Author's notes- first time writing a Teen Wolf fanfic. Tell me how ya like it :)

Chapter One

Just a Myth

My ears pricked as I heard the front door open. The stumbling footsteps of my brother Scott followed soon afterwards. Opening my eyes I sat up from my sleeping position on the couch and peeked my head over. Scott was fumbling through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, all the while cursing and breathing heavily.

"Rough night?" I whispered to him, loud enough that he could hear me but quiet enough that I wouldn't wake our mother. Though I was surprised that Scott's clumsy movements hadn't caused her to come running downstairs.

My brother jumped at the sound of my voice causing him to drop the bottle of ibprophen and bandages onto the floor. "Jesus Christ Natalie! What are you doing down here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," I replied getting up from the couch. "You're so lucky that Mom was exhausted from work when I had to cover for your ass." That's when I noticed that Scott was gripping his side as he came into the living room. He was soaking wet from the torrential downpour that had started outside about ten minutes ago.

"Scottie, are you ok?"

With a grimace, he lifted the edge of his red sweatshirt. I swallowed down a gasp when I saw a bleeding, half-moon bite mark on his torso. Even in the poorly lit living room I could see every little teeth mark.

Grabbing the bandages and some disinfectant I made Scott sit down on the couch before trying to clean his wound. "Scott, what the hell happened!"

"Stiles and I... we were in the woods... this thing came out of nowhere and bit me," he explained hissing slightly in pain from the disinfectant.

"Why were you and Stiles in the woods, and at Midnight no less!" I scolded him. Like I mentioned, Scott was my younger brother by two years, him being sixteen and I was eighteen. His parents adopted me when I was a baby. Two years later Mom got pregnant and had him. Though biologically we're not related, I still worry about him like a big sister should, even if it does piss him off.

Anyway, Scott looked off to the side and toward the wall in an attempt to evade my question.

"Scott. Why were you in the woods?"

"We were uh, kind of looking... for a dead body..."

I gritted my teeth as I finished applying the gauze. "I'm not going to ask. Just take your pills and get your ass up to bed before Mom wakes up and sees you like this."

A few minutes later I flopped down on my bed running my hands over my face. Tomorrow was the first day of school after Winter break, and Scott was showing up with a chunk bitten out of him. But, what scared me the most was that I had seen that bite before, and I knew what it meant. As these thoughts raced through my mind, I happened to glance over at the full length mirror that was on the back of my door. My heart nearly stopped when I saw that my eyes were glowing purple. I squeezed me eyes shut and shook my head. "Get a hold of yourself! Werewolves are not real! They're just a myth!" Finally, I opened my eyes. Light brown hair and dark blue eyes. Breathing a sigh of relief, I got ready for bed making a mental note to myself that I would give Stiles a talking to tomorrow.

The next morning I stayed true to my promise. I went right up to Stiles' Jeep as soon as he pulled into the student parking and practically dragged him out by his ear.

"Ow, ow ow, watch the ear, I actually need that," he grimaced.

I let go of him and put my hands on my hips while shooting him one of my famous death glares.

"Ok, I know you're mad..."

"Oh no, I'm not mad at all. I'm just so goddamn thrilled that my brother came home last night with a huge animal bite taken out of his torso!" I growled through clenched teeth.

"I have an excuse for taking him out there," Stiles began to explain, but seeing the look in my eyes must have made him too scared to continue.

"I told you before, keep Scott out of your little night adventures. Do you remember what happened last time?"

"Of course I do! He was the one who was bitching that nothing interesting happens in this town!" he exclaimed. Before I could come up with a retort, Scott walked up. But Stiles could tell by the look I gave him that he wasn't off Scott-free yet.

"Okay, let's see this thing," Stiles said nodding to my brother's torso. We both grimaced as Scott lifted his shirt showing the huge new bandage and the blood already soaking through the fresh material.

"It was too dark to see, but I'm pretty sure that it was a wolf," Scott said as the three of us started heading toward the front doors of Beacon Hills High School.

