A/N: Canon-divergent AU post-season 2. Canon timeline has been altered because everything happens way too fast for my liking. This work is no friend to Scott McCall, consider yourself warned.
Summary: Stiles has been pushed to the fringes of the pack-he's known this since he escaped the Argent's torture basement all by himself. He goes to the only person he can trust to do what needs to be done, the only one who might miss him when he's gone, and the only one he can really say is pack: Peter Hale. Then, an unexpected arrival opens up a whole new world of possibility-assuming they can survive and escape Beacon Hills. Beyond the borders, however, a larger conspiracy awaits, and they might need some help to face it. Or: A pack consisting of one former alpha werewolf, one Spark mage and one mage-not-otherwise-specified find family, healing and take on the world.
Chapter 4: Watch Over You
They had almost a month of peace, but in Beacon Hills, nothing ever stayed quiet for that long. Pretty soon corpses were turning up, and Scott, still riding the True Alpha high, had sent the pack out to search the preserve for any clues. Somehow, that had included Stiles being out in the woods after dark, but not Peter. He had sent the older wolf a message as he was volunteered after school to drive a bunch of the pack out to the preserve. As much as Peter had argued that he should be there, Stiles did not want to face the inevitable argument that would arise between him and Scott. Peter had begrudgingly agreed, making Stiles promise to send any relevant information as he found it.
So far, the search, at least on Stiles' end, had been a bust. The wolves had all run off after something he could not hear, smell or who knew what else because no one had thought to tell him anything. Not bothering to follow after them, Stiles stuck around the clearing where the first body had been found, something nagging at the back of his mind.
Nothing appeared to be out of place. Stiles had walked the clearing twice already before it got too dark to really see. Now, there was only a sliver of moonlight to illuminate the space, and he could not shake the feeling that something had shifted. He was about to take out his phone and call Peter, Scott be damned, because maybe the wolf would pick up something he had missed, when he felt a chill settle around his ankles. Looking down, he muttered a soft 'oh shit' before flailing backwards out of the small lake that was expanding from the middle of the clearing.
"That is not normal, that is so not normal, and I eat 'not normal' for breakfast," Stiles snarked to himself as he made it to the treeline.
'Hello to you too, darling. I'm doing fine, thank you for asking,' a tinny, distorted voice echoed from Stiles' palm.
Stiles almost dropped his phone in surprise, he had not realized he had actually hit the call button on his cell.
"Shit, Peter, sorry. I didn't realize I had actually called and now there's a fucking lake appearing out of nowhere in this clearing, and honestly I did not have this on my 'let's go out and find weird shit in the Preserve' bingo card for this week. I was actually going to call you and see if you could come out and figure out what I was missing, since the rest of the pack ran off and something felt weird but y'know, regular human here, my senses are kinda lacking—"
'The pack left you?' Peter's growl echoed through the device, 'Where are you?'
"Don't act so surprised, creeper wolf, this isn't the first time," Stiles huffed a tired laugh, "and I'm at the clearing where they found the first body and—"
Stiles did not get the chance to finish as his vision went black and a searing pain ripped through his head.
"Stiles!"
Peter was halfway out the door of his apartment when his packmate cut off abruptly, a high-pitched whine echoing through the speaker that had the werewolf seeing stars as hit the button to ride the elevator down to the lobby. Even through the phone line, he could feel the tell-tale crackling of magic as it echoed around Stiles' phone.
Cursing to himself, he jumped into his car and sped towards the preserve. By the time he had pulled up next to the robin-blue Jeep and parked, he noticed that the other pack vehicles had already left, the telltale scent of exhaust and motor oil beginning to fade.
They left. Ran off without their human pack member and didn't even bother to check if he had returned, Peter noted, not bothering to suppress the deep, angry growl that rose from his chest as he took off into the woods, following Stiles' scent.
The closer he got to the clearing, the more Peter felt his hackles rise as the scent of stagnant, brackish water assaulted his nose. Fear and pain saturated the air, and the wolf forced himself to move faster, heedless of the branches whipping at his face and arms as he sped towards the clearing.
