Chapter One

Stiles cradled his right arm close to his chest, teeth gritted against the sickening pain as each step he took jarred his shoulder. He had to pause outside Derek's warehouse, leaning his forehead against the cool metal of the doors and taking several deep breaths as he fought against a wave of nausea. His mouth was already sour with the taste of vomit and he refused to let himself puke again. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Fuckers.

Swallowing hard, he scrubbed at his face with his left hand. He could feel dried blood flaking against his skin and the flesh around his left eye was swollen and tender. His throat was tight and hot and he knew he was close to tears. Stiles clenched his jaw and pulled open the heavy door to step inside the cavernous space.

He moved as quickly as he could across the floor and towards the elevator. He was late.

"Stiles!" Scott's voice rang out as he bolted down the stairs. Stiles turned, flinching as he saw Scott's eyes go wide and horrified. "We smelled blood, I—" Scott broke off and hurried towards his best friend. "What happened?"

Stiles felt his throat close up and his eyes filled, tears falling before he could blink them away. Scott reached out and pulled Stiles towards him, careful of Stiles's obviously injured shoulder. Stiles pressed himself close to Scott's solid warmth and took a shuddering breath, reining himself back in. He wasn't going to break down, not with the entire pack upstairs.

Reluctantly he pulled away from Scott, swiping at the tears on his cheeks with his left hand. "Sorry."

"What happened?" Scott repeated, eyes roaming over Stiles's bruised face. "You look like someone—"

"Kicked the shit out of me? Yeah." Stiles couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Look, let's just go upstairs. That way everyone can hear this all at once." He avoided Scott's helping hand as they made their way to the elevator. "Are the rest of you already here?"

"Yeah," Scott's frown of worry was still firmly in place. "We were just waiting for you." He hit the button for Derek's floor and turned back to Stiles. "Let me look at your shoulder—"

"Leave it." Stiles jerked away from the touch, regretting the movement instantly as pain lanced bright and vicious, sending spots dancing in front of his eyes.

"Stiles." Scott's lips thinned and he no longer sounded like Stiles's concerned best friend, but like Scott-the-Alpha.

"It's fine."

"No, it's not."

"Come on, Scott." Stiles could feel his lips twist with irony as the familiar words rose unbidden, an echo from the past. "It's not even that bad." They tasted metallic on his tongue, like blood.

"Stiles."

The doors to the elevator opened before either of them could continue. Stiles shot Scott a look of warning and Scott stepped back, arms raised to let Stiles walk unassisted into the first floor of Derek's loft.

Isaac was waiting by the entrance, but after a quick glance at Scott he backed off, letting Stiles move past him and into the room. Jackson sat on the loveseat, not bothering to look up from whatever game he was playing on his phone. Peter wasn't looking at Stiles from his seat in the armchair, but was watching Derek through heavy-lidded eyes.

Derek was standing with his back to the loft's large wall of windows, his arms crossed over his chest and a thunderous look on his face. Stiles met his gaze, eyes carefully blank, and spoke.

"I have a message."

Derek raised an eyebrow and waited.

Stiles looked away, unable to maintain eye contact as his cheeks flushed hotly with shame. He felt weak and useless and human. Self-loathing rose in his throat like bile and he swallowed it back before speaking, voice empty and colourless. "Marcus wants you to know this is only the beginning."

Voices erupted. Everyone was talking at once, except for Derek, who moved forward to cup Stiles's chin in his hand, forcing Stiles to look up at him.

"Marcus," Derek repeated, deliberately, "Who the hell is Marcus?"

Stiles tried to pull away but the pain rolled, low and nauseating, through his stomach, making his knees buckle and his face pale as sweat beaded on his upper lip. It was only Derek's grip on him that kept him upright.

Scott was at his side in an instant, eyes flaring red as he elbowed Derek back and led Stiles, his lips pressed tight to hide a whimper, over to the couch where he eased him down to the cushions. Derek's eyes took on a deep reddish hue to match Scott's as he followed.

"Did Marcus," Derek forced the name around gritted teeth. "Do this?"

"Let me look at his arm," Scott's words were barely audible around a growl. "He's about to fucking pass out, Derek. Your questions can wait."

"No," Derek said firmly. "They can't." He met Scott's challenging stare and for a moment the tension in the room was enough to make even Jackson shut up.

