"Trust me, Allison, you don't want to do this," insisted the Alpha wolf.
His voice was measured and laconic, like a parent talking an errant child down from a temper tantrum.
"You have no idea what I want," hissed the female werewolf hunter.
Allison felt the blood pooling down her wrists, where Derek's nails were digging into her skin. The Beast hadn't risen from his chair, since he had awoken. Instead, he simply lifted the brunette teen off the ground, and held her there, her legs twitching frantically beneath her, like a fish caught on a line. The youngest Argent quickly learned that struggling did her no good, as it not only tired her out, but also hastened her blood loss from Derek's claws.
Allison's father had once told her that patience was often the difference between a good hunter, and a dead one. It was a lesson she took to heart. And so, eventually Allison stopped struggling, and waited patiently for her moment to strike . . .
"Except, I do know what you want, Allison," Derek replied calmly, his eyes no longer glowing red, as they bore insistently into Allison's own, as if silently daring her to meet their mesmerizing gaze. "I know what it's like to have the people you love ripped away from you . . . to lose a mother, and an aunt long before their time . . . to have your world shatter around you, so that all that remains is sadness, anger, and rage . . . to be consumed by an overwhelming desire for vengeance. Does any of this sound familiar to you?"
Allison shook her head stubbornly, not wanting to admit just how much she had in common with the monster she saw as her mother's murderer.
"You could kill me, Allison. You might even enjoy doing it . . . seeing my life snuffed out, right before your eyes . . . the life of the man you blame for the death of your mother. But killing me won't bring her back. And it won't cure your sadness, your anger, or your rage. That hole in your heart will still remain. And what will you fill it with, when you can no longer fill it with your hatred of me?"
Derek saw Allison flinch at his words. Her lower lip had begun to quiver, and a single tear drop had formed in the corner of her left eye. A natural caretaker, Derek had the sudden urge to gently wipe that tear from the young hunter's face, with his thumb. Instinctively, he loosened his grip on her wrists, ever so slightly.
"Do you psychoanalyze everyone who tries to kill you?" Allison whispered, her eyes becoming blurry with tears
Derek grinned, in spite of himself, lowering Allison back to the ground. "Only the ones who fail. It's been happening a lot lately, actually."
That was when Allison connected her knee with Derek's groin, forcing him to groan in pain, as the rocking chair, crashed to the floor, with Derek crumbled in a ball on top of it.
"That must be really frustrating for you," remarked Allison icily, as she rolled her body across the floor toward her gun. "But hey, with any luck, after today, you won't have to worry about anyone else failing to kill you!"
The brunette immediately rose to her feet, and pointed her gun in the direction of the rocking chair. So, of course, you could imagine her surprise, when she learned that Derek was no longer there. Frantically, Allison spun around in a circle, careful to keep her gun pointed squarely in front of her at all times. Except, she should have been pointing it up, because that was where Derek came crashing down on top of her from on top of a wooden cabinet five feet above her head.
Allison grunted, as she felt Derek's weight press against her body, and sneered as he pinned both her arms to the floor. They were both breathing heavily now from the exertion. Allison's face flushed uncontrollably, as Derek's hot breath tickled the base of her neck, a spot on her body that Scott had once lovingly labeled her "happy place," given how sensitive it was to any sort of human contact.
In an attempt to release herself from this compromising position, Allison first tried shifting her hips upward, then, wrapping her legs around Derek's firm calves, then, rolling her body from side to side. But each move she tried was met with an even stronger counter move by Derek. To further complicate matters, the increased friction between their bodies, was making it extremely difficult for Allison to focus on the task at hand (though judging by the new "muscle" digging into Allison's inner thigh, Derek wasn't entirely immune to this either).
Eventually, Allison came to the conclusion that she would never overpower Derek, this way. For starters, he outweighed her by at least a good 75 pounds. Plus, wrestling had never exactly been her strong suit.
