Chapter Seventeen
"That's Aiden." Stiles's voice was low, nearly inaudible over the cacophony of the party. "And the woman, she's the one who…" his right shoulder gave an unconscious jerk.
At the other end of the hallway, Derek could see Scott standing rigid in a doorway, his eyes narrowed as he scented the air. Isaac moved out of another room, casually stuffing a wad of bills into the pocket of his jacket as his eyes scanned the hallway. He met up with Jackson, who was staring straight at the couple, fists clenched at his sides.
The woman glanced back, a smirk playing over her lips, before turning her gaze back to Derek, her head tilting as if to say 'what next?'.
Stiles made an abortive movement forward, stopping when Derek's hand came down firmly over his shoulder, fingers brushing the skin of his neck over his t-shirt. "Put it on," he ordered, releasing Stiles when the boy's hand went to his pocket.
Derek met the woman's eyes and spoke coolly, conversationally, confident that she could hear him over the music, "Not here." She nodded and he stepped back, opening the door to the stairwell behind him.
Stiles turned and walked back through the door without waiting to see if their pair of enemies would follow. Once he was in the stairway he ducked to the side, dropping to a knee to pull his knife out from the ankle holster. Silver gleamed around his neck and Derek gave a short nod of satisfaction.
Just as Stiles rose to his feet, the knife held at his side, Aiden and the woman strode through the door with Jackson and Isaac close on their heels, Scott coming through seconds later and letting the door close behind him.
"Well?" Scott asked.
"Marcus thinks it's time to finish this." The woman turned to face Scott and Aiden stepped closer so that the two of them were nearly back-to-back. Sensible, Stiles thought with cold detachment, considering the Beacon Hills pack had ringed around them in a loose circle that could tighten in a moment's thought.
"I don't see Marcus." Derek's tone remained civil. The eyes of every other wolf in the stairwell had shifted, bright and piercing, but Derek's stayed calm and green.
"He's outside. Said you wouldn't start shit with all these humans around." Aiden curled a lip at Stiles.
Scott raised an eyebrow. "You expect us to follow you out into what's probably some kind of ambush?"
The woman shrugged, though Stiles could see the tension running through her body and knew she wasn't as nonchalant as she was trying to appear. "We're just delivering a message."
"Yeah," Stiles laughed, harsh and sudden. "You're good at that, aren't you?"
She flicked her eyes over to him, and this time Stiles could see the quick gleam of fang behind her lips as she spoke. "We all have our talents. I've heard yours are best displayed on a mattress."
Isaac snarled and took a step closer to her but Derek's arm shot out and held him back. "Is Marcus making an official challenge?" Derek asked.
"Yes."
There was a long stretch of silence. Scott and Derek met each other's eyes across the circle. Stiles wasn't sure what passed between them, but when Derek broke away to focus back on the woman the first hints of red were beginning to lick at his irises.
"Accepted," he said. There was a weight to the word that told Stiles the agreement carried more than a simple acknowledgement, that Derek accepting the challenge meant that the rules had somehow changed. Stiles only hoped it meant to their advantage.
"Well, then," Aiden grinned, "Let's not keep him waiting." With a wink at Isaac he passed between Stiles and Derek and down the stairs, the woman close on his heels.
"What do we do?" Jackson asked.
"We follow them." Scott was already turning to make his way down the stairs, but Stiles reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back.
"Hold on—someone explain to me what Derek's just agreed to and what we need to do." Stiles had a pretty good idea. When Marcus's wolves had made their first appearance in Beacon Hills Peter had filled the pack in on how fights for territory usually worked, but now it was all very real.
"An official challenge means that the fight's between Alphas only. No Beta involvement allowed," Derek explained, though it was clear he was only half-focused on their discussion, his head cocked to the side as listened to Aiden and the woman exit the building. "Let go of Scott, Stiles. We need to meet them. I'm not prepared to lose by forfeit."
"That can happen?" Jackson asked incredulously, but he was already moving to head down the stairs.
"Yes. So let's go."
Stiles dropped Scott's arm and let the Alpha rush past him, the rest of the pack following. Stiles bit off a frustrated curse, wondering if he was the only one of them who thought it a little suspicious that after so many months of harrying them Marcus was suddenly prepared for an upfront one-on-one fight to the death.
Except… Stiles was halfway down the staircase following his pack when he came up short. The Beacon Hills pack didn't have one Alpha. It had two. So what the fuck did the rules say about that?
"You guys, hang on!" He shouted down, but they were either too distracted to hear him or didn't care, because he heard the metal door being shoved open with a clang and then slamming shut seconds later when they'd all made it through.
