Katherine smiled wryly. "So you do know who I am."

"Yes. I've heard enough about you to recognise you." Erica said, holding her head up to hide her nervous energy.

"Well then I suppose we can skip our introductions."

"Why are you here?" Erica asked.

"I already told you that, I came to see you." Katherine said.

"I don't believe that."

"Did I stutter?" She said harshly. "Did my heart beat skip?" Erica shook her head. "No, I didn't think so. Now I know you're not going to run screaming to Derek that I'm here, in fact I'd wager you don't fancy going inside for at least a little while longer yet."

"And why would you bet on that?"

"Where is the dignity in running? Do I frighten you?" Katherine said with a smile.

"What do you want?" Erica said, frozen in place and determined to stay strong.

Katherine tilted her head to the side. "How many times do I have to tell you that I just want to talk before you take my word for it?

Erica looked her up and down. "Why?" She asked.

Katherine smiled. "What possible reason do you think I could have for it? I can give you one; you're the weak link, the easy target, the damsel in distress." Erica stiffened, breathing slowly out through her nose to keep herself calm. "Is that the answer you'd give me? Or is that the answer your pack would come to?" Erica still said nothing, her words slowly trickling in and milling around in her mind. "Well it's not the answer I would give."

"No?" Erica asked. "It seems like a good reason. Cut Achilles' heel and you've found a way to take down the rest of the man."

Katherine's lips were still smiling and her eyes shone in the latent moonlight. "It would be if I was trying to dismantle Derek and the rest of them, but that's not my intention."

"So what is your intention or are we going to skirt around this topic for the rest of the night?" She said.

"Now you see, that is exactly why you are no weak link. I've been watching you Erica and I know for a fact that weak is not what you are. You're so much stronger than you give yourself credit for but maybe that's because others are keeping you from realising your full potential."

"How would you know? You don't know me."

"A person can learn just as much from watching someone as they can from talking to them and you, my dear Erica, seem a little underappreciated. Tell me how often are you taken seriously? Given credit for the things that you have gotten right rather than chastised for what you've done wrong?" Erica met her eyes and Katherine nodded. "I only have two rules in my pack and they're very simple; when I ask for something it is undisputed and trust me, I don't make demands without a good reason. The second is that as a pack we're open with one another, no secrets, and that we're loyal to each other and to me. As long as those rules are followed there's no blame, no guilt, no shaming one another. I don't care who you're sleeping with or dating just so long as I know about it."

"Why are you telling me this?" Erica whispered.

"All I'm doing is giving you something to think about. I'm sure everyone in your pack knows about your friends Boyd and my Daisy." Erica turned her eyes away and clenched her jaw. "No? And how would they feel about it if they were to find out?"

"You already know the answer to that, don't you?"

"No blame, no guilt, no shaming." She repeated before turning around and beginning to walk the other way, back into the darkness of the streets. "You'll know how to find me if you want to talk about this a little more." She said before she was gone, her scent lingering a moment before dissipating into the cool air of the night.

Erica let out a shaky breath, her lips parted with the shock of it all. She fumbled around in her pocket for her phone and entered the number quickly, holding the phone up to her ear. She waited a few rings before her call was answered.

"It's me, I need you to get yourself outside, now. I've got some stuff to tell you."

Derek headed inside after Erica took over for him and tried to avoid all the sweaty people. A few girls pawed at him as he passed but he shrugged them off and headed to the kitchen where Stiles and Scott had taken up a permanent residence.

"Back to square one?" Derek called over the music and Stiles shrugged.

"You done being an asshole now?" Stiles replied and Derek rolled his eyes.

"Uh, do you guys want a minute alone or?" Scott asked.

"It's fine." Derek said. "You know I can smell Isaac all over you. I thought you were keeping an eye on things."

"Oh I've seen more than enough." Derek raised an eyebrow. "Erica wasn't lying about her and Aiden."

