Chapter 5
She still hasn't told anyone about the dreams and her fears of what they mean, how the darkness inside her is growing and there's nothing she can do about it.
Meanwhile, she's sure they've all come up with their own explanations for why Allison has distanced herself from Isaac. Lydia is the only one who confronts her about it, though.
"You need to talk to him," she says, sliding next to her at the lunch table. "Look, I know how it is. You sleep with a boy and then you regret it and it gets all awkward. But speaking as someone who has considerable experience with this, let me tell you, ignoring the issue doesn't help. You have to sit him down and talk about it like the reasonable, adult people β or, well, not-people in his case, I guess β that you are."
Allison feels herself freeze up. "What? Who are you talking about?"
"Isaac, of course." Lydia rolls her eyes and snaps her fingers in front of Allison's face. "Pay attention. Unless there are any other werewolf boys you had sex with and are now steadfastly ignoring, despite the sad puppy-dog looks they continue to send you while sitting behind you in chemistry."
Relief hits Allison like a tidal wave, and she laughs. "I didn't sleep with Isaac!" Her voice may have been a bit louder than she intended, because the heads of everyone sitting on the tables around them snap towards her. Allison blushes and ducks her head, but not before she saw Scott and Isaac staring at her from the other end of the room.
Lydia fixes her with a skeptical look. "Are you sure?"
"Yep, definitely. I think I'd remember," Allison says, a little snappier than necessary, because despite the confusion about the nature of her relationship with Isaac, Lydia wasn't entirely wrong.
"I didn't regret it."
She says the words as soon as she's stepped into the penthouse because if she doesn't say it right, she might not say it at all.
"Pardon?" Deucalion doesn't seem to understand what she's talking about, or perhaps he's deliberately acting confused. She knows she should take it as a sign not to press, to change the topic and never mention it again, but if she doesn't speak now she'll regret it later and it will only add to her anxiety. It's not like she needs any more things to eat at her, so she'd rather get it over and done with now.
"Having sex with you." She forces herself not to hide behind a euphemism. Not say sleeping with you because that's not what they did, is it? Not letting the crudeness of fucking you become a distraction. "I didn't regret it until you said what you said. And even then, I didn't regret it because I was ashamed or because what my family would say, but because you were being a jerk."
He frowns at her. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because we haven't talked about it, and I think that we should." It feels like this conversation takes more courage than facing him down with a weapon does.
He looks at her with an inscrutable expression, like he's measuring her, like he's staring straight into her mind and judging what he finds there until she's squirming under his scrutiny.
Awkwardly, she hurries to add, "We don't have to, if you don't want to. I just wanted to say it."
"Alright," he says mildly, and this may not be the single most mortifying, excruciatingly embarrassing moment of Allison's life, but it's definitely in the top three.
"Right," she says, about to turn around and get her weapons so they can get started rather than draw this painful non-conversation out for a minute longer. Before she can get anywhere, he stops her by grabbing her arm. She's still wondering When did he get so close when he pulls her in and harshly kisses her, and she finds herself responding before she even has time to think about it.
She wasn't implying that she wanted to have sex again when she brought the topic up. That's not why she wanted to talk about it. Was it? She isn't sure of her motives anymore, but she knows that she doesn't really want to stop, so she wraps her arms around his neck and opens her mouth under his, her body melting into him.
He takes her to the bedroom, this time.
He spreads her out on the covers and holds her down while he slides along her body and lowers his head between her legs, putting his mouth to work until she bucks up helplessly against him and screams his name. When Allison is all loose and relaxed from orgasm, he pushes inside of her, fucking her through the aftershocks. His hand is in her hair, pulling her head back, making her bare her throat to him, and his mouth fastens on it with hungry insistence, blunt human teeth pressing marks into her skin.
"I don't regret it either," he says afterwards. "In case you need me to spell it out for you."
Allison laughs quietly. "Yeah, I think I got that."
Stiles and Lydia are convinced that Peter is going after Scott's Alpha status, that this is why he sent Derek and Cora away, why he's lurking around the pack at any chance he gets.
Allison doesn't mean to discuss it with Deucalion. He made it abundantly clear when she first came to him that he doesn't wish to be involved in pack business, and he's never shown the slightest interest in the on-goings of her and the pack's struggles against whatever creature has been attracted by the Nemeton this week.