"Derek is right," Peter spoke up from his armchair, leaning forward on his elbows. "Before anything else, we need to know the extent of this threat."

"Stiles's arm—"

"Can wait five more minutes." The cold fury in Derek's stare brooked no argument.

Stiles could feel Scott's fingers where they rested against his skin sharpen and he spoke before Scott could do anything stupid—or stupider, rather. "Let me tell him, Scott."

Scott swore crudely under his breath and stepped back, hands curling into angry fists at his sides. "Fine. Do what you want."

Stiles ignored him and turned his attention back to Derek. Derek's gaze was still hard and furious. After a brief second, Stiles dropped his eyes, staring at the coffee table as he spoke. "I was walking over after dropping the jeep off." His father had insisted on a tune-up before Stiles started college at the beginning of the next week. "And this couple stopped me. I thought they just needed directions or something, but then—" Well, then a fist had slammed brutally into the side of his face and before Stiles could even register the pain blossoming around his eye or the concrete rushing up to meet him, he'd had the air plowed out of him as the guy's foot drove into his stomach. "They jumped me. Werewolves."

Gulping desperately for air, Stiles had curled into a ball, thinking only about protecting himself from another kick, but he'd been hauled up and punched again, and then again. The woman had grabbed his wrist in a hand that had gone wicked with claws and yanked him up to his knees, twisting until Stiles had cried out and stopped struggling. The pain had been excruciating and Stiles could feel himself start to sway, spiraling into unconsciousness. Just before he would have passed out the man had said the woman's name—Stiles hadn't been able to catch it, hadn't been able to hear anything but the pounding of his pulse in his ears—and her grip had loosened slightly.

"They said they had a message for my Alpha." He'd been so dazed, helpless and bewildered, like a dumb animal caught in a trap, unable to understand why it was hurting. The man's words had filtered slowly through a haze of agony, Stiles too disoriented by the suddenness of the attack and the intensity of the pain for his brain to work at its usual speed. "I don't think they knew about Scott, too. They just said that I had to tell my Alpha." They'd told Stiles what to say, and when Stiles had refused to repeat it and spat a mouthful of blood and saliva onto the guy's shoes he had nodded to the woman behind him. Stiles had felt the moment his shoulder was pulled out of its socket. That was when he'd thrown up.

"That's it? That was the message? Just 'Marcus wants you to know this is only the beginning'?" Peter asked.

"That's it." Stiles said bitterly. He'd had to repeat it back to the guy five times, his throat raw from vomit and his whole body trembling from the pain in his shoulder. Once the man had been satisfied he'd given the woman another nod and she'd released Stiles, shoving him to the ground where he'd lay, panting, as they walked away.

"Can I look at his shoulder now?" Scott asked the room at large. His eyes had gone back to their normal human colour, but they were still dark with anger. When no one said anything, he shouldered past Derek and without preamble ripped open Stiles's t-shirt at the neck, baring the swollen and discoloured skin. "It's dislocated. I'll have to pop it back in."

"Do you know what you're doing?" It was the first time since they'd heard Stiles approaching that Derek had expressed any sort of concern for his well-being, and Stiles's stomach clenched.

"Yeah, I mean, I've seen my mom do it before, and if we wait any longer it's only going to be worse." Scott's mouth was a grim line. Stiles's shoulder was already swollen enough that it would be agonizing. "Jackson, get off your phone and come give me a hand."

"I can't believe I came back from London for this," Jackson muttered under his breath, but he got up and moved over to Stiles.

"Hold him still."

Stiles chanced a look up at Derek as Jackson's hands clamped down on him, one on his thigh and one on his uninjured shoulder, but Derek had turned his back and was talking to Peter in a low voice. Stiles tried not to care, focusing back on Scott who was speaking to him.

"Okay, I'm going to pop it back in on 'three'. It's going to hurt, so try not to bite through your tongue or anything."

Stiles swallowed and nodded his head.

Scott placed one hand on the front of Stiles's injured shoulder and the other against his back. Stiles took a deep breath as Scott started to count.

"One." And he wrenched Stiles's shoulder back into place.

"FUCK!" Stiles hollered and nearly slid off the couch. But now that his shoulder was back where it belonged it didn't hurt half as much as it had previously. "I thought you were counting to three!" He rounded on Scott. "That wasn't three!"

"Sorry," Scott shrugged. "I didn't want you to tense up. That would have made it worse."

