Erica whispered.
“She’s with Stiles.”
Stiles flinched when the bedroom door opened. Lydia’s face, pale as that of a ghost, was grim and set. She marched to the bed and kneeled beside it, before wrapping her arm around Stiles’ shoulders. Her cheek rested against his, blissfully cold.
“I’m here,” she said simply, her voice strong.
Stiles’ eyes filled with tears. He blinked harshly, inhaling her familiar sweet scent. Above her shoulder, he saw Derek leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed over his naked hairy chest. He didn’t have any shirt or shoes, just breeches riding low on his hips.
He looked surprisingly calm, considering his wariness of Lydia in the past.
They stayed like this for a few long minutes, with Lydia rubbing Stiles’ back and resting her cheek on his. Her closeness soothed his scalded soul like nothing ever would. He felt like he could breathe again. Nothing more, just breathe.
“Thank you,” he breathed out into her hair.
“I shall stay here,” she said to him despite having no right to do anything in the alpha’s home. “The death is gone, but there is birth coming.”
Lydia loved births.
Stiles nodded, closing his eyes.
Incomprehensibly, he seemed to fall into a light sleep because the next thing he knew was someone’s heavy weight lowering on the bed.
Stiles blinked rapidly and lifted himself on the elbow.
Derek stared at him, his eyes shining red.
“Here,” he rumbled deeply almost in a purr, and offered Stiles a glass of wine. He carefully put it in Stiles’ hands and watched as he drank it all. He then put it on the table, blew out the candle, and climbed into the bed.
It dipped, but not as much as Stiles’ old bed did. It was likely made with the werewolf’s weight in sight. It was bigger in size, too. Unfamiliar.
This time, Derek didn’t waste any time and tugged Stiles to his side. Closing his eyes, Stiles tucked his face into Derek’s neck and pressed his hands between their chests. His fingers closed over the fang.
Derek’s arms wrapped around his waist, tugging him closer and closer. Their legs tangled all by themselves.
It felt right. New, and at the same time familiar, as if they lay like this thousands of times before.
Stiles closed his eyes.
The sleep didn’t come.
One of Derek’s hands snuck under Stiles' nightshirt and splayed at his lower back, rubbing back and forth with a light touch. The house was quiet. Derek’s heartbeat wasn’t.
Stiles didn’t open his eyes when Derek pressed a kiss to the bridge of his brow. His forehead, his temple, on the cheek right under his puffed eyes. He lingered at the corner of his lips, savoring the precious moment.
Stiles’ tired soul trembled.
It was obvious now. All of it.
He lay in the wolf’s bed, for god’s sake. And the only person — the only one — who was granted that privilege was the alpha’s mate.
Stiles nudged Derek’s nose and slotted their lips together.
He dreamed that their kiss would be passionate if it ever happened. Desperate and harsh.
Instead, it was indescribably soft.
The same teeth that tore the throats apart, now tugged on Stiles’ lips with gentleness before Derek soothed them with kisses. It took one gasp from Stiles for the wolf to slide his tongue inside.
Despite everything, it stayed soft.
Derek held him, stroked his skin, and caressed his lips. He didn’t make Stiles shatter or feel fragile, no. Derek’s touch promised him that the wolf would never let him break apart in the first place.
Their kiss ended as tender and slow as it began. Derek nudged Stiles’ cheek with his nose and pressed one last kiss to his lips.
“Sleep,” he ordered.
Stiles closed his eyes, tucked his face between Derek’s cheek and the pillow, and obeyed.
Out of breath but full of determination, Stiles grabbed the nearest jar without even looking what was in it and chucked it at the woman. She ducked quickly with a practiced ease before swinging at him with her curved dagger. Stiles yelped as he jumped back and smashed into the cupboard.
Several vials and books fell to the ground. The woman spit a blonde lock of hair out of her mouth and bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile.
“Why fight so hard for him, witch?” she sang sauntering closer. “What is he to you? Just a mongrel on his last breath.”
Stiles lifted his chin. “I have a certain fondness for strays. Not so much for feral bitches, sorry.”
The woman laughed. “You think he won’t tear into your throat as you sleep? He’s a wolf without a pack. I was so close to taming him… Give him to me, and I shall grant you your life.”
Stiles thought back to the unconscious man lying in his bed, his breathing raspy and heavy. His wounds went deep and did not heal, stuffed to the brim with wolfsbane. It was a miracle that he stumbled upon Stiles’ tower with delirium and agony clouding his mind.
He asked Stiles to cut his arm off, the one that was almost grey from the poison. Stiles refused.
