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Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

A Dragel Universe/Teen Wolf Crossover

By Sif Shadowheart

Chapter One: Break Before You Bend

As Stiles fell to the chilling, implacable granite hardness of the Argent basement, pain shooting in sparks and shards and spikes up and down his body, he had a moment as he curled up instinctively to protect his now-bruised ribs to regret a questionable life choice or two.

Or ten, a metric strictly dependant on whether his ribs were only bruised courtesy of Granddaddy Psychopath aka Gerard Argent, septuagenarian patriarch racist asshole who apparently had the punch strength of a fuckin’ thirty year old.

The epic asshat.

There were quite a few points that Stiles thought might need a bit of review: helping Scott, his best-friend, sneak around and date Allison, Gerard’s granddaughter, was probably at the top of that list.

Because look: just because a member or two (or, like, all of them from what Stiles could tell at this point, with evidence to back it up both admissible in a court of law and otherwise) of a family tree were Class-A Psychos didn’t mean that a single person who happened to be related to them was bad news.

Everyone had that family member that they didn’t like or that they didn’t talk about.

(Though, to be fair, Stiles’s Great-Uncle Stanislav from his dad’s stories never burnt ninety percent of a family alive in their own home.)  

But given that Allison had apparently had a psychotic break of epic proportions that started with falling in line with her dear doting grandpa’s genocidal agenda and now included hunting, imprisoning, and torturing (or at least being okay with torture going on) her own classmates as one of her hobbies, he had to say that any grace he might have had for anyone bearing the name Argent was officially done-and-dusted.

Case in point: not one but two of their classmates currently hanging from the homemade workshop of horrors that was an electrified chain link fence behind where Stiles was now huddled on the cold, unforgiving floor.

Okay, yes.

Those classmates were also werewolves.

And Erica had knocked Stiles out with a piece of his own car, defiling and near-fatally injuring his precious jeep Roscoe in the process.

There had been a few attitude issues from the newly-turned wolves, sure.

The dependence on leather (Derek’s influence occasionally being more questionable at certain points than others given the big-bad-alpha’s fashion choices) was concerning.

But none of it - none - was deserving of being served up to a man whose literal life mission was exterminating everything-and-anything non-human.

Or anyone who simply got in his way.

Like, say, Stiles.

Who’d been plucked away from his single shining moment of lacrosse glory, scoring the winning goal in the championship game, by Grandpa Argent and several of his goons.

A man and his lackeys who had held the safety of everyone at the lacrosse game, including Stiles’s father, against his coming with them without drawing attention.

The power cutting out literal moments after he spotted the geriatric bastard and his taser-and-gun-toting minions helped significantly.

Shit.

His dad was probably losing his goddamn mind.

Fuck, with everything that had gone wrong - to say nothing of the bodies that had dropped - since Peter Hale snapped out of his six-year catatonia to go on a murder-spree, there was no probably about it.

“What the hell, dude?”  Stiles snarked, spitting out a mouthful of blood after he’d been hauled back onto his feet by Thing One and Thing Two for another round of Gerard’s version of a reality adjustment.  “I thought Argents were all about wolves?”  Mentally he apologized to Erica and Boyd watching everything at his back.

It was a fact that he’d latched onto about two seconds into realizing that wolfy company or not - there was no way out of the Argent basement.

Not at the current status quo.

Something would have to give.

And since his attempt to free them had laughably failed given the sheer voltage running through the chain link - which he could handle, maybe, long enough to get them down if they weren’t cuffed, with metal - he had a feeling that that something was going to come at a cost paid in blood.

His.

Either that or his faint hope of Gerard getting bored would bear fruit, but that was about as likely as Scott realizing that the world existed outside of his own personal dramas - so about a snowball’s chance in an Australian summer.

That if Derek knew that something was wrong with his betas the Hale alpha would’ve already torn through the torture-chamber hidden in the depths of Beacon Hills suburbia went without saying.

Stiles didn’t know what was up there, but he was hoping (for more than one reason) that the problem was one of the Argents knowing how to block pack bonds, not something more…gruesome.

If there was anyone on the planet that had already suffered far too much at the hands of the Argents, it was Derek.

Honestly, the fact that the broody sourwolf of an alpha still found the strength to put one foot in front of the other, let alone try and rebuild family and pack was far more impressive than Stiles had ever let on.

Just another point to chalk up on the scoreboard of lost moments he regretted.

(His mom died when he was a kid.  There were a lot of lost moments that he regretted.  Or maybe it was the lost potential for moments.  Given the way she’d died…yeah.  It was hard to say.)

The old man snorted derisively as he eyed the nearly-limp form of the disgusting sympathizer with contempt.

“Throw him back at the school.”  Gerard ordered, turning and striding up the stairs to the main portion of his greatest disappointment’s house.  If only Christopher had had a fraction of his sister’s - or even his unlamented wife’s - viciousness…  Ah well.  Perhaps that was why most Argent men were meant to be soldiers and not leaders.  Not everyone could have Gerard’s strength, either of mind or purpose.  “He can be a message to dear Scott about what happens when one doesn’t play by the rules…”

And with that, Gerard took his leave.

He had plans to complete, and a pack of mutts to wipe from the face of the earth.

Gerard couldn’t waste anymore time on yet another all-too-human disappointment.

Little did he know, but that?

That order, that dig at both Stiles Stilinski and Scott McCall, that casual - contemptuous - disregard for what he thought was an average human boy?

That would be the last mistake he ever made.

Even if he wouldn’t know that for some time to come.

Back in the basement, Goon One gave a vicious grin to Goon Two as they let the bruised and battered form of a weak little kid fall to the ground.

They were adamant followers of the Gerard Argent way of hunting.

The only good wolf was a dead wolf.

And humans who knew and didn’t follow that same train of thought?

Just as bad, and almost worse, than the creatures they hunted.

“Well, smartass,” Goon One snarled, pushed over his limit for sass hours before but kept on his leash by the old man’s presence.  Now Gerard was gone and while, yes, he had left orders behind.  There were some…gaps there where he could still play.  If only a little.  

Before picking up the snarky pain-in-the-ass, Gerard had been firm: no matter the provocation, Stilinski had to live.   There might be plans in play to replace the good Sheriff, but they weren’t in place yet.   And there was nothing so likely to cause complications and draw unwanted attention as the disappearance of a law enforcement officer’s kid.   Especially a LEO as beloved in their community as Noah Stilinski.

A love that had doubled or tripled in the last couple days after a random high schooler decided to go on a murder spree using a fucking kanima as his weapon of choice.

With a third of the deputies and support staff - every unfortunate sucker who had been on duty when that idiot Matt Daehler decided that killing cops was a remedy for being a murder suspect - dead and Beacon Hills national news, the hunters had to watch their step more than usual.

It was a reality that kept the worst of the hunter’s proclivities in check.

If only just.

“You heard the man, gotta go and play a good little bitch and take a message to your pet mutt.”  He snickered, his partner - never one for the same dramatics, merely a cold desire to end the threat of wolves (which was why they were paired together in Gerard’s actually-not-incompetent wisdom) silent as ever.  Which was perfectly adequate.  He didn’t need to speak to the wolves or their conspirators to complete his calling.  “But first,” the talkative hunter flicked out his stun-baton, an illegal weapon to possess and carry in the State of California (if hunters cared about civilian legalities) and that was before it had the voltage amplified to take down werewolves.   With their healing capacity and high tolerance for pain.  He swiped his tongue across his lower lip, the sting from where the little bastard had nailed him with a crack of his skull before Argent had threatened the bystanders at the game stinging with every word from his mouth.  “I owe you one.”

“Argent said alive.”  The second hunter spoke up for the first time, drawing the first’s attention for a split-second off of the human boy crumpled at their booted feet.

Ignorant - or just apathetic - to the agony shooting through him.

Oh, not physically, though he certainly was smarting from Gerard’s tender mercies.

But tearing apart his emotions, digging at his heart and mind - maybe even his soul.

Stiles had never been a dumb kid.

He might act like it, a lot actually, but he had a high IQ and was raised in and around a police station for most of his formative years.

More than anything, he knew people.

Had seen them both at their bests, and their worsts, and everything in between.

So when Grandpappy Asshole mentioned Scott after trying and failing for hours to torture any-and-every bit of information Stiles might have about the Hale Pack out of him, it didn’t take more than a moment for his clever mind to put the pieces together.

And for the little bit of faith that he still had in him - that despite all the distance, the change in their friendship, the guilt and the blame - that despite all of that, they were still playing on the same team.

That they were still family, brothers in everything but blood.

That their bond was only bent rather than broken.

But…this?

Working for Gerard?

(And it had to be for, no matter what bullshit Scotty had tried to tell himself or however he’d rationalized betraying everything they were supposed to be about.  They were supposed to be on the good side.  Maybe not entirely good or righteous or innocent.  But not hunters.   Not the Argents.  Not the same kind of people who could light a match and burn down a house with eleven people inside after trapping them with mountain ash.  People like Gerard Argent, who trained Kate, who may not have literally put the match in her hand but sure as hell would’ve if he’d had the chance.  People like Gerard didn’t have allies.  Especially with the same type of supernatural creature that they’d spent their entire lifetime hunting.  They had pawns.)

That was a choice that there was no coming back from.

And the jagged tears of the broken shards of more than a decade of friendship ripped through Stiles in a cold northern California basement with all the ruthless efficiency of razor wire coated in acid.

Shattering everything in its wake.

Even - as Stiles keened faintly in the back of his throat, keeping the scream that threatened to tear out of him inside by nothing but sheer will and the determination to not give his captors the satisfaction - things that were never meant to come undone.

Despite the fact that the bindings themselves had been loosening and fraying for more than a year - no matter how much Stiles had tried to ignore it or deny it.

But then, when those bindings were laid down, no one - even his mother - had really been planning for someone like Stiles to be the one to bear them.

Or the detour his life would take that would leave him broken and bleeding on an icy concrete floor and reaching out for something - anything - to make him feel whole again after having his world torn apart with five little words:

“...a message to dear Scott…”

Words that played over and over in his mind on repeat.

Words that managed what losing a dozen men and women that he’d known for years in most cases hadn’t managed.  If only because Stiles hadn’t seen Matt kill them.  No matter what that vicious little fucker had said about Jackson being the killer.  As a kanima, Jackson was little more than a murder puppet.  Those deaths were on Matt - may he rot in whatever hell Gerard had sent him to.

Now if Stiles had seen, that would have been a different scenario altogether.

Maybe one or more of them would’ve lived, if Stiles had known what was going on just outside his father’s office as they searched for actual evidence of Matt being the mastermind behind Beacon Hills’ latest round of serial killings.  Before Daehler more than doubled-down on his psychopathy and murdered a station full of sheriff’s deputies, anyway.  Those deputies, that Matt had ordered killed with no more concern than swatting a fly and then left in gruesome piles of bloodied and torn corpses in the same halls that Stiles had spent learning to compile evidence and pick locks, had been friends to Stiles.  Caregivers, aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters.

They’d been his.

If Gerard hadn’t killed Matt, none of Scott’s sermonizing about what Scott considered acceptable would’ve mattered to Stiles.

He would’ve handled it himself.

If Gerard hadn’t killed him, if Stiles had seen the deaths happening, if if if.

If Scott hadn’t decided to betray everything they were supposed to be…

If, if, if.

Stiles was tired of what ifs.

He was tired of fighting to keep down the beast inside of him.  The one that wanted blood.  Whether that beast was of his own making - his darker urges and impulses that he’d learned through osmosis weren’t exactly acceptable for day-to-day life - or something different, he didn’t know.

He’d always been this way, always been fighting against what his instincts said - either in a whisper or a scream.

It was a part of him.

Albeit: a part that had gotten more and more insistent about speaking up lately.

Something had to give.

Something had to change.

So, exhausted, beaten down, but bone-deep enraged beneath it all: something did.

Even if that something sounded like a roar of rage that was distinctly inhuman - and worse, came from none other than his own throat.

Far away, protected in a nevermore realm, Harry Potter-Nott of the Gorgens-Nott Circle frowned in confusion as he felt something click into place deep inside of him.

It wasn’t a soulbond, not yet.

But it was the promise of something.

A mere moment later, a notification from the central dragel records office of Nevarah, specifically the department in charge of recording dragel inheritances lit up and chimed in the corner of his eye.

Huh.

Imagine that.

When he’d been notified years ago - more than sixteen according to the earth-realm calendar - that he’d been assigned to a potential mentoring position, he’d been stunned.

It could happen to anyone, in theory.

The magic and enchantments powering the inheritance records finding a suitable correspondence between the magic of an adult and a newborn were rarely wrong and had a reach that was almost unparalleled.

But then the day that marked his mentee’s sixteenth birthday had come and gone - and Harry hadn’t received a notification with the kid’s address or location to go help with an imminent inheritance.

So it just…lingered, the magic that marked them for each other waiting in limbo until the kid turned twenty-five and aged out of being able to inherit as a dragel, the potential inside them turning truly dormant instead of waiting for them to grow strong enough to survive it coming to the fore.

Now it was active, and more it was calling.

Firming his lips, Harry acknowledged receipt of the notification and then rose to gather up a few of his bonded to travel with him.

At least one question of why Harry? Had been answered.

The kid - and wow, Harry wasn’t even going to try to pronounce that name - was from Harry’s old home: the Earth Realm.

Given his preference, it was a place he’d never return.

Given the preferences of his Circle, well, he certainly wasn’t going to travel alone.

Not if he didn’t want more than a dozen bonded chasing his tail and breathing metaphorical - and not so metaphorical, depending on which bonded was involved - fire over him putting himself in potential danger.

There were realms less welcoming to dragel and dragel-kin than the Earth-Realm,Terra.

But they weren’t many.

No, no, he’d bring backup.

For his own sanity, if nothing else.

Watching as hunters beat the shit out of one of the bravest - maybe to the point of stupidity, but brave - boys she had ever met was a worse torture than the taser burns and the wolfsbane as far as Erica Reyes was concerned.

Yeah, sure - Derek had explained the risks that came with the Bite, but Erica hadn’t really known what she was getting into.

Hadn’t really cared, to be honest.

Epilepsy was killing her - one way or another - and she would’ve made a deal with the devil themself for even a shitty paranormal-romance plot’s worth of a chance to escape the fate that her body had caged her within.

What Derek had promised had been way more believable than that, complete with negatives to balance out the positives.

And, whoo boy, did she underestimate just how deadly serious Derek had been about those negatives.

Just as serious as he’d been about the Bite curing her epilepsy as it turned out, and wasn’t that bit of reality slapping her in the face right about now.

If Derek’s rough-and-ready (but fucking effective, have to give the grumpy bastard that) training hadn’t been the wake up call she’d needed after the sudden power-trip of her new-and-improved wolfy self, the first go-around with a lizard-creature that was paralysing and killing people to go with the apparently constant threat of hunters had been.

And fuck: she knew she’d made a mistake leaving Derek, dumping everything on him and blaming him, but she’d been terrified.

For the first time in years, she’d actually been afraid to die.

Which wasn’t a surprise: for the first time in years, she’d finally been able to live.

And then…Stiles went down, limbs twitching and body spasming under voltage that she knew could take down a werewolf.

When he didn’t get back up right away, she wasn’t surprised.

Infuriated, torn to pieces with emotional anguish, but not surprised.

They’d wanted information on Derek, on the Pack, and Stiles, stubborn, nosy, impossible Stiles had refused to play ball.

He walked off threats from werewolves like they were nothing, held up Derek - who was no featherweight - in a pool along with himself for hours, and had a mouth that took no prisoners.

But at the end of the day: Stiles was only human.

Or at least that was what she thought.

A fact that had been as solid and real to her as the sun rising in the east.  Werewolves were real.  Wolfsbane could both kill and heal.  Stiles was human.  Basic tenants to keep in mind in her new life.

When he laid on the unforgiving floor and she heard his heart stop beating, it rammed that home even deeper than before.

Erica - any wolf - could and would survive things that would and could kill a human.

Could and would kill Stiles.

She would’ve sworn by it.

Right up until his heart started beating again, his eyes flashed open - but, but they weren’t right - and he stood back up with an enraged roar that even Derek himself would’ve been proud of.

In that moment, Erica felt the few bits of solid fact that she’d been balancing herself on shatter and break away.

Because, that Stiles?

That Stiles was anything but an average human.

Though what he was…that was a different question entirely.

One that she hoped she lived long enough to get answered…and with the way Stiles was literally tearing through the hunters…she might just manage that after all instead of dying in a hunter’s torture chamber.

Less than a mile away in an abandoned warehouse, several werewolves turned their heads in confusion.

They thought they heard…but no.

That was impossible.

They all knew the monsters that plagued their small town - almost all of which were right in that room.

There wasn’t anything else roaming their not-so-peaceful streets…

Was there?

One of them - though he couldn’t be called a werewolf anymore, strictly speaking - wasn’t confused.

Ah, Stiles, he thought, I do like you.

If, for no other reason, than you keep things interesting.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Two: Ferros

First there was agony, ripping through his blood and bones, reaching deep down beyond what his mind knew and into what only something more, something him in the rawest fashion could touch.

Then there was a shift.

His body was his but it also was more.

More right.

As if what that rawness brought forward was what he was always supposed to be.

(But who was he anyway?  What was he?  He didn’t know.  All he knew was the agony and the change…and then there was the rage.)

Rising with a roar that tore out of his throat he charged, claws with a wicked curve made to rend and tear leading the way.

And the hunters?

The genocidal bigots (though he wasn’t thinking in clear enough terms to call them what they were.  Not then.   Later, yes.  Then, all they were were prey.) saw it.

They saw him coming with his wings flared out and scales mottling (and protecting) his skin growing thicker and tougher in moments.

And then they made their fatal mistake: they ran.

Harry blinked wide green eyes as the shadows parted, revealing the last known location of his assigned ward.

He’d rounded up a handful of his bonded on short notice, most notably his gheyo ACE Hadrian who was responsible for their party traveling via shadow to Terra rather than using a more noticeable version of ‘porting.

Their Mage Riven was with them as well, and had more than enough power both as a storm mage and as a realmwalker to handle the ‘port.

It just came with a side of shattering light and what looked like lightning to go with it - not exactly the best choice when stealth was needed.

Along with Harry, Hadrian, and Riven had come their Circle’s bonded Master Healer in Quinn, and Harry’s bonded Joker in Brishen.

And, to be honest, if they needed more firepower than what the five of them with offensive abilities contained, then they were already screwed before Hadrian even began the spell to take them to the side of Harry’s assigned mentee.

It would’ve been nice to have some of the others come with, but that was a matter of preference not potential necessity.

Harry couldn’t help but reassess that thought, much to his chagrin, when the sight that met his eyes on the other side of the transportation spell was a rampaging dragel submissive.

Correction.

A feral rampaging dragel submissive.

Blessed Arielle.

Now he was wishing he’d rounded up their entire Circle, let alone brought along the rest of his gheyos.

Or even just Charlie with his beta’s experience handling dragons.

Wrangling a feral dragel was almost the same thing, the only difference being whether the dragel shifted into their full dragon form or like Harry's new ward remained in one of their halfling forms.  Which, if Harry had to guess, had to do with a lack of energy to manage the full shift after their inheritance than anything else.  Either way, it was a lucky bit of good news when it came to handling the situation.

If Mieczyslaw had gone full dragon in his ferity then the body count would have been one counted in dozens or hundreds rather than the mere two that he could spot at first glance.

There was a long moment’s pause, like the metaphorical deep breath before the plunge, and then Harry and his bonded were moving.

A wave of power from Riven had barriers springing up all around the room, set to silence, smother scent, and ultimately contain - particularly to keep the feral submissive from taking notice of the two teenagers strung up to some sort of horrific muggle torture rack.

Quinn took stock in a flicker of an eye, darting ahead of Riven’s containment field to take charge of the teenagers, a single scenting of which had him blinking in surprise.

Teenage werewolves, rather.

That was both vexing and interesting: that muggles had come up with a way to suppress a werewolf’s natural healing abilities.

Something to brood over and report later, however, in the moment both teens needed medical attention - the blonde female appearing much the worse for wear than her male counterpart.

Leaving Harry and his two gheyos to take charge of the feral submissive - literally, in the case of Brishen who merely smirked, cracked his neck, and leapt to engage the wild creature that was running on pure instinct and rage.

Hadrian gave a soft snort, slipping through the shadows to flank the sub and keep him - and it was a him, that much was clear even through the distinctly non-human aspects of the rampaging dragel's halfling form - from being able to focus fully on either of the fighters engaging him.

Harry strafed around the edge of the fight, keeping one eye on the submissive that was slowly - far slower than he would’ve expected given the power and skill of his gheyo, but then feral as well as neither gheyo actually wanting to cause harm to a youngling in distress - wearing out under the onslaught of opponents who could take his hits and slashes of his claws and wings and keep on coming.

It was far from the best or even approved method of how to deal with a feral dragel - but it was effective.

As was the calming spell that Riven tagged the kid with in the back when the mage managed to coordinate with the gheyos to turn the sub and present a target without running the risk of hitting anyone else in the backlash.

Trusting wholly that his bonded had subduing his new ward well in claw, Harry instead of focusing on the youngling turned his attention to discovering what evidence remained of what had happened to throw him into ferity in the first place.

It was a scene that very much spoke for itself.

The room was underground, a basement of the kind he hadn’t seen in all the years since he’d left the dust and trauma of the earth-realm behind him.  All bare stone walls, poured concrete flooring - with a drain in one corner, lovely - and exposed beams and wiring, complete with bare fluorescent bulbs in the light fixtures overhead.  And on the wall to his left, a large section of chain-link fencing had been bolted to the wall and hooked up to a generator.

It was a scene out of a nightmare.

Quinn already had the kids down from the fencing and the wires were torn and dangling by the time Harry’s disturbed - and steadily growing angrier - gaze found it, the submissive moving over and unplugging it entirely.

His Nevarean native of a bonded wasn’t as familiar with the sort of technology that Terra used as everything in Nevarah was either significantly more advanced or relied on magic.

There wasn’t much in-between.

A knocked-over (probably by Quinn if not the feral submissive) rolling toolbox contained a stomach-churning mixture of ordinary household tools and implements that clearly had no purpose other than to inflict pain.

Harry cursed under his breath, impotent fury burning inside his breast.

His ward.  His ward.   Had been taken to a place like this and whatever had happened afterward had been enough to punch through a blocked or seriously latent inheritance and sent him feral.

Based on the color scheme and condition of his wings, which were still the lovely silver-peach of a submissive and not greyed out or plated over, it hadn’t torn him from his natural rank and warped him into a gheyo.

But there was no way to know just how close to that line he’d gotten.

Not until they got him calmed down and coherent.

Though once a dragel goes feral, there was always the potential for them to slip over that edge again.

And without a circle to help him, his ward would be at greater risk than a dragel with anchors in the form of their bonded.

The feral submissive let out an enraged screech when Riven’s spell struck home, jagged lines like a tiger’s markings lighting up along his wings and scales in a dazzling display of his natural magic - all electric blue and rich gold, that's interesting - and immediately forced Harry to rearrange his expectations.

For the second time in less than five minutes.

Ferros.

His ward was a ferros submissive, and one that had tapped into their potential to go feral - and gain all the extra power that came with it.

On the brightside however: at least he knew how his ward kept from turning gheyo now.

He was a fucking Ferros Sub.

Fate was laughing at him, had to be, there was no other explanation.

Or thought that his life settled down with his children and circle had gotten a little too settled and needed some spicing up.

Either way.

This was the sort of curse parents and teachers had in mind when they said “I hope you have a child just like you.”

Damnit.

His own mentor was going to laugh his ass off when Harry talked to Maury next, he already knew it.

Though even he hadn’t inherited and turned right around and gone feral so…perspective.

His ward wasn’t just like Harry.

If anything, he was potentially worse.

Bloody hell.

Fate was such a bitch.

And as always: Harry fucking Potter was her favorite toy.

In his head, he made a list:

1. Bring Mieczyslaw out of his feral state.

2. Find out how he ended up feral in the first place.

3. Destroy every last arsehole who was involved in Step 2.

It was a simple list.

But fuck: he had a feral submissive and (so far) two teenaged werewolves on his hands.

He could use a little simple.

Quinn rocked back on his heels, done with his spellcasting for the moment, all the while cursing whatever idiotic mage had decided that werewolves being able to infect magic-less humans was a good idea.

Probably Lady Luck.

That sounded like the sort of coin flip that would entertain the divinity.

He turned to his submissive bonded, and gave a nod.

“They’re stable.”  He told Harry, voice raspy from decades-old damage that had taken a specialized healer and a lot of power to heal even partially.  “But they’re traumatized.”

Rising, he traded places with Brishen, the phoelix joker moving to stand ready as Harry’s bodyguard and sword as always.

Figuring out what in Kesmer’s name had happened was Harry’s job.

Quinn’s had only just begun.

Sending a wave of thanks through their bond as his healer moved to assist Riven with running diagnostics on a calmed - but still not cognizant - Mieczyslaw that Hadrian held still and steady in a cage of arms and legs, Harry sank down into a squat next to the only coherent source of information available.

Though how reliable they would be remained to be seen.

Trauma could affect people and alter perception in strange ways as Harry knew all-too-well.

How it affected their living witnesses to Mieczyslaw’s feral outburst only time would tell.

Given that Mieczyslaw had turned the other bodies in the dank basement into so much mincemeat, it was possible that Hadrian could trap and/or call out the souls of the dead for answers…but that was a bit of an extreme measure when they still had other options.

Just because Mieczyslaw had chosen them as the target for his wrath didn’t mean that they were guilty of any crime.

Not that Harry actually believed that, but still.

Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

“Alright, mates.”  Harry spoke, making sure that his tone was calm and steady.  “I know it’s likely difficult, but if we’re going to be of any further help, we’re going to need some information.”

“What are you?”  The blonde she-wolf demanded, American accent sharp on her tongue, eyes flashing golden with her wolf.  “What are you doing to Stiles?”

Harry almost smirked.

Brave girl, she would’ve fit right in with his old Gryffindor mates with an attitude and bravado like that.

The other wolf was quiet, far more watchful.

Harry got the impression that those dark brown eyes didn’t miss a trick.

He imagined they made quite the effective duo in whatever pack they called their own.

Though he also imagined that neither of them knew or realized just how much information - how many vulnerabilities - that the she-wolf let slip with two little questions.

(And he made note of the nickname.  Stiles he gathered made for a much more palatable name for Americans than one as ethnic as Mieczyslaw.  Or even just a child learning to spell in a public school.)

“Your friend, Stiles, has gone feral for his kind.”  Harry explained patiently, all the while filing away everything they were showing - and being that he was an empath, everything they weren’t.   “We’re trying to bring him back to himself without causing irreparable damage.  Knowing how he got that way would help.”

He let them consider that for a charged moment as the pair darted their eyes between where Stiles was being slow - and Arielle, so stubborn - to calm and Harry’s placid expression.

They were a jumble of emotions, most of them at war with each other, but even so were almost drowned out under the sheer strength of Stiles’s enraged feral drive.

But Harry wasn’t a neophyte to his talents.

Background noise or not, sifting out the emotions of the two in front of him was a piece of piss compared to his early struggles with understanding his abilities and feeling like the manic emotional tones of Hogwarts were going to swallow him whole.

Mournful, grieving, enraged.  Helpless, trapped, hopeless.  Fear, fear, fear, confusion.  Satisfaction.  Glee.  Suspicious, startled.  Awe.

The confusion and grief were strongest though the satisfaction and glee weren’t far behind.

From that alone he would’ve been willing to make a decent bet that the bodies on the floor belonged to genuine aggressors and weren’t collateral damage to Stiles’s feral drive.

It was the details he was after.

The she-wolf shared a long glance with her companion, then darted another look of concern at where Hadrian, Riven, and Quinn were working to sooth Stiles and bring his conscious mind back to the fore.

Their noses wrinkled in unison when Quinn elongated a claw and made a short cut in his lower arm before offering it up to Stiles, the pure sweetness of healer’s blood likely smelling quite different to wolves than to dragels, but still tempting nonetheless.

By the time Stiles had latched onto the proffered arm and was setting in for a dual-purpose healing/comfort feed, the she-wolf’s attractive features had taken on a cast of resolve.

“I don’t know how they got their hands on Stiles.”  She began shakily, but her voice grew in strength as she went.  “From the jersey he was wearing when he got here, they must have taken him after the game at the school.”

“What sport?”  Harry asked with faux-idleness, eyes sharp.

“Lacrosse.”  The male wolf spoke for the first time, voice an impressively deep rumble.  “Beacon Hills High School.”  He preempted Harry’s next avenue of attack.

The she-wolf huffed a laugh.  “He’s terrible.  Stumbles around like Bambi.  We’ve been here,” she waved a jerky hand around the basement.  “For at least a couple days.  Without Boyd,” she rested that same shaky hand on her companion’s knee.  Ah.  That’d be Boyd then.  “They must’ve run out of players and the coach put in Stiles.  He smelled like grass and sweat and terror when they threw him down the stairs.”  Her lips quivered.  “When he didn’t get up right away I thought…”  She shook her head quickly.  “But I could still hear his heartbeat.”

“What happened next?”

The wolves hissed in unison, ire glowing in their eyes along with their barely-held back shift.

“Argent,” the she-wolf growled.  “His name is Gerard Argent.  He’s the patriarch of our local gang of hunters.  He came down with a pair of his torture happy goons, but,” her grin was all fangs.  “Stiles took care of them, after…”

Harry blinked, taken aback.  “When you say hunters, you mean…?”

“Werewolf hunters.”  Each syllable had a snap and crunch underlying it.  Like a bone breaking between inhuman jaws.  Then clarity returned to the she-wolf and she shrugged.  “Or supernatural hunters, I guess.  Our alpha told us that Argents mostly focus on werewolves but that they’d take out others if they got the opportunity.”  Her gaze cut back to Stiles.  “Or even humans - or who they think are humans - if they’re friendly with a wolf pack.”

“He’s breathing, Erica,” Boyd reached out and pulled the she-wolf into his chest, holding her tight in comfort.  As if he could keep her from shaking apart out of sheer will.  “He’s still alive.  Stiles is tough, we all know that.”

“But he wasn’t,” she keened, ducking her head into the muscled breadth of her packmate.  “His heart stopped, Boyd.  I know you heard it like I did!”

Harry’s head whipped around with a soft crack, green eyes locking onto his trio of bondmates who were working on Stiles.

A visibly improved Stiles for certain, as there weren’t any further pulses of magic coursing over his body and scales, and he wasn’t fighting against Hadrian’s hold or the magic of the others, but still a dragel submissive in severe distress.

And now they knew why: because whatever had been holding him back from his inheritance had likely either broken or just slipped away when his heart stopped.

Death had a way of making contingencies like bindings and seals superfluous after all.  Not all of them, but most unless specifically applied and intended to last post mortem.  Whatever had been layered on Stiles, clearly hadn’t been quite that thorough.

Small mercies.

Harry didn’t need to see the results of Quinn and Riven’s diagnostics - though he would study and memorize them nonetheless - to know what happened insofar as Stiles’s inheritance and going feral.

The capacity for survival in a soul would never fail to impress.

Stiles was always meant to a be dragel.

Harry being assigned as his potential mentor made that crystal clear.

Others had conspired to keep him from coming into his inheritance, but in his heart and soul, that’s what he always was: dragel.

And dragels can be difficult creatures to kill - if you don’t know what you’re about anyway.

“Tell me about that.”  Harry prompted, refocusing.  “How did his heart stop?”

“Taser,” Boyd jerked his chin over at where an innocuous-seeming black rod was laying abandoned on the floor.

“Hunters increase the voltage to be effective against wolves.”  Erica explained further.  And almost word-for-word Derek’s own explanation to her during their training.  “It’s enough to take down an alpha.  Or,” her eyes teared and she looked away once more.

“Or stop a heart.”  Harry filled in softly, shaking his head and closing his eyes.  Modern day witch hunters.  Just what the earth-realm needed.  As if Torvak and insane wizards weren’t enough to deal with already.

There were times - few as they might be with Harry’s tendency towards compassion - where his bondmate Alec’s suggestion of flooding the place and salting the ground afterwards held great appeal.

“It was only a few seconds - definitely less than a minute - and then it started beating again and he stood up but when he stood up it…”  Erica firmed her lips and shook her head.

They seemed like allies.

Or at the very least they weren’t obvious enemies.

Even so, she wasn’t going to tell them anything more about how Stiles changed.

Especially since from what she could tell - it wouldn’t be anything they didn’t already know, given how they were handling him despite (or maybe because of) the wings, claws, fangs, and scales that had never belonged on the skinny bit of sass that was Stiles Stilinski.

At least - that had never belonged on him before.

“Do you know why they took him?”  Brishen asked when he saw his beloved submissive devolve into brooding.  Which wasn’t entirely unexpected.

Always one to want to carry the world on his shoulders, that was Harry.

“They tried asking about our alpha.”  Erica answered after a long moment.  “About the pack, fishing for information between beatings.  Mostly,” she grimaced.  “Mostly I think they just wanted to send a message.”

“To who?”

“Stiles’s best friend.”  Erica said, tiptoeing around revealing information they didn’t already have.  “He’s in love with one of the hunters, Gerard’s granddaughter, Allison,” she sneered infuriated and feeling betrayed - if against her own judgment - over the huntress’s actions in taking them captive.  She’d thought that Allison was supposed to be different.  Guess they saw how long that lasted once actual stakes were involved and the lives at risk were ones the huntress gave a damn about.  “She’s the one who captured us.”

Harry darted a look up at Brishen, giving a barely-there nod.

They were deflecting.

Likely trying to keep from revealing whatever other was going on with this mystery kid to spur an attack on Stiles.

If they were right about the motivations at hand.

It didn’t escape anyone’s notice that they were being scrupulous about concealing names of everyone but the supposed-hunters.

And Stiles, but given that he was the one they were patently there to help, Harry wasn’t too concerned about that particular lack of circumspection.

Satisfied that he’d gotten at least the bones of the story - as much as they were aware of anyway - Harry nodded and rose, taking Brishen’s offered hand with a soft smile.

“We’ve secured the basement.”  Brishen told the kids, who merely huddled into each other and watched everyone around them with wary, wounded eyes.  “You’re safe to stay here until Stiles wakes up and we get the full story.”

He presented it like a choice but they all knew better:

Until Stiles woke up clear and was able to provide his own round of explanations, none of them were going anywhere.

And given how easily the massive guy - even bigger than Boyd and that was saying something - and the one with the blue-blue eyes had tangled with Stiles in all his scaly glory, neither of them was willing to test them on it.

They might not be the wisest wolves in creation - hey, they were teenagers - but they knew a losing bet when they saw one.

All of which aside: they weren’t going to leave Stiles.

Not when they knew down to their bones that he never would’ve left them in the clutches of strangers, no matter how seemingly helpful.

“Alright, my loves, what’s the damage?”  Harry asked as he walked over to his bonded who were working on his new ward, tucking himself into Brishen’s side as he rather forcefully smothered his instincts that were screaming at him to get down and join Hadrian in handling Stiles.

Until they knew what sort of state the kid was in or where his mind and instincts were at, it just wasn’t safe for him to do so.

His bonded would have a collective hippogriff if he even tried, and the night was setting up to be stressful enough that he didn’t want to aggravate any of their instincts - let alone Stiles’s own.

Which was the real catch for Harry.

He could handle any snit from his bonded over his safety, though generally it wasn’t worth it to challenge them on it.

But for one of his children?

Or Stiles, his new ward?

He would do it without a second thought, if he thought his interference would help rather than harm.

As it was, he simply didn’t have enough information to make that call.

“It’s a nasty mess, is what it is.”  Riven groused with a scowl, thumping the butt of his mage staff on the cold concrete floor in emphasis.  “Not a patch on what you looked like, my heart, but nasty nonetheless.”

The look Harry shot his temperamental mage told everyone who little he appreciated the allusion to his own fight against seals and bindings to inherit and later manage a soul-scream rather than lose his beloved beta Charlie before they could even bond.

Hadrian snorted softly.  “It would be out-and-out meddling by Lady Fate if this kid managed to match Harry’s amount of bindings and seals.”

Given that Harry had once been layered with thirteen magical seals of varying kinds, neither of his bonded were exaggerating in the slightest, as much as it irritated him to recall those early days of his inheritance and how much he struggled.

If he could prevent Stiles from experiencing even a tenth of what he went through, it would be a worthy use of his talents and time, let alone those of his circle.

No one should have to experience what Harry went through.

No one.

“There’s remnants of several seals and magical spells.”  Riven admitted, then shrugged.  “Not on our Harry’s level, but not mere trifles either, and at least one set in place with a blood sacrifice.”  He grimaced.  “More than one signature as well.  Whoever was involved in binding him, they really didn’t want him to have access to magic or anything magical.  We need to do more thorough diagnostics than is wise in a dingy basement on earth, including a soul cast by Quinn to know for certain everything that was done.”

Well. To know what was done and know where to start their hunts for the perpetrators. No matter the underlying reasons, facts were facts: whoever it was, whatever they were attempting, in the end they still bound a dragel youngling.

And their people would take a blood-price for the crime out of their hides or even souls if necessary.

Quinn looked up from where he was working on healing the jagged tears in Stiles’s nail beds from his claws emerging and being used without prep, clipping torn skin and smoothing the edges and irritated scales before using magic to soothe and heal, then doing it all over again on the next claw.

“Physically there’s nothing more that can be done without more diagnostics and consent.”  Quinn added his two coins.  “Mentally…”  He trailed off with a sigh before turning his attention back to his task.

Over his scaled and skinned body would the poor submissive youngling wake up in any more pain and discomfort that he could prevent.

And by the way Harry and Brishen took over cleaning up, stretching, and oiling the dearheart’s wings, they clearly agreed as Hadrian passed him over into their care.

He had a soul or two to collect - and question.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Three: Hangover from Hell

“...it’s been hours…”

“...best to wake naturally…”

The murmur of strange - but soft - voices drew him like a moth to a flame.

For a long, blissful moment, Stiles let himself just drift.

Before his awareness kicked in.

Before his mind flashed with sneering mouths, sparking tasers, and blood-choked screams.

Before he remembered:

A roar tearing through his throat.

The scent of rage and anger and fear and pain.

The scent of enemy.  Of bitter herbs and gunpowder.  The scent of sweat and piss and prey.

Pain in his hands, his back too heavy, but his leap was fast and his claws were perfect to rip and rend and destroy.

Blood heavy in the air and then a new scent.

A strange-familiar scent that called to him.

Fighters!

Strong fighters!

Strong fighters trying to steal his prey!

Growing tired as he was batted around by the familiar-smelling strangers who had fangs, and claws, and wings.

And then calm.

