There has been moving and a 9-5 in my life recently and everything is continuously topsy-turvy but have a chapter to make up for my negligence.
More worldbuilding and pack expansions. This has been Beta'd but feel free to leave questions, comments, constructive criticism, all that. Hoping to give certain characters more depth and personality and logic behind their characterization. Hope you enjoy!
When Cora heard there was a Hale Alpha back in Beacon Hills she thought -she hoped- it was Laura. When she heard of the strength and bravery shown by the last of the Hales as they led their pack against Hunters -more Argents, all of them insane- Rogues and a coven or two all come to claim Hale land, when she heard they had healed and brought back a Kanima, she knew it was time. It was time for her to go home. So she packs up the room she had finally started to treat like her own and says goodbye to cousins who she knew would miss her because they were blood but were still secretly happy to see a wolf who had never truly submitted to their Alpha leaving the territory. She thanks her abuelo for taking her in, for giving her sanctuary and taking care of her all these years.
"Mija," He chuckles dryly, his voice rough with age and emotions he would never let show in front of his Betas. But then she had never been his, not really. "Tu es sangre, you will always have a place in this pack, in this family." She chokes back her own tears but lets herself fall into his warm embrace one last time before hopping on the train that would take her across the border into Texas. "Now go on, pup. Your Alpha has waited long enough, I think."
And her alpha has to wait even longer when Deucalion and his merry band of murderous psychos get their claws on her. It helps when they throw in the betas smelling of Hale and Home and Pack even if she had never met them before. Even if the female is almost feral with pain and the male makes sure to stay between the two females, watching her as if Cora will hurt his injured packmate. Even if they all feel the aching tearing in their chest as the moon rises but they are behind so much concrete and steel and wood they can hardly feel her embrace. But she holds on to the tenuous glow deep in her chest calling out to an Alpha she once knew before their red eyes. She prays the moon is merciful enough to reunite her with her sister soon.
She chokes back the relieved sob when the vault door is pried open and the smell of damp earth, burning oak and pack washes into the room. She growls to cover the whimper when a large figure looms behind the -comparably- wisp of a mage and flashes red eyes at the almost feral betas trapped alongside her. She didn't find a true Hale Alpha after all.
"Cora?" Derek takes a step forward but the mage holds out an arm to stop him before she can even growl in warning. His eyes never leave her as he angles his body to Derek, large but still ultimately human hand splayed across the wolf's chest the only thing keeping the other in place.
"You know her?"
"She- she's my sister," She can hear the relief in the way his voice cracks and his heart skips, can see the way he wants to push the boy aside and reach out but she and the two betas are almost feral and of course Derek -stupid smart perfect little Derek- knew better than to do that.
"Half sister." She manages to spit out past fangs and animal maw and the smell of magic laying thick on her tongue.
When Cora heard there was a Hale Alpha back in Beacon Hills she hoped it was Laura. When she heard of the strength and bravery shown by the last of the Hales as they led their pack against Hunters -more Argents, all of them insane- Rogues and a coven or two all come to claim Hale land, when she heard they had healed and brought back a Kanima, she knew it was now or never. It was time to finally go home. Turns out home wasn't like anything she remembered leaving behind. She sits her shoulders hunched up to her ears and hands white-knuckled about the mug of tea the mage pressed into her grip. She watches the male she had been held with fussing over the female -Vernon 'Call me Boyd' and Erica Reyes. She watches the wary curly-haired beta -Isaac Lahey- who's barely let her out of his sight since they dragged her here. She watches the Argent girl hanging off of the wolf with the crooked jaw and floppy hair -Allison Argent, the next matriarch of her clan and Scott McCall, her werewolf boyfriend- where they seem to have lost themselves in their own little world. She watches Derek sitting in the chair directly across from her trying not to look at her with relief and hope and guilt and something like the love she never gave him.
"So. Half-sister, huh?" The mage says as he sits in the chair next to Derek, putting down two more mugs. "I'm assuming different fathers. Y'all have too much of Talia in those damn eyebrows to be different moms." Cora rolls her eyes and Derek glares at him. "I'm just saying dude, I don't see the big difference if you're both Hales by blood. Don't wolves change mates as time goes anyway? Like Alphas take on different mates based on who will produce stronger pups right?"
Derek sighs out "We're still people, Stiles."
As Cora quips "Actually that's not entirely true."
The mage -Stiles- looks between the two now scowling wolves. "Okay, one at a time preferably children. Cora, what isn't true?"