He begged for Stiles to kill him. Stiles brought him inside instead.
And then this bitch came running.
Stiles huffed. “All this bravado and he still ran away from you, halfway to death. I’m impressed, honestly, for I have never met such a pathetic hunter.”
The woman let out a furious yell and jumped on him.
Stiles ducked right under her spread arm but she was quick. With the ferocity of two lions, they fought against each other, both agile and strong. The swish of the blade was deafened by the cries of anger, frustration, and Stiles’ mocking laugh.
In the end, she did what most hunters do — she underestimated him.
Wiping the blood from his cheek, Stiles smirked at her dark silhouette against the sun-filled window. She would’ve been an angel were she a completely different person, with her blue eyes, her white teeth, and the halo of her golden hair.
She smiled at him, breathing heavily, her arm shaking with the dagger inches above his head. Stiles grit his teeth with an effort to hold her wrist from striking the last blow.
Lydia didn’t call for his death, not yet.
“Give him to me,” the woman hissed with a manic obsession glinting in her eyes.
“No,” said Stiles and with the last bit of effort from his tired and strung body, pushed his magic inside.
A moment later, her wrist snapped.
The woman screamed.
With a furious yell, Stiles pushed her back one step, two, three, and—
The old window shattered under her weight. The last thing Stiles saw was her widened eyes as she realized what was about to happen.
A short scream of terror. A loud crack.
Stiles closed his eyes and shivered from the pleasure of the sound.
Her ribs, her hip bones, her spinal column. Shattered in the tiniest pieces.
She would never get up again. It would be a long death.
Stiles groaned and pushed his hands into his hair. A hysterical laugh full of euphoria burst out of him.
It seemed he had just become the owner of a human skull.
Nice.
For a few minutes, he thought he was still dreaming. The soft chirping of the birds was echoed by the careful murmur of feminine voices from somewhere inside the house. Gentle clangs of pots, knives, spoons, and ladles, the ceramics and the iron.
Derek’s arms around him. His scent inside Stiles’ lungs. His ribs under Stiles’ palms, expanding with breaths.
Stiles let out a sleepy whine, burying himself further into Derek’s hot neck.
The wolf’s chuckle ruffled his hair. “Morning.”
“No,” Stiles mumbled.
Derek huffed. His hand stroked Stiles’ back under his nightshirt, just like earlier this night. Reverent, tender. A small lingering kiss pressed to the bridge of his eyebrow forced his heart to stutter.
It truly would have been a dream, if not for what happened.
“I don’t want to get up,” Stiles murmured above his breath.
Derek’s smile bloomed against his cheek. “I don’t think the girls will let you lounge around.”
“Aren’t you the alpha here?”
“Yes. But you don’t know Erica like I do.”
With a deep sigh, Stiles leaned away from the haven of Derek’s neck and opened one eye to look at the wolf.
The sight of him was heavenly.
His lips softened by a smile, his eyes hazel and gaze tender. He looked the most relaxed Stiles had ever seen him. Content and… happy.
Stiles put a hand on his cheek, stroking his thick beard. Simply holding him, feeling his warmth.
“How are you this happy? After…” he choked on words, blinking quickly.
Derek gazed at him for a couple of moments, studying every inch of his face as if he could never get enough.
“You are alive,” he said at last. “You’re here, in my den and in my arms. Everything else I can take care of.”
His words covered Stiles’ soul like a balm. It dawned on him in that moment, how simple all of it was.
Derek would just take care of him.
Stiles had nothing.
However, it didn’t matter to the wolf, because in Derek’s mind, Stiles still had him.
The alpha, who might just give him everything.
Quietly, Stiles pressed his lips to Derek’s. His throat felt too tight to express his gratitude. He hoped the kiss would say it all.
“Why is she still here?”
Erica glanced at him, then at the window before turning back to the dough she was busy kneading.
“I think, she is a bit dumb,” she said. “Boyd says she’s planning something.”
Stiles hummed and narrowed his eyes.
Paige sat at the bottom of an old oak opposite the porch and weaved a crown from a heap of wildflowers at her side. Her lovely head lifted each time the front door opened, then lowered in disappointment when she saw anyone but Derek.
“Her ankle healed,” Stiles noticed. “Why didn’t Derek tell her to leave?”
“I do not think he cares, hun,” Erica sighed. “While he rules over this territory, it remains a home to others, and he acknowledges that. Hell, there are pixies living in the birdhouse he built,” she chuckled. “He forbid her entry to his den, and she listened. Until she disobeys him, she is in her right to remain here.”