And then nothing at all.

Harry was at Stiles’s side the instant that Quinn’s monitoring crystal warned them he was waking up.

They’d made the young dragel as comfortable as possible.  Tended to his new dragel traits that were on show from his compact wings to his vicious claws.  Quinn had pulled healing salve after ointment out of his storage voidstone and Brishen had even offered up some of his treasured cinnamon-laced wing oil to the caretaking stash.  His young ward had been tended and fussed over and polished to within an inch of his life - at least within the boundaries of propriety.

And all before they’d even had a proper introduction.

But with a youngling dragel, especially a submissive, left vulnerable and in their care, there was only so much even seasoned gheyos like Brishen and Hadrian could do to curb the mothering instincts of Harry and the caregiving ones of Quinn.

Quinn may have renounced his rank as an alpha long before a soulscream pulled him to Harry’s side, but certain traits and instincts never went away.

For the most part they were channeled into taking care of their circle and their children, and barring that fussing over his patients.

They walked a thin line with the amount of care they’d given Stiles.

But none of them could stand to see him suffer if there was something they could do about it, and they took care to ensure that while it did bother them to leave certain areas and patches of scales untended, Stiles’s autonomy was respected.

Whether unconscious or feral he couldn’t consent to their care.

And yes, while Harry had certain rights as his assigned mentor, their relationship had yet to become official no matter the pull of the bond that had shifted into place as soon as he’d started working on Stiles’s wings.

The caregiving had also allowed them to take inventory of Stiles’s state in addition to the information gathered by Quinn and Riven’s diagnostics.

He was a stunning creature, and Harry was already foreseeing having to shoo off pesky suitors to a degree he hadn’t faced since his third child presented as submissive a decade (as time passed in Nevarah) ago.

Creamy skin speckled with beauty marks, mink-brown hair and thick lashes, Stiles could have the dullest, blandest eye color imaginable to go with his refined features and full lips and still be chased after by suitors.

Especially as - in an eerie echo of Harry’s own introduction to Nevarah - the Hunt was fast approaching.

Occurring once a decade the Hunt was a realm-wide, well, bonding celebration.  Courting and being courted.  Circles formed and added to and merging.  It was chaos - both good and bad.   When Harry had taken refuge in Nevarah along with his newly-bonded circle following his soul-scream, they’d been on the cusp of the Hunt.  Now here they were, Harry a long-bonded submissive with a large circle and more than a dozen children, newly a mentor, and his new mentee set to venture with him to Nevarah with the Hunt set to begin in a matter of weeks.

History did like to repeat itself.

Though Stiles’s time at the Hunt was far more likely to serve more traditional purposes than Harry’s first time enjoying them.

Stiles was a ferros dragel.

More than that, he was a ferros dragel that had already slipped over the edge into ferity, no matter how short in duration or how coherent he was once he was pulled back.

It was an unfortunate fact of being ferros that so long as Stiles was unbonded, so long as he was without an anchor, he would have to wage a near-constant battle for control against falling over the edge into ferity, a fight made harder by his first brush with it coming so swiftly on the heels of his inheritance.

It was an edge that every dragel walked - but with ferros dragels it was far finer and harder to manage than for anyone else.

Most dragels could wait if they wanted to bond, though it was rare for most submissives to wait longer than a decade or two.

Stiles wouldn’t be able to take that time the way he could have chosen if he wished had he been an average dragel.

It was a hard reality, but it was the reality Harry would have to convince his ward to accept if he wanted him to survive and live his fullest life.

Before Harry could fall into a good brood, Stiles sucked in a startled breath and jackknifed up from where he’d been resting, this time on a makeshift pillow formed of Brishen’s feathered wings.

“Stiles, Stiles, breathe Stiles!”

He heard the words but it took longer than he would like to admit for them to make sense.

Drowning as he was in visions of blood and claws and tasers and Gerard Argent’s leering face spitting vile words.

“Stiles, it’s over, you’re safe, just breathe!”

Clenching his eyes closed, Stiles pulled in a deep breath and held it for a five count, then blew it out for seven, and then repeated.

And then again, when he almost lost his shit over the fact that he could hear the people surrounding him, could smell them in ways that were both new and horrible, and one of them he even felt despite not touching at all.

And not one of them - except for who he thought were Erica and Boyd - was someone he actually knew for all that they all felt safe.

Which was bullshit.

This was Beacon Hills.

Strangers were rarely benign let alone safe.

Snapping his eyes open, he went to tear himself out of the grasp of whatever - or whoever - was holding him down, adrenaline rushing through his body and pushing him on in an intense combination of fight fight fight, run run run.

A wash of something hit him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer before he’d managed more than a weak flail instead of the torrent of power he’d meant to unleash.

He didn’t know how or why he was able to do…what he did, or what it was that tore itself out him thanks to the hunters’ not-so-tender-mercies, but he knew down to his bones that he could do it again.

If only he could tap back into that well of rage and pain and power.

Derek’s lectures on using anger as his anchor had never resonated harder with Stiles, for all that it was a stupid-ass idea for someone like Scotty to attempt.  Not that there wasn’t anger hiding behind that puppy-ish face.  All anyone would have to do was mention his douchebag father to the other boy and they’d find out how much of a lie that was.

But Scott in some ways was a lot more like Stiles than anyone realized.

Ignoring uncomfortable facets of themselves was only one of them.

They weren’t friends only because Stiles had all-but-adopted him back in the kindergarten sandbox when Jackson was picking on the new kid.

It was more than that.

Scott was just better at hiding behind puppy-dog eyes and his crooked boy-next-door jawline than Stiles with his snark and ADHD.

The wash of what he could only call forced calm, like an airborne valium cresting through him, punched right through his panic and left him with the same artificial zen apathy that he remembered from his anxiety meds that he’d needed in the first year or two after his mom’s death.

Though…he hadn’t felt the pinprick of a syringe.

Weird.

But given everything that he’d seen, dealt with, or had happen to him over the last couple months, honestly magical valium attacks didn’t even make his top ten of shit to worry about.

Beyond why someone wanted him calm.

Since the last thing he remembered beyond the crushing wave of red throwing him down and taking control was hunters.

And even the idea of hunters had his instincts wobbling and wanting to throw him right back over that edge to where everything was red and rage and simple.

It was very Hulk-like of him, not gonna lie, but also not nearly as cool as he always thought superpowers would be - when thinking about them in hypotheticals anyway.

Before the supernatural came knocking and he learned what a simple Bite could do - from the wrong, or right, person.

When push came to shove and Peter Hale had offered to turn him into a werewolf (if he survived the Bite, anyway) he’d known better than to accept.

Internalized rage issues and wolfy powers hadn’t seemed like a great mix.

Especially witnessing everything Peter’s rage had unleashed on their home.

No, he’d noped right out of that opportunity, thanks.

Even if Peter, like the epic asshole he was, had called him on his desire for the power that he offered with a smarmy grin and eyes colder than the North Pole.

Though Peter had taken him at his word, shockingly.

Desire wasn’t consent.

And for whatever reason - whether he had an idea of what was hiding inside of Stiles’s blood and bones, or something else - when it came to Stiles, Peter had respected his lack of consent, and accepted his "no" despite it being against Peter's own wishes.

Once the induced apathy had taken firm hold and Stiles was able to actually focus, the first thing he saw was green.

Dark, forest-y green with lighter flecks and a ring around the edges.

Eyes.

The person who was trying to talk him down had dark green eyes that might turn lighter in different lighting or circumstances or whatever.

Pretty.

“That’s good Stiles,” the guy with the pretty eyes told him.  “Just let the spell work, it’ll help you until you can maintain it yourself.  Just breathe.”

Stiles blinked at that.

He’d thought the forced-calm was magical but he hadn’t meant… magical magical.

What the actual fuck?

As his ability to focus on more than the warring urges to both run to safety and tear shit up, Stiles noticed more things about the guy trying to talk him down.

Like that he had super dark brown hair that bordered on black.

Or that his pretty eyes were matched by a really pretty face that looked maybe late twenties for all that he acted like someone a lot older than that based on how calm he was talking Stiles through what almost felt like a panic attack mixed with an urge to HulkSmash everything around him.

StilesSmash?

And then Stiles was able to notice things beyond the green eyed guy (who was the one who felt safe, and what the fuck?, how did he even know that?, why did he think that?) and felt himself blink so fast his eyelashes could’ve stirred up a whirlwind.

Wings.

Those were actual-facts, fucking wings sticking out of the blue eyed guy behind the one with green eyes.

Blue eyes, he felt the need to note, set in a face so dark that it made Boyd - African-American, Boyd - look pasty.

Okay…

Beyond the wings - which: Wings?! - that was not something you saw everyday.

Not out of the question, genetics were awesome that way, but not exactly a match Stiles expected to see in the Argent’s torture-dungeon either instead of on the cover of a magazine like Vogue or GQ or (given the muscles) Men’s Health.

The wings and eyes matched, which actually made a super pretty contrast.  Like: whoa.  Large, arching, and feathered, the wings dripped in shades of icy blues and silvers.

Colors that were almost as impossible as the idea of wings on a person - outside of pop-culture angels and some very specific kinds of porn and fanfic anyway - but that somehow fit the guy regardless.

Like the armor that was covering his body, leaving no skin exposed except for his face and the trident pendant hanging around his neck.

And the guy next to him didn’t even leave that much to see.

If feathered-wings was all contrasts and armor, the guy standing next to him was all monochrome and shadows.

A dark mask with a couple feather plumes covered the top half of his face, leaving only a stern mouth and jawline to be seen by the naked eye.  Armor - like something out of a D&D or video game cosplay but way more authentic - covered a massive form and pale skin.  And to top everything else off in this weird fever-dream of a situation, there was an actual sword sheathed at the guy’s hip.

Rounding out what he could see of the adventuring party of his nightmares - since he was being held by someone and he could see both Erica and Boyd watching him with concern (and some fear, which, ouch, and also: pots, kettle, dealing with wolf-rage new wolves hadn't exactly been a walk in the park for Stiles dudes) across the basement behind the D&D party - was a damn mage, staff with a creepy blinking eye on top and everything.

If Feathers was all light and Mask was all shadows, Mage was a cross between the two: super light skin, almost translucent, with airy white and purple robes to match purple eyes.

Rather than armor, he had bandages wrapped around what Stiles could see of his arms, and there were dark tattoos running up and down the little bits and pieces of exposed skin he could spy.

“There you are,” green eyes said, voice dripping calm and meant to sooth, smiling softly.  “Hello Stiles.”

“Hey,” Stiles said weakly then gave a cough.  Ouch.  He felt like he’d been gargling broken glass there for a moment, then another wash of something hit him and whoa.  He never even saw anyone move, except for whoever was holding onto him.  Okay.  Magic was a thing that was a thing.  He’d have his mental freak out over being right no matter what bullshit Deaton tried to sell him later.  “Didn’t anyone tell you Renfaire isn’t until June?”

The body at his back shook with laughter - and what the hell?

Don’t get him wrong, Stiles loved hugs.  He lived for the deep, long-clenches of hugs that his father dished out.  He was a slut for cuddles as Scott had learned to his confused bafflement during more than one sleepover before the now-werewolf just started going with it and accepting it as a Stiles thing.

But he generally did not want to be touched by strangers.

The fact that he was being held and the urge inside him to rip and maim was just… okay with it?

That was mildly terrifying.

Right along with everything else inside of him that said, based on no evidence beside that they appeared to be trying to help him and that both Erica and Boyd seemed calm.

Seemed.

Given that they apparently had actual-facts magic going on, the apparent docility of part of the local werewolf population was more suspicious to Stiles than less.

Beyond the forced calm, Stiles took a moment to take stock of himself as the others all snickered or laughed at his joke, even or maybe especially the ones that it was pointed at.

Erica huffed and shook her head but shot him a thumbs-up, and even Boyd deigned to crack a flicker of a smile.

“Oh yeah. He’s going to fit right in.”  The dry comment came from Feathers, but while Stiles took note of it and was appropriately wary of the implications he was too busy to grab onto it right that second.

And for good reason.

Now that he was paying attention to his body and not just his forced-calm, he was dying.

Fuck.

It was like the time he stole his Dad’s Jack Daniels in an attempt to make Scott feel better about breaking up with Allison only to end up with the worst fucking hangover the next morning to go with a lecture from his dad.

Only, you know, so much worse.

His head was throbbing, his eyes were dry, and the taste of bile in the back of his throat warned of impending upchucking if he didn’t get his shit together.

There was a deep, sore, dragging pull on the muscles of his back and shoulders that he did not want to think too much about.

His jaws ached like the after effects of a root canal - or what he’d heard one felt like, he’d always taken good care of his teeth and had good genes that came with no wisdom-teeth issues thus far so he didn’t know - but without lidocaine or pain meds to take the edge off.

The inside of his cheeks and lips felt like they’d been torn up.

Almost like they’d scraped and rubbed against his teeth, sort of like what happened when he got hit in the face, but only some of that could be explained by Granddaddy Psychopath’s version of tender-loving-care.

Not all of it.

Last but certainly not least (besides the throb of his war-wounds from a beating via-hunters and the stinging that felt like burns on his chest, probably from the taser-treatment) was the burning throb in his fingers and wrists.

He wasn’t going to look, he wasn’t going to look.

He wasn’t ready to know, he wasn’t going to look.

Once he looked, once he saw, there would be no burying his head in denial.

No playing off what he remembered as a nightmare or fever-dream.

Once he knew, he wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore that it hadn’t happened.

Tucked away in his subconscious lay the knowledge on why his hands hurt.

And he kinda felt lied to.

Or omitted?  Omitted maybe.  Kinda.  Fuck.

None of the werewolves had ever told him that there was more to claws than just bam, claws.  They never told him that if you didn’t lock your joints when you swiped at someone it would force your fingers back and into hyperextension.  They never explained the ache that forcing your bones to shift and reform left behind.  They never…

But then…

They weren’t whatever it was he was.

Maybe for them it wasn’t like that.

Maybe because of how fast they healed, they never noticed.

Or if they noticed, never deemed it worthy mentioning since it was only a flicker to them - there-and-gone, like most of their non-hunter-or-alpha-induced injuries.

Either way: he’d never know if he didn’t ask the question.

And as much as he wished he could ignore everything that had gone down, ignore everything he’d done, it simply wasn’t viable.

Grandpappy Argent was working a plan, one that even mere hints of filled him with dread for the people he actually gave a fuck about anymore, and Stiles couldn’t afford to bury his head in the sand about just why he had a hangover from hell when shit might be going down that exact moment.

Not when this was Beacon Hills, where bodies could start dropping any second.

And given his current track record: it would be bodies of his people being dropped rather than doing the dropping - though frankly neither was optimal even if the latter was preferable.

So therefore the facts as he saw them were this: he was something.  Something with fangs and claws and a temper that made the Hales look downright congenial.  Something that when faced with hunters hurting him, went something he could only call feral in memory of Derek’s description of Peter’s mental state once-upon-a-time, and tore them into itty-bitty pieces.

Now, the questions remained: what did the appearance of these strangers have to do with what Stiles was?  What was their stake in Stiles?

Finally, how was he going to lose them or shake them or convince them to step off so he could get back to taking care of what was his?

Stiles honestly had no idea.

But when all else failed, he always had his brain and his experiences gained from growing up with a cop for a dad, which left him with a route to follow.

Play along, gather information, and then act on what he learned.

Granted, his dad had taught him that in case of a kidnapping, but…well.

The strangers might seem helpful now, but Stiles had already been kidnapped once that night.

He had no intention of letting this new group, which seemed made up of fantastical magical beings at that, take him to a secondary location.

The Argents had had an entire lacrosse game plus spectators worth of leverage against him.

The situations weren’t even close to the same.

And if all else failed, there was always StilesSmash 2.0 to enact.

Harry stared at his new ward a bit bemused at the emotional tone of the kid.

At first there had been all the panic and fear and confusion that was expected in the kind of messed up perspective that coming out of a feral drive caused.

That was normal.

How quickly Stiles had snapped from confusion to calculation on the other hand…that was anything but normal and implied horrifying things about the kind of life he’d lived thus far.

He couldn’t help but think that if cleverness had an actual emotional tone, that it would be Stiles’s default setting from the mixture of calculation, awareness, and resolve that had eventually settled over Stiles’s emotional aura like a concealing cape.

Harry could get bits and pieces through it, but they were flickers.

Nothing like the sort of complex emotional landscape that Stiles had projected before he marshaled his mental defenses - even without knowing that Harry was an empath and said mental defenses were even needed.

It was the sort of control and concealment that his alpha Theo would adore.

The Slytherin bastard.

Brishen had been dead on the money.

Stiles was going to fit right into their circle with that kind of mental acuity.

Clever, cunning bastards each and every one of them, even the bonded who acted otherwise in public like Bran or Ethan.

Or Harry himself.

Stiles clearly had an agenda given the protective urge that had almost flattened Harry before it’d been shoved down behind the clever.

Given how little they actually knew about what was going on with the kid, he was inclined to let him act on it, if only because he had a feeling that it would be enlightening.

About Stiles and his priorities if nothing else.

“Alright, kiddo.”  Harry arched a knowing brow as he crouched.  “I can tell that you’re not in the mood to be pandered to, so it’s like this.”  He met that piercing gaze head on.  An amber-gold gaze.  Combined with the colors of his magic…it painted an interesting, if complicated, picture of what sort of digging they were going to have to do into how a seemingly-muggle kid ended up with a suppressed dragel inheritance.  

Also fuck.

The kid had bambi-eyes.

Mentoring him through the circus of courting was going to be hell once the eligible dragels in Nevarah got a look at him.

And that was just based on looks alone, not taking into consideration any of the other factors the kid had going for him like his ripe, lush scent or the sheer power he held inside him as well as his potential power increase if he could learn to control his ferros aspects.

“I’m not going to get into what you are or who we are or why we’re here - that’s a conversation I have a feeling you don’t have the patience to sit through at the moment.  I’m not going to ask what happened.  You want to get out of here, right?”  He asked rhetorically, nodding when Stiles reared backwards in surprise, almost smacking Quinn in the face with the back of his head if the Healer hadn’t dodged.  “Okay then, here’s the conditions under which we’re going to let that happen.  My bonded, Quinn, behind you.”  Harry jerked his chin towards the blond dragel who’d shifted Stiles out of his hold once it appeared the kid wasn’t going to bolt and was focused on listening to Harry.  “He needs your permission to finish healing you.  Or at least, as much healing as we can manage here,” he sent a scathing glance around the basement.  “Once he’s done, we’ll go handle whatever it is that has you snapping out of a feral episode faster than I’ve ever seen.  Afterwards, once whatever it is that’s driving you is taken care of, we’ll sit down for that talk and you’ll actually listen instead of playing along until you can bolt.  Deal?”

What Harry conveniently left out was that that conversation would likely take place in a week or two.  After whatever-it-was that was driving Stiles to ignore the toll his inheritance had taken on his body was finished, he was going to hit the floor.  Harry remembered what it was to be a newly-inherited submissive - and mainly, for the first couple weeks while he adjusted, it was a lot of sleeping and eating and not much else.  But then: if Stiles didn't ask, Harry wasn't under any obligation to tell.

Especially since he got the impression that if he warned the kid, Stiles was going to try and find a way around his dragel's necessary mini-realignment cycle that came with his inheritance - as he'd already done just by going feral instead of remaining unconscious for a day or twelve, depending on his power levels and previous state of health.

Stiles pouted at being foiled before he even got going.  It was like he knew.   But…maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, he conceded, shooting a glance over his shoulder at the “Quinn” who was going to heal him.

Heal him, because he’s a healer, a word that green-eyes used like his dad said doctor.

Dude.

Just: dude.

He did hurt.

And neither Erica or Boyd seemed upset or reacted weird to the suggestion so…

“Okay,” he agreed even as he crossed his arms with a narrow-eyed look at the guy who felt like he knew him even though Stiles would’ve remembered meeting a guy who looked like that.   “Deal.”

After all: green eyes had promised him the Holy Grail in Stiles’s world - answers.

Sweet, delicious, answers that he didn’t have to pry out of a closed-off sourwolf with wit, sass, and sheer annoying persistence.

Yeah, the night had sucked major ass.

And he wasn’t even thinking about the fact that he’d killed people.

Nope nope nope.

He was repressing the fuck out of that.

His people, his pack were still in imminent danger from Gerard Argent, and knowledge was being offered up with a visible catch rather than one that was going to come back and bite him in the ass later.

He could have a conflict of morals later and devolve into a puddle of angst.

After everyone he cared about was safe.

Until then: apparently there was healing to do and a plan to make.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Four: Twisting the Knife

Stiles paid attention as the guy behind him - Quinn, the healer - set about casting spells - spells?! - and asking questions about what Stiles was feeling and reacting as he worked.

Well, he paid half attention.

The other half was focused on green-eyes, Harry apparently, as he snapped out quick introductions: Feathers was Brishen, Mask was Hadrian, and Mage was Riven.

“Hey,” he nodded politely even though he was appropriately terrified by these fantastical magical beings that had appeared out of nowhere and had, what?  Adopted him or something?  “I’m Stiles, that’s Erica and Boyd.”

“We know.”  Harry told him with a quick, well-hidden twitch of his mouth.  “Erica gave us a partial overview of what happened down here before we arrived.”

Stiles couldn’t help but relax into Quinn’s magic and purr when one of the waves of his hand coincided with a flicker of blue-tinged magic that sank into his head and soothed his headache like the best migraine relief available by prescription only.

Okay.

Maybe the magic thing wasn’t completely terrifying if it could do shit like that.

Maybe.

Once his head wasn’t occupied by an entire collegiate-level marching band stomping and trumpeting away, Stiles started focusing on more than just the current crisis or how epically shitty he felt.

Like the weird taste in his mouth.

Smacking his tongue a bit, he knew he was making a face but he couldn’t help it.

It was a bit coppery, like when he bit his tongue hard enough to bleed, but also rich and sweet, and so fucking weird.

A fact that he promptly ignored in favor of the ice-cold glass bottle of water with words in a language he’d never seen before scrawled up and over the sides.

At least if they were being serious about taking care of him - and he could tell that they were dead-serious, though it made absolutely no fucking sense to him - they were on-point with his needs, almost before he registered them himself.

It was probably magic.

Maybe.

Magic was actually the lesser-evil of the options in his opinion.  Since otherwise they were just that observant and willing to act on it.  And that…  He didn’t even know where to begin untangling how he felt about that.

He was the caretaker not the caretakee.

Being on the receiving end had him all messed up, like Freaky Friday levels of wrong, and he had no idea what to think about any of it.

Either the consistent caretaking on the part of utter strangers towards him or his freaked-out reaction to it.

Ms. Morrell would have a field day with his reaction to Harry and Quinn fussing over him.  As if the school conselor didn't already have plenty of material to focus on when it came to Stiles.  Dead mom, ADHD, his home being plagued with murderers - there was a lot, okay.

But on the other hand before he started down a thought-spiral: fussing.  There really was no other way to put it than fussing when Harry clucked his tongue and lectured him on making sure he stayed hydrated before Quinn told him in no uncertain terms that he’d be leaving his wings out on show for as long as possible to ensure that the muscles and joints adjusted properly.  They were fussing.

He wasn’t the only one to think so either, if the amused expressions that everyone else - he’d be willing to bet good coin on even Hadrian behind that concealing mask - including Erica and Boyd were any sign.

While Stiles was being fussed over - okay, yeah, all confusion and conflicted feelings aside, the actual healing part and having like, healing potion things applied to his skin felt pretty good and made the hangover from hell seem like a bad dream - Hadrian, Riven, and Brishen had had an intense discussion over in one corner of Argent’s basement of wonders.

Wonders for a sadistic hunter anyway.

Anyone else: not so much.

He caught bits and pieces over and around the fussing and from what he could tell it came down to Riven going for reinforcements - and a debate about who they were having come help, for some reason “the twins” was instantly nixed with prejudice - while Hadrian went up to do some reconnaissance with Brishen left behind to act as a guard.

And that much only happened after a conversation in a language he didn’t understand between the Fussers and the others.

Which just by tone he was pretty sure a request for them to stay put and the Fussers being kinda irritated that they felt the need to ask.

Maybe.

That was just what Stiles got from it but then again language barrier so…

Anyway.

By the time the Fussers had been appeased - if only for the moment based on the undertone of some of Quinn’s comments - both Hadrian and Riven were back, the latter with the reinforcements Stiles had anticipated.

Which led to another round of introductions, naturally.

Oh holy shit after he kept Erica and Boyd from getting completely fucked up by some hot guys with swords like seriously what the fuck guys?!

(Stiles may or may not have actually babbled all of that.)

Snapping into action, Stiles all-but-threw himself between the charging werewolves and their target: one of the newly arrived hot-guys-with-swords.

Because apparently when they woke up that morning they chose to be suicidally stupid.

“What the fuck, guys?!”  He shouted and flailed, snapping his wings open and blocking their view of the guy they were trying to charge.

Only to splutter as someone literally picked him up, wings and all, and moved him out of the way.

WHomst?!

Whipping his head around with an indigent hiss - which whoa, hello there sounds he’d never made before - he glared at whatever presumptuous fucker decided Stiles-handling was what he wanted put down on his tombstone as cause of death.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that rather than successfully attacking the stacked guy in armor-and-sword with a long undercut of black hair and…were those…were those spots?  On his skin?  Like a leopard or something.

(Yes, yes those were spots.  What even was his life?)

Anyway.

Rather than a successful charge-and-attack, Erica and Boyd were both being batted around like a mama bear with her cubs.

The look on the guy’s face - and huh, those spots were sprouting and fading… like a beta shift.  Uh huh. Noted.  - was nothing short of indulgent with a hint of entertainment.

That was fun for him.

Being charged was a couple of beta werewolves - new ones, but still - was fun.

Okay then, he was either scary as fuck or short a couple cards of a full deck and Stiles didn’t have enough information to peg which it was.

Though evidence suggested door number one, the expression on his face didn’t exactly deny the evidence of door number two.

The bastard who’d chosen death-via-Stiles however, he did recognize as Hadrian which had him settling back and pulling the clawed hand that was going for his eyes.

He actually understood his weight class - even if it’d recently undergone a major shift - and unlike some suicidal betas knew better than to punch over it.  By like, a dozen levels.  Or more.

Everything in him - both his old self-preservation instincts and his new-and-improved version - told him that Hadrian was dangerous and very much not to be fucked with.

And…taken?

Very very taken.

Though he didn’t know why or how he knew that, he acknowledged that he did in fact know it.

Somehow.

Wow he needed a dose of Adderall like stat, he was all over the fucking place and he had a feeling that Quinn’s healing spells had been a little too effective on stripping impurities from his system.

It had never occurred to him before his attention span started pinging worse than a ping-pong ball that that would mean his meds.

Fuck.

This was not his night, temporary high of lacrosse glory aside.

“Your wolves are fine.”  Hadrian assured him as he set the now-calm and not-interfering submissive back on his bare feet.  Though he was surprised that his bonded hadn’t taken care of that while he was gone but then…means.

All that had survived thus far of whatever sports uniform he’d been wearing before his bout of feral drive was his shorts, everything else had been either stripped from him before his shift or were lost in the process of gaining extra mass and height and the addition of wings.

“Devrim won’t hurt them but if they’re going to come with us to handle whatever forced you out of your much-needed rest, they need to understand their place in the hierarchy with him.”

“He’s a were of some kind, isn’t he?”  Stiles asked, knowingly.  The beta-ish shifting with the spots was kinda a dead giveaway.  Even if it wasn’t anything like the shifts he was used to.  “Devrim?”

“Mhmm.”  Hadrian hummed in agreement but didn’t reveal any further information.  If his Prince wanted their new acquaintances - though Stiles was set to be much more than that to them - to know what his heritage was, that was up to him not Hadrian or anyone else to give away.

Stiles huffed a little, crossing his arms over his chest when he shivered as the cold hit him now that he wasn’t being fussed over.

“Here,” Riven flicked his fingers in Stiles’s direction and the clothes that he’d packed from Alec’s wardrobe - their merrow bonded was sure to throw a fit when he discovered the theft, but it was for a good cause - as the merrow was the closest match to Stiles’s size, settled into place around Stiles’s nearly-bare body thanks to a switching spell.  The torn and dirty shorts (and underwear) were all sent off for the nearest trash receptacle he identified.  They were a lost cause, even with magic.  “Wherever we’re heading, you certainly can’t go like that.”

Stiles blinked in surprise at the sudden wardrobe change but took it in stride, especially after Quinn and Harry had spelled both him and the wolves clean during their rounds of fussing.

The clothes weren’t his and he had no idea where they came from but they were warm and soft and the sandals - while not his choice - at least would protect his feet until he could snag his shoes from his locker at the gym.

Leather pants were so not his thing - at least not to wear, no matter how buttery soft, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Before they could get sidetracked (and now that the whole hierarchy thing had been handled, with both wolves looking a little embarrassed (as they should) Harry jumped in.

“This is my new mentee, Stiles.”  He rushed forward before a narrow-eyed Stiles could jump on the information that was just left out there to taunt him.  “And his packmates?”  Harry shot a glance between the wolves and Stiles who both nodded firmly before continuing.  “Packmates Erica and Boyd.  They were all kidnapped by werewolf hunters,” there was more than one growl and hiss that coated the air at that tidbit of news.  “And we’re going to help get things sorted so Stiles can actually settle and focus on his new inheritance.  Stiles,” he turned gently to his ward.  “These are some more of my bondmates: Devrim,” he pointed to each in turn, starting with the were-of-undetermined-type.  “Wikhn,” a gorgeous guy with fabulous hair that sparkled even in the crappy light of the basement and eyes that shifted between magenta and red.  “Charlie,” merely handsome rather than too-pretty-for-words, he was shorter than the others except for Harry and had tri-colored red hair with bright blue eyes.  But not Brishen-blue.  Normal blue.  “And Ethan.”  Who honestly looked like Boyd’s smoother, prettier older brother, complete with cartilage piercings containing golden hoops.

Harry turned to Hadrian to double check: “the rest?”

“Either holding the fort with the kids or ready to complete, finesse, or brute-force through any paperwork that we’ll need before we’re done here.”  River reported crisply.  “Alec hasn’t surfaced yet but I sent a message so he’s not left out of the loop.”

Harry nodded, then turned to Stiles, the others echoing him even as one of the armor-and-sword crew reached out and tugged him into his side.

Wikhn, with the strangely-hypnotic eyes.

Swallowing roughly at having that many pairs of intense eyes locked on him, Stiles straightened up and lifted his chin.

“There’s a whole lot of backstory but what you need to know if you’re going to help me is this: Gerard Argent is a sadistic, genocidal, bigot who’s been hunting the supernatural for literal decades.”  Stiles broke down the whole tragedy of the Hale Fire and all of the history and set it aside.  It would give context but that wasn’t what mattered, not if these people, these somehow familiar strangers were willing to trust him and not bat an eye over the fact that he’d gone feral and killed two men before they even met.  “He’s out for blood and he’s not going to stop until he gets it.  His target from what I can tell is the Alpha of the Hale Pack,” he tilted his head a bit towards the wolves in illustration.  “Though all evidence points that he wants him alive for some creepy and no doubt horrifying purpose that I can’t quite figure out.”

“Peter did kill his daughter, Stiles.”  Erica pointed out.  “And the Alpha’s Bite led to Victoria’s suicide.”

“It’s not revenge.”  Stiles batted that idea right back down.  Not because it was wrong, but because it wasn’t the whole story.  The lines that Gerard had been spitting about vengeance and justice and monsters in the dark didn’t actually fit with what he’d been doing.  There was something else going on.  He just didn’t have the illusive missing piece to the puzzle that would let all of the other scattered bits and bobs click into one coherent narrative.  “If it was revenge: why all the theatrics?”  Stiles asked, gesturing towards himself in emphasis.  “Why kidnap the Sheriff’s son to prove a point, or kidnap two of the pack’s betas when the Alpha isn’t exactly low key?  Why the fucked up plot to kill another beta by mimicking an asthma attack?  Why the attack at the station?   None of it makes sense if revenge was the only motivation.”

The fact that Stiles’s father was apparently the sheriff, (which meant more to Harry and Riven given one’s roots in the earth-realm and the other’s tendency to realm walk) was certainly of note.

Especially as it meant that taking care of Stiles wouldn’t be as easy as swooping him up and carrying him off to Nevarah.

“I agree.”  Hadrian nodded slowly after listening carefully for the details Stiles was letting slip without even knowing it.  “From a tactical perspective it’s nonsensical unless the goal is other than the one presented.”

“What would this Argent gain from taking your alpha captive?”  Harry asked the werewolves.  “Other than some twisted form of satisfaction?”

“The Hale Pack carries a certain reputation and prestige.”  Devrim offered after an internal debate.  “They’ve been wardens of a nexus point for centuries.  If these hunters are organized, there would potentially be much to gain from capturing the alpha of such a pack.”

Riven snorted contemptuously - not for Devrim or his opinion, but the idea that this fucked-up mess of a realm had wardens for their nexus points.

“If the Hale Pack are the wardens of the local nexus point, we have more problems than whatever is bothering Stiles.”  He pointed out pragmatically.  “The ley lines and telluric currents are a mess to say the least.”

“As Kate Argent burned down the Hale Pack house six years ago,” Stiles told them, voice carefully controlled and taking deep breaths to keep from lashing out.  It wasn’t the mage’s fault.  He didn’t know.   “Taking all but three members of the Pack with it, including the reigning Alpha, and leaving one member incapacitated and in a catatonic state for most of the time between then and now, I’d say any wardening was the last thing on anyone’s mind who survived - if they even knew about it.”

There was a collective wince from the others, including Erica and Boyd, at Stiles’s seemingly-bland rebuttal.

Seeing that his point - and pointed, though unstated, warning - hit home, Stiles carried on via changing the subject, turning his gaze to Hadrian and ostensibly ignoring Riven.

“Your magic, or abilities, or whatever,” he also ignored one of them hissing: he doesn’t even know, in the background to Harry.  “Can you track with them?”

A chilling, pleased smile crossed Hadrian’s full lips.

“Few better.”

A vicious smile of his own flashed over Stiles’s face.

“Perfect.”

Stiles wished he could say that he was shocked, surprised, and utterly taken back by the scene they find waiting for them once Hadrian had done his tracking-do - with shadows that seemed sentient, for a whole new world of nightmare fuel he could’ve done without - using magical imprints or whatever from the Argent house, but he really wasn’t.

Nothing he’d said back at said-house had been wrong, but he’d left more than a few things out.

Among them a tidbit that wasn’t really applicable but also the reason why he’d been unable to rest or settle the way Quinn tried to convince him to.

No one - no one - kidnapped a LEOs kid after an event like the station massacre without wanting every cop in the area searching for them.  The local LEOs - both city and county and possibly even state - would be combing through Beacon Hills within hours if his dad called in the big guns.  Gerard wanted local law enforcement distracted.

And the only reason Stiles figured he wanted that was because he was finally ready to make his big play and didn’t want cops muddying the waters.

Like say, being too busy looking for Stiles to answer any shady reports of gunfire in one of the abandoned industrial warehouses left over from their pre-fire economic glory days.

For instance, just spitballing, but the logic was sound.

The stage was set exactly to what Stiles would bet dimes-to-dollars were Gerard’s expectations:

Derek was paralyzed on the floor of the warehouse, Isaac down and stabbed by Allison’s ring daggers.

Allison herself, held at bay by the kanima who - oh, look, was being controlled by Gerard after Matt Daehler was oh-so-conveniently found dead - which in turn worked quite effectively at pulling the fangs from both Scott and Allison’s father Chris.

Scott, who was taking being ordered around by Gerard right on the chin, and Chris who looked like his entire world was crumbling around him as he heard his father, oh supreme poohbah of Murderers Inc. betray every last value that Gerard had espoused all his life to get the Bite from an Alpha wolf.

Honestly, Stiles didn’t know who to be angrier with.

But he certainly knew where to start.

A look was all it took and Harry reached out his hand, a spell slipping easily from between his lips.

A spell that the wolves below heard but didn’t understand.

Until every last weapon held by the hunters - because of course, Gerard wasn’t one to take half-measures, he’d brought the entire goon squad with him - vanished.

In the same moment, Hadrian’s shadows tore away from where they’d been making themselves at home in the dim light of the warehouse, surrounding the kanima - also known as one Jackson Whittemore, douchebag almost without equal, though the kanima bit wasn’t really his fault.  Well.  Beyond extorting the Bite out of Derek anyway - and holding him immobile from his head, down to each venom-tipped claw, and to the end of that annoying as fuck tail when it came to trying to fight it.

Check.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”  Stiles jumped down - keeping his wings carefully pinned back so Quinn didn’t have a coronary if they extended and caught wind before they were strong enough to bear his weight - and landed lightly on the balls of his feet.  Erica and Boyd landing with equal grace behind him, while Harry and his circle - everyone present, anyway - moved out from where Hadrian, Wikhn, and Devrim’s shadows had concealed them.  “Did I interrupt your big moment?”  He shrugged, wings moving with him which was still so fucking weird, then continued.  “My bad.”

Scott froze where he was leaning over Derek, preparing to grab hold of the paralyzed Alpha and force him to give Gerard the Bite.

“Stiles?”  He asked weakly, confused.  The voice matched, and the scent - kinda.  But the rest…  “Is that you?  What happened to you?”

“That’s an interesting question.”  Stiles nodded encouragingly, not an ounce of his inner burning rage over having the fact that Scott had colluded with Gerard motherfucking Argent showing on his face.  “I’m not actually sure of the full answer myself.  Kinda skipped the Q&A section that went with my little transformation because I was certain that Grandpappy Psychopath had something big in the works, and hey, guess what,” Stiles made jazz-hands to match his mocking expression.  “I was right.”

“What kind of abomination are you?!”  Gerard roared, eyes bulging.  “I should have killed you when I had the chance!”

“Yeah, no,” Stiles smirked.  “That wouldn’t have helped.  If anything it just would’ve made sure you died faster.   Just ask Goon One and Goon Two oh snap,” Stiles grimaced, wobbling a bit comically.  “Kinda can’t ask the dead anything.”

“That’s not entirely correct, sweetheart.”  Joining the fun now that the tables had turned, Peter gave a small, almost unnoticeable nod in recognition to Blood Raven.  It wouldn’t do to draw the ire of his element’s Blood Title after all.  “I’m sure your new friends could help you do exactly that if they were of a mind to.”

“Ah, Peter,” Stiles wrinkled his nose.  “I’d heard you were back.  What’s the schtick?  Twice as smarmy half as dead?”

“Stiles?”  Scott repeated himself, stumbling away from Derek in surprise when a shadow of all things forced him away from the vulnerable werewolf.  “Stiles, what’d you do?”

