Chapter Text
Derek Hale fell out of bed head first, and half asleep stumbled to his feet with his heart pounding and bile rising in his throat. He staggered into the hall, clawed through the door frame like it was butter, and tuned his senses high in their search for the immediate threat nearby.
But his apartment was all quiet. Below, the neighbor’s dog snored uninterrupted, and out on the busy street, cars drove by at normal speed; all like every other morning at a little past eight in New York City.
So, what the hell was wrong? He shoved his rising panic away. He needed a clear head while he worked out what had woken him up ready to fight or flight.
He raced over the sparse square feet he rented, scrutinized everything, but no one except himself had been there since Laura moved back home with Stiles three years ago.
Derek took deep breaths, focusing inward on what his instincts told him instead of his mind.
Danger threatened his pack.
They needed him back home in Beacon Hills.
***
Derek ripped open the door to the pack house. No hearts beat inside it, but he still might find leads on where to search next. Laura and Stiles' scents were all over the place, as strong and intense as only a lived-in house could have, and Peter and other pack members had been inside during the day.
Out on the porch again, the day had turned to dusk. He attuned his ears to the sounds of the forest, the part of the territory he knew like the inside of his pocket. Everything inside him screamed to help out, and it took all his willpower to stop just for a second to concentrate. The pack’s desperation scourged through him like he’d never experienced before, and even though he'd been in an emergency modus all day, wave after wave of energy flew through him.
It hit him in the gut like a corporal fist. He flew through the forest without conscious thought, and changed into wolf form in mid-air, his paws hitting the soft forest floor to the rhythm of his heartbeat. Anytime now, a huge part of his soul would be ripped out and he had to prevent it to survive. Everything in his world depended on his action.
The softest of sobs changed his course deep inside the forest. He sped into a clearing and almost fell over his own legs.
Blood, tears, and panic hit him like a tidal wave, and he gagged at the sight in front of him: the pack’s slender omega lay sobbing over a bloody corpse, his fragile form oozing despair and darkness. It seemed Derek had arrived too late after all.
Tragedy had already struck, and from the smell of early decay on the corpse and the hoarse way the cries escaped the omega’s throat, it’d happened some time ago.
Changing back to human form, Derek placed all his focus onto the omega, the only beating heart in the clearing besides his own. “Stiles?” he managed to say softly, gliding over and hunching beside the boy.
Stiles didn’t flinch or jump, but seemed to sense the pack through his haze, and gave himself over to Derek, crawling into his lap, clinging to him.
“What’s happened?” Derek murmured, his voice cracking into Stiles' blood-matted hair. His stomach clenched at the thought of the lifeless form beside them, and he kept his gaze firm on the darkness of the forest, breathing carefully, trying not to vomit.
Stiles didn’t answer, just clung to Derek like he could save the omega from this nightmare, as if Derek was his new alpha and not just an ordinary pack beta.
Derek swallowed the bile in his mouth, and, holding his breath, risked casting his gaze askance to the corpse before he snapped it back to the trees again, his heart beating a hundred miles an hour. “Is that … ” His words stuck, but he didn’t try to ask again. He already knew.
Laura lay there, Derek’s older sister’s corpse already cold and decomposing. The pack had lost their alpha, their anchor in life, and the omega’s master.
***
For a moment Derek managed to keep still and stroke Stiles' hair. His hands shook through the bloody strands, his whole body strung tighter than a bow, screaming at him to fly, find his sister’s murderer. But first the omega--clinging to him like a second skin--needed his new alpha, the person he was bonded to in every single way in life, and Derek’s pack obligation made him responsible to unite them.
He looked down at the shaking lump in his lap, and cleared his voice, hoping to make it audible. “Hey, Stiles.” He stroked down the boy’s back, feeling the small, fragile frame tremble under his hand.