Stiles pursed his lips.
What Erica said sounded reasonable and fair, but that didn’t mean Stiles had to like it. After yesterday, his patience was close to zero.
Yes, he was the one Derek took inside his den and to his bed, but seeing her sitting here, waiting to grab his wolf at the first opportunity…
Something brushed his arm. Stiles glanced at Erica who walked slowly over to him with her hand under her belly. Both watched as the fey jumped to her feet and shuffled in place, all shy and demure. A moment later, Derek came out of the forest with a heavy tree trunk across his shoulders.
Stiles’ gaze traveled across his bulging shoulders, down his naked torso glistening from sweat, and stopped at the shadow of his happy trail disappearing into his breeches.
He wasn’t the only one admiring the sight.
He watched with jealousy churning in his stomach as Paige took a shy step toward him, clearly saying something. The bitterness, however, soon gave way to victorious smugness as Derek simply nodded at her in greeting and walked past to the back of the house where Boyd was splitting wood.
“What are we going to do with her?”
Stiles jumped. “Heavens, Lydia, you scared me…”
But the banshee, who somehow sneaked to his other side, just raised her eyebrow. “Well?”
“I agree,” said Erica, glancing at them. “We should do something. Derek may not give a single fuck, but she pisses me off, loitering here all the time.”
“I’ll talk to her,” said Stiles. “Next time Derek goes away.”
It took some time, but eventually, both Derek and Boyd went to the nearest creek to wash off the sweat. Paige followed them with her gaze but remained sitting. Probably, because she was afraid of Erica, who once scared her to death for looking at her husband.
Crossing one arm across his stomach and fiddling with the fang with another, Stiles walked slowly towards her, squinting his eyes at the blinding sun. The fey glanced at him wearily, lowering the flower crown on her lap.
“So,” Stiles started. “You are still here.”
“So are you,” she said carefully.
Stiles smirked. “Ah, yes. The bad witch. Pity that I wasn’t burned yesterday, huh?”
Paige pursed her lips, threw her wreaths on the ground, and stood up. Even in simple clothes, she looked regal, glaring at him like one would at a peasant.
“I do not wish death upon anyone,” she straightened her thin shoulders, “unlike you.”
“…but it would’ve been nice, right?”
Paige didn’t answer, and Stiles chuckled. “Not so pure of a soul, are you?”
“Better than a witch,” she folded her arms, mirroring him.
“Hmm. Yet it was me whom he took to his bed last night.”
Paige went pale, then red with anger. Her little fists clenched by her sides. Stiles smirked.
“I know what his skin smells like,” he drawled. “And how his lips taste.”
“He is misguided,” Paige retorted in desperation. “The only way he would let a witch into his den is by a curse. You and that death woman, you crawled into his mind like snakes. But not for long,” she lifted her chin. “For I shall show him what a real mate is. What he deserves.”
Stiles arched his eyebrow. “Are you going to impress a wolf with these?” he nudged her wreaths with his foot. “Some parsley to sprinkle on his dinner?”
Paige’s face went cherry red.
“No,” she said, glaring at him. “I’ll show you. Show him.”
She turned on her heels and stomped into the woods without a backward glance.
“Don’t be too late!” Stiles shouted, folding hands around his mouth. “Or we might, you know, retire to the bed early.”
“Really?”
Stiles jumped at the sound of Derek’s amused voice. He turned right in time to see Boyd shaking his head at them before disappearing into the house.
The alpha sauntered toward him with droplets of water adorning his skin like diamonds. He weaved hands around Stiles’ waist as he got closer, pressing him to his front.
Oh, right. He was allowed to do that now.
With his face heating and his heart racing in excitement, Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek’s shoulders and kissed him in greeting.
To think that he could’ve been kissing him like this all this time…
King Scott III looked over the ruins with a frown etched on his face.
Soot, ash, broken glass, and blackened stone. All that was left of a great spark turned pathetic witch.
He could only observe from afar, for the air remained polluted and cursed. But even from the great distance from the tower, he felt the cough get to him.
“Your Majesty?”
The king snapped his fingers at his servant to bring him a lantern, for the evening was darker in the woods than it was in the city. In the hands of the night that just came back from the tower, lay a human skull.
Carefully, the king took it in his hands. They stared at each other, one smiling and the other alive.
“Old friend,” the king muttered. “What have you done to yourself?..”
Why did Stiles have to betray him like that? A once good friend, he refused the king his healing and ran away, when all Scott wanted to do was to set him on a path of good.
Alas, Stiles really did become a wretched witch. So burn he must.
