Paul's eyes open. Kyle and Isaac pressed against him on either side bringing a smile to his face. When he attempts to slip out of bed to use the restroom he finds himself firmly secured by the two wolves arms and legs. "What is it whats wrong?" Isaac asks wide awake in an instant and holding his mate even tighter. A second later Kyle's arms tighten as well. "You OK?" The ginger wolf asks. "Guys… I uhh need to pee." Paul says after a moment. When neither of the wolves loosen their grip Paul attempts to move again. "I will pee on you if I have to." Paul says with a chuckle. "Gross." Kyle says loosening his arms. Isaac pulls back as well and helps Paul move over him to the edge of the bed.
Paul opens the door to the bathroom several minutes later and freezes in his tracks. Isaac and Kyle are both standing there looking embarrassed. "Guys?" Isaac blushes and looks down. Kyle clears his throat and says. "We don't like you being very far away." Paul smiles and steps out of the restroom and holds his arms wide. Both wolves hug in close. "Love you baby." Isaac whispers leaning down to kiss Paul's shoulder.
Minutes later the three are descending the stairs just as Peter comes in through the front door. "Hi Peter." Paul says with a smile on his face. "Hello Paul." Peter says formally with a grin on his face. "Happy to see you're back with us." "Happy to be back." Paul says. "I was hoping to maybe find out just what exactly has been going on." "You've come to the right place." Stiles says cheerfully sliding open the doors to the living room. We wanted to have a pack meeting and get everyone up to speed on what's been going on. Just were waiting for you to wake up. Danny has gone to get Deaton but we can start with out them."
"OK so why was this witch set on our total destruction?" Paul asks as he's pressing himself back on the couch and firmly wedging himself between his two mates. "Long sad story short." Peter says. "Maria… You met her at the storage facility. Is a dragon." Several sets of eyebrows around the room shoot up. "What?!" Scott asks. "Save your questions until the end please." Peter says with a wink. "Maria stumbled across our border about 110 years ago. At the time the Hale family was fairly small and new to the area. They had unfortunately been set upon by hunters who had been tracking them for months. Maria, even though heavily injured after her own dealings with hunters helped our pack overcome the hunters. In so doing she was even further injured. Some of the injuries proving to be permanent. Out of gratitude for her help and due to her now weakened condition the Hale Alpha gave her permanent asylum in Hale territory. They worked together to cover her tracks and wipe out what was left of the group of hunters that had been following her. Given that this was in the days before cell phones, email, electronic data storage, wiping these people out meant that any leads and nearly all knowledge of her existence essentially vanished."
"Over the years." Peter says continuing. "She maintained an extremely low profile living mostly around town. Supporting herself through various means. Approximately 60 years ago the pack looking for a secure place to store things acquired the storage facility and the surrounding land. Maria was approached by the Alpha of the time and was offered the job of looking after the place. Working for so many different people over the years was not the best way to maintain a low profile." "That's cool and everything but how does this involve me?" Paul asks squirming slightly. Isaac turns and bites Paul gently on the ear. "Questions at the end." He whispers. Paul whines and shoves at Isaac gently. "Thank you Isaac." Peter says. "The key to this is where I said nearly all information had vanished. Apparently one of the hunters had a journal. Twenty four years ago this journal came to be in the possession of the matriarch of a powerful hunter family in Nevada. This family was in control of a large swath of desert. The center of which is a hidden network of caves which contain various artifacts and drawings. Along come the members of a coven contact the matriarch and request access to the caves. They give some story of how there are artifacts there that can help them heal one of their members who has been cursed. Now here is where it gets interesting. Still awake?" Peter asks when Paul's eyes start to droop. "Yes. Sorry just I guess I'm not 100% please go on." Paul says with a weak grin. "Do you want to wait until tomorrow? You should probably sleep more." Kyle says with concern. "No I'm fine, I'm sorry for being rude." Paul says looking at Peter. "No need to apologize. You've come back from something pretty sever. I'll try and be brief. The coven told the hunters that they needed access to the cave, the artifacts and a powerful supernatural being to power the spell. The matriarch mysteriously granted access to the items and turned over the journal as a possible lead."
