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As Chris lies face down in the mud with his fingers laced behind his head, trying not to twitch at the dampness seeping through his shirt and jeans, he questions his life choices and decides to blame everything on his father. This, he feels, is a valid decision that’s amply backed up by concrete evidence, because if not for his father turning Kate into a monster, he and his family, Victoria included, would probably be safe somewhere in a mud-free, werewolf-free town. He’s certain that without Kate adding to the general craziness, he would have been able to convince Victoria to make a quiet exit out of hunting long before Allison ever started kindergarten.
“I don’t see why we can’t just kill him,” the male beta says.
The female beta answers, “Because hunters aren’t like cockroaches. You kill one hunter, and the rest of them will notice and rain shit down on your head. You kill someone like Chris Argent here, and you might as well have killed off every werewolf in the country and then some.”
He tries not to think about the fact that the pair of them knew exactly who he was the minute they saw him walk up the drive. There wasn’t even a discussion before the male beta threw him down to the ground and the female told him to stay put.
“That’s not fair,” the male says. “They can go around killing us for no reason, but we can’t do the same?”
“Boy, don’t even talk to me about fair. You’ve been a werewolf less than a year —”
“Just over!”
“But I’ve been black my whole life. Don’t even think you can lecture me on what’s fair and what’s not,” she says without missing a beat, and Chris doesn’t have to think about it to concede her point.
The male, however, tries to argue, “It’s not the same!”
Chris hears someone get punched, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees the male land a few feet away.
“Don’t be stupid,” she says.
“Sorry,” he answers, grudgingly, in the way of teenagers everywhere who are convinced they know everything and are only apologizing to avoid further punishment.
“Don’t be sorry. Just go get the alpha.”
“And leave you here alone? I can’t — you’re —”
“If the next words out of your mouth are ‘a girl,’ I’ll kick you into the middle of next week,” she says. Chris is inclined to believe her.
“I was gonna say you’re the second,” he says, sullen and offended.
“Oh, baby,” she says, her voice fond. “I’ve been a werewolf longer than you’ve been alive. I know how to protect myself.”
“So did my alpha,” the kid says. Chris doesn’t have to have werewolf senses to hear the hitch in his voice.
“Go get your new alpha, baby. Mr. Argent and I, we’ll be fine until you get back,” she says gently.
When the male leaves, the female beta says, “I know you don’t have any wolfsbane on you right now, but you’re sure as hell traveling with it.”
For a long moment, he says nothing, but this trip is about trying to build some bridges, and the only way that’s possible is if there’s trust. Since it has to start somewhere, it can start with him, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
“My guns and ammunition are in my car.”
“And your car is where?”
“Outside the gate. I didn’t want to bring them onto the property,” he says. “Any chance I can move my arms to the side?”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “Wonderboy there is a little too hot under the collar to trust with a pat down, and I’m not stupid enough to do one on my own. You can wait just like that for my alpha to get here.”
He accepts her decision. He’s uncomfortable like this but not to the point of injury, and he has to applaud her common sense. Whoever her alpha is, he or she made a hell of a good choice in naming her the pack’s second. The alpha has also done a good job of drilling his betas in not giving away information, which Chris admires objectively. From a subjective point of view, however, he hates the power play for what it is and really hates the fact that both betas knew him on sight. He’s been out of hunting long enough that he shouldn’t be a blip on anyone’s radar, let alone an alpha who’s entrenched deep in the farmlands of mid-Michigan.
“What happened to,” Chris pauses, but for lack of anything better, continues, “Wonderboy’s first alpha?”
“What do you think happened?” she asks.
“Right,” he says, thinking he deserves that level of contempt for asking such a stupid question.
Chris has nothing left as far as conversational gambits go, and the female has no inclination to talk, so they wait. Though on the cool side, the morning is pleasant at least, with the ground fog slowing getting burned off by the sun. Insects are buzzing around wildflowers, and the activity is, at least, something to watch while he waits.
It’s another fifteen or twenty minutes before someone approaches from behind, and all he sees is a pair of beaten up, muddy work boots and worn jeans that are a bit muddy at the hem. Chris isn’t stupid enough to look up and risk challenging the alpha’s authority, so he waits to be spoken to.
The alpha squats down, but not so low that Chris could see his face without cranking his own head around. He has no plans to do so until he hears, “When my beta told me he helped capture Chris Argent, it took him a few minutes to convince me that he wasn’t delusional.”