Some of the horses of his entourage neighed and stepped back, shaking their heads. Someone shouted, and the first row of the knights pulled out their swords.
“Your Majesty, stay back,” the Knight Commander muttered to him.
“Haste!” shouted Aiden. “Do not come closer, beast!”
“Beast?..” the king breathed under his breath, then set his jaw and snapped the reins. Despite the outcries and warnings of his guards, he pushed his horse through to the first row and stopped in front of the newcomer.
That was no man. His red eyes shone with anger, his jaw set, and his fists clenching. He did not say anything, just stared right at the king with no respect for his tense figure.
“This is it, wolf,” said the king. “We burned your witch. You failed in your servitude and thus must surrender.”
The wolf said nothing.
The king glanced at the blades of the knights pointing sharply at the stiffened beast, then back. He spread his shoulders, picked up the skull from his lap, and showed it to the beast.
One might think that after so much time guarding the witch, his death would mean something to the wolf. Yet, no muscle moved on the almost bored face. He glanced at the skull and back at the king.
“Get off my land,” he rumbled all of a sudden, making some of the men jump. King Scott fought the shiver that crawled down his back at the hatred in his voice.
“By law—” he started.
“Your human laws mean nothing to me or these woods.” The wolf snapped his teeth. “This land is soaked with death. Your men have paid with their lives to learn that. You burned the witch. Now get out.”
The king narrowed his eyes at him. “I should imprison you for disrespect. But… I know that you do not really understand our manners, for you are an animal in disguise. Be it your way. These woods shall be your cage.”
He glanced at the skull and chucked it at the wolf’s feet. “Perhaps, you should bury him. The bones belong to earth.”
The wolf said nothing.
He watched until the king and his guards gathered the remains of their men and walked away, disappearing into the early night.
The wolf glanced at the tower, stared at it for a while with a tense expression, then turned around, and left.
The skull had no such privilege. Its wide eye sockets glared at the remains of the tower as if cursing it for its death.
The bed dipped. Stiles lifted his head off the pillow but did not open his eyes.
“Where were you?” he complained in a mumble.
Derek’s chuckle caressed his cheek before the wolf pressed a kiss to it. “Just checking,” he murmured, grabbed Stiles by the waist, and settled on the pillows.
“Mm… right,” Stiles hummed into his naked chest. He smiled at the feeling of Derek’s hand raking through his hair. “’ve I told you that… I love the sound of your bones?”
The wolf laughed. “What?”
“Your… bones,” said Stiles. “They… mmm…”
He fell asleep to the whisper of Derek’s content sigh expanding his ribs.
“Death is coming.”
Everyone sitting at the table stiffened and turned to look at the banshee. And it was such a nice evening, with a pink sky, and light breeze, and Erica’s lemon cookies…
Lydia blinked at them.
“What?” she asked innocently, not noticing her tea spilling over the cup.
Stiles stood up with a sigh, walked up to his familiar, and plucked the cup out of her hands. He encased her suddenly cold fingers between his palms and looked her over.
“Who is it?” he asked calmly. He had to remain calm for the wolves were unfamiliar with how strange and weird Lyds could be in her trance. He saw how hard Erica gripped Boyd’s hands and heard the scrape of Derek’s chair against the floor as he stood up.
Lydia licked her lips and hummed in thought. “Tastes grassy and cloven-hooved.”
Instantly, Stiles relaxed. “Animal, then. It’s alright,” he addressed the others, smiling to soothe their nerves. “She usually doesn’t sense animal death but this one seems to be—”
Someone howled outside, weak and fake.
“— close.” Stiles stood up. “I think I know who that is.”
Erica’s face changed from horror to glee. “That bitch?”
Derek arched his eyebrows at her, but Stiles nodded.
“Shall we go have a look?” he grinned and flew to the door.
In the end, he had to admit: the present was impressive.
Paige stood, barefoot and proud, with her face shining with beauty and confidence; next to her, regal in its size and grandeur, stood a moose, almost twice her height.
Damn, even Erica gasped.
“Alpha Hale,” said Paige with fluttering breathlessness in her ethereal voice. “I know you have been… weary of my courtship. But I must say, I have fallen in love with you from the moment you took me into your arms.”
Stiles’ smile soured as she listened to her serenade. His only relief was the frown on Derek’s face and the heat of his body, close to his.
“And,” Paige bit her lip. “I know that bringing him to you alive is not how it is done. But… I hope you see that this is right. This is how it should be. No death, no violence. I can get you whatever you want with just… love.” She rubbed the moose’s side and glanced at Derek shyly. “Do you see what I mean? What I can bring into your life? You have seen enough darkness in it. Let me be your light.”
