Chapter 3

"You should talk to her, man." Stiles crumpled the brown paper bag from his lunch and busied himself with tossing it into a nearby trash. The pack was seated outside for lunch, enjoying the last traces of winter in the balmy sunshine. "Stiles?" Scott prompted. Eyes narrowing, Stiles made the shot – missed; the brown bag bounced off the trash can rim and plopped to the dead grass – and turned.

"No," he said bluntly. "Absolutely not." Stiles crossed his arm over his face as if to ward off evil, flinging his hands high for emphasis. Four sets of eyes stared at him – Lydia, Malia, Kira, and Liam.

"Why not?" Scott asked and leaned intently over the plastic table. "If someone around her is going to die-"

"Then don't you think it's a smart move to stay as far away from her as humanly possibly?" Stiles interrupted with a squint. "Did you ever stop to consider that we could be those dead people?" The others paused. Clearly, this thought hadn't crossed their minds. Well, except for Lydia.

"I don't think it's us," she said slowly. She nibbled on her lower lip and gazed off into the distance. For a split second, Stiles wondered what she was listening to, what she could hear that none of them could. "I don't know why, but…I just don't think it's us."

"No offense Lydia but think and know are two very different things," Stiles said with a cutting gesture to halt the conversation. "She's dangerous, she's off limits, end of story."

"Who's off limits?" Stiles whirled so quickly he nearly tumbled off the bench. Before he did, he saw Lydia's eyes widen into perfect circles. None other than Ellie, the very focus of their conversation, stood behind him. On that day, she wore black leggings under a flowery top with the same heeled brown boots and the green leaf necklace. A small backpack crowded against her back, and she held a textbook in her arms.

"Uhhh," Stiles fumbled, staring into her hazel eyes and losing his train of thought. "Nothing." Ellie's lips quirked.

"Nothing is off limits?" she repeated impishly. Scott blurted out a laugh but quickly smothered it with one hand, glancing awkwardly at Stiles.

"No, no, of course not," Stiles interjected with a wave of his hand. "I mean, of course certain things are off limits, just…not…this. Wait, no, this is one…of…those…things." Ellie's smile slipped, and she stared at him with a blank sort of curiosity that he just knew the others shared. If they weren't outright snickering.

"You lost me," she said slowly.

"That makes two of us," he muttered under his breath. Ellie surprised him by laughing. It was a surprisingly light, airy sound; sharp, chiming bells in a chill winter.

"You're interesting, Stiles." Stiles blinked at her, unable to form a response. "Well, I should be going. Have a nice day." She turned to leave, just like that. It baffled Stiles. Why go out of her way to walk over and…interrupt their conversation, just to leave? What's her angle?

"Hey, Ellie wait!" Stiles turned to Scott as he lunged from the bench and trotted awkwardly after the waifer thin girl. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no. Stiles stumbled to his feet after Scott, but the damage was already done. Ellie turned to face Scott, a polite smile on her pointed face.

"Have you, uh, finished studying for that AP Biology test?" Scott asked. Ellie cocked her head to the side, reminding Stiles of a hawk eyeing its prey.

"No, actually," she said lightly. "Have you?"

"No," Scott replied with obvious relief. "Do you want to study together?" Ellie paused, giving Stiles long enough to reach them. He opened his mouth to come up with some sort of stellar excuse to dis-invite her – one of his specialties – but the look on her face made him pause. Her hazel eyes swept from Scott to Stiles and to the rest of their table, an odd, calculating look on her pretty face.

Finally, her eyes swung back to Stiles and rested there, pinning him to the spot.

"Sure."

After school, Scott wandered back to his motorbike to head home. The pack had agreed to meet there to study with Ellie Thistle – she gave him her last name when he asked for her number, to coordinate a study time. Scott absently fished for his keys and stared down at the sidewalk beneath his feet, his mind elsewhere.

The pack.

Liam was staying the night at his place so that Scott could keep an eye on him, even though he told Liam it was because he wanted him nearby in the event of an emergency.