Chris jerks his head up. “Derek Hale.”
“Chris Argent.”
Derek doesn’t say anything else, and it’s another goddamn power play. Chris knows better than to land in these situations, but the two betas caught him flat-footed from the start, and Derek just did it to him again.
“I’m here in peace,” he says.
“Really? Is that what Scott told you to say?” For all that Derek is speaking in a pleasant tone of voice, Chris can spot the insult for what it is.
“Scott doesn’t know.”
“You sure about that? Because the last I heard, he’d turned Danny Mahealani. Makes sense that he’d have Danny track me down so he could send you to talk.”
Chris has a choice. He can lie about Danny and do it convincingly enough so he has a better sense of what’s happening here, or he can be honest and work to build trust. His original plan was dust as soon as Derek showed up, because Chris has no idea how to salvage what was intended to be a diplomatic mission with an unknown alpha. It didn’t involve Derek Hale and their shared history, and for that, he’d like to wring Marin’s neck.
“Danny took off about six months ago. He and Ethan both,” he says, opting for honesty.
“Really? Why would Danny leave like that? I thought Scott was Mr. Perfect — the true alpha who was going to save you all.”
“Scott was too young and too stubborn when you left him in charge,” Chris says. It’s not the most diplomatic thing to say, but he’s damned if he’ll let Derek keep scoring points off of him.
“When I left him in charge? I seem to recall a late night visit suggesting that I take my sister and travel around for a while to see what the rest of the world looked like.”
“I never meant for you to leave for good,” Chris bites out. “I always expected you to come back.”
“Come back and what — submit to Scott McCall? An alpha who never even wanted to accept the gift Peter gave him?”
“Gift? Is that what you call it?”
The bitterness and anger as sharp as what he’d felt when Victoria killed herself, and they bleed through clearly in his voice. Derek doesn’t say anything, and Chris spends the next few minutes trying to get himself under control. This is not the Derek Hale he once knew. This is an alpha who is in full command of himself and his pack, and he’s everything he’d hoped Scott would become one day.
Chris takes a deep breath and says, “Maybe if you’d come back, Scott wouldn’t have gone so haywire.”
“Scott was more interested in treating me like a weapon — you saw it for yourself. I can’t imagine why you think he would have listened to me in any way.” Derek’s voice is strangely dispassionate, and it’s unnerving.
“You might have a point.”
“I absolutely have a point,” Derek says in a dry voice. “So if Danny didn’t locate me, did Lydia?”
“Lydia doesn’t speak to Scott. Not directly. She uses Aiden as an intermediary if she needs to get a message to him.”
“I’m surprised Aiden didn’t leave town with his brother,” Derek says.
Chris acknowledges defeat in his effort to keep at least one or two things to himself and says, “He won’t leave without Lydia, and she can’t be far from the Nemeton without suffering a great deal of pain.”
“Hm. Well,” Derek says as he stands, “thanks for bringing me all the news of Beacon Hills. My betas will escort you back to your car so you can be on your way.”
“Wait — damn it, wait!”
“Wait for what?”
“I’m not here as the town crier. I’m here because I was told you’re highly regarded as a mediator among the packs.”
“And yet you were surprised to see me.”
“I was told to come to this address and speak to the alpha. I was never told your name,” Chris says. “Please, Derek. Let me tell you what’s going on.”
There’s a pause of a few seconds before Derek asks, “Did you check him for weapons?”
“No chance,” the female says. “Not with Wonderboy here wanting to get all up in his business.”
“Do it now, please, starting with the knife down his back. I can’t believe you left it there,” Derek says.
“Let me repeat myself: Wonderboy,” she says, ignoring the protest from the male beta. “Besides, I figured I could pin down Mr. Argent faster than he could grab it, if push came to shove.”
Derek grunts, apparently accepting her explanation even though he’s not happy with it.
The female does, in fact, start with the knife down his back, and then she works his collar and finds the wire he keeps on hand in case he needs a garrote. She checks his torso thoroughly before tugging on his arms and saying, “Hands and knees.”
He supposes he should be humiliated right about now, and perhaps in a small corner of his mind, he is. On the other hand, it’s nice to have visible proof that his reputation has preceded him to such a degree that this kind of search is necessary.
She pulls his belt off completely, and he thinks she hands it off to Wonderboy. His guess is confirmed when Derek says, “Examine the belt and see how many weapons are hidden in it,” and the male responds, “In a belt?”