For a couple of moments, the meadow was silent. The wind played with the fey’s hair and the setting sun made her eyes appear peachy-pink and glistening. The betas’ gazes shifted to the alpha, waiting for his decision, but the wolf seemed more disappointed at the sight.
“Yeah, no.”
All heads swerved to Stiles.
The witch smirked as the fey’s smile dwindled, and sauntered down the stairs.
“First of all, he’s old,” he pointed at the moose. “He couldn’t run from you so you ended up dragging the poor man all the way here. And, by the way, how many days did it take you to get him?” Stiles inclined his head and tapped his lips with a finger. “Two? Three? Were you responsible for the food in this pack, then everyone would starve for days, and then what would we get in the end? Jerky? Look at him!”
Stiles smiled at Erica’s stifled chuckle behind him and walked closer to the moose. Carefully, he put his hand against the moose’s chest and closed his eyes for a second.
“His hip has been broken before,” he muttered, frowning. “And the weight has been hard on his knees and back. Oh, you poor old man…”
Paige bristled. “I brought him not for a kill.”
“Then for what?” Stiles threw back, looking right into her eyes. “The courtship rules demand a big fallen prey for a reason. What good does this walking head mount bring to the pack? No good meat, no use in the farmstead. We have a pup on the way, do you want him to trample the child on accident?”
Boyd’s deep rumble reached his ears followed by Erica’s soothing murmur.
Stiles wasn’t smiling anymore. His gaze, full of disdain, was trained on the fey.
“You are not fit to be an alpha’s mate, princess,” Stiles told her. He was truly blinded by jealousy to see how poor of a choice she would’ve been. It was amazing what a couple of kisses from Derek could do to him. And they had only started. “His fangs are smeared with blood, and so are my hands. He killed for me,” Stiles put another hand on the moose’s chest, “and I am not afraid to kill for him, too.”
It took a couple of breaths for his magic to wrap itself around the thick vertebrae bone at the animal’s humpback. With a strong push, it broke off the spinal column and drove down, right through the animal’s heart.
“No!”
It seemed the old man waited for the death. With the last breath full of pure relief, the giant crashed to earth, making it vibrate under the weight.
“You ruined it!” Paige cried out, stumbling back from the moose in horror. “You— Witch! You killed him!”
“Calm down.”
Both of them swiveled their heads to Derek. The wolf walked towards them with no hurry, looking at each of them in turn. Something complicated danced on his face until it settled under the mask of severity.
Paige sniffled at the red eyes suddenly zeroing in on her and snapped her mouth shut.
“I already have a mate. And I made that choice long ago,” said Derek, quiet but firm. “There is nothing you can do to sway my opinion. Not now and not in the future.” He looked her over, sensing her distress, but remained standing beside Stiles. “You better make peace with it. For your own sake. I cannot order you for you are not in my pack, but I am asking you to leave.”
Paige dried her tears with the back of her hand and flicked her hair back. She lifted her teary eyes on the alpha, blushing despite the rejection.
“You do not deserve me,” she said fervently, lifting her chin.
“I do not care.”
Stiles lowered his head to hide his smile.
With one last pained glance at the moose, the fey princess turned around and dissipated into the woods.
Stiles breathed out, his entire body relaxing. At last. No more sight of her.
Sensing the gaze on himself, Stiles glanced at Derek. The wolf stared at him with a strange fondness, amusement, and… admiration on his face.
He didn’t even have to say anything to make Stiles’ face heat up.
A soft hum interrupted their gazing, and perhaps for the better. Stiles turned just in time to see Lydia flutter past them and settle in the curve of the moose’s neck.
Carefully, Stiles lowered to his knees next to her and took her by the shoulders.
“You alright?” he asked softly.
Lydia nodded. She moved languidly as if the trance of witnessed death had yet to release her. Her hand landed gently on the moose’s cheek, and she closed her eyes.
Stiles knew she would probably spend an entire night sitting by the corpse.
“If you need me, just call,” Stiles said at last, kissed her on the top of her fiery head, and stood up. He took silent Derek by the hand and tugged him back to the porch.
The wolf, however, stopped him at the door.
“Go,” he nodded at Erica and Boyd who looked at him in question. “Rest.”
Boyd nodded and led Erica inside.
Derek glanced at Lydia who sat still and silent on the ground, then turned to Stiles. His hand rested on Stiles’ waist like it was a years-old habit.
“Did you think I considered her for a mate?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth.
