Chapter 2.

Wolf in the woods.

Thud thud thud-thud.

Anger burned through my veins in a way I had never experience, my blood pounded through my heart so fast I thought it would give up on itself. My head swam with unclear visions of me with claws instead of finger nails, raking down my face in pain blinding my eyes. A sharp silver object piercing a chest.

I jolted backwards out of unconsciousness, falling backwards. I gasped as if I hadn't taken a breath in the last 5 minutes. Had I dreamt all of that? I couldn't detangle what had been reality. I remember the pain ripping my chest open.

"You're awake" A bemused sounding voice came from above. It wasn't Scott's. It was husky and deep. "I see you survived the bite."

"The bite?" I questioned, in no real hurry to move from the ground. "Where am I?"

"You're in Deaton's. It's about 5am in the morning. The weather today is cool with overcast due later" His face loomed above me, and hot god damn was I struck by complete embarrassment.

He had to be some kind of god, and to describe. Angled cheekbones, stubble that would make any man jealous. I had the strange urge to touch it, could be as bristly as it looked? Dear lord, my heart.

"The bite" He grinned, showing off a row of sparkling white teeth "Is what our Alpha, Scott gave you. He saved your life." Whoever he was, seemed to be enjoying winding me up. Bite? Alpha?

"Don't you mean, he took me to a hospital, and you're jacked up on some drug?" I frowned at him "Secondly, who are you, why are you in my hospital room and please leave."

I finally got up off the floor, dusting my behind off. A few things clicked into place as I did so. I was still fully clothed, although, I remember wearing a different top yesterday. This one was white with short sleeves but was way too big for me, so it hung awkwardly to my figure. There were pictures on the walls. Normal right?

Wrong! They were those vet posters you get in.. well vets, with the insides of animals and bones, pictures of dogs and cats and fleas.

So I really was in a vets. He hadn't been lying.. had all of that really happened? My hand strayed to my rib cage over the top, nothing seemed unusual from touch but I'd need a closer look. Time to find a mirror. I turned to examine the room, wandering over to a cabinet with a reflecting glass rectangle.

"Do you mind?" My eyes studied him in the mirror, he was grinning from ear to ear

"I don't, please, carry on." He reclined in the plastic chair

"Ugh, perv, get out. You still need to tell me your name" So I can report you and your freaky friends for stitching me up at the vets. I thought to myself. He shrugged, so, I raised the top just high enough to examine my ribcage, hoping the huge shirt would conceal me. Nothing. My skin was clear or marks, even the scar I had from childhood had disappeared. I dropped the shirt, my head spinning in circles. I closed my eyes, gripping the counter beneath, feeling metal instruments cut into my hands

"I'm Derek, Derek Hale." He finally said. Derek Hale.

Derek.. Hale.. I recognized that name. Wasn't he the one..

My eyes flew open, my hands gripping still at the metal instruments.

"You tried to kill those kids in the school." Amy had gone on and on about it for weeks, how crazy Derek Hale had tried to kill a bunch of kids in this school, this room this hall etcetc.

"That wasn't me it-" He'd began. But had been cut off short by me, holding a metal scalpel flush against his jugular.

I'd had defensive training since about 6 years ago, when my parents had insisted it to "protect myself". Finally it had come in handy. He still had that annoying grin on his face, like I couldn't hurt him or that I wouldn't.

"Please, let me explain" He tried to clear his throat.

"Try it and I'll scream." His face lit up

"Oh please" He struggled to laugh as I increased the pressure at his neck, a thin line of blood running down. "I'm sure everyone would come running to save you, princess."

So, I screamed.

"Derek, please don't antagonize her."

I recognized the voice, as Deaton's. I stopped screaming.

"I'm sorry sir, but it appears you have an attempted murderer in your fine establishment"

Deaton just laughed, my grip slackened and I turned to look at Deaton. Derek had decided that he'd had enough of the games. I realized a lot of things in that moment, one was how stupid I had been to try and threaten him. I'd never been overly strong, but I'd been hoping he'd at least be worried enough about his life. The second is now, how when I look back, I could've beaten him had I known what was truly happening inside of my body. But because I didn't I ended flat on my back my head making a resounding crack sound as it struck the floor. Derek's face was inches from mine.

