"We what?" That was not the answer Peter had expected.
"Yeah." Stiles was poking his chest with a finger. "You fuckers drowned me."
"I ..." Peter had no idea what to say to that. It did explain why Stiles didn't like the Hale pack, though. "Why would we do that?"
Stiles opened his mouth to tell him exactly why they had done it but suddenly there was a figure in the doorway.
"Stiles!" The man bellowed and Stiles snapped his mouth shut. "Enough."
Stiles threw him a glance, not in the slightest surprised by the newcomer it looked like.
"Just make him go away," Stiles said, sounding defeated. He shouldered his way past the other man and then Peter was alone with whoever this was. Another one who had managed to sneak up on him, maybe he was getting old.
"And you are?" Peter had a closer look at him. Just like Stiles the other day, the man was dripping wet but at least he was fully clothed. Jeans and a Henley were clinging to his body while there was a puddle forming around his boots. His wet hair was plastered to his skull and there were droplets in his scruff. He must have come straight out of the water.
"This is my territory," the man said and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He had come in far enough to not block the door any longer but he kept his distance. "Go back to yours. We don't want you here, wolf."
With Stiles Peter hadn't been sure if he was human or not, still wasn't, but with this man there was no doubt. He was not even remotely human. The eyes that were glaring at Peter from under thick brows were old and his whole presence vibrated with something else.
Peter took a quick whiff but he didn't smell anything but lake water and the muddy smell of the vegetation from the bottom of a lake. This was a creature of the water, there was no doubt about that. Now the drownings made sense. There was no wicked undercurrent, it was this creature.
Peter raised his hands to show that he didn't mean any harm. "I'll leave."
The man, or what looked like a man, didn't move and Peter had to almost brush shoulders with him to leave the cabin. For a second he was convinced that he would grab him. The shore was only a few feet away, it would be easy to drag him underwater. But the creature didn't move at all and Peter breathed easier once he was outside and had brought a few more feet between himself and the water.
"Derek," Stiles called out to the man who was now standing in the doorway again, still watching Peter. "It's okay, he's leaving."
He's trying to protect me, Peter realized and took another step back.
"Stay on your side of the town," the man, Derek, said before he turned around and walked out into the water. It was up to his hips when he looked back over his shoulder but not at Peter.
"Stiles," he said. "Come."
"Sorry, gotta go." Stiles grinned at Peter, his outrage only minutes ago seemingly forgotten. "You still owe me for the door."
Peter just nodded and then he watched as Stiles followed the man into the water. Derek just disappeared under the surface but Stiles dove in with a big splash. They didn't come back up again.
Peter watched the surface for long minutes, the ripples had long disappeared and the whole lake was lying calm and quiet again, but neither of them came back up.
Whatever Derek was, Peter didn't want to agitate him even more so he turned around and walked back to his car.
The last minutes had gotten him some answers but they had also raised quite some questions.
He was about to start his car when the sheriff's cruiser came to a halt behind him.
"Great," Peter muttered but plastered a smile on his face when the sheriff approached him.
"Sheriff," he greeted him. "Did I do something wrong?"
"This is private property," the sheriff repeated Stiles' words from the other day. "What are you doing out here?"
For a long second, Peter weighed his options.
"I came here for a little chat with Stiles," he finally answered just to see the sheriff's reaction.
"He mentioned that you've been out here before."
"Your nephew is an interesting person." Peter gave him a toothy smile but he couldn't help but wonder what else Stiles had told the sheriff.
"You're playing with fire, I hope you know that," he said.
"It's more playing with water, don't you think?" Peter asked to test the waters so to speak. He knew that Stiles was involved with the sheriff but he didn't know how much the sheriff knew about what was going on out here. Considering how determined he was with keeping people from the lake, he had to know at least something.
"Stay away from the lake." The sheriff dismissed his comment.
"Yes, sir."
Peter drove home deep in thoughts. In his mind he was already sorting through the books he had on water creatures, however, when he entered the house, he found almost everybody home.
Deborah and Christina were in the living room with baby stuff spread around them. Since Christina had announced that she was pregnant, not that the werewolves needed such an announcement to know, everybody was on some kind of baby high. The pack kept all the baby stuff and it got handed around to whoever needed it and at the moment everything was in their living room. He doubted that a newborn would need shoes right away but he spotted at least two pairs on one pile. If that was the to keep pile he didn't know and he didn't stay long enough to find out.
Pamela, Anthony, and Talia were in the kitchen but they had only started with preparing dinner and Peter left before he got roped into cutting onions.
Usually, the library was his place to retreat to, nobody else ever went there, but today he stopped right outside because he heard noises coming through the door. And for sure those were not reading related.
"Seriously?" Peter muttered under his breath but Boyd and Erica were too busy to even notice that somebody was right outside. Or they didn't care.