Stiles shrugged and looked at the edge of the forest where she disappeared — anywhere but at the wolf.
“I thought you took her to your den that day,” he confessed, his face reddening. “And then, of course, assumed she would be your mate.”
“I have been courting you for almost a year.”
Stiles pursed his nose. “I know that now…”
Derek pressed a finger to his chin, making him turn his head. He looked strange with a light frown and a smile adorning his handsome face, his gaze studying Stiles as if he were a mystery.
“I thought you were testing me all this time,” he muttered, lifting his hand to trace the line of Stiles’ jaw. “You accepted every gift I gave you, yet squirmed when I dealt with the intruders. You fed me, healed me, and slept by my side, yet told me you are not pack.”
“I’m sorry,” Stiles said in earnest and stepped closer to lean on his front. “I… didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“That I could have you,” he fiddled with the hair on Derek’s chest, peeking out of his open shirt. “Truly have you, like I wanted. I thought it was all… out of obligation, or, or… duty—”
“I love you, Stiles.”
Stiles looked up sharply at the wolf, but the man’s face remained calm and soft. His heart thundered against his chest and into Derek’s as if yearning to connect their souls.
And wasn’t it really obvious? In every gesture Derek made, in every glance and every touch of his upon Stiles’ skin?
Derek said it like it was something normal to him, the thought that didn’t surprise him at all. The ease of his confession made a lodge stick itself inside Stiles’ throat.
It was that easy for a wolf to love a witch.
Stiles bloomed with a smile.
“I love you, too.”
Derek caught the words right as they fell off his lips, claiming them for himself.
The candle, short and weeping, was melting in its holder. Its trembling light was not enough to break through the dark and stuffy room. The remnants of its flame danced across the messy bed, the rumpled sheets fisted in Stiles’ hand, and Derek’s sweat-slick skin.
Derek was Stiles’ light, for there was never enough for him too.
Their skin slid against each other, aided by sweat and come. Derek’s spent dick, covered in Stiles’ drying spit, lay heavily in the curve of Stiles’ thigh, as the wolf himself kissed and bit his arched neck.
“Just a little more, huh?” he breathed, the smirk evident in his voice.
Stiles bit into his lower lip, bucking into Derek’s hand. The wolf was torturing him — why did he do that, after Stiles was so good to him?..
“Derek…” he pleaded, opening his mouth.
The alpha’s lips descended upon his, his tongue delving deep inside in a fucking motion, languid and vulgar. Stiles moaned into the kiss and grabbed at Derek’s bicep, feeling it shift along with his hand around Stiles’ hard cock.
“It’s never enough for you, right, baby?” Derek huffed into his open mouth before capturing his lip in a tug. “Always so greedy.”
“Please—”
He couldn’t deal with any of it anymore. Not Derek’s knowing smirk, not his hand, twisting and turning, not the heat of his skin, or the ache in the back of his throat. His skin was flushed red from his face to the chest, spreading lower and lower.
Stiles was open, bare. Lying under the wolf with his legs spread and his lips puffy from pleasuring his cock.
He wanted it for so long, to feel this ache, this taste of him.
Panting, Stiles caught Derek’s lips once more, pleading, begging. He smelled nothing but sex.
“I dreamed of seeing you this wrecked, you know,” Derek murmured into his cheek. “I knew you would be sweet.”
He twisted his hand and rolled his thumb against the leaking tip. Stiles mewled and arched his hips, but Derek kept him pinned with his thigh.
“I can’t…”
“You can,” Derek nudged his nose with his, making him open his eyes. His smile was smug and his eyes half-lidden — he looked like everything Stiles didn’t dare to dream of. “You were so good to me earlier… With the killing. With your mouth.”
Stiles shook his head, squirming from Derek’s words. He didn’t know Derek would be like this in bed, so tender and so hard, so honest with his thoughts. He would never be able to look him in the eyes without blushing now.
Derek stroked his dick faster, chuckling at Stiles’ stuttering breath.
“God, if only you could see yourself right now,” he licked inside Stiles’ mouth, smiling at his poor attempts to catch his lips. “My mate…”
Both of them huffed out a smile at that, unable to keep their happiness to themselves.
“Come for me,” Derek murmured an order into his lips and bit him on the edge of the jaw.
The wolf’s fangs dug into Stiles’ flesh. Separated by a thin layer of pale skin, bones pressed against bones.
Stiles came with a gasp.
Derek kissed him as if he couldn’t help it. His lips descended much gentler against Stiles’ flushed cheeks, his bitten red lips, his jaw, and down his neck where the marks of the wolf’s claim bloomed with red.
