A/N: Derek/OC and Stiles/ OC
A/N: Bold Italic is Amethyst's older sister Roxanne is text and phone calls.

Prelude

Danger

My family and I don't exactly have nor live a normal life. In fact, our lives are pretty fucked up. And with that fucked up life comes lots and lots of danger. From the moment my twin sister Roxanne and I were born, we were thrust into a world of danger.

Our mom, Adara came from a very big and powerful pack of shapeshifters, although we don't know which. Being a shapeshifter allows Mom, Roxanne, and I to shift into any animal we please. We are faster and stronger than normal humans and most importantly, we heal faster than normal humans. That makes us Freaks. Abominations. Inhuman. Not Normal. That makes people afraid. They're afraid because they don't know why or how we are like we are. When people are afraid, they act out; violently. So, when we were born, there was instantly a bulls-eye on our backs. A bulls-eye placed there by afraid humans.

Our dad, Richard came from a ruthless hunting family but they didn't hunt regular animals. They hunted supernatural beings. They consider anything that was not human an animal. They're supposed to have a code but most of them don't follow it. If they do, they hide the information of the massacres they have committed from the rest of the hunting community.

They hunted us from day one and there were several times they almost succeeded in killing or injuring us. I remember the day after Roxy and I had turned twelve, we were playing in the forest near our house when they found us.

I remember smelling Blue and Purple Wolfsbane, Nordic Blue Monkshood, Yellow Wolfsbane, and Gunpowder in the air. Hearing the sound of people shifting from side to side, the safeties of many guns being clicked off, the sound of arrows being notched into bows, and someone sliding a sword out of it's scabbard.

I remember the dirt, grass, and trees warning me of someones approach. Telling me were they were stationed. Where to go. Where it was safe. What traps to watch out for and who was pursuing us.

I remember arrows and bullets raining at us left and right. Back and front. Dirt and dust flying up and temporarily creating a wall between the hunters and us. The sounds and smell of hunters slowly surrounding us. Smelling my sisters panic. Her distress. My rage bubbling up from the pit of my stomach. Me turning into a lion and letting out a viscous roar.

Running full speed at the men in front of Roxy. Watching them scatter. Swiping my paws at them but not hurting them, long enough for Roxanne to escape. I remember the sound of our chests heaving as we ran. I remember Roxy being too scared to shift. Me, as a lion, keeping pace with her. Running faster and faster, as we tried to out-race them.

The whistle of something slashing through the air towards Roxy. Me jumping in front of her and the sharp burst of pain that shoots through my body. Roxy stopping and whirling around. Me pleading with her to leave with my eyes. Her hesitating but then taking off.

I remember whirling around to a face an slightly older man holding a broad sword. Teasing and taunting him. Stalling. Hearing Roxy howl. That howl telling me she was safe. I grin spreading across my face. (Which was probably both weird and scary to see a lion grin) I backed up then ran forward. I hunkered down, gathering my energy iny my hind paws then leap forward, diving headfirst into the empty air. Midair I convulsed and turned into a pitch black raven. Soaring higher and fly away.

That was not the first nor the last time hunters attacked us. That would sadly not be the last injury I would sustained. But to me it was well worth it. I had protected Roxy and that's all I cared about. I would give my life for Roxy without a second thought if I was presented with the choice.

Love, Loss & Strength

Love. Love is the wonderful beautiful, heartbreaking thing that everyone has to endure. Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Ash was my best friend, my shoulder to lean on, the one person I knew I can count on. He was the love of my life, he was my everything. Then he was taken from me.

Ash was my first love.

The love I had for him was fierce, wild and free. The love I had for him will never ever go away. With love, you catch yourself in raw, unfiltered moments that only loving someone can bring out of you. You realize that having a crush on someone and being in love with them are completely different, because in a crush you can erase or ignore all of the impractical or less-desirable parts of what being with them would mean.

You absorb entirely new recipes, cultures, music, and inside jokes into your personality, without actually realizing you are taking them on (or imitating them). You always said that you weren't going to become that person who is obsessed with everything their boyfriend SO likes, but you absolutely are.

