"There is a way, but it's dangerous." Deaton said, his eyes holding Scott's gaze. "Essentially, you Stiles and Allison need to be surrogate sacrifices for your parents." Stiles stood next to the man. Hands in his pockets, silent as the man regaled them with what was necessary. Scott blanched at the word 'sacrifice.'

"We die for them?" he asked incredulously, he glanced at Stiles, waiting for the punchline on what had to be the worst joke ever.

Stiles spoke up this time. "But he can bring us back." He grimaced and looked at Deacon for affirmation. "You can... you can ring us back. Right?"

"You remember the part where I said it was dangerous? If it goes right, the three of you will be dead for a few seconds. But," Deaton paused, eyes flitting between Scott and Stiles, "There's something else you need to think about. This is a dangerous thing for more reasons than one." He leaned against Stiles' jeep almost as if he was bracing himself. "You'll be giving power back to the Nemeton. It's a place that hasn't had power for a long time. This kind of power is like a magnet. It attracts the supernatural. The kind of things that a family like the Argents can fill the pages of a Bestiary with. It will draw them here. Like a beacon.

Stiles made a face.

"Doesn't…sound any worse than anything we've already seen." Deaton fixed him with a reproachful look, and Scott smiled as much as he good given the gravity of the situation.

Deaton said, "You be surprised at what you've yet to see."

His statement lingered in the air. Scott and Stiles both turned pensive at his words. What else could there be? They had seen a pack of Alphas, Peter return to life, Jackson becoming a damn Kanima. Scott finally broke the silence.

"Is that it?" he asked, referring to what Deaton was laying out of him and his friends.

Deaton pursed his lips. "No. It'll also have an effect on the three of you." At the looks given by both teens he continued. "You won't be able to see it, but you'll feel it every day for the rest of your lives. It'll be a kind of a darkness around your heart….and permanent, like a scar."

-The Pride—

It had been weeks since they had performed the ritual. Each of them were struggling, both with how the Nemeton affected them, and with not telling the others about it. Stiles had been having nightmares and waking dreams, but it had taken a turn for the worse the previous night, when a nightmare turned into a night terror, forcing him to wake up screaming. Scott was imagining that he was losing the control of his transformations seeing shadows of his claws, or of his wolf form when he was walking. Allison was suffering from waking dreams of her dead Aunt Kate, only to wake from them to find herself in the middle of something, as if her body was acting of its own accord. It came to a head one day at school Stiles and Scott were at their lockers, having just finished History with their new teacher Mr. Yukimura. Stiles bent over his school locker, not especially paying attention to his actions as he twisted the combination dial on the lock. He had done it so many times it was almost pure muscle memory. Meanwhile Scott, using his supernatural senses, eavesdropped on the conversation his new teacher was having with his daughter Kira, a girl who sat a few rows behind him in the class he had just exited. Stiles jerked the lock down to open it, but found it stuck. He frowned and jerked it down again, harder this time. It didn't open. He continued jerking until he realized looking at the dial that he wasn't looking at the usual combination lock that numbered from one to sixty around the edge. Instead of numbers there were now symbols instead of where twenty might be, there was a triangle. In place if the number fifty-five, there were two vertical bars. Stiles' eyes widened as his mind brought up information he had picked up from his research into sleep related illnesses and dreams. He was turned form his thoughts when he glanced at Scott and nearly jumped out of his skin. Scott's eyes were glowing bright Alpha-Red. "Scott!" He hissed at his best friend who seemingly had not noticed he was making his eyes glow. "Dude, your eyes." Scott looked at him with none eyebrow raised.

"What about them?"

"They're starting to glow."

"Are not."

"Are too!" He grabbed his phone so Scott could see his reflection in the screen. Scott's eyelids fluttered as he made an effort to turn his eye glowing power off. His breathing became panicked and he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from anyone who might be looking his way. "Stiles, I can't control it." Stiles groaned and looked around for one of the convenient empty classrooms their high-school had an overabundance for. Spotting one nary a few feet away across the hall, he looped his arm under Scott's shoulder and guided him in, closing the door and bolting it behind him. Scott shrugged off his backpack as soon as he was inside, tossing it away without looking at it. He almost ripped off his jacket in the haste to get it off of him. His lungs felt like they were on fire as he sucked in greedy gulps of air, he felt as if the temperature in the room had risen by twenty degrees and he had suddenly broke out in sweats. He stumbled through rows of desks, grasping some for stabilization as his lack of control over the wolf inside drove him to a panic. Stiles reached out for him and tried to offer some measure of comfort. "Scott, its ok-" Scott waved him off with a swing of his arm that knocked his hand away.

