Too High a Priceby Dreaming of a Bright Sky
Second in the Magic's Call series
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or any of its characters!
Chapter 4 of 10
Allison argent stood at their door. Did the woman have no sense of self-preservation? At least she didn't have any visible weaponry.
They'd only been home a couple of days, and the alpha wasn't healing as fast as normal. Eight days of torture, no food, and mountain ash had hurt the alpha. Even Isaac wasn't quite back up to speed. Stiles and his wholly human healing was doing better than the two wolves were.
Derek wasn't talking much. The most Stiles could get was monosyllabic answers. Everybody else got glares and silence. It was making the entire pack tense to have Derek shutting them out. It felt like high school all over again.
"Allison. Not a good time."
She faced Stiles. "I'm here to see Derek."
"Seriously, you need to go. Come back in a few weeks or something." He tried closing the door and she jammed her foot in in. He grated, "Do you have a freaking death wish? Hunters are not his favorite people right now."
"Stiles, I need to talk to Derek. Immediately." She shouldered the door open, pushing Stiles back roughly. Still lacking in the balance department he stumbled back, caught his heel on the rug, and fell. He knew that Derek had heard the whole exchange; anger simmering through the bond. Now it stoked to a burning hot rage and Stiles scrambled up to prevent Derek from killing the woman.
The alpha roared and Stiles could hear him coming. He literally shoved Allison out the door. "You need to go right now! Do not come back until Scott says you can. If then. In fact, stay as far away as possible!" He slammed the door in her face and turned just in time to face Derek. His mate was enraged, and right now, his fragile human self was the only thing standing between an angry alpha and a hunter whose family could still call down destruction on the pack. The Argent name alone could call hunters to their side if they declared war. "Derek, calm down. She's leaving."
Derek roared right in his face. Outside, he could hear Allison pounding on the door. Holy God, the woman was trying to get them killed!
"Oh my freaking God! Allison, you need to leave or he is going to kill you. And Derek, calm the hell down. RIGHT NOW!" Isaac stood at the top of the stairs, afraid to come further. Stiles called to him, "Call the pack and get somebody here to help me before Derek decides to go through me to get to Allison!" The werewolf nodded and ducked away.
Deciding to ignore the hunter, he focused on Derek. At least the alpha was still on this side of the door and Stiles wasn't a bloody pulp on the rug. "Derek, you cannot kill her. I realize that she's persona non grata on sheer principle, but calm down. Chill." He had to keep Derek inside long enough for somebody to show up and get Allison the hell out of there.
He was pushing as much calm as possible down the link, but he had to admit, calm wasn't what he was feeling. He was backed against a flimsy door by over two hundred pounds of pissed off werewolf. On the other side was Allison Argent; resident hunter, the girl who'd shot Boyd full of arrows like he was a pincushion, and niece of the woman who killed Derek's entire family. Yeah, not exactly a recipe for finding one's inner peace. "Derek, she didn't hurt me. Allison was unarmed. She just came to talk. There's no need to go all wolfy, okay?"
Derek was growling low in his throat but he hadn't moved. Stiles stepped close and slid one of his hands underneath Derek's t-shirt to contact skin. He slid his other hand to the back of his mate's neck, pushing his face down and into Stiles' shoulder. The alpha's muscles were corded like steel wire, but he eventually gave way to Stiles' gentle pressure. Stiles held him, letting Derek's anger and pain wash over him. He sent comfort back.
He heard Scott and Erica on the other side of the door. Allison had stopped banging and one of them, probably Erica, dragged her away. Stiles relaxed a bit even though he knew that Derek would still hear the hunter until she was much further away. The immediate danger had been averted.
The tension suddenly spiked again in his mate's body, and Stiles wondered what was going on. Finally, he heard a car drive away. He got the two of them maneuvered away from the door, allowing Scott and Erica in. Derek straightened. "We need to discuss what she said."
Scott looked freaked and Erica was mad. Stiles, not having werewolf hearing, was in the dark. "What did she say?" Everybody was silent. "Okay, spill! One of you talk."
"She sold us out to those hunters! She let them into the territory and gave them information on us. It's how she knew where they were holed up. She was working with them!" Erica was furious; her hands were claws, ready to rip into something.
Derek growled. "She broke the treaty. The Argents are ours!"
"Wait! She apologized, Derek. She said that she didn't know what they were planning! She was sickened by what they'd done to you. You can't go after her! She wanted us to know how sorry she is!" Scott's voice was desperate.
The alpha slammed Scott against the wall, breaking the key rack. Keys dropped onto the tile, ringing into the brief moment of silence. "Did she know that they tried to kill Stiles? A human! Did she care that killing me would have meant his death? What about her supposed code?"
"They weren't supposed to touch Stiles. That was a mistake. They didn't know that he was human until after they shot him. Allison didn't realize about the bond."
Stiles answered his friend. "They knew! They knew that I wasn't a werewolf. After they shot me the first time, I heard them say that I was a useless human who sympathized with the wolves just before they shot me in the chest! They knew, Scott! And whether she realized that taking out Derek would kill me or not, it doesn't matter! We've held up our end of the treaty. She broke it. What we need to find out now is if Chris knows and was part of this."
