Author's note: Thank you guys all so much for your reviews and support! It really means a lot to me, and I know that many people on this site are wary of OCs and such, so thank you for sticking with me thus far and even giving my story a chance in the first place. I really appreciate it :-) I hope you all like this chapter.

Chapter 25

Amy opened her mouth, partially out of shock and partially to respond. But, before any sound came out, Derek was standing behind her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked menacingly. He was in human form.

"Now, now," said Peter, "Is that any way to speak to your last remaining kin? I don't think so."

"Amy, leave," Derek ordered.

"No, no, not so fast," the older Hale said, stopping her with his outstretched arm. "I'd love to get to know your little friend… Have we a new addition to the pack?"

"No, she's human. Please, just let her go."

"'Please'? I don't think I've heard you use that word… Well, ever… But she can't be just any human, can she? I mean, you've obviously taken a liking to her – she's covered in you scent."

God, this is awkward, Amy thought, trying to prevent herself from blushing. There were far more pressing matters at hand.

"She is quite pretty, though, I'll give you that," Peter continued, roughly using his hand to tilt Amy's chin upwards in order to get a better look at her. "Lovely complexion. Very fair. Almost snow-white. Though I suppose the proper comparison would be Little Red Riding Hood, wouldn't it? Well, never mind... And look at that, she's blushing – cute… I smell that you haven't even marked her as yours, either, which means she's fair game…"

"Ew," Amy exclaimed, jerking away from his grasp and shrinking back towards Derek. The last thing she wanted to deal with was some pervy old man…

Peter's eyes flashed red, but he swallowed his rage. "Loyal, too," he chimed in. "Always a good quality."

"What do you want," Derek asked more calmly, keeping Amy behind him protectively.

"I'll get to that in a minute – but I'm still hung-up on this girl. You're even defending her. As if you could… But still, the fact that you're even trying… I'm gone for a few months and this is what happens? Really, Derek, I expected more from you. I wouldn't have thought that you'd use your newfound freedom to get yourself a girlfriend. I have to say, I'm rather disappointed by your lack of ingenuity."

"She's not my girlfriend," he growled. "She's a friend of Scott and Stiles'."

"Yeah, okay," Peter replied sarcastically, completely unconvinced. "Stiles used to be our resident human, and he's one too many, as far as I'm concerned… Don't look so sheepish, kid; it's only natural for you to want to start your own pack. It's about damn time, actually. Wolves are social creatures, after all – there's no use in fighting it. But if you really care about your little pet, you'll mark her and change her. If you don't, someone else might…"

At this, Amy latched onto the back of Derek's smooth, leather jacket, as if to beg him not to let his uncle touch her. She had no idea what "marking" meant, but it sounded dirty and she figured it couldn't be anything good. Plus, she didn't want to be bitten, either.

"What were you doing all this time?" Derek demanded.

"What do you think? Getting reinforcements… Didn't turn out quite as I had planned, though. People can be so stubborn…"

"If you weren't successful, why did you return?"

"Word on the street is there's another alpha in town. Is this true?" he asked gravely.

Derek hesitated, but ultimately replied, "Yes." Hell, if he could get them to kill each other… That would be by far the best course of action… He didn't even have to be involved.

Peter bared his teeth angrily, but bit back is aggression; it was not Derek he was upset with. "I see," he said through his clenched jaw. "Do you have any idea who it is?"

"No, that's what we've been trying to figure out. The other alpha only revealed itself like a week ago."

"Yeah, I can see you've been trying really hard," the elder man snarled acidly.

Derek let the insult roll off him as Amy tightened her grip on his side. The warmth that radiated off of her body was strangely reassuring, despite the fact that he could feel her panicked heart thumping directly against the back of his arm.

"It attacked us for no reason," he said stoically. "We were driving into town and all of a sudden it just totaled my car, completely unprovoked."

"So it knows what you are?"

"Well, if it didn't before, it does now… I had to defend myself."

"You confronted it?" he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. "How did you survive?"

"Amy put herself in front of me before it got the chance to finish me off… I don't think it wanted to kill a human, because that would cause a lot of problems. I think it just wants me out of the picture… Or, rather, us."

"She risked her life for you?" the alpha asked, surprised.

Neither of the younger members of the trio said anything, but Peter hadn't really expected a response. "I'm impressed," he remarked lightly; he didn't sound very impressed. "What about Scott," he questioned after a short pause. "Has it attacked him?"

"No, I don't think Scott's even seen it. But he's a far less obvious suspect… I am a Hale, after all… It's no wonder why it might go after me and not him."

"True enough," the other allowed. "You can leave now," he barked, addressing Amy for the first time in a while.

Her large blue eyes peered up to search Derek's hesitantly. "Go wait in the car," he instructed gruffly, nudging her towards the exit.

She anxiously pushed past Peter in the doorway, and he leered at her as she went. After she was out of earshot, he said, "You're going to help me find the other alpha. And you're going to help me kill it."

"I thought you were focusing on the Argents – "

"I don't give a fuck about the Argents," he interrupted. "I only care about that whore that used you to get to our family. And you're going to help me, because this whole thing is your fault in the first place. It's the least you can do – at least try not to be a complete disgrace to the Hale name, hm? And if you don't help me, I'm going to kill that your new friend."