Lydia was having a hard time concentrating in school because of her supernatural hearing.

Scott practically had to forbid Malia from attacking the merest hint of a threat, her nerves were so high strung.

Kira…Scott couldn't even think about Kira for very long without his claws tearing through his nails. What if she's next? What if they go after her, and I'm not there? These thoughts haunted him nearly every waking minute of the day. No. Scott paused at his motorbike, his fingers curling around the keys nearly hard enough to bend the metal. No, she won't be next. At least he didn't have to worry about Stiles. So far, the only deaths were supernaturals one. It was a small, yet a heavy, relief to know his best friend wouldn't be a target.

"Mister McCall." Scott's head snapped up, straightening his shoulders. A pair of men in black suits and sunglasses – were those earpieces in their ears? – stood on either side of his motorbike. Their feet were planted shoulder width apart, their hands folded at their waists.

"Who's asking?" he replied sharply.

"Do not worry, Mister McCall, we pose no threat," the first man, with blonde hair and a thick beard, said smoothly. "We are here to help." Scott frowned.

"Help with what?"

"The supernatural threat that you face." Scott's eyes widened to the size of saucers, the helmet nearly slipping from his limp grasp.

"Wha-what did you just say?"

"We know about you, Mister McCall," the other man, with dark hair and a thin beard curling up at the edges, added. "We know about you and your pack." Scott hunched his shoulders defensively, anger pulsing through his veins.

"Is that a threat?" he asked in a low growl. The blonde haired man raised his hands innocently.

"No, Mister McCall, not a threat. As we said, we're here to help." Scott studied the men before him. Neither one moved – aside from the raised hands – and watched him with an inhuman stillness, as if not even the passing winter breeze could touch them. Supernatural? Scott inhaled deeply, catching their scent. Spring flowers. Orchards. No…crushed flowers. Rotten fruit.

It reminded him of Ellie Thistle, except…different. Two sides of the same coin.

"How are you going to help?" he asked finally, cautiously.

"We are here to give you information," the blonde haired man explained calmly. Scott's brows lowered doubtfully. "It appears you and your pack have caused quite a stir in Beacon Hills, Mister McCall. As you already know, it has drawn all manner of supernatural beasts to your county."

"Werewolves," the dark haired man added. "Werecoyotes. Banshees. Assassins."

"And now," the blonde haired man continued, "you face a new threat. We know about the three bodies." It took every ounce of will power for Scott not to whip out his claws and lunge for the men.

"How?"

"Because," the dark haired man told him calmly, his head angling ever so slightly towards Scott's clenched fists, "we want to stop them."

"Them? Who?" Scott demanded.

"The Seelie Court," the dark haired man said. The unfamiliar words caught Scott short. He thought he knew every supernatural creature there was in Beacon Hills, but apparently he was wrong. Dead wrong.

"What is that?" Scott asked with the same hesitation.

"A royal faerie court," the blonde haired man finished for him, "who intend to enslave humankind."

"They see humans as pets," the dark haired man added. "They see themselves as better than them, and want to enslave them, rule them, turn them into household accessories."

"But…why now?" Scott asked, his head spinning. Faeries? Did they say faeries? Even Scott had a hard time wrapping his head around that. For some reason, people who turned into werewolves or werecoyotes on the night of a full moon made more sense than tiny people with wings and fairy dust.

And how do I even know I can trust them? That was Stiles' voice in his head, the voice of reason when he wanted to jump straight to instinct.

"It may not appear this way to you, Mister McCall," the blonde haired man began, "but you have weeded out much of the, shall we say, unfavorable members of the supernatural community, from Beacon Hills."

"It makes it easier," said the dark haired man, "for the Seelie Court to take over. Without much of a threat, they can move in on the surviving members." Surviving members. Scott's thoughts instantly latched onto his pack.

"Why?" he nearly roared.