He skidded to a halt outside of what should have been a clearing— it had been a clearing the last time Peter had run this way. Now, however, he felt the water lapping at his feat, rippling outwards from where a decrepit, foul-smelling figure stood chanting over the two bodies lying motionless at her feet, as if resting on top of the water. The one closest to his side of the clearing was a young woman, barely older than Stiles if he had to guess, with dark hair and clothes that were torn and singed like she had been in a fight. Her scent was wholly foreign to Peter—she was definitely supernatural, but not something he had ever encountered. The other figure, made paler by the light wash of moonlight, was his packmate. Stiles laid too still and too silent, but Peter could see his chest rise and fall, and the wolf let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Peter was unable to hear the chant over the growing hum of magic that gathered around both bodies, but he could see well enough to ascertain what the creature was: a hag, one bound to a swamp by the looks of it. Except she had somehow brought her swamp to a dry preserve in Beacon Hills. Focusing his hearing, Peter could make out the heartbeats of her victims—one that fluttered and beat a little too fast for a human which he could instantly recognize as Stiles', and another that was slow and sluggish, probably under the influence of drugs, magic or both.
The humming grew louder, itching like it was trying to work its way under Peter's skin and he growled, preparing to shift and launch himself at the hag when a soul-rending scream echoed throughout the clearing. Peter watched, horrified, as light burst from Stiles' chest, blindingly bright, like someone had lit a bunch of magnesium on fire. The hag reached forward to gather the light—the magic, Peter's brain supplied—around a pitch black spindle. Red clouded Peter's vision as he felt something like claws dragging along their pack bond, the threat of having it severed spurring his shift as he lunged across the water. It wasn't until his body collided with the hag that he realised he had landed on all fours, snarling into the hag's face before clamping his jaws around her throat and biting as hard as he could.
Her blood tasted of stale water and algae as it coated the inside of his mouth, before a violent burst of magic forced him sprawling back, heaving for breath as he felt his broken ribs begin to heal. Peter lifted himself shakily onto all fours, shaking out his fur—since when had he had fur?—as best he could without collapsing again from the pain. The hag was also still struggling to her feet, black blood pouring form the wound in her neck as she glared at the wolf that had dared to interfere with her ritual.
Peter flashed his eyes blue at the hag that had hurt his packmate, stalking through the relatively shallow water towards her. He saw the hag lunge, long black claws extended to rend his flesh, when an earthshaking roar echoed from behind him. The hag froze in her tracks, and Peter took the chance to leap and tackle her to the ground, putting all his weight on her chest, and clamping his teeth around the arm that held the spindle.
The roar had helped to clear the red haze that had clouded his head when he had first launched himself into the clearing, and Peter finally took stock of the fact that this shift felt different. It was powerful—he was healing faster than usual, for one, and he had experienced enough broken bones and internal injuries to know. It hit him as he caught a glance at his reflection in the moonlit water: Peter was a wolf.
A fully shifted wolf.
Blue eyes blinked and reflected his shock for only a moment until the hag started to struggle again and Peter clamped his jaws down with a growl. There was a sick satisfaction to feeling the hag's arm give way with an audible crack, and she dropped the spindle. Peter forced his claws to dig into her chest, knowing that ripping out the hag's heart was most likely the only way to incapacitate her and stop her from healing.
He had not, however, anticipated how much more difficult that would be with paws instead of hands, but before he could shift his position to simply rip into her chest with his teeth, Peter felt the hags claws sink deep into his side. A primal howl of pain ripped through his chest as he was thrown back. Peter could feel some sort of poison spreading through his body as he struggled to right himself. If nothing else, he had to make sure that Stiles stayed safe—repeating that as a mantra as he dragged himself over to the boy whose breathing had become erratic and shallow.
A flash of crackling, black energy shot by him, and Peter looked around to find the source. The young woman who had been unconscious moments before had struggled to her feet and had one hand outstretched, the remnants of her magic still crackling around her hand. Peter guessed that she had also been the source of the roar that had shocked the hag, but he had no idea how such a sound had come from the small woman. Electric blue eyes met molten silver, cat-like pupils set in sclera so black they seemed to absorb all light. She gave the wolf a weak smile before reaching back between her shoulder blades and drawing forth a silver, rune-etched blade.