The female mutters something under her breath that makes Derek laugh and the male huff out, “I didn’t know.”
“Try watching a few Bond movies,” the female says. “Hunters seem to get most of their weapons ideas from them.”
If he were able to, Chris would blush on behalf of all hunters everywhere, because she’s not far wrong, and having it spelled out like that is embarrassing.
“He’s got more wire in the waistband of his jeans and,” she pauses while she checks his underwear, “his boxers.”
“Maybe you should just strip him now,” Wonderboy says, and Chris truly hopes Derek doesn’t take him up on that.
“Hunters treat us like we’re animals with a thin coat of civilization over everything we do,” Derek says. “Treating a hunter with the same level of contempt as they treat us is at least as demeaning as being on the receiving end of it. He’ll undress at the house, and we’ll confirm everything is still in place before letting him get dressed again.”
The female gropes his crotch the same way as every cop he’s ever had the misfortune to piss off, and she continues down the inside of his thighs before going down the sides. Then she does the same thing to his calves, and when she gets to his right ankle, she pulls out the snub-nose revolver.
“Thought you said you left your guns and ammo in the car,” she says in an entirely too tense tone of voice.
“The lie was in the intent of the guns and ammo he left behind,” Derek says. “This kind of weapon is meant to delay, not kill. See? The bullets are large enough to shatter a knee cap but not so big that they’ll get very far anywhere else in a werewolf’s body.”
“Tricky bastard,” she says. Chris thinks he needs to get his head examined for feeling proud at hearing the admiration in her voice.
“Take his shoes and socks off now,” Derek says. “Wonderboy needs the practice at spotting where the extra weapons are.”
“I hate it when you call me that,” the male says.
The female answers, “Then stop shoving your head up your ass and acting like you just did the best thing ever.”
She goes back to the front pockets on his jeans and pulls out the keys she’d left earlier. “You want me to bring the car up?”
“Wonderboy can,” he says. Then, talking to the male, Derek says, “Take it to the old mill and stash it there. Your homework for this afternoon is to search the rest of his things to see how much more he’s hidden away, but only look through his suitcase. The other bags will likely have wolfsbane in them.”
Chris says, “The suitcase is in the back seat. My weapons and ammunition are in the trunk.”
Wonderboy swallows hard enough that even Chris can hear it then asks, “You want me to bring you what I find?”
“No,” Derek says, which startles Chris. “He’ll need everything in place for the drive back to Beacon Hills. He can borrow clothing while he’s here. Come on; we’re going to the house now,” Derek says.
Chris accepts the hand Derek offers and stands up.
~*~*~
An hour later, Chris is fresh from a shower that made up for lack of water pressure by having all the heat a man could want. His socks and underwear — boxer briefs and not, he was happy to discover, Y-fronts — came out of a new package, but everything else came out of what he assumes is a male beta’s stash of clothing. The fit isn’t great — the sweat pants are just large enough while the t-shirt hangs off his shoulders — but at least he’s in comfortable clothing and can move quickly if he has to.
He heads downstairs in search of Derek and finds him in the kitchen drinking coffee. Another cup, empty, is next to the coffee pot, so Chris helps himself and joins Derek at the table.
“Did your interrogation of me prove that I can be trusted?”
“You can be trusted to act toward your goal, whatever that may be,” Derek says. “As far as I can tell, your goal requires my trust, so you have it on a provisional basis.”
“Provisional how?”
“For every truth you tell me, I’ll be looking for the hidden lie,” Derek says with a glance toward Chris’s ankle
Before this morning, Chris probably would have responded with a wry, somewhat bitter comment about provisional trust being about as useful as a sieve for holding water, but he’s still off his game, and it’s his own fault for not being honest about the snub-nose. On top of that, he’s not quite sure what he expected when Marin pointed him in this direction, but he knows it wasn’t Derek. He’s pissed off at not being given a heads up, and he’s not looking forward to the other surprises that are probably in store for him. Since he doesn’t know as much as he thought he did, he settles in for what’s likely to be a rough visit.
“The Nemeton is getting active again, and we need help,” Chris says.
“From what I hear, Scott did fine the last time.”
“The last time, Scott had a pack that was mostly willing to work with him,” Chris says.
Derek looks at him and says, “Until?”
Chris wanted to save this news, but even more than that, he’d like to level the playing field and ruffle Derek’s calm.