"Get back away from me!" he warned his friend, stumbling to the next row of desks. At this point he was almost hyperventilating. "I don't know what going to happen. Get back!" he panted out.

All of a sudden the door was knocked in. Stiles wheeled about to face the interloper, moving in front of Scott so his eyes and panicked state might not be immediately noticed. "Dude, that door was locked for a reason." He held out his hands to stop the person that was walking purposefully towards him, a kid who looked around their age. To his surprise, not only did the guy not stop, but before Stiles could even react, the man had a hand under either armpit, and quickly lifted Stiles like a small child over a row of desks and out him on the other side, out of his way. He turned back to Scott who was still leaned over a desk, and had just looked up to see someone stride over to him. He was too stunned to stop the man from taking Scotts clawed hands in his own, balling them up so his claws bit into the palm of his hand, and then forced his hands to tighten into a fist, driving his own claws into his flesh. Scott groaned softly, but the pain cleared his mind and he remembered that pain could be used to make werewolves human again. The man stopped holding his hands, but they remained fists as he tightened them even more, blood dripping freely onto his undershirt and the linoleum floor. His eyes flickered from red to natural brown a few times, before settling to brown and staying there. Stiles had hopped over the desks at this point and shoved the person away, squatting down in front of his friend to see if he was okay. Scott gasped as he unclenched his now human hand and calmed his breathing enough to whisper, "Pain make us human." to Stiles. As one, they looked up at the person who had known what to do.

They didn't recognize him. He wasn't fat, but still on the large side, pushing maybe 230 lbs. He stood at the same height as Scott, and his black hair was pushed back across his head, but seemed almost too thick to stay that way as bits of it fell back down across his forehead and he would absent-mindedly push it back up every once in a while when it did so. His facial hair wasn't nearly as thick as Dereks was, but think enough to let it grow out for a week or two without looking silly. He leaned on one of the desks close to them, one eyebrow raised and a stultified look on his face as if he regularly walked in on werewolves unable to control themselves in empty classrooms. He straightened his light blue shirt, picked some imaginary lint off of his dark wash jeans and turned to leave without another word.

"Dude. What the hell." Stiles regained his senses first. The kid looked back at them with a blank expression on his face before snapping his fingers.

"Woops. That's right. Totally my fault." He suddenly became talkative as he swung his grey messenger bag off his wide shoulders and opened it to rummage around while looking inside for something. "Becca says I forget things at the worst times. It is somewhat of a personal flaw, one of many, mind you." He nattered on while still rummaging through his messenger bag. Finally he made an 'Aha!' noise and pulled out a spiral bound notebook which he promptly flipped open to a blank page. He uncapped a pen with his teeth and clenched the cap between his teeth looking rather goofy as he scribbled something onto the paper. He finished his writing with a tap of the pen and ripped the paper out and folded it in half before offering it to the confused teens. They stared at him, blinking owlishly. He continued to hold it, and wiggling the paper slightly, making to flap lightly in the air. "Come oooon." He drew out the last word, "The paper isn't gonna bite, I promise! Look," he set it down on the desk. "It's an address. My address actually. Just come tonight. Bring your other supernaturally inclined homies and those Argents as well." He laughed at their wide eyed looks "Yeah, I've done my homework on y'all. But anyways, please come tonight, I promise everything will be explained and this isn't just some plot to murder you or anything." At this point he reached the doorway and waved at them. "Bye new friends! See you tonight." And with that he exited the room humming to himself. Stiles and Scott both rushed to the door to stop him and ask a million questions they had, but when they reached the door seconds later and peaked out into the hall to look at the dwindling number of students who hadn't yet reached their class, there was no sight of him. You'd think it be easy to spot a large humming high-schooler, but they could not spot him.

Scott and Stiles turned to each other, yet neither could muster words at what had happened. Stiles knelt down by the door and ran a hand along where it had been bolted shut minutes ago. Scott spoke first. "He must be like us. He has to be. He knew exactly what to do, and how to do it. We need to tell the group about this, right Stiles? Stiles?" His friend was still looking at the door and its frame, trying to remove something with his fingers. After a few seconds of scrabbling, he pulled it out and clenched it in his hand.