Still scowling, Stiles gingerly rotated his shoulder. It was going to be sore for days, he was pretty sure of that, but at least he could move it without feeling like he was going to puke. "Thanks," he said grudgingly.

"Don't," Scott responded darkly, shooting a look at Derek. "It's our fault someone hurt you in the first place."

Derek's back tensed and he turned to face them. He ignored Scott's comment. "So you never saw this 'Marcus'?"

"No," Stiles returned shortly, finally managing to meet Derek's steely gaze. He knew he sounded pissed, and that would be because he was. Derek had been distant for weeks now and Stiles couldn't figure out what had changed between them. At first he'd thought it was because he was getting ready to leave for college—but it wasn't like he was going out of state or anything. He, Scott, Isaac, and Jackson were all going to the community college a town over. It was barely an hour away from Beacon Hills. It wasn't like he was never going to see Derek again. It wasn't like Stiles going to college meant they had to break up.

Or, whatever.

"Is there anything helpful you can tell us?" The derision in Derek's voice set Stiles's teeth on edge.

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to play twenty-questions with the assholes who—"

"Stop it." Isaac steeled himself when two sets of furious eyes turned to him. "Do you really want to fight about this, or do you want to try and figure out who did this to you?" He directed the last part to Stiles.

Stiles blew out an angry breath. Normally Stiles appreciated Isaac's calm demeanor, but tonight it was getting under his skin. He didn't want to be reasonable and collected. He wanted to yell and shout and shove at Derek until he broke through the layer of ice the Alpha had built between them.

But Isaac was right. There were more important things at stake than the state of Stiles's relationship. "I know they were both wolves. The guy's eyes went blue," just before he gave the woman the go ahead to pull Stiles's arm out of its socket, "And she grew claws. Wolf claws," he added before Jackson could ask, "Not Kanima claws."

"Are you sure?" Derek asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," Stiles snapped. He knew the difference.

"But neither of them was Marcus?" Peter interjected, eyes wary on Derek's stormy face.

"No." Stiles's shoulder had begun to ache, throbbing with each beat of his pulse, and all he wanted was a handful of painkillers or a stiff drink. Possibly both. More than either of those things though, he wanted Derek to look at him. Not through him or around him, but at him. "He wasn't an Alpha, and she, well… 'Marcus' is hardly a female name."

"Great, Stiles. Very useful information."

Derek hadn't dropped his sarcastic tone, and Stiles had to bite back several vicious remarks that were on the tip of his tongue. He did not want to get into it with Derek in front of the entire pack, but Derek was making it nearly impossible for Stiles to keep his mouth shut.

Scott stepped in—literally—between the two of them. "Shut it, Derek," he said quietly. "We know a lot more than we knew a couple hours ago. If it weren't for Stiles—"

Getting the shit kicked out of me, Stiles thought darkly, resisting the urge to prod at his probably black eye as it too began to throb with his pulse.

"—we wouldn't even know there was another pack in town."

"Really?" Derek raised an eyebrow. "Because it looks like they just targeted the weakest member of our pack. I hardly think Stiles did anything special."

Stiles's mouth fell open, shock and hurt rendering him speechless.

Scott rounded on Derek. "If you're not going to do anything but bitch you can leave. Now." His eyes flashed dangerously.

Derek's hands flexed into claws at his side. "We're in my house, if anyone leaves it's not going to be me."

"Enough!" Now it was Peter who stood up and strode between the two Alphas, shoving them back. "If all we're going to do is fight amongst ourselves, we've done the work for our enemy."

Neither Derek nor Scott moved, still glaring at each other with undisguised animosity.

"We know several things—thanks to Stiles," Peter continued. "We know that there's another pack in town, we know that they are at least three members strong, and we know that they are prepared to fight dirty. It seems like this Marcus has his eye on this territory and doesn't intend to challenge Derek for it in any official capacity. Yes, Derek," he added when Scott looked about to object. "We've kept your nature as a 'true Alpha' a secret from everyone outside the pack because others would see it as a sign of vulnerability."

"Why?" Isaac spoke without thinking, but gamely continued when everyone turned to look at him. "Two is better than one, right?"

"No." Derek's voice was hard. "It's not. Because this happens," he gestured between himself and Scott. "It divides a pack. Everything is a power struggle when there's no defined leader."

"Wonderful." Jackson rolled his eyes and leaned back against the couch, folding his arms over his chest. "It's nice to know there's a reason for how dysfunctional we are."