After you meet the parents for the first time, you start to understand that it is at once not nearly as scary as you thought it would be and infinitely scarier than you could have anticipated.

You learn what it means to fight healthy, and fight for something more long-term than just who wins this particular argument. You become part of a team and can understand disagreeing about something even though, at the end of the day, you both just want what the other one wants.

Loss.

As a shifter loss, is one of the many painful things that you have to learn to live with. To other people, loss is losing a favorite stuffed animal, pen, pencil, etc but to us loss means a hell of a lot more. As soon as we are born, we get targeted and when we get close to someone else, they in turn get targeted. It is awful because most of the time the people we get close to get seriously hurt or even killed and they were innocent. They didn't know anything. They were killed for nothing.

Because of this most shifters stay within their own groups. People like them. People that also have a target of their back because they aren't normal. Freaks. Supernatural. This way they don't have any innocent deaths on their souls. Any innocent blood on their hands. So, they don't ruin a persons life. That's why most supernatural communities are close. They don't want to endanger lives so they seek comfort and being around other supernatural people. Because we all have bulls-eye on our back we are comforted by the fact that people who don't know about us aren't getting hurt.

At the age of 14, I had a best friend and I was happy. When I was with him, I could forget about all the bullshit that was going on in my not normal fucked up life. He was my escape and I loved him for that and for many other reasons. Ash wasn't just my best friend, he was my first boyfriend too. Then in one foul swoop...he was taken from me.

~Flashback~

"Ash! Stop. Please!" I giggle, trying to get away from him. He just smirked at me with his hazel brown eyes glinting with amusement. He throws his head up, laughing. A deep rich sound that was music to my ears.

"Why should I?" He asks teasingly, tickling me some more.

"Because I asked you nicely." I say with a pout looking up under my eyebrows at him. He stares at me for a second before crashing his lips into mine. He groans, tightening his grip on the back of my neck, pulling away and peppering wet kisses on my neck. I tilt my head to the side, allowing him better access to my neck.

"A-Ash." I groan arching mt back and my chest presses up against his chest.

"I love you." He whispers, pulling away to look at me. I freeze in shock and my mouth falls open. Disappointment flashes across Ash's face and I snap out of my shock.

"I love you too." I whisper and a wide smile stretches across his handsome face. He looks at me lovingly before leaning down and kissing me soft and tenderly.

"Aww! Isn't that sweet." A cold emotionless voice says, cutting through my happy mood and making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. My body is instantly on high alert and I jump up and stand in front of Ash protectively.

"Does your boyfriend here know about you?" He asks with a menacing sneer. I move so I have Ash completely behind me. I glare at the man and he steadily returns it.

"What's going on here?" Ash asks tightly, breaking me from my stare down.

"Nothing. His family just has a feud with mine." I say, tensing up at the guy's movement in the corner of my eye.

"I guess that's a no." The guy says with an evil grin.

"And he never will." I snap back.

"Why not? He should know exactly what kind of freak, abomination he's dating. What kind of monster you really are." He says pulling a gun and pointing it at me.

"The only monster here is you!" I shout, disgusted and I see rage flash in his eyes before he pulls the trigger.

"Amore Mio!" (My love!) Ash shouts. He launched himself forward and twisting his body around so he was in-between the man and me, we tumbled down in a heap.

It was almost comical.

That is ... until I saw the blood.

Ash's blood. Blood flowed from from his wound. I had never seen so much red. I opened my mouth to scream, to shout for someone, anyone, to save him, help him. Ash's pulse grew weak. His eyes began to flutter closed, but before they did, he parted his bloodstained lips and whispered, "I love you. Forever and Always. No matter what you are."

"I love you too. Always and Forever." I choke out tear running down my face.

My world swirled around me, but I forced the vision to remain at bay. I didn't want to know what the future would bring. Not now. Not when his body was limp against me. Not when his heart wasn't beating. Everything about him that had made him Ash, my best friend, my boyfriend and my protector was gone.