He didn't get up immediately, but instead turned his head towards Scott to speak with him. "Scott…whoever this guy is, we need to be careful."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because," He sighed as he straightened his legs and stood back up. "He's strong. Really strong. Remember how the door was locked?" Scott nodded. "I dead bolted it, Scott. These doors are real solid wood, not that balsa crap. They're heavy, man." He opened his hand. In it, was the remains of the deadbolt. It looked as if the steel bolt had been ripped apart when the door was kicked open. "He kicked a 50 pound door so hard that it snapped a steel bolt in half, Scott." His friend's eyes widened. Stiles walked over to wear the folded paper lay, having been forgotten in the excitement, written on it was an address, with 'Free Food!' written in tiny letters by it, and a crude drawing of a stick figure giving the peace sign. "I don't know if this guy is bad news or not, but even if he isn't, he needs to be watched."

Scott picked up his backpack and jacket off of the floor form where he had thrown them earlier. It was going to be an interesting year.

The rest of the school day passed without too much incident. Lydia confronted Allison, Stiles, and Scott about the problems they had been having since becoming sacrifices to the Nemeton, and as a group they sat down to take a look at what was happening. Scott and Stiles relayed what happened earlier in the empty classroom. Lydia was the first to pipe up, flipping her hair over her shoulders as she did so.

"It's like Dr. Deaton said. The Nemeton received power form the three of you, now people are being drawn to it. We had to know that this was going to happen sooner or later." She crossed her arms, thinking. "Scott, if he wanted to hurt you and Stiles, he might've been able to do it. But at the same time, he said he's 'done his homework' so he has to know you're not powerless. And it would be a bad idea to start something like a fight with an Alpha in the middle of a high-school during the day. Too many people. Does anyone recognize the address?" she asked, fingers splaying over the paper the guy had written on. Stiles spoke this time.

"Yeah, it's one of those newer houses on the northern end of Beacon Hill: 'The Glades.'" He said, using air quotations around the name of the neighborhood. "Not the richest part of Beacon, but it's pretty nice there. He's our age, so he must live with his parents right?" Stiles looked at the others. Scott had been silent this whole time cleared his throat.

"We know nothing about this guy, except for two things. One, he's strong. He snapped a deadbolt on that door like it was nothing. You didn't see his eyes glowing or anything werewolf related when he came in the room, did you Stiles?" Upon seeing him shake his head, Scott continued. "Two, he knew exactly what to do, and he did it fast. He had to have seen me start to lose it in the hallway. It's the only explanation. I think we should go to his place tonight, and hear what he has to say. If we get weirded out or Lydia starts doing her Banshee thing, then we get out of there." Everyone nodded in affirmation.

-The Pride-

Later that night, they piled in Stiles' Jeep and drove to the address written on the paper. Scott and Stiles sat in the front, with Allison, Lydia and Isaac. Lydia as usual looked prepared for anything, and Allison wore an outfit that looked nice, but an observing eye could see it was loose in areas that needed space to move, as well as the tell-tale bulge in her clothing that indicated she had a few sharp tools hidden away. They made their way to the house. The neighborhood was nice. All the houses were constructed differently with varying sizes and styles. The Jeep wound through the well-lit streets, making its way past long driveways with nice cars, and quaint man-made ponds with small fountains shooting water up in gentle arcs.

"Hey, I think that's it." Scott said, leaning forward in his seat and pointing at a brightly lit house as they came around a wide bend. It was three stories high including the attic, the stairway leading up to the entrance of the house was stone, and led to a wrap-around front porch adorned with wrought iron railings. Large double-pane Bay windows dotted the outside of the house on all three stories, bits of gold and brown stained glass dotted the windows in no particular placement, and the light shining through them dotted the lawn with splashes of color. They walked up to the door, which was colored bright red, a contrasting shade compared to the white that made up the main color of the house, and light browns that the trim consisted of. Scott looked at the others, not quite sure what he was feeling since he was stepping into the unknown. But he was an Alpha, and he wouldn't be cowed by the action of knocking a door. But all the same, he rang the doorbell instead. The doorbell rang out a two-tone sound. Ding Dong. The door was opened almost immediately. Scott and company blinked at the person who opened the door, and they stared back in kind. It was most assuredly not the guy who Scott and Stiles had run into earlier that day. It was a girl their age, of Arabic ethnicity perhaps, with her long black hair tied in a simple ponytail that reached the middle of her shoulder blades. She had an athletic body that was covered by tight jeans and a shirt that was short enough to show a hint of sinuous stomach muscles ripple beneath her brown skin. "You're the Alpha that Michael hasn't shut up about?' She asked, in a tone that sounded like she did not expect an answer. She folded her arms and leaned against the doorway, not having moved aside to let them enter. She didn't sound or look happy to see them.