But after she spent too many fruitless hours in the Argent library with Lydia and even her dad's knowledge of pack dynamics is exhausted, while Deaton's responses are limited to vague, cryptic warnings, her only remaining sources of information are Gerard and Deucalion. Between them, she figures that she should consider Deucalion more trustworthy, even if she doesn't know where his allegiances lie in the bigger picture. She's been trusting him with her body and her life for a while now; she just isn't quite sure if she can trust him with anyone else's.
She casually brings Peter up after they're done sparring, while Deucalion is occupied trying to remove an arrow tip that has lodged itself into the middle of his back where he has trouble reaching it.
"He wouldn't need to kill Scott to steal his powers," he says, distractedly.
Allison frowns, because that makes no sense at all. Derek became the Alpha after killing Peter, and Deaton told Scott that a beta turning into an Alpha by his own strength of mind was a rare occurrence. "I just don't understand how it works. My family's bestiary is super-vague about how a wolf becomes an Alpha. There's a lot of talk about stealing the power of another Alpha. I kind of assumed that it meant killing them."
"Not necessarily. Killing them would be the most effective way, yes, but sometimes it's enough to beat the other in a fight, though of course that leaves the door wide open for retaliation. And if an Alpha dies without another wolf having a hand in it, their power often falls to another wolf in their pack."
He swears under his breath when the arrow slips from his blood-stained fingers once again, and Allison steps closer. "Here, let me," she tells him softly, and his hand falls away to give her access to the wound.
"I presume the reason your bestiary isn't any more clear is that there are no hard and fast rules," he continues, his voice not wavering when she slowly starts extracting the arrow. She winces when it starts bleeding afresh the more she pulls, the skin around it having already healed and tearing again from her efforts. "Every Alpha and their pack are different. Sometimes, when there's no one in line ready to take on the responsibility, the power dies with the Alpha. Sometimes it's inherited by family. Like when Talia died, her eldest daughter became the Alpha."
"Laura." Allison remembers how, after she found out the whole ugly truth about werewolves and her family's involvement, Scott told her about the body in the woods; that Derek buried what was left of his dead sister next to the burnt house. She used to think it was creepy. Now she just thinks it's sad. "How did you become an Alpha?"
She realizes it might be an insensitive question the moments the words slip out of her mouth, and his reaction proves that it does indeed make him uncomfortable. Standing behind him, she can't see his face, but his back becomes tense under her hands and his fingers twitch in a way that suggests that he's struggling to keep the claws from coming out. She shouldn't have asked, isn't sure if she really wants to hear the answer, some gruesome tale about a life he took. "You don't have toβ"
He overrides her in a tone that sounds too conversational and isn't at all in tune with his body language. "Much the same way Laura did, actually. My father was the Alpha, and when he died, his powers fell to me."
Allison knows she shouldn't ask, but at the same time, she can't stop herself. "How did he die?" The question is barely more than a whisper, as if saying it more quietly will soften the blow the answer will doubtlessly deliver.
Deucalion turns, his eyes locking with hers. "Gerard and his brother hunted him down. I don't know which of them killed him, but when they came for me, I bit Alexander. You know how this story ends."
She does, indeed. With a hunter choosing death over becoming the thing he hates. With Gerard going on a vendetta that leaves bloodshed and causes ripple effects even two generations later. An eye for an eye, a life for a life, and Allison is so tired of it all. "Will it ever end? My family, all the pain and the death and the way we turn people into monsters?"
"It ends with you," he says, and the absolute conviction in his tone feels like the arrow tip in her hand has burrowed itself into her heart and is slicing it apart.
Her throat is tight and her voice chokes up when she speaks. "You can't know that! Unless you kill me, you can't possibly know."
Deucalion reaches out and curves his hand around her cheek, his thumb gently brushing her skin. He stands close enough to kiss her, but the touch is more comforting than sexual, and Allison isn't quite sure what to do with it.
"You've been there. You took the path down hatred and violence that your grandfather paved for you, and when you saw what it cost you, you turned back. You made that choice, on your own. That's more strength than I had, when it came to it. I think you should have a little more faith in yourself."
His words are clawing her apart, making her want to tear herself away from him and run. If he knew what she knows, if he could peer inside her and see what she's like, he wouldn't trust her to do the right thing: he would kill her on the spot. His instincts were right the first time around when he was reluctant to let her in, and she feels like an imposter for acting like she's different than her family when she knows deep inside of her that she's not.
"I have to go," she says, pulling away. "My father's home early today, I don't want him to ask any questions."
She feels Deucalion's stare against her back as she hurries off.
