Chapter Text
Marcus , (Now), Hale was not a pleasant or even agreeable as a person. Years as living as the only son amongst a sea of sisters, plus the only alpha, he had been raised with certain levels of expectations. Many of them inheriting his father’s position. None of them, he had ever dreamed, was going anywhere near the realm of being king. At all.
Werewolves were rather choosy about mates. So, the idea of a political marriage was not an idea that many of them liked. Marcus Hale, given his station, was well aware that he was unlikely to marry for anything close to love. Ever. So, when it’s announced that his name had been presented to be married to Talia Hale, he naturally braced himself for the worst. Given his mother’s ambitions and his father’s expectations.
He had met with extended members of the royal family, but never anyone closely related to the current king and queen. So, he had expected and did, look his absolute best. They may have been in the modern age but werewolves still liked to show off and present for a potential mate. Even if the rules had changed slightly. The woman was...beautiful. Beautiful beyond measure.
Not that Marcus had been worried or anything. But it was just...gravity. Time. Everything else seemed unimportant. Every unshakable law of creation, every concreate rule in the universe was entirely irrelevant in comparison to the beauty of Talia Hale. Not only that, she was an alpha and every bit of it. Headstrong. Loud. Unapologetic. All the things that a future queen needed to be. It was a pity she hated him on sight.
Talia Hale was the only child of the king and queen. Her marriage was decided from the time of her birth. There had been arrangements that had been made and dissolved many times over her life. Once she reached the age of twenty, and having refused suitors both at home and abroad, she was nowhere near the realm of marriage. Now, her father was at his wit’s end and commanded the lords of the realm to submit their sons.
In the end, Marcus was the final selection. Money, status, education, breeding, bloodlines, etc all came into play when considering a marriage on a royal level. These were things that, apparently, that the king had decided that he had in spades. He was honored and did his very best to impress Talia. To get and keep her attention. To not be cold and distant and disinterested. It was...difficult. And that was putting it nicely.
Talia would not even speak to him for the first month. Wouldn't have meals with him. Would barely have tea with him. All the while, the queen sat. Silently. Listening as Marcus was trying his damndest to get her to...well...do anything. Hell, he would’ve accepted her screaming and cursing at him if that’s what it took to get her to talk to him. It was horrible. It was the most horrible, awful thing in the world. He was going to be trapped in a marriage where his wife hated him.
So, the man, now king, does the only thing he is able to think of. He commands her to speak to him. On order not as husband, not as alpha, but as king. She looked towards him in that one moment, that one, single second that she bothered to look at him, she said...nothing. Not one word. Not on breath wasted. Truly, she hated him. For no other reason than that he was here and he was her husband. Marcus, for all that he was, for all that he was worth, knew nothing of what else he could possibly do.
It happens, at long last, on their first full moon together. Talia, like always, would not see or speak to him. Then, the moon rose and the halls shook with the woman’s howls. She was, and remained, a Hale alpha. Power would have been an understatement. There was a reason the Hale family had maintained power this long. Their wolves were known for many things. Being weak, by no means, was among them.
Marcus is broken from his morose thoughts by an earth-shattering howl. No more so than anyone else it could be but his wife. No other wolf could have managed that. When he finds her, she is shifted and prepared to attack. Her ladies in waiting were terrified in the corner. Wondering what they had done to earn the queen’s anger. That wasn’t it. It was the full moon. It was the first full moon that Talia had ever spent away from her family.
Marcus was and remained a soldier. A warrior. He had long since learned to control his wolf during the full moon. One did not always have the benefit of having pack close at hand. That went double on the battlefield. He had no intentions of dying tonight. Only helping his wife. He dismisses the ladies in waiting. Less they get caught in the crossfire. As soon as they are gone, Talia attacks him. Marcus could not find it in himself to be angry as his wife’s claws dug into his side.
He is not entirely sure how long she attacks him for. Each time, the man dodges or takes the hit and Talia is relentless. She is angry and scared and afraid. Marcus felt his heart break. His wife was suffering. His wife was in pain. And the only thing he was capable of doing was...nothing. Well, not nothing. He was able to take his wife’s strikes and bites. Had she lost control and attacked on of her handmaidens...Marcus didn’t want to think about that.
When he starts to feel cold and dizzy, Talia finally regains herself. (He’d lost a rather concerning amount of blood.) At least, she does so for long enough to realize all that she had done. All that she destroyed. And whom she had hurt. She flees. Or rather, the woman tries her best to flee. But even slashed and bitten nineteen different ways, Marcus was still an alpha and Talia was still his wife. He snatches her wrist and pulls himself to her. Stopping just shy of her mouth. He could feel the heat coming from her skin.
