After hearing Kat's story, Derek's mother-who Kat had learned was named Talia-asked Kat if she wanted to stay with the Hales for a while. Kat was wary but accepted because she was really tired of running.

This meant meeting the rest of the Hales, and there were quite a few of them. First, there was Derek's older sister Laura who was nice enough as far as Kat could tell. Then there was Derek's younger sister Cora, she was a handful and she seemed to have an endless amount of energy.

Though Kat didn't dislike either of the girls she stuck close to Derek, not letting go of his hand for almost the whole first day she was at the Hale house. She felt safe with him, like she could trust him.

It wasn't until the second week of living with the Hales that she found a member of the Hale family that she disliked. Derek told her that it was his mother's day and that Talia never held a party for her birthday but a few more family members would be coming over to the house.

"Who is that?" Kat asked Derek.
"Who" Derek questioned her.

"Whoever just walked through the door 10 seconds ago." Over the past few hours, there had been a steady stream of relatives who had been walking through the door, coming to visit for Talia's birthday. The young man who had just walked in had dark brown hair and icy blue, piercing eyes.

"Oh, that's my uncle Peter," Derek told her, "how did you know that he just walked in?" Kat scowled,

"I'm blind, not deaf. I heard the door open and shut."

"Derek!" Peter said walking across the room, "It's good to see you again."

"Good to see you too," Derek said unenthusiastically.

"Who is this? You got a shadow now?" Peter said, looking down at Kat.

"Peter, this is Kat," Derek said.

"Well, I'll talk to you more later but I've got to go find your mother and tell her happy birthday." Peter walked off without giving Kat a second glance and was barely out of the room before Kat said,

"I don't like him."

"Yeah, join the club," Derek said, "no one likes him." Kat could sense that Derek really didn't like this guy but she didn't understand why.

"So," she said trying to be more human-like he had told her-by trying to connect with people, "why don't you like him?"

"What?" Derek said, distracted by his thoughts.

"Why don't you like your uncle?"

"Not much just that he's smug, a jerk, and is a pathological liar. Wait, why don't you like him? You don't even know him."

"Wolf instincts are more powerful than human emotions," Kat said, patting Derek on the shoulder before walking away.

"Wait! Kat, I don't think you understood what I was trying to tell you, you're supposed to be acting more human and less wolf," Derek said but Kat was already gone.

Kat was laying on her bed alone before Talia's party dreading having to interact with the rest of the family when she heard a knock at the door.

"Hey, I don't know if you remember me, I'm Peter."

"Oh, yeah I remember you, you're the one who no one likes and called me Derek's shadow," Kat said innocently. Peter chuckled,

"Yeah, well, I just wanted to apologize about what I said earlier, I understand that I may have seemed a bit insensitive."

"Okay," Kat said, unsure how to respond, taking a sip of some water that was sitting on a table beside her bedroom door.

"Oh, and Derek told me about your past and I thought I would come to say good luck before tonight."

"What do you mean?" Kat said angrily, "good luck with what?"

"I mean good luck staying in control tonight," Peter told her.

"I don't think you understand, I've spent years learning control, I'll be fine," she said to him.

"Yeah, I'm sure you would be fine normally, but not tonight."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Kat said, scowling.

"Well, I mean that it might be hard to keep control with wolfsbane poisoning but don't worry, with your healing, it will wear off at some point though it might take a few hours and by then it'll be too late. Such a shame that my sister will have to get rid of her little pet so soon," Peter said calmly.

"What!" Kat exclaimed.

"Well, you have fun tonight, and oh yeah try not to kill anyone, I'm pretty sure Talia wouldn't be too happy about that," Peter said to her before walking out of her bedroom and closing the door behind him. Kat panicked, she could already feel herself losing control.

Right then, she heard footsteps outside her door and started to freak out. She hurried to lock the door and in her rush, she knocked over something that she couldn't see and suddenly there was an odd smell before she realized what it was, the wolfsbane was in the water that she had drunk. He must have snuck it in without her noticing. Kat slammed her hands against the door in frustration at how stupid and clueless she had been. She should never have let her guard down around Peter.

"Kat!" Talia's voice called from outside the door, "are you going to come downstairs?" Kat curled her hands into fists.

"Not right now, I need a few minutes," she growled, trying to sound as calm as possible. She absolutely could not lose control downstairs in a room full of the family's relatives or it would be a disaster. Some of them she had not even met yet and losing control and killing someone would not be a good first impression.

