Quick Author's Note: This chapter's a little shorter than normal and in Derek's POV (hence the half!) Enjoy!
Chapter Three (and a half!): Coming Home
Derek didn't know what he noticed first.
Did he hear her coming up the driveway? Or did he smell her?
A normal human would never have been able to do either. But he had never been normal.
And apparently neither was she.
He heard her carefully making her way up the overgrown driveway. She didn't walk particularly loudly, but her shoe scuffed against a rock and he had been particularly vigilant since he learned that the Argents were back in town.
It was only a matter of time before someone showed up at the house.
She was a surprise though.
He hadn't even made it to the window to see who was coming before he knew it was her. Because as the breeze shifted he smelled her. It was the same smell from the police station the other night - intense enough that he could smell it from a distance, but soft. Warm and light at the same time. Vanilla, honey, rain. Those weren't exactly right, but they were the only comparisons he could think of.
He moved carefully, pulling aside the curtain just enough to peek through the crack so that he could watch her. She had run here - she was dressed in a pair of tight dark leggings, a hoodie, and running shoes. There was a slight sheen of sweat on her face and neck, not too much because it was still cold outside, but enough to make her pale skin glisten.
His brows furrowed, she had to have run five miles to get here.
What was she doing here?
The wind blew again, tugging at her hair, almost pulling her toward the house and he was hit again with her scent. His jaw clenched, fighting the urge to leave the house and meet her. She seemed to sense him too, it should have been impossible for human senses, but her gaze lifted toward the house, targeting the upper floors and his window. Derek moved quickly, pulling the curtain closed and shifting to the side, away from the window.
She'd have noticed that. Even if she didn't see him, curtains didn't close on their own. His fists clenched at his sides as he waited for her to walk into the house, looking for him.
But she surprised him.
She watched the house for another moment before she walked away from it. She wasn't here for the house, he realized, she was here for where he had buried Laura.
He had no idea how to explain her.
When he had first sensed her at the police station she had surprised him. He could smell her from inside the interrogation room - the same smell he could smell now, so overpowering that he didn't notice the smell of the rotten food in her hair or on her clothes until he was passing her in the hallway. And even then, the rot was muted, sweetened by something that was just her.
People weren't supposed to have smells.
They smelled, but that was different.
Derek was used to trying to ignore body odor, shampoo, laundry detergent, perfume and cologne, toothpaste even. But this scent wasn't any of those. It clung to her skin, her hair, her clothes. It was her.
When he was a teenager his uncle Peter had told him that if he worked on it he would be able to pick up on how people were feeling through their scents. He would be able to pick up on their chemosignals - fear, disgust, arousal. Peter had been an expert at it. But as hard as Derek had tried, he had never been able to get past the other smells to pick up on the chemosignals.
He didn't think that he had suddenly become an expert overnight.
Whatever he was smelling now was something different, something entirely her.
He could still hear her, shuffling around the side of the house. And even though it would be smarter to stay hidden inside the house, he couldn't stop himself as he turned and walked quietly out of the room. There was a pull, he could feel it deep in his belly, to see her.
And there was nothing to stop him.
She didn't notice him as he approached her. He had been walking quietly, but not silently. It had been a test - if she was a wolf she should have been able to hear him.
He wondered if she could smell him, but perhaps she was too focused on her task to pick up on his scent. Her brows were furrowed as she walked carefully, following the small trench he had dug around where he buried Laura - the spiral he had buried the wolfsbane in. A quiet promise to his sister that he would get revenge for what happened to her.
She reached the end of the spiral and stood beside the hole, leaning over the yellow police tape to get a better look.
He could leave now and she wouldn't even know that he had been there.
He should leave -
"You shouldn't be here."
The words slipped out before he could stop them. His voice was hard and cold. He hadn't meant to sound angry. He hadn't even meant to speak to her. But he wanted to see her, he wanted her to turn around so that he could see her face and this was the only way to do it.
He scared her. She definitely had not realized that he was there.
She screamed and turned quickly. He watched as her feet tangled, her right foot caught on her left and sent her tripping backwards. She fell into the yellow police tape and it snapped, unable to hold her up. The scream died on her lips and her blue eyes widened when she realized what was happening. She was afraid.
Her arms flailed, reaching out in front of her, trying to catch on to something, anything that would keep her from falling into the hole.
If she was a wolf she'd have been able to catch herself.
His hand shot out, carefully wrapping around her right wrist so that he could tug her forward, away from the hole. His right arm swept around her back and pushed her forward, pressed her against his chest as he took a step away from the hole, making sure both her feet were on solid ground.
She was so small. Short and slim. The top of her head rested below his collarbones and he had to bend forward to curl around her as her hands lifted, clutching onto his jacket as if she was still afraid she was going to fall. His head dipped, lowering toward her dark hair and he inhaled, her scent hit him like a brick wall and his breath shuddered.
Whatever this was, it wasn't normal.
He took another step back and dragged her, stumbling slightly, with him. Once he was certain that she wasn't about to fall again he let go of her and took another step back. She had hurt her hand the night before, he could still remember the sharp bite of pain in his left thumb. He glanced toward her hand, it was wrapped in a bandaid.
It still hadn't healed.
Definitely not a wolf.
Then his gaze lifted up to her face.
Big mistake.
Slate grey outer rings and then bright teal blue eyes met his gaze. There was a sparkle in them, like sunlight reflecting off the ocean surface. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen eyes like hers once before - intelligent and warm, fire and water.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him, her voice squeaking slightly. He had scared her.
"This is my house," Derek told her, turning slightly to glance toward the house in question.