"As long as she knows where he is I don't care." Derek said, turning to Stiles and putting his hands either side of him on the counter. "Stiles…" He said.

"What?" He said, pouting his lips.

Derek leant in and pecked his lips softly, the tip of his tongue barely brushing his top lip. He pulled back and opened his gorgeous bright eyes as wide as they would go, smiling with the side of his mouth.

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you alright?" Stiles said with a smile as he cupped Derek's cheeks and pulled him in for another kiss.

"Not right now." Derek said with a grin.

"Don't be a smart ass."

"Clearly you were a useless addition to this little affair." He said.

"Excuse me, I have been watching everything – well, mostly – that's been going on in here. Ethan hasn't left Danny's side all night, keeps whispering shit in his ear. Aiden's apparently been with Erica which is really fucking weird by the way. And that Daisy is like a freaking shadow. She just kind of slips in and out of the crowd. I think Boyd was going to keep tabs on her properly. So I repeat, fuck you." Stiles said, grinning up at Derek like he'd just done something really impressive.

Derek kissed him again, this time parting his lips with his tongue and causing Scott to roll his eyes and turn away.

"Okay, the two of you do that and I'll find something productive to attend to." He said, walking out of the kitchen and off to find someone who didn't have their tongue down another person's throat.

Allison was sitting on the couch next to some guy that Scott didn't recognise. She seemed a little uncomfortable but maybe that was because the guy was completely and utterly gone – passed out and hopefully still breathing.

"Hey, you okay?" Scott asked.

"Oh yeah, no I'm fine. I'm better than this guy anyway." She said with a laugh. "You avoiding the love nest?" She said, looking over to see Derek and Stiles talking softly with their bodies pressed together.

"Yeah, as much as I love that they've stopped arguing, I really don't want to see all that. Why are you all alone?" He said, sitting down beside her.

"Because Lydia and Jackson are arguing." She rolled her eyes. "Same old stuff too, just what they're going to do next year and how they should be spending their time together now just enjoying themselves and worry about the rest later… it's kind of exhausting listening to them. I'd look for Erica but I haven't seen her in a while."

"Yeah she's on the perimeter shift." He said.

"Derek see anything out there?"

"No, but Peter is probably hanging just out of sight, just out of our scent range. There's not much we can do about him." Scott rolled his eyes.

"You know I have a crossbow, I can go out and shoot a few arrows into him if you want." She said with a devious grin.

"You're lethal did you know that?" Scott chuckled.

Allison shrugged. "Sometimes a girl's got to be her own hero."

"Well you're definitely that." Scott smiled and Allison leaned into his shoulder for a moment.

He had to admit that he missed this; he missed her so much sometimes. He knew that it was the first love effect. He was never going to be able to forget her, no matter how many years or miles came between them. There's just something about your first love that you can't let go of and he couldn't have come up with someone better to be his. Allison Argent, the girl who wasn't afraid to be her own saviour.

In what seemed like barely a flash the two of them saw Daisy, the blonde girl from the other pack, walk past them and then slip back into the crowd.

"I see what Stiles means now, she is kind of a shadow." Scott said.

Allison looked up and over to where she had last been and furrowed her brow just as Boyd walked over to them.

"Hard to keep tabs on someone like her, huh?" Scott said.

He nodded. "Sometimes she doesn't mind talking to me, other times it's like trying to catch mist; one second you've got it but the next it's off somewhere else or gone completely."

"Poetic." Allison said.

Boyd gave her a smile and felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He fished it out to see Erica's number on the screen. "Hello?" He said.

She spoke quickly and then hung up leaving him with a questioning look on his face.

"Is Erica outside?" He asked.

Scott nodded. "Yeah, she took over for Derek. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. Sometimes she just needs to talk I think. Now's as good a time as any."

"It probably isn't sitting well that me and Isaac caught her with Aiden earlier." Scott said.

"You what?" Boyd asked, even more confused.

"Well it's not like it's a secret anymore." Scott said.