“Marcus?” Talia asked out of breath and terrified.
“Yes, my queen.” He answered.
“Why are you here?” The woman asked clearly confused.
“Am I to be elsewhere, my wife? I haven’t had the chance to look at my calendar.” Marcus said with a grin.
Talia scoffs and tries to break herself free. Marcus refused to let her. Refused to let her run from him. Not here. Not now. Not after he had seen her lose control. Not after she’d nearly attacked her ladies in waiting. Not after she nearly killed him. His wife needed help. Even if she would not accept it. Marcus would see that she did. Whether or not she might attack him again.
“It is that how you view this, your duty then?” Talia spat horribly.
“Of course, my queen. You are my wife, every breath, at least until our children are born, will be for you. First and foremost. From my first waking moment, until the time I close my eyes. Everyone, and everything else, is entirely irrelevant to me. What is relevant, is changing you out of these tattered clothes.” The man said.
Talia Hale, queen and wife and alpha, fucking blushes. Like, actually, truly blushes. That...Marcus was not a lustful man nor did he linger in his appetites. He was a soldier and soldiers were expected to be well trained and disciplined. But in this moment, seeing his queen, his wife, turn the most adorable shade of pink. He couldn’t help it. He leaned forward. Stopping a hair’s breath away from Talia’s lips. It was the queen who closed the distance.
The alpha could feel his wolf howl in triumph. His wife, his queen, his mate, had accepted him. It took every ounce of his willpower to separate himself from Talia. He did. His lust and his desires could wait. Talia strips and showers. (Privately.) dressing herself and returning to bed. Marcus does not join her. Instead, he changes his own clothes and showers. Opting to sit and sleep in the chair next to his wife’s bed. He would join her only when she invited him. Just because they had finally kissed did not mean he could join her. At least, not yet. He could wait. As he already had.
It was another six months before Talia kissed him again. The woman was...unsure. She wanted as Marcus wanted. However, trust and want were to entirely different things. He did not ask. He did not beg. He did not force himself upon her, or in her space. He was an alpha and alphas were expected to behave as they should. As soldiers should. Disciplined and respectable.
The night they lay together as mates for the first time, Marcus was ashamed to admit. He shifted. Talia broke his regal composure. The walls of respect and discipline that he had spent a lifetime cultivating. Instilling. Maintaining. She was everything that he could have ever wanted. Everything that he could have ever dreamed of. Even more so when their first child was born.
Laura was as beautiful as her mother and as composed as Marucs. He could not have asked for a better first born. The dated concepts of male heirs were lost on him, and he adored his child with all his heart and soul. There was nothing that could take that from him. Nothing that could take that from Talia. Until, that is, Derek was born. That...that tested the nature of everything they had built as a family.
His child, his son, his only son, was born fully shifted and unable to return. It was impossible. The earliest recorded date in the last five hundred years of a wolf presenting was nine. It was, by all means and considerations, with every possible circumstance and scenario, IMPOSSIBLE for a newborn wolf to be able to shift. More so, as Derek got older, they realized the horrible truth. It wasn’t just that he had been born fully shifted. He had been born unable to shift back.
Talia is inconsolable for months. Laura, bless her, doesn’t understand. Why everyone is so upset and afraid. Marcus didn’t have the heart to tell her. She was too young. Barely seven when her brother was born. She was far, far too young to be burdened with such knowledge. So, Marcus does as kings and alphas do. He takes care of his family. He raises his son as all other Hale men had been raised. With conviction, duty, sacrifice, and commitment. He raises his son as the best possible soldier and officer possible.
Derek, unfortunately, struggled in his early years. There were no other wolves like him. Anywhere. If there had been, it would have been national news by now. He excels in his studies and his duties as crown prince. But Marcus was not a fool. He knew that look. As he himself once possessed. His son was lonely. His child was alone in the world with no one like him. The alpha wept at that. He wanted, desperately, for his child to find love. What he found, unfortunately, was the opposite.
Kathrine Argent was a vixen from hell, and she bewitched Derek as soon as she made her way into their kingdom. Marcus could never find it in himself to ever be angry with his child. Derek...had no one. No one in the world to hold or to lay with or to love. Not as wolves wanted to. Kathrine saw that he did. Or, she had fooled him into believing it. That was another matter entirely.
The day of the vile bitch’s execution, Marcus was the one to order the axman to proceed. He personally saw the two people responsible for harming his child, his son, met their appropriate end. And if the king was being perfectly honest with himself, he wanted them hanged. He wanted to make sure it hurt and that they suffered a fraction of the endless misery that they had wrought. However, he was not a cruel king, nor an unjust one. They had just finished a war, and he had no intention of starting another one.