Her jaw tightened as she pursed her lips. Her pale skin was smooth and perfect, unmarred by anything but a collection of golden freckles across the bridge of her nose and her high cheekbones. He wondered if it would feel as smooth as it looked. "Technically it belongs to Beacon Hills now," she told him.
He pursed his lips too, subconsciously mimicking her. "Technically you're still trespassing then."
"Well, technically, so are you."
She was brave. He couldn't help the twitch in his lips as he fought back a smile. Her sarcastic response had rolled off her tongue so quickly that he had to assume that sarcasm came second nature to her. "You still shouldn't be here," he told her, his gaze moving automatically toward the treeline. "The preserve's not safe."
She didn't want to leave, at least not yet. Apparently she had come to the house for a job and she was stubborn enough that she wasn't going to leave until she finished it. His jaw clenched as she told him that she worked for the local paper, he had known that they would write about his sister, about the "animal" attacks, but he hadn't realized that he would be unlucky enough that it would be her who would write it.
He had his suspicions of what she was. The way he could smell her had been a big clue. But it had been the moment of sharp pain the evening before that sealed it for him. She was human - painfully so. It should have been impossible. But here she was standing in front of him - a living, breathing impossibility.
Despite what the internet would have people believe, mates were rare for werewolves. A mate pair might appear once every hundred years. They were stories more than anything, ones that he and Laura and the others had grown up on. But everything about this girl lined up with what his mother had told them. As impossible as it was … this small, defenseless human was his mate.
And because he was the most unlucky bastard in the world, he had to stay away from her. If only to keep her safe.
Even if it meant safe from him as well.
The first mistake she made was when she let Scott and his friend's name slip. Was his name really Stiles Stilinski? "You know them?" he asked her, suspicious now. How much did she know? Had she talked to them?
She shrugged, but her breathing changed - it quickened and shallowed, she was nervous. "I'm a reporter," she told him, gesturing between them. "It's my job to know things like that."
Her heart beat faster. She was lying.
Derek shook his head and took a step closer to her. She took a step back, trying to maintain distance between them. "You've got to be kidding me," Derek whispered to himself as he took an annoyed breath and reached out, gently grabbing onto her wrist again. Her skin was warm and smooth and he could feel her pulse underneath his fingers as he tugged her, spinning her around so that he stood between her and the hole.
At least this way he knew that no one would accidentally trip and fall in.
She didn't seem to understand, she watched him, her eyebrows raised as he dropped her wrist. "I'd rather you not trip and almost fall in the hole again," he explained to her. He waited as she absorbed his response before he tried again. "The kids are minors," he told her. "Their names won't be released to anybody. How did you know they were the ones to find her?"
"I was told off the record," she told him, her gaze lifting to meet his own.
Her heartbeat increased again.
"You're lying."
She denied it one more time before she sighed and explained that Scott's friend was her younger brother. His head tilted to the side as he studied her, he couldn't see the resemblance. Apparently he had told her about Laura's body after she had been bailed out of jail.
He told her that they needed to stay out of this - all of them. Her father, her brother, herself. None of them were equipped to handle what was happening in Beacon Hills and the last thing that he wanted was for her to get hurt. "You need to stay away from all this," he told her, hoping he could scare her into listening to him. "It's not safe for you. Drop the story."
She didn't understand, she thought that she didn't want anyone writing the story, she warned him that if she didn't write the story someone else would.
"I don't care who writes the damn story," he told her. And he wasn't lying. He didn't give a fuck about the story, the people of Beacon Hills had been talking and whispering about his family for years, one newspaper article wasn't going to change that. But it couldn't be her. If she kept investigating she might put herself in danger.
And more than that, she might show up here again.
The safest place for her was the hell away from him.
"It cannot be you."
"Why?" she asked, her blue eyes narrowing into a glare as she watched him.
He opened his mouth, ready to tell her that it wasn't safe again, but he knew that she wouldn't listen to him. That much was clear. His jaw clenched as he shook his head, "You need to leave," he told her, nodding toward the driveway. "Now."
He held his breath waiting for her to argue. But she surprised him when she nodded and turned, she walked down the driveway quickly and only turned once to watch him.
She wouldn't stay away for long. And she wasn't going to give up the story. But she was gone for now at least.
And next time she came by the house he would stay away from her.
It was best for both of them.
But as he watched her walking down the driveway he knew that was a lie.
If she really was his mate it would be almost impossible for him to keep his distance.
Author's Note:
Happy Friday everybody! I hope that you guys enjoyed this chapter!
I'm probably not going to write in Derek's point of view often and when I do it will always be a retelling of a previous chapter, but from his point of view. So throughout this story, whenever you see a half chapter like this one ... that's your clue that it will be from his point of view.
What did you think of it? Do you want to see more? Let me know.
While I have no plans to write in his point of view often, I can always be persuaded.
If there's a particular chapter in the future that you're like ... yes! I need this in Derek's point of view! Let me know and I might be willing to accommodate!
But for now, I mostly just hope that you liked this chapter. If you did, why don't you let me know by hopping down to that review box and reviewing?
(If you didn't then ... please don't review, but also why are you still here?)
Thank you to the wonderful humans who reviewed the last chapter! This one is for you!
Spar3chang3: haha! The part about the headphones! Don't worry, that is a criticism of me as well. I can pace myself without music, but I am absolutely incapable of being alone with my own thoughts for any period of time. Podcast runner all the way!
Anyway, thanks for reading guys! I will try to get another update in before the end of the weekend!
Until next time,
Chloe Jane