"A wolf? No, that's impossible," Stiles replied with a laugh.

"Well, I heard a wolf howling."

"No you didn't."

"What do you mean I didn't?"

I rolled my eyes hoping to mask my knowledge. "Because there are no wolves in California, Scott. Name one other time that you've seen a wolf during your entire life living here," when he couldn't come up with an answer I smiled.

"Well, if you both won't believe me about the wolf, you also won't believe that I found the dead body." Scott commented nonchalantly.

Stiles and I stopped dead in our tracks and both exclaimed, "WHAT! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!"

"I wish, but no. I'm going to be having freaking nightmares for a month."

"Dude, that is awesome!" Stiles exclaimed looking as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. His gaze then happened to go over Scott's shoulder. I followed it and scowled as I saw Lydia Martin strutting up the campus with her little friends. I used to be friends with her, but then I found out that she was a self-centered bitch who only cared about banging hot guys and how good her makeup looked every five seconds. Unfortunately, Stiles didn't share my opinion.

"~Hey Lydia! You look... like you're going to ignore me," his tone lost complete enthusiasm as she completely walked by him like he wasn't even there.

"Explain to me again why you have a crush on her?" I asked as the warning bell rang for homeroom.

"She's absolutely-freaking gorgeous!" he replied, as if that explained everything. As we headed inside, Stiles turned to Scott. "You know I blame you for this!"

"Uh huh," Scott replied shooting a smirk to me.

"Yeah, bringing me down to your nerd dephs."

"Mhm."

To my chagrin, Scott asked me to stay after school and watch him tryout for the lacrosse team. I would have said no, since I'm not exactly into sports and find watching them boring as well, but Scott always came and supported me in whatever I was doing, so I decided to be a good sport. I sat down on the freezing cold bleachers watching the team running laps. Whoever thought that having a Spring sport in the Winter needed to be slapped upside the head.

"Is this seat taken?"

I looked up to see a girl who I hadn't seen before. She was tall with long, wavy black hair and light brown eyes. Tailing along behind her came Lydia who had just finished exchanging tounges with her boyfriend Jackson before coming over.

"Ah, no go ahead," I said gesturing to the seat. She gave me a small smile before sitting down next to me and, much to my annoyance, Lydia plopping herself on my other side.

I then noticed that Coach had tossed a helmet and the goalie stick to Scott. I held in my groan. Scott had never played lacrosse and Coach knew this. Was he setting him up to get killed?

"Who is that playing goalie?" the dark haired girl asked.

"I don't really know," Lydia replied like the dingbat she was. I had only stopped being her friend last year and already she had forgotten what my brother looked like.

"That's my brother, Scott," I answered.

"Oh, he's in my English class," the girl commented. I noticed that she was trying to make some conversation so I turned to her with a smile.

"I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Natalie McCaul."

The girl smiled seeming a little relieved. "Hi, I'm Allison Argent."

"Are you new here? I don't think I've ever seen you before."

"My parents and I just moved here from San Francisco. Guess they wanted to see what it's like living outside of the city."

We both snapped out of our conversation when the first lacrosse ball hit Scott square in the center of his helmet and knocking him to the ground.

"Wow, he's even a loser on the field as much off," Lydia commented with a little smirk.

I could feel a growl build up in my throat but I forced myself to stay calm. "That's my little brother, you know. Could you at least pretend that you have a nice bone in your body and not talk shit about him when I'm here?"

"Hm... no."

Our banter was interrupted yet again when cheering was hear from the bench and the other players. I looked up to see that Scott was catching every ball that was being thrown at him. And he was doing this with remarkable agility and fast reflexes.

"He seems like he's pretty good," Allison said with a smile in my brother's direction.

That's when Jackson stepped up to the plate. I wasn't even on the field and I could see the pissed off look on his face.

"Oh shit." my good hearing picked up on Scott's groan. Jackson surged toward the goalie net at what seemed like break neck speed and fired a fast ball from his stick. Scott sprung to the side and just managed to snatch it.