Wide, brown eyes met his then, a gaze clouded with misery. The boy in his arms smelled like Stiles--hell, Derek would know his scent anywhere--but the face staring back at him wasn’t the soft one that had left the city with Laura three years ago. Stiles still had his characteristic fine features, but they were now held together by a mature frame.
Derek swallowed his gasp, and focused on making his voice as gentle as possible. “Did you see who did this?”
Stiles bowed his head, casting his eyes to the ground, opposite to where the corpse lay, and whispered.
Derek froze, must have heard wrong. He slid his fingers under Stiles' chin as delicately as he could muster with his rough hand, despite his instincts crying for action. “What did you say?”
“It was Peter who killed Laura,” Stiles mumbled, glancing up at Derek again with tears creating rivers down his blood-dirty face. “Peter killed your sister. I’m so sorry. I . . . I couldn’t stop him!”
Derek grabbed the omega’s shoulder, staring into his eyes. “This isn’t your fault! You hear me? You're an omega and you couldn’t have stopped a beta from doing something like this.”
Stiles turned his face away, clearly not sharing Derek’s opinion, no matter how much stronger than the omega a beta was. “I think Peter ran that way.” He dipped his head to the forest before he looked to the dark sky. “A while ago. It was light then.”
Derek reluctantly faced the remains of his sister. He needed all the clues the corpse could give. He took a shallow breath over Laura’s stomach, above the cut. Underneath the overpowering scent of Stiles, he smelled the other betas on Laura’s body, but no useful information.
Derek rose and searched the ground around them, but saw no trail; he needed to be in wolf form for this.
“Please, don’t leave me!” Stiles pulled at Derek’s arm, sensing the beta’s urgency.
“We need to go.”
Stiles nodded, his eyes huge with fear.
Derek shifted his weight from foot to foot, frustration rippling through his whole body at every second’s passivity. Then Stiles' slender hand slipped into his own callused one, and he sucked in a breath, snapped his gaze to their joined hands.
“I too need to find Peter,” Stiles said, hiccupping.
Derek shook the omega’s hand out of his own. It pained him to state the obvious. “Yes, after killing Laura, Peter’s your new alpha now. You need to be with him.” He changed, his snout tracking Peter’s smell on the ground at a quick pace, and trusted the omega to follow.
***
The moment Derek picked up on Peter’s scent, he ran, racing in the direction Stiles had pointed out. He heard feet running after him, a breath panting and cursing through the trees; Stiles followed, but quickly lost ground with his smaller omega body. The strongest of pack instincts rushed through Derek’s veins: the urge to protect the weaker omega wrestled with his need to find Peter, and won. His paws slowed on their own for Stiles to catch up, and soon a hand gripped his fur.
They ran at a slower pace, with Derek reading the signs in front of them. Several times, Stiles pulled at Derek’s fur and the beta reluctantly slowed down.
A faint sound caught his sensitive hearing, and he cocked his ears towards it, stopping. Stiles bumped into him, falling to the ground. Derek sprinted towards the voices.
Pack.
“Oh my god!” Stiles gasped, bumping into Derek for a second time.
Standing in a tight circle around their new alpha in his huge wolf form, the rest of the pack betas were arguing. Stinking of sweat, blood, and fury, their adrenalin overpowered their exhaustion.
Peter twisted to Derek, and the circle hushed. His new alpha’s gaze burned like a torch to Derek’s soul, pushing his beta buttons--the instinct to protect the alpha--but his consciousness held him back for now. He swallowed his instincts, and by his side, Stiles instantly grabbed his arm.
Derek approached the circle slowly with the omega in tow, taking in information to slot the pieces of the puzzle into place: Kira’s shaky grip on her katana, Allison's crossbow vibrating with tension, and the torn expression on all the betas’ faces. Everyone struggled like him: instinct vs intellect.
“Derek!” Allison spat, her gaze and aim glued to Peter. “He murdered Laura!”
Derek scowled. “I know that!” His gaze swept over the betas with their worn-out appearance, stopping at Scott, and he shouted, “Why didn’t you have Stiles with you? You never leave the omega unprotected no matter what!”