“Until he turned Stiles against his will,” he says.
“Seems to me he still did okay for himself.”
Derek already knew about it.
He couldn’t not know and be that casual about hearing the news.
Chris wonders if Derek has been in touch with Stan — or even Stiles — and he just barely bites his tongue in time not to ask, because given Derek’s reputation among other packs, it’s equally possible he’s heard gossip. Chris feels like he’s entered a conversational minefield, and that Derek holds a complete map of where all the bombshells are while Chris is clueless. There’s nothing Chris can do about it, so he forges ahead and hopes he avoids making too many mistakes.
“Scott and his pack just barely held their own against it after Stiles left town. With Danny and Ethan gone and Aiden barely responsive to Scott’s requests, there just aren’t enough werewolves left to protect the town.”
Derek looks at him and Chris has time to prepare himself for the question he knows Derek is about to ask. “Why doesn’t he turn a few more teenagers? After all, that worked so well the last time.”
“He’s been enjoined by Deaton not to make more,” Chris says.
“Deaton put the collar on, he can take it off,” Derek says, cool as can be. He should have known better than to hope Derek would give a damn.
“He can’t. Not without Scott’s permission, and Scott won’t go there again.”
“You sound so grim, Chris. I was so sure you’d be happy about that.”
Chris knows what Derek is doing, can see clearly that Derek is trying to get a rise out of him, but he’s helpless to stop himself from spitting out, “He still hasn’t learned moderation in anything.”
“Or maybe, like a recovering alcoholic, he recognizes that he can’t be trusted to do anything in moderation,” Derek says.
It sounds exactly like what Stan Stilinski said to him right before Chris set out on his trip, and what started out as suspicion turns into full-blown conviction. “You’re talking to him. To Stilinski.”
Derek doesn’t respond other than to raise his eyebrows. Before Chris can push harder, a different female beta enters the kitchen through the back door. She’s massive and looks like she could break Derek — or maybe a tree trunk — in half without breaking a sweat. Chris can’t look away from her arms long enough to note any other details about her appearance and thinks maybe he won’t have to, not with her build.
“Heard you have company, Boss,” she says. She must live here, because she goes straight for the cupboard with the coffee cups, but there’s something off about her. She should be a beta, but she has the same still quality as an alpha secure in her territory.
“Chris Argent,” Derek says. “He’ll be here for a few days, so I’d appreciate it if you would keep the others with you.”
“Heard he’s already met the Wonder Twins.”
“I wouldn’t let her hear you call her that, if I were you,” Derek says, a bare hint of teasing in his voice.
“Which would be why I’m leaving as soon as you say I can,” she answers.
“We’re good. Wonder Woman is staying here tonight, and I’ll send Wonderboy to you after dinner.”
“What about —?”
“Call them. Let them know we have a visitor and that they don’t have to come back if they’re uncomfortable,” Derek says.
Chris assumes he must know at least one of the betas being referenced and guesses that it’s Cora. He doesn’t know who the other beta might be and has no reason to expect an answer if he asks.
“Will do. Thanks for the coffee,” she says before walking out the door.
Derek blinks and then yells, “Bring the cup back!”
Whatever she says puts a sour look on Derek’s face, but it doesn’t last long. Clearly, this is an ongoing argument between them, and it unexpectedly settles Chris and puts his mind at ease. The interaction speaks of a deep-rooted trust between Derek and his beta, and that’s a hell of a lot better than what he saw during Derek’s first stint as an alpha. Chris wonders about the alpha Derek killed to regain his status, but he’s sure that asking will be enough to get him sent on the road again without having a chance to make his case.
“Why are you here, Chris?”
He reminds himself that his new plan is about truth and transparency and says, “Scott won’t turn anyone else, but he also won’t turn away omegas. Marin told me about an alpha who was good about matching omegas to packs, and she sent me here.”
“Weren’t you the least bit curious about why she didn’t give you my name?”
Chris clenches his jaw for a moment and says, “Druids.”
It’s enough of an answer for Derek, because he just nods, and god, Chris misses the days when he could read Derek like a Dick and Jane book — easily and quickly. The Derek in front of him reminds Chris of Talia, a werewolf he’d only ever seen once and even then, it was at a distance. She’d struck him as being so completely sure of herself that she could probably get whatever secrets she wanted out of him just by staring at him long enough. He shudders at the memory, in part because it hadn’t been long after that trip to Beacon Hills that Kate had killed Talia and her pack, and in part because — well. Because. He’s avoided that particular thought for close to fifteen years now and can just keep avoiding it.