"About wolves in the wild changing mates based on strength and fertility and shit." She looks down at her still steaming mug as Derek starts to puff up in something like pride and Stiles' eyes get this calculating glint to them. "The pack hierarchy most commonly connected to wild wolf packs are really only found in packs bred in captivity of some sort or confined to preserves and parks with a lot of human influence in the area. Less space means fewer -bigger- packs means less space for new pups each season means only so many pairs can mate. So the Alpha is the protector and leader so it's their right. Sometimes younger wolves will contest it and that's where the 'fight for the right' concept comes from."
Stiles smiles at her and it almost looks genuine before he's turning back to Derek and it slips into a soft lopsided grin. "So what about you, big guy? Anything you wanted to share with the class?" Derek just rolls his eyes and bumps his shoulder against the mage's. "Alright, alright, okay." He laughs before turning to face her again. "So if wolves in their natural -ideal- environment untouched by humans, really do mate for life, why are werewolves different?"
She knows her disdain is showing on her face from the way Derek tenses up besides Stiles and he shifts closer to the mage while keeping his eyes on her. Stiles is unmoved. "Werewolves do mate for life. But Alphas-" She swallows past the lump building in her throat, "Alphas are different. They don't just take a mate, it's a consort, a life-partner chosen for the betterment of the pack and to reaffirm treaties with other packs."
Stiles nods like he understands. She thinks with the side-eye he gives Derek and the way the tips of the wolf's ears go red, maybe he does. "So most Alphas don't take a mate for love. It's political?" She nods, not trusting her voice right now. "Your mom and dad weren't in love." He says it so soft, more matter-of-fact than pitying and that's almost worse. She doesn't know why.
"Sometimes who a wolf takes for a consort and who they mate, who they marry are two different people." She knows she spat the word out and she knows Stiles caught it because she's glaring at Derek. With those eyes and almost-too-broad shoulders and cheekbones and sad slant to his mouth that is all his father as he runs a hand through hair as dark as hers and Laura's, as dark as their mother's and the other Hales. But she doesn't care. Because Laura is dead and Peter is somewhere but his scent is wrong and she can't help but think that that's Derek's fault too. "Sometimes an Alpha makes a mistake and the pack pays the price for her whelp."
She doesn't look at the pain that flashes across Derek's face before the familiar blank mask falls. She doesn't wait to hear what Stiles is opening his mouth to say before she's slamming down the mug and pushing her chair back to stand and stomp away to the room Derek gave her. She doesn't tamp down a new feeling of guilt and sick realization at what that face Derek was known for, his fucking signature as they were growing up, must have meant all those years. Her stomach just doesn't agree with whatever it was that Stiles gave her in that mug.
Her father tells her about Talia and Jericho when she is old enough to realize that Derek is the only one of her siblings with those broad shoulders and she is old enough to be envious of his eyes that aren't jade or moss or hazel and somehow all of them at once with flecks of copper and gold dusted in even when he didn't flash them. He tells her about her mother's husband who is a good wolf, a strong Second, who is the only reason he and her mother aren't together-together. He tells her the story of her mother coming home after college graduation followed by a human smelling of devotion and mistletoe, mint, loyalty and mountain ash and wolves and her. Talia introduced Jericho as a human from another pack she met before the treaty that brought her and Jaime together. She calls him her best friend and presents him to her father, the standing Alpha, as the newest member of the Hale pack. He refuses the Bite when the old wolf offers it to him, a gift for following his daughter in the name of loyalty and instinct.
Jaime holds her tight to his chest and whispers into her hair that Jericho just smiled, never once taking his eyes off a proud Talia, and declares that he was waiting for 'His Alpha' to give him the Bite when the time came. Jaime watched on, a baby Laura fussing in his arms.
It's one of the first things she does almost two years later after her father passed and enough time has gone by that it isn't entirely inappropriate. Cora remembers Great Aunt Susanna saying she was surprised Talia didn't jump on him the second her eyes flashed red. He's the first beta she bites, the first wolf she welcomes into her pack. And on his first full moon he shows more control than anyone expected. She does not. The next morning she has a fresh bite mark at the junction of her throat and shoulder on display for all to see and it scars like Cora was told wolves can't get, though pale enough it's easily covered by makeup.
Years later she listens to her mother and Uncle Peter arguing with her father and some other grown-ups over training regimens and the fact that she and Laura can't seem to get a hang of half the things they're being taught when they think the children are all out in the Preserve with Jericho and Aunt Lucia. She chokes back the venom and spite when Derek comes up to her after another failed attempt at shifting ends in Cousin Matt whispering to Uncle Terrence that maybe she was the mutt and Derek the 'purebred'. She bites back the growl when he softly takes her small hand in his already so much larger one and does something that coaxes out the claws like her mother's and her sister's from her human fingernails while quoting one of Uncle Peter's favourite sayings that she thinks the man made just for the boy in front of her "We may be wolves in human skin Cor, but we're still wolves ya know?" She doesn't 'accidentally' nick him too deeply with her latest accomplishment when he lets go and flashes her that damned smile like he has a right to be proud of her.