"You have no power here, war-caller," the hag snarled as the young woman advanced, "you are too far from your homeland, too weak to defeat me."
"Are you willing to bet your life on that, hag?"
Without giving the hag a chance to reply, the woman charged forwards, heedless of the blood that ran from her mouth, or the jagged claws that raked her side as she plunged the sword deep into the hag's chest, another pulse of energy coursing through the blade as it made contact.
Black blood flowed forth, dripping down the blade which the mage pulled out as the water receded and the hag melted into a puddle of foul-smelling ichor at the woman's feet. Without pausing for more than a moment, she stooped to grab the spindle that still had the light leaking from Stiles' chest wrapped around it. Peter growled from where he stood protectively over the teenager's body. The mystery woman may have been a prisoner of the hag, and may have killed her, but he did not trust her motives. Of course, the werewolf also could not even begin to fathom how to help Stiles, not with the poison still working through his system.
The woman turned towards him, no fear in her eyes or her scent as she tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck.
"Will you allow me to help him, child of Lycaon?" she asked with a distinctly English accent, voice soft despite the pain Peter could smell rolling off of her, "I intend only to return that which was stolen from him, not to do him any harm."
The fight left Peter when he smelled no lies, and a whimper escaped Stiles' lips. Nodding, the wolf stepped aside and sat, vigilant, at his packmate's side. Relief flooded the woman's eyes, which Peter noted had shifted back to a normal, human pale grey, as she bent to pick up the spindle. Painstakingly slow in her movements, she unwove the threads from the branch, murmuring under her breath until the glow from Stiles' chest had abated, and he was breathing normally again. Peter stiffened when he felt light fingers brush against the pack bond, but there was no threat from this touch, not like the hag's claws which had sought to tear it and shatter it. Rather, the woman's touch was gentle and almost reverent—as if she knew how precious such a bond was—as she smoothed the rough edges, repairing any damage done by the hag.
Stiles blinked his eyes open just as the strange woman was finishing her work, feeling her hand on his chest. He wanted to fight when he felt the touch, but something inside him—something awoken by whatever the hag had done—told him to lay still, that he was safe. He breathed a sigh of relief as the pain in his head abated, and the hand was removed from his chest so he could sit up.
"What the hell was that? Who are you?" Stiles looked at the woman who was in the process of setting fire to the spindle and was shocked to see the flames flicker a dark, almost iridescent purple-black before vanishing entirely, "Shit, that was neat. Wait, was that magic?"
"It was a hag. You may call me Ria. And yes, that was magic."
A pained chuckle escaped the woman's lips as she moved to the side of the giant black wolf that Stiles finally registered at his side.
"Peter?!" the human yelped, seeing blue eyes staring back at him.
It took all of Peter's strength to nod, the adrenaline leaving his body now that his packmate seemed to be relatively safe. He collapsed gracelessly onto his side, his head landing in Stiles' lap. The human's fingers immediately buried themselves in the fur at his neck, and Peter could hear Stiles' heartrate increase in panic.
"Holy shit, are you okay? Wolfsbane? Mistletoe?" Stiles started listing off, angry that all of his supplies were back in the Jeep.
"Hush, mage-child. I still have enough strength to heal your packmate. Just keep him calm as best you can," the woman was crouched at Peter's side, looking absolutely exhausted as she laid trembling fingers on the wolf's side, "This is going to be unpleasant."
Neither Stiles, nor Peter, had any warning before her hand shot towards the wound, pressing her finger tips, now shaped more like long claws thanks to a silver gauntlet that covered her hand, to the bloody holes the hag had left. Peter snarled in pain as her claws pierced the wound, wanting to snap at the woman and her prodding fingers, but Stiles did his best to hold his head in place. The human started talking to distract both Peter and himself as he watched the woman do…whatever it was she was doing.
"Wait isn't that a werewolf thing? Draining his pain? Like you've got the black veins and everything, but I don't think I've ever seen someone do that by shoving their hands in the wounds. And is the gauntlet magic? Are you sure it's helping? Like, shouldn't we be burning out the poison before it reaches his heart? How did you know Peter is pack—I'm human…"
Peter let himself fall further into Stiles' lap, trying to focus on the teen's voice instead of the pain in his side. The longer he laid there, however, the clearer Peter's head became, and the burning poison that had flooded his veins felt like it was receding. He could feel his healing start again, and the wounds began to knit themselves closed as soon as the fingers retreated from his side.