Scott shook his head and wrenched himself out of Derek's grip. He flung open the door, climbed in his car, and his tires spun gravel as he left. Erica was contemptuous. "I can't believe that he'd still defend her after everything she's done."
Stiles felt tired and way older than his years. "It's always been Allison. He dated and he'd go nuts for other girls at first, but in the end, none of them were Allison." He rubbed his hands through his hair. "I need to call my dad. I want him with me when I talk to Chris."
Derek grabbed his shirt in a clenched fist. "You're not going without me."
Stiles put his hand over Derek's fist. "This is the first time you've spoken a whole sentence in days, Derek. You almost killed Allison before you even knew that she was involved. You would have done it just because she's a hunter, and right now? You're not in control. Erica can come if you're worried. Danny gets off work in an hour. I can see if he can come, too. Maybe Lydia. Safety in numbers, right?" Derek's hand loosened and Stiles brought him in for a hug. "I've got this. Trust me to do this, Derek."
Derek let him go and went upstairs. Stiles watched him walk away. He knew that Derek wasn't angry with him, but this whole thing had messed him up inside. He had too much damage as it was, and this? This had broken it wide open; ripping old emotional wounds open, leaving him raw and bleeding. Stiles wondered if there were psychologists who dealt with werewolves because if there were, he needed to find one.
He turned to Erica. "You up for this?"
"Damn straight, baby. Make your calls. I'll wait." She stalked into the living room while Stiles called people.
An hour and a half later, they were assembled. Derek and Isaac hadn't come downstairs and Scott couldn't be reached. Otherwise, everybody was there. Sheriff Stilinski called Mr. Argent and set up a meeting. The Sheriff hadn't been able to bring charges against the hunters because official police involvement would have been a problem. They couldn't have hid what had been done to Derek and Isaac, or the fact that they were healed only days later. It had meant letting the men who'd shot his son go. If Allison Argent could be held responsible for the attack, he was planning on taking her into custody. If Chris was involved, he was looking at charges too.
The Sheriff, Stiles, Lydia, and Erica would meet with Chris face to face. Danny and Boyd would be scouting the area to make sure it wasn't a trap and that Allison wasn't lying in wait. They pulled up to the abandoned lot and waited. Chris pulled in moments later. He got out slowly, hands up. He approached cautiously and the man nodded at Stiles. "I'm sorry that you got hurt."
"What about Derek and Isaac? Are you sorry about them too?"
Chris sighed. "Yes." The man glanced at Erica. "I made my choice a long time ago. Allison… Gerard twisted something inside her that never healed. Her mother's death, watching her Aunt die…it did something to her. It made her unsure of where the lines were."
Lydia's eyes were hard. "Are you making excuses for her? We've obeyed the treaty, Mr. Argent. She broke it. We're within rights to retaliate without repercussion. Stiles wanted to speak to you as a courtesy to prevent needless bloodshed. There's been far too much of that lately."
"She's all I have left. She's my daughter and we're the only Argents left. Am I supposed to let you kill her? I can't do that!" He appealed to Sheriff Stilinski. "Would you let somebody kill your son?"
"Somebody already tried, Mr. Argent. They knew that Stiles was human and they shot him in the chest. I let them go only because of the circumstances. We're not murderers, Chris, but I want to see justice served. She set them loose on the pack and on my son. She deserves punishment for that."
Chris looked weary, but he nodded at the Sheriff. "I didn't know until after the fact. I want you to know that. I came to the hospital to see Stiles and let him know where Derek was being held. I didn't know about their bond, or what the torture was doing to both of them." Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he came to a decision. "Allison will surrender herself to you, Sheriff Stilinski, on the promise that there will be no retaliation from the pack. She'll accept all charges."
"If she refuses?"
"Then I'll testify against her, even if it means I go down with her."
Stiles stepped forward and Chris' eyes snapped to him. "The treaty is broken. We're not agreeing to it again. I want new terms set up and they won't favor you this time."
The ex-hunter was wary. "Like what?"
"We get to expand the pack, within reason. You warn us when hunters are entering our territory, and you leave us alone! No more breathing down our neck."
Chris stared at him, weighing the situation. "I've been hearing rumors about you. You're behind the pack suddenly getting stronger. It started when you and Derek got together. You've pulled the pack together when everybody was scattered and weak. I underestimated you." Chris watched the pack subtly gather around Stiles. "All right. We'll work up new terms."
He extended a hand to Stiles and they shook on it. Then he offered his hand to the Sheriff. "I'll have her to you by tomorrow morning. Will that be acceptable?"
"Bright and early. I'll be waiting."
"Agreed." The battle worn man nodded at all of them and left.
###
The next morning Allison surrendered to the Sheriff. The official story was that she blamed Derek for revealing her Aunt's role in the murders of his family, and that the stress had caused her mother to commit suicide. Allison had returned to town, hired amateur hit men, and they'd shot the wrong person. She was up on enough charges that she'd probably be in prison for a long time.
Scott still wasn't answering his phone. He wasn't even showing up at work. Isaac was hiding, and Derek refused to speak to anybody. In short, it was a mess. Everything that they'd put together in the last couple of years had been fractured. For the first time in years, Stiles wanted to grab a bottle of whiskey and get himself very drunk.