"Okay, just don't be too long," Talia called before Kat heard her footsteps moving away from the door. Relieved, Kat collapsed against the door with a growl that she couldn't contain.

Every second she could feel herself going more and more out of control. She was losing everything human about her to her wolf side and there was nothing she could do about it. She tried to fight, she didn't want to let Derek down after he tried so hard to teach her to be more human but she couldn't help it, she could feel the wolfsbane in her making her wolf side stronger and the human in her was not strong enough to fight back.

Her heightened senses got even stronger and she could feel claws slowly starting to protrude from her fingertips as she let out a low growl. She hated this feeling, this helplessness of not being able to fight back. She fought with herself trying to fend off the part of herself that was consuming her mind and taking over everything human, making her almost completely animal but she knew that she wasn't strong enough. She dropped to her knees in resignation, giving in to her wolf instincts.

Kat stood pacing around her room looking for a way out. She considered going out the window but the sound of breaking glass would draw too much attention.

"Kat?" Kat whipped her head around to the sound of Derek's voice coming from outside her bedroom door, "Kat, what's going on? Mom said that she came to check on you hours ago and you would be right there." Kat froze, he couldn't be here right now.

She fought with herself, part of her not wanting to hurt Derek and the other part wanting to let him in just to see what would happen. She couldn't hurt him but a stronger voice inside of her desperately wanted to see him. She turned towards the door but it was still locked. Grabbing the handle she slowly turned the lock and forced the door open. As soon Derek saw her face he got still.

"Kat," he said cautiously, "what happened?" He took a step forward but it was a mistake, the wolf inside of Kat that was currently taking over her mind saw it as a threat and attacked. She clawed at his face and arms faster than he could defend himself. Derek grabbed her by the arms to stop her from moving but not before she had ripped his shirt and left large gashes covering him from waist up. Even with him holding her down she struggled to try to free herself from his hold. Kat growled and snarled in anger trying her best to break free while Derek struggled to keep his hold on her.

"Kat! Kat, stop!" Derek called out to her. At the sound of Derek's voice, some part of her realized what was happening and the wolfsbane slowly started to wear off as she started gaining consciousness.

Kat couldn't see Derek but at the smell of his blood on her hands, she stumbled and would have collapsed to the floor if Derek hadn't still been holding on to her arms.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she kept repeating over and over as tears started pouring down her face at the waves of guilt she felt. Soon her tears turned into sobs and Derek pulled her close to him hugging her.

"It's okay, it wasn't your fault," he tried to tell her. He was worried about her but didn't want to push her by asking what happened. A few minutes later Talia showed up in the doorway,

"What happened?" she asked gently when she saw them. Kat straightened pulling away from Derek and moved to sit on her bed where she put her face in her hands.

"Kat?" Talia said, moving to sit beside her.

"It was an accident," Kat whispered.

"Kat, please tell me what happened." Kat shook her head but it was more to herself than towards Talia. She had been stupid and careless but she couldn't tell Talia that Peter gave her wolfsbane. The last thing she needed was for Peter to find out that she snitched, she would find a way to get back at him but she couldn't tell Talia.

"I just got angry and lost control," she lied, "so I locked myself in here so that I wouldn't hurt anyone." Talia nodded, not saying anything else because it was obvious that Kat already felt bad.

"You did the right thing," she told Kat before she left the room. Derek moved across the room to sit in the spot where his mother had just been and took Kat's hand.

"What really happened?" he asked her. Kat's head shot up in surprise, she thought she had controlled her heartbeat so the other wolves in the room wouldn't hear her lie.

"I can tell when you're lying," he told her, "now tell me what happened." Kat sighed.

"Peter gave me wolfsbane," she whispered so it was barely audible.

Derek was beyond angry when he found out what Peter had done and Kat almost thought that he would lose control himself when they saw the smug look on Peter's face once they made it back to the gathering of people. Though Kat would have loved to see Derek give Peter a good fight, a part of her was glad that he had a bit more control than that. She wanted to be the one to get back at Peter herself. And she did.

Later in the evening before everyone left the party, Peter just happened to find himself in an unfortunate accident that ended with him tumbling down two sets of stairs. Of course, no one saw anything unusual and Peter could heal so no one was too concerned but only Peter noticed that one little girl was missing from the group.