"Derek.." Deaton's voice had a sharp warning edge to it.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt the princess." A corner of his mouth hitched up "Just gunna show her what she's messing with."

My vision swam with tears and my head pounded. But what I saw next is something I will never forget, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of a person I will only ever hear about.

Derek snarled at me. Yeah, snarled. His teeth had changed from pearly white and even, to incredibly sharp dangerous fangs, almost.. wolf-like..

I cried out from both fear and confusion. Trying to pull myself from underneath his weight. But I couldn't pull my eyes away from Derek, as they turned to a haunting and eerie shade of yellow.

"I think that's enough, we should tell Scott she's okay. I'm sure he's close to worrying himself to a early grave." Deaton's words were tender, as if he were remembering a distance memory. Derek's eyes also fogged over. He pushed back and stood up

"Worrying will only harm his Alpha status. You're chosen for a reason." He gruffly said before leaving the room without so much of a look back at me or Deaton.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that, but I am glad you survived. I think you will be good for them." Deaton helped me up off the floor, checking me over like he did this every day, more familiar with people than he was animals. Although my head was tender I could feel the swelling already reducing.

"What's happening to me" I asked, unsure of whether I really wanted to hear the answer. Everything since Friday.. I suppose, it was last night, had happened so quickly, I felt out of touch with the world. I placed my hands in my pockets, feeling for the familiar square block of my mobile.

"It would be best for Scott to explain. He will be along shortly. I am sure you want to allow your.. family and friends know you are okay." He gestured towards the phone and left the room.

14 texts and 2 answer phone messages later, all from Amy, I had convinced her that I had met some guy and we'd.. hooked up. Listen, I'm not against hooking up, I'd never had any experience so I'm sure when Amy awake she'd be overjoyed. I'd convincingly put into words that what she had seen last night was surely a drunken memory, if someone had fallen, someone would've noticed. Seeing as it was 5.30am, I doubted she'd be awake. I sent my parents the general text about how I was okay, we'd stayed up late studying and were gunna rock the next test with ease how I loved them both and would see them in the afternoon.

While texting my parents how I loved them, I got a bit teary eyed. If everything that I remembered had happened, if I really had fallen from a cliff and seriously hurt myself, they might never had heard from me again. The next time they'd have seen me would've been in a coffin.

I was crying into my hands silently by the time the door opened again, I peeked through my hands to fully witness Scott for the first time. He was taller than I'd thought, and well built like Derek had been. Clean shaven and hair in tufts like he'd been pulling at it all night.

"I'm sorry" those were the first words he said, and for some reason, they made me really, really mad. So mad I forgot how I'd been crying for 15 minutes, and how the only tissue I had was the sleeve of this huge tshirt I was wearing. I completely exploded at him.

"Sorry?! You're Sorry?!" I yelled, pushing myself up off the chair. "I'm sorry, did you push me from a cliff? Did I even fall from a cliff? Yknow what Scott" I spat his name out, my hands balling into fists "I have no idea what in god's name happened to me last night, I woke up in a freaky ass vet's, with a bunch of people going on about how I'm dying, and how you should just bite me, like you're all a part of some weird sex cult!" I kicked out, striking one of Deaton's cupboard doors and breaking it. Had I not been in such a rage, I would've noticed how crazy strong I'd just been.

"Then what, I wake up again and oh yeah!" I marched up to him, staring him straight in the eyes, so close I could smell his cologne, "I wake up and guess who's here! No one other than psycho school murdered Derek Hale!"

Distantly, although I could've imagined it, I heard Derek yell "Wasn't me". Scott just stood there, letting my go on and on about how crap everything had been. When I'd calmed, I realised my hands were warm and sticky. Scott grabbed my hands, pulling them up to eye level.