"Shut up, Jackson," both Derek and Scott growled at once.

"We need to be on the same page about this." Peter focused back on the two Alphas. "We've had a quiet year since the guy with the GHB—"

"Ray," Stiles muttered, his collarbone itching where he had four parallel lines of scar tissue, courtesy of a drugged Isaac trying to tear his throat out a year before. As though he could hear the direction of Stiles's thoughts, Isaac sent Stiles an apologetic grimace from the loveseat where he'd taken Jackson's earlier seat.

"—and we've let ourselves get lazy. We can't afford that anymore."

"What do we do?" Jackson asked. "Hunt this guy down?"

"Ideally, yes, but it's not as simple as that." Peter settled back in his chair, comfortable and relaxed now that they were all looking to him for answers. Stiles tried not to let his irritation show on his face.

"Why not?" Jackson persisted. "We can track them. Stiles reeks."

"I what?"

"You reek." Jackson looked over, his nose wrinkled in distain.

"We can smell them on you," Isaac explained with a reproachful look at Jackson. "The two of them."

Stiles couldn't suppress a slight shudder at that, his skin crawling. He had the sudden, desperate urge for a shower and suspected he wouldn't feel clean until he'd got one. "Ugh."

"So we follow them back to whatever hole they crawled out of." Scott looked between Peter and Derek. "How is that not simple?"

"We don't know how many of them there are. We don't know if they expect us to do exactly that and therefore have set up a trap. We don't know anything about 'Marcus' or what kind of power he has at his disposal." Peter was ticking his points off with his fingers and Stiles got the distinct impression that he was enjoying himself a little too much.

"Then 'google' him," Jackson rolled his eyes. "Isn't that the whole point of your dumb website?"

"Yes, and I'll look into it, but that will take some time. There are thousands of us in the States." Peter shrugged, apparently unconcerned. "Right now, there's nothing we can do."

"Nothing we can do?" Scott flared up again. "We can't just let them beat up Stiles and do nothing."

"Yes, we can." Derek's voice was flat. "Stiles was a message. One they expect us to react to. And so, we do nothing."

"That's bullshit."

"That's strategy." Derek crossed his arms over his chest. "You're letting your emotions dictate your actions. You can't afford to do that as an Alpha."

This was a problem Derek clearly didn't have. Stiles tried not to let that fact sting, but found himself unable to meet anyone's eyes. He stared fixedly at the coffee table in front of him. That sick feeling of shame was back, oily and cold in his chest. This was the second time someone had used him as a punching bag to send a message. This was second time he'd been helpless and humiliated and sent back to someone else wearing bruises like Braille on his skin.

"The four of you are leaving at the end of the week. Terrace Bay is still a part of our territory, but Beacon Hills is the centre. Since they don't know about Scott, their focus should remain here, on me. Peter and I will find out what we can about them and then we will make a decision about what's to be done."

Scott glared but apparently couldn't find fault in Derek's plan. Such as it was.

"Don't you think they'll come after you?" Isaac looked at Derek, frowning. "It's not like they can't track you back here. What's to stop them from breaking in and…" he left his sentence unfinished, concern furrowing his brow.

"Derek and I know how to take care of ourselves. It will be easier, honestly, without the four of you around." Peter glanced, perhaps unconsciously, at Stiles. "We won't be distracted worrying about anyone else's safety."

Stiles refused to look up but he could feel his cheeks heat. His shoulder was beginning to stiffen up and, every time he moved, his ribs screamed in protest. Now that the anger and adrenaline had faded, he just felt exhausted. He could feel his earlier tears threaten to resurface, and Stiles didn't think he had the energy to fight them again.

Turning his face away from the pack he stood up, wincing. "I'm going to take a shower." They could continue discussing strategy without him. For once, he found he didn't care.

"Do you want—"

"No." Stiles didn't bother to look at Scott, just limped over to the stairs. After a pause, he could hear their conversation resume, and he tuned it out, concentrating on griping the iron handrail and getting up one step at a time until he reached the door to Derek's loft.

His head was beginning to pound. When he finally closed the door behind himself, he leaned against it for a minute, closing his eyes and trying to force the tension out of his muscles. He should be used to the frailty of his human body by now. Over the last year, he'd spent more time at the gym, built up more muscle and stamina, but none of that mattered against opponents that could literally tear him limb from limb without breaking a sweat.