Derek asks, “Why would I send an omega to an alpha with known control issues? Worse, why would I send an omega to be cannon fodder? Because I can’t imagine Scott risking the betas he’s known for years over a new beta he didn’t even turn.”
“Do you really think so little of him?”
Derek lifts an eyebrow, and Chris doesn’t have a response.
“We’re not going to sort this out today,” Derek says. “You’re welcome to remain in the guest room until dinner.”
“I’d like to call home and talk to Allison.”
“You can tell her you’re safe — and I would take it kindly if you would use the correct code words to prevent her from flying after you — but you can’t tell her anything else. I doubt Scott has spared more than a thought for me since we left, and I don’t want that to change anytime soon.”
“I — yeah. Fine,” Chris says, accepting the terms Derek offers. Derek hasn’t said no, not yet, but he’s also given Chris the courtesy of letting him know what his primary concerns are. This means Chris has the chance to gather his thoughts and figure out what kind of argument he can make to convince Derek to work with them.
~*~*~
It’s morning, and Chris puts on the sweatpants he wore the day before and chooses a different t-shirt before he heads downstairs again. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Derek during dinner. The two betas who dropped him to the ground were there, and Derek was more interested in hearing about what Wonderboy found in Chris’s clothing. Wonder Woman and Derek both grilled the male on his search techniques, and eventually, Derek turned to Chris to ask what the male had missed. Chris was tired of all the tests he was being put to, but given the combined history of the Argent family and Hale Pack, he couldn’t really blame Derek for his caution.
As it turned out, Wonderboy missed more than half of what Chris had stashed in his clothing, and while the male beta dealt with that revelation, Wonder Woman repeated, “I don’t care what you say or how much you whine, we’re having a Bond marathon as soon as Mr. Argent leaves.”
“Why do you call him that? Boss calls him by his first name, why don’t you?”
“Alphas have that privilege, betas don’t,” she’d said, and it was more of an ego boost than he cared to admit to when he heard her imply he was an alpha. Of sorts.
He’s still thinking about the small things he’d learned the night before when he enters the kitchen to find Derek kissing someone — a male whose shoulders were almost as broad as Derek’s. He’s surprised not only to find Derek kissing a male but also at how intimate the scene is and how tender they are with one another. He’s intruding, and he wants to leave before they notice him, but it’s obvious that both males are aware of his presence. Rather than turning to face Chris as any man would, Derek draws the kiss out.
It’s probably to make a point, so Chris says, “If you’re trying to tell me I don’t know you half as well as I think I do, I got the message.”
“Jealous?”
Chris blinks and tries to shut his mouth when Stiles looks at him over Derek’s shoulder.
“Ah. No,” Chris says and curses Derek and every last member of his pack for being able to knock him off balance so readily.
“You should be,” Stiles says as he leers at Derek. His meaning is crystal clear.
“Behave,” Derek says before swatting Stiles on the ass. He drops a light kiss on Stiles’s lips and says, “You drove all night and need to get some sleep. We can talk to Chris after you wake up.”
“Hmm. Don’t be making deals without me.”
“No deals,” Derek agrees.
Stiles pats Chris on the shoulder as he walks past him, the gesture vaguely friendly and not nearly as threatening as he would have expected. Chris stands for a moment, trying to digest this latest disruption to his worldview, before he takes a seat at the table.
“I take it Morrell said nothing about Stiles when you saw her?” Derek pulls food out of the refrigerator to start putting together breakfast.
“I don’t think she knows,” Chris says, too distracted by Stiles, not to mention Derek-and-Stiles, to say anything other than the first thing that came to mind.
“Thanks. Knowing that helps,” Derek says. “How do you like your eggs?”
“Over easy. Wait. How does it help?”
“I haven’t met too many alphas who trust emissaries these days, so either she doesn’t know he’s here because no one is talking to her, or she knows and is holding her tongue. Both options work for me.”
Derek seems a little more forthcoming today than he did the day before, and Chris is torn between wanting to ask about Stiles, wanting to make the case for Beacon Hills, and wanting to know more about the mistrust of emissaries. As much as he wants to, he’s fairly certain Derek won’t talk about Stiles or Beacon Hills unless Stiles is in the room, so that leaves emissaries. Chris doesn’t trust magic users on general principle, but Deaton has been helpful over the last few years, and he very much needs to know if the man can be trusted even minimally.