It's bad at the grand reunion the night of the eclipse. Family and pack from all over gathered together to pay respects to their Alpha and thanks to the moon they can't see for the safety provided by overwhelming numbers. It's loud and crowded and her father is the denmaker and host but Jericho is the one at her mother's side greeting guests and wrangling the younger wolves and it doesn't go unnoticed. She slips out the window to Derek's room since hers is screwed shut until she's not grounded anymore for sneaking out the other night to go to the movies with her friends when she had been told not to, that it was too dangerous.
This was Beacon Hills, nothing ever happened here.
She comes running when she hears the dull boom and the smell of smoke and mountain ash washes over the preserve. She reaches the treeline as the firemen pull a charred corpse out of the smoldering ruins that was her home. Everything smells of smoke, burnt meat and mountain ash and the faintest trace of Wolfsbane tickles the back of her throat. Hunters had come to Beacon Hills. Hunters had killed her family. Cora Hale ran.
Her father was a good man. She makes sure to tell Stiles so when he corners her in Derek's loft like the idiot he is and asks why she won't give the guy a break.
He was a loving father and devoted denmaker and had proven himself a more than capable fighter, but Derek's dad had been the one Talia loved.
But Stiles is relentless. Stiles who is all of 150 pounds wet and made of pale skin and gangly limbs and Bambi eyes and the need to protect those he claims as his. Stiles who is too smart for his own good and made of love and loyalty and can make swinging a bat into a skull look almost elegant. He's a caretaker and a protector and a self-sacrificing idiot who doesn't know when he's beat. He tends to the pups and makes sure everyone is fed and that Derek knows the basic mental state of his betas and who needs 'Alpha bonding time' (Stiles' name for it not hers). He's the denmaker she remembers her father was. And she can see that Derek is enamoured by him.
So she does her best to dislike him. Because Derek likes him. And Stiles seems the type who'll back off if he can't make the prospective in-laws like him. And Derek is already conflicted over the age difference and she can tell he doesn't want to push her away even more. He would never do anything about the thing forming between him and Stiles if she voiced her disdain for the boy. If she told him she refused to see him with that human who thinks he can run with wolves, no matter how magical he is. She can't say for certain but she's pretty sure he would do it, even if it would make him miserable.
So she doesn't like Stiles. At all.
Not when he makes sure Derek has her favourite snacks and drinks on hand for pack night. Not when she overhears Derek quietly telling a drowsy but attentive Stiles about the man who threatened a pack war if his father challenged for his position. About the drive to do better than all of the other wolves despite being one of the youngest in the pack because he felt he had more to prove. How he always made sure his door was locked until he was 15. Because the man who hated him would remind Derek of his right by pack law to get rid of any pups he didn't sire until Talia and Jericho finally promised to send Derek as their pack's representative to any new Alpha looking for a consort when he was of legal age to sire pups. And to keep sending him to trials against other trained wolves who wanted it more than he did until he won. Laura and Cora would stay in their birth pack, stay with the Hales and their father. She saw another side of the man she had revered for years.
And started to see similarities she hated between Stiles and Jericho.
Because Stiles hated what her father did, but didn't condemn him. He kind of got it and helped Derek realize it wasn't him but what he represented. She didn't like Stiles when he stood between her and that fucker Harris when he decided that her being a Hale was reason enough to suspect her for something (like when Jericho stood up against a visiting alpha who seemed a little too interested in her and Laura). She didn't like him when he made sure the rest of Derek's mismatched pack included her and didn't treat her with kid gloves (like when Jericho made sure Derek and Laura included her when choosing the movie on Saturday night marathons). She hated him when Stiles would wax poetically about Lydia and her strawberry-blonde hair and her beauty and genius (because that was normal it was expected and Derek had pulled away because she didn't like Stiles) and she could see Derek's heart break all over again watching him when he thought no one else was looking. She didn't like him when Lydia cornered her and told her a place and time to be somewhere for some pack anniversary or something (didn't invite her to help, didn't ask for opinions on what Derek would like, just be there and "that will be a pleasant surprise for him I'm sure") and Stiles breaks them apart assuring Cora she didn't have to, he got her issues but she and Derek were all the other had now. (Not true, she has a whole ass pack waiting for her, he's the one alone now. She has people who still want her) But she agrees because Stiles would pester her for days if she said no.
She hates Stiles. Because he reminds her of Jericho, the man her mother loved.
But maybe she can learn to get along with him... For her brother's sake