In the end, Peter retreated to his room where he had at least his computer. If nothing else he could do an online search on water creatures. It would at least give him a general idea.
But then he just sat there, staring blankly at the screen, while in his mind he was replaying what had happened at the cabin earlier.
Derek was a water creature living in the lake, that much was clear, but how did Stiles fit into the picture? Peter still wasn't sure if he was entirely human but for sure he was not like Derek. And what did he mean with that the Hale pack had killed him? Drowned, he corrected himself.
With nothing else to go on with, Peter searched for drownings in the lake. He would have to check out the newspapers at the library again for a more accurate result but this would do for now.
He did find articles about people who had drowned in that lake, some had been ruled accidents, some suicides, but he didn't find anything regarding Stiles. If that was his real name. It didn't sound like a real name.
"Peter?" There was a knock at the door and Isaac poked his head in. "Dinner's ready."
Leaving his research for now, Peter went to have dinner with his pack. The table was loud and chaotic, everybody was trying to talk about their day and what they wanted to do with the evening. Peter gave Boyd and Erica a glare just to let them know that they hadn't been as sneaky as they thought, and they were still reeking of sex, but Erica just stuck her tongue out to him and snatched a piece of bread from Boyd's plate.
Laura would leave for college again tomorrow so that was the main topic along with how cute she and Cora had looked in that onesie or this shirt Deborah and Christina had found among the baby stuff. Peter just knew that they would bring out the baby pictures just to prove that the girls had been cute babies in those clothes.
Neither Laura nor Cora were fond of that idea but nobody was asking them.
"I'm going out anyway," Cora proclaimed. "I'm not going to stick around when you start to coo over my baby pictures."
"Same," Laura agreed. "Want to watch a movie? Have a little sister-sister time before I leave?"
Cora made a face, clearly wanting to go but she shook her head. "I'm out with a friend. Had to cancel the other day because Uncle Peter dumped Emily on me, I can't cancel again."
"He didn't dump me on you," Emily spoke up. She was still talking funny because of her stuffed nose but her fever was down and she had stopped coughing. Mostly. And she was eating with appetite again.
"He totally did." Cora threw him a glare which Peter pretended to not notice. It hadn't been a nice move but she was acting a bit over-dramatic here. She had missed out on one outing with a friend. She was seeing her friends almost daily, he doubted that she had missed much.
Later that night, when the house had calmed down and it was only him and Talia left in the living room, Peter stretched out his legs with a sigh. He loved his pack, he really did, but they were a loud bunch and he was always looking forward to the quiet hours at night.
"There is some kind of water creature living in the lake." Peter broke the silence. Talia had brought out a bottle of wine and they were both sipping at their glasses without talking much.
"What kind of water creature?" She asked, taking his word for it. She didn't waste her time, asking if he was sure, instead she most likely was already thinking about what to do to keep the pack safe.
"I don't know," Peter admitted. "I have to look into it."
"Is it a threat?" Talia took another sip of her wine.
"I think it's the reason we don't go there." Peter got more comfortable in his chair. "We should keep it that way."
Talia just nodded.
"People have drowned out there," Peter continued, not sure how much he wanted to tell her.
"You're the one who was out there," Talia reminded him. "Hope you didn't go for a swim."
Peter just gave her a look.
After Talia bid him a good night and had turned in, Peter poured himself another glass of wine. The house was quiet and he had the peace to let his mind drift.
It was circling around Stiles.
The water creature was self-explaining but how did Stiles fit into the picture? Human sacrifices came to mind. Peter knew that some water creatures didn't just drown their victims. Some kept them as some kind of servants. Was that what Stiles was? Was he the creature's slave?
Peter had seen Stiles around town and he was at least interacting with Denise and the sheriff. So he was kept on a long leash?
The creature had told him to come and Stiles had followed, that much Peter knew. But Stiles hadn't seemed to be afraid of it. And when he'd said that Peter would regret killing him, he had most certainly spoken about the creature.
He stepped outside for a moment to get a feeling for the night but the forest was quiet and he didn't sense any danger in the air. Satisfied he locked the front door and checked the other doors and windows like usual.
Then he went upstairs but instead of heading to bed, he entered the library. The scent of Boyd and Erica still lingered in the air but it wasn't that dominant any longer. Peter opened a window nevertheless before he set his glass of wine down on his favorite desk and settled in for a long night. He had some research to do.
Mainly he had to find out what exactly was living next door and what Stiles' role in all this was. Because right now it looked an awful lot like the Hale pack had fed him to the lake creature at some point. And that didn't sit right with Peter.
He was trying to convince himself that he just wanted to know what he was dealing with, to estimate the threat the creature posed to the pack, but if he was honest, he wanted to know more about Stiles.