“Lived, Scott.”  Stiles answered simply.  “I lived, despite Gerard’s minions best attempt.  Now I believe it’s time to take out the trash.  Derek?”  He asked softly, of the wolf who Quinn had moved to help as soon as his bondmates had ensured it was safe via shadow-removal of the adolescent wolf.  “Gerard and his training has cost you and yours the most.  It’s your call.”

“Jackson will need a new Master if you kill Gerard.”  Peter pointed out, while his nephew was busy being healed by quite the attractive specimen of dragel healer.  Bonded dragel healer, mores the pity, but a man could still appreciate the view.

Much like the enticing one Stiles himself made, dragel attributes on show and taking charge of what was almost a clusterfuck for the ages.

Peter let the picture he made and the alluring scent he carried imprint itself on his mind, he reveled in it, eyes shuttering and hiding the eye-flare he didn’t quite have the reserves yet to glamor.

He let himself sink into it - for a moment - and then he let it and Stiles and everything about the young submissive that had always been so enticing to him even in the depths of madness pass him by.

Peter was content as he was.  He’d lost too much, been changed too deeply to ever risk another bond.  No matter what it was made of pack or mate or soulmate.

It didn’t matter.

It wasn’t a risk or a pain he would ever bring upon himself willingly.

Not when his kind and rank were able to live perfectly well without it.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”  Stiles huffed a laugh at where Quinn was studying the kanima with narrowed eyes once he finished flushing the venom - and any other impurities, there was no need for half-assery in healing - from the alpha werewolf.  Quinn had taken the explanation of what exactly a kanima was with a calculating look.

Stiles kinda thought the challenge of it appealed to him: turning Jackson back into a real-boy instead of a murder-puppet.

It would fit with what little he’d seen of the healer.

Case in point: Quinn approached the trapped kanima on sure feet then reached out and tapped him with two fingers right between the eyes.

Jackson’s lizardy alter-ego’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped unconscious into the grasp of the shadows holding him up until they slowly lowered him to the ground.

In the back of his mind he noted that Gerard was still screaming slurs and even trying to break free of the shadows and/or magic holding him - but it didn't matter.  And then when one of Harry's guys got tired of it, even that much stopped via a magical gagging spell.  Nice.  Much easier to hear himself think without the insane ravings of a genocidal madman cluttering up the ambiance.

“You’re a badass, Quinn.”  Stiles told the healer with genuine appreciation.

“Thanks, Stiles.”  Quinn murmured even as he was crouching down and starting diagnostics.  Hmm.  It was an interesting phenomenon.  But nothing he couldn’t handle, maybe with a little help from a healer with a specialty in halfings and warped inheritances, but…yeah.  Nothing that wasn’t fixable with the right care plan.

“I don’t know Stiles.”  Derek muttered as he rose slowly to his feet, eyeing Gerard with blatant distaste.  “Death seems almost too easy for him after everything he’s done.”

“Dead enemies are ones that can’t regroup, plot, and plan against you.”  Stiles countered pragmatically, ignoring Scott’s upset Stiles!   “And I wasn’t asking if you thought he should die.”  He spelled it out, because yeah: he could see where the alpha got that idea.  “I was asking whether you wanted to do it yourself.”

“You can cede your bloodright to me if you don’t want his death on your conscience, nephew.”  Peter offered sincerely.  “It was one of my duties as your mother’s left hand.  It’s one I would gladly carry out for you in this case.”

“I can’t believe you’re all standing around debating who is going to kill someone?!”  Scott burst out, shaking as he backed away from the others and towards where Allison was motionless - which was weird, why wasn’t she moving?  Did Jackson get her with his claws but she was somehow frozen standing up? - and away from the bloodthirsty wolves surrounding him.

And Stiles.

Whatever Stiles and the strangers he showed up with were.

Since they all kinda smelled the same, but not?

Like Derek and Isaac and the other betas all smelled the same, and Stiles and the Sheriff.

But Stiles somehow now smelled different, kinda still like he used to but also kinda like the weird guys with the strange clothes and, like, actual swords?

What the hell was going on?

Stiles just gave him a look.  “Really, Scott?”  He asked dryly.  “You can’t believe Peter and I are debating who gets to kill Gerard.  Have you even met us?  Or forgotten that I helped plan and carry out Peter’s death?  After Peter killed everyone involved in killing the rest of the Hales?  Really?”

“You always were my favorite of your little Scooby Gang, Stiles.”  Peter said with admiration for his cutting summary.  “So very clever, and with that drive to survive,” he sighed with regret.  “You would have made a magnificent wolf, sweetheart.”

Making up his mind, Derek looked at his uncle, really looked for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

And just like that: Peter reached up, cognizant of the overabundance of death-via-animal-attack that had plagued the county in recent months, and snapped Gerard’s fragile neck, then let him drop.

Checkmate.

The shadows controlled by others of his element slid away as if they’d never been, though the ones holding onto the rest of the hunters - and muzzling them, which was most excellent - remained.

A spell from Harry had the corpse immolating and burying down to ash in moments, though he politely waited until Peter stepped away to cast.

“You, you killed him.”  Scott squeaked out, eyes wide and shocked.  “He’s dead.”

“Well, yeah.”  Stiles shrugged.  “That’s what tends to happen to hunters when their targets turn the tables on them.  Danger of the business.”  He clapped his hands together briskly, untouched by the death that had just occurred before him - save for a deep, abiding sense of satisfaction.

Gerard Argent would never be a threat to him and his ever again.

Peter’s efficiency and Harry’s spellwork had ensured that.

“Moving on,” he turned to face the father-daughter murder duo.  “What the hell am I supposed to do with you two?”  Propping his hands on his hips, he narrowed his eyes on Chris and Allison, foot tapping as he pondered possibilities.

“What about Gerard’s men?”  Derek asked, blinking as the shock of a threat that had lurked in the background all his life - the real-life bogeyman to everything and everyone supernatural - was ended with a twist of his uncle’s hands and one teenager’s ability to outthink everyone around him.  His wolf howled with victory.  The threat to the pack was gone.

And the scent that had been so elusive - there and gone and teasing at his senses - around Stiles was out in full-force.

And fuck, making him think things, want things that he had no business thinking or wanting when the subject was only seventeen years old.

“They’re all killers,” Stiles frowned, pursing his lips as he thought through the Chris-and-Allison quagmire.  “I have evidence linking each and every one of them to murder, arson, assault, and other crimes across the country.  Gerard cut one hell of a swathe through the States, and these assholes all helped him.”  He eyed Riven speculatively.  “You wouldn’t happen to have a handy volcano or magma pit that you could teleport them into or something, would you?”  He asked earnestly.  “It would make cleaning up so much easier if they just went away.”

Especially since most of them weren’t in Beacon Hills overtly or under their own names.

One less headache for his dad to work through now that he’d been reinstated as Sheriff following Stiles and Scott’s ill-conceived idea to protect Jackson - both from Derek killing him to deal with the kanima, and from hismelf - had blown up in Stiles’s face in the form of theft of a police vehicle.

A police vehicle that he’d used to contain the kanima - successfully - until the guards in the form of Scott and Allison had fallen down on the job via screwing around and Jackson had escaped to return to his master.

“You, you, you can’t!”  Scott protested, feeling faint.

“No, we actually can.”  Riven countered with a blink.

“Dragels are amoral, their fighters moreso than some others, which are most of those here, Scott.”  Peter helpfully filled in a few blanks.  “None of them would bat an eye over making a bunch of murdering thugs disappear, anymore than most humans would blink over culling a herd of cattle.”

Harry eyed the handsome hellhound - he recognized the type, given his close ties to Death’s Court via both Hadrian and his best friend Hermione’s place as The Hellhound’s consort - speculatively.

That one was interesting, and well-informed for an earth-born.

He might have to drop his name the next time he was around Lady Mariana.

She’d been looking for a new project, and he seemed like just the right combination of near-feral and fucked up to intrigue her.

“I’ll, I’ll,” Scott grasped for an idea, anything to stop them.  “I’ll tell your Dad!”

Stiles lifted one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, counting softly under his breath until he felt that feral drive to rip and tear and maim retreat.

“I have wings, Scott.”  He bit out slowly.  Carefully.  Making himself perfectly clear.  “Wings!  Do you think, for even the slightest moment, that I’m not going to have to tell my dad all about this fucked up night?!  I mean really?”

“This is different!”  Scott puffed himself up indignantly, feeling that ever-present rush of shame that washed over him every time Stiles talked down to him.  “This isn’t about being a werewolf or a, or a whatever you are!”

“Dragel,” Peter tossed out, unhelpfully, more than entertained by Scott winding himself up and all but throwing himself at a cliff edge he couldn’t even see coming.  “He’s a dragel.”

“This is about murder!”

Stiles registered Peter’s interference in the back of his mind, but he honestly didn’t mind.

It was nice to have a name to put to the whole wings-fangs-claws-thing.

Didn’t make a damn bit of sense to him, and wasn’t anything he’d heard of even after combing through the Argent bestiary to figure out what a kanima was, but the knowledge was nice nonetheless.

“You didn’t seem to mind that much,” Derek noted with quiet menace, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the little bastard.  The punk who’d come to him and agreed to pack, only to turn around and betray them all to the likes of Gerard Argent.   It burned, deep inside, that Scott, who Derek had always seen as a doofus but relatively good-hearted, would do such a thing.  The Bite was a gift.   And Scott was going to force him to give it to Gerard.   There was no coming back from that.  “When it was Peter’s murder we were planning - or did you forget where you wanted to kill him yourself?”

“Or is it only hunters you have a problem with killing, Scott?”  Stiles knew right where to aim the knife.  That was the danger of finding yourself on opposite sides of someone who was supposed to be your friend, your brother.   They knew exactly where all your weaknesses were located.  “And not werewolves?”

The question reverberated through the warehouse like a gunshot.

Stiles let it ring for a long moment, let it lodge itself home in the minds of those who heard it, then he twisted the knife.

“Or is the truth that the only monsters you can see as worthy of death,” Stiles continued softly.  “Are the same ones that you see in the mirror?”

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Five: Sins and Consequences

Having gotten his pound of proverbial flesh as Scott gasped and staggered back at the accusation, Stiles shook silently, stinging tears blinding his eyes and his body trembling in place.

Funny.

He didn’t feel any better for speaking the words that he’d held back since he recognized the hypocrisy in Scott’s stance on defending everyone he considered human while also being so quick to dismiss any crime or action committed against Derek or his pack or even himself.

Feeling tired down to his bones and just utterly done, Stiles turned to look at Riven, Harry, and the rest, vaguely noticing that Erica and Boyd were meekly approaching Derek and Isaac, the wolves speaking softly while Peter hovered just out of arm’s reach.

“I think I’m done now.”  Stiles admitted his weakness to Harry, voice choked, who’d been at his side since the moment he woke up in pain and with wings.  “I don’t know what should happen next.  Just that whatever it is, I need my dad, the pack, and the rest of the town to be safe.”

“We can do that.”  Harry assured him softly, taking over the burden so that Stiles wouldn’t have to carry the outcome of whatever decisions Harry and his circle made.  “You have my word.”

“Okay,” Stiles turned and glanced at the survivors of Gerard’s madness.  A pack that had only lost a wolf who didn’t want to be one anyway, and by his own choices not to death.  Peter, who’d somehow crawled back out of his grave.  Even Chris and Allison who were looking more than a little shell shocked.  “Okay.”

And with that, his drive that had been carrying him through washed away and he crumpled like a puppet with his strings cut into the waiting arms of Brishen, who’d been prepared for that exact thing to happen.

“Younglings.”  The Phoelix sighed as if put-upon, even as he gently picked up Stiles and cradled him in his arms.  

For a long moment, he thought he was about to be charged by a werewolf.  And one that looked much harder to take down than the pups who’d taken exception to Devrim’s presence.  Then the man looked away after seeing that Brishen was taking care with Stiles as he passed him over to Ethan whose caretaking instincts had been quivering and growing with urgency the longer the kid ignored his need to rest.  The kid was going to be wiped out for hours or even days after being so active on the heels of his inheritance.

Between them, Ethan, Harry, and Charlie finally managed to coax the youngling’s wings back into their resting state as decorative tattoos on Stiles’s back rather than out and ready to lash out.

A quick blood-based runic spell from Charlie had the tensed and potentially strained muscles easing and the kid sank deeper into his exhausted rest.

Ethan and the other pareya were going to be kept busy with that one.

Brishen didn’t think Stiles had much experience with being taken care of.

Should be entertaining to watch that battle of wills, if nothing else.  As long as he had cinnamon-topped popcorn to enjoy the show with.  Especially once the twins got involved.

Now that was sure to be fun.

Chaotic, but fun.

“Where are you taking him?”  Derek demanded, pushing away from his betas as he caught sight of the dark man slipping away with Stiles in his arms.

He felt relief and satisfaction over Erica and Boyd returning - though it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

Between the bloodstains on their clothes and the lingering stench of pain and fear coating them, the pair had swiftly discovered just how cruel the world could be to packless wolves.

It wasn’t a lesson that he’d wanted any of his betas to ever have to learn.

But in the case of fierce Erica, it was one that was needed nonetheless.

Boyd’s lack of confidence in Derek had hurt, had wounded him in a way that Erica’s dismissal never could.  He’d trusted Boyd more than any other of the betas.  He’d seen something in him, a silence even when he was screaming deep inside that had drawn Derek to him.

He’d even been planning on making Boyd his second…before.

Affection for Erica had trumped whatever loyalty Boyd had felt for Derek however, and that made him distinctly unsuited to act as an alpha’s second when it was a weakness easily exploited - and not just by the she-wolf.

They’d all managed to survive the Argents - again - but it wasn’t through any action of their own.

It was because of Stiles, and the fact that these strangers, these powerful magical beings were taking care of the snarky teenager did not sit right with Derek at all.

Even if everything in him warned him that challenging them as a group wouldn’t just be foolish - it’d be suicidal.

Derek shook his head, almost disbelieving his eyes as between one heartbeat and the next all of the hunters - and all sign of them, including their scents - disappeared.

Whether or not the one with the staff that Stiles had questioned about volcanoes had taken his suggestion seriously or not…Derek couldn’t really find it within himself to give a fuck.

The only good hunter was a dead hunter.

Scott was gone too, though he hadn’t cared enough to see whether it was of his own accord or if he’d been whisked away with the hunters.

Honestly, with how precise Stiles’s damaging words had been, it could be either.

Regardless after Scott’s betrayal the omega wolf and the consequences of his choices were no longer Derek's problem or headache to manage.

Unless Scott wanted to make it his problem, and if so he’d find Beacon Hills much less hospitable to an omega wolf than it had been previously without Derek willing to take him into the pack and Stiles to act as a quasi-packmate to the lone wolf.

“Home.  To rest and recover.”  The leader of the strangers - dragels, his uncle had called them dragels, which tingled like a memory just out of his conscious reach - with the bright green eyes answered him honestly.  He was the smallest of the dragels, but based on how wary Derek’s instincts were of him - moreso than several of the others, including the one who’d taken Stiles away - he wasn’t to be trifled with despite his slight stature.  “He’s been through more than one trauma tonight.  That his protective instincts are so strong is likely the only reason he was able to function at all on the scant amount of rest he had earlier.”

“And the hunters?”  Peter asked, as hyperfocused on potential threats as always.  Or at least, as he’d always been before the fire.

“Hadrian and Riven will take care of that.”  Harry assured the cautious hellhound.  And wasn’t that quite the contradiction?  A cautious hound.   “By the time they’re finished, no one will ever worry about a few dozen missing murderers or their psychotic leader - including the confused pup and the girl.”

Memory charms were wonderful things - if they were used properly and with any degree of finesse.

“How you want to handle the pup after that,” Harry shrugged, tacitly leaving that issue in the claws most suited - the local alpha, in this case.

“He’ll never settle,” Peter warned lowly.  “Even if you get him the best mentor you can find.  McCall is too stubborn for that, and with his connection to Deaton…”

“Who’s Deaton?”  Riven prompted, needing the full picture before he pulled the omega wolf out of the voidspace he’d stashed the kid in after knocking him out before he could bolt away in an emotionally-wounded huff.

Several huffs sounded from the wolves, while Peter lifted his lip in derision.

“The local vet and druid, and former emissary of the Hale Pack.”  Peter told them succinctly, his dislike blatant.  “He’s been something of a mentor to McCall - if a distinctly lacking one, given that the boy was willing to work for Gerard Argent - since he was bitten.”

Riven and Harry shared a glance, the mage nodding once then ‘porting away to go find this druid.

With how tangled and distorted the ley lines were in the area - all but screaming out to Riven for help once they’d felt his magic - even without the connection to the omega pup he likely would’ve found his way to the druid regardless as he was one of the few sources of active magic in the area.

Getting a name and description - albeit a vague one - from the hellhound simply moved the druid up Riven’s timeline from eventually to his next stop.

And this was the same druid who’d taken a bitten young wolf under his wing?

Interesting.

He wondered how interfering in a werewolf’s development suited the balance that druids were so very obsessed with.

Not that it would be hard to get answers from a druid - those annoyances were barely magical, relying far more on props and leeching off of nature than any real innate talent - given that he’d have no defenses, no matter how powerful he was among his order, against even a wizard let alone a mage of Riven’s caliber.

Riven wished heartily that Harry’s new ward had been found literally anywhere but the earth-realm.

It would be so much simpler if they could afford to cast a net over the entire area and put it in stasis while they worked out what in Arielle’s name was going on with the messed up little town.

Hunters, werewolves, and druids: oh my.

Instead they had to tread carefully.  Ensure that their magic went under the alarms that their ancient enemies liked to use to pinpoint new dragels just coming into their inheritances.  Riven supposed it was the one good thing to come of a place with such fucked up leylines: the local magic was tangled and twisted up over and under and on top of itself that trying to make a generalized alert spell like those Torvaks used bloody useless in Beacon Hills.

Small blessings.

Ethan stepped out of his transport portal in the shadowed confines of Stiles’s bedroom that Hadrian had shared with the rest of their circle present in the earth-realm.

The ACE had done a bit more tracking and information gathering than hunting down the hunters.

But that was his way.

Hadrian hadn’t kept the blood title for the shadow element firm within his claws for decades on the strength of his element and sword alone.

Nor would a gheyo who relied on brute strength alone appeal to their submissive or be a match for Harry.

Holding Stiles steady in one arm, Ethan extended one hand and with a whisper of a spell Stiles’s bedding was fresh, crisp, and straightened out before folding back to allow him to tuck the exhausted submissive in.

A switching spell had Alec’s borrowed sandals and trousers folded up and resting on the empty seat of a chair, and fresh pajamas from the pile of clean laundry flopped against the dresser wrapping the boy in flannel and familiarity.

Comfortable familiarity from the soft sigh of relief that the submissive gave even as exhausted as he was, Stiles’s arms coming up automatically to take his pillow in a strangle-hold and bury his face in the now-doubt welcome scent it contained.

Ethan’s instincts rebelled against remaining in the earth-realm longer than absolutely necessary due to the inherent dangers the place represented to dragel-kind.

But as all evidence pointed towards Stiles having a loving relationship with his father - the man being one of the main drivers behind Stiles’s protective instincts from everything Ethan had witnessed or been told - they couldn’t simply snaffle up the youngling and carry him away to safety.

Though for Stiles’s sake, Ethan - all of them really - were happy that he had a strong relationship with his father.

An unexpected inheritance was always rough on a new dragel.

Having to go through it with only the support of strangers, no matter how kind, helpful, and well-meaning?

Yeah, none of them would wish that on a youngling or anyone really.

Giving into his instincts to inspect the residence of his circle’s new ward - because that was the way it worked, at least in their circle though most Ethan knew were much the same about sharing both duties, woes, and joys - Ethan cast a monitoring charm on the submissive who was now sleeping in peace and went to explore the rest of the small home and garage.

If he knew anything about Devrim and the rest, they’d already ensured that the outer areas were safe, up to and including any wards or protections they felt were necessary (that wouldn’t draw undue attention.)

One of the first things that struck him, as he familiarized himself with the contents of Stiles’s closet and dresser - flicking out a spell here and there to tidy up or put the pile of laundry away for something tangible to care for the resting youngling - was the pervasive scent of werewolf in Stiles’s bedroom.

It was thick, not as prevalent as Stiles’s own scent, but far overshadowed the hints of his father or non-werewolf friends that might have been otherwise present.

And while Ethan would’ve thought based on what information they had that it would belong in the majority to the young omega wolf, instead it was almost entirely that of the alpha and his betas.

Almost as if…

Hmm.

As if they were keeping watch over their human packmate.

That was good to know, even if it was a further complication over moving Stiles from the earth-realm to Nevarah.

Wandering through the house, Ethan took note of the pictures hanging in the hallway and living areas.  Stiles at every age, often with a beaming grin or sheepish smile.  He arched a brow at the sight of matching amber-gold eyes on who must be the missing mother, who was absent from the pictures starting when Stiles was young, maybe eight or nine years old.

The Sheriff was a handsome man, with intense blue eyes that had Ethan arching a brow.

Curious.

Stiles was dragel, which meant that he had three parents: a sire, a bearer, and a third who could be either directly or indirectly involved with contributing to the child’s development whilst still in the womb.

And by inheriting as a dragel, he had to have gotten genes from each of them or else he’d have inherited as something else - wizard, spark, halfling, fae, etc.

But throughout the pictures that were on display, Ethan didn’t see a single person who might fulfill the role of Third.

It was very much an insular and nuclear picture that was painted: two parents, one son, without so much as a pet other than a snake that featured for a few years before disappearing much like the mother.

A child that was obviously a younger version of the omega werewolf showed up around six or seven years old, but that was it as far as others in pride of place in the Stilinski household.

There were no other friends, no extended family members.

Hearing a soft click to go with the scent of human and the sound of quiet footsteps, Ethan turned and faced the man in question.

“Who the hell are you?”  The Sheriff demanded, staring down the stranger in his house down the barrel of his gun.  “How did you get into my house?”

“Hello, Sheriff.”  Ethan greeted calmly, then flicked his fingers and softly tugged the firearm up and away before they could have any accidents.  Nasty things, firearms.  There was no need to run a risk of giving Quinn far more work to patch someone up than he was already handling with that poor halfling as well as Stiles’s needs.  “My name is Ethan Hartwood, and I’m here to discuss your son, Stiles.”

Noah felt his eyes widen as some, some invisible force pulled his service weapon right out of his hands.

And then he registered what the intruder actually said instead of being nearly hypnotized by the sight of his gun seemingly attaching itself to the ceiling and his could’ve sworn his heart stopped dead in his chest.

“Stiles?”  He burst out, striding forward full-steam ahead and burying his fists in the fancy shirt - like something out of a Renfaire, he noted in the back of his mind - that the invader was wearing, shoving the well-built bastard against the wall and holding him still as he stared him down.  “Where’s Stiles?!  Do you have him?  Did you take him?  Where’s my son?!”

“I’ll tell you where he is, Sheriff Stilinski.”  Ethan continued calmly, paying no mind or offense to the man’s outburst.  Such things were more than understandable when one’s child was the subject and potentially at risk.  “But you must promise to remain calm.  He’s been through quite the ordeal this evening and needs his rest.”

Just to be sure, Ethan flicked out a silencing charm to cover the youngling, knowing full well that despite what the Sheriff might promise - and he might mean it heart-and-soul - such things can be little more than dust motes on the wind when faced with a nightmare such as their child going missing and then being returned out of the blue.

“If he’s safe, I’ll be calm.”  Noah promised.  And he meant it, for all that he would’ve sworn anything that was asked to the devil himself if it meant getting Stiles back from wherever he’d disappeared to - or been disappeared to - safe and sound.

A meaningful flick of those strange golden eyes - they almost looked like Claudia’s and Stiles’s - had Noah letting loose of the intruder and darting upstairs to his son’s bedroom.

Striding into the room, Noah went into a running-slide to his knees at Stiles’s side, knowing without a doubt that if the noise of him slamming up the stairs didn’t wake him then the stranger wasn’t lying - he really did need rest.

Part of him didn’t give a fuck.

This was his son, who’d been missing all night.

All he wanted to do was pull him into his arms and hold him tight.

It was the other parts of him that kept him from acting on it, as well as the awareness of the intruder following him into the bedroom.

Stiles being back didn’t equate to Stiles being safe.

The strange intruder had used some, some kind of invisible force to disarm him.

He hadn’t seemed bothered at all over being slammed into a wall, or like it’d even hurt.

And Noah had meant it to hurt.

An intruder with strange powers - and eyes like his late wife, who never talked about her history or where she’d come from, appearing in his life like a princess from a fairy tale all smiles and flashing eyes and a capacity for love that took his breath away - one who had something to do with his missing son.

Oh yeah, Noah hadn’t been pulling his strength.

“He’s safe now, Sheriff.”  Ethan assured him, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe as he kept an eye on the pair.  “I swear that neither me or mine mean him or you any harm.”

Despite himself, despite all of his training and experience, Noah couldn’t help but believe that.

Frowning, he nodded absently, tilting his head a bit to the side to get a better look at his son’s face.

He could’ve sworn he saw…but that was impossible.

Maybe it was glitter, or makeup or something, who the hell knew what Stiles had gotten into while he’d been missing?

If he could just…  Noah felt his heart stop all over again, when instead of some kind of craft accident or glitter pranking supply or even makeup, the silver specks he’d spotted on Stiles’s cheekbone refused to come off under his thumb.

“What the hell?”  He breathed out, eyes wide as he stared down at what he could only call scales that glimmered in the dim ambient light of the moon from the window and the hallway fixture coming in through the open door.

His son had scales.

Even for Beacon Hills, that was a whole new level of oddity.

And one that, despite him halfway wishing it was so, he couldn’t simply dismiss out of hand.

Whipping his head around he turned a demanding glare on his uninvited guest lingering in the doorway.

“What the hell happened to my son tonight, Hartwood?”

“Come away, Sheriff,” Ethan beckoned him with one hand, turning to leave Stiles once more to rest.  He wasn’t sure if the youngling would have a full realignment period but it was likely - and if that was the case, forcing him out of it before Stiles woke up naturally was about the worst thing they could do to him without actively harming him.  “It’s been a trying night for everyone.  Best to leave Stiles to rest and I’ll explain what I can.”

It felt like cutting off a limb, rising to his feet and bussing a soft kiss to Stiles’s forehead, but Hartwood was right.

As deeply as Stiles was sleeping, whatever he’d been through to leave him like… that, had taken a toll on his hyperactive son who was rarely still even in his sleep.

Part of him settled at seeing Stiles at peace.

The rest of him?

The rest of him needed answers - even if he had a feeling he really wasn’t going to like what he heard.

It didn’t matter whether he liked it or not.

For his son, he’d be calm, he’d listen carefully, and then he’d make a decision on who, exactly, he was going to tear to pieces for whatever trauma had been visited upon Stiles that left him with scales.

Noah was a sheriff, he’d been a law enforcement officer most of his life.

He liked to think of himself as a law abiding citizen.

None of that mattered when it came to Stiles.

For his son, he’d burn the world to the ground and piss on the ashes if it meant making things right.

Someone had hurt his boy.

There were consequences for that.

No matter how less than lawful those consequences might be in the end.

Or how far Noah would have to go into the darkest parts of himself, the parts that Claudia and Stiles had never seen and had soothed by their sheer joy for life, to see them through.

Harry felt the beginning of a migraine set up shop between his temples as his bonded filled him in on everything they’d discovered.

What a fucking mess.

Rogue druids casting spells way above their paygrade, magical nodes subsisting on leeching off a kitsune and a fucking virgin sacrifice, a former feral alpha werewolf turned hellhound who’d bitten a kid who was not handling the transition well or at all, modern day witch hunters with a taste for werewolf genocide, and, of course the reason that he and his lot were there in the first place: a dragel submissive who’d been subjected to seals and binding spells.

“The kitsune is free now?”  He double-checked with Riven who’d found the unfortunate creature trapped in a cage halfway of his own making inside a magical node in the process of investigating the issue with the local leylines.

After he’d gotten an earful from an up-himself druid who was walking one hell of a fine line with turning darach, but was now in custody.

It didn’t matter what excuse one used to soothe their conscience: no one harmed a dragel youngling with impunity and got away with it.

No one.

“Free and furious, out for blood, the usual with that sort when their own games have bitten them in the ass.”  Riven shrugged.  Whatever the fox got up to now wasn’t any of his affair.

That would be for the kitsune royals - or even the inter-realm council - to sort out.

Setting the leylines to right on the other hand was a matter for Riven to handle as part of his duties as a mage, and that would’ve been impossible with the kitsune trapped within them via the node.

Or rather more trouble than it was worth when he could free the kitsune with little effort and make cleaning up the leylines exponentially simpler in the process.

“And the hunters?”  Harry turned to Hadrian, his darkling more than capable of getting answers for what those fuckers had been up to beyond kidnapping and torture of a dragel submissive.  By ripping it straight from their souls if necessary.

Hadrian grimaced, knowing that his submissive wouldn’t be happy with what he had to report.  It was a bleak account in almost all aspects.  Though Lady Death would be pleased with his latest offerings at least.

He imagined Lord Arythmoor, the Lady’s favored Hound, would quite enjoy tearing Gerard Argent’s soul apart, along with several others.

“Lost causes other than the girl and her father.”  He motioned with one hand and two bound - but unconscious - figures slumped into being on the floor rather than remaining contained in his voidstone.  “She’s never taken an innocent life, though there is violence marring her soul, and he at least feels regret and remorse and a desire to redeem himself of his sins against the undeserving - and they are many.”

“Yeah, institutionalized racism, xenophobia, and bigotry will have that effect.”  Harry grumbled, glaring at the pile-o-hunter that had been dropped at his feet by his beloved darkling, then visibly gathered himself and moved on to the next issue, turning to Devrim.  “The omega pup?”

“Strip him of his wolf,” Devrim’s tone brooked no argument or discussion.  “Wipe his and his mother’s memories of anything to do with the supernatural, put a binding on him that’ll prevent him from interacting with the supernatural, and move them somewhere far from any magical populace.”

Wikhn let out a soft whistle.  The dark fae was impressed, despite himself, that the pup had managed to get that far under his Prince’s skin.  As he knew from experience - that took a lot of work.

“Fuck,” Harry rubbed his hands over his face.  “Stiles isn’t going to be happy about that.  The kid is supposed to be his best friend.”

“Maybe so,” Devrim allowed.  “But he’s an exposure risk worse than any untrained muggleborn.  Letting him remain as he is would be negligent to say the least.  And his black and white world view is going to get someone killed eventually when he’s not able to make the hard call in order to keep his hands clean.”

“The requests for mentors for the wolves?”  Harry looked up at Charlie, who was holding him close and being a bedrock of support as they went through clean up.

“Submitted directly to Raspen.”  Charlie reported, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to Harry’s temple.  “He’ll forward it to the weres’ Elder Council.”

The royal member of Harry’s circle was dependable like that, but as the crown royal for the earth element, dependable kinda went hand-in-hand with being chosen by Nevarah’s magic for the throne.

“Anything else?  Quinn?”  

Harry was weary to his bones and he hadn’t even sent the messages back home to Theo and Raspen for the necessary approvals they needed yet, beyond the emergency request for mentors.  Those kids - and yes, he was including the alpha in that - all needed help.  More than Harry’s circle was capable of giving them with Stiles to mentor and their own children to parent.  

For the rest of it - approvals for hunts and assassinations, warding the shit out of the town to keep from drawing undue attention, and filling in muggle-werewolves on Nevarah mostly - Raspen and Theo would sort out whether to go forward with new requests or ones that were retroactive to cover what they’ve already done.

With Riven’s mandate as a mage, and Harry as Stiles’s assigned mentor, they had a lot of leeway to make decisions and get approvals afterward.

Still, there was no need to cause their beloved royal and their alpha Theo anymore headaches than strictly necessary.

Retroactive approvals were always such a pain as they required more than one royal to sign off on them - and sometimes getting those four to all work towards the same goal could be worse than trying to herd cats if either Alcandor, the Merrow King, or Ebony, the Fire Queen, were in a mood and set on clashing with one another.

“I don’t want to leave Ethan to handle Stiles’s father alone for too long.”

“The halfling will be fine in stasis until we can check him into a clinic in Nevarah.”  Quinn assured his beloved, running soothing hands over his delicate shoulders, trying in vain to ease some of the strain that just being on earth, let alone anything else, was having on their submissive.

“Yeah,” Harry sighed, shoulders slumping under Quinn’s dexterous attentions.  “Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as any of us would like, managing that, if Stiles is anything like his father - or vice versa.”

“Magic.”  Noah stared deadpan at Hartwood, steel-blue eyes flashing with temper.  “That’s what you’re going with?  My son has broken out in glittery scales because of magic?”

Smiling brightly, unoffended at the doubt, Ethan merely nodded.

The Sheriff was a muggle - or at least, he thought he was a muggle, lived like one, but with Stiles’s inheritance…

Well.

It wasn’t quite that simple anymore, was it?

Then he held his hand out between them, calling up his magic to pool and swirl in his cupped palm.  Making a fist after the Sheriff’s eyes had popped wide, Ethan cast the spell he had in mind - something showy to see but actually subtle when it came to leaving traces behind - and then threw the magic up into the air.  The Sheriff’s gun dropped into his hand with a soft smack, but the man didn’t even notice that Ethan now had his weapon.

He was too busy goggling at the golden notes of magic swirling through his office.

Ethan’s spell swept through the office first, gathering up dust and grime, shed hair and just the general debris of living in a space, then it continued out into the hallway, siphoning up everything and leaving sparkling-clean spaces in its wake.

A rather thorough housekeeping spell all in all, but nothing that would ping alarms in case anyone was monitoring the area - whether actively or passively.

In the wake of the spell, Ethan felt his instincts relax just a fraction at the knowledge that the abode of his circle’s new ward was cleaner and healthier for the young submissive to spend time within, or at least the surfaces were along with Stiles’s laundry.

He hadn’t touched the Sheriff’s room or his hamper, as without consent that would’ve been quite rude.

When you were part of a race where a single mage or submissive could make and unmake worlds if they were powerful enough, manners and social niceties were far more ingrained and part of your life than otherwise to avoid such world-breaking tantrums that might otherwise arise.

“Magic.”  Noah repeated once more, taking a deep breath and holding it, then meeting those golden eyes head-on.  He could have a screaming meltdown later.  Probably into a tall glass of Jack.  Right now, his son needed him calm and sober and prepared to handle the curveball life had decided to throw at the Stilinski men now.  “How does magic explain what happened to Stiles?”

“Everything, Sheriff.”  Ethan said, voice heavy.  “It explains everything.  But to start with, before anything else you need to understand that Stiles is magic.  He has been all his life, since before he was even born.  Magic is in every part of him - latent, waiting, but there.  In his blood and bones.  In his heart and soul, and yes, because I can see the question you want to ask, in his genes.”  Ethan cocked his head a bit to the side then asked a question of his own.

“Tell me Sheriff, what do you know about your family history?  Or your wife’s?”

“We don’t have a wizard or whatever hiding in our family trees, if that’s what you’re getting at?”  Noah scowled.

He was confused at what Hartwood was digging for, but even so he couldn’t deny what the man had said about Stiles.

His boy had always been special.

It just felt like for the longest time that Noah - and before her death, Claudia - was the only one who saw it.

Stiles having magic or being magic or whatever made sense to him in a way that levitating guns and magical cleaning spells just didn’t.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I am.”

“How sure?”  Ethan pressed the point.  “Sure enough to bet Stiles’s life, his well being and his future, on it?”

That…that gave Noah pause.

Because when Hartwood put it like that, with his steady voice and serious eyes, no.

No, Noah wouldn’t bet Stiles on it.

Not when he didn’t know anything about Claudia’s family - just that they were Polish, like Noah’s, and they all died when she was young, long before they met while she was at college and Noah was fresh out of the police academy.

Not when he remembered his father Bosko, Stiles's Grandpop, who had the bluest eyes that Noah had ever seen and had grown up in an orphanage in Gdańsk before fleeing German occupation in fear of being remanded to a concentration camp for his birth defect despite having the “valued” coloring of white-blond hair and blue eyes.

Nothing about any of it screamed magic to him, but it was enough to make him uncertain nonetheless.

“No,” Noah admitted hollowly, and it felt like defeat.  “No, I’m not.”

Not when it was potentially his son’s life that hung in the balance.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Six: The Worst Kind of Answers

“HOly-” Noah proved that Stiles didn’t get all of his spazz-genetics from his mother as he flailed backward and nearly toppled out of his chair at the sight of fully grown and armed men appearing out of nowhere in his office.

That Hartwood didn’t startle in the least did approximately nothing to endear him to the sheriff, if anything it left him feeling like he’d been made the butt of an inside joke as the golden-eyed man merely craned his head a bit to the back and side and greeted the newcomers.

“Charlie love.”  He smiled up at the redhead, then give the big black guy with swords strapped to his back a nod.  “Everything handled?”

“Riven, Brishen, and Hadrian are taking care of the heavy lifting.”  Charlie told the pareya.

“Harry?”

“With Wik contacting Theo,” Charlie filled him in, leaning down to press a kiss to Ethan’s smooth cheek.  “Quinn’s upstairs checking in on our new charge.  How’re things here?”

“Oh you know,” Ethan waved a hand dismissively.  “Completely upending the Sheriff’s worldview, making him question both his family tree and his wife’s origins, the usual when we have a muggle inherit out of nowhere.”

Charlie nodded, making a face.

Fair.

It’d been bad enough when Harry had inherited out of the blue all those years ago - at least he’d been part of the wizarding world and had something of a basis, however scant, to fall back on in beginning to understand what was happening to him.

Neither Stiles or his father would have any of that, as he took Ethan’s false nonchalance as confirmation that the elder Stilinski was indeed as muggle as expected.

If maybe with a dragel or two hiding somewhere among the branches of his family tree.

It was rare, but it did happen.

Jokers wandered and took lovers far more often than most of the other ranks, but they weren’t the only ones known to do so.

Or as happened decades ago, a nursery comes under attack - usually by Torvaks, the blackbird hunters were vicious and always went for their young first, but not always - from their enemies and children are lost in the resulting tumult.

The most recent attack was on one of the merrow’s nursery reefs before the reign of the current merrow king and they were still in the process of tracking down the Lost Children and having the random Lost Child or a descendant thereof pop up in any of a dozen realms.

Jumping to his feet, the redhead’s words registering as Noah realized just who he was referring to as their “new charge” the sheriff rushed from the room, the dragels fast on his heels.

Not out of worry for Quinn.

The master healer was more than capable of taking care of himself.

But more to keep the situation from spiraling out of control considering the shocks that the Sheriff had had to accept.