It took him a moment to realize the woman had actually started answering Stiles' questions, and Peter flicked an ear in her direction to listen.
"…wolf, but not really human either. I drained the poison that was preventing him healing. Unlike draining pain, I need to be in contact with the poison to draw it out. And it is common for humans, especially magically inclined ones, to be part of a pack."
Stiles stared at the woman, his brain finally catching up to the past ten minutes, "Magically inclined? I'm not—I can't—You called me a mage-child."
Peter sniffed at Stiles, blinking in surprise. He smelled almost entirely of the storm now, no longer hidden by the veil of distinctly human scent that normally clung to him. It was both similar and distinct from the woman—from Ria's scent.
Standing and shaking himself, the wolf trotted to the edge of the clearing to see if anything remained of his clothing. As comfortable in his own skin as he was, Peter figured there were at least some conversations that were better had with pants on. Thankfully, shifting into a regular wolf had not been nearly as damaging to his clothing as a regular shift, and Peter was able to shift back and dress himself before returning.
"Well, aren't you just full of surprises, sweetheart," Peter smirked as he returned.
Stiles huffed, then winced from where the ache was beginning to return to his chest, "Says the one who can apparently turn into a fucking dire wolf!"
"Believe me, that was a surprise to me as well," Peter hummed, looking at their unlikely companion, "My sister was the first in generations to have the ability."
Peter tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Being so much younger than his sister, the unwanted child who immediately got handed off to be trained as Left Hand, he knew Talia would hate that he had gained the ability to full shift.
Stiles, however, just stared at him for a moment before grinning and punching him lightly in the leg, "Just imagine the look on Derek's face when he finds out."
"Derek? Another member of your pack? Are they here?"
Peter suppressed a laugh at how Ria seemed to fire off questions just as quickly as Stiles.
"Nah, they're probably back in town to regroup and debrief. They ran off after something I couldn't smell or hear or whatever and then bam! Lake appears out of nowhere, I got knocked out by what I'm guessing was the hag's Force powers, and you know the rest of the story," Stiles said with a shrug.
Peter for his part, glared back in the direction of the parking lot, "Stiles is my Pack. I came for him, the rest of them aren't my concern."
Ria huffed a laugh, wincing as she pressed a hand to her side that was still bleeding, "Thank you for your timely intervention. I know it wasn't for me, but I am still grateful."
"Shit, you're hurt," Stiles exclaimed, reaching out towards the young woman, "was it the…the hag? Are you poisoned?"
"Immune," the woman bit out, but she was getting paler by the second as she continued to lose blood.
Taking a deep breath, Ria held out a hand to Peter, "Apologies for the lack of proper introduction, and for intruding on this territory. Ria Halloran, I bring naught but myself and offer peace."
Momentarily taken aback at how easily the formal introduction fell from the woman's lips, Peter took a moment to collect himself before he reached out to shake Ria's hand, and was pleasantly surprised when she instead clasped his forearm, pressing their wrists together in a traditional greeting.
Peter smiled, "Welcome to the Hale family territory. Apologies are unnecessary, you did not trespass of your own volition. Your peace is welcome, as are you, Ria Halloran."
Stiles watched the entire exchange in rapt fascination, grinning as Ria nodded in thanks with a small smile as some of the tension seemed to leave her. Apparently that had been the limits of Ria's strength however, and her eyes rolled back and her grip went slack. She would have slumped to the ground if Peter had not caught her.
"Can you stand, sweetheart?" the wolf half-turned to ask Stiles, "We should probably get back to town, and I doubt you would like me to just leave our new friend in the Preserve over night."
Stiles pushed himself to his feet, feeling surprisingly okay for what he had been through, "Careful, big bad, people will start to think you're going soft."
Peter growled, flashing his eyes at Stiles as he gently laid Ria back down on the grass.