Derek, of course, retreats into himself. Unable and unwilling to face the world. He was ashamed and Marcus felt defeated. He had no way to help his son, and no way of saving him from himself. Not to mention he had Chris and Victoria Argent on house arrest. Managing the recompense that was due to their family’s actions. While they may not have taken part in the direct fighting, they did nothing to stop it either.
That's when he heard it. An arrangement. Derek was offered, and Marcus watched as his son...agreed. Despite his appearance. Despite the horrible trauma he had endured...he would marry the salacious prince of their neighbors to the south. Even it meant humiliation and degradation. Even if it meant that his marriage would be a sham, he would marry the boy. Because that’s what Derek was, at his core. A man of and for the people. Marcus had raised him right. The same, could not be said for his son’s fiancé.
Marcus wanted to reject it outright. The man’s reputation aside, his magic was another matter. The alpha didn’t want the Argent princess to marry Derek as she would have been eager for revenge. However, bullets and wolfsbane were easily detected. That could not be said for magic. Magic could not be defended against less one had magic. That changed when they had learned the truth. Derek wasn’t born a mutant; he was born cursed. Someone had done this to him. It took three days for the alpha’s anger to settle. Talia was the only one who could be near him.
It, in truth, would have done no good to start a manhunt. Stiles, whilst mannerless and foul in decorum, was a damn genius. He had one look at Derek and knew in a single moment the cause. It was the only reason Marcus had tolerated the man’s presence in their home. The disrespect he had shown Talia was another matter. However, his darling wife, in her infinite mercy, decided to forgo punishing Stiles for his blatant lack of conduct. Marcus still wanted his legs broken.
That mostly changed when he saw it. When he had seen and realized. Stiles had never, at any point and time, ever been afraid of Derek. The man was staunch and unmovable. If anything, he found Derek to be fascinating. Magic like this was rare. In the man’s own words. Foul and terrible it may have been, but it was still rare. But that was not the only thing. Stiles looked at Derek with...longing. Longing and something close to love. He desired Derek. The problem that Marcus faced, was whether or not he could truly trust this man to love his son.
That was proven to the absolute truth when Stiles saved the Argent princess. That's when things were truly in motion. Because now, they had Stiles firmly on their side, and that meant that, at long last, they could take down Deucalion and his cohorts. Only, they didn’t get the chance. As once again, the man was one step ahead. He had managed to kidnap Stiles and was effectively holding him hostage. That was, until he wasn’t. Because it was the worst thing he could have done. He killed the Demon Wolf, and he had sacrificed himself to do so.
When he arrived at the hospital...there were no words, in any language, in any time of history, that could describe the horror that he had witnessed. Stiles...Stiles was rotting. Literally rotting to death. Every orifice poured black filth. Dark, evil lines snaking their way across his body. There was no one, anyone, that could survive this. Save for Stiles. Derek does not move. He does not sleep. He does not eat. He takes and takes and takes more of his mate’s pain. The first time he loses consciousness, Marcus attempted to intervene. He could not lose his child.
Much to his surprise, Derek attacks him. Fully shifted and ready to kill. That's when they realized. Derek had shifted. Derek had shifted because he was a man, and the curse had been broken. Stiles had done it. All it would cost was his life, and that of Derek. For wolves that lost their mates did not live long lives. Marcus commanded every available doctor to intervene. Every expert. Every specialist that the king could get his hands on. As well as a photographer. Stiles, however he may have saved Derek, Marcus wanted to make sure that the man, if he survived, knew. There would never be a moment like this again.
Stiles was, predictably, infuriated. Marcus found himself not caring all that much. Especially when he explained what his child had to endure. The exact amount of suffering was not lost on the other man, and it horrified him. More so, Marcus was horrified. Namely, because he now had to punish the man that had saved the lives of an entire populated country. Stiles killed Deucalion using the darkest, most forbidden, most illegal magic possible. There was no precedent for this. At all. So, Marcus does what he does best. He acts like a king.
The trial is presided by Marcus, Johnathan, and Christopher. Three kings to decide the fate of one, singular man. That was the seriousness of Stiles’ crime. That was how far down the rabbit hole of the law they had to go and they kept on going. Experts. Testimonials. All of it was facade. Nothing more than to rile the public. Even if magic was not common in their country, it had been used to kill a wolf. Maniac and attempted war criminal he may have been. But Marcus knew, his countrymen had a much lower opinion of Stiles than he did.