"Yeah, yeah I better go see what's up." He said, heading off to the elevator and riding it down with about fifty questions mulling around in his mind.

What was she doing with Aiden? Is that the stuff she has to say? Is it something else completely? Could it be about Daisy? He tried to clear his mind as the elevator doors opened and he stepped outside looking around for her until he spotted her around the side and to the right.

"Erica? Erica what's going on?" He asked, walking briskly up to her.

She stared at him for a moment, her long blonde hair blowing slightly in the wind. "Katherine was here." She said softly.

"What? When? What did she want?" He said, his eyes flashing wide in surprise.

"Just now."

"Well shouldn't we wait for Derek? Has he already been out here?"

Erica rolled her eyes and took a few steps, turning her back on him with a sigh. "No, I called you first."

Boyd's look of shock turned into one of confusion. "Why would you do that?"

"She said some things…" Erica began, turning around to face him. "About me, and you; about her pack. We wanted to leave once remember?"

"Erica…" Boyd said, connecting the dots and almost unable to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.

"You and Daisy could be together. You know that we're the ones who never quite fit. What's stopping us from trying to find a place where we do?" She said.

Boyd thought for a moment, suspending the silence in the air between them. "You've been thinking about something like this for a while, haven't you?"

She looked down; her face looked as though it was holding a great many things back, her mind clouded with them all.

"That's what she's here for, to find more wolves, to build her pack… if I go with her they'll leave this place and Derek, and the others. They'll go out looking for more and leave Beacon Hills. Daisy will be gone unless―"

"Unless I come with you." Boyd finished her sentence and she tilted her head to the side with a sigh.

"You said it yourself, it's more than just a one off thing. I'm not saying that I'm going to do this, I'm saying I'm thinking about it, and you should too." Boyd put his head down and Erica took out her phone, dialling in Derek's number. "Hey Derek, we need to talk outside." She said and took his quick hang up to mean that he was on his way.

"What are you going to tell him?" Boyd asked, folding his arms.

"I'm going to say that she showed up, and that I called you out here too." She said.

Boyd shook his head. "I don't want to have to keep up a lie here Erica."

"I did it for you." She snapped, glaring over at him with a sadness that she couldn't quite hide and Boyd suddenly felt guilty.

He never told them that the story about her and Aiden having a secret relationship was a lie. He knew it was, she never would have come down so hard on him if it had been true. He stood there in the room and let her bear that weight and feel the pressure and he did nothing to stop it. In that moment he felt like a coward.

They both heard footsteps approaching quickly and turned to see Derek storming over to them. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Katherine was here." Erica said, not looking him in the eye.

His nostrils flared and he looked off into the distance. "When? What did she want?"

"To talk to me, funnily enough. And just now. I waited until she was well and truly out of my senses before I called you." She said.

"Erica, what did she say?" Derek said, growing impatient.

"Oh not much, just some small talk and then a little tearing me down. She walked over – quickly I might add – and then tried manipulating me and then she left." She said, sticking to as many truthful facts as she could manage.

"She tried to work through you?" Erica nodded and Derek sighed. "You can't let her in Erica. You can't let her words take hold."

"You really think I'm that weak?" She hissed.

Derek raised an eyebrow. "I said you can't let her words take hold, I didn't say for you to put them in my mouth." He turned to Boyd. "Where were you?"

"She called me too, I came out right after." He said.

Derek stared at them both as though something was off, but he convinced himself that it was something that he didn't want to get involved in, an argument they were having. "Both of you get inside. We've got eyes on the rest of them, if they go quiet we'll worry. I want someone keeping an eye on them when they leave. All three of them."

"The girl's pretty slippery but I think I've got a good idea about how she works." Boyd said, a sentence that Erica thought he may have been formulating for a while.

Derek nodded and stepped back to let the two of them walk ahead of him and back to the loft. Boyd passed him first and then Erica with a dark look in her eye. Derek grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards him.

"I don't know what's going on with you but you need to stop acting like a child." He said with a hiss of frustration.