On the way up the stairs, Ethan stopped next to one specific portrait: the Sheriff and his late wife on their wedding day, and made a magical copy, tucking it away inside his tunic pocket.

All he had were suspicions and theories.

He would need more than that before he would breathe a word to either the sheriff or Stiles.

More that he could certainly find.

Ethan was a Hartwood, a scholar to his bones.  If there was anything he knew how to do it was research.  And thanks to the little the sheriff had been told about his wife’s family, he at least had a place to start.

While they could certainly help Stiles adjust to life as a dragel and to Nevarah without knowing anything about his family history or connections, previous experience with muggle or muggleborn (or those who’d always been assumed as muggle or muggleborn) dragels showed that the connection does help with the adjustment to both a new species and culture.

Ethan came to a stop once more in the open doorway of Stiles’s room, a slight smile playing over his mouth at the sight that met his eyes.

Quinn was in his full stubborn-healer glory facing off against the protective father in the sheriff, the two of them glaring daggers at each other from opposite sides of Stiles’s bed.

Stiles himself was still unbothered as he slept the small hours of the morning away, dawn rapidly approaching after a very long night for everyone.

Though the resting submissive had gained a new adornment in the form of one of Quinn’s pre-purposed diagnostic crystal resting gently on his chest, stuck in place with a simple spell, while Ethan’s own silencing charm remained in place to preserve his rest.

Devrim and Charlie were doing absolutely nothing to diffuse the tension between healer and father.

If anything, Ethan would say they were one step from summoning some popcorn.

Fortunately, Ethan knew just the shiny bit of information that would snag Quinn’s attention and keep him from taking a swipe at the sheriff over the man being rightfully wary of magic being used on his son.

“Quinn, why don’t you check the sheriff for latent dragel genetics?”  He suggested with a smile that was all teeth when both of the stubborn asses turned to stare at him in bafflement.

If only for a second before the sheriff huffed a sigh and rolled his eyes, reiterating for the fourth time:

“I’m not secretly a magical humanoid dragon in disguise.”  Noah said as if by rote.  “I’ve never done anything or had anything around me that I couldn’t explain, I’ve never suddenly sprouted fangs, claws, wings, scales, or fins, for Christ’s sake.”  Then he got sarcastic.  “Nor have I ever had an uncontrollable urge to horde shiny objects or eject a mountain of dwarves from their home to claim their gold for my own.”

“Okay, Smaug.”  Harry smirked at the reference as he entered the room to completely defray the stalemate between the sheriff and Quinn, who was giving the sheriff a look that would have the man shaking in his police-issued boots if he knew what was good for him.  It was the glare of diagnostics and exams and tests and embarrassing questions that no one ever wanted to answer, let alone with the sort of honesty healers tended to require from their patients.  “You keep telling yourself that.”

“Seriously, Hartwood?”  Noah eyed the newcomers suspiciously - especially the so-called “healer” that was hovering over his son and doing a lot more frowning than was comforting to the worried father.  “Who the hell are all you people?  And what do you want with my son?”

Harry gave Ethan a look and a nod, stepping forward and taking his place as Stiles’s mentor-to-be.

“Apologies, Sheriff, I know this has been a chaotic and confusing night.  My name is Harry, these,” he waved his hand to encompass his bonded.  “Are my bondmates.  We’re here because when your son was born, his birth was registered with the records office via magic as a potential dragel.”  Harry shot a meaningful look down at Stiles’s face, where patches - though much fewer in number than when Harry first saw the youngling - of scales were still visible.  “Tonight, that potential broke through and I was alerted as his assigned mentor to assist him in the transition.  My bonded came to help me in that goal, as well as handling some complications that arose once we arrived.”

Of course not all of them arrived with Harry, but semantics.

If the sheriff was like his son, he’d probably drag all the information about what happened out of them anyway, no need to confuse him with a deluge of extraneous information before he was in a mindset to actually listen and process.

Noah took a deep breath, the younger man putting him at ease in a way that the others hadn’t managed.

There was just something very soothing about him.  Trustworthy.  Almost vulnerable and in need of protection but also competent.

“Look, Harry was it?”  Noah asked, calming down almost despite himself.  

Completely unaware that with Harry’s empathetic talent, it kinda was though Harry wasn’t forcing Noah to feel a certain way, merely encouraging his own inclination to be calm in the face of crisis by projecting calm into the room.

“That’s right.”

“All of this, this magic nonsense, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”  Noah sighed in exasperation, running one hand over his face.  “Hartwood explained some, but none of it makes sense.  And the idea that I or my wife or both of us had magical ancestors is just ridiculous.  We’re,” he caught himself, swallowing harshly, heart skipping a beat as it always did when he had to use past tense about Claudia.  “We were normal people.”  He explained desperately.  “The worst hiccup I expected to have to deal with as Stiles got older was a heartbreak or two, or him having some kind of sexual identity crisis.  Not suddenly turning into a magical creature after being kidnapped and one of his lacrosse teammates committing suicide.”

 “Do you know why I was chosen to mentor your son by the magic that makes those decisions, Sheriff?  It’s a complex spell meant to ensure that everyone who needs a mentor gets one, and the best one for them.”  Harry asked gently, taking the man’s hand and leading him over to the chair at Stiles’s desk, as well as explaining a bit so he didn’t come off as condescending to the overwhelmed muggle.

Devrim helpfully whisked Alec’s things away, allowing the muggle man to sit when Harry coaxed him down otherwise like the others playing still and silent - except for Quinn who continued with his diagnostics, getting more and more frustrated with his limited abilities so long as they were trapped on earth and away from his well-kitted out and prepared medical area at their home in Nevarah.

Between having to keep magical usage subtle and supplies limited to what they were all carrying, Quinn was most heavily vexed as his diagnostics showed more and more things that he could take care of - if he were at home and not in a muggle wasteland.

“No, I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“It’s because I’ve been where he is.”  Harry explained simply, ignoring the twinge that came from delving back into the memories filled with confusion, loneliness, and a weariness that was bone-deep.  “Oh, not exactly,” he waved an airy hand.  “I at least knew magic was real and had some basis for what was happening to me.  But I was raised in a non-magical household, by non-magical people.  It wasn’t hard for me to discover what I was, though quality information took much longer to find, even if I didn’t have the slightest clue on why I was what I was.”  His tone was gentle, if searching.  “Dragels instinctively search out connection, Sheriff.  My Ethan wasn’t prying or trying to make you feel like you don’t know your own history.  He was just doing what he does best: researching, he’s a scholar you see, and any little bit of information will help us ensure that Stiles has as safe and stable and supported transition to his new normal as possible.”

“That will really help him?”  Noah asked, searching that earnest face with a seeking gaze.  “Really?  It’s not just a way to keep me busy and from asking questions?”

“Really really.”  Harry smiled softly.  “Connections are important to dragels.  That’s why we brought him back here, where he could be near you, his dad, rather than taking him somewhere we could easily guarantee that he was safe and receiving the best of care.  There will be those who’ll argue that we should have done just that.  That father or not, you aren’t magical or a dragel and can’t understand or support your son appropriately.  I think that’s a load of bollocks, personally.”  Harry smirked, gaze expectant.  “And no matter what anyone else thinks about it, I’m not in the business of splitting up loving families without cause.”

“Alright,” Noah blew out a breath, shoulders slumping.  “Yeah, alright.  I actually think you mean that, so…”  He stared over Harry’s shoulder at where his son had contorted himself into a makeshift pretzel, still with a stranglehold on his pillow.  “What do you need from me, to help me take care of my son - scales and magical dragon creature and all?”

As it turned out, there wasn’t that much the dragels who invaded and proceeded to promptly make themselves at home needed from Noah.

A few answers - without the deflections and sarcasm - and permission to put up something called wards (which sounded like a whoo-whoo version of a shield to him) to keep from being discovered.

Other than him carrying on as normal as possible, that was it.

“Lesson one on having a dragel for a son, Sheriff.  Like any other group or culture, we have enemies.  As long as we’re on earth, Stiles is going to be at constant risk of discovery.  The wards will help - but they’re not a permanent solution.”

“What’d’ya mean, on earth, where the hell else would you be, Neverland?”

“Oh, Sheriff, you have no idea…”

Then came the bad news, followed by worse news, and ending with a rundown of just what had happened that night in his town and to his son all without him being any the wiser.

“He’s going to sleep for how long?!”

“Days, more than a week possibly.  If he’d been able to rest and allow his body and magic to realign after breaking through to inherit, it would probably be less, but since he didn’t…well.  All we can do is wait until he wakes up.”

Noah blew out a breath, mind already racing with how he was going to explain Stiles’s absence from school.

Fortunately, it seemed that the strangers who Noah was rapidly coming to understand were going to be an ongoing part of his life, not just a temporary blip, were quick with solutions.  In the case of school - a doctor’s note furnished by Quinn that actually checked out.  It seemed that several of Harry’s bonded had credentials that passed as human.

Or they knew how to fake them well enough that no one would ever go looking to verify their authenticity.

It helped.

It helped more than he was willing to say to have Quinn ready and able to assist in keeping Stiles out of trouble with the school or anyone nosy enough to wonder where Stiles was.

Though as it turned out, it wasn’t entirely for Noah’s benefit to keep him from having to come up with his own answers to handle Stiles being unconscious for days in what the others around him called a "realignment" that was a form of stasis - from what Noah could tell, anyway.

That was where the worse came in, when Harry dropped the reason that they were working so hard to make things easy for Noah to cover up Stiles’s condition:

“You want us to go where?!”

“Nevarah, Sheriff, a sanctuary realm where our kind are safe and protected.  Where Stiles can get the healing he needs, finish his schooling in safety, and actually learn about the power he’ll have access to now.  And make no mistake, Sheriff: he will be powerful.  Where you can focus on taking care of your son and helping him through this transition - with our help, naturally - without having to worry about your job or Stiles getting taken.  Again.  And this time by people actually prepared to handle keeping a dragel captive. Or killing one.”

Which led to the rundown on everything that Stiles had been through while Noah was losing his mind looking for him after he disappeared from the lacrosse field after the game - and everything that Harry and his guys had done to take care of it.

It seemed like Harry specialized in giving the worst kinds of answers for someone like Noah: the kind that led to what seemed like an endless list of more questions.

Many times ones that made him question just how devoted he was to the letter rather than the spirit of the law.

But, honestly?

The more he learned both about what had happened to his son and the nasty underbelly of his town that included Stiles’s principal in Gerard Argent both condoning and participating in genocide?

The less he wanted to have anything at all to do with Beacon Hills in any capacity, not just as the local head of law enforcement.

His gut said that he needed to pack up his son, stuff them both into the Jeep, and get as far away from the cursed place as possible.

The better he got to know Harry and the others, as they rotated in-and-out of his home while they watched over Stiles as he slept for days on end, the more certain he became that they were presenting him a carefully curated set of truths meant to make him want to go with them to their home.

This Nevarah place that was supposed to be safe for Stiles.

He didn’t think they were doing so maliciously and in some cases even intentionally - but it was there, lingering underneath his interactions with them nonetheless.

They truly believed that earth (and fuck, how had thinking in terms of planets and realms become so normal so fast?) was dangerous.

And not the average sort of dangerous made of criminals and natural disasters and disease, but an intentional sort of dangerous that became more and more clear as Noah was filled in on groups like Torvaks and hunters.

What made up his mind, however, wasn’t anything that Harry or Ethan or the rest told him.

In the end, it was a long-overdue conversation with Derek Hale that came around several days into Noah’s vigil over his son but that percolated in the back of his mind for days after.

Derek Hale who was an alpha werewolf, apparently, and approximately the last person Noah expected to turn up on his doorstep.

What with the whole putting him on a wanted list for murder, breaking-and-entering, menacing, and other crimes - that he’d been exonerated for, but still - on the testimony of his son, thing.

Which just goes to show how little Noah actually knew about his son’s life.

And if that wasn’t a wake-up call: having Derek Hale on his doorstep and worried about Stiles when he thought they hated each other…he didn’t know what was.

“Hello Sheriff,” Derek greeted the man politely, hands open and resting at his sides.  “May I come in?”

Noah clenched his jaw, thoughts shooting up to his son’s bedroom where Stiles had been unconscious for days - and according to his uninvited guests (though they were growing on him - mostly) could very well remain that way for a week or more.

Harry had given him a rundown on what the dragel knew about what his son had been involved in, in Beacon Hills - but he hadn’t named names.

The Sheriff hadn’t gotten his position on his ability to schmooze and charm - though when needed he could play the political game necessary to hold a publicly-elected office - but by being a damn good cop with an excellent closure rate when it came to solving crimes.

It didn’t take a Sherlockian ability for deduction to put names to the obvious gaps in Harry’s information: Scott McCall, the Argent girl, Lydia Martin and Jackson Whittemore, even the Lahey kid.

But more than any others, the biggest answers to the gaps in the narrative wore the last name Hale.

In contrast, they’d been open about the identities of the adults in the situation like the Argents and Alan Deaton - which had him steaming mad - and he was more than a little put out that the dragels had handled them before Noah could take a crack at it via either fatherly rage or the law.

It truly was an excellent job of filling him in on everything that affected Stiles while also protecting the other potentially-vulnerable members of his community who also happened to be connected to the supernatural, Noah would give them that.

But Stiles hadn’t gotten his ability to solve puzzles out of nowhere, and while the sheriff wasn’t one hundred percent certain about any of his guesses as to actual identities, he’d be willing to make a decent hypothesis.

That Hale had shown up on his doorstep certainly pointed towards Noah looking in the right direction.

“Sure,” Noah shook his head, opening the door wide.  “Why the hell not?”

Noah stood back as the Hale kid strode through the door, all six feet of leather-wearing brooding bad boy, and couldn’t help himself:

“So, werewolf, huh?”  He asked nonchalantly as he shut the door.  “That explains a lot.”

He would never admit it, but the sight of what amounted to watching a moving wall of werewolf alpha stumble over his own feet in surprise would feature in his personal laugh-reel for a long, long time.

Derek slammed one hand out, catching himself as his brain went into a buzz of white noise, head whipping around to stare at the human sheriff who was almost oozing smug satisfaction as the man crossed his arms over his chest, watching Derek with a little half-smile on his weathered face.

Oh.

Oh.

Now he got it.

It had been a running question mark in his mind.  How Stiles - persistent questions aside - was in any way related to the calm and collected sheriff of Beacon Hills.  On the face of things, it made no sense.

Sure, there were some pheromone markers that Derek could pick up as a werewolf, but other than that, they really didn’t look alike or have any shared behaviors that he’d ever witnessed - other than wielding invasive questions like a surgeon’s scalpel in the case of the Sheriff or a damn broadsword in the hands of Stiles.  (A broadsword that half the time he used to bludgeon rather than cut, though as McCall could attest when he turned cutting it was far worse than the alternative.)

But that?

That sense of petty joy in getting one over on someone else, albeit in a harmless fashion?

That both of them shared in spades.

The resemblance had never been so clear to Derek before.

“Can I get you something to drink, son?”  Noah asked, directing Hale towards the living room with a wave.  It didn’t seem like the kid was there for official business, so there was no need to have Hale tense up and go silent if he took him to his office.

“Ah, I’m good Sheriff, thanks.”  Derek shifted a bit, eyes cataloging the room and nostrils flaring a bit as he took in the scents before deciding on a seat.

There were almost-faded traces of McCall on one side of the sofa, and the recliner was almost saturated in the Sheriff’s mixture of aftershave, gun oil, and stress.

Derek found himself gravitating towards where the scent of Stiles was richest - and no, he had no intention of examining why that was, even as he felt some of the tension in his shoulders release at being surrounded in honey and spice and a chemical tinge from Adderall and energy drinks.

Noah filed away the fact that Beacon Hills’s very own alpha werewolf had picked out Stiles’s spot on the coach with unerring accuracy but refused to think too hard about it.

That way laid the path of fatherly paranoia and it just wasn’t worth it.

Taking his own place in his recliner, Noah leaned forward propping his elbows in his knees and clasping his hands loosely between his legs, face open and expression calm.

“Alright, son, what’s brought you here?”  Noah asked.  “I assume it’s not Stiles, since as far as I know, you’re aware of what’s going on with him.”

Against his will, Derek’s eyes shot towards where he could hear Stiles’s heartbeat: steady, slow, and for the first time since he met the spastic teenager completely at ease.

Resting at home, just like he’d been told.

A part of himself - a part that had been reluctant, wary, and disbelieving - relaxed a bit at that confirmation, even though he’d been running patrols and checking in.

The wards that the newcomers had put up around the house made getting a lock on Stiles’s heartbeat almost impossible - it was impossible for his betas, only Derek powerful enough to push through them with his enhanced senses.

It was only that Derek had had his hands full with taking care of his pack and meeting with the newcomers and an alpha from up in Washington that they put him in contact with as a potential mentor that he hadn’t shown up the next morning after Gerard had been killed.

Especially with what Erica and Boyd reported had happened with Stiles while they were all being held captive by the Argents.

“I actually wanted to see if you were okay.”  Derek told him earnestly.

Noah blinked, rearing back a bit in his seat in surprise.

What?  Him?  What.

“What?”  He asked, flabbergasted.

“Stiles worries about you.”  Derek explained simply, shoulders hunching a bit at the disbelieving look on the sheriff’s formerly-open face.  “I’d be willing to make a large bet that one of the reasons he was so adamant about seeing out the Gerard situation was because you’d already been caught in the crossfire.  He’s always insisted that keeping you in the dark was the best way to keep you safe.  Now that you know, I wanted to see how you were doing.”  He looked away from that piercing blue gaze, muttering the last bit as he felt the tips of his ears heat up in embarrassment: “It’s what he would’ve wanted.”

At first Noah was incredulous at what he was hearing - oh, Stiles, damn kiddo… - but then he took a left turn into bemusement.

“You know, kid.”  He eyed Hale speculatively, remembering that despite the leather and the car and the sunglasses that Derek Hale was only a few years older than Stiles.  “I’ve known you and your family for a long time.  Since right after Claudia and I moved with Stiles to Beacon Hills, actually for all that most of it was spent playing catch-and-release with Peter and his ego.  I think that’s the most words I’ve ever heard you say at one time.”

When Derek’s only response was his blush traveling from his ears to the rest of his face, Noah decided to let the kid off the hook.

It wasn’t like he had to worry about trauma bonding or a simple crush or whatever was going on between his kid and Hale.

Stiles may have developed an impressive ability to bullshit his way around telling him about the supernatural, but when it came to everything else in his life, the kid was still an open book.  And yeah, Noah could’ve handled Stiles’s half-assed attempt to come out better, but at the time he’d been so frustrated with all the lying that he’d thought it was just another deflection.  Looking at the lump of broody blushing werewolf on his couch, Noah wasn’t nearly as certain about that as he once was.

Though it looked like his son definitely had a type: beautiful and scary and supernatural given example A: Lydia Martin who Noah thought was the banshee in Harry’s explanations though he’d yet to confirm, and example B: Derek Hale.

At least it wasn’t the other Hale that was sitting on his couch and squirming under his gaze.

Not that he thought Peter Hale had ever squirmed in discomfort a day in his life, but it was the principle of the thing.

With everything that Harry had relayed to Noah, he was certain that the local werewolf alpha had more than enough trouble and business to sort out on his hands to keep him busy.

Too busy for what amounted to a courtesy call on the local head of law enforcement when he knew that Noah was occupied with his son.

There was a part of him that felt like a failure.

Both that life had spun so far out of control that Stiles had ended up leaning on a werewolf for support instead of his dad, and that rather than helping his people recover after the massacre - more than he’d already done once he’d been taken off suspension - he’d taken a leave of absence to care for Stiles.

But Noah had to make a choice.

He’d never consciously chosen his job over Stiles.  He’d just thought, out of an apparently very misguided assumption, that Stiles was capable of looking after himself.  That his kid would come to him if he needed him, no matter how busy Noah was at work.  It was an assumption that had led to his son being kidnapped and tortured.

Yeah, his people needed him.

His son needed him more.

And that was that as far as Noah was concerned, though he wasn’t sure yet if his leave of absence was going to turn into a resignation or not.

To make that decision he needed to talk - really talk - with Stiles.

In the meantime, there was a wounded young man sitting on his couch who clearly was at a loss dealing with, well, everything including his connection - of whatever kind - with Noah’s son.

“You like baseball, kid?”  Noah asked as he came to a decision, leaning forward and grabbing the remote off of the coffee table.

Derek frowned in confusion at the non-sequitur.

“Yes…?”

“Good,” Noah nodded crisply, flicking through the channels until he found the Mets game.  “If what I've been told is right, then Stiles would want to make sure you're alright as well.  So you'll stay, watch the game, and have some pizza so I can tell my kid - truthfully - that you came out the other side of what went down the other night and are still standing.”

Derek felt a wash of relief course through him.

The sheriff wasn’t giving him the third degree or throwing him out of the house - both the most likely possibilities he’d foreseen, that was even if the man would let him in the front door instead of slamming it in the face.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”  Noah agreed, then gave Hale a look.  “But no more midnight visits through Stiles’s window, son.  I don’t need any more well-meaning calls from Mrs. Kingston next door over it, yeah?”

“You know about that…?”

Noah chuckled.  “I figured it was Scott, to be honest.  But thanks for owning up to it, and I won’t shoot you in the ass for it as long as it stops and anything else that might happen between you two waits until after he turns eighteen.  Clear?”

Derek’s face heated up with chagrin, even as he was glad Peter wasn’t anywhere to be found nearby.

His uncle would never let him walking right into that obvious trap go if he’d heard or seen it.

“Crystal, sheriff.”

“Good man.”

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Seven: Father and Son

The midday sun shone into his bedroom warming his face and made his eyelids want to flutter, pulling Stiles from what felt like the deepest, most restful sleep he’d had in his life.

Including that time that he’d broken his arm in two places as well as sprained his ankle and been given the good drugs at the hospital in seventh grade.

He let out a content little huff, shifting as he started to give into the sun insisting it was time to wake up.

Turning his head on his pillow, he nuzzled his face against the soft, well-worn-and-washed fabric of his pillowcase, reassured by the scent and feel of his bedding that all was well and he was right where he was supposed to be.

His limbs had the warm lassitude that came from the best sleeps.  When he didn’t sleep too long or not enough.  Where he was able to rest and dream in peace, undisturbed by nightmares or his unconscious mind twisting up his memories to make them worse than they already were.

A gentle hand ran over the top of his head, Stiles able to pick out familiar calluses and he turned into it, a soft whine in the back of his throat.

“Hey kiddo.”  His dad said, sitting on the edge of his bed next to him as Stiles slowly peeled open his eyes and looked at him.  “How’re you feeling?”

“Good,” Stiles said after a moment, actually meaning it for the first time in…months really.  “Really good, Daddio.”  He blinked in confusion, waking up more fully and finding himself surprised at how true his words were.

Between stress, his natural clumsiness, trying to keep up with wolves, and the bumps and bruises that came from a wolfy best friend that didn’t know his own strength half the time, Stiles hadn’t felt truly good in a long time.

And that was before actual-facts torture had been added into the mix.

“Good,” Noah echoed his son, relief coursing through him.  

Harry and Quinn had sworn up and down that Stiles would be fine, that if he could rest the way he needed that he’d wake up more refreshed and at ease than he’d probably ever been in his life.  Like he’d gotten the best and most energizing nap ever…that just happened to last more than a week.  But there had been a part - a large part at that - that’d been skeptical.  And the longer Stiles slept, the stronger that skepticism had grown.  Magic was supposedly sustaining his son, holding him in a form of stasis while he slept and everything realigned.  Noah wasn’t in a place yet where he could trust a force like magic, no matter what those around him seemed to believe.

“I’m…really glad to hear that, Stiles.”  He let out a gasp that wasn’t quite a cry, leaning over to press a hard kiss to his son’s forehead, a forehead that took six days before it lost the last traces of scales.  “God, kiddo, I’m sorry.  I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t see what you were going through, that I brushed off my own worries about you and your behavior when all along you needed me.”

“You know, don’t you, Dad?”  Stiles asked, a bit of dread springing to life deep in his stomach.  “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

“No kiddo,” the noise Noah made was far too strangled to be a laugh.  “It wasn’t a dream given the group of guys who popped out of nowhere and have set about cleaning up Beacon Hills and taking care of you with a vengeance.  And I hope that you weren’t planning on trying to keep what happened to you a secret, even if the scales hadn’t been a dead giveaway.”

Stiles squirmed a bit, feeling seen in a way that was never quite comfortable even when it was his old man doing the seeing, looking away sheepishly.

Even as he filed away that bit about the “guys” cleaning up Beacon Hills.

He had a feeling that he’s really going to have some regrets about missing out on the brainstorming sessions that Harry and his lot undertook to manage that, but at the same time couldn’t help the feeling of bone-deep relief:

First - they were real.   Not some figment of his imagination that his mind had dreamt up to deal with being tortured.  Not a hallucination because he couldn’t cope and broke under Gerard’s version of an attitude adjustment.

They were real, what had happened to him - and what he’d done - was real.

Then came the second thing, which might be an even bigger relief:

Whatever decisions had been made, whatever the calls were, none of them were on Stiles.

Or his conscience.

He would have to live with what happened when he lost himself to the creature inside of him that had burst out of him when the hunters went that step too far.

But what came after that?

While Harry and his guys had let Stiles take charge as he actually knew the players and the playing field in question, it had definitely been at their judgment and discretion that he’d had any control of the situation.

There was a…comfort in that.

That if they thought - strangers who knew nothing about him or about the situation other than what they’d managed to discover for themselves - that he was crossing a line, he had no doubt that they would’ve stopped him.

It was nice to have his judgment trusted like that without arguments and fighting and having to have a dozen different bits of evidence to back it up.

Satisfying, in a way that had the monster in his chest puffing up and preening.

“God, Stiles,” Noah groaned, burying his head in his hands.  “What am I going to do with you, kid?  Magic?  Werewolves?  Supernatural Romeo-and-Juliet starring Scott and Allison?  Why didn’t you come to me when you realized how dangerous everything was?”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell, Pops.”  Stiles said softly, still avoiding his dad’s caring - but devastated - gaze.  “There was no way to tell you what was going on with me without bringing up everything else.  It felt like drowning in the dark, no way to tell which way was up to fresh air even as staying where I was, was suffocating me.  I couldn’t see a way to untangle everything by the time I was ready to tell you - and I was, Pops, I really was - without telling you everything.   Even the stuff that wasn’t mine to tell.”

“You mean how Derek was abused by Kate Argent.”  The Sheriff noted perceptively, able to tell what Stiles was dancing around saying instead of just that he was avoiding being totally honest with him like before.

Stiles blinked in surprise, propping himself up on his elbow and staring at his dad with wide, shocked eyes.

“Yeah…”  He said slowly, frowning.  “How did you…?”

“You’ve been sleeping for longer than I think you realize, Stiles.”  Noah told him, arching a brow.  “And once I had the whole Hatfield-McCoy: Werewolf Edition explained, it wasn’t hard to put those pieces together.  You know the Hale Fire never made sense to me, especially with the deaths earlier in the year connected to them.  All I was missing was a motive that made sense other than faulty wiring or a woman who was batshit insane and the picture cleared up pretty quick.”

Kate Argent did have issues from what he’d been told.  But dismissing her as simply crazy was a disservice to both her victims and the scope of her crimes.  She was a bigot, and likely at the very least unable to see anyone supernatural was a person rather than a thing to be destroyed, but she wasn’t incapable of reasoning or empathy.

Those who survived her violence and bloodlust deserved more care than being dismissed as victims of a madwoman when her hate and violence was both systemic and intentional.

“I didn’t take Harry and his guys as such gossipy gusses.”  Stiles pouted, flopping back down onto his bed in an only partially-meant huff.

“Oh, they’re not.”  Noah groused.  “But they haven’t been the only ones pulling shifts standing vigil while you slept.  And getting information out of Derek Hale might take a bit of work, but it is possible if you know what to ask.”  He smirked.  “And his betas aren’t nearly as good at keeping their voices down as they think they are.”

“God, I know,” Stiles moaned, rolling his eyes in exasperation.  “You’d think with how good their hearing is that they’d have better inside voices but nooo.  Honestly if I didn’t have the entire school population convinced that we’re all involved in a niche subset of D&D everyone would know about the supernatural by now.”

Noah snorted, lifting one hand to rest in front of his smiling mouth, holding back tears of relief through sheer will.

Stiles was awake.

Stiles was awake and snarky and himself.

And with that, the last few reservations he had about the plan he’d made together with Harry and the others washed away.

He would do anything to keep from watching his son slip back into the hollow-eyed, skittish kid that coasted around the edges of their home like he was some kind of apparition all in an effort to keep everyone around him protected - even, or maybe especially, from each other.

Yeah, Stiles wasn’t the same kid that Noah fondly recalled taking to San Francisco to a Mets vs. Giants game last summer.

But that was life.

You raised your kids, did the best you could to support them, but eventually they grew up and into their own people instead of little clones of their parents.

At least if you’ve done it right.

Granted, most parents didn’t have to contend with werewolf shenanigans, homicidal hunters, or their teenager suddenly sprouting wings and fangs.

But it didn’t make a difference to Noah.

Stiles was still the mischievous, loving, and far-too-smart for his own good kid that he’d always been.

Extras like magic and claws or not.

Stiles was still Stiles.

And at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.

“I’m sorry too, Dad.”

“Oh, not as sorry as you’re going to be.”  Noah accepted the apology with equanimity.  “But accepted.”

“I’m really going to regret giving you time to plot against me, aren’t I?”  Stiles narrowed his eyes on his old man.

“Funny thing about that, when you have kids it’s just called parenting.”

“That doesn’t reassure me.”

“It wasn’t meant to,” Noah ruffled his boy’s hair.  “Consider stewing on just what Harry and I came up with once we got on the same page, as just desserts for all the worry and stress you’ve put me through these last few months.”

Stiles just whined high in his throat and buried his face back into his pillow.

He knew that tone.

His Daddio was going to lay down the law in a way he rarely did - and this time, even if Stiles wanted to protest, he didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Fuck.

He hadn’t heard the ultimatum that he could tell was coming and he already hated it - on principle if nothing else.

Even so - he couldn’t really disagree.

He had put his dad through hell, and that was before he sprouted new appendages and an ability to produce scales that would glitter under the sunlight better than a disco ball - or a Twilight vampire.

“Are we talking a summer doing community service rather than playing video games, sorry,” Stiles fished unrepentantly for a hint.  “Or shipping me off to military school, sorry?”

A smug half-smile tugged up one side of Noah’s lips.

“Well,” he drawled.  “It ain’t military school, so there’s that.”

The whine that Stiles gave at that non-answer was possibly only audible to certain species of canines - or the local werewolf population.

And was tinged with the sweet, sweet tone of revenge for sleepless nights and worrying his kid had fallen in with a gang or started doing drugs to Noah’s ears.

Eventually, Stiles’s body made its needs known and the father-and-son pair vacated his bedroom, if only after a long, much-needed love-and-life-affirming hug.

The Sheriff headed downstairs to the kitchen, muttering under his breath as he tried to remember which carafe of juice had been “spiked” by Quinn - the healer?  Stiles thought that was the healer’s name - for Stiles.

Which - no.

He was seventeen not seven.

There better not be any hiding of yucky medications in his food in Stiles’s future or he would be having words.

He’d much prefer suffering through the immediate taste-bud cringe of meds than the lingering what-the-hell-is-that-aftertaste of trying to slip him something and wasting perfectly good juice or milk or coffee in the process.

Gathering up a change of clothes, Stiles darted for the bathroom down the hall where he took a shower that he could only describe as near-orgasmic.

He knew he was clean - he could smell it, like woah - without so much as a stray bit of grunge or grime from head to toe but it was more than a physical need after…everything.

Bracing his hands on the tile wall of the shower, Stiles let the near-burning water of the shower pound on his shoulders and the back of his neck.  He knew it wasn’t literally washing away tension and worry.  But the routine of it more than anything else - hot, pounding showers after tough lacrosse practices or tense days at school or running with wolves - helped center him.

His dad was fine - and plotting against him which, rude - and Stiles had survived Gerard.

Compared to the worst-case scenarios his head had dreamt up over his sheriff father finding out about the supernatural, dire warnings of something like military school but also not was cake.

No one had been shot - or at least he hoped not.

No hearts went into cardiac arrest, no cop-brains decided to stroke out.

Everything else he could handle.

His people were all alive despite the two very disparate parts of his life colliding into each other at the speed of dragon-people - dragels, Peter had called them dragels, and they hadn’t protested the label - popping up out of the ether to save his ass.

From both himself and Gerard at the same time, which in hindsight was a hell of a thing to manage, even with magic at their disposal.

For some reason that Stiles hadn’t figured out - at least not entirely.

Without the adrenaline rush and pain and apathy from the magic used on him, without his instincts screaming at him to run run fight fight fight PROTECC! - without all that clogging up his head and his senses, he had some ideas.

Whether they’re right or not remained to be seen until Harry and the others popped back up like the world’s most terrifying - and protective, which was just…weird because of how right it felt - jack-in-the-box.

His dad yelling up the stairs that food was ready seemed both louder and clearer than normal - which had implications he wasn’t ready to dive into on an empty stomach that took that moment to let out a loud sound that was more pissed-off-alpha-werewolf than a regular demanding growl.

It had been mentioned that Stiles had been asleep longer than he realized, so there was that he supposed as he stared down at his stomach in shock.

Reaching out he slapped the shower off and then clambered out into the bathroom with far less stumbling and near-misses with countertops than normal.

Chalk one more up for things he wasn’t thinking about at the moment.

For now, all he wanted to do was revel.

His dad, the pack, the town - everyone was safe from Gerard’s personal and ruthless brand of crazy.

Magic, dragels, hunters, werewolves: it could all wait.

They’d won.

And for once - without having to make some awful trade-off, though he imagined Scott and the remaining Argents would vastly disagree.

That was tough cookies.

If the price for what had been accomplished before Stiles passed out was him becoming something rather than staying vanilla human?

He’d take it.

The potential alternative was simply too horrifying to imagine.

That way led the path to paranoia and hypervigilance beyond what he already dealt with thanks to Peter’s brand of vengeance and Kate Argent’s everything.

He’d pass, thanks.

After eating what felt like his entire body weight in steak and chicken with waffles and fresh fruit - his pops was really pulling out all the stops before they had the incoming talk that lingered on the edges of their mutual relief over the other being okay - Stiles gathered up the dishes and loaded the washer.

Then he blinked at the pure shininess of the stainless steel front of the appliance.

What the-?

He hadn’t ever seen the old work-horse of a machine look like that.

Taking a closer look around him now that his stomach was appeased - and no yucky meds hidden in his juice had helped him suck down the entire pitcher until he felt like he sloshed when he walked, there had been some kinda lusciousness to it that wasn’t familiar, but maybe his dad had splurged on the good juice instead of the frozen concentrate to celebrate - Stiles blinked again and shook his head as if that would help dispel what he was seeing.

It had to be some kinda illusion.

Stiles and his dad had never been slobs, but they weren’t exactly going to win any Good Housekeeping awards for cleanliness of their abode either.

Dust always seemed to gather in corners and on the tops of surfaces faster than they could wipe it away, the windows always had at least a couple streaks from their attempts to clean them if not actual grime, and Stiles couldn’t remember the last time they’d gotten around to waxing the hardwood floors.

Floors that shone under the light pouring in from sparkling windows and squeaked under the rubber soles of Stiles’s slippers.

Seeing his confusion, Noah chuckled and then swung his arm around his shoulders - shoulders that were broad and had a lean cushion of muscle, a change and sign of maturity that he’d missed while burying his head in his work to his dismay - and led his kid out of the kitchen before Stiles could start babbling questions.

“C’mon, kiddo.”  Noah sighed, leading the way into the living room and settling down on the couch next to Stiles instead of across the room in his recliner.  “I think it’s time we talked about what’s been going on while you were pulling your Sleeping Beauty routine…”

“So…”  Stiles dragged out the word as his busy brain rushed to process everything his dad shared with him.  Harry and his guys basically adopting him and his dad, and as a result working to clean up the supernatural bullshit plaguing Beacon Hills.  Hunters disappearing, secrecy spells on anyone who’d noticed all the supernatural bullshit.  The list seemed almost endless.  And he still hadn’t gotten to what happened to the pack, Scott, or the Argents after Stiles metaphorically washed his hands of everything at the warehouse.  “Dragels.”

“Dragels, werewolves, hellhounds, and druids, oh my.”  The Sheriff snarked, still perturbed over all the supernatural shenanigans that had been going on in his town under his nose and over the last few months involving his son.  “All of which, if what Hartwood says is true, are only the tip of a very complex, massive part of the world that most people never even realize exist as they go about their business.”  He snorted, shaking his head.  “Makes me wonder how much I’ve written off under there’s no way… when I could’ve been digging for answers.”

“I don’t think most people’s minds are really prepared to deal with magic and everything that comes with it.”  Stiles speculated, having done a lot of thinking on the subject himself ever since Scott was bitten.  “Kinda like Sunnydale Syndrome only without having magic actively doing anything to make people look the other way or provide excuses for what they see.”

While Noah was willing to admit that his kid had a point, he couldn’t help beating himself up for not following his gut.

There were times - enough of them that in hindsight he felt like the dumbest, most hard-headed bastard in creation - where if he’d had even a fraction of his kid’s open mindedness he would’ve discovered that the world was a whole hell of a lot bigger and more diverse than he ever imagined.

It was like the after-image following a flash of bright light.

Noah had had the outline of something being there, just out of his reach for years but never had the curiosity or flexibility to follow up instead of brushing it off.

“Who’s Hartwood, again?”  Stiles asked, changing tracks before his dad could really start to brood.

“One of Harry’s guys, he’s been around almost as much as Harry and Quinn, the Healer.”  Noah sighed, shaking off his issues for another time.  Stiles came first, and there was only so much time for the two of them to spend together before the plan that he’d agreed to with Harry came into play.  “He’s been a big help with explaining things to me while we waited for you to wake up.”

Pareya, that little voice inside his head - what he figured now was his inner dragel and not a sign of oncoming mental illness which was a relief like woah on top of everything else - whispered.  It came with a sense of, well, his dad actually.  Safety.  Ready to stand between Stiles and the world if that was what he needed.

A protector.

One who apparently also felt the need to protect Stiles from germs if the way the house was sparkling was any sign, either that or his dad had taken up stress-cleaning instead of tearing through cold cases while he waited for Stiles to wake up.

(Somehow, he doubted it given historical precedent.)