The trial is all but a sham. They want Stiles dead and buried and forgotten. Christopher was the first to speak in Stiles’ own defense. Which Marcus had expected. Saving one’s only child was a lifelong debt, and the man was keen on paying it in full. Johnathan, of course, says nothing. Rather, he can’t. It’s his son. The court was only allowing him to be here as a grace and a mercy. Nothing more. The man was a king before he was a father. That much, could not, and would not, change. At least, that’s what Marcus had thought. That's what he had presumed.
“What of duty to crown and country? Has he not done that, several times over?”
The good king spoke of commitment. Sacrifice. That’s what Stiles had done. He had sacrificed his life so that Derek and so many others could live. This man, this simple human man, used the darkest, foulest, nastiest cruse that mankind had ever developed. Knowing, all the way down to the marrow of his bones, what it would do to him. Deucalion was dead in an instant. Stiles suffered beyond measure for it. Beyond what anyone else in history could ever imagine. He had sacrificed his life, and very nearly, his soul. That could not, and would not be denied.
That is, if course, until Stiles decided to speak. And, as the kings before him knew he would, spoke with utter disinterest and boredom. Simply asking when he could go home. He dared the three men in front him, an alpha, a hunter, and his own father, he demanded of the others in the room...what would they have done. What would they have done if the man they loved was about to die. If the lives of tens of millions of people were at risk. What would have any of them done. What would any of them be able to do? Nothing.
Marucs knew of duty and sacrifice. That was his bread and butter. He was king. Stiles was not. He was however, correct. His attitude left much and plenty to be desired. But he was right. There was only one option in front of Stiles when faced with losing the man he loved most in the world. He could not risk Derek being harmed. Nor could he live with the fact that his talents had been used to create a plan for mass death and genocide. He would have been the cornerstone of Deucalion’s plan. If he was dead, along with the demon wolf, it would never come to pass.
Stiles is released and freed of all charges. Much to the utter and complete anger of nearly the entire public. The details of the trial were a state secret and thus classified. But Marcus made sure to release just enough information to ensure that Stiles’ own public reputation wasn’t completely destroyed. Yes, he had used dark magic. Foul magic. Terrible magic. But he had done it for the only right reason that one could ever think to even use that kind of power. In defense of another. He had defended his mate. And now, was the day of their wedding.
It was once in a lifetime affair. With all manner of officials spending ridiculous amounts of money. Trying to look their very best. Marcus paid them no mind whatsoever. He was and remained concerned about the fact that his child’s face was about to be plastered all over the media of three nations. Derek had never been in public like the rest of them. It was a matter of getting him comfortable to do so. As his wedding was a public affair.
Stiles, on the other hand, was entirely used to being in the spotlight. Albeit for an entirely different reason this time around. Marucs had been kept in the dark about both of them. Lydia and Laura wanted the entire affair to be a surprise. And a surprise it was. Stiles had played a part in it, and securing means of getting it done, but the entire isle was covered in moon blossom flowers.
Derek was...unbelievable. His son had never been for pomp or fluff. No desire had for the unnecessary embellishments so common amongst royalty. However, today, the day of his wedding, Marcus watched as his son took his place and stood proud and tall. He was dressed in obsidian black. Accented with the most luxurious sapphire trim. His hair was also laced with crushed glitter. Making the raven black sparkle the tiniest hint of blue when the light hit it. He was...regal and powerful and every bit of an alpha. An alpha waiting for his mate.
Marcus did not know what to expect when Stiles walked down the aisle, but it was beyond anything that the man was capable of imagining. He had, of course, seen photographs of Stiles in official dress before. He could look the part of a prince well enough. But here, now, today, as he stepped, the earth did fall silent in absolute adoration.
Stiles was not a large man, but he was a tall one. Regal. Poised. Stuffed into the most luxurious, most sin inducing crimson color that one could imagine. A walking, breathing piece of flame. The accents glittered and gleamed as the lights struck them. Like Derek, Stiles had crushed glitter in his hair. Not enough that it was tacky, but enough that the entirety of the both of them looked...illuminated.
Marcus watches as Stiles ascends to the podium. Taking Derek’s hands in his own. Staring into each other’s eyes. That's when the king knew. Truly and deeply knew. That his child had found the one person that could be theirs. For an alpha did not tolerate blatant challenges to their status. To their authority. Certainly not alphas whom were also princes. However, Stiles was not challenging Derek. He was standing there, and he was proclaiming that he was Derek’s equal. That he was his mate. All without saying so much as a word.
The two of them exchange their vows and make their love known. Marcus does not cry. Rather, he stands tall. Tall and proud as his son claims the man that he had chosen as his. And, in turn, he watched as Stiles did the same. The man was human, and did not understand love the way a wolf would. However, he showed it to Derek. And Derek showed it to Stiles. There was a story written in commitment and devotion. A tale of two princes.