Swallowing a curse, Stiles took the stairs two at a time, hoping to god he could make it down without breaking an ankle. Luck seemed to be on his side because seconds later he hit the door with the flat of both palms and shoved it open, stumbling out and racing down the paved pathway towards the courtyard.
Rounding the corner, he skidded to a halt, just barely managing not to run into Isaac, who stood immobile at the edge of the courtyard. Jackson stood to Isaac's other side and, in front of them, Derek and Scott had made their way into the centre to stand only feet away from an unfamiliar man. Stiles could only assume that this was, finally, Marcus himself. The rest of Marcus's pack were strung out in a loose line behind their Alpha, at the edge of the courtyard like the Beacon Hills pack—Aiden and Ethan, the woman from upstairs, and a third male Beta who Stiles recognized as one of the werewolves who had used him to deliver Marcus's first message.
The courtyard was ringed with trees, all of them large and, since they were in California, all still leafy despite the fact that it was well into December. Stiles was grateful for their presence because anyone looking down from the party above wouldn't see anything but trees. As long as the two packs could keep the fight in the courtyard, they might just manage to do this without attracting attention. He just hoped that the music from the party would drown out the noise.
"Spread out," Stiles directed quietly, the sound barely above a breath, and both Isaac and Jackson moved to put more space between themselves and Stiles until between them they covered as much ground as Marcus's pack.
His fingers were tight around the handle of the knife, the grip biting into the flesh of his palm, and he forced himself to relax, shifting his weight into the stance Chris had taught him—balanced lightly on the balls of his feet and ready to move. In front of him, Derek spoke.
"We're here. What are you waiting for?"
Marcus chuckled, his features still completely human, which, more than anything, convinced Stiles that his alleged 'challenge' was definitely not as simple as it had seemed.
"That's the problem, isn't it?" Marcus slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. On anyone else the movement might have been disarming, but Marcus, a solid wall of muscle, was so large that all it served to do was emphasize the wide span of his shoulders. "All this 'we' business."
Stiles could see Scott glance at Derek, but Derek said nothing and Marcus continued.
"You know the laws as well as I do, Derek Hale. We were both born to this, both embraced our birthright."
"As werewolves?" Derek raised an eyebrow.
"As Alphas."
"I didn't kill a parent to get where I am now." Derek's voice was clipped, impatient. His arms hung loose at his sides but his fingers still ended in claws. Stiles could almost feel the tension running through his body.
"No," amusement curled around the word, "Just an uncle."
"You've made the challenge, Marcus." Scott glared. "We're here to fight, not swap origin stories."
"Yes." Marcus nodded with mock gravity. "I issued a challenge to the Alpha of the Beacon Hills pack. Alpha. Singular."
"Well, that's too bad," Scott was clearly running out of patience, "Because there's two of us."
"Do you want to tell him, or should I?" Marcus slid his eyes over to Derek but didn't wait for him to respond before continuing. "There can only be one Alpha in a pack."
"Says who?" Scott scoffed. But beside him Derek stood stock still—Stiles wasn't sure if he was even breathing.
"We do," they spoke at the same time, Marcus and all four of his Betas. It sent chills racing down Stiles's arms and he could see both Isaac and Jackson flinch back. A frown was beginning to grown on Scott's face. Of all of them, only Derek seemed unaffected.
Stiles knew there were rules the wolves followed—things that kept them out of the public eye, laws that kept their numbers in check, regulated fighting within and between packs—but he'd never asked Derek about them in any detail. Until now, the Beacon Hills pack hadn't had much contact with other werewolves. Stiles usually had more… interesting things to do with Derek than to ask about some kind of archaic code of law. He'd figured if he ever needed to know anything about werewolf rules he'd have plenty of time to find out.
Obviously, he'd been wrong.
"What is this, more supernatural crap?" Scott flexed his claws and glowered at the wolves behind Marcus. "Some kind of Vulcan mind-meld?"
"Just a statement of fact. A fact that someone here," Marcus gave a meaningful head tilt in Derek's direction, "Obviously failed to mention. Didn't you ever wonder how our laws were created? How they are enforced?"
Scott ground his teeth together in frustration. "So, what, you're the werewolf cops?"
"Wrong again. Derek, would you please educate your young friend?"
"Yeah, Derek," Scott turned to face Derek and anger simmered under the red of his eyes. "Educate me."
"We came up with the rules. We enforce them. There's no… police force, no ruling class. Every pack is subject to the rules and every pack, every wolf, has the authority to enforce them."
"Why am I just finding out about this now?" Scott took a step towards Derek and Stiles could have throttled him. Couldn't Scott see he was playing right into Marcus's hands?