Both lay there, breathing heavily, wrapped in each other’s arms.
When Stiles fluttered his eyes open, the candle calmly awaited its death. Melted, just like the witch.
Their gazes met. One smile bloomed, and another followed in an instant.
They gazed at each other like two fools drunk on love without even saying anything.
He would have this, Stiles realized, for the rest of his life if it were merciful.
Stiles would have him.
Except, he did. He already did.
The next morning, all that was left of the massive animal was its bare skeleton.
Stiles let out a shrieking yelp, ran down the stairs, and flew across the meadow.
“Stiles, no,” Lydia put her hands up in a warning. “Don’t you—”
She yelped as the witch crashed into her with a tight hug.
“Thank you, Lyds,” he said, breathless, then smacked a kiss on her head before letting go for she was squirming too hard. “Oh, he is gorgeous!”
Stiles jumped to the milky-white skeleton, caressed the giant plates of the horns with his hands, and closed his eyes.
The life energy of the creature that was stored inside the bones rushed to meet Stiles' magic, making his palms tickle. Stiles saw all of it: his weak legs shaking as he stood up for the first time and fell the next second; the smooth glide of the young cartilage as he pranced through the woods, the loud crack and the helpless roar of the creature as those very bones broke.
It made his head spin. Stiles huffed a delighted laugh and blinked his eyes open.
Lydia did a fantastic job with decaying this beast. Every tissue, every thread of muscle and droplet of blood — all of it given back to earth.
“Can I keep it?” Stiles turned his pleading eyes at Derek, who stood in the doorway to the house and watched the scene with an amused smile. “Please, please, please—”
“It’s yours,” he rumbled. The shadow of a smile on his lips shone brighter than the sun.
“YES!” Stiles punched the air. “Oh, I am going to make it so good! I mean, we shall leave it just like that, because look how beautiful he is, but also— Ooh, ooh! I shall take a rib and infuse it into the header of the crib for the babe. I’ll add protective runes and—”
“I am going.” Lydia snapped. “He is your problem now,” she glanced at Derek and pointed a finger at him. “Do not bother me. I shall come in three days for the birth.”
Something clanged on the floor inside the house.
“Three?!” Erica shrieked.
Lydia rolled her eyes and turned on her heels, ready for her journey.
“Lydia?”
The banshee and the witch looked up at Derek. The wolf’s gaze was calm.
“Come in any time,” he said.
Stiles slapped a hand over his mouth and swiveled his head to look at his familiar with his eyes wide.
Lydia and Derek locked glances, regarding each other with respect probably for the first time in their lives.
Derek failed to hide his smirk and inclined his head. “That means you are in the pack.”
Lydia huffed. “Of course, I am.” She seemed almost offended that he dared to explain to her something so obvious. “Where the witch goes, I go. As I am sure,” she bit out, sending a glare to Stiles, “someone has already told you.”
Stiles was too busy grinning to fall for her irritation.
He knew she wasn’t really irritated, she just liked to pretend she was. And Stiles liked to indulge his familiar, as any witch did.
“Love you, too, Lyds,” he laughed.
Lydia hummed, flicked her hair behind her shoulder, and strolled into the woods as if she owned a place.
Stiles ran to Derek and jumped on him, wrapping his legs around his waist and his arms around his shoulders. Thank heavens that Derek was strong for he didn’t even flinch from the attack.
“Thank you, alpha,” Stiles whispered into his ear before smacking a loud kiss on his cheek.
“Boyd, I need towels, everything you have. Stiles, is your remedy ready? Good. Stay here.” Kneeling on the bed over wide-eyed Erica, Lydia snapped her head to Derek. “You — out.”
The alpha’s eyes flashed red. “I’m not—”
“Your entire pack will be vulnerable,” Lydia interrupted him, glaring back, but softened his voice when she added: “And we expect you, alpha, to protect us. Go.”
The wolf snarled but stormed out of the house. He would likely circle the house for hours, listening to their every word.
Most importantly, he would be out of the way. The less anxious wolves, the better.
There truly was no point in forcing Boyd to go for that man wouldn’t leave his wife. He even appeared calm and collected, even though everyone saw his hands shake.
The full moon had yet to come, after all. Erica would have to survive on the mere shadows of the werewolf powers she would have after the turning.
However, Stiles remained calm, simply because so was Lydia.
“Why is he here?” Breathing harshly, Erica glanced at Stiles and back at Lydia.
The banshee smiled at her. It was the only time one could see her smile — when she was near a woman in labor.