She wrenched her arm away from him. "I get that you're jealous of my friendship with your boyfriend, I know that's why you can't stand me." She whispered. "Don't pretend there's not this coldness between us when you know it's there." Derek was giving her his listening look, narrowed eyes and a firm jaw, knowing that she was going to get something out whether he interjected or not. "I'm sorry that you can't accept what's happening with me and Aiden, I'm sorry that you can't even try to open your mind to that, but I am not going to apologise for playing a part in this pack even if you think I'm a weak link. I'm not." She said.

She gave him a long glare, their eyes locked as Derek said nothing and just let her storm off past him. There wasn't much anyone could say to Erica when she was in a mood like this, except maybe Stiles, but Derek wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing how much that fact grated him. Instead, he just followed her back into the loft, waiting for her to take the elevator alone first to avoid another confrontation.

Danny pulled Ethan away from the party at about midnight, leading him up the stairs and to the bedroom on the right, which just so happened to be Isaac's room. He left him for a moment to use the bathroom and returned to see Ethan sitting with a smile on the bed, his shirt unbuttoned down the front.

"I have no idea what happened in there but the sink is bent and the towel rack is hanging off the wall, it's weird." He smiled, sitting down beside him.

"Probably guys arguing over some skank." He grinned, eyeing Danny's lips like all he wanted to do was taste them.

"Aren't you glad you don't have that problem?" He said as he leaned in even closer, his hand sliding slowly up Ethan's thigh.

"What, right now?" He said with a chuckle as their lips met, soft and supple and moulding to one another like liquid.

Danny's hand brushed onwards and up, his thumb gently caressing the taught muscles and circling slowly over his nipple. Ethan let out a growl as he slipped his tongue into Danny's mouth and let himself be pushed down and pinned to the plain sheets.

"You like having power?" He stated, barely a question and Danny pulled his lips back.

"Over you? Yeah." He grinned with a wicked glint in his eye.

"Do you ever just wish you had more of it? You ever wish you could feel strong all the time?" He asked, stroking Danny's face as he looked up at him.

Danny shrugged. "Of course, sometimes. Then again sometimes you need to feel those moments of weakness so that you know where your strength is."

"Well how about somewhere you belong?"

Danny's lips brushed his again, pushing his hips down gently, making Ethan's tongue dart out to wet his lips. "I can feel that whenever I'm with you." He said, "So do really feel like having one of those conversations right now?"

Ethan smiled and took Danny's ass in his hands grinding him down against him. "Nah, not really." He grinned.

The next morning came along quickly. Erica had left the minute the last few party stragglers had disappeared out the door. No one knew whether she was going home or finding somewhere else to withdraw to and Boyd promised himself that he would try to at least talk to her in the morning.

He hadn't been able to catch Daisy all night, he was always on her tail, always had her scent surrounding him but she wouldn't let him find her. It was true that she was like smoke in the wind. When the night was done he crashed on the spare couch and tried to think it all through.

Jackson offered to share a taxi with Danny and Ethan despite the fact that the two wolves practically growled at one another whenever they were within spitting distance. Lydia refused the offer and plopped down on the couch in the loft with no intention of moving. Allison stayed with her, anticipating the need to vent extensively when the rest of them were in bed. She wasn't wrong.

Scott and Isaac stumbled out of the bedroom around mid-morning after having slept on a bare mattress. Neither of them wanted to sleep on those cheap disposable sheets. They sat down and helped themselves to breakfast, waking up slowly as Derek and Stiles came walking down the stairs. Stiles had a bit of a hang-dog look which wasn't surprising and Derek made a beeline for the two breakfast boys.

They both jumped enough to slosh their cereal about as a broken towel rack made a loud clang on the bench in front of them.

Derek gave them both a raised eyebrow as he walked over to the fridge to take the juice bottle away from Stiles' waiting lips.

"Hey I was drinking that." He said.

"Get a glass."