"Because, Scott," Derek finally snapped, turning to Scott with his eyes glowing, "Your presence in this pack is breaking them."
"What do you mean?"
"You heard Marcus—we don't allow packs to have more than one Alpha. It causes too many problems. Larger packs, less discretion, too much in-fighting. And it's just… different. Strange. Wrong."
Stiles was surprised at the revulsion in Derek's voice, but maybe he shouldn't have been. Wolves—real wolves—didn't like it when other wolves strayed from the norm. Different was wrong, unnatural. Different was killed.
"Well, then," Marcus clapped his hands. "Now that everybody's up to speed… why don't the two of you get on with it so my challenge can be met?"
"'Get on with it?'" Scott broke away from Derek, looked to Marcus.
"He wants us to fight." Derek moved to stand beside Scott, eyes on Marcus. "To decide who's the Alpha. Except that's not going to happen."
"No?" Marcus asked. "Are you very sure about that?"
"Yes," Derek said firmly. "We'll meet your challenge. Both of us."
"Wait a minute," Scott was frowning. "Is this going to keep happening? If we're breaking the rules does that mean every pack—every wolf—we come across can fight us over them?"
"Can we focus, please, Scott? That's not really—"
"Oh, no. Scott, you're certainly on to something." Marcus grinned. "Even if somehow, impossibly, your pack survives the night, you'll still be outlaws. As long as you have two Alphas, well… your pack's not safe."
"This is your fault," Scott rounded on Derek. "Why would you let this happen?"
"Why would I let this happen? You're the second Alpha. It's your fault."
Stiles could feel his mouth gape open as he watched Scott glower up at Derek. The two Alphas were standing nearly nose-to-nose, completely ignoring Marcus.
"You put the pack at risk by becoming an Alpha," Derek growled. "I've only been trying to protect you. All of you," he gestured back towards where Stiles stood with Jackson and Isaac, all of whom were watching Scott and Derek with varying expressions of horror.
"Protect us! You've made us totally vulnerable!"
"Guys," Jackson gritted out. "Is this really the time?"
"Shut up, Jackson," they said at the same time, without breaking eye contact.
"I guess Marcus is right—two Alphas is one too many," Scott snarled, shoving a clawed hand against Derek's chest. Stiles felt the breath slide out of him in an incredulous rush. This was ridiculous. It wasn't like Scott at all. Or Derek, for that matter. They knew Marcus was the real threat.
"What, you think you can do it on your own?" Derek mocked, returning the shove. "You wouldn't even know how to control the shift without me."
Behind them, Marcus stood smirking, his hands still resting, relaxed and casual, in his pockets. At his back, Stiles could see the rest of his pack had pulled in, drawn towards the conflict enfolding in front of them. In fact, none of them were paying any attention to Isaac or Jackson or Stiles—they were all focused on Scott and Derek. Which, Stiles realized as it all clicked into place, was exactly the point.
"Guys," he whispered, barely moving his lips but knowing Jackson and Isaac would hear him anyway, "Get ready."
"I don't need you anymore, Derek. And neither does this pack." Scott dropped down into a crouch, Derek echoed him, and with a blurred streak of motion they both attacked—pivoting and charging straight towards Marcus.
Taken by surprise, hands still caught in his pockets, Marcus was driven back into the ground with a bone-jarring thud. His werewolves were equally as slow to react. By the time they realized what had happened, Isaac and Jackson were already on them, with Stiles racing to join the fray.
Isaac had Aiden pinned, his claws sunk deep into the flesh of Aiden's biceps, anchoring the other werewolf down. Isaac didn't wait for Aiden to recover. With a spray of blood he tore open Aiden's throat and grinned through bloody teeth as Aiden convulsed under him, before rising to meet Ethan, who threw himself at Isaac with a howl of fury.
Jackson wasn't as lucky. He found himself facing off with the woman and the man whose name they didn't know. He slashed wildly with his claws, already bleeding from a bite in his side, but the woman darted out of the way and her partner dove in, shoulders slamming into Jackson's hips and sending him sprawling to the ground.
Behind him, Stiles could hear the vicious sounds of Scott and Derek fighting with Marcus, and he flinched as he felt blood land hot and wet against the side of his neck. He struggled not to look back, not to find out whose blood he wore, because in front of him the woman was raising her claws to strike Jackson.
"Hey!" Stiles shouted with all the force in his lungs. She whipped around to face him, her face twisted in an animal snarl. Stiles felt his heart freeze in his chest but didn't stop heading straight for her—he remembered the paralytic they'd had on their claws when they'd attacked Isaac last month, and he couldn't risk her wounding Jackson in a way he couldn't heal. He figured they wouldn't wearing venom on their fangs so if he could keep the wolves distracted enough from using their claws on his pack it'd be something. Not much, but it would help.