And it wasn't exactly like any of that was a surprise to him, so why was he standing here full of self-pity? With a groan, Stiles pushed himself off the door and headed into the bedroom. He'd take a handful of Advil, have a long, hot shower, and pull himself together.

Half an hour later, Stiles stepped out of the bathroom in a billow of steam and padded naked through Derek's room to the dresser. He opened the top drawer and, despite the dull pain from his various injuries, he couldn't help a smile. As usual, the haphazard mess of clothes he'd stuffed in there the last time he'd stayed the night had reappeared freshly washed and neatly folded. Stiles grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms and pulled them on, shaking his head in bemusement. Was there anyone else in the world who folded pajamas? He debated a shirt but figured it'd be too much of a hassle to try and get on with his shoulder so stiff. Besides, it was warm enough in the loft that he didn't really need one.

Barefoot, he wandered out of the bedroom to find Derek sitting on the couch, a large glass of wine in his hand and a brooding look on his face. Stiles suppressed a sigh, and Derek looked up. His lips thinned as he took in the colourful bruises over Stiles's ribs and face, and the swelling of his shoulder.

"Stiles—"

"Don't," Stiles said wearily. "I don't want to fight, okay?"

Derek met Stiles's gaze and his expression softened. "Okay."

Stiles crossed the room and crawled onto the couch, sliding under Derek's arm. He could hear Derek's heartbeat, strong and steady against his ear where his head lay on Derek's chest. Derek was warm and solid through the thin fabric of his shirt and Stiles slid his arm over Derek's stomach, pressing himself in closer. After a moment, Derek's arm came down, gentle on Stiles's shoulder, and held him.

"I'm sorry," Stiles murmured, voice muffled and barely audible. He wasn't even sure what he was sorry for—except that he couldn't bear the tension between them anymore.

"Don't be," Derek said, thumb stroking lightly over the bare skin of Stiles's arm.

For the first time in days, Stiles felt the knot of anxiety he'd been carrying around in his chest ease. He knew he and Derek had been at odds lately, butting heads over stupid, trivial things. Derek had been busy and preoccupied whenever Stiles had dropped by, and despite the fact that Stiles still stayed over once a week or so, he couldn't remember the last time they'd sat like this—just, well, cuddling. They'd had sex, sure, and that had been even hotter than normal—not that they didn't always have hot sex, because boy, did they ever, but lately it had been extra intense. Stiles definitely wasn't complaining about that, but there had been an edge of something sharp to it… something desperate, maybe? Like Derek had been trying to lose himself in Stiles.

That was probably a stupid thought, and Stiles was probably an idiot for overanalyzing their incredible sex life. Only, Derek had hardly touched him at all this week. Until now.

This was good though. This was right. Derek's chest moved evenly with his breathing and Stiles could feel his own breathing slow to match Derek's, his eyelids growing heavy under the soothing and familiar rhythm. Stiles hadn't realized how much he missed their quiet moments together, watching a movie or reading, or just sitting on the couch enjoying one of Derek's ridiculously expensive bottles of wine. He knew things had been off between them, but maybe it really was just that Stiles was leaving for college. He thought that Derek was confident enough in their relationship to know nothing would change—Stiles was sure of that—but maybe he'd been taking Derek's confidence for granted. It was possible, just possible, that under the big, gruff, Alpha-wolf exterior Derek was the teensiest bit insecure. Actually, that made a whole lot of sense now that Stiles was thinking about it.

That was another thing he had Kate to thank for, he was sure. He pushed back the instant and violent loathing that rose whenever he thought of her. She was dead, after all, and there was nothing Stiles could do about it either way.

"College isn't going to change anything, you know that, right?" He pushed himself up a bit, twisting to see Derek's face. "I won't be that far away. We'll still be… us."

Derek smiled, arm tightening briefly around Stiles before he pulled away and stood up, extending his hand. "Come on, let's get you to bed."

It didn't escape Stiles's notice that Derek had sidestepped the issue, but he placed his hand in Derek's and let the werewolf help him up. Stiles was exhausted and he could use the sleep. Besides, there'd be plenty of time tomorrow to talk. Any kind of discussion of feelings and emotions with Derek was like pulling teeth—possibly worse. It would be easier tomorrow when he had his energy back.

Yawning, he linked his fingers with Derek's and followed him into the bedroom.