"To join them," the blonde haired man replied simply. It took a while for Scott to reason through this, his mind working through molasses. Join them. To enslave the human race. To take away any possibility of help from the supernatural.

"And…if they don't join them?" Scott persisted, afraid he already knew the answer.

"If they don't join them," the dark haired man said evenly, "then they become another unexplained body." The breath caught in Scott's throat. The faeries – he still had a hard time accepting that term – are behind this? If the supernatural don't join them, they die? It was almost crazy enough to believe.

"We want to stop them, just like you," the blonde haired man said. "We want to help, if we can."

"How?" Scott demanded hoarsely. Faeries. Faeries! How the hell do we fight something we don't know? It was actually quite simple. They had to face it, the way they faced every other supernatural threat to Beacon Hills. When the werewolves first arrived, Scott had no idea what to do, or how to react, but he had managed to survive with the strength of his pack. When every threat surfaced, he found a way to protect everyone, with his pack.

They would just have to do it again.

"You have already met a member of the Seelie Court." Scott stared at the dark-haired man.

"Who?"

"Elaine Thistle," the blonde haired man told him. The man reached up to adjust his sunglasses, making the reflective dark lenses briefly blind Scott. "We are told she goes by Ellie." Scott's heart thudded an erratic beat in his chest. Ellie. The girl Lydia predicted would be surrounded by death. She was a member of the Seelie Court? She wanted to help enslave humanity, and kill the supernatural if they weren't willing to join her?

"We spoke with your friend, Mister Stilinski, yesterday," the dark haired man surprised him by saying. "We tried to warn him about Miss Thistle, but he wouldn't listen."
"Y-you did?" The men shared a glance.

"Mister Stilinski did not tell you?" the blonde haired man asked with mild confusion. Scott shook his head. The man's brows furrowed. "Then it may be worse than we feared. If Mister Stilinski did not warn you, as we tried to warn him, he may already be under her control." Scott's eyes widened.

"What do you mean, under her control?"

"Have you heard of a faerie glamour?" the dark haired man asked stoically. Once again, Scott shook his head. He ground his teeth in frustration at his own ignorance. "It allows faeries to trick the human eye, the human senses. It's far easier to…persuade humans than it is to persuade the supernatural. It takes far, far more power to glamour a banshee, or, say, a werewolf." Scott's pulse began to raise, a vein throbbing in his neck. Stiles. It was true that Ellie had showed undivided interest in Stiles. At first, Scott had merely mistook it for a harmless crush. But now…Scott understood Stiles' hesitation, his caution. Had Stiles been able to sense something, even despite Ellie's glamour, if that's really what it was?

"How do you know for sure?" Scott rasped. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"We can prove it," the blonde haired man said simply.

"How?"

"Iron," the dark haired man told him, and reached into the inner pocket of his lapel. "Faeries are weakened by iron. If they even touch it – " the man pulled a bracelet from the pocket, the links shining iron "—they will be burned." The man extended it to Scott, who accepted it slowly.

"It has come to our attention that you plan to seclude yourself with Miss Thistle," the blonde haired man added. "When you do, offer her this bracelet, and you will know." Scott fiddled with the bracelet, a part of him recoiling from the idea. Burning a girl? I can't do that. Except…what if she was more than a girl? What if she was a veritable threat?

What if she was trying to enslave Stiles with her glamour?

"If this is true, if she is part of the Seelie Court," Scott said slowly, "then what do you plan to do?" The men shared yet another glance.

"We will be watching," the dark haired man said coolly. "If the iron burns her, we will send someone in to…take care of her." Alarm spiked through Scott.

"Take care of her? What do you mean by that?" Even if Ellie was a faerie, even if she was a member of the Seelie Court, Scott couldn't condone anybody's murder.

"Fear not, Mister McCall. We are not beasts like the Seelie Court. We will detain her, find whoever she is working with, and detain them as well."

"You can trust us, Mister McCall," the blonde haired man added. "We are the good guys. We are here to help."