"She's nothing to me – "

"Derek, Derek. C'mon, it's insulting. I do have senses other than hearing, you know. I know she's not 'nothing' to you, it's no use lying. I understand why you're reluctant to admit it, I do. Relationships haven't exactly been your forte, have they? But you obviously don't need me to remind you of that… So, you're going to help me, or you're going to wake up one morning with her severed head underneath your sheets. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," Derek snarled dangerously.

"There's a good pup. We'll worry about Kate later – humans are pathetically easy to kill, just remember that. I'll be seeing you; in the meantime, there's someone else I owe a visit…" With that, he vanished from the porch.

When she saw that he was gone, Amy exited the car and made her way back towards the house.

"What was that about?" she asked once inside.

"Nothing, he was just trying to persuade me into helping him find and kill the other alpha."

"Why couldn't I hear it?"

"I don't know," he lied.

"Yeah, right… Is he using me as blackmail or something?"

"Maybe."

"Great."

"Don't worry, I have a plan."

She cocked an eyebrow expectantly.

"Get the two alphas to fight," he started, "And sit back and enjoy the bloodshed. We don't even have to lift a finger."

"Sounds diabolical; I like it…. But how are you going to find the alpha?"

"Well, finding it in its human form doesn't really seem like the most feasible of plans. So, we'll probably have to attract it."

"How?"

"Oh, it won't be too hard. You'd better believe that other alpha's going to want my uncle out of the picture – one challenges the other, they both get beaten, one dies. We kill the remaining, weakened one and put an end to this bullshit."

"That is a good idea," she admitted. "When?"

"Probably the next full moon, I'd assume. It's when they'll both be at the peak in terms of strength."

After several moments of silence, she asked, "So, where did your uncle go?"

"I think he went to see Scott to pass on the good news of his return," he said sardonically.

"Derek," she started delicately after a short pause, "what is 'marking'?"

He cleared his throat nervously. "Why do you ask?"

"Because your uncle kept talking about it."

"It's sort of like 'marking' your territory," he began carefully, "except with people… It's like choosing your mate. If you mark someone, no other wolf will be allowed to touch them."

"I see…" she said embarrassedly. "So, how does one go about marking another person?"

"Well, it's probably exactly how you'd think…"

Amy was quiet, lost in thought. "Oh," she said finally. "You have to sleep with them?"

"Yeah, basically."

"So you mark everyone you have sex with? I thought wolves mated for life…" she questioned confusedly – that seemed like a bit of an inconvenience.

"They do usually, but not always… And no, not exactly. You can't – uh... you can't use protection. It has to be entirely natural."

She made a face. "That seems kind of irresponsible."

"Not really. You shouldn't be marking someone if it's a problem. The two people involved should be in a stable relationship and trust each other completely – not to mention they should be mature enough to know the gravity of the commitment they're making… But if you do just sleep with someone 'responsibly', it still leaves a sort of mark. They call it a provisional mark – most werewolves will respect that too nowadays, but it only lasts for like a week or so. A normal mark is permanent, or as permanent as the marker wants it to be at least. You can only mark one person at a time. When someone is marked – or even provisionally marked – they smell really unappealing all wolves except, obviously, the one who marked them." He sounded like he was reciting something that someone once told him, and she had a feeling that that "someone" had been close to him; his father, perhaps. That's one hell of a birds & the bees talk, she thought wryly.

"Interesting. So only males can mark?"

"No, female werewolves can mark, too. But female wolves are more rare... Usually the pair in question is married. Ready to start a family. Ready to breed." He said with word with bitter contempt.

"Ew…?" She was unsure of what the proper reaction might be.

"At one point in my life," he started darkly, "I might have wanted that – a family. I mean, it's practically hard-wired in the brains of both humans and werewolves to want to reproduce. It's a natural drive – and a wolf's number one priority should be to want to start a pack of his own and have offspring. But I'm way too fucked up for any of that now…" he trailed off. He sounded almost disappointed in himself, as if he was betraying his kind in some way; as if he was betraying the memory of his own deceased family.

Amy didn't know what to say, and she suddenly felt like he wasn't really talking to her anymore so much as he was talking to himself. She didn't know what to make of the realization that she was now privy to some of his innermost thoughts and conflicts – she felt as if a huge weight had just been dropped on her shoulders.

"You're young," she said awkwardly, putting a comforting hand on his upper arm. "All this pain will dull eventually. You have time to figure these things out. Your uncle won't be ruling your life forever."

"That's what I'm trying for, at least…" he muttered.

She gave him a humorless smile and said, "It will all work out in the end." She didn't know if it would, or even if she truly thought it would. But, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to say.

Author's note: So, a bit more exploration of Derek's character in this one. I picture him as being conflicted in many, many different senses. I mean, he would have to be after what he's been through - I really hope they delve into this more in the next season, because he's a really fascinating character. I think that he has so much depth waiting to be explored, but so far they've only hit upon the hardened exterior. It's like he wants to be social, but he really doesn't interact with people well... Which is why he tries to help Scott but ends up kind of scaring him off in the beginning. It's strange and really interesting. I mean, we get glimpses of all this in the show (when he saves Scott and ends up getting captured because of it - even though he always threatens him, etc.). And I imagine that family is extremely important to him, and yet he really can't bring himself to have a close enough relationship with someone to constitute being part of a family. And then the whole thing with Kate when he was so young probably really effed up his view of romantic relationships...

So yeah! It's been a while since I rambled... But what do you think about Derek in this? And what do you think of the whole "marking" thing? Please review :-)