He was dead.

Dead, before I could tell him what I was or that he was everything I ever wanted in a best friend and boyfriend. Dead, before he could experience a life full of laughter and smiles. Dead before he even got married. Had kids. Dead before he could ever hold his kids. Before he could ever tell them he loved them. Or walk them down the aisle.

Dead.

Dead and gone.

And he wasn't ever coming back.

After that I saw red. I gave into my animalistic rage. When I came to, I had torn the hunter to pieces. There wasn't anything left for the police to identify him with but I wasn't going to let the police find him. I dragged Ash out of the abandoned building at set it on fire. I watched it until it was completely gone and the only thing that remained was the hunters bones.

That was the day I lost all my innocence.

That was the day I vowed to change.

I vowed to never let anyone in again.

That was the day I found a new kind of strength.

The weeks after Ash's death, I cried hysterically, and then I went numb-kind of like I was watching myself from the outside. I couldn't feel anything. The world didn't feel real. My parents didn't understand what he meant to me. We really loved each other. We could talk about anything and everything. When he died, the rest of the world kept going and no one knew what I was going through. No one could understand the pain I was feeling. I wanted the world to stop and I wanted to just scream out, "Doesn't anyone realize that I am hurt?"

I kept looking at people and thinking, 'You don't have a care, and look at me, one of my friends just died.'

'Things will never be the same.'

'Will I ever feel okay again?'

Never again, I decided. Never again will I allow someone to hurt the people I love. The I care about most in this world. The people who make my life worth living for.

Strength.

It's one of the first things you learn in Shifter's training. You are taught to not rely solely on your own strength but to use your enemies strengths against them. You are trained everyday for several hours until you are so exhausted you can hardly stand. You are forced to push yourself way beyond your limits. To make you stronger. Faster. To make sure you don't die. To make sure you know how to protect yourself. To stay safe from them. From Hunters. From the real monsters.

Being a Shifter comes with many challenges but by far the most difficult is Strength. From a young age, a shifter has to be taught Discipline and Control or they could get lost in the feeling of Bloodlust. To a Shifter, it's not just changing into different animal forms, it's like having several different animals that have minds and feelings of their own inside of you. We all have a very deep connection with our animal forms. We take on the animals form and in turn, take on the animals thoughts and feelings. If not properly trained, a young shifter could give into those feelings and seriously injure or kill a person.

It's like being an omega but not having a pack. To most wolves, their packs are everything to them. In a pack, a wolf feels its most comfortable. It has love, friendship, and loyalty surrounding it like a blanket or the calming scent of its mother. Now imagine all of that being taken away in the blink of an eye. Imagine just wandering trying to find that feeling again but not being able to. Slow but surely, the wolf will start to go mad. Soon it will become feral. Once that happens there's no saving the wolf. It would have to be put down.

To have perfect control of your animal counterparts is a very difficult task but some how my mother managed to. My mother was born to be the next Alpha of her pack despite her having other siblings. Some of which were older. From a young age, my mother began her alpha training. She was very patient and soon she was easily mastering her training, so much so that her mother had to start advanced training.

From very early on in her life, my mom had a connection with her animals that was never seen before. It was as if instead of animals inside of her it was like they were one and the same. They were as much apart of her and her personality as she was for them. It amazed her mother and father because not even they had as much control over their animals as she did.

Now since both Roxanne and I are twins, it is not yet decide who will be the next alpha. Because of that fact, the power of the alpha is in both of us. It will choose at the age of 16 which of us will become the next alpha. To do this it has to evaluate our actions, reasons and strength. And it will take a whole lot of strength to prove that you are worthy of the power of being an alpha. Once it is decided, it is said when the next alpha gains the alpha power there is pain like you have never experienced before. You have to have a very, very strong strength of will to survive the transformation.

When I lost my best friend/boyfriend Ash, I learned a new kind of strength.

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. - Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength."

From then on I decided that, "Nobody can hurt me without my permission."

(A/N: Some of the things about love that I listed are not my words I got them off a website about love.)