“There’s a book and a letter for you, once you’re ready for them.  If they’re anything like the reading Hartwood brought over for me they’ll answer your questions about dragels and everything and then some.”  Noah told him, making a face over all the glorified homework he’d been doing since Hartwood had brought Stiles back to him safely.  But it was for his kid, so he muscled his way through it even when it was making his head spin and had him questioning everything he’d ever thought he knew about the world, his family, and life in general.  “Harry left them with me when the monitors they had on you warned that you were close to waking up so he could finish making arrangements on his end.  And give us some time together after everything.”

That was, really cool of them, actually, Stiles admitted if only to himself.

With how target-locked they’d all been on him after finding him in Argent’s basement, he’d honestly been surprised to wake up alone with only his dad around.

Enough that he almost started questioning whether it all happened - at least until his dad started apologizing.

Then he knew that everything he’d been keeping from his dad - for one reason or another - wasn’t only out in the open but also growing claws and popping out wings.

“What about the pack?”  Stiles asked, even as his fingers itched to get his hands on actual answers about what was going on with him.  “And Scott?”

“Mentors are apparently a big deal with the supernatural, or at least the branch of it we belong to.”  Noah answered, smiling a little when Stiles beamed over him saying “we” and not “you” - oh yeah, Hartwood and the rest had not been exaggerating when they told him connection was important to their kind.  A kind that now included his son, and by extension Noah even if he never used a drop of magic or manifested wings himself.

If it included his son, he was in it right there with him until they put him in his grave.

And given some of the things he’d heard bandied around about Peter Hale over the last ten or so days, even then that might not be as big of a barrier as people tended to think of death and dying.

“Harry or one of his guys - I’m not actually sure who - set up a thing for Hale and the rest to get some guidance from a pack up in the Pacific Northwest.”  He continued.  “I guess Hale never got any training on how to alpha?”   He frowned, glancing down at where his kid had pretty much pretzeled himself into the corner of the couch next to him.

Stiles nodded slowly.  “Makes sense.”  He admitted after thinking it over.  “Kinda explains all the frustration he was leaking everywhere if he was having to deal with a huge power-up like the alpha spark and building a pack without any training or info beyond what he saw from his mom and sister before they died.”

Stiles was not counting Peter in that equation, except as maybe an example of what not to do.

Didn’t stop Derek entirely from having epic moments of douchebaggery, but he didn’t Bite anyone who wasn’t willing or go on a murder spree either.

And with what Stiles knew about Derek’s background he was definitely willing to give him some grace now that it didn’t feel like the sky was going to come crashing down on their collective heads at any moment.

“As for Scott,” Noah sighed, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck.  “Hell kid, I know you’re not going to like what happened with him.”

Stiles darted upright, feeling a spark of panic in his chest.

“They didn’t kill him or anything did they?”  He squeaked, pulse racing.  “I mean, he’s just a kid, yeah he did some epic level bullshit but…”

“Woah there, hold your horses, kiddo.”  Noah turned a bit and rested his hands on Stiles’s shoulders with a firm grip.  As if he could hold him together with just his hands alone.  “Calm down, it’s nothing like that.”

Sucking in frantic breaths, Stiles nodded, tears edging in at the corner of his eyes as he focused on his dad’s breathing the way he knew to help dodge a panic attack.

“Scott is fine.”   Noah told him firmly, eyes clear and focused on his son’s.  “Might not be feeling fine after being made to own up to his mistakes - including a couple of actions that are illegal whether you’re talking magic or not - but physically he’s all in one piece, including his werewolf status.”

He shook his head, a bit confused at the phrasing then asked: “Why’d you say it like that?”

Noah blew out a breath, giving Stiles’s shoulders a squeeze, then lowered his hands to rub along his upper arms.

“Because from what a couple of Harry’s guys were saying, some of the powers-that-be that have sway over were-creatures weren’t sure if they were going to let him keep his wolf or not.”  Noah admitted what he’d picked up in bits and pieces from Devrim’s complaints regarding Scott.  “In the end his age and the fact that he wasn’t a willing Bite saved his bacon as far as remaining a werewolf goes.  He’s got a suspended sentence and has to do community service along with being relocated far away from the Hale Pack or anyone with the name Argent, and has to agree to wolf-lessons from an assigned mentor, but he’s alive, healthy, and getting help.”  Noah hesitated a moment then added: “he also has a spell or something on him that’ll keep him from spilling the beans on the supernatural, and his memory about dragels has been wiped.  I guess how obvious he was about his new status really rubbed a couple people the wrong way.”

Stiles had to scoff and roll his eyes at that, even as he felt a deep sense of relief over Scott being alright.

Feeling sorry for himself, if he knew anything about Scott, but fine.

Then the last main point his dad made hit him right in the noggin.

“About dragels?”  He asked, eyes wide and searching.  “All dragels?”

Including…including him?

Stiles was pissed at Scott.  Like epically, pissed off.  And betrayed.  And questioning everything he thought he knew about him.

Because the kid who’d been his brother from another mother most of his life?

That kid didn’t have it in him - at least, Stiles never would’ve thought he did - to commit what amounted to bite-rape if he’d gone through with his plan with Gerard Argent and forced Derek to turn the bastard.

Especially after being bitten against his will by Peter.

But he was still Scott, his friend who Stiles had stood by through thick-and-thin, the same shy kid who’d been right there in the trenches with him when Stiles lost his mom.

A decade - give or take - of brotherhood and all that entailed didn’t just go away.

At least, not for Stiles.

But if Harry and his guys - or whoever the Big Kahunas of were-creatures were - had taken Scott’s memory (and that was a fresh nightmarish possibility that was going to keep him awake, thanks) of dragels…

“He remembers you,” the Sheriff reassured him, able to anticipate exactly what mental minefield that bit of information was sure to spring to life in his son.  “He knows you came and brought help to rescue everyone at the warehouse.  It’s just everything about you being anything but a regular homegrown human that’s gone and with no way to bring it back if he even realized that there’s missing information in his head - which, I mean,” the sheriff shrugged.  He loved Scott like another son, but a deep thinker the boy was not.  The clusterfuck with Hale and Argent being an excellent case-in-point example.

Stiles choked on a laugh, feeling too raw to really want to admit the humor in his dad’s words but - yeah.

If someone else went digging through Scott’s brainpan - since that was apparently a power that people had if they could alter and/or remove memories - then the fact that something’s missing might occur to Scott.

But find it on his own?

Not very high on Stiles’s likelihood scale, if not entirely impossible.

“What’s he think happened, if those memories are gone or altered?”

“That you have a little more magic than Deaton gave you credit for, and you managed to call in the calvary - just not one with wings.”

Fair, Stiles nodded, given that Deaton was a vague asshole at the best of times.

Though one with his own problems to be all druidy about, given what his dad said about him and Harris both being arrested - Deaton by the dragels for a reason that his dad danced around and Harris apparently in conjunction to the Hale fire by the werewolf elders or whatever.

Which Stiles was kinda bummed about.

If that pair of assholes were going to get some comeuppance, he’d have liked to have been awake to see it.

Damn it.

That the school counselor Ms. Morrell had been taken as well…Stiles didn’t know what to think about that.  She’d always seemed decent if stoic.  To find out that not only did she know about what was going on right under her nose, but that she could’ve helped and actively chose not to…   Stiles didn’t know what to do with that.

Though it sure as hell wasn’t going to help his issues with trusting and opening up with people, that was for fucking sure.

Later that night, after spending the day just sinking into having his Dad’s full and undivided attention, Stiles cuddled up in his bed and turned the letter in his hands over in curiosity.

His phone had been recovered from his lacrosse locker and charged up, Stiles using it during one of the breaks in their father/son movie-and-food marathon to read his missed messages and catch up on his voicemail and social media.

Listening to how alternately dismissive and demanding Scott had been that night all the while Stiles was being held captive by Gerard had done nothing good for his head.

He was glad Scotty was getting help - he was.

But somehow, much like hitting him where it hurt, it didn’t actually make him feel better about, well, any of it.

What was genuinely surprising - or maybe not, given…everything - were the amount of texts from Derek and his pack checking in on him.

There were a bunch from the first four days, then nothing - guess they either figured out or were told that he was Coma-Lite - but then a couple more from each member of the pack dated from that same day.

And a voicemail.

From Derek.

Thanking him.

Honestly if it weren’t for his dad coming back in with some truly excellent timing on the part of the lawman, Stiles didn’t know what he would’ve done.

Other than stare off into the middle-distance in sheer disbelief.

He still didn’t know what his dad had decided was Stiles’s punishment.

Both of them had had a silent but tacit agreement to save anything non-fuzzy-warm-times for tomorrow in favor of just reveling in the fact that they were both alive and Stiles wasn’t keeping a whole pack worth of secrets from his dad anymore.

There was just one more thing Stiles needed to do before he put a pin in the day and called it good.

Eyeing the book that his dad had handed over before they said goodnight that Stiles had put in pride of place dead-center on his desk, Stiles took a deep breath and studied the letter waiting patiently in his hands.

Then he took another.

Edging one nail under the fancy-looking wax seal, Stiles braced himself for anything that the innocuous envelope might contain, then flicked it open and began to read:

Dear Stiles…

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Eight: The Audacity

Dear Stiles, the letter began, golden eyes eating up the words that flowed across the thick creamy paper.

Dear Stiles,

 

I kept my promise: we kept your home and people safe.

Now it’s time for you to do something for me.

Read the book, it’s yours to keep.

Consider it my first official gift to you as your mentor.

I’ll know when you’re finished and will arrive to discuss the situation soon afterward.

 

Yours,

Harry Gorgens-Nott

Well, that was underwhelming - and with that last bit, also a bit terrifying.  Stiles couldn’t deny that he’d been hoping for some long winded introduction or rambling explanation of who Harry was and what he wanted with Stiles.  Or how the whole mentor thing worked.

Instead he got a cut-and-dried quid pro quo demand, complete with an implicit I’m Watching You and what amounted to homework.

He huffed.

Yeah, definitely shouldn’t have let Harry and his dad conspire.  Clearly they were uniting against him to use their powers for evil.  Like assigning homework instead of just answering his questions.

Even so, he eyed the book with greed, his lower lip rolling inward for him to nibble on as he considered just…not.

His dad seemed pretty damn convinced that Harry and his friends were good guys and they left presents in the form of the kind of magical reference that he would’ve given a kidney for - before the basement.

And he wasn’t stupid enough to think that his dad didn’t have some way of contacting Harry if Stiles never laid a finger on the book.

Though, really.

Anyone dangling bait like that in front of him and expecting him not to bite clearly didn’t know a damn thing about him.

Fuck.

Damn plotting old men and their schemes.

Stiles was going to get his own back.

It was going to be nothing but kale salads and green smoothies for weeks…

Right after he finished his reading.

Yes, he knew it was a set-up.

But: book.

Excerpts from “On Dragels: an Overview; Section 1: Introduction and Origins”

Dragel's are a breed of a humanoid-elemental-dragon hybrid who serve as pillars of elemental magic. They are the result of a triad bonding between a powerful wizard, a Saurdahn warrior and an equally powerful and sentient dragon from one of the four elemental clans. The four elemental dragon clans were thought to be hunted to extinction shortly after closing themselves off from wizarding and human society, however they may still exist in an undiscovered realm…

…it is believed that the magical spirits left behind by these powerful creatures are the roots of all elemental powers today. Dragels are considered to be powerful and beautiful creatures of grace and lethal skill, even by their enemies. Often in a human form, dragels have anywhere from four to six alternate forms and a true form, which shows their complete dragon self…

Excerpts from “On Dragels: an Overview; Section 2: The Earth-Realm Exodus”

In their true form, a dragel's massive physical size and magical power posed a severe threat and as such, the Ministry of Magic of Wizarding Great Britain forbade them to appear in their true forms. When such measures were protested, dragels were consequently classified as magical creatures and treated as such, in spite of their attributed power and intelligence… 

Dragels are still legendary among the magical populace of the earth-realm for manipulation of wild magic—untamed, raw, magical power-despite the fact that most unaware societies believe them to be extinct…

…dragel scales, hairs, fluids and organs are invaluable in potions and rituals, particularly Blood Magic, due to the residual magical energy that resides within them. Dragels are considered to be borderline dark creatures by most earth-realm magical societies and remain as creatures of legend despite the wide-spread belief in their extinction. There are several unclaimed skeletons thought to belong to lost families or clans on display in the Magical Museum of History in London, provided by Torvak hunters prior to the Exodus…

Excerpts from “On Dragels: an Overview; Section 3: Dragel Circles”

Dragels use circles to classify their relationships.  As an interesting linguistic remnant, it is common even among muggles to hear circles classify close relationships in regards to the self.  Circle of friends, the family circle, etc.  Some scholars believe that this derives from the dragel practice of formalized relationship circles among their culture… 

…classify into two major designations following maturity: a “family” circle formed of their family either by birth or adoption, and a “bonded” circle.  The latter of which is a polyamorous mateship and the most frequently preferred relationship dynamic of dragels, either romantically or platonically.  “Circle” refers to all dragels in that mateship, each mate is called “Bonded” if already in the Circle or “Intended” if currently being courted…

…Standard Circles operate on the basic triad of Alpha-Beta-Sub, with a Gheyo triad of ACE-King-Queen, with two Pareya. This can be rounded out by adding a Healer or Medic, a Carrier, or an Advisor… 

Excerpt from…

…the submissive is the heart and anchor of a circle…

Excerpt from…

…furthermore a Gheyo ACE is the only rank that can rank-shift to an Alpha rank…

Excerpt from “On Dragels: an Overview; Appendix III - Rare Occurrences and Further Reading”

Ferros Dragels - dragels of any rank with the potential of turning feral outside of a rank-shift event.  Occurrence Rates - Potential: 5%, Active (among potentials) <1%

For further information see…

“Aw hell, kid.”  Noah cursed lightly when he saw Stiles appear for breakfast the next morning with dark bags under his eyes and no sign that he’d slept, the thick book Harry left for him clutched desperately in his hands.  “Quinn is going to kill me.”

All the signs of an all-night research binge were there and easy to see.  

From the dark circles underneath and slight redness of his eyes, to the thick book with sticky notes sticking out of it like a rainbow’s worth of flags - and in more than one color palette at that - to the sheets of loose leaf paper crammed in between the pages, to the spiral-bound notebooks balanced precariously on top of the book.  

Stiles was pale from exhaustion despite having woken up bright-eyed and bushy tailed the day before and he shambled more than actually walked.

“Au contraire, Daddio.”  Stiles replied to the implied accusation in his dad’s greeting.  “If Quinn is going to kill anyone it’s Harry for taunting me with knowledge before assigning homework.”

Noah made a noise in the back of his throat, not really agreeing - since Harry didn’t know Stiles beyond one very limited set of interactions and couldn’t predict what he’d do - but not really disagreeing either.

If he’d asked, Noah could’ve told him that whatever he’d written to his kid that might have contributed to Stiles engaging in a research-bender aside, giving him a massive book - or tome depending on the nomenclature - without supervision when he was supposed to be resting wasn’t going to end in anything but exactly what happened:

Stiles staying up all night in one of his knowledge acquisition rampages that could make seasoned scholars look weak in comparison.

To be fair, Noah understood why Harry had refrained from asking questions about Stiles.

If what he’d been told was anything like the truth, then the relationship between a mentor and their charge wasn’t dissimilar to a parent and child but with shades of a teacher added in.

From Noah’s perspective, Harry didn’t ask questions about Stiles - other than his health and the family history that Hartwood dug into like a tick - to keep from becoming biased and influenced by secondhand opinions.

It was a commendable stance to take - if a frustrating one when it led to issues like that morning, with Stiles staying awake to tear through the reference Harry left for him, the latter with absolutely no idea the kind of monster he was unleashing in doing so.

Noah still gave it a coin-flip on who Quinn was going to eviscerate first however, not doubting for a moment that the Healer was going to have issues with Stiles pulling an all-nighter.

“Here,” Noah rose and fished a large bowl of fruit salad out of the fridge, along with another pitcher of “spiked” (and he wasn’t going to think too hard about with what since he’d been told and instantly wished he could forget) juice.  “If you finished that book, I’m assuming it won’t be long before Harry pops in with some of his guys in tow.  Better eat before Quinn has extra ammo beyond choosing not to sleep at a reasonable hour.”

“Excuse me?”  Stiles sniffed at the juice appreciatively as he plopped his tower of research down to his right-hand side, his stomach rumbling for fuel as his dad pushed the bowl of fruit salad at him.  Wielding the fork his dad handed him like a spear, he set to the serving bowl of fruit with a will, washing all of it - despite him hesitating a little over the sizable serving - down with a similar juice as the day before.  This one might be pineapple or something, but it had that same luscious undertone that made any idea of restraint fly right out the window.  “Reasonable sleeping times?  Have you even met me, Pops?”

Before Noah could retort, a knock on the front door interrupted.

The Sheriff pointed at his son, silently warning him to stay put and keep eating, having added some warmed-up leftover breakfast casserole to the teen’s left and well out of the way of the tower representing his son's all-nighter, and then strode to the door.

Behind him, Stiles wrinkled his nose at the concoction of eggs, cheese, ham, and veg before sighing as if put-upon and digging in.

It didn’t satisfy nearly as well as the fruit - or the meat-heavy meals from the day before - but it was filling.

And given that he was a growing boy - dragel, whatever - filling mattered more sometimes than preference.

Especially on a cop’s budget and all the fresh fruit he’s been plowing through since waking up.

Fresh fruit that he apparently wanted because he was a magical dragon hybrid.  Fruit = natural sugar which in turn equalled a major boost to a dragel’s system.  There was more to it than that, or so he would assume, but that was the gist he’d gotten from his first read-through of On Dragels that Harry had asked for from him.

Fresh fruit and meat were apparently the two major parts of a dragel’s diet but those were just the “standard” and didn’t cover anything in depth.

Like Merrow - or water-dragels that were the basis for a lot of human fairy tales like mermaids and maybe selkies (though selkies could be a thing too, who knew?  A couple months ago he would’ve said werewolves weren’t a thing and then - the Hales.  Then a couple weeks ago he would’ve said there was no way dragons existed and then not only did they exist but they also got busy with other races every now and again and created species like dragels.  Like Stiles.   So, ya know, not counting anything out at this point) - who had entirely different dietary needs than other dragel types but who the book didn’t talk much about at all.

Beyond the fact that they existed, anyway.

Specifics about anything was in short supply in the text Harry left for him and it was both maddening - because give him details damn it!! - and also terrifying.

Because just giving an overview of dragels and their culture took more than three hundred pages to manage.

On Dragels covered a lot of information with little depth but also included a hundred pages of appendices, a glossary, and an index so…Stiles was willing to forgive the other affronts the book caused.

(Like: what are nytura exactly?   The book referenced them a couple different times but other than dragon-adjacent, Stiles still doesn’t have a clue.)

ALSO:

If the tome-of-vagueness wasn’t frustrating enough in little ways, then it was fucking with his worldview in major ones.

Case in point: Dragel Ranks.

Now.

Stiles had only seen his eyes - very cool, vaguely feline - and claws and scales in the mirror when he’d gotten rabidly curious to see if he could tell what type of dragel he was.  There was a thing about eye color sometimes (but not always, because why not make it difficult.  Hmph) could point to what element a dragel was aligned to.  When they were aligned with an element.

Which happened often but (as was a too-common refrain) not always.

His eyes were weird when he was shifted.

The colors of his pupils almost seemed liquid like mercury but not silver.  All gold and blues and maybe black or a dark purple.  It was hard to say and Stiles just didn’t have enough information about how eye color worked with dragels to say for sure.

What freaked him the fuck out however wasn’t the fangs or the claws or the shimmery almost oil-slick eyes.

It was the color of his scales.

Stiles would be the first person to admit that he wasn’t exactly known for being a calm, collected, grounded person.

No.

He’s the guy who’s best friend gets bitten by a strange creature in the Preserve and after a few questions about symptoms comes up with werewolf - which wouldn’t generally be anyone’s go-to.

Stiles as a person was a little off-beat from anyone else.

And he’s been that way all his life, not just in the last year when his instincts - according to the book of skimming-the-surface - would’ve really started kicking in since he should’ve “come into his inheritance” when he was sixteen.

Again, there’s outliers and the book made that clear just about every section and subsection of information, so he wasn’t too concerned about being a bit of a late bloomer.

What he is freaking the fuck out about was apparently coming into his inheritance as a dragel-fucking-submissive.

Not because he had anything against submissives.  Or against dragels for that matter.  He didn’t adhere to ass-fucking-backwards mindsets where someone who is in (according to the culture he was raised in, not the one he was apparently born to) a giving role was inherently lesser than someone else.

He was freaked out because those white, silver, and peach scales decorating his thin body said that he was a dragel submissive and on the point of dragel submissives On Dragels had been excruciatingly clear: they were the linchpin of their circles.

They were the pivot point, what brought the rest of the circle together and held them together.  The one who was supposed to ground the magic of the rest of the circle.  They’re the heart and soul of a circle.

And that?

Stiles didn’t know what the fuck to do with that.

Or for that matter where to even begin with accepting it, besides the fact that his instincts seemed to be all-the-fuck for it.

Noah wished he could say that he was surprised to see Derek Hale - and his pack - standing on his front step when he opened the door, but that would be a lie.

As it was, the only reason he’d had Stiles to himself the day before was due to asking to have the time alone to reconnect as father-and-son.

Without distractions.

Some of the wolves had taken the request better than others, but in the end they’d agreed to it and kept their collective word.  There had been no leather-clad teenagers (or Derek) climbing in through Stiles’s window over the course of the previous day or night.  No suspiciously-shaped shadows lingering in the bushes across the street or on the edge of the Preserve that butted up against the greenbelt behind his back fence.

Rather than commenting on it and having it be taken in the wrong way, Noah just opened the door wider and stepped aside.

“Good timing,” he said, exchanging nods with Hale and running his eyes over the kids, relieved to see them all in seemingly good spirits despite the changes that’ve been happening.  Kids were resilient though.  They could often surprise others with how seamlessly they adapted to situations that would throw older people for loops.  “He’s up and done eating and Harry hasn’t shown up yet.”

Derek blinked, cocking his head a bit to the side as he waved his betas forward, the trio bounding into the kitchen to greet Stiles with varying degrees of exuberance - from Erica’s cheering-and-pouncing hug to Isaac’s posting up silently at the countertop with a nod and Boyd falling in the middle with a nod, fist-bump-side-hug routine.

“I thought Harry wasn’t going to come back until…”  He trailed off, shaking his head with a rueful look on his face.  “He read the whole thing in one night, didn’t he?”

“Oh yeah.”  Noah blew out a breath, then shrugged lightly waving Derek ahead of him into the kitchen.  “Quinn’s gonna kill us if the evidence of his all-nighter is still written all over Stiles’s face by the time he sees him again.”

Derek huffed an agreeing not-quite-laugh even as he strode into the kitchen and nearly ate up the sight of Stiles laughing and talking to all three of the betas at once.

Actually talking to Boyd, bantering with Erica, and snarking with Isaac.

He almost sighed as he felt a piece of himself that had refused to settle over the last ten or so days ease and fall back into place at the sight of dancing amber eyes and a mobile mouth that was meant for smiling actually smiling and gold eyes dancing instead of looking tired and bitter and stressed.

There he was.

Categorically refusing to think about why his instincts settled at the sight of a healthy and awake Stiles - the Sheriff had been clear and he had his own…issues - Derek wandered over and reached down to scent-mark Stiles with a swipe of the back of his hand over the side of that long, lean neck.  Stiles barely paused for breath, reaching up and patting Derek on the shoulder in turn as he debated DC vs. Marvel superheroes with the betas, and Derek rolled his eyes at the conversation choice.  Sharing a look with the Sheriff, Derek propped his back against the wall in the kitchen, accepting a cup of coffee from the older man, and settling in to just watch.

And to let it sink in: Stiles was alive and healthy and happy and Derek wanted to revel in it and store the sight and sound of it away in his memory.

It would have to be enough.

Because once Harry arrived, it would be the last time Derek saw him for months.

Even if he and Noah were the only ones in the room who realized that.

Derek didn’t expect that any of the teens were going to take it well, but it was what it was.

They all needed support and training in their own ways: from Stiles with his new state of being, to Derek’s young betas, to Derek himself as he was never meant to be an alpha for all that his family held to the belief that anyone could rise or fall through the ranks of a werewolf.

And even with all the work that the mage Riven and others had put into smoothing out the magical… tone for lack of a better word of Beacon Hills, it was still the home of the Nematon.

(Having Riven dig that out of Derek’s memory, that he used to know about the Nematon and its location and importance - before his mother tore it all away - that had been…difficult.  One of the worst days he’d had in a long time, and definitely one of the worst non-Argent moments in his life.  It was up there with coming to terms, after Peter’s first death, when everything had settled down enough for Derek to think rather than react, that while Peter had killed everyone he blamed for the Fire that took their pack…he hadn’t done more than rough Derek up a little.  That had been…bad.  And now Peter was back and Derek had no idea what to do with any of it.)

With the Nematon - undergoing serious amounts of TLC via mages or not - housed within the depths of the Preserve, Beacon Hills would always draw in any-and-everything other.

Derek and his pack needed more to be properly prepared for what they meant for them than Derek alone could provide.

He was a protector and a fighter.

He’d been a kid, not even in double-digits when his family had identified those traits in him most clearly and set to training him accordingly.

Then when his family was gone except for Laura - who might as well have been gone with how little they saw each other - he’d doubled down on his physical training.

But Beacon Hills needed more than an alpha who only knew how to fight.

And Derek was determined to be the alpha that his pack and territory needed, even if it meant sucking up his pride and ego and accepting help and a mentor and entrusting a vital member of his pack to another for their own training.

Stiles leaving for an entirely different realm was going to suck.

Derek had only just come to accept how important the young dragel was to him and his pack and now he was going to have to say goodbye for the bulk of the coming summer break at the very least.

Erica was going to rip him a new asshole when Harry arrived and everyone was informed about what the Sheriff and Harry had decided.

In the end though, it didn’t matter how big or vicious of a fit anyone threw - not his betas, not even Stiles - when it came to what was for the good of the pack, Derek was as immovable as a mountain.

None of them had to like it.

But they did have to accept it, when it was what Stiles - what all of them - truly needed.

Derek would allow nothing less.

“That little brat.”  Harry groaned, rolling over in the pile of sleeping bodies that surrounded him in his circle’s sleeping room and burying his head in a pillow.

Their sleeping room was basically a wall-to-wall mattress specially designed and fabricated to accommodate a large circle of nearly twenty grown men as well as any children who may want to partake in cuddles with their parents.

During a realignment period, all of his bonded came and crowded in, even those that normally didn’t rest with everyone else like Alec his merrow or Brishen his water phoelix and joker, so it had to be able to accommodate all of them even if it was only once every several weeks that all of the bodies filled it up - so long as they were able, as some like Riven had duties elsewhere and weren’t always affected by his realignment period.

It wasn’t necessarily healthy for Riven to miss realignments - where Harry’s body processed the excess magic he took in from both his bonded and in general.  A full realignment allowed his systems to realign to his normal state - like a reset point.  And the more of his bonded that are able to join him, the better all of them feel afterward.

Harry’s new student in Stiles had gone through something similar, if not quite the same, following his traumatic inheritance.

As he remembered all-too-well from his own inheritance, submissives did tend to sleep and rest anywhere from hours to days after coming into their inheritance.  For good reason.  The change in body, mind, and magic that came with their full dragel attributes and powers being released was significant even when it occurred in the most comforting, controlled setting possible with complete support.

What Stiles had gone through was not that anymore than Harry’s own surprise inheritance had been standard.

For them, fate hadn’t been nearly so kind.

Harry had come into his inheritance without a clue what was happening to him beyond that he’d had some sort of creature inheritance that made him hungry and exhausted all the bloody time.

He’d spent months trying to find answers and feeling empty and alone - until he found his alpha Theo, and then at times it was still an uphill battle.

As his soulscream, that came during an attack at the Burrow, could attest.

Stiles’s story was different, but there were certain similarities nonetheless.

Enough similarities that magic and fate decided that Harry would make the best possible mentor for the submissive that up until the literal moment his heart stopped while undergoing torture had thought that he was nothing more - and nothing less - than plain everyday human.

A smart, snarky, open-minded, and utterly ruthless human given what Harry had personally witnessed of him, but human nonetheless.

Now that snarky little brat had blown through the primer on dragels and their culture that Harry had left him in what had to be less than eight hours based on the time differential between Nevarah and Earth, and Harry was not amused.

He’d set two spells on the text he’d left, both alerts: one to let him know when Stiles received it and another keyed to when he finished turning every page.

As the alert spells were keyed into Stiles’s magical signature, there was no worry about him being prematurely informed if say the Sheriff or one of the wolves got curious and decided to take a look at what Harry had left for Stiles to read.

And with the security spell on the letter, he’d known that none of them were going to be able to see the all-but-dare he’d left for the little brat.

A dare that, in hindsight, may not have been the best idea.

Especially when it had an alert buzzing in the back of his head before dawn.

Fuck.

From what he’d seen of Stiles, and picked up in bits and pieces from the others in Beacon Hills, he’d thought he had a kid not unlike himself on his hands.

Apparently not.

Or apparently not totally.

Because staying up all night to read?

That wasn’t a Harry behavior.

That was a Hermione one.

As a shiver of dread tingled down his spine, Harry realized that he might not be as prepared to be a mentor for Stiles as he’d thought.

But he supposed it could be worse than his student having a voracious appetite for knowledge and learning.

Stiles could be like Ron.

The thought alone was enough to give him hives.

In hindsight, he did not envy any of their teachers back at Hogwarts trying to pound information inside Ron’s stubborn head one moment and then having to answer Hermione’s voracious questions the next.

Pass.

Hard pass.

Harry would take his one mentored student who did stupid shit like staying up all night to read after just coming out of what amounted to a healing coma, thanks.

Rising, he set about extricating himself from the cuddle pile, Wikhn who was on watch eventually reaching over and giving him an assist when Bran’s tendency to grasp hold and not let go in their sleep became a matter of get help or wake them up.

Several of his bonded woke with him, though only a few actually woke up fully, the rest groaning or complaining and going back to sleep.

Though he wasn’t lucky enough for one of the sleepers to be Quinn.

The look that his healer shot him when he realized the time and what woke Harry was scolding to say the least.

A sheepish shrug was the only answer he could give his huffy love.

He’d miscalculated, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

And, honestly:

By the time Quinn was done with Stiles?

He rather doubted the kid would ever repeat his sleepless night on purpose.

Accidentally, maybe.

He’d grown up with Hermione, and now that he twigged Stiles’s behavior when it came to learning as closer to his best friend’s traits than himself, he couldn’t count out the chance of Stiles just getting distracted and forgetting to sleep.

It had happened many times over the years with his best friend, after all.

Though thankfully it was now Aiden’s problem to manage and not Harry’s.

Thinking too hard about their Third Year at Hogwarts was enough to make him want to break out in a cold sweat.

As long as he kept the kid from diving down that particular road of near-mental-breakdown in the pursuit of knowledge, he’d consider it a win.

In the meantime, he had a student to collect.

And, given the circumstances of his inheritance, truly meet for the first time.

A knock on the back door had the wolves all standing as Stiles’s dad went to usher in whoever was waiting.

Well.

Everyone knew who was back there, why they had come around the back, etc.

A look from Derek had the puppies running a quick gauntlet of saying goodbye to Stiles from Isaac’s awkward side-hug to Erica’s full-body-hug and Boyd’s brief but meant hug.

Derek himself was the last to take his leave as his betas left the room and filed out the door.

What came next wasn’t for them, it was between Stiles, his dad, and his mentor.

With everything they’d learned over the last week and some days, they were far more aware of how important it was - vitally so, even - that Stiles get the support of not just the pack, but his own kind.

Derek felt like he could barely teach his betas what they needed to know - and even then felt like a failure after Erica and Boyd left, however short a time that turned out to be - let alone have any idea where to start training Stiles and helping him accept that he wasn’t just the “token human” like he used to joke.

He was far more than that, would have been far more than that even if he never sprouted wings and fangs.

He was pack.

And he had them to rely on, even if they weren’t what he needed in the end.

Derek was at a loss on how to make that clear to the stubborn teen, who could give an alpha wolf or ten a challenge when it came to being hardheaded once he made up his mind.

He wasn’t the most talkative person or wolf.

Never had been, even before…everything.

He’d been good at pretending, especially in high school when a certain persona was expected from a guy as good at sports as he’d been.

But quiet had always been his factory setting, much like Boyd, which was one of the things that had drawn him to his last beta.

So far anyway.

His mentor had thoughts about the size of Derek’s pack versus the breadth of his territory - the historical Hale territory - but Derek wasn’t up to either listening to or accepting them yet.

Fortunately for Derek, Stiles was never one to let silence fall between them for long if he could help it.

“I have a feeling I’m gonna be packed off somewhere for summer vacation.”  Stiles told him with a rueful look at the backs of the betas as they left the room.  “You gonna be okay to keep the puppies in line without me, Sourwolf?”

“If I’m not,” Derek shot the mouthy teen a half-smile.  “I’m sure you’ll tell me all the ways I sucked at handling them when I see you next.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely, dude.”  Stiles nodded firmly, grinning up at the wolf who’d always said far more with his expressions and body language than he did with his voice.  That little bit was more than enough for something that’d been tense and coiled - waiting for backlash over him coming to help at the warehouse, most likely, or how he’d handled things now that Derek had time to process - relaxed.

Derek wasn’t pissed or silently seething or plotting ways to toss Stiles out of the pack.

Because he was.

Pack.

A couple weeks ago he wouldn’t have believed it.

But watching as Derek had let the betas babble to Stiles all about what they were learning from their mentors and how Derek was being trained up, information that was actually kinda sensitive and shouldn’t be shared to someone they didn’t trust, he did.

Derek wasn’t a person built for loud exclamations and speeches.

He showed what he thought far more than he said it.

That was how he’d known even when Derek said he didn’t trust Stiles, he’d known it was bullshit.

Because when Derek needed help, it wasn’t Scott or later one of his betas he went to - it was Stiles.  He took refuge with Stiles.   It was Stiles he trusted to find information and plan and research.

And it was Stiles that he’d respected enough to consider a threat when his trauma outweighed his ability to trust.

“Take care of yourself, Stiles.”  Derek told him sincerely, reaching down and pressing their cheeks together for a second that might as well have been a lifetime as shocked as it made Stiles’s scent profile.  “We’ll see you soon and Erica won’t forgive you if her Batman isn’t in prime snarking condition.”

“Promise?”  Stiles asked, eyes wide and staring up at Derek’s impossible blue-gold-green version of hazel, voice far softer than the demand he’d wanted to make.

“Promise.”  Derek nodded sharply and then turned away, darting out of the house before his wolf could make a decision that neither of them was ready for.

Leaving a blushing, and very very confused, submissive dragel behind him.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Nine: Dragon Yoda Deluxe

Stiles stared after the retreating back of Derek Hale with his head and his instincts having a fucking riot inside of him.

What the actual fuck…

But before he could lose himself too far down a spiral trying to figure out what the hell went on inside the mind of Derek Hale, Sourwolf Alpha Werewolf Supreme, his dad returned.

With Company.

Oh yeah…that.

That was happening too.

Whoops.

At least Derek’s uncharacteristic openness had succeeded on one point - besides confusing the everlovingfuck out of him - he wasn’t thinking himself into a tizzy over meeting his Dragon Yoda Deluxe while actually coherent anymore.

That sneaky wolven bastard.

Stiles would admire that level of underhanded trickery if Derek hadn’t decided to use it against him.

Unfair for him to do something that attractive and then jet off before he could react.

Unbelievably unfair to pull that move when Stiles had to pretend to be a functioning person and not three different disorders stuffed in a trench coat because people.

Ass.

A hot-as-fuck ass, but still: an ass.

His dad shot him a look that shouted “behave!” as he returned with their company.

Company that came through the backdoor because: teleportation was a thing that was a thing.

And if he remembered right - which was questionable given how fucked and weird his memories following the taser-treatment were - came with a side order of massive glowing magic star-things on the ground.

Kinda not the sort of show anyone would want to put on for an audience.

At least not in a place like Beacon Hills, where magic was supposed to be relegated to the land of fantasy and children’s stories, not popping out wings and wandering around the Sheriff’s home.

“Stiles,” Noah had done quite a bit of studying himself.  He’d had little else to do while his son was in what amounted to a coma.  Healing or not.  And one thing that stuck out to him was the heavy emphasis on manners and courtesy in the new world he and his son had found themselves embroiled in.

Harry and the others - for the most part - weren’t stuffy or rigid, but they’d warned him more than once that some parts of Nevarah were.

And when it came to Stiles, it was always better to start as you meant to go on otherwise you end up creating unintentional loopholes for him to exploit.

He gestured to the small group of people behind him as Stiles stood and turned, following the implied prompt in Noah’s words.

All but one Stiles recognized at least a little, even if with everything that happened he didn’t have a frickin’ clue about their names.

“This is Harry Gorgens-Nott, your assigned mentor from Nevarah.  Harry, this is my son Mieczyslaw Stilinski.”

Stiles nodded slowly, having read a little about what was considered polite when meeting someone for the first time with dragels - though given that it was only an overview, Harry’s book didn’t have anything in it specifically about what to do when meeting your apparent mentor for the first time after he’d met you while you were in the middle of a feral rage.

So.

You know - he did his best with what he had.

“Nice to meet you officially,” Stiles said, pulse racing in anxiety but remaining as outwardly calm as he could.  “You can call me Stiles.”

“Hello, Stiles.”  Harry - who was smaller than Stiles remembered, definitely the smallest person present, though one of the guys who Stiles didn’t remember meeting before but kinda reminded him of his dad wasn’t much taller - smiled widely, vivid green eyes bright.  “It’s good to finally meet you.”

Stiles chuckled sheepishly, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his head.

“Yeah.”  He admitted, easily.  “I wasn’t exactly having the best day the other…” He thought for a moment, only vaguely remembering the date from being on his phone the day before.  “Week.”

Harry smiled, waving it off.

“Don’t worry about it.  I remember what it was like: having all that power hit you all at once.  It’s a lot to handle even when you’re not in a life-and-death situation.  If anything your poise once you were calm was admirable.”

“We’re not the sort of people who’re going to blame you for wanting to protect what's yours, kid.”  One of the big guys Stiles remembered from before spoke up, the one with the mask.  “The opposite, actually.”

“Stiles, this is Hadrian Maruke, my ACE.”  Harry introduced Mask, then proceeded with the others.  Far less than Stiles remembered being around at the warehouse to save Derek, but a different few than the ones who’d been with him in the basement.

Except for Quinn.

Stiles remembered Quinn very well and from the stink-eye the pretty blond with the awful scarring across his neck, the Healer was far from happy with what he saw.

