New Chapter! If a Beta would be up to talking about it, I might be able to get these up faster :( Sadly, no one has stepped forward so I'm going with once a month.
For a meeting between two sets of people who had no previous contact with each other are potentially the largest threat either of the two have faced, they all get along like, well, a house on fire. No, Stiles doesn't think it's funny. Well, only a bit along the lines of choosing to laugh rather than cry. He keeps his little train of thought to himself and focuses on the two people standing just over the territory line. Derek Hale is the least stable person he's met. It's wise not to overstay a welcome that has not been officially given.
The Alpha of the Merder-Hales is actually a pair of betas named Alex and Cole, who – aside from the fact that they seem hell bent on keeping themselves in the line of sight at all costs – have been nothing but truthful about any of the weirdly probing questions Derek has asked. Stiles likes to think he's not the only person silently wondering how a pair of betas rose to the title of alpha within a pack; Erica and Lydia's ruthlessness alone has shown him it's possible, but seeing it with his own eyes really lets their behavior sink in. It makes him want to settle behind his computer screen and research and ask them thousands of questions.
Cole is tall, lean and Stiles can already tell she's a bit scatterbrained. It reminds him of his mom when she would dance around the kitchen, singing along to Motown and dropping spices in various pots and pans. The beta's hair is so blonde it's near white, and it's pretty much held together with a chopstick and the sheer willpower of someone who spends too may nights awake until the sun rises. She smiles with almost all her teeth, leaning forward in her boots like she can sense the war going on in Derek's brain. It's obvious she is not the Hale in the pack.
She grins at Derek from across the clearing, "Alpha Hale," she makes some sort of gesture of greeting, "We renew our family ties and obligations under the same moon they were created under." Her inflections are weird and give a strange lyrical twist to her lines. Stiles squints automatically, trying to place it before realizing she's staring right back. He stops, and she blinks slowly at him, no harm done.
Derek pulls a new expression Stiles has never seen before, something of a cross between relieved and smug; and nods. He returns the gesture and focuses on the other Beta leader, "I extend my welcome to you, cousin."
Alex has shaved her head on all sides, letting the hair on top grow and be braided into this plait interwoven with various pieces of fabric and… possibly chain mail like some sort of Viking princess. It sits on top of her skull in this glossy black mess, like she got dressed in a fashionable hurricane. She's wary of Derek's pack (Stiles being included on a trial basis) and stands beside Cole with the stance of someone a heartbeat away from cutting their losses and getting the hell out of dodge, but still offers a small smile, "I seek nothing more than your happiness and the ability to share the moonshine with you."
Derek visibly goes from even more tense than he usually is to his normal level of alertness he maintains while out in public. "I offer my den and the eyes of the past in return."
Stiles is perfectly fine with wanting to know more about them from behind the safety of the little half circle of betas that separates the humans from Derek, and by extension, the cool new werewolves in town, but with what sounds like an invitation from Derek he has no problem with asking the list of questions Derek either can't or won't tell him.
There's a human in the other Hale pack. Two, really. After Cole had kind of wandered across the invisible territory line, Alex lead the rest of their little pack with the forced casualness of a mother trusting her children with a police officer. It's Alex and Cole, five betas, and two humans. After her original skittishness fades, Alex proves to be warm and gentle towards Derek and the pack, and Cole comes off as a little less than trusting -something about familial bonds and werewolf politics- her being the in-law and a bitten wolf leaves Cole without a little wolfy VIP pass.
They're scattered around Derek's living room in his stupidly big and lonely apartment that sits square in the middle of their territory. Three betas from the other Hale pack explain what they can to Lydia and Boyd seeing as everyone else (Stiles included) is more interested in the human with a wolfsbane coated baseball bat.
Next Time:
Cole smirks at Jackson across the table, "You trying to catch flies, or do you always look like a freshman at a strip club?"