"Hey, hey, I won't tell. She saved our lives, we aren't just leaving her," Stiles waved his hands frantically, only stopped from rushing over to the unconscious woman by Peter pulling him into a hug.
"I'm going to kill that mistake of a werewolf for leaving you out here alone," he grumbled.
Stiles returned the hug, happy just to have his packmate close and relatively uninjured, "I knew you'd come for me."
"Always, darling. You never know what's running around, going bump in the night out here."
"Something tells me that you're more familiar than most, considering that you were one of those things a year ago," Stiles joked, smirking as he felt Peter rolling his eyes at him.
"I got better, thank you very much."
Laughing, Stiles made his way back to the treeline to collect his phone as Peter picked up Ria and made sure she was still breathing. They picked their way back to the parking lot, where Peter paused, eyeing their two vehicles.
"I can drive. You can put Ria in the back so she doesn't get blood all over your leather seats," Stiles said as he opened the door and motioned for Peter to deposit the woman inside. "What's up, creeper wolf?" he asked when Peter didn't move, just continued frowning down at the woman in his arms.
Getting closer to the pair, Stiles' eyes widened. Peter's hand was almost completely black from the pain he was pulling from the young woman.
"Shit, should we get her to a hospital? I don't even know what she is, can she go to a normal human hospital?"
"I'm pretty sure she's human-adjacent, definitely a mage, but I'm not sure if the hospital is such a good idea. The hag clearly wanted both of you for a reason. Probably to do with the magic both of you have," Peter's brow furrowed in thought, "Let's go back to the apartment, we can do some research and make sure she is healing while we wait for her to wake up."
Peter was not 'going soft' as Stiles had said, but this woman was the reason both he and Stiles were alive right now. And if Stiles also had magic, Ria might be able to teach him—there was no way in hell that Peter would trust his packmate to Deaton. Not after the fire, and not when he was dripping all of his 'balance' and 'True Alpha' rhetoric in Scott's ear. He would deal with Derek later, knowing his nephew would be pissed about Peter formally inviting an unknown mage onto his territory.
Stiles nodded, and helped Peter get Ria settled on the back seat. It made him smile slightly to see the wolf reluctant to stop pulling the young woman's pain. Something in his chest—his magic—was telling him that she was here for a reason. And it wouldn't hurt Peter to have someone else who could become pack in the same way as Stiles had. His own bonds with Scott and the other pack members were fraying and thin by now, but they existed, nonetheless. Peter just had him, and maybe Derek. Peter, of all people, deserved to have a pack again, Stiles figured. One that he could just be himself with, who weren't always questioning his loyalty and his motives.
Peter got into his car and followed the Jeep out of the Preserve, careful to watch for anybody tailing them. A hag showing up out of nowhere did not bode well—witches, for one, tended to follow close behind, as did various sorts of fae creatures. Despite all of that, he could not deny that his wolf was happy to have people to protect again. It was what he was good at, and Peter got the sense that this Ria figure, whatever she was, was far more familiar with the supernatural world than Derek's entire pack combined.
Once they were back at the apartment, Peter got Ria situated on his couch. The woman didn't move even as he and Stiles cleaned and wrapped her wounds. The wolf debated restraining her, but he didn't have anything that was really magic-proofed, and he still didn't know exactly what Ria was anyways—and regardless, he had offered her passage onto the territory. Tying her up would be like going back on his word, and Peter might be a manipulative bastard but there were some lines even he wouldn't cross. Instead, he shooed Stiles away to get cleaned up and pulled a blanket over the unconscious woman.
By the time he got back to his own room, Peter was unsurprised to find Stiles half-asleep, curled up under the duvet in his bed. The younger man still had nightmares about his time in Gerard's clutches, so even when he would sleep on the couch Peter would often wake to see Stiles in his doorway. On those nights, Peter would pull the covers back and pull the human protectively into his side as soon as Stiles clambered onto the bed. The werewolf had yet to admit that the closeness of his packmate was just as therapeutic for him, that he always slept better when Stiles was curled up next to him.
Thanks for reading! Sorry for the late updates-I'd been updating on AO3 and completely forgot to update here as well. So enjoy the upcoming onslaught of chapters?