Which: fair.

From what he understood, Quinn poured literal magic and blood into Stiles to bring him to coherence and then again after he passed out in the warehouse.

“You no doubt remember Quinn Kalzik,” Harry smirked, eyes dancing.  “Our healer.”

“Stiles, Noah.”  Quinn’s impossible teal eyes were narrow and discerning and sent a chill of fear not unlike that caused by the wrath of Melissa tingling up both their spines.

Oh crap.

“Ethan Hartwood, who your father has gotten to know quite well.”  The tall, dark man with golden earrings nodded genially at Harry’s left.

Stiles kinda remembered him.  He was the one who tended to fuss.  Quick on the spells to make Stiles, Erica, and Boyd as warm and comfortable as he could manage with limited supplies.   Pareya.

“And last but not least, my alpha, Theodore Gorgens-Nott.”  Harry leaned into the lean man at his side with eyes in a color Stiles knew all too well from his own reflection.  And who in a strange way felt like his dad.

It was the trippiest fuckin’ thing.

The one man that was an actual stranger was the one that felt the most familiar.

Stiles thought it was because if his dad had been a dragel too, he would’ve been an alpha.  It was the way they carried themselves whether a non-magical sheriff or a dragel.  There was an assured authority that draped over them like a cape or in the case of Theodore an aura maybe.

Always ready to stand between what was theirs and what was other.

No matter what it took.

His dad had proven that - even though Stiles never thought he’d needed it to be proven, how much more settled he’d been with his dad present over the last day kinda proved that wrong - when he covered for Stiles both with the school and with turning down the demands of the mayor.

Stiles needed him, so he was there.

It was just that simple - and with everything he had to arrange and organize to manage it - that complicated all at the same time.

The pareya Ethan also reminded him of his dad.  It was there in the caretaker part of him.  The soothing voice that he’d honed after years and years of helping victims as a police officer.  In the protector that his dad had always been.

But he was more alpha than pareya, Stiles thought, especially with the way he knew how to work the political system.

Noah Stilinski hadn’t been an uncontested election to Beacon County Sheriff for years just because he was good at his job - though he was.

It took a lot more political savvy than most people realized to successfully manage more than one term in a position like that.

Savvy that when his dad put his mind to it - and wasn’t being actively sabotaged by his son doing stupid shit whilst trying to protect the town from the supernatural - he had in spades.

“Congratulations on your inheritance, Stiles.”  Theo greeted him with a small, polite smile.  “From what my bonded have told me, it certainly was quite the event.”  That little smile turned vicious.  “We’ll have to compare notes some time.”

Uh huh, Stiles nodded, eyes wide.

So he was suitably terrifying, just like all the others - including Harry who, if Stiles was understanding the undercurrents correctly and how he introduced the others, was a submissive.

Like Stiles.

He didn’t know if it was because they were both submissives or because they were supposed to be mentor and student, or a combination of the two or due to something else altogether: but the moment he met Harry he’d felt safe in a way that none of the others quite did the same.

None of them felt dangerous - at least to him and his - but none of them were on the same level of safety as Harry.

Stiles flinched, eye contact with Theo breaking as he felt the wash of a spell crest over him, turning to stare in demand at Quinn.

“I left you alone for barely more than a day.”  Quinn’s raspy voice was a mixture of accusation and demand that made Stiles feel about two inches tall.  “What have you done to yourself?  You should be brimming with energy, not looking like you haven’t slept in days.”

Stiles glanced up and away, hand coming back up to rub the back of his head as he gave a tense chuckle as he thought how to answer.

Only for his dad to throw him under the bus like the awful, terrible, responsible adult he was.

“He stayed up all night to read the book Harry left for him.”  Noah reported drily, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the counter in front of the kitchen sink.

“Stiles.”  The scold was strong in Quinn, Stiles could tell already.  And practiced.  It took time and experience to pack an entire lecture into a single word.

And yet: Quinn managed it.

Damn it.

“Have you told him yet, Noah?”  Harry turned the conversation back to the point of their return to the Stilinski household rather than let Quinn chew Stiles into little bitty bits of repentant teenager.

There would be plenty of time for that later.

“Nope.”  Noah lifted his brows, exchanging looks with Harry and his guys as he crossed one foot over the other, ignoring the betrayed glance his son shot him over his shoulder.

Stiles absolutely had some frustration coming after everything the stubborn brat did over the last couple months.

“Stiles,” Harry turned the teen with one hand on his shoulder, leading him back to the table and getting them both seated with skill gained from being the mera of several children.  “As I’m sure you noticed in the book I gave you, the fact of the matter simply is that dragels aren’t safe on earth.  It took some convincing on the part of your father,” Harry cast a long look in the Sheriff’s direction before returning his gaze to the open face of his student.  “But we’ve agreed in light of recent events that you’ll both come and spend the summer vacation with my circle in Nevarah.”

Stiles reared back a little, blinking in shock then craned his head to look straight on at his dad - who merely nodded once in assurance.

“Not military school, huh, Pops?”  Stiles murmured but felt…resigned more than anything.

It wasn’t like there was a whole hell of a lot binding him to Beacon Hills - not anymore.

Not with Scott…

Anyway.

Other than Derek and the Pack, who he supposed were going to be spending a lot of time with the wolves from up north that were their new mentors or whatever.

So even they probably wouldn’t be around that much.

In the end his dad was right: he hated it.

Being packed off - his dad coming or not - to an entire different realm for his own protection.

“It’s also not to your Babka in Chicago.”  Noah reminded him pointedly.  “And believe me: for a while there that was what I was starting to strongly consider.  Especially after what happened with Jackson.”

Stiles winced but in the end he sighed and nodded.

Point, set, match.

Well played old man.

Well played.

It went quickly from there.

Honestly if Stiles hadn’t spent months trying to keep up with werewolves and how fast his life could change from average - single parent, ADHD, top of his class but with behavioral issues that kept him from being considered a “good” student - to anything-but (see: werewolves and hunters) his head would probably still be spinning by the time Harry and the others called for everyone to “Circle Up!”

Apparently having Stiles awake and coherent instead of riding the edge of a feral drive meant that the gloves came off for Harry and he took no prisoners when it came to getting shit done.

From the moment that Ethan used a spell to pack up the majority of Stiles’s room, he started to get the feeling that being the student to Harry’s mentor would be something like being bungee corded to a hurricane.

Whirlwinds, lightning, and chaos included.

And then, Ethan moved his packing spells into the Sheriff’s room, and Stiles had his spun around all over again above and beyond the flagrant use of magic that for all the homeliness of it - packing bags and cleaning up behind them - seemed all the more significant than the ones he’d seen before.

It was a matter of perspective, probably.

In a battle or what could become one, using magic if that was an option seemed…expected almost.

Like - he wasn’t surprised to realize that Harry really could yank the guns and knives away from every hunter that followed Gerard Argent into the ambush against the pack.

It wasn’t shocking to see that Hadrian - and a couple of the others too, maybe.  He thought they might have similar… feels to them.  Not the same way that Theo and Ethan to an extent reminded him of his dad.  No that was more about aura and how they carried themselves than anything.  What struck Stiles about Hadrian and a couple of the others who’d been with Harry in the warehouse was deeper than that.  Like his instincts wanted to slot them into the same group for a reason that he could actually articulate other than they felt similar. - anyway, it wasn’t shocking that Hadrian really could manipulate the shadows or use them to track down Gerard.

When it was life or death, Stiles guessed that magic in comparison just wasn’t that big of a deal when you had Granddaddy Psycho on one hand, a murder lizard on another, and smack in the middle a bunch of puppies way in over their heads.

Including Derek.

But…when it was magic and it was being used to pack his and his dad’s bags for a stay in some mystical realm that was supposed to be a place of sanctuary for the magical creature that Stiels apparently was…

It was real.

Suddenly, out of nowhere or everywhere all at once, it was real.

It was his life.

And Stiles had no idea what to do with any of it.

Other than to just…let it ride.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”  Noah asked, leaning down to speak to Harry and hopefully avoid being overheard.

It was always the most inconvenient times when Stiles proved to have the hearing of a damn bat.

Or the wolves that he’d been hanging around with for months.

Following the direction of Noah’s gaze to where Stiles was watching Ethan cast his spells with the delicate, subtle touch that his lovely pareya was known for even beyond what was normal for one of his rank, Harry nodded firmly.

Yes, the kid looked both spellbound and a bit shell shocked.

But he felt calm, if eager and overwhelmed.

If Stiles was panicking or having an internal difficulty that he refused to show on the surface, then Harry might be willing to take a step back and reevaluate.

From what he could tell, if cheating using his empathy, Stiles was almost as sold on getting some space from Beacon Hills and his old life as the Sheriff was to usher him to a place of safety.

If for very different reasons.

“Absolutely.”  Harry nodded, glancing up and meeting the icy-blue eyes of the concerned father.  “Time away can be healing.  And with everything he’s been through, Stiles could use some healing in more than one way.  Even if in a month you both decide that Nevarah isn’t for you and you want to come back, just taking that time is important for Stiles to have the chance to learn about himself in a place he can actually be himself without having to worry about hunters or Torvaks falling on his neck for stepping outside the wards.”

“We’ll take care of your boy, Sheriff,” Theo stepped in, nodding firmly.  “You have my word and that of our entire circle.  You’re both welcome among us and we’ll do everything in our power - which is considerable - to ensure that Stiles is safe, and happy, and able to grow into himself without the pressures of this place trying to smother him.”

“Guess that’s all a father than ask for.”  Noah blew out a breath, tearing his worried eyes away from his son and then nodded.  “Alright, let’s do this.”

“Alright,” Harry agreed, smiling, then made the call as his and Theo’s magic danced and tangled around each other in a dazzling medallion of golden and green light beneath their feet.

“Circle Up!”

Harry waited a moment for everyone to arrange themselves, Hadrian ensuring that one of the Stilinskis was on each side of him, with Theo flanking Stiles and Ethan, Noah.

“Stay close to my lot, Stilinskis.”  He warned, even as the magic of the transportation portal started to shimmer in his veins.  “They’ll hold onto you to make sure you arrive safe, but it’s best not to tempt Fate if we can help it.”

Theo waited for his treasured submissive to finish, then cast the spell with Harry’s help in powering it and smoothing it out so neither of them was tired by the inter-realm portal - especially with all the back-and-forthing that Harry in particular had done lately.

“Temptrificus Ergen!”

Teleporting felt like a blur - looked like one too, from what Stiles could see.

All light and magic, sweeping them from one place to another under the direction of Harry and his Theo.

Then the discomfort of feeling pressed in too tight on all sides faded, and with a small jolt the blur ended and Hadrian nodded his head towards the side.

“There,” he told them.  “Nevarah.”

Stiles sucked in a shocked breath.

Reading about Nevarah was one thing.  Seeing in cut-and-dry terms the facts.  It was a Nevermore realm, existing out of place and time.  It offered Sanctuary to all dragels and many other magical peoples and beings though in the case of non-dragels it was on a case-by-case basis rather than a matter of certainty.

That it had several different sectors, each named for the element that called it home: Merrow Waters, the Shadow Haunts, the Earth Sector, the Averie that was home to most of the air-types, etc.

Reading about it was nothing like actually seeing it for themselves.

It stole the breath from both Stiles and his dad: all shimmering waters, rivers and streams that created waterfall spouts into the dazzling blackness that surrounded the floating land.  The smaller floating airborne city that dazzled in the light.  Lights sparkling in the distance from both the main city itself and the myriad estates and smaller country areas.

Nevarah grew according to what Stiles had read.

It wasn’t stagnant - either in population or land mass.

Nevarah was a realm fashioned and designed entirely by magic to provide safe haven - and as such was able to adjust as needed to do exactly that.

“Mesmerizing, isn’t it?”  Harry murmured, leaning around Theo to speak softly to his new student.  “I’ve traveled more than one realm and Nevarah is the most magical place I’ve ever seen.”

“I don’t even know what to say.”  Stiles felt at a genuine loss for words - a rarity, even he knew - as his eyes danced from one point of the vista before them to the next, completely unable to settle on what amazing thing to take in longest.  “It’s like Rivendell and Minas Tirith and Lothlorien and Avalon all had a ridiculously powerful magic baby.”

Harry huffed a laugh but he couldn’t deny the description, especially as Nevarah was a place that was almost meant to defy description.

Whether as a safety measure or simply as one of the myriad unique qualities that made Nevarah itself, it was true nonetheless.

It grew and changed.

Home to a towering mountain range and deep caverns, edged by the Merrow Waters and the Averie, Nevarah simply was as it was, anchored through sheer power and the magic of dragels, and their royals and those anchored to it in turn, all outside of space and time.

“Brace,” Theo warned them just before they set down in an arrival courtyard just outside the gates of the city, Stiles and Noah kept on their feet by Ethan and Hadrian while Theo focused on keeping the landing soft.

Or as soft as possible for an inter-realm portal, anyway.

“Welcome to Nevarah, Stilinskis.”  Harry beamed a smile at them, both Stiles and his father helpless to do anything but smile back through the sheer forceful joy of it.  “Let’s get you registered and then settled in at our home before we start in on anything else.”

Dazed, eyes wide and staring all around him, Stiles nodded absently, though he blushed bright red when his dad tugged him over to what looked like a security desk and he got legitimately cooed at by the pair of dragels manning the checkpoint.

Letting out an embarrassed trill, Stiles ducked his head turning into his dad’s hold, suddenly feeling very out of sorts under the attention of the pair of beautiful creatures staring at him with eager eyes.

Gheyos, he felt himself purr inside.  Fighters, like Hadrian and Brishen and Devrim and Wikhn.  Well, to an extent in that they were all gheyo.

To Stiles’s instincts they were also very much not alike at the same time, which Stiles thought both had to do with their ranks - maybe - or how powerful they were or even what types of dragels they were.

Whatever it was, while they were interesting to him - and how could they not be?  She had brilliant red hair and flashing golden eyes, dressed in armor in a shimmering silver that was more bustier than breastplate, her wings plated in the same silver color that gleamed against her pumpkin and russet wings.  He was a play in contrasts as he stood at attention, clearly on duty rather than managing the desk like his female counterpart, all deep purple eyes against dark skin and hair.  She didn’t have an obvious weapon on display - aside from that fact that as a gheyo she was a weapon - while he had a whip coiled at one hip and the jut of a spear showing over his shoulder.  - they weren’t as attention grabbing as Harry’s gheyos.

Stiles couldn’t pinpoint it beyond Harry’s simply feeling more to him than these two strangers.

What that actually meant beyond Stiles’s instincts taking them in and then dismissing them like a pair of pretty statues but nothing more, he couldn’t say.

Which was a fact he was determined to change if nothing else by the time his summer vacation was finished.

He wanted to know the whys to go with the feelings and instincts that overtook him sometimes and at others were just a tingle in the back of his mind.

“Names, length of stay, and purpose?”  The female asked by rote after she tore her attention away from Stiles when Theo approached the desk, the other Nevareans having passed through the checkpoint with a quick scan by her counterpart to confirm their citizenship status.

“Mieczyslaw Stilinski,” Theo motioned Stiles forward, having him press his hand to an opaque screen on the desk to record his magical signature for his temporary guest visa.  “Newly inherited submissive student for Harry Gorgens-Nott.  His father, Sheriff Noah Stilinski, suspected dragel heritage, to stay with his son for the duration of their region’s summer holidays.”

Brows rose on both gheyos’ faces at the name Harry Gorgens-Nott, as none of them had had to be named to pass through the security checkpoint with their magical signatures on file with their database.

“Both sponsored by the Gorgens-Nott Circle?”  The female gheyo double-checked for the records as Stiles shuffled to the side at Theo’s prompt and Noah stepped forward to repeat the process, his imprint flashing a different color than his son’s.

A fact that both Theo and his present bonded were all quick to note.

As while Stiles’s had - as expected - shone with the colors of his ferros markings in dragel form, Noah’s was a pure and true blue.

Much like the color of his eyes, and a sharp indicator of where Noah’s suspected dragel heritage might lay.

Like much to do with magic, it wasn’t a guarantee, but it was a place to start.

Forms were stamped and signed and sent off to the administration and security offices within the city, but in a matter of moments they were cleared by the security gheyos and free to enter Nevarah proper.

To much astonishment from their guests, both Stiles and Noah’s eyes growing wide and avid on the busy city streets once they cleared the gateway.

Nevarah bustled with dragels and fae and creatures of just about every type, both showing their “extra” attributes and not.

It was a manic, magical place, a mixture of magi-tech and old-school magic, and dazzled the father-son pair who’d never seen anything close to it except for in the wild imaginings of Hollywood - and even there, often falling short in comparison to real, actual magic and magical people living in a city meant for them alone.

“C’mon you two.”  Harry chuckled softly, all-too-familiar with that sense of being excited and distinctly overwhelmed and giddy and terrified all at once.

Diagon Alley, Hogwarts, Nevarah itself - oh yes, Harry knew that feeling.

“Let’s get home so you can settle in before the hordes descend.”

“The hordes?”  Stiles asked, attention snagged - if only partially - from the display of magic-woven silk in every color of the rainbow that was billowing in the soft breeze flowing through the city.

Harry smirked, eyes laughing.

“My circle is eighteen strong including myself, Stiles, and we have children.”  He explained deadpan.  “Calling them a horde is actually underplaying it a bit when the extended relatives are taken into account.”

Oh.

Eighteen in a circle…

Wait.

Eighteen?!

All bound to Harry, their submissive.

Who was a submissive, like Stiles.

What the actual fuck had his genetics gotten him into?!

From the choking sound coming from his dad, Stiles thought he wasn’t the only one having a late-stage slap from reality over the agreement the Sheriff had come to with Harry.

Hah!

Eighteen in a circle, old man, eighteen.

Stiles had been thinking himself into circles - heh, circles - over eventually, someday, maybe having like six or seven people in a circle with him from what he’d been reading.

Now, apparently, the guy that magic or fate or whatever had decided was the best possible mentor for him had seventeen bonded if he was including himself in that eighteen referenced.

Stiles’s wide were wide, his breath coming on fast even as they circled back up to portal to another part of the city in the first designated spot they found - according to Ethan, anyway.

If Harry, his best possible mentor, was one of a circle of eighteen…

What, exactly, did that imply about Stiles?

And more…what was he going to do about it, if anything.

Other than torture his dad with the endless possibilities that Harry’s offhand announcement had provided.

Oh, he was going to have fun with this.

It was a far better revenge for parental plotting than kale smoothies.

To be fair: it probably wasn’t the most mature outlook he could have about…implications.  What having Harry for a mentor might actually mean about Stiles.  But it was one that calmed him down before he fell into actual panic attack territory, so he’d take it.

It might not be healthy but it was what he had.

And since it’d been made very clear back before he knew anything about Harry at all other than he’d shown up when Stiles was feral, that Stiles falling feral again was a Very Bad Idea, he’d take whatever helped him keep control.

He had to.

What he’d done to those men…

Hunters and kinda deserving or not…

He couldn’t run the risk of that happening again.

Not around people he actually cared about.

Not ever if he could help it.

It was a fear that he knew would haunt him for a long time to come - what would happen if he lost control, especially anywhere near his dad.

Maybe his mom had been right with what she said before she died.

Maybe all he was was a monster.

But if he was, then he’d do everything he could to keep that part of him from hurting his dad.

Whether that meant bonding with eight people or eighteen.

He’d do it, if that was what it took to keep the monster inside of him from tearing its way out from inside of him and hurting - or even killing - what Stiles loved.

“We know we need to get that kid into therapy.”  Quinn whispered to his Harry.  “The Dad too.  Whatever crap form of grief therapy they had, it really wasn’t enough and that was before the trauma of the last few months.”

“Yeah, I caught it too.”  Harry sighed, rubbing one hand over his forehead as he and Quinn followed on the heels of Ethan showing off the guest quarters they’d prepared for Stiles and his father.  “It was supposed to create a little shock, maybe some embarrassment if they thought about, ah, logistics.”   Harry shared a smirk with his Healer bonded.  “Not whatever nightmare fuel of fear and terror and resolve that Stiles went spinning into.”

Quinn wrapped one arm around Harry’s lean shoulders, tugging his submissive bonded in for a quick cuddle as Stiles all but did a dance - snapping back from whatever dark place he went in his thoughts with a resilience that was as worrisome as it was potentially helpful - at the sight of the estate’s library on the way to the guest wing.

“I’ll see who’s taking on new patients.”  He promised, thinking of who he’d trust with Stiles.  Not his brother Alejandro, that was for sure, though Ale’s form of tough love and no-nonsense might actually suit Noah, who from what they’d seen drifted somewhere between an alpha’s mindset and the protective nature of a pareya, though the latter tended to trump when it came to Stiles.  Remnants of unactivated dragel instincts, probably though with humans who carried the heritage it was always hard to say.  “If I have to I’ll lean on my family’s status among the courts for someone who’ll be good for Stiles rather than someone interested in having the connection to our circle.”

It was an ugly truth but a truth nonetheless that while healers and healer clans tried as much as possible to separate themselves from politics, some politics were impossible to avoid.

And with having the sitting Earth King as part of their circle, they had to be more wary than most when it came to allowing someone close to one of their own.

Which both Stiles and his father were now.

Theirs.

Though whether either man would thank them for it…well.

That remained to be seen.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Ten: Exams and Explanations

The Gorgens-Nott estate was huge.

But then, Stiles supposed that it would have to be in order to house eighteen people plus children and still have common areas and what was apparently a guest wing.

Plus a library that was as big or bigger than the school library at the high school, there was that too.

(Honestly, if Ethan hadn’t been hurrying them along and his dad hadn’t had an arm around his shoulder, they definitely would’ve lost Stiles in the library.)

For a home so large, it was easy enough to navigate - or maybe it only seemed that way because Ethan showed Stiles what might be his favorite piece of magic yet.

They called it a knowledge transfer.

And it was some real matrix shit: the ability to literally transfer information from one person to another via memories.

It was one hell of a head rush though, and pretty much everybody warned both Stiles and Noah that it couldn’t really replace actual experience.

The example used was Hadrian’s near-encyclopedic knowledge of fighting forms and weapons use and battle tactics.

Should the ACE decide to share it with Stiles, without him doing the actual work to go with them, Stiles would no more be able to win a duel with a gheyo than any other untrained novice as he wouldn’t have the muscle memory and practical skills to go with the knowledge.

In this case, what Ethan gave them was simple: info on the layout of the Gorgens-Nott estate and how to navigate it.

Nothing too strenuous, but both applicable and not too taxing for either Stiles or Noah’s heads to wrap themselves around - especially as Stiles got the idea that there were likely more knowledge transfers in his future to bring him up to speed in comparison to other dragel submissives his age.

It was a major information deficit, Stiles had begun to realize after working his way through On Dragels.

Most dragels grew up enmeshed in their culture, understanding mores and societal norms because they were what they grew up with and saw demonstrated by everyone around them.

Stiles didn’t have that.

What he had was a childhood and early teen years spent on Earth - or the earth-realm, or Terra depending on who was talking.  Thinking he was human.  Learning and absorbing how humans acted and interacted - and not just that but in the United States specifically with only knowledge about other places and cultures when he intentionally sought it out for the most part.

Like when he ended up falling head over ass into the world of werewolves.

The guest rooms were guest rooms: nothing objectionable, nothing terribly special beyond the fact that they were a lot larger than what either Noah or Stiles thought of when they thought “guest room” even if the word estate was added to the front of them.

Big beds, large windows, wood furniture and attached bathrooms.

They were nice, nicer than anywhere Stiles had ever stayed in his life, but they were just rooms, places to stay and study and sleep when he wasn’t burying himself in the library to doing studenty-mentor things with Harry.

Or exploring the literal magical city that was nearby.

Or the beach that was part of the estate to the point that a portion of the house actually overshot it and was (because magic) submerged in the crystal clear waters.

Because two of Harry’s “lot” were water-types.

Apparently.

And came with special housing needs as a result since they bonded into a landwalker circle.

Or so said Ethan when he was giving the tour.

Every element had its own area.

There were gheyo quarters that took up part of an actual-facts tower.  Open-air rooms and courtyards that contained balconies for the air-types.  Basking rocks outside for the fire-types.  Lots of plants and a solid connection to the ground for earth-types.  And so on.

Which was nice for Stiles since they still either didn’t know or hadn’t filled him in one just where he actually fell in that spectrum.

Or if he was like Harry and didn’t quite fit on it at all.

“What are those designs on the wall?”  Stiles asked, peering closer at the designs in question that looked like they'd been burned into the wall surrounding the door, and the window sills once he took a closer look around.

In fact the more he looked, the more of the designs he saw all around him from the bookshelf that was about half-full to a drawer on the desk.

“Runes and sigils.”  Ethan explained, tapping one of the sequences on the left side of the doorframe.  “They work to keep rooms private, a comfortable temperature, to alert if there’s an emergency or if the occupant is needed for a meeting or meal, and so on.”

“Once we know more about yourselves and your needs, we’ll be able to adjust these,” Theo waved his hand towards the sigils decorating the room.  “To best suit your preferences.  Including the one on each of your desks that will direct any messages you receive to collect in that drawer.”  He strode over and tapped the drawer that Stiles had noted.  “Instead of being tossed in with the general post for the rest of the house, though,” he warned.  “It will still pass through our security measures before being sorted into your rooms, once we reach that point of familiarity.”

So, not right away, Stiles translated in his head.  But once they trusted him and his dad to manage somewhat on their own, then they’d change things like that over.

Before Stiles could fall down that particular rabbit hole because - multipurpose mystical Writing?! - Quinn gave Theo what can only be called a Look.

The Alpha didn’t overtly react beyond a slight nod after having those impossible teal eyes locked on him, but suddenly everything that’d been packed for the two Stilinskis was unpacked with a couple of spells and tidied away, then they were being ushered from their rooms (politely but with definite purpose) and into a different part of the estate.

A different part of the estate entirely, as in: one of the attached buildings that wasn’t quite the house but also wasn’t quite separate thanks to a covered walkway on the ground floor that connected the two.

Once he realized where they were headed as he focused on the mental map Ethan had supplied, Stiles let out a soft noise of protest.

Only to find himself pinned down by one of Quinn’s Looks before he could lapse into the realm of an actual protest.

“Even with wards,” Harry explained gently as they found themselves summarily abandoned by most everyone else but Harry, the healer, and Ethan, Theo giving all of his bonded a kiss before departing at the archway between the attached medical suite and the house while the gheyos had slipped away after they arrived home, “there’s some magic that isn’t safe to use on the earth-realm.  Quinn’s specialty is one of those, along with some of the other more in depth or intense diagnostics and healing spells.  If you’d truly needed them in the moment, he would’ve done them anyway or insisted that we bring you here so you could be treated.”

“Without question.”  The healer himself agreed, even as he got Stiles posted up on one of his comfortable looking chaise-lounge type medical beds and a (complaining all the way, as he’d apparently not realized that the healer had him in his sights as well) surprised Noah on one of the others.

“Are you finally going to tell me what actually happened to me?”  Stiles asked, only half a step from snarky.  And that was only because he genuinely had the fear of Quinn well-ingrained after only two meetings.  “Beyond: inherited late as a dragel, went feral, slept a lot.”

“I would also be interested in having that explained.”  Noah pointed out.  “Beyond the bare minimum.”

“As you both know from the reading you’ve done.”  Quinn began, Harry and Ethan settling down on another empty chaise after both Stilinskis indicated they were comfortable having an audience - and others to reference and/or question depending on how technical the healer got.  “Every dragel has three parents: a sire and bearer physically, and a third who’s contribution is solely magical, yes?”  He double-checked before continuing.

“Still weird from the perspective of the Terran-born, but yep.”  Stiles confirmed with a cheeky thumbs-up, Noah just nodding.

“For a dragel to be a dragel and not a halfling or another magical creature,” Quinn stressed.  “All three parents have to either be dragels themselves or carry dragel genetics or latent potential.”

“That’s why you were so dogged about mine and Claudia’s families.”  Noah said in realization.  He’d had a feeling that it was something like that, but having the confirmation was always nice.

“Stiles’s third parent is still unknown, but based on what we know about his abilities and that of yourself, Noah,” Harry added.  “It’s likely that if we can narrow down either of your dragel families we can go to the library and search for a family tree that may contain the information we need.”

“Question,” Stiles raised a hand as if he was in class.  “Why do we need to track down my third?”  He asked, somewhat bitter.  “If they contributed to making me, shouldn’t they already know about me?”

And, if so, where the fuck have they been?

“Not always,” Harry sighed, shaking his head as yet another similarity between himself and his new student slapped him upside the head.  “Consent is required for dragel children from all parties, but there have been cases where a dragel will have agreed to have children with their bonded and then inadvertently become the third of a child from a different circle entirely if they’ve likewise agreed to have children.  The consent and desire for children is key.  Fate can intervene, or another divinity.  I know of one dragel who unknowingly became the third to a child because someone joked about having a child with them, they laughed off an agreement, and the other party’s wife later became pregnant and that lingering magical signature was the one the unborn child latched onto for their third.  Like anything with magic, there’s always loopholes.”

“Oh, that’s…awesome.”  Stiles said, suddenly feeling a bit weak and faint.

Quinn snorted, rolling his eyes.

“Those loopholes only come into play in maybe one out of every hundred-thousand dragel inheritances,” Quinn informed them drily.  “You, just like your mentor and my beloved husband, however seem to tend to collect loopholes like a dragon hoarding baubles.”

Stiles and Harry shared a glance, then shrugged almost in unison.

There were worse things they could have in common than a tendency for interesting luck.

“What else have you found out?”  Noah asked, trying to steer them back on track before Stiles could ask another what-if and derail them entirely from the idea of health checks.

At least for himself.

If it were only Noah in the hot seat, his kid would move heaven and earth to ensure that everything was done in a thorough and timely fashion.

The little brat.

“Stiles is full dragel, not a halfling.”  Quinn reported.  “His inheritance was sealed, not bound, though there were bindings in place the one who placed those was unaware of his dragel nature and how that might interact with the spellwork they attempted.  Unfortunately all the spellwork from the bindings to the seals made rather a mess of your inheritance and your instincts and drives prior to when you broke through them.”

“The good news,” Harry chimed in again, seeing metaphorical thunderheads gathering over both of their new guests.  “Is that since you did break through the seals and gained your inheritance, the strength of your dragel going straight into a feral drive tore away the bindings - so there’s nothing else there for Quinn to remove though he did have to do some repairs to your magical pathways, as they were affected the worst by everything.”

“Someone was very invested in ensuring you never lived up to your magical potential or even realized it existed.”  Quinn’s tone was nothing short of dark.  “Both of you, for that matter.”

“Who?”  Noah demanded, even as he resolutely ignored the implication that he was magical or had magical potential or whatever just like his son.  If someone was a threat to his son, especially after everything that's happened, he was going to know all about it or know the reason why.

“Deaton,” Stiles murmured, his expression a strange mixture of realization and betrayal.  “Or Morrell, or both, maybe.”  When the other dragels made a series of questioning chirps, he laid out his thought process.  “Dad told me who all has been arrested or taken into custody or whatever you call it in Nevarah.”

“Arrested,” Ethan supplied helpfully.

“Arrested,” Stiles nodded at the pareya in thanks.  “I can kinda understand why someone would want to take a hard look at Deaton - dude’s shady as hell and twice as secretive, and you can’t tell me he had no idea that there was something up before Crazy Kate burned down the Hales.  Morrell was more of a question mark, but she actually never hit my radar as suspicious, so I’m not sure about her.  But back to Deaton - he worked too hard to keep Scott suspicious of any help that wasn’t him for me to dismiss that it might go deeper than just wanting the trust of a naive, trusting teenage werewolf.”

Ethan glanced down at his beloved submissive where Harry had curled up into his side, resting his head on his shoulder.

“Good luck,” he whispered, laughter dancing in his voice.  “You’re going to need it.”

Harry scowled playfully and nudged Ethan’s ribs with one pointy elbow.

He already knew he was in for it with Stiles as his student, thanks.

No need to rub it in.

Between the immediate feral drive when he inherited and the misstep with causing an all-night-research-binge (on accident, Quinn, accident!) he was already well aware.

“Both, actually.”  Quinn said, hiding his surprise at Stiles’s accuracy behind a slow blink.  “The trial dates are coming soon, but both their magical signatures were found on the spellwork influencing you, your magic, and/or your potential inheritance.  Though until I do a complete historical diagnostic, I won’t be able to say who was responsible for what spell and/or binding and what the intentions were as well as how they affected you.  Perhaps with some help from Riven, but likely not given that neither of them is powerful enough to hide their work - however sly, shoddy, or what-have-you - from a dragel healer.”

Stiles merely clenched his jaw, taking long and slow breaths through his nose as his father turned his gaze up to the ceiling and visibly counted under his breath, each managing their tempers rather admirably from what the others had seen of them over the last days.

“And?”  Stiles asked, though it edged into impolite demand territory.  And was instantly forgiven for the tone, as the situation was strained to say the least and none of them would hold such things against him.  “Is any of that still on me or my magic or anything?”

A moment after asking, Quinn held up the focus he wore as a necklace with an inquiring arch of his brow.

One hurried nod from Stiles and the healer was casting a barrage of spells at him - each seeming either more complicated or powerful or both than the one before it.

It went on for several minutes, pieces of paper or parchment (Stiles couldn’t quite tell at a distance) popping into being and hovering in midair at Quinn’s side until Ethan stood and began collating them for the intently focused healer.

When he was finished and Ethan held out the results, Quinn sighed after a quick skim, his shoulders relaxing and the others relaxing with him.

Stiles watched the dynamic with keen eyes.

Was that what it meant to be bonded?

What affected one affected all, whether good or bad?

Maybe, he decided, at least in part.

He’d have to observe a much larger sample size - at least some preferably when they didn’t overtly know that they were being studied - to know for sure.

“One thing I can tell for certain regardless of any further testing.”  Quinn eventually said, flicking his hand and the papers flying off to file themselves in a drawer that opened and shut on command.  “You are much more powerful now that you’ve come into your inheritance than anyone who tried to keep it from you.  Not even shadows or scraps of the spells remain, completely flushed from your system between my healing work and your own native capabilities, with the exception of a lone family seal that likely isn't harmful since it didn't break.”

Stiles flushed a dark red at the implied praise, discomfited and unable to believe it, no matter how certain Quinn seemed.

He’d sure as hell never felt powerful in his life, with only one or two exceptions being the aberrations that made the rule otherwise.

(Making that circle of mountain ash around the club, holding Derek up in eight feet of water, and of course, going completely apeshit feral on a pair of dumbfuck hunters.  Three, off the top of his head.  Three times he’d felt powerful.  He couldn’t - would never - include helping kill Peter Hale.  That hadn’t been about power.  That had been fury and a need to do what needed doing, nothing more, nothing less.)

“From the remnants that we could note before they dissipated,” Quinn continued.  “We know a few other things: that the binding that was meant to completely seal your dragel was incomplete, which left it as a series of seals instead of a complete binding.  It was to be a five-fold binding: blood, body, magic, mind, and soul.”  Quinn grimaced.  

It was an ugly thing that had been attempted, but elegant in its way as the most awful things often were.  There were few people in a child’s life who would be trusted to the extent that such a binding requires.  Altogether: the thoroughness of the seals, the knowledge of dragels, the sheer power required…it painted a picture for Quinn that he knew wasn’t going to go over well at all with either Stiles or the Sheriff due to the implications.

The side-effects on Stiles alone were horrifying to contemplate, let alone what would’ve happened to him if the binding had actually been completed.

As well as the knowledge of who was most likely to have done it in the first place.

Seeing that his husband was stalled out when it came to tearing open a wound that anyone who spent any real amount of time around the Sheriff knew not only existed but categorically refused to heal, Harry stepped in.

Stiles was his student after all, though the ritual to complete their status was on hold until later that night when another mentor-student pair was available to witness for them.

He knew from his Theo’s relationship with his mentor Ilsa that it could be a difficult path to walk and one that took great care.

Mentors were neither parents nor fully teachers nor guardians but a mixture that had to judge the correct balance of interference in their student’s lives on a near constant basis.

One thing they could not do was make decisions that could harm them in an attempt to shield them - no matter how terrible the situation.

The autonomy of their student had to be respected, their charge allowed to make their own choices even if the mentor in question heavily disagreed, it was still theirs to make in the end.

“Not all of the steps to the binding were completed at the same time.”  Harry explained, leaning forward and catching Stiles’s gaze with his own, ignoring the near-burning stare that ignited once the Sheriff understood what Harry was implying.

The delicacy of this particular topic was one reason why they’d waited to give either man a full explanation until they were safely in Nevarah.

“And all of them were far older than the other spellwork on Stiles.”  Harry continued.  “Given the timing, and what Ethan has found in the royal archives regarding five-fold bindings, whoever placed the first four either died or lost access to Stiles before his tenth birthday.”  Seeing Stiles’s mouth open with what would undoubtedly be a question, Harry explained a bit more:   “That’s when the final seal likely was due to be placed.  Ten is the age where dragel children are considered old and mature enough to make informed decisions about themselves and their futures.  The last seal from Ethan’s research is the only step in the process that does require consent from what exists in the archives regarding precedent.”

Noah was white-faced with a mixture of pain and fury while Stiles was shocked, both easily following the trail that between them Quinn and Harry had laid out for them.

“You,” Noah sucked in a harsh breath between his teeth, jaw clenched and the muscle at the hinge throbbing with controlled anger.  “You think my wife did this to our son?”

“We know that both you and your wife carry dragel genetics.”  Harry pointed out, gently.  “That Stiles still carries a family seal on his abilities, the last and only seal remaining after his inheritance.  After some research to find a match for that seal, and see about getting it taken off…”  Harry trailed off with a sigh, shaking his head.

“Unless you’ve been hiding that you’re a pureblooded dragel and somehow fooled my diagnostics,” Quinn took over, bluntly.  “Then that means your wife was a member of the Gajos Clan, a defunct line of earth dragels, the last of whom was a born female gheyo, who turned Joker during the attack that killed the rest of her clan.”

“You think that was Claudia?”  Noah asked after a lasting silence as he and Stiles struggled to fit their wife and mother within the framework of Quinn’s information.  “Her maiden name was Gajos, but I’d think I’d notice if she was a dragel, we were married for a dozen years and had known each other for several before that when she died.”

“There’s a simple way to find out.”  Ethan suggested.  “Another dragel survived, according to the records a friend of the Gajos joker.  If the Gajos survivor was your late wife, he’d be able to identify her, and if not he’d be able to say if she might be a descendant as regardless, Stiles does carry a Gajos seal.”