“I thought emissaries were supposed to advise packs,” he says.
“Once upon a time, that was probably true. White or whole wheat?”
“Whole wheat. So emissaries don’t act as advisors anymore?”
“Their own laws state that an emissary must support the alpha of a territory. If a new alpha takes over, then the emissary is expected to help that person,” Derek says. “In the last couple of generations, emissaries have started to get selective about it. Instead of maintaining neutrality, they’re choosing sides.”
“Did Deaton choose sides?”
“Deaton got caught up in the romance of finding a ‘true’ alpha,” Derek says, and Chris can practically hear the air quotes in that statement.
He thinks he sees where this is going, so he says, “Instead of keeping his focus on you, the alpha of the territory, he decided to help Scott.”
“It would help if you could remember that you know even less about werewolf social structures than emissaries, and they’ve been working with us for millennia,” Derek says.
“Ooh! Snap and burn,” Stiles says from the doorway.
“I thought I told you to get some sleep.”
“Can’t. I’m too wired.”
“You didn’t even try.”
“I stared at the bed. It counts. Give me breakfast and conversation, and then I’ll try again. Maybe even with company!” Stiles waggles his eyebrows at Derek in what looks like a demented come-on, and Derek sighs.
“Fine. Sit down.”
Stiles sits next to Chris and says, “So I hear that Wonderboy failed Hunter 101 yesterday.”
“I don’t really appreciate being used as a lesson for werewolves,” he says, irritated that after all this time, Stiles apparently hasn’t grown up yet.
“Oh, you mean the way Kate used Derek as a lesson in Werewolf 101?”
Chris clenches his jaw and holds it until he can hold his tongue again. He and Stiles had been getting along reasonably well before Scott turned him, but now that Stiles is a beta, it’s clear the male has lost whatever residual loyalty he might have had toward humanity.
“Be nice,” Derek says.
“I’m being nice. I’m being very nice. In fact, you have no idea just how nice I’m being right at this moment in time,” Stiles says. “For instance, I haven’t even asked if Chris still talks about individual werewolves as ‘the male’ or ‘the female’. You know — the same way narrators of those nature shows talk about the animals on the screen.”
Derek aims a very direct look at Stiles, who ignores it.
“How are Allison and Isaac doing? Any grandmales or grandfemales to dandle on your knee?”
“Enough,” Derek says, his eye flashing red. “Stop focusing on Chris like he’s the real problem.”
Stiles swallows hard, and Chris sees the effort it takes him not to spout off again. He lowers his head and says, “I apologize. That was out of line.”
Chris doesn’t want to hear it. He’s furious with Stiles for suggesting that Allison would give birth to anything but a baby, and he’s even more furious with Allison for not thinking about what it would do to him if she and Isaac were to reproduce.
“You’re damn right it was out of line. How dare you suggest that she would give birth to —”
He manages not to complete that sentence, but it’s already too late. Stiles and Derek both know what would have come next, and he’s surprised they aren’t already kicking him out. Instead, Derek is looking at him with pity, and Stiles is looking at him with disgust, and Chris doesn’t think he can bear either one of them.
Stiles says, “Still think he isn’t the real problem?”
“He’s a real problem, but not the most important one at the moment.”
Chris wants to rail at them for talking about him as if he was of no consequence, as if he wasn’t even there, but a small voice in the back of his head whispers, Isn’t this how you’ve always treated werewolves? Why should they treat you any different?
“Right. The Nemeton,” Stiles says, bringing Chris back to the discussion.
“Chris wants us to see if any omegas would be willing to relocate to Beacon Hills.”
“Not a chance in hell,” Stiles says.
“Why? You saw for yourself what it’s bringing to town,” Chris says. He’s pissed that Stiles doesn’t even give it a second thought. “Sure, they’ll be coming to a fight, but at least they’ll have an alpha and a pack again. That’s gotta be worth something.”
“Remember what Derek said about you not knowing shit about werewolf society?”
“I didn’t put it like that,” Derek says mildly. He puts a plate in front of Chris and one in front of Stiles before going back to the stove.
“Details,” Stiles says, waving him off. “Here’s lesson one: the majority of omegas lose their pack to hunters. By the time anyone is able to reach them, they’ve already been attacked and driven out of their home, and they’ve lost everyone they loved. It tends to make them go feral, so they try to find a quiet place deep in the wilderness to heal, but they can’t, because the assholes who sent them into a feral state now feel fully justified in hunting them down like a rabid animal.”