"You see this? You did this, you are this." My hands ended with thick claws, dug deeply into my palms "Yes, last night. You fell from a cliff trying to save your friend from a similar fate. You landed on a fallen tree, a sharp branch pierced your lung and through your ribcage. When Liam found you, you'd almost gone." He let the word gone hang in the air. "Stiles and Malia convinced me that we needed to save you, but we needed you in the pack more. My mom pulled up your hospital records, got your blood type and smuggled us a few bags. Enough to keep you alive until you healed."

He pried my claw/nails from my palms, smearing the blood so I could clearly see the punctures, watching as a the healed to nothing.

"I took too long. Deaton did his best but he's a vet, more suited to werewolves and dogs and cats, not humans with no healing capabilities. He stitched you up. But this is my fault, I couldn't make a decision on whether to take you to the hospital and allow you to live a normal life, but there was a huge chance you wouldn't survive, a puncture that big in your lungs..." He looked away, as if it would be his fault had I died. "When you woke up, it was almost a miracle, I'd been speaking to you for hours hoping to get through to you, and tell you what had happened. Turns out, I didn't have enough time"

Scott's voice had gone soft and gentle, like he was remembering every time he had ever failed, comparing it to the times he had succeeded.

"You ripped your stitches, and began bleeding out again. There is a pact, we offer you a choice, the pain or life you live at that moment in time, or a better life where you may die. We have to have conscious agreement. So when you screamed Yes until your voice went hoarse, I bit your shoulder with the bite of an alpha."

That biting pain had turned out to be an actual bite.. Hearing all of this from a third person perspective had a really strange effect on my brain. I remembered vaguely trying to save Amy, being shoved by accident and falling. It all finally clicked into place. Derek's wolf teeth suddenly made sense, I hadn't been hallucinating, or high on some drug. You're probably wondering how I could believe all of this, how a bite from some man calling himself the Alpha saved my life. I based my life on what I could see and hear. I saw Derek's wolf teeth, the flash of his eyes. I heard Malia, still a stranger to me, saying how she'd eat me had I been in her pack, even trying to bite me herself. My human fingernails had turned into black claws that pierced my skin.

"There is one thing." Derek's voice came from the doorway, and I looked over Scott's shoulder at him. Scott had let go of my hands, backing away from me allowing Derek and me to enter some kind of Mexican standoff.

"Well two actually" He corrected himself, leaning against the doorframe. "You are not to tell anyone what has happened to you, what you are or who we are to you. Although most people would have you sent to Eichen House, there are people who will hunt you down and kill you for just being a werewolf."

Everyone know Eichen House, although people tried not to mention it in conversation. A chill went through me knowing that purely mentioning or showing someone what I was would get me killed or in Eichen House.

"Two." He grinned, eyeing the top I had on "I want that top back." He held up a simple white object, it took me a few seconds to realise what it was. I should've realised earlier, my top had been changed. I'd looked at my ribcage and below my breast. My bra was in the hands of perv-y Derek Hale.

I went completely red, making strange blustering noises. Storming over to him and snatching my bra back, trying to stuff it in the band of my trousers. Derek cracked up laughing as I did so.

"Don't worry Princess, it's not like I've never seen a bra before"

I turned to Scott, who looked marginally uncomfortable

"You took my bra off?" I hissed, still incredibly embarrassed.

"Actually, Lydia and Malia took it off when you got in so Deaton could stitch you up." He avoided my eyes "We didn't see anything" He said in a voice that made me think the 5 people that came in with weapons earlier had seen something.

"You watched me get stitched up naked on the table?!" I yelled. I seemed to be doing a lot of yelling today.

"Well it wasn't like that." Scott interrupted, for the first time he didn't sound guilty. He sounded angry "You weren't naked, the only thing we saw was your wound. I had to make a decision."

He rolled his shoulders, looking at Derek

"Can you take her home? I have to meet Chris"

Whoever Chris was, he sounded important. I didn't really want to spend any more time with Derek than I had to. I felt awkward, not only because I was at least 60% sure he was a murderer, but he was at least 25. It wasn't often 25 year olds wanted to hang around 17 year old girls, although being a perv he probably didn't mind young girls fawning over him and his god-like looks.

Derek drove a red truck. It gleamed in the early morning sun.

"Hop in Princess." He clicked a button unlocking his truck and got in. "We're going for breakfast"