"Stiles, don't—" Jackson wheezed from the grass, but Stiles was already dodging the woman's blow and slashing back with his knife.
The man on top of Jackson growled and bit down again, making Jackson yelp in pain. Then the two of them were a rolling ball of fangs and claws out of the corner of Stiles's eye as they tore at each other.
Stiles grinned, fierce and feral, as he felt the blade of his knife slide into the woman's chest and skitter off the bone of a rib. She was pressed close against him and she hissed in pain, her hand coming up to close around Stiles's wrist as though to yank his hand back and the blade out of her body. But the second her fingers touched his skin she let out a sharp cry, her body jerking.
Stiles laughed and pulled the knife free so that she fell back, her eyes wide with shock. "I'm not so helpless anymore."
She flexed her trembling fingers, anger high in her cheeks. "If you'd have stayed back we wouldn't have touched you. But now? Now, I'm going to kill you."
"Try me." Stiles smirked, tightening his grip on his knife. The handle was slick with her blood now, harder to hold.
She dropped into a crouch and came at him again, this time targeting his denim-covered legs and driving him back into the base of a tree. Stiles's breath left his lungs in a woosh, his vision greying at the edges, but he raised the knife and brought it down into her back with all the force he could muster. Before he could pull it out and drive it in again there was another movement, faster than Stiles could see, and suddenly she was flying through the air away from him, Derek's back suddenly taking up all of Stiles's vision.
Panting, wordless with fury, Stiles pushed himself up in time to see Scott grappling with Marcus on his own. "I had her, Derek."
"That's not what it looked like to me."
"I don't need you to save me."
"You need someone to," Derek turned to face him. "You've lost your knife, get out of the fight."
"I'm not going to—"
There was a sharp, high-pitched whine and then Isaac was thrown into them, sending Stiles toppling back into the tree with a crunch as the combined weight of Derek and Isaac bore him down.
Through the ringing in his ears, Stiles could hear Scott let out a roar. He had one dazed second of thought in which he hoped no one had heard that, when Marcus gave an answering bellow and he snapped back to focus. Grunting with effort, Stiles shoved Isaac's torso off of his hips and managed to wriggle out from under the two werewolves, careful to avoid their claws as the two of them began to recover their senses and climb groggily to their feet.
Jackson was rising from the limp body of Marcus's Beta, arms covered in blood up to his elbows. Scott was bleeding from a gash in his forehead, blood dripping in a steady stream down his face. Marcus and Ethan were nowhere to be seen.
"Where did they go?" Stiles demanded, eyes sweeping the courtyard for any sign of the woman (and his knife), but she'd disappeared as well. "Where did they go?!"
"Ran off." Scott blinked blood out of his eyes as he limped towards them. "We almost had him. God," he leaned down, rested his hands on his knees. "Derek and I almost had him but—"
"But you had go play knight in shining armour," Stiles whirled around, ignoring the way the world tilted sickeningly for a second. He shoved at Derek, barely registering how slick with blood his hands were when he pulled them back. "If you hadn't come running to my rescue—"
"You'd be dead," Derek responded flatly.
"You don't know that! I was doing fine. I was holding my own. I don't need saving!"
"You were in danger, I wasn't just going to let—"
"Yeah, Derek, I was in danger." Stiles flung his arms out to encompass all of them. "We're all in danger. And you wanna know who's fault that is?"
Derek said nothing, just stared at Stiles with his green eyes blank and his chest still heaving from the fight.
"It's yours. You're the reason we're all in this mess. You're the reason none of us have normal, human lives. Because of you, all of us are at risk. So quit acting like you're the hero, like you're the guy who saves people. You're not that guy." Anger ran like adrenaline through Stiles's veins. "You're the bad guy, Derek. You tie people to railroad tracks and then you act like the train coming along was just coincidence. Well, guess what? I'm sick of it. I'm tired of you pretending you're here to protect us when none of us would need protection if you weren't part of our lives."
Derek gave a single, slow nod, his eyes never leaving Stiles's face. Then he turned, quietly melting into the dark shadows of the trees.
Silence stretched across the courtyard for a long, heavy moment.
"You have no idea," Isaac said slowly, rage weighing down his voice, "What he's done for you, do you?"
"Isaac, don't—" Scott began but Stiles held up a hand and cut him off.
"What do you mean?" There was a tightness around Stiles's chest that had nothing to do with being (repeatedly) thrown against a tree. "What, exactly," he repeated, his voice rising, "Do you mean?"