“I —”
Stiles talks over Chris. “You can talk about your damn ‘Code’ all you want, but the packs getting killed these days are like the Hale Pack — peaceful and law abiding — and the hunters killing them are like Kate — psychotic, sadistic monsters. Half the time, even if I find the survivor of that kind of attack, I end up having to put them down myself, because they don’t want to come back to a world without their pack. The rest of the time, it takes months to get them to a point where they can trust anyone and even longer to find a pack that isn’t on anyone’s radar so they can feel safe again. Do you seriously think I’m going to send that kind of omega to Scott, knowing full well what kind shitstorm they’ll be entering?”
“Stiles,” Derek says. “Come here.”
Stiles pushes away from the table and stalks over to Derek, who hugs him tight and whispers something in his ear. Stiles nods and leaves again, this time by the back door.
Derek joins Chris at the table and starts eating the food Stiles didn’t even look at. “As you can tell, Stiles has an opinion about your cunning plan to build Scott’s pack up again.”
“Hunters always used to follow the Code,” Chris says. He’s numb. Stiles has bitched at him about the Code in the past, but this is the first time he’s ever seen him so vitriolic on the subject.
“Attitudes were changing even before you retired. The process seems to have accelerated since then,” Derek says.
“I didn’t know.”
“That was your choice.”
There’s nothing Chris can say to that, because Derek is right. Chris closed his eyes to what was happening in the hunter community, assuming wrongly that he was out of it, and that what they did had no real bearing on him anymore.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s nice, but it doesn’t help,” Derek says. “And it doesn’t change our concerns about Scott. He has control issues, and neither of us trusts him to take care of any men or women we might send his way.”
“Then we’re screwed,” Chris says.
“Not necessarily. If Scott can tolerate sharing his territory, I might be able to find a pack or two that’s willing to relocate.”
“He shared it with Ethan and Aiden.”
“No he didn’t,” Derek says. “They accepted him as their alpha, so Scott never shared his territory. If I convince a pack to move there, Scott will be regarded as a supplicant and treated as such.”
“What do you mean by supplicant?”
“He’ll be seen as a weak alpha,” Derek says. “And he’ll be treated like one.”
“Oh.”
“Has Scott grown up enough to be able to accept direction from another alpha?”
Chris shakes his head. “I’m not sure. He hasn’t been put to the test like that.”
“Then it looks like your reason for being here is at an end,” Derek says. “I’ll bring your car around so you can head home.”
“Wait. Is there any chance you’d be willing to come back?”
Derek doesn’t say no immediately, which is something, but he doesn’t say yes, either.
“There’s more to your request than you know about. The best I can offer is to say probably not.”
“That’s the best?”
“Take it or leave it.”
Chris looks at the breakfast he barely touched and says, “I’ll take it. Can you bring my car around now? I get the feeling my presence is disrupting your pack more than you’re letting on, and I’d just as soon leave now.”
Derek nods. “I’ll meet you out front in a few minutes.”
Chris goes to the front porch, and when Derek doesn’t get out of the driver’s seat, he heads toward the passenger side and asks, “Where are you getting out?”
“In town. I have a couple of errands to run can catch a ride back if I need one,” he says.
~*~*~
Chris doesn’t call until he hits the Indiana border. “This whole trip was a waste. You didn’t tell me you were in touch with Derek Hale.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going to see him,” Stan says.
“And if I had?”
“What could I have said? After all, you know everything there is to know about werewolves, right?”
For all that Stan appears to be a mediocre sheriff in a rural community, he’s as hard-nosed a cop as Chris has ever met, and he doesn’t brook nonsense from anyone other than Stiles.
“Apparently I don’t,” he says, acknowledging Stan’s point.
Stan is quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Then maybe this wasn’t such a waste after all. When will you be back?”
“Give me a week. I need to touch base with one of the families to find out what the hell is going on with hunters these days.”
“I’ll let Allison know — she’s just coming in for her shift.”
“Thanks.” Before he can think better of it, Chris adds, “I saw Stiles. He looks good.”
“Glad to hear it,” Stan says. “See you soon.”
He hangs up before Chris can ask exactly how often he meets up with Stiles, and that’s probably for the best. It isn’t any of Chris’s business, and he has other matters to attend to.