"Something that happened what 80 years earlier is their lead?" Scott says with disbelief. At Peter's scowl Scott holds his hands up in surrender and says nothing more. "Witches have a way to track the supernatural. The more powerful the witch or coven the more powerful their…..sensor sweep." Stiles says with a wave of his hand. "It was worth a trip out there to see if they could pick up anything." "If this journal was out there why didn't people come earlier to avenge the deaths of the hunters?" Paul asks. "They were rouge." Peter says. "The kind that don't follow the hunter code of only going after supernaturals that hunt humans. While the loss of several hunters was a big deal they pretty much considered themselves lucky to be rid of essentially an entire family that had gone off the rails." Stiles says stretching and putting his feet in Derek's lap. The Alpha smiles warmly at Stiles and begins to rub his mates socked feet. "I thought you said long story short let's get to the good stuff." Stiles says with a yawn. Peter frowns slightly then continues. During the talks it was discovered that there wasn't a cursed witch needing treatment. The spell was your typical low budget movie 'amazing power and yada yada will be given to whomever the spell is performed on' type of legend thing we've all seen played out dozens of times in fiction.. This revelation of course angered the matriarch as much as it intrigued her. The coven was split. Half to remain in Nevada under close supervision and the other half sent to look for Maria under close supervision of several hunters. They came to town and immediately detected her. While weakened and no match for another of her kind. Maria was not the barely alive virtually defenseless creature she was the last time she'd met with hunters. I was in the storage facility in the Hale Vaults when they attacked. Maria and I while both seriously injured managed to kill all but one of the witches. Rebeca escaped. Upon her return to Nevada empty handed the matriarch revealed that through her own research she had discovered that the way the spell was written it could be fueled either by one powerful creature or by several less powerful ones. Meaning what was left of her family was about to be used as a power source. In the ensuing chaos that followed Rebecca's coven and most of the hunters were killed. That's where our facts end. The survivors all conflict from here on out. It's not known if somehow she freed her family and attacked the hunters, or if they were killed trying to escape, or if she immediately attacked when the matriarch revealed her plans to euthanize everyone to power the spell. All we know is years later she shows up here and begins trying to destroy us from within."
"Why not find some rogue hunters to send out way? Why try and do it from within? Seems like a direct approach would have been far more efficient." Paul says fingering his necklace. "Rebeca had apparently been practicing… Darker arts." Deaton says entering the living room with Danny. "This explains my inability to detect her initially and the connection she was able to make using your watch." "My watch?" Paul says looking at his naked wrist. Deaton pulls his hand from his pocket and reveals the timepiece. "I created talismans to protect and shield the pack. She used your watch and its significance to you to create a focal point for her attacks. It has been thoroughly cleansed of her influence. I took the liberty of added a few elements to provide you with some protection. That necklace by the way?" Deaton pauses nodding towards Paul's necklace. "It's not the one you were initially given. It's a fake holding none of the protective properties of the original." "They must have switched them in the bathroom." Kyle says remembering how Paul's necklace had been broken and on the floor. "They took the original one and left the replacement near by. So he's had no protection all this time." Paul looks down at the small pendant. "Could you do the same to this that you did to my watch?" "Certainly." Deaton says reaching out to take the necklace as Paul removes it.
"So she's gone right? Dead?" Paul asks looking at Peter. "Oh yes, quite. Maria took care of her once I persuaded her to do something she hadn't done in 100 years." "What's that?" Scott asks. "To fly." Peter replies. "Where she was staying was far too heavily guarded for a ground assault to ever work. From the air though the home was fairly poorly protected. There were some wards for protection from winged attack but such creatures are so outrageously rare that they didn't put much effort into protections from them." "Is Maria OK?" Paul asks. "Better than OK." Stiles answers. "She apparently enjoyed flying so much she said she's going to start flying at night." "Is that safe?" Paul asks. Derek shrugs his shoulders. She'll be doing it over un-populated areas at night. She's too small to show up on radar so it should be fine." "What do you remember?" Scott asks looking at Paul. I remember everything now. The accident, not knowing what was going on. Even these two here scaring me down into a ravine." Paul says nudging Kyle and Isaac with his elbows. "Scaring you?" Isaac says with a grin. You were drunk and slipped." "All I remember is turning around and seeing four points in the dark. Four yellow points in the dark rushing towards me that eventually turned out to be huge wolves, then lights out." Paul says with a chuckle. "If these two murderous beasts can be believed." Peter says. "You were intoxicated and slipped. They rushed out to save you but were too far away." "That makes more sense." Paul says with a grin which quickly turns to a frown.. "Wait" Paul says suddenly as if remembering something. "Who the fuck is pretending to be Mark?" Paul asks looking around at the pack. "That is a bit of a mystery." Derek says. "I've tried to track them down. Whoever it is has covered their tracks one hundred percent. I was not able to find anything." "Someone was either monitoring Mark's account or simply happened to be going through it and found your message." Derek says. "They had no reason to expect you to be emailing him since they know you killed him." Paul shakes his head. "Fuck just can't seem to get rid of that ass hole."
Paul's stomach growls. "First things first." Paul stands. If I'm hungry then my boys must be starving. "I thought you wanted to sleep?" Isaac says helping Paul as the human stands tiredly. "My mates have been through enough. Let's get fed, we're not going to solve this sitting here starving. Who is still open this late?" Paul asks as they are all getting coats from the closet. Peter pulls out his phone and says "I can call over to the restaurant. They are closed but would have just started clean up. There should be plenty for everyone." Decision made they all pile in to various cars and head out.
As they pull on the paved road from the private drive the pack fails to notice the young man watching from the shadows.