“I’m sorry, Derek! We’ve hunted Peter all afternoon!”
Stiles tugged at his hand, and Derek reluctantly turned to him. “Please, Derek, you have to do something about Peter. You can’t let him get away with this.”
Peter snapped his teeth towards his betas’ throats, spitting and snarling, his paws clawing at them.
“Hey! No, you don’t.” Boyd and Isaac forced Peter into the middle of the group with their muscles bulging while the rest closed further in on the alpha. Blood leaked from their wounds, their bodies strained to their breaking point.
“Look!” Erica shouted, not taking her eyes off Peter, who attacked everything within his reach. Blood splattered from Boyd’s cheek in a deep cut. The alpha would succeed any second now. “Everything’s right here.” Erica kicked at containers by her feet, the smell of chemicals hitting Derek’s nostrils, their plan evident.
He stepped forward and joined the circle of the other betas, urgency pumping through his veins. They had to be quick, before Peter managed to free himself or one of them gave in to the instinct to protect their alpha.
Peter raged and pleaded, and tried every trick in the book to make them stop. “We must secure our pack's future, you idiots!” He ripped loose from Isaac’s grasp on his arm, roaring, “Let go, you child, and run off to your bed!”
He kicked at Kira but she jumped backwards just in time, and then Peter's face twisted from Hyde to Jekyll, switching to pleading and regretful. “Derek, my nephew! I’ve worked for years to persuade Laura to breed the omega, to secure our pack’s future, but she never listened to reason! Derek, Laura refused to do her job as an alpha! The only way left for me to make everything right, was to kill her so I became the alpha and could breed the omega myself! I know you’ll listen to reason--these kids don’t know what they’re doing!”
Derek sensed the circle of betas waited for something, and suddenly he realized they waited for his decision. He stepped forward. He opened his mouth, but a smaller figure brushed past him, and he shut his mouth in surprise.
The omega--the weakest of the pack members, the fragile form that needed the others' protection--grabbed one of the cans and in a flash threw the contents on the alpha.
A second passed before everyone gasped in unison. Scott threw a waiting match on Peter and his fur caught the flames, roaring into fire, consuming his screaming body instantly.
In his shock, Derek still had the presence to snatch Stiles back, pulled the boy away from the flames and behind his own bigger form, and gaped at the vision of Peter’s eyes rolling and his flesh burning. Stiles clung to Derek’s arm, whimpering, and that--if nothing else--made Derek realize what he had to do.
He ripped off the omega’s jacket and threw it over Peter’s head, stifling the flames for a second, and snapped Peter’s neck, the alpha's blood splashing and his head rolling as his body fell to the ground.
***
After the longest night of his life, Derek entered the pack house again in the day’s first sunrays. Derek had become the alpha after ending Peter’s life, and he carried his sleeping omega over the threshold like a groom with his groom from an arranged marriage.
Despite the new powers lurking in his body and his mind still in full action mode, Derek felt exhaustion down to the bone. He carried Stiles--stinking of chemicals, fire and blood--up to the second floor and entered the master bedroom. The king size bed had obviously been Laura’s from the intensity of her scent there. Derek took a deep breath of the air, but didn’t smell Stiles on it. Okay, so they hadn’t shared a bed then.
Looking around the room, he eyed the couch by the window; it'd have to do for now. He lowered the sleeping bundle onto the cushions and grabbed Laura’s comforter from the bed, tucking Stiles in with it. His gaze rested on the quiet form for a second, the creature that had abruptly become bonded to him for life. When the omega woke up, he’d be buried in familiar scents. That was all Derek could do for him right now.
He closed the door and walked downstairs, headed for the living room where he lay down on the couch. He heard the restless pacing of Stiles' beta guard on duty out on the porch. Derek squeezed his burning eyes closed, trying to force his mind to shut off for a couple of hours before his new responsibilities couldn't wait any longer.