"We can probably pay for the bathroom." Isaac said sheepishly.

"Oh really?" Derek said.

"Or we could volunteer to help you fix it." Scott added.

"Sure."

Once they had all fixed themselves up enough to be fresh for the day Derek sat down the remaining few to explain about what happened with Katherine. The whole time Boyd sat the biting his tongue, wishing he could tell them all he truly knew but he had betrayed Erica's trust once already and he wasn't going to do it to her again. They were going to have to find about Katherine's poaching objectives on their own, or possibly with a push but he would have to figure that one out.

The discussion was disturbed when Peter appeared with his usual arrogance. Luckily Derek had already said all he had to and so he left them to go and placate his uncle before he tried to interfere any more.

Stiles just ran his hand through his hair and sat back on the couch as he tried to process it all. "Why does it all have to be so complicated?" He said to Isaac who was sat next to him, elbows resting on his knees.

"Since when has being a werewolf been easy?" He responded.

"Well I wouldn't know, you know, with the whole being human thing and all." He said.

Isaac grinned and Scott's head tilted as he admired just how gorgeous he was even in the morning, especially in the morning.

"So are you still into going to Denver next weekend? You know, for the whole college tour with Cassie." Isaac asked and Stiles shrugged.

"I should probably say no because Derek will just get all… you know, but my dad will completely flip for the idea. It's kind of just a toss-up really." Stiles said.

"Well what do you want to do? And I mean you, not Derek or your dad." Isaac said.

"Jesus Stiles, do something if you want to do it." Scott said with a smile.

He bit his lip and smiled. "I think it actually sounds awesome. I really liked it in Portland, I just didn't want Derek to think that I was leaving him behind or whatever."

"Well I'm totally in if you want to make a road trip out of it. It's only like… sixteen hours away. Scott, you could join us on the road." Isaac said, giving him another killer grin.

"I thought I said last night that I'm not really into it." He said.

"People say a lot of things that they don't mean, especially at parties. Come on, it'll be fun." He said, nudging him a little with his shoe.

"Isaac…" Scott said and Stiles pursed his lips, trying to stay out of it.

"Okay, okay. I just thought that you might… well you know."

"What, get jealous?"

"Dude, you should have seen yourself last night." Stiles said, unable to stay out of a conversation if his life depended on it.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Trust me, I do. That god damn towel rack is proof enough." He grumbled and Isaac let out a snort of laughter. "Shut up."

Stiles joined in on the childish laughter and Scott just rolled his eyes.

"Alright, okay, we'll get Erica along and see if we can convince Derek to join us, though I don't see that happening." Stiles said. "Every time I mention an out of state college he gets all distant and cranky."

"Are you telling me that he's not already like that?" Isaac asked with a raised eyebrow.

"He gets worse. He's a big tantrum-throwing alpha." He said. "Don't tell him I said that." He added as an afterthought.

"I don't plan on it, not after we sort of broke his bathroom." Isaac grinned. "I'll text Cassie and sort it out, you might need to talk it over with Erica though. Boyd said that she had some kind of argument with Derek last night."

"Well maybe she'll want to get away from him for a while." Scott offered.

"I'll call her later, make sure they didn't completely obliterate each other. I don't know what it is about those two but they just clash." Stiles said.

"You don't know, really?" Isaac said.

"Seriously dude, there's only one thing that they have in common and it's the same thing that gets between them." Scott said.

Stiles just rolled his eyes, knowing that they were referring to him. "Just text Cassie and figure it out. I'll tell my dad and watch him light up like a freaking Christmas tree. Do you think Derek will notice if I disappear for the weekend? I could go and be back without him even realising."

"Stiles, he notices when you're gone for the night; I think he'll notice if you're gone for two whole days." Isaac grinned.

He felt a little warmer inside at that, taking a moment to revel in that before going back to thinking about Katherine and college and Erica and all the other things that were playing on his mind. This week is going to be anything but easy, he thought.

He had no idea just how right that would be.