“What does that mean for me?”  Stiles asked while he let his dad try and come to terms with the latest bomb dropped on their lives.  This time in the suggestion that neither of them actually knew the most important woman in their lives.  Stiles didn’t anticipate it would go well.  But then, while Stiles loved his mother and always would, his memories of her would always be tarnished - at least in part - by her last months as the disease that killed her ate away at her brain.  “That the Gajos seal isn’t broken?  Is it doing anything bad to me, do we need to take it off, what?”

“It means you have a seal,” Quinn stated blandly.  “Unlike what you might expect, seals aren’t meant to do harm, quite the opposite.  Depending on what the purpose of the Gajos seal is, in theory you could keep it in place all your life without any ill effects.  Seals are meant to help regulate power, not fully suppress a dragel’s magic, soul, or instincts as was done to you.”

“But since we don’t know what it’s doing.”  Stiles filled in the gaps for himself.  “You want to take it off.”

Quinn nodded his head.  

“Other than the Gajos clan being mainly earth elements with the occasional shadow popping up, there’s not much information in the archives about them.”  Ethan confirmed.  “And as a royal archives scholar there’s not many places barred from my research efforts.  As we said earlier, the second survivor of the Gajos attack might know something about it - but in this case it’s not likely as seals and the powers and talents they’re designed to help with are often private matters in families.”

“Can you take it off?”  Stiles asked the next logical question.  “If it didn’t break when everything else did, and there’s no one around to ask about it…?”

“Seals can be shattered or nullified or broken in many ways.”  Harry spoke confidently, being unfortunately all too familiar with the issue.  “Having the person who placed them or in this case the family that designed and used them, remove them is just the simplest.  Since it’s an earth seal we might have to ask for a bit of help from either one of my bonded who are earth elements themselves to supply enough power to, ah,” he frowned a little thinking of the right way to word it.  “Overwhelm the power of the person who placed it or of the seal itself.  But Quinn would need to do further diagnostics on it and you, to know for sure.”

“Other than this seal,” Noah asked, voice strained and eyes hard.  He couldn’t accept what they were saying about his wife.  He just couldn’t.  But he also couldn’t ignore how above and beyond they were going in their drive to help his son.  It made things…tense for him, to say the least.  Especially as at the moment they were operating on theories and suppositions rather than hard evidence.  Even if they are convincing theories.  “Stiles is alright?  There’s nothing wrong, nothing that’s still hurting him or causing distress?”

Quinn and Ethan both turned to Harry with starkly expectant looks, now that the subject of other issues had been broached.

The submissive heaved a heavy, put-upon sigh.

Bastards.

Wonderful, loving, outright bastards each and every one of his husbands were.

Because, if Noah took the potential information about his late wife hard…how over the top was he going to be about the news that his son was - for better or worse - the equivalent of a dragel-shaped (and powered) ticking time-bomb?

Ferros.

Stiles listened with growing eyes and horror as Harry laid out the next terrifying reality shift he’d have to live with.

As if the first two - becoming a dragel, and learning that his mom most likely did everything in her power to prevent him from becoming a dragel in the first place - weren’t bad enough.

The third might just do him in.

“Ferros?”  The Sheriff frowned deeply, distracted if only for the moment from the information that was trying to tear his world into pieces.  “Don’t you mean feral?  We already knew that Stiles had issues after he broke through the seals.”

“Not feral, Pops, ferros.”   Stiles clarified before the others could.  Even if the only reason he knew the word in the first place was because he had a tendency to read books from cover-to-cover instead of ignoring additional references such as indexes and appendices.  And no, he didn’t care if it was weird or made him a bookworm in hiding.  Case in point: he actually knew what Harry was talking about with the latest lump of information dropped in his lap instead of being once more lost like his old man.  “It’s different, right?”  He looked to Harry for confirmation, ignoring Quinn as he poked and prodded his wings after the healer had prompted him to bring them out.

“It is different.”  Harry nodded, no longer surprised at the spell-ricochets that his student liked to lob his way.  

He had a feeling that trying to predict Stiles might well be an exercise in frustration much akin to trying to convince Alec to stop bickering with Brishen whenever the two water-types were in the same area.  

“Going feral is a state that any dragel and many other species can lapse into, allowing their conscious mind to cede control to their instincts.  Ferros on the other hand is a born trait, an innate talent if you will,” he explained somewhat coherently - and that much only possible because he’d tapped the only submissive he knew that shared the trait with Stiles for information on how being ferros was different than going feral.  “It’s a sort of berserker-type ability that brings an increase in power and strength.  It’s so rare that there’s not an actual name for it, but calling it a feral drive comes the closest.”

“Alright, what’s the catch?”  Noah groaned, reaching up and shielding his gaze with his hand for a long moment, feeling the stirrings of a migraine beginning to build behind his eyes.

As he was coming to learn with dragels - almost everything had a catch.

He’d rather they know about it than have it come smack into them out of left field when they least expected it.

“We can bring someone out of a feral drive with care and spells, even if it’s a ferros’s feral drive.”  Harry said, as gently as possible.  “That’s what we did with Stiles before.  But if he slips too deeply into a feral drive, leans too hard on his ability as a ferros submissive while still unbonded and without the anchors to his conscious mind that bonds provide…”

Stiles didn’t need Harry to finish his tip-toeing explanation to follow where he was delicately leading.

He’d seen Peter Hale after he woke out of his coma.

He knew what came next, when someone wasn’t woken out of a feral drive in time.

“I’d go insane.”  Stiles finished for his mentor.  “Become nothing more than my instincts, lose the ability to wake up from it.  That’s where you’re going with this, right?  Insanity.”  He clenched his jaw, looking away.  “That’s what Mom was trying to protect me from.  The likelihood that I could go insane if I don’t bond fast enough, to people strong enough to pull me back if I get lost in my own instincts.”

A long, heavy silence hung over the small group, even as Quinn finished examining Stiles - ignoring the tense atmosphere with practice.

When it came to dragels, wonderful dramatic creatures that they could be, as a healer you either learned to ignore dramatics that didn’t impede your work or you found a new career.

Otherwise, you’d never get anything done.

“Merrow heritage.”  Quinn chirped with satisfaction after he cast a very specific diagnostic on both father and son.  “Knew it, and not that distant.”

“Not the time to gloat, love.”  Harry noted dryly, even as he knew both Quinn and Alec were going to be insufferable over being right about what they’d felt from the pair.  Even if Alec had never presented himself to them, preferring to remain unseen within Terra.

The twins were going to pout, having bet against them on principle.

Harry sighed, even as Ethan snugged him closer into his hold as the pair were distracted by Quinn’s diversionary tactic instead of brooding in their own gloomy, doomsday thoughts regarding Stiles being ferros.

So much for a peaceful introduction to a bonded circle and Nevarah.

By Harry’s count, they made it an hour before drama began to loom - and even that they only managed because most of it involved a tour of the house.

But, both Stiles and Noah had heard the worst and weathered it, even if there were likely more questions and potential explosions on the horizon.

It could always be worse.

Stiles could’ve had a soulscream in that basement and had to navigate a flash-formed circle on the same day he came into his inheritance.

Now that would’ve been a nightmare.

In comparison, a bit of brooding was a relief.

For now, anyway.

How they would react later once all the information that had been chucked at them was absorbed and processed, even Harry wouldn’t want to guess with his inside track on how they were feeling.

At this point, as long as property damage was kept to a reasonable figure, he’d be content if not happy.

Though from which Stilinski it would come from…

That was the real question, wasn’t it?

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Eleven: Fumbled First Impressions

It was with sweet, blessed relief that Noah and Stiles took refuge in Stiles’s guestroom once they were both released from Quinn’s clutches.

(Stiles even felt vindicated over the scolding Noah got regarding his diet, along with dire threats of diet plans and exercise regimens designed to bring down his cholesterol.)

Both of them had pots of ointment prescribed by the healer, Noah dropping his off in his own room (meant to relieve stress and help with an old wound or two that bothered him every now and again) before following his son.

Privacy was most fervently wished for on both their ends.

What they’d been told…it was a lot to process.

And even harder in some cases to accept.

Noah found Stiles curled up in the plush window seat overlooking the bright azure waters and golden sands of the beach that the house halfway hung over.

His son’s expression could only be described as a thousand-yard stare, eyes locked on the waves lapping gently at the sand and yet registering none of it with how locked into his own thoughts he was.

Times like this, he found himself both grateful and grief-stricken at the help that had fallen into their lives when his son proved himself more special than even Noah had believed.

Grateful, because for the first time since Claudia’s symptoms started becoming far more severe than he could handle on his own, he wasn’t truly on his own in parenting his too-smart, too protective, too caring son.  Oh, there had been help.   His fellow deputies had stepped up and if necessary stepped in.  The same with Melissa, much as it hurt to think of now with how wrong their sons’ friendship had gone in recent months.

But none of them were Stiles’s parent.  They weren’t there when his son needed a shoulder to lean on.  Or cry on.

Harry and his husbands would be there, they’d made that perfectly clear.

Stiles wasn’t their child, they were very careful to both clarify that and respect that Noah was his father.

But they would support him just the same, come what may.

Which was where the grief kicked in.

Noah was never supposed to be doing this on his own.

Stiles should never have needed a mentor when he had a mother who apparently, as much as Noah hated the very idea, was just like her son in ways that Noah was only beginning to comprehend.

Claudia should have been there.

No matter how pointless railing at the gods or fate or the powers that might-well-be was, Claudia should always have been there.

For Stiles, and for Noah, and for everything that neither of them could have never prepared for or thought of in a hundred years.

Lowering himself down next to his son, a motion that he’d made far too often lately it seemed like, Noah reached out and pulled Stiles into his arms, tucking that rich brown head of hair - Claudia’s hair - under his chin.

And just held him.

Words, trying to find meaning and acceptance out of a quagmire of information that seemed so senseless at times, all of that could wait.

For now, his son needed him.

In the face of that, nothing else mattered.

While the Stilinskis were struggling through accepting hard truths together, as a family however small and broken, Harry was busy handling a few family matters of his own.

Stilinski family matters, actually, which in this particular case meant reaching out for assistance.  He certainly wouldn’t be able to leave the realm himself and track down the sole remaining potential clue to the identity of one Claudia Gajos.  And while Hadrian was perfectly willing, he’d seen how Stiles reacted to the ACE, calming in his presence almost faster than he did with either his father or Harry himself.  They needed someone to track down Idris Nightshade, potentially the last survivor standing of the Gajos Massacre - though none of them had called it that when speaking to their guests - before they’d have no choice but to scrap their current plan and start all over again searching out the identity of Stiles’s mother.

And potentially, his third as well, though that was only Harry’s instincts talking and not something that he’d shared with anyone, even Ethan or Hadrian.

Dragels, even Jokers, don’t just disappear like the Gajos gheyo managed.

She had to have had help.

And the most likely person to have helped her was her friend who lived through the worst day of her life with her and stood by her side in the aftermath.

Up until she left Nevarah behind without so much - or so the reports would have them believe - as a goodbye or a glance towards the past as she raced towards her future.

So.

Idris Nightshade needed to be tracked down in whatever off-realm haunt he’d vanished into with his bonded-joker and partner, the pair of them apparently bounty hunters if Hadrian’s information was correct.

And as the reigning shadow Blood Title, when it came to two of his own, jokers or not, it wouldn’t be anything else.

With few options, Harry had spoken with Hadrian and decided to make a call and play the Mera card.

He might not have had an actual claw in making Taranis, the Maruke Heir, but the Gheyo Alpha with his Nameless status and seeking heart was as much Harry’s child as he was Hadrian, Zach, or Riven’s.

The message bubble connected, the gorgeous face - though he was his son, Harry was likely partial - of his second-eldest child filling the message-space with platinum blond hair inherited from both his bearer and his third, and the serious dark grey eyes that were a mixture of Zach’s silver and Hadrian’s black.

Harry’s beloved twins had joked once that the Maruke sons were “complicated” and the tag had stayed ever since as while it’d been a joke - it was also very much the truth.

Taranis and his younger brother Callix were both fierce gheyos, rich with handsome looks and power rippling through their veins.

But they could not look less alike if Hadrian had tried.

If Taranis was all tanned, blond, gorgeous good looks, his younger brother Callix was dark, sleek, and dangerous.

Which was funny, considering that Taranis was the one with the both highly decorative, and extremely lethal, scar slashing across his face splitting his left eyebrow in two and only barely missing taking out his eye before stopping in the middle of one tanned cheek.

He was also an alpha, which made things just that much more complex, as Gheyo Alphas were both sought after and feared in equal measure.

There were times where Harry felt the only peace Taranis could find was off-realm, especially the closer to the Hunt they drew.

Lucky then, that recently his family circle had a breadth of issues off-realm that could use a troubleshooter of Taranis’s caliber to handle them.

“Mera,” Taranis’s smile was quicksilver and twice as bright, glowing against lush lips and a full mouth.  “Is everything alright?”

Harry couldn’t see much of the scenery behind his son, but did manage to catch a glimpse of dirty blond hair and a broad - and bared - back before Taranis shifted and the background changed to a bland beige wall - likely a hotel of some sort.

Oh good, he wasn’t alone.  Harry worried sometimes, despite his son being a grown dragel, that he took too much after Hadrian and tended to brood when he was alone.  Even if at times his choice of companions was…not ideal from a political standpoint.  But that was for Theo and Raspen to fuss over, Harry’s job as Taranis’s mera was to love and support him whatever came, nothing more, nothing less.

“Everything is fine, Taran.”  Harry waved off any thought of there being more than average problems or troubles back at home.  “But I have a job for you when you’re finished with your work for the courts.”

Taranis wrinkled his nose at the mention of his current project he’d taken on with so many dragels and dragel-kin returning to Nevarah in advance of the upcoming Hunt in a few months.

“They really should’ve kept a closer eye on Terra.”  The Nameless alpha grumbled, much like his sire and third tended to do.  “Just because they squashed the last Torvak uprising doesn’t mean that it was safe to just leave the realm to rot.  The damage to the nodes alone…”

A murmur from behind him had Taranis rolling his eyes but stopped his complaint before he could really get going.

Out of respect for his companion's ability to make any situation worse - or add to the drama - if nothing else.

Arielle knew, his new friend had plenty of opinions regarding Nevarah's tendency to try and pretend that Terra doesn't exist, and wasn't shy about sharing them, no matter the audience.

“Well, when you’ve a moment then,” Harry deftly ignored the byplay with the skill of a dragel married to a consummate Slytherin for decades.  “Your father located the last known location of a person of interest in my new student’s rather murky background.  But,”

“With things as they are,” Taranis completed on his behalf, keeping his mera from having to ask his own son for a favor.  Such a good son.  “Father can’t get away to go track down a lead.  It’s fine, Mera, we’ll be done here soon and then I can ‘portal and relay Blood Raven’s orders.  If I am correct in thinking that if you’ve got Father doing the searching, that it’s a shadow gheyo that needs hauling back?”

“You would be,” Harry beamed at his son, pleased with the easy agreement.  Which would be why it was Harry making the call, and not one of the more dominant members of his circle who would raise Taranis’s alpha hackles on accident, let alone one or two’s tendency to rile him up on purpose as a way of teasing him.  “The name is Idris Nightshade, Joker, Shadow Element naturally.  Could be with his bonded wife Eris Vega, could not be, they’re bounty hunters by trade so the records are a little vague on specifics.”  Harry glanced away and then sent through the last known coordinates.  “Thank you for this, Taran.”  He said with a soft smile.  “I do appreciate it.”

“Thanking me for letting me hunt down a Vega, even one that’s only halfway by marriage?”  Taranis’s grin was wicked.  “Mera, I should be thanking you for the pleasure.”

With a scoff and an eyeroll - Vegas weren’t that bad, especially the ones who bonded out of their clan - Harry said his goodbyes and then cut the message bubble.

There, one task was done before the big meet-and-greet that night.

Only what felt like ten thousand more to go.

Stiles had thought himself in circles and cried into his dad’s arms over the truths that Harry and Quinn refused to hide from or allow Stiles to ignore.

Over the mere suggestion that his Mom had committed a betrayal that made the one that triggered his inheritance look like child’s play.

By the time dinner rolled around, a dinner where Stiles was supposed to be introduced - officially or for the first time - to his mentor’s circle and children, he felt worn and weary to the bone.

His dad had left him to get cleaned up with one last hug and a kiss to the forehead, likely to lay down for a while before steeling himself for the ordeal to come.

Stiles’s version of that found him standing under the pounding water of the bathroom that was part of his mini-suite/guestroom.

All his curiosity about the books already set up had vanished along with anything approaching an appetite in Quinn’s infirmary but it wouldn’t be the first time Stiles had to fake it to keep from embarrassing himself or his dad in front of important people.

And if the way the gate guards had reacted to Harry and Hadrian, they were important.

That was if the way they’d not only taken control of the situation in Beacon Hills as well as being able to call in a shit-ton of backup didn’t give away the game long before the guards were unable to act with far more subservience than Stiles would’ve expected for the average dragel bringing in their new student and their dad for sanctuary.

Yeah, right now Stiles might be a little slow on putting pieces of puzzles together, what with the whole sudden change in species and having to accept that the voice in the back of his head was his instincts trying to break through the spells put in place to keep him human, but eventually he’ll get there.

For instance: Harry and his circle were far more important than just a random guy and his husbands from Nevarah.

Or, and thank everything that his dad didn’t focus on it right away, that Stiles wasn’t going to be able to take things slow and settle into his instincts and inheritance the way Harry and Quinn and hell, everyone would prefer.

If he didn’t want to lose his mind - either in an instant like what had almost happened to him already, or in slow excruciating stages like his mom - he needed to bond.

And not only bond, but from what he’d read in On Dragels alone, to someone who could truly anchor him and his instincts.

Not exactly an easy order to fill, when it came with a side effect of soul bonding, potential marriage, and what could be hundreds of years together.

As partners, lovers, and so much more from everything he’d seen and heard.

And it was a decision he was going to have to make without taking years to get to know someone or even the certainty of a soulscream dragging his soulmate(s) to his side however traumatic that would have been.

No, it wasn’t a choice he was going to have to make tomorrow, or even next week or month if Quinn has his way about healing regimens and the fucking terrifying sound of mind healers.

But it was one he was going to have to make in the near future.

And that?

That scared the fuck out of him.

And that was before his dad figured that bit of horrifying reality out for himself.

So yeah.

Easy to say that by the time dinner with the Gorgens-Nott Circle rolled around, Stiles was more than a little rattled and definitely not ready to put his best foot - or claw - forward.

But it was what it was.

No way out but through.

Stiles came to a dead stop just outside the massive dining room that Harry had led him and his dad to later that night.

He could feel his eyes widen and heard his dad’s soft gasp of surprise.

“That’s not a crowd, Harry,” Stiles breathed, shocked to see what a large circle with children looked like rather than trying to picture it in abstract.  He’d heard the number of bonded and the implication of “several” children but… whoa.

Seeing it was different.

Fuck.

Seeing it was a damn revelation.

“That’s an entire horde.”   He continued, feeling his pulse start to race in anxiety before the gentle touch of a spell sent calm rushing over him.  Looking over and down, he met the gentle, understanding gaze of his mentor.

“I remember meeting the Deveraines.”  Harry sighed, shaking his head.  “A combined circle even larger then than mine is now, and already with more children than we’ll ever match.  It was overwhelming but in the best ways.  My hope is that while this,” he waved a hand at the bustling forms of his husbands and their children who either lived at the estate or were able to return for the meal at their mera’s request.  “Might be a bit much, that it never reaches the level of too much.  But if it does,” Harry set a stern gaze on both Stilinskis.  “Tell one of us and we’ll ensure you get some space if you can’t extricate yourselves from the greedy grasp of one of the children or whatever has you discomfited for a break.”

He gave them a moment to take in the well-choreographed dance that was Quinn directing George and a pair of the grown children in getting food to the table, Ethan and Fred chivving everyone into place, the gheyos lovingly jostling each other for position.

Devrim cuddled up - as always - between Idan and Mihn who so adored spoiling their Prince.

Charlie took immediate charge of the circle’s current youngest child in little Rukai from Fred, settling the toddler into his high chair that latched onto the massive wooden table and kept the precocious youngling from running off with food decorating his clothes to cause mayhem elsewhere before an adult can snag him.

Very much his father’s son, that one.

Brishen had never been averse to a bit of chaos and mayhem.

A flash of a signal from Theo had Harry ushering the Stilinskis into the room, and a flicker of a spell from Hadrian had everyone quieting down and turning towards Harry and their guests like flowers searching for the sun.

“Stilinskis, meet the Gorgens-Nott Circle.”  Harry said quietly, meeting gazes with his husbands and present children as he mentally counted heads.  “Some of the older, adult children weren’t able to make it, but this is about half of our children and,” he searched with his eyes for platinum hair and violet eyes only to come up short.  “Riven it seems is still on Terra, but Stiles at least met him already, so it’s hardly a trouble to introduce you later.”

While his dad goggled at the number of bodies, Stiles had already pushed past that out of sheer self-preservation.

In the meantime, he’d been snagged, attention totally caught by a pair of vivid crystal-blue eyes that put the infamous baby blues of Jackson Whittemore or Peter Hale to shame.

Wow.

Just…wow.

The face matched the gorgeous eyes, far too pretty to be considered handsome, with hair in a deep, dark navy that was almost black but still too light in color to be anything but a rich blue.

It was a new sensation - or maybe a sensation that he’d only regained the ability to listen to - feeling his instincts stir in interest.

Only unlike the gate guards, once his inner dragel caught a look at who he faintly heard Harry introduce as “Altan” it rumbled a purr before receding.

The form next to Altan was also distracting, if in an entirely different way, as it belonged to an Alec who was blue from head-to-toe with fluted ears decorated with gleaming golden adornments and sparkling gemstones.

There he had no interest in his instincts, but instead was fascinated at his first sight of what had to be aqua-kin'e. A merrow. Water dragel. The one designation of dragel that had almost as many words to label them as there were elements to begin with. But conversely, from what he'd read, the least publicly known about them.

Alec was beautiful, much like Altan next to him if in a more exotic way, and made Stiles feel a… yearning, not for something he wanted, but for home.

It was a feeling similar to when Stiles woke from his feral rage and met Harry for the first time.

Belonging, maybe.  Or commonality.

Huh.

So that was a merrow.

Stiles finally tore his eyes away from dazzling blue eyes, feeling a bit of relief that his instincts weren’t being pushy so much as…aware, around the merrow. And ignoring his reaction to who based on looks was probably a merrow halfling according to Stiles’s studies. Whatever that was, he didn't have time for it right that second while Harry was still talking and introducing yet another dragel.

“And this is Zach, one of our Jokers,” Harry finished rattling off the names of his husbands and children.  “He stayed here in Nevarah to protect the children whilst Brishen tends to accompany me outside the estate.”

Zach was a handsome man with a broad chest and shoulders to give Derek Hale a run for his money, and a thick neck that rivaled Peter’s.  With light blond hair and grey eyes, Stiles thought that he was probably an Air dragel if his looks matched his element like the rest of the gheyos did.  Though honestly, it was mainly Harry who was the outlier when it came to that of the bonded circle, and then their children who Stiles couldn’t always match looks to what he was feeling off of them.

Like Altan, who was definitely a water affinity but with something else underneath.

Maybe.

Fuck, this was complicated, and the last thing he needed while trying to wrap his head around imminent bonding issues was to get distracted by a pretty - and pretty young, if he was reading the way the massive group of dads (and whew…if that was what being raised by a circle was like, Stiles was both ecstatic to have missed it because he never would’ve gotten away with anything but also so, so envious at the same time) fussed at and/or over him - healer who wasn’t a dominant rank.

That much he could tell, even if he had a hard time figuring Altan out otherwise.

Taking his seat, he wrinkled his nose in Quinn’s direction once all the introductions were done and dusted, as he saw that rather than being able to pick and choose from the wide array of platters filling up the center of the table that currently boasted twenty-five bodies including the toddler Rukai, there was a filled plate that popped into place when Stiles’s butt hit his chair seat.

Though he wasn’t too frustrated when he saw the exact same thing happen to his dad across the table, the two of them seated directly across from each other.

The seating arrangement was actually quite thoughtful but also pushed boundaries a little.

Stiles and Noah were across from each other, and on both of their right sides was a dragel that they were comfortable with.

Harry for Stiles and Ethan for Noah.

But then on their left was a stranger, or close to one, in Charlie and Rukai by his dad and then Minh, who he’d never met with Devrim he’d only met once next to Minh by Stiles.

After that Stiles didn’t even try to keep track of what was up with the seating arrangements, beyond the fact that Theo sat on Harry’s otherside.

Because he was an alpha, probably.

And then there was the massive question mark at one end of the table.

He was a large man, with chocolate curls and the brightest golden eyes Stiles had ever seen, like one of Derek’s betas when they were flashing their wolf eyes.

However, it wasn’t how he looked that made him ping insistently on Stiles’s instincts, and it wasn’t because he was an unbonded dominant - that guy was very bonded, one of the first that Harry introduced which might say something about where he stood in the circle’s hierarchy but again: information deficit, Stiles wasn’t sure.  Stiles could feel the power that that handsome face, with its brow that looked like it did a lot of frowning with soft furrows that never quite went away even when he was laughing softly at the antics of little Yasmin, the next youngest after Rukai who was probably about four or five if Stiles had to guess.  It wasn’t the snapping and rumbling stormfront that Stiles remembered of Riven, but it sure as hell was something that demanded his instincts sit up and pay attention.

Like Hadrian, actually, but in a more hidden under the surface instead of watching from the shadows kind of way.

“Stiles, son you’re barely eating.”  Noah frowned in concern as he watched his son fidget and twitch in a way he hadn’t seen from him in months - the last time he forgot his Adderall, in fact, and wasn’t able to focus for love or money though that couldn’t be the issue since with his seals off Stiles hadn’t needed medication now that his body and mind and magic and instincts weren’t at war with each other.  “What’s wrong?”

It sure as hell couldn’t be the food, even if Quinn was following through on his threats of diet plans to get them both up to optimal health.

Definitely beat Stiles’s idea of healthy with green smoothies and turkey bacon any day of the week - though the smoothies after the first couple tries and Stiles figuring things out were never quite as bad as Noah liked to pretend.

Though he was absolutely going to take Ethan’s advice and never ask what Quinn put in the tea.

“Yeah, yeah sorry, I just, can’t.”  Stiles sighed, then set down the fork that hadn’t moved in more than a minute and turned in his chair to lean past Minh who cocked his head but just leaned back obligingly.  The guy at the end of the table hadn’t pinged his radar initially, but the longer he was near the more insistent his instincts became about him.  “Uh, Ras, Raspen?  Right?  I don’t know what your deal is, but you’re really distracting.  Is there a way to turn it off or something…?”

Stiles trailed off as he found himself the subject of many a stare from around the table, including from that eerie golden gaze.

A moment later a spell zinged his way with Harry’s soft touch.

“Apologies, Stiles.”  Raspen spoke with a gentle smile that lit up that sternly handsome face.  “But that was me keeping my aura contained.”  His teeth flashed with his grin.  “You’re quite the powerful one, aren’t you?”

All at once Stiles let out a whispery sigh as Harry’s spell washed over him, shutting everything off for the first time since he woke up from his Coma Lite.

He shuddered a bit at the feather-light whisper of Harry’s power coasting through him, nudging here-and-there and just making Stiles’s everything calm down and stop reaching out and bringing back the information he found - whether he liked it or not.

“No, I’m sorry Stiles.”  Harry told him, reaching one hand up and squeezing a broad, lithely-muscled shoulder in comfort.  “It never occurred to me that your perception might need a dampening spell until you learned to use it.”  He huffed a little.  “Or that as a more passive power it would be so assertive.”

Harry should have known better or thought to ask.

His own Empathy was only his secondary talent that made him Nameless after all.

But as it was their secondaries that made them a mentor-student match, not their primary power, he should have thought of the potential that Stiles’s secondary talent could be constantly active the way Harry’s empathy was before he learned to control it. Despite it being a nominally passive power.

“Perception?”  Noah asked the question that his son was still too-blissed out from having his talent turned off - if he was understanding the byplay right - to ask himself.  “That’s a thing?”

“A rare but highly useful one.”  Raspen assured the man, then gestured to his husband’s new student.  “Your son just managed naturally what the most powerful people in the royal courts struggle to do: saw through my personal shields and control to the very heart of me.  But, as a Gajos, I’m not surprised he has the potential, simply that his talent is already so honed that he managed it after inheriting only a short time ago.”

Rolling his eyes at Raspen’s tendency towards being diplomatic even at home, Bran at his side spit out the facts.

“Perception is on the same spectrum of nameless talents as prescience.”  The changeling, currently in his male form, rattled off.  “Or hindsight.  Only rather than perceiving the future or the past, perception gives him information about the present.  A cousin talent to empathy, to the point when it’s not correctly identified most dragels dismiss it as such.”

“True perception requires the ability to parse through vast amounts of feedback from one’s instincts and magic to correctly deduce information about the world around them.”  Ethan clarified when both Stiles, who was coming out of the temporary mini-magic-high that came from not having a portion of his power constantly being used by his perception if Ethan had to guess, and Noah still seemed overwhelmed by Bran’s own attempt to clear the matter up.  “It’s like Stiles’s perception is trying to solve puzzles all the time whenever he’s around another person and his perception is active.”

“I always know how to twist the knife,” Stiles murmured, wincing as the euphoria faded and his head began to ache like he’d been staring at a computer screen for too long.  “I always know where the weak points are.”

There was a long pause, then Noah cleared his throat.

“I always know where to point my gun,” he stared pointedly at his son until Stiles lifted thought-dark eyes to meet his own sober blues.  “I always know when I have to pull the trigger.”  

Turning his head, he faced the man at the end of the table whose aura or power or whatever that Stiles clicking onto had started the worrying conversation in the first place.  

“Not to argue with your certainty that Stiles inherited this… talent from Claudia or his third, but he’s not the only one who wanted to call you on your bull-,” he caught himself as he saw the little girl next to his target and moderated, “Nonsense, Raspen, he was just the one impulsive enough to actually do it despite both of us knowing you’re more than you appear.”

All eyes cut between the two Stilinskis and their target, Raspen chuckling lightly - though more than a bit chagrined - that they, a newly inherited dragel and his human father, were able to see through a mask that he’d honed and refined for decades to great effect.

“Again, apologies,” Raspen lifted one hand over his heart and slowly nodded his head, the closest to a bow someone in his position could allow.  “No offense was meant.”

“None taken,” Stiles returned the nod, with a caveat: “as long as someone explains what’s going on.”  He turned to look at Harry.  “I thought this was just supposed to be a family dinner.”

“It is,” Harry sighed, shoulders slumping a little.  “And we didn’t want it to be anything else, so we didn’t introduce my Raspen as, ah, thoroughly as we could have done.”  Harry shot Theo a look of his own.

He’d had a feeling that things weren’t going to go the way his alpha wanted them to, but he had wanted a calm introduction without worrying about courtly matters so he was equally at fault for agreeing when Theo had suggested holding off on a few of the more…sensitive introductions until the Stilinskis were more comfortable.

Though to be utterly fair, no one could’ve predicted that both Stilisnkis had a form of perception, even if Noah’s likely was honed from years as a policeman and not an actual dragel talent like his son’s.

Or it could be the way that his magic had chosen to present itself, rather than showing in other ways such as more showy displays of magic that dropped a person on the radar of the various magical governments on Terra.

“My husband Raspen, is properly known as his majesty, King Raspen of the Earth Courts.”  Harry explained, even some entertainment as both Stilinskis first paled then blushed over how they talked to royalty.

Stiles dropped his head into his hands with an embarrassed groan, while Noah showed his mettle in keeping his head high and nodding politely to the revealed royal.

His son might be mortified, but Noah’s point stood: they’d known something was up, and now that the secret - from them alone - was in the open everything could carry on without the issue of Raspen feeling like he had to hide and Stiles trying to figure out what was wrong with the man.

Even if there was nothing wrong - technically - his son simply didn’t have the reference to put words or a label to what he was sensing off of the dragel king.

“If you’re a king,” Noah asked, continuing on with his dinner, the others taking their cue from him and doing the same.  At the same time allowing Stiles time to overcome his embarrassment, even if Quinn wasn’t quite as magnanimous if the way Stiles’s fork lifted in the air and started poking him after a minute was any sign until the teenager took it, unburied himself from his mortified slump, and started eating again.  “Does that make any of the kids princes or princesses?”

“Yes and no.”  Raspen answered easily, surprised and somewhat delighted with the equanimity that their elder guest treated his status.  A coil of tension in his shoulders loosened, especially once his Harry’s student started eating with ease instead of with the put-upon pout of a broody teenager.

But then, Quinn’s facility in the kitchen could have that effect when the one eating wasn’t otherwise distracted.

Like with a king-sized secret poking at their active and very powerful talent, for instance.

“By birth they’re allowed to use the title if they wish, as they’re children of my bonded.”  Raspen continued.  “As long as they’re willing to abide by the duties and responsibilities that come with it once they come of age.  It’s a choice.  The only exception being if one of my children were to be claimed as the next crown royal by Nevarah.  In that case there would still be a choice involved, all of us are allowed to decline when we come of age, but it's very rare that a chosen crown royal ever refuses.”

“You talk about Nevarah like it’s a living entity.”  Stiles noted with more than a little wonder, fully drawn from his momentary embarrassment by the promise of new knowledge.  There was something there, in the way that Raspen talked about the nevermore realm.  Something more than in the books or the way the others spoke of it.  “That it chooses and not the people who live here.”

“That’s because it is and does.”  Raspen smiled, eyes bright.  Oh, his Harry was going to have his hands full with his student.  He’d gotten that impression from their brief clash and the reports from the other bonded, but it was entertaining to say the least to see if for himself.  “Nevarah was created as a living realm, with a spirit and will of its own so that it could actively shelter and protect those who call it home.  When it comes to choosing the next crown royal, Nevarah always knows who and what it needs.”  He gave a motion of his shoulders too elegant to truly be called a shrug.  “As far as I am aware, Nevarah has never been wrong, even if it takes time for others to realize why Nevarah has chosen who it has.”  He paused a moment, then gestured with his chopsticks towards Alec, who had gotten a blushing stare from Stiles when they’d been introduced.  “The Merrow are different in this as they often are.  You will have to ask Alec about how the Merrow Royals are chosen, it is quite the tale.”

Alec narrowed vivid blue eyes on the interfering busybody.

As if he wasn’t already going to have to spend more time than he’d like to devote to the landwalkers and their issues now that Quinn confirmed that they were Merrow-descended.

Kesmer.

He loved being right, but at times it just wasn’t worth the hassles that came with it.

In this case, his bonded and eventually his cousin if he was truly unlucky - as he often was - pestering him to bring the landwalkers down to the merrow courts to search for the elder’s merrow relations.

Finding a lost child, or a descendant of a lost child, was always a wonderful thing.

The paperwork it came with, on the other claw, could drown itself in Kesmer’s bloody reefs if Alec had his way.

“How are you doing, really?”  Harry asked the next morning as he sat Stiles down in his personal study, a tea service and nibbles already prepared and waiting on the coffee table before the soft, comfortable couch that he chose for this conversation.  “I am sorry about the dancing around Raspen’s title last night, people just tend to be so on edge around him and proper and I wanted everything to go well…”

He trailed off with a sigh, reaching out with his magic and preparing two cups of the calming mixture that Quinn had handed off to him that morning before he went in search of his student.

Dinner had actually been rather enjoyable once Stiles was able to relax with his perception muffled and not being bombarded by the powerful auras of Harry’s circle.

And Ilsa had shown up during dessert to witness Harry and Stiles’s mentor/student bond with Theo, as having that incomplete had been itching at both of them and adding to Stiles’s discomfort.

It made him glad that so many of his adult children were otherwise occupied and unable to attend.

If Harry’s lot alone managed to unsettle Stiles without a dampening spell, he shuddered to think how the young dragel would’ve reacted to the likes of his Maruke boys, or his eldest Matthias who was Theo’s heir and busy with his own circle and bonded.

Powerful children were an expected - even anticipated - effect of having powerful bonded within the same circle.

To the point that all but one of his children when they were young had required help regulating that power in one form or another, making for more than one interesting inheritance once the seals were taken off when they came of age.

As seals were intended to be used, unlike the abusive or downright criminal ways that both Harry and Stiles experienced.

“Better, more able to focus now that dampening spells are a thing.”  Stiles heaved a sigh, taking the floating cup of tea with a bit of delighted bemusement.  “This inheritance thing has been one hell of a ride.”

“I know the feeling.”  Harry gave him a knowing grin.  “Any other worries or issues that need addressing before we’re able to really get started on narrowing that information deficit?”

Eager amber eyes lit up as Stiles hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of tea and chocolate biscuit before setting the cup aside and turning to face Harry head-on.

“Alright then,” Harry smiled, genuinely enjoying the younger man for all that he certainly brought interesting events along with him.  He extended his hand in the typical formation for a knowledge transfer.  “After last night, let’s start with the boring etiquette and manners bit before moving onto topics far more interesting - like how to learn to regulate that fascinating talent of yours…”

Meanwhile, having woken up from a nightmare where his son was the one lying in Claudia’s hospital bed, his mind torn apart by a so-called talent that Noah previously had no frame of reference for, Noah stood over the ruins of the lovely little side table that once sat next to his fireplace’s armchair.

Breaths panting and chest heaving, dressed only in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, he buried his face in his hands.

He’d never felt more lost or helpless.

Not even when Stiles had been locked in a coma to heal.

Then he had the hope of taking Stiles away from all the trouble and danger of Beacon Hills.

Now he realized that there may be nowhere where his son was truly safe.

Not when half the danger plaguing him came from within and not without.

And how the fuck was Noah supposed to protect him from powers and talents and instincts that two weeks ago, he had no idea even existed?

“Oh Noah,” Ethan sighed, setting the tray of coffee and snacks aside as he entered the room - as it didn’t have the request for privacy sigil activated, which he had been sure to show both Stilinskis during their tour - and then coming over to the sheriff’s side.

In the back of his mind, he plotted.

While many thought that the sheriff was almost incidental to the situation - though none of them were part of Ethan’s circle - Ethan knew better.

If anything, Noah needed just as much help and guidance as Stiles, despite being too old to safely unlock his dragel inheritance that remained latent within him.

And Ethan would ensure that Noah got that help.

Or he would know the reason why not.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Twelve: Halfling

A week later saw Stiles laughing as he ran from little Yasmin while they played and ran from the incoming waves on the beach of the Gorgens-Nott estate.

The four year old shrieked with glee as the water nipped at her heels, throwing her hands high for Stiles to pick her up and whirl her to safety in his arms before the water got more than ankle high.

Tiny Rukai echoed his sister’s yell at the true edge of the water, kept safe and sound by Ethan who’d followed Stiles and the circle’s littles down for some water time.