The other players, including Stiles, went wild with cheers. Both Lydia and I jumped up at the same time and started cheering loudly. When Jackson shot us a look Lydia simply shot him back a smug little smile and kept cheering.

Scott's feet splashed into a murky puddle as he and I trekked through the woods later that afternoon. He had dropped his inhaler the night he and Stiles went to go look for the body, and he had to find it before Mom found out, or worse, had an asthma attack.

"So, what was up with you today?" I asked him as we climbed over roots and trudged through frozen leaves. "You've never been that good at lacrosse until now."

"I honestly don't know what it was," he replied. "It was like... I had all the time in the world to catch the ball. And... that's not the only weird thing. I hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear, smell things."

I tried my best to keep a straight face, but inside my heart began to beat a little faster. "Smell things. Like what?"

"Like... that pack of snowdrops you have in your pocket."

"Scott, I don't have any-" I began to say, but I trailed off as I pulled out a small box of chocolate snowdrop candy out of my jacket pocket. Don't remember having those in there.

"So, all this started with the bite," I continued, going back to the subject at hand.

"But, what if it's some sort of infection? Like my body's flooding with adrenaline before going into shock, you know?"

"I actually think I know this infection."

"You do? What is it?" Scott asked his eyes full of inquiry.

"I think it's called... lycanthropy."

"Is it bad?"

"Yup. But only once a month. The night of the full moon," and then with a joking tone I added a little wolf howl.

Scoffing, Scott pushed me with a smile, obviously not buying it. I mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

After walking a little more, Scott stopped and stared down at the leaves in confusion.

"No... I swear this is the place where I dropped my inhaler."

"Well, maybe some leaves blew over it. Get down and see if you can find it," I told him.

He got down on his hands and knees and started sifting through the leaves. I suddenly straightened up as I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Someone was watching us. I looked over to my right and nearly had a hear attack. Standing ten feet away from us was a man dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans. I quickly nudged Scott and told him to get up. He looked behind him confused, but then jumped to his feet.

"What are you doing here?" the stranger asked as he started walking toward us. When neither of us answered he continued, "This is private property."

I opened my mouth to explain, but stopped as my eyes started to look him over. He was a pretty tall guy who, as I could tell through his jacket, looked pretty ripped. He was wearing a leather jacket with a black shirt underneath, black jeans, and gray sneakers. His hair was jet black and looked like he had some stubble, like he had just shaved a few days ago. But what really drew me in was the color of his eyes. They were the lightest shade of green I had ever seen. He looked really familiar, but I didn't know why.

I suddenly noticed I was staring and snapped out of my trance. "I-I'm sorry, we didn't know we were on your property."

"Yeah we were just looking for something but..." Scott trailed off as the guy glared at him waiting for him to continue, "but, never mind."

The guy then took something out of his pocket and tossed it at Scott who caught it. It was his inhaler. We both looked up at the stranger with confused faces, but he had already turned his back and was walking away.

"Come on, I have to get to work," Scott mumbled as he started walking back from where we came. I then remembered who that guy was and grabbed Scott's arm.

"Dude, that was Derek Hale!"

"Who?"

"You remember, right? He's only like a few years older then me."

"Wait, remember what?" Scott asked a genuine look of confusion on his face.

"You don't remember? His entire family? They all burned to death in a fire a few years ago." I now remembered it so vividly. Scott and I had been watching TV in the living room when the live video of the Hale house burning had come onto the news. Mom had turned the TV off so the image wouldn't scare us, but not before I heard the reporter say that six members of the Hale family were dead.

"I wonder what he's doing back," Scott replied.

I only offered a shrug before walking back up the trail. "C'mon, let's get you to work."

I hope you guys liked this chapter! If any of you readers know any info on adoption can you please let me know? The only thing I really know is that you have to be eighteen to find out what happened to your parents, or if they gave you up for adoption. Hope you like this story and I'll see you in the next chapter!