“It may come as a surprise to you, but I often act as a midwife for the women in the village nearby,” she talked softly, pushing more pillows behind her back.
Stiles pushed down a smirk at how proud she sounded. “And she drags me to assist her.”
“He will be close,” she assured Erica who slowly relaxed the longer Lydia talked. “Just in case. Some women’s pelvis breaks—”
“Don’t—” Stiles whined as Erica clenched her hand around his fingers.
“— and that’s where Stiles comes in. You wouldn’t even notice it breaking, he heals it in a second.”
“Personally, I am here for moral support,” Stiles grinned at Erica, pulling attention to her. “Also potions to ease everything.”
“Where is Boyd?” Erica whined, getting red in the face.
Her husband crashed into the room, then clenched his jaw to look put together. He placed the towels on the table near the bed and kneeled on the floor, taking Erica’s hand.
“I’m here, my love,” he said, pressing his lips to the back of her fingers.
“Everything will be fine,” said Lydia in an unusually soothing voice. “We will not let death touch your family.”
With his soul soaring, Stiles ran out of the house. He didn’t have to look for Derek because the man was already jogging to him.
“What—”
“He’s here,” Stiles breathed out, grabbed stunned Derek by the hand, and tugged him inside.
In a small room, surrounded by the murmurs, love, and the sharp scent of blood, squirming and mewling in his mother’s arms, lay the small bundle of a child.
Stiles glanced at Derek. The alpha stood still, helpless in front of the majesty of life. His irises reddened with indescribable ache of his past and longing for the future.
Blinking the stinging out of his eyes, Stiles weaved his hand around Derek’s and leaned on his side.
“This is Isaac,” he said in a tight quiet voice, trying to swallow the lodge stuck in his throat. He pushed Derek a little. “Go greet your new pup, alpha.”
Derek stumbled forward as if bewitched. Lydia was busy folding towels, while the new parents barely noticed the others in the room. Boyd’s eyes shined with tears as he watched his tired wife stroking their son’s scrunched cheek.
The boy was human. The only one in the pack.
Careful and tender, Derek placed his big hand on the child’s head. A deep pleased rumble thundered gently across the room, making his betas shiver.
The alpha accepted him. Not even an hour old, this child was already under the protection of the Hale beast.
After a sleepless night, the lilac petals of the clouds on the deep blue horizon felt like a wonder.
Both of them sat on the porch, listening to the sound of the woods waking. Stiles’ cheek lay on Derek’s slumped shoulder, his gaze — on the white carcass near the tree line.
With the very tips of his fingers, Stiles stroked Derek’s knuckles. One, two, three, four, then back again.
“I never thanked you.”
Stiles shifted so his chin was now resting on the wolf’s shoulder and gazed at the side of his face.
“For what?” he mumbled.
Derek frowned lightly, his gaze unfocused.
“For keeping me alive.”
Stiles stared at him for a long time.
“I told you the healing paste would work, and you grumbled at me,” he joked lightly, thinking back to their first days together.
“Not just for that,” Derek shook his head. “I…” he cleared his throat. “I thought I would die, Stiles. I knew I would. And you just… forbid me death.”
This time, Stiles stayed silent, allowing the alpha to take the lead.
“You forced me to build this home,” said Derek. “I have a pack now, Stiles — do you know how… strange that is for me? To have them? To have you?”
Stiles rubbed the back of his hand, feeling the wolf’s increased heartbeat under his fingers.
I know, he thought but didn’t say. Because you told me.
It was hard to make Derek live. The wolfsbane clung to his blood and every time the wolf opened his eyes, they would beg for a quick end.
But Stiles clung tighter.
He didn’t know what true loneliness was until he met Derek. All those days, when he would glance at the barest rustle and his heart would jump at the mere hope of Derek coming to visit again, only for it to be a cruel wind. But the wolf built his den — and, god, to realize that he was building it upon his mate’s request — and came back to Stiles.
He always came back, even from the brink of death.
“I don’t think death will suit you,” Stiles said in the end and smiled when Derek chuckled, losing all his somber mood.
“How so?” he asked, turning to look at him.
Stiles gazed all over his face, soaking in every inch of it. “I know it’s weird, coming from me, but I do not want to see your bones.”
They looked at each other in silence.
Stiles lowered his gaze on Derek’s lips. “Except for these,” he poked at the wolf’s fangs peeking out of his light smile and squawked when Derek snapped his teeth at his fingers. “Hey!”
Huffing out a laughter, Derek caught Stiles’ chin between his fingers and tugged him in for a kiss.
The morning blossomed, merciful and kind.