It was time for a different strategy. And desperate times called for desperate measures, which was why Allison opened her mouth as wide as she could manage, and forcefully dug her teeth into Derek's shoulder blade . . .
Derek yelped, rearing backward, as he instinctively raised his hand to touch his new wound. Allison could taste Derek's blood in her mouth, warm and metallic. It made her feel like a savage . . . like one of them. But at least it got her off the floor, as she raced once again for her gun.
"You bit me, Allison. How's that for irony?" Derek noted, his voice unusually breathless and husky, as he attempted to wrench the gun from Allison's hand.
The youngest Argent then successfully managed to punch the Alpha with her free arm, connecting her fist with his jaw. But Derek's werewolf reflexes and superhuman healing ability enabled him to grab Allison her wrist, before she could pull it backwards from his face. Allison began her retreat then, stepping backwards toward the door, as she continued to battle Derek for the gun.
"You sure are a feisty one, Little Argent. Now, I know why Scott likes you so much," Derek growled, as he pushed Allison up against the wall of his lair.
"Leave Scott out of this," Allison hissed in Derek's ear, the unique musky earthy scent of his skin filling her nostrils, as she spoke.
"I wish I could," Derek said with gritted teeth, staring deeply into Allison's eyes. "But, like it or not, Scott has everything to do with what happened to your mother, and everything to do with why you and I are in this situation right now. He's been lying to you, Allison. He's been lying to both of us."
"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about," exclaimed Allison, fully aware of how petulant and immature she sounded
Allison's eyes filled with tears, once again, as she felt her fingers close over the cold hard metal of the gun trigger.
"Oh yeah? Why don't you ask your beloved Grandpa Gerard, who's been feeding him all his information, all this time? Think about it. How else would he know about my pack, about Jackson being the kanaima, about Matt, about YOU? Scott's been playing us all for fools. And, deep down, you know . . ."
The sound of a gunshot reverberated around the room, then. And Derek and Allison both instinctively fell to their knees. Allison heard the screams of pain, before she realized that she was the one making them.
Derek knelt down over the werewolf hunter, and rolled her pant leg up to her knee, as he examined the wound. Allison's first instinct was to back away from the Alpha. But something about the delicate way he touched her skin, convinced her to stay still.
"You literally shot yourself in the foot," Derek exclaimed, with concern, noting how quickly the blood was seeping from Allison's heel.
Allison winced, and felt the color drain from her face. The sight of the gory wound - combined with the blood loss, along with her exhaustion from fighting with Derek - was making her feel incredibly lightheaded.
"Hey . . . stay with me, OK?" Derek said, slapping Allison gently in the face, to keep her conscious. "I need you to take off your shirt," he instructed.
Allison blinked. Clearly, she had already started hallucinating. "Excuse me?" She uttered incredulously.
Derek rolled his eyes. "Get over yourself, Princess. I'm just going to use the fabric to make a tourniquet."
"Oh," Allison replied, a bit embarrassed, as she unzipped her hoodie and tossed it at Derek. The latter then expertly ripped off one of the hoodie's sleeves with his teeth, and began to tie it around Allison's wounded leg.
That was when the room began to fill with a strange grey mist. "Is something burning?" Allison asked, her eyes darting from left to right, as the fog around them thickened.
Given his keen sense of smell, it only took two whiffs for Derek to figure out exactly what was happening. And it wasn't good . . . at all. "You have to get out of here," Derek warned, as he felt his chest constrict painfully.
"I don't understand. What's going on? What is this stuff? Allison asked, wondering why the smoke seemed to be having a much more powerful affect on Derek, an Alpha, than it was having on her, a mere human.
Then, suddenly, it hit her. Wolfsbane.
"RUN! Safe yourself," Derek managed to wheeze, before his head fell forward into Allison's lap.
"DEREK! DEREK, WAKE UP!" Allison exclaimed, lifting the werewolf's head in her hands
Then, she felt a surprisingly firm hand grabbing her from behind, and shoving a wet rag down her throat. Suddenly, her entire world faded into blackness . . .