A familiar voice floated from inside the house, growing louder as they spoke, and the accompanying footfalls signified someone was getting closer while talking. "Calista! What did I say about being needlessly antagonistic to guests, hmm? I could've sworn it was something along the lines of, 'Calista, be a dear and get the door when they arrive." The voice belonged to none other than the youth who had invited them to the very house they were standing in. He wrapped an arm around Calista's shoulders in a friendly manner, Scott noticed her face softened a bit when he did so, and grinned at the group toothily. He continued, "Yes, yes, I'm quite sure that's what I said and not 'Sass them into leaving.'" He stuck out his tongue in a teasing manner. Calista rolled her eyes as if she were all too used to the man's antics. Michael turned to her and said, "Now, I was wondering if you could take my place finishing dinner preparations with the others while I introduce myself to our new friends." Calista nodded and turned to leave, but not before glancing back Scott and company reproachfully. Michael clapped his hands together. "You'll have to forgive Calista, she's not the biggest fan of new people, but I'm sure she'll warm up a little before tonight is over. Now, allow me to introduce myself." He extended a hand to Scott, which he took almost immediately out of reflex. However once he grabbed the hand, he found he couldn't let go, not that he wasn't able to, but something was telling him to keep holding on. Michaels grip intensified in that instant, and Scott just knew he was dealing with someone born with power, just like him. Michael got an intense look in his eye as his warm smile suddenly fell away, mouth settling in a firm line.

"Hello, Scott McCall. My name is Michael Eccleston." Michael said in a tone that made him suddenly different form the easygoing man he was moments ago. Scott could feel the power rolling off of him, as well as something else… Scott gasped audibly.

"You're not a werewolf."

What could only be described as a predatory glint appeared in Michael's eye now. He leaned in, and although he spoke softly, everyone heard him.

"Much like you are the Alpha of your pack, I am the leader of my own group. And you're right. I'm not a werewolf." And with that statement, his eyes glowed. Lydia both took a step back, Allison thrust a hand under her blouse for the comfort of a weapon, Isaac stepped right behind his Alpha and slightly in front of Allison, his eyes glowing bright yellow, and Stiles was oddly still, taking everything in as it happened. Michael's eyes were glowing with the same fierceness that Scotts eyes did, except instead of the Blood Red of an Alpha were-wolf, they glowed a deep, vibrant, orange. "My name is Michel Eccleston," He repeated, pronouncing every syllable as if an actor on a stage. "I am a Were-Lion, and I am the Rex on my Pride. I am the King of my Jungle, and you shall be my General, Scott McCall."

AN:

Well, boys and girls this is the first I've written in YEARS. Honestly, I'm surprised that I'm even submitting this on fanfiction right now, but this plot bunny just got written so quickly. I've had plenty if ideas for fics over the years, plenty. But they would never flesh out like this one has. Anyways, lemme know what you think. This chapter is short as this was the perfect ending for this right now. Im gonna be averaging at least 10,000 words per chapter, probably more. Please, leave me a review.

Tell me what you specifically LIKED.

Tell me what you specifically DIDN'T LIKE.

If some of my writing feels or sounds wonky to you, let me know! I view writing this as the ultimate practice tool.

And last but not least, if you have any suggestions, let me know. This story will follow the show pretty darn closely, but if theres something you feel that would be PERFECT for this fic, write to me and tell me. Also, I know how many Sterek fans there are on this fandom. If you sort by stories that are most reviewed, almost the entire first page is comepletely dominated by Sterek pairings. The characters in this show will be dating/fornicating/cuddling with the people they are set up with in the show. I plan to keep everyone's sexuality the same as it is one the show. Im going to do my best to keep this OC as far away from being a Mary-Sue as possible, but if you ever feel like im getting too close to that line, please tell me. Guys, I thrive on feedback and interaction. But I'll sign off now

NEXT TIME ON THE PRIDE: dinner is served, explanations are had, and the story is set as the adventure begins in earnest.