Not that they didn’t trust Stiles with the kids but: beach, waves, two small children - it would be a lot for any teenager to manage.

Add in a dragel’s protective instincts (which were intense normally and bordered on insane when it came to their children) and it just made sense for Ethan to come along.

Seven year old Cara was with them as well, though given her affinity for fire stayed well out of reach of the actual water, George keeping her company.

That Stiles’s merrow heritage drew him to the water surrounding three sides of their home was a gift for the sanity of the rest of the circle.  

As expected Stiles and the twin pareya Fred and George had gotten on like muggle gasoline and a firebomb spell: complete with collateral damage in the form of ruffled feathers on Fawkes, Harry’s phoenix familiar.  Tricksters all three of them, and hardly in need of the encouragement having another of their mischievous nature around provided.  The only thing that kept total chaos from reigning was that Stiles tended to spend quite a bit of his free time (when not in lessons with Harry or another member of the circle) in the water.

The pranking was mostly innocent for the moment however, the twins using the tricks and mischief as a way to encourage Stiles to use his magic and the spells he was being taught - as well as test his reflexes.

They had to be careful with literal fire, as so far Stiles hadn’t shown any affinity for the element, which they’d discovered when he flailed spectacularly in one memorable attempt before managing to barely divert an incoming fireball from Fred.

He wasn’t incapable of utilizing it, nor was he fire sensitive like some merrow and merrow-kind could be, but it was far from his best area of practice.

Water on the other hand…that came to Stiles’s call all too easily.

And had served as an excellent reminder for the twins about yanking the fins of the aqua-kin’e around them, lest they risk a drenching.

He showed quite the finesse with shadows as well, perhaps giving a clue to the nature of his mysterious third, but for now only water came to him with true ease, though nothing but fire fought his control when they tested him after Harry provided him with basic spellwork instruction.

And a primer on using magic without a focus, as Stiles was well beyond the age that most magic-users bonded with such a tool if necessary.

“Again, Sti’, again!”  Yasmin called out, laughing as loud as her little lungs allowed.

“Again?!”  Stiles gasped, pretending to swoon and stagger back.  “Lady Yasmin wants to go again?”

“Again!”

Laughing brightly along with the child in his arms, Stiles darted back into the surf, Yasmin bouncing along joyfully in his arms.

Back at the shoreline, Ethan smiled as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Rukai’s head.

Harry becoming a mentor had certainly had its ups-and-downs.

And given his beloved submissive’s luck - let alone that of Stiles - sooner or later they’d face another bump in the road.

But moments like this?

All bright laughter and joyful noise?

Moments like this made Ethan all too glad that Harry had been the one chosen to guide Stiles forward as he embarked on the next stage of his life.

Occasional issues - and property damage - aside.

“You know we have to go, love.”  Alec reminded Harry as the pair of them watched Harry’s charge and their youngest children play in the Merrow Waters below, his arms were wrapped around his love’s petite waist as the smaller dragel leaned his back against Alec’s chest.  “So long as his family seal remains in place, his affinity for water remains the strongest and easiest for him to access.  Al will only wait so long before he stops asking to meet the latest of the Lost Children and starts being difficult about it.”

Harry pouted even as he admitted - if only to himself - that Alec was right.

And as they were waiting on Taranis to track down Idris Nightshade and deliver the message that he was recalled to Nevarah before removing the Gajos seal, it seemed as if Stiles would be predominately water-natured for some time to come.

As Harry pondered that unfortunate reality a shadow separated from the balcony that extended over the sand, the slim shape still revealing Alec’s precious son - to a shocking lack of surprise on the part of either parent.

Even less came when Alec’s little halfling swapped his healer’s uniform from his work at the clinic supported by the Halfling Court for swim trunks, clearly intent on joining their guest and his siblings in the sea.

“He’s not ready.”  Harry sighed, shaking his head even as he smiled at the sound of Stiles and Yasmin’s dueling laughter as they beckoned Altan to join them.  “We’ve gone over all the etiquette, the court manners, the niceties - for both merrow and landwalkers - but even so, he’s not merrow despite how strongly water answers his call.  He’s not even a halfling.  Between him and Noah…I worry that Al has gotten his hopes up for a full return to the Water when the reality is far from that.”

Alec scoffed, rolling his eyes over Harry’s foolishness about fretting over such a thing as Alcandor’s feelings.

His precious royal cousin will adapt.

It’s one of the best - and most irritating - things about the big bastard.

Besides if anyone should care about Al’s feelings, it certainly wasn’t Alec’s husband - Alcandor had his own circle for that.

Complete with his own troublemaker of a submissive to worry about things - and worry over, as before meeting Harry, Alec was convinced that Killigan was the worst problem-magnet in existence.

“Will he die if we take him to see Al and get a heritage test done?”  Alec asked only half-sarcastically.

Because even when Harry frustrated him, Alec loved him.

Therefore: half sarcasm when his current state truly deserved the full edge of Alec’s sharp tongue.

Harry rolled his eyes at his snarky, wonderful merrow.

“Then?”  Alec prompted.  “That kid plays in the water more than anyone but me and your featherhead.  Even his father prefers to spend time basking in the sauna to hydrate his skin now that they’re aware of their needs as aqua-kin’e descendants rather than join his son in the surf.  They’ll be fine.”

“Stiles is going to snark and snap at Alcandor.”  Harry admitted his true worry helplessly.  “I can already see it.  Especially if Al gets snippy with Noah.”

Alec snorted.

As if Alcandor of all merrow had a single fin to swim on when it came to being snarky.

There were times that as a member of his royal pain-in-Alec’s-arse’s court that Alec believed half the reason Alcandor fought so hard for the throne was so that there was no one to call him to account over the sharp edge of his tongue anymore.

Even if the last person who held the right still did - if only in theory - as it was his Mera, the former Queen.

“And what does Stiles say about all this, beloved?”  Alec arched a knowing brow at his now-pouting submissive, who muttered under his breath with a pout and turned his head back to watching the children below.

Mhmm.

That’s what he thought.

“It’ll be fine.”  Alec reiterated.  “It’s not as if I’m taking them alone, Kesmer knows, I’d end up drowning them myself.  You’re coming along, as are feathers-for-brains and Wik.”  As much as Alec would never admit it, with Brishen as guard even if some kelp-brained waste of water wanted to cause a problem it’d be futile as the phoelix wouldn’t leave even scales behind to identify the idiot’s next of kin that apparently the departed had been stupid and suicidal. And that was counting on Brishen getting his claws on them before their wonderfully vicious Dark Fae.  “We go, we get the test done and Alcandor off our tails, and then we come back.”

“Promise?”

Alec paused, thinking about how sulky a certain aqua-kin’e son of theirs would be if they returned Stiles in anything less than pristine condition.

His son was very much his mera’s child at times.

And his fascination, and more his utter obliviousness about it, with Stiles was only one of them - going to join Stiles and his siblings before he even stepped claw into the house after his shift being merely the latest sign of something brewing there.

A potential that neither of them was ready for - Altan due to his steadfast dedication to his calling as a healer, and as for Stiles…

That poor kid had barely gotten his head to stop spinning after arriving in Nevarah, let alone come to terms with what his particular circumstances meant for him and everyone around him, both before and after he bonded.

Some time apart - other than when Altan was away for his apprenticeship with that grumpy halfling Loren (and how Quinn finagled that for their pride and joy Alec was still wondering about) or working his required rotation hours at the clinic - would do both of the younglings some good.

“On both Kesmer’s reefs and Poeira’s scales, my love.”  Alec swore.  “We’ll all return safe and sound.”  Then he smirked.  “No promises about the state of my cousin’s sanity or temper afterwards however.”

“Oh no.”  Harry’s tone was as dry as Alec’s scales after too much time around Charlie.  Who was by far the least objectionable of Harry’s fire-types.  “We wouldn’t want to put you out, my darling.  Thank you.”

Alec sniffed, preening, squeezing his little love tight back against his chest and resting his chin on one dainty shoulder.

As it should be.

“So this dude.”

“Loren.”  Altan reminded Stiles patiently.  “His name is Loren and he would be very offended if you called him anything else once you’re given permission to do so.”

Altan took it for granted that when they met - and they were bound to eventually, as Loren was the master healer for merrow halflings in or around Nevarah - that his fellow halfling would like Stiles.

From what he could tell even his Papa Alec liked Stiles, as well as his father Riven, and while Loren’s temper could put most to shame, he wasn’t worse than either of them.

Most of the time.

“Right, right.”  Stiles nodded like a bobble head, making Altan huff a laugh and look away.  He really liked when he could make the blue-haired dragel laugh.  Altan was so serious all the time except when he was playing with the littles - or the target of one of Fred or George’s milder pranks.

Then he tended to be either scary or downright terrifying, depending on what it was those particular dads decided to trick or trap.

Dragel tempers, as Stiles knew from his own… issues were no joke.

They were lounging in what was quickly becoming - if only in Stiles’s mind - “their” spot: a group of carved stone sun loungers that rather than being set on the sand above the water line, were half-submerged (at least at present) by the sea in the warded “Kiddie” portion of the beach.

Which made sense.

Harry definitely had some merrow heritage, Quinn was a quarter like (they thought, anyway, based on Pop’s description of his Pop Bosko) Stiles’s dad, then there was Altan who was half, and Alec and Brishen who were flat-out water types.

Albeit extremely different species with Brishen being what Stiles learned was a phoelix - and he assumed, based on the dragon-dragel vocab, that that meant Brishen was a similar species but created from phoenixes (like Fawkes, who had one hell of a temper himself if accidentally caught in the crossfire of Stiles’s water and Fred/George) though he’d yet to learn anything concrete about phoelix other than they were rare.

Like: seriously rare, rarer than Stiles’s ferros problem.

Rare to the point that other than Brishen, there was only one other known phoelix in Nevarah at all - a fire-type bonded to Charlie, Fred, and George’s uncles’ circle named Inanna - and one more that would pop in to visit every other decade according to Harry named Nnenne who was an earth-type.

All three of whom - maybe, don’t quote him - were siblings.

Or something.

If he thought werewolves were complicated or secretive, they had nothing on phoelixes.

With at least a handful of water-types and/or water-affinities hanging around, basking spots in the water made sense.

And that was before Stiles and Noah showed up on their radar, with their own merrow heritage to take into account.

Stiles’s count could also be off.

He’d yet to meet all of the Gorgens-Nott kids, especially as a good half at least were either grown and out of the house or grown enough to be off at training or like one that’d been mentioned in passing who was maybe Hadrian’s oldest? (He wasn’t sure, the references could be both vague and misleading given how every member of the circle tended to parent every child.) That was potentially off-realm altogether.

Meh, he’d only been there a week.

Give it the whole month that he was supposed to have before either he or his dad made a decision on potentially pulling him from Beacon Hills High to train in Nevarah for the next school year, and he’d probably meet all the kids if only in passing.

A school year that, when combined with his early leave-taking for summer vacation, would total four years training in Nevarah in the time it took a single year to pass in Beacon Hills.

He’d said it before and he’d probably say it again, but dragels were wild.

The sheer magnitude of magic that they were capable of was mind-blowing.

Case-in-point: Nevarah itself.

“He’s a Lord Merrow until I’m instructed otherwise.”  Stiles recited, having not only been instructed via knowledge transfer but also drilled until the protocol and manners were as innate as possible for someone who hadn’t been raised within dragel society.  Or merrow culture, as the case might be.  “Or a Master Healer, if he’s wearing his mastery insignia.”

Altan reached over and shoved lightly at Stiles’s shoulder.

“None of that.”  Altan rolled his vibrant blue eyes in exasperation.  “If I didn’t know better I’d think the only thing you’ve done for the last week is devour the library - furniture and all.”

“Well,” Stiles smirked.  “Not only.”

Scoffing, Altan shoved him again, this time much harder, sending the shorter (if only by an inch) dragel toppling off his lounger and into an oncoming wave with a flailing squawk.

Not that it really bothered Stiles.

On the contrary, Stiles enjoyed that Altan and the others didn’t shy away from touch.  It was an issue he’d struggled with all his life, not understanding why other people didn’t touch each other.  His family were often the outliers, but it was another stumbling block when he was young and trying to make friends.

Now he knew that the lack he felt among others was due to being a dragel.

They couldn’t truly understand him or his needs, he always stood out as just a bit off.

Meeting Derek, having the werewolves around him always being so physical - it had been a stark relief, even if the touch given wasn’t always positive.

His dad had done his best, but he was only one person.

And the older Stiles grew, the less the sheriff was around to throw an arm around his shoulder or pull him in for a hug.

With Altan, that wasn’t there.  The lack.  Rather, Stiles was content with the budding friendship he was forming with the healer despite the handful of years separating them.  That Altan had grown in a short time from observing him from a distance - wary of a new stranger in his family home - to joking and a physical push/pull dynamic helped more than he thought the blue-haired dragel knew.  

He’d missed it: the comradery of wrestling with Scott, the shoving in the locker room and on the lacrosse field from the other players, even Derek pushing him up against walls and pinning him in place.  (Though he had to admit: he missed the latter for a very different reason than the rest.)  He ached for late night talks - even if lately they’d mainly been about Allison or how Scott’s life was ruined as a werewolf - the gaming sessions, the junk food binges.

Even the negatives between him and Scott that had begun to grow in number before…before.

The incessant monologues about Allison or how Derek was evil and couldn’t be trusted.

Or the near-misses between Stiles’s once-fragile skin and Scott’s new uninhibited temper that only grew worse on the full moon.

All of it - good and bad - had been such a cornerstone of his life for more than a decade that the absence of Scott throbbed like heartache.

The loss of the friendships he was making with the pack was secondary in comparison - especially as he knew that when he went back to Beacon Hills, they’d still be there.

Scott wouldn’t.

Making a new friend - however tentative that friendship was at times - was a soothing balm to that ache.

Though only time would heal it entirely.

Holding his breath, Stiles let himself sink down to the sandy bottom of the hip-deep water the waves had tossed him towards, staring up through sparkling water at the shimmering sun above.

But, he would heal.

That much, after everything that’d happened, he was actually starting to believe.

No matter how slow it seemed to go at times.

He was healing.

Now if only he could convince Quinn of that, and avoid the inevitable clash with a mind healer, that’d be great, thanks.

Harry managed to wrangle another week’s reprieve from Alcandor via his friendship with Al’s submissive and Queen, Killigan.

A week that he took ruthless advantage of, all-but-punting both Stilinskis into mind healing - as he made a valid point, no matter how little Al liked it, that bringing a potentially unstable ferros submissive down to any of the merrow cities let alone the palace was a recipe for disaster.

Alcandor mainly allowed the additional time, however, because not only was it Harry asking - and the merrow king had a fondness for his little cousin’s husband - but also because he promised to teach Stiles the spells landwalkers used to be comfortable (and stay alive) in the merrow courts.

Keeping Stiles calm was rather a priority with a feral drive always half a breath away.  And there was approximately nothing about the sudden transition between the above world and the merrow waters that was calm.   That Noah was coming with them and would have to rely on everyone else’s magic - as he was still on the fence about whether he wanted Quinn to try and unlock his own latent power or was content to let it rest - was only aggravating Stiles’s discontent once the details of the upcoming trip were explained to him.

In an understandable point of view, the young dragel was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of both his and his dad’s abilities to breathe being contingent on someone else’s power.

Even if they had far more experience than him, it was a push too far just yet for the submissive, even if he did trust Harry and his circle.

He simply wasn’t willing to put absolute control of both of his and his dad’s very lives on the line.

Not yet.

Especially as, while Stiles’s status as a dragel would likely keep him from dying in the case of the worst happening, Noah certainly didn’t have such a thing for a safety net.

A charm added to the necklace the Gorgens-Nott Circle had gifted the man had solved the issue - and panic attack, though not a ferity-inducing one - that Stiles had over the thought of his dad drowning in the middle of Alcandor’s palace.

But as to his own life…well.

When it came to Stiles, as Harry was often finding to be true, it came down to a matter of control more than trust or anything else.

Understandable, given how much of his life - even the very truth of himself - had been out of his control for so long.

As Harry had pointed out to Killigan when making his case for more time, it was entirely possible that Stiles did have a merrow form as one of his shifts.

But if so, there was no sign of it thus far and short of Alec forcing it out (and risking throwing Stiles into a feral drive instead) they needed Stiles to discover it on his own, if it did in fact exist.

Brishen offered to bring out a potential merrow shift in Stiles instead, as his powers were just different enough from a merrow’s to give different odds, but in the end it wasn’t necessary.

Two appointments into meeting with his mind healer and Stiles’s desire to hide from the world beneath the waves took care of it all on its own before any options from the last resort list needed to be utilized.

“Is that…?”  Noah trailed off helplessly as he saw what might as well be a bolt of light dart from the designated ‘porting area in the courtyard of the Gorgens-Nott estate over to the ocean and dive in.

“From the magic he’s trailing, yes.”  Ethan sighed, already sending an alert spell to his submissive.

If Stiles was upset enough - and everyone knew when his mind healer appointments were, as they were posted on the family calendar in the kitchen the same as any other appointment or event - to ignore greeting his father and to ‘port alone, then he was far too upset to be left alone.

Stiles may have taken to learning - and using - magic like he had to having free access to a beach but he was still hesitant to use certain spells without help and/or supervision.

At least when there was a chance that something could go wrong in a way that involved emergency services and/or needing to see a healer.

Like, say, what would happen if Stiles didn’t focus correctly on ‘porting and ended up breaking the portal.

Noah appreciated that his son - previously - had enough respect for the power that he’d been given, to want to avoid going splat if he literally fell out of a portal.

Granted - this was the same kid that Noah caught using a glamour spell to make himself look like Batman last night, if only in his bedroom mirror.

So it wasn’t all Stiles acting like a responsible pod-person since they’d come to Nevarah.

Even if a large part of him wished that he’d never met a pair of twins named Fred and George Weasley, let alone the near-free access the two pareya had given his son to literally magical pranking products via their shop.

Unfortunately - for almost everyone, which was unfair as Noah was not on the list of off-limits personages for pranking, damnit - the two’s antics and love of pranking had helped bring out some of Stiles’s old, pre-werewolf spark that had almost disappeared over the last few months.

It pained something inside of him - his own mind healer wanted him to name the something but thus far Noah was being stubborn - that it took strangers to help bring Stiles back to himself.

It was an ongoing struggle, one that Noah was slowly - if inevitably - coming to terms with.

He couldn’t guide Stiles through his new part of his life alone.

That had never been more clear than when not even a half hour after his son went darting into the ocean waves like a bat out of hell when Altan - normally a rather quiet, if happy, kid from what Noah had seen - came tearing into the living area of the house where most of the circle tended to congregate in the later hours of the day.

“Papa, Stiles,” the kid got out frantically.  Not because he was out of breath, but from what Noah could tell sheer panic.  “I know he’s in the water but I can’t see him.”

Noah snapped to attention, especially as Harry and several of his husbands all leapt into action, a tired Quinn (who’d only just returned from working at his private clinic a few minutes before) asking:

“How long has he been missing?”

“Since just after he hit the water.”  Altan answered, falling into step with the others, leading them back the way he came, his father Alec summoned from elsewhere in the house and joining them by the time they hit the sand below the open air deck off the living area.  “I went to see what was wrong and…”  He gestured at the waves, indicating the missing dragel.

“I thought you hadn’t gotten to the bubblehead charm and other underwater breathing spells yet?”  Alec commented.

“I haven’t.”   Harry bit out, tension running through him.

And his answer sent that same tension trembling and tensing through everyone else.

“Fuck.”  Brishen summed up neatly, before he shifted into his winged form and took to the air for a short moment before plummeting into a sharp dive.

It would’ve looked nonsensical from just about anyone else.

Anyone else wasn’t an immortal water phoelix who’d spent literal centuries learning how to use his wings to great effect in the water he called home.

That none of the circle were outright panicking was the only thing keeping Noah from losing his fucking mind.

God damn it Stiles.

Just what the fuck did that mind healer say to him anyway that had him - literally - going off the deep end?

And more importantly, just how were they going to fix it in the handful of days before they had to go meet a damn king - and not the friendly kind in Raspen, at least to his friends and family - on his own watery turf.

That Stiles would be okay after whatever this was Noah didn’t doubt for a second.

Feral werewolves, geriatric psychopaths, and his own magic hadn’t managed to stop Stiles for long.

He rather doubted therapy would be the thing to manage it.

Though, just in case, he ran faster.

Trying with every step to prepare himself for whatever they found.

When - not if - they found his son.

Stiles let the cool water and dark shadows pull him down, down, down far beyond the depths that he normally dared to breach.

The water was cold, a balm to his burning temper and cradled him in welcome.

In the depths the shadows were thick and comforting.

They spoke of late nights hiding under his bed covers, flashlight in hand, to read the latest Batman comic and walks in the deepest part of the Preserve where the shadows whispered welcomes and gentle comfort to him.

At first he was just swimming mindlessly.

Anything to get away.

To be somewhere - anywhere - where he could scream and cry without the risk of putting anyone in danger.

Where he could break in peace.

Without an audience.

He appreciated how everyone around him now wanted to help him.  Were quick to supply information and didn’t shy away from his questions and curiosity.  Stiles loved the support that came hand-in-hand with hair ruffles and quick hugs.

But after a decade of it being just him and his dad, Stiles was starting to feel like he was living in a fish bowl, under constant observation.

So he swam and he dove and he swam and he dove.

In the back of his mind, where he’d shoved his rational part of his thoughts that wanted to be all logical about the lady dragel - Jana, his mind healer - something screamed a warning at him.

It wasn’t like the warnings from before.

Those were quiet things, more whisper than words.

Be careful around him, she’s upset, that one is dangerous - things like that.

This wasn’t that.

This was a warning nearly on par with how his instincts shrieked and cried right before Gerard left him to the not-so-tender mercies of his goons - and all that came after.

But it was only in the back of his mind.

Stiles was a little busy being in a roiling morass of temper and pain and guilt.

Jana had wanted to talk about his Mom.

Stiles had expected, given that he’d been open about having what humans had dubbed PTSD, that she’d want to take another crack at his memories regarding Peter.

Mind healing’s most powerful tool - or one of them, and the one that Jana tried on him during their first session - was using consensual memory manipulation to make traumatic or even merely troublesome memories feel like they’d occurred in the far distant past.

Yeah…that didn’t go so great with Stiles and his particular brand of nameless talent.

His magic worked double-overtime to ensure that he knew what was going on around him, and if not what people are hiding, at least that he knew they were being cautious or outright deceitful.

His mind was one of his greatest strengths.

To say that his magic did not approve of someone mucking about with it, even to help, would be an understatement.

And as a result, left deprived of one of her best tools, she’d decided to tackle some of his issues from another angle - the oh-so-dreaded talk therapy, if used in conjunction with more magic to help him understand how and why they were still affecting him no matter how long later.

Being able to examine memories without being immersed in the emotions he had both in the moment and later when thinking on them was one hell of a thing.

It also led him to trying to hide in the very depths of the ocean outside the Gorgens-Nott estate, so, you know, there were some issues there that needed working out before they did that again.

Ever.

Or at least on anything to do with his mom.

Who he was starting to think that he didn’t remember nearly as clearly as he’d thought he did, based on this first go-around with Jana’s pensieve.

The pressure all around him threatened to squeeze his lungs to mush and his body screamed for him to open his mouth and breathe.

Then in the back of his mind, for the first time he felt an option opening to him as his magic and soul synced up and worked together in an attempt to just breathe.

Stiles had a chance to take: either trust his magic and let the barrier he felt within him shatter or risk drowning trying to swim for the surface or try his hand at an underwater portal (that wasn’t likely to work, not gonna lie.)

Left weighing his options between doors one and two: change or stasis, Stiles closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and let it all pour in - water, magic, change, fear, grief, desolation, pain - and then breathed it back out.

When he opened his eyes, it wasn’t to a dark, nearly lightless corner of the ocean.

But to a vibrant seascape that danced in colors he’d never before seen.

That he couldn’t see.

Breathing in, he felt the flutter of gills at his ribs, his chest expanding with water rather than air as his very physiology shifted along with his magic.

Changing him - for however long he wanted it to last - from a landwalker to a creature capable of surviving in the depths of the sea.

To save his life from his own stubbornness, his magic had shifted him once more, unlocking the potential that had been waiting in his heritage and power.

Pushed once more to the breaking point - his magic did for him what it did best: it made him survive.

No matter what form it had to take.

Or the consequences that would come as soon as those who were no doubt searching him realized that he might have taken more after his dad’s side of the family than any of them considered possible.

He wasn’t full merrow, and was the furthest thing from a pureblood, but that he was at least descended from one was now incontrovertible.

What with the massive fins attached to his arms, and the gills over his ribcage, seeing underwater with perfect clarity, and his ability to breath sea water instead of air.

At least in his current form.

Stiles wasn’t merrow.

But he sure as hell wasn’t just a landwalker either.

What that meant for him, or his future, he didn’t know.

All he cared about that exact moment was that the embrace of the sea felt both comforting and freeing, and that mound of sand on the seabed looked comfy as hell.

Curling up with his head tucked within the shelter of his new fins - they were so large they were almost wings, which combined with his new coloring in a silvery-blue speckled with black gave him an inkling of his merrow form’s provenance.

But he’d worry about all of that - and the punishment that was coming his way for disappearing - later.

For now, he just needed a break.

And a nap.

A nap sounded fan-fucking-tastic, thanks.

It took Alec and Quinn with an assist from Hadrian’s shadows to locate Harry’s errant charge in the end.

For good reason.

Altan was an excellent healer, he was no doubt going to be one of the foremost of his generation in his field, but he was no tracker.

He was also right.

They could sense Stiles, but pinpointing the brat was impossible.

Though as soon as they found him, curled up in the fetal position with his neck tucked inside his fins on the ocean floor, the natural - and magical - camouflage of his merrow-shift explained Stiles’s disappearing act quite tidily.

“He’s an eagle ray,” Quinn said in awe as he took in the speckles and the large wing-shaped fins.  “How lovely.”

Alec couldn’t disagree, though it only fouled his mood further.

Kesmer’s bloody reefs.

Just because the little troublemaker was Harry’s ward, didn’t mean he had to try and take after him all the time.

With two of them around, Alec was going to go grey before his time, he just knew it.

Though there was a brightside:

Stiles having a full merrow-shift to go with his talent for perception would allow him to make a bet or two with his more irritating family members over just which family the Stilinskis’ forebearer had been lost from.

And that he was an adorable, powerful submissive was absolutely going to throw the Courts into chaos.

Best yet, none of it was going to be something Alcandor could use against or punish Alec for but would have to handle regardless.

Ahh…

It would be glorious.

And Alec would be sure to enjoy every moment of the drama.

After all, no matter how anyone wanted to spin these events, not one of them was his fault - and therefore neither his responsibility to manage or his punishment to take.

Though speaking of punishment, they'd best wake their little troublemaker and get him back to the surface before his father took a page from Charlie's book and started breathing actual fire.

Now that really would ruin Alec's day.

And they simply couldn't have that just when it started looking up.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Thirteen: As Varied as the Sea

Taranis Maruke arched a silvery-blond brow as he strode into a scene that had become all-too-familiar the longer he was playing clean-up for the Inter-Realm Council on Terra.

His father Riven Cairothe had requested him specifically due to his talents and Taranis like many dragels tried to never refuse a request from his family circle without good reason.

As long as the request - much like the one that had come from his mera the day before (his time, not Nevarean time) - was reasonable.

As he was mostly ensuring that the repairs done by the mages were holding, it wasn’t even that difficult - just time-consuming when he’d rather be back in Nevarah preparing to defend his championship title in the Pits.

He was Nameless but he’d never let that stop him when it came to making a name for himself.

There was no Blood Title for the Nameless, they had no royal family, no true representation in their own governance.

It was accepted that a Nameless could choose to join whichever court that they felt drawn to - but never was it considered that they should have a court of their own.

From what Taranis could tell, it was a numbers game.

Not enough Nameless to need a court and royal family of their own to support them and their unique needs and circumstances toe-to-toe with the established elemental lords and ladies of Nevarah.

Taranis didn’t know if he could change that, or even if he wanted to.

Both the Shadows and Storms had only had ruling families rise up less than a century before, when Jascha Cunningham took on all-comers for over a week to become the foremost Shadow dragel in the realms.

Though no one had ever confirmed the rumors - and he had a feeling that his father Devrim actually could if anyone could get him to speak of his mera’s family - Taranis imagined that Lady Bianca Dreswell had done the same among the stormborn.

Taranis saw the rise of a Nameless ruling circle as inevitable.

The more dragels and other magical creatures lived and loved and intermixed together, the more Nameless that would be born.

That was rather the nature of Nevarah’s status as a sanctuary realm.

It was who and when, those were the questions - not if.

In the meantime, with no ruling family to require the services of a blood title for the Nameless (or to sponsor it) Taranis had to make due with pummeling everyone in the Pits whenever possible.

With the Hunt set to begin in less than a month as time passes in Nevarah, there soon would be a plethora of gheyos wanting to knock Blood Raven’s heir down a peg or two.

Not that they’d find it an easy or even possible thing to manage.

But as always when it came to those with a grudge of whatever kind against his family circle - better him than one of his younger siblings.

Especially now that Callix had finally found an ACE worth ranking-up for.

Over Taranis’s dead and dusted body - and not even then if the right Death Seal could be cast or if he managed to make a contract with a necromancer - would anyone ruin that for his shy, often insecure little brother.

It put him into a bit of a bind, the conflicting desire to be in the Pits and watching over his gheyic siblings but at the same time, when their parents called, Taranis would answer even if he was missing out on a valuable purse or two and having to trust in some of his friends and allies to guard his siblings in his stead while being stuck on Terra being bored to tears.

If anything, the most difficult part of checking on the nodes and adding in a bit of magic to the repairs here-or-there as needed was keeping himself on task - and entertained.

He rather doubted his third Riven would be pleased if Taranis started popping back and forth between Nevarah and Terra at will due to boredom.

Avoiding which was imperative with Riven’s temper and given that he was making his last round of checks before diverting to complete the favor for his mera, was what brought him back to Beacon Hills.

And the loft that the resident werewolf pack called home.

Or at least the pack alpha.

The quiet young werewolf was always good for a bare-knuckles brawl, and if he didn’t want to exert the full edge of his infamous temper on Nighshade when he tracked the shadow joker down, it’d be best to sate at least part of his bloodlust before ‘porting to their last known location.

Sating other lusts would be a good idea as well, but: alas, when he’d popped into his temporary lover’s apartment to see if the hellhound was interested in a romp, Peter had already left for Death’s Court for some required training now that Beacon Hills wasn’t in imminent danger of killing off the last of his family.

The hellhound had been fun, but with an edge to him for spice.

But then: jokers usually were that way, even when they didn’t ride too close to the line of ferity.

As a hellhound who had been born something else - a werewolf in Peter’s case with dragel heritage - Peter Hale simply rode that edge closer than most.

“What’s wrong with him?”  Taranis asked, eyes turning away from the wolf that was staring out at the shadows of the forest beyond with an epic scowl and onto the younger members of the pack.

He liked them, for the most part, even if they all were very young - even the ones that seemed old before their time like the alpha, Derek, or his first-beta in Isaac.

Erica, the spunky blonde with a gheyo’s love of a fight, gave him a smile that was all vicious glee and white teeth flashing against blood-red lipstick.

“He’s missing his mate,” she cooed obnoxiously, Taranis feeling his brows dart up in surprise.

Whilst dragels had bonded, and sometimes soul bonded though it was rarer than his mera’s circle, which was a result of a soulscream would suggest, some species of shifters had mates.

Some called them soulmates - as they were absolutely capable of the magic of a soulbond - but others considered the phenomenon more physical and primal than mystical.

A matter more of the body and instinct than the soul.

Either way, a wolf missing their mate was not unlike a dragel pining for either a bonded or an intended depending on the state of their relationship.

That explained some of the alpha’s tendency to brood at least.

If Taranis had met - and recognized - a potential soul-bonded, he’d hardly be sunshine and rainbows if they were separated before they could either bond or have a mage seal the potential away to keep it from tearing him apart with longing.

All of the wolves had been busy for the most part with their mentors and training to spend much time around Taranis, with the dragel popping in every other day or so to spar with them on Alpha Idonie’s request.

But one didn’t have to spend much time around the Hale Pack to realize that the alpha, for all his earth elemental connection, could brood just as well if not better than a shadow-type if left too long to his own devices.

Not without cause - even more now that Taranis knew about the missing mate - but still.

Derek Hale had certainly perfected the art of the brood.

“He’s not my mate, Erica.”  Derek rebutted in exasperation, turning around to face them all mid-eye roll.  “He’s pack, even a friend, but…”

When all three of his betas loudly scoffed - even quiet Boyd - Taranis swallowed the urge to snicker at the look that flashed over Derek’s face before the wolf’s expression settled back into a scowl.

“He can’t be my mate,” Derek continued, quietly, sending a fleeting glance Taranis’s way before focusing with utter seriousness on Erica’s disbelieving face.  “He can’t, Erica.  Stiles isn’t a wolf, or even a human or another shifter.  It’s not possible.”

“Wait, Stiles?”  Taranis blinked, taking a moment to think on why that name sounded familiar before it came to him in a rush.  “You mean my mera’s new mentee, Stiles?  The sub with the unknown family background?  That Stiles?”

“Your mom is Harry?”  Isaac stared at him owlishly, recognizing the pronoun but the information definitely not computing as, as far as he remembered, Harry Gorgens-Nott was definitely male.

“Mera, not mom.”  Taranis explained patiently.  “Dragel circles can be quite large.  My birth parents - if you will - are part of the Gorgens-Nott circle but Harry is still my mera just like he is for the rest of my siblings.  Now,” he focused back on the topic at hand.  “Stiles?  My mera’s Stiles is the missing mate?”

Which, actually…explains quite a lot of the questions he’d had about what he’d heard regarding the submissive going full ferros-rage but not hurting the two betas who’d been with him at the time.

If he had a latent bond - of whatever type - with their alpha…

His instincts simply wouldn’t have allowed him to harm them, instead forcing him to focus on anything but causing harm to his potential intended’s pack.

Even if his conscious mind had no earthly idea of the instinctual logic behind his actions.

Which, given what he’d heard secondhand from his parents and siblings alike regarding his mera’s new mentee, sounded about right.

Derek deftly ignored the dragel in the room.  “He wouldn’t be happy, or even safe as my mate, Erica.”  He rebutted.  “Stiles can’t be my mate.”

Erica snorted, rolling her eyes.  Derek might say that, but the way he tended to swing around the Stilinski place on patrols - and didn’t even realize he was doing it - said quite a bit about what Derek’s instincts had to say.  She gave it another week, maybe, before he ended up howling at Stiles’s dark window like a forlorn puppy.

If he even made it that long with how grumpy - even for Derek - he’d been getting the longer they went without any contact from their resident genius pack member.

“That’s not actually true.”  Taranis crossed his arms over his broad chest, planting his feet firmly when Derek turned on him with a near-snarl on his handsome face at his authority being challenged.  Especially on a subject as delicate and fraught as mates.  “Your Stiles may be a dragel, and have a dragel’s needs when it comes to having a circle - I couldn’t say, not all do, but if he is my mera’s mentee then it’s likely that he does need one - but that doesn’t also mean that he can’t be a werewolf’s mate.”

Isaac frowned in confusion, then put words to what his alpha’s pride would never let him ask - especially from someone who while helpful in the time he’s been around, was almost a stranger.

“What do you mean?”  The curly-haired beta asked for clarification.  “You’ve never even met Stiles.”

“No, I haven’t.”  Taranis agreed with a nod.  “But the magic that decides on mentor/student bonds is very precise and well known.  Just from the fact that he was paired with my mera, I know a few things about your Stiles.”  He focused back on Derek, not backing down from the alpha for a moment.  His own nature simply wouldn’t allow it.  “He’d be nameless, without a true calling to a single element.  He’d be a submissive, and while it’s a bit of a gimme point given,” he lifted one of his hands a bit and made a circling gesture at the loft and wolves inside of it.  “He’d be Terran-born.  He’d have things to learn from my mera, and there would be things he could teach to my mera in turn, as the relationship is never one-way or one-sided.  And while it’s a bit of a cheat since I have been told a few things about him, but given who my mera is and who is in our family circle, I would wager a large sum that he’s powerful even for one of us.”

“What about any of that makes him being able to be a wolf’s mate possible?”  Derek asked challengingly, stare starting to shift and darken into the deep red of his alphahood as his temper rose.

Taranis smirked.  “My mera has seventeen bonded.”  He enunciated precisely.  “As long as you’re able to live without strict monogamy from a mate, then there’s no reason whatsoever that your Stiles can’t be yours, if he agrees and wants the same.”

Derek’s eyes popped open in shock, the betas all spluttering as the word seventeen rang through their heads.

All of them having a moment not unlike Stiles’s own when Harry revealed the full breadth of his circle.

As well as throwing Derek headlong out of self-defeating brooding and into a riot of confusion now that the main block - as far as his instincts were concerned - had been torn down with alacrity at the claws of a ruthless Taranis.

Stiles could be his.

The question then became…did Derek want to be Stiles’s?

His wolf howled yes but the rest of him, the rest of him was deeply uncertain.

He’d picked up the warning in Taranis’s matter-of-fact rebuttal against Derek’s ignorance of the realities of the situation.

Stiles could be a werewolf’s mate if that was what they both wanted.

But if he was like Taranis thought, like Derek had assumed, then Stiles would also never be Derek’s alone.

And that…

Derek didn’t know, yet, what to do with that.

Fortunately, the Sheriff had been crystal clear and for all that his pack liked to tease him, he had months yet to make a decision about Stiles.

Until the younger man turned eighteen, the entire question about mates was academic.

Which was both a blessing and a curse he thought as he agreed to a spar with the irritating dragel who’d come looking for him for that precise reason - right now, bloodying up that pretty face sounded like the best idea Derek’d had in ages.

Derek had time to figure out what he wanted.

Which also meant, he had time for his instincts and heart to beat his logical, rational arguments against pursuing Stiles into the ground.

Which wouldn’t be anything new.

When it came to Stiles, Derek’s mind was rarely the part of him in charge.

Even if the mouthy teenager had never realized just how close to the edge of his instincts the wolf always rode around him.

Thank the moon.

He might not know Stiles as well as he’d like, especially now that the teen had proven over and over again just how intelligent, loyal, and vicious he was, traits that were extremely attractive to a wolf, but he did know him.

Stiles could never help himself when it came to poking at things best left alone.

If he’d gotten the slightest inkling of where Derek’s mind often was around him, he would’ve picked away at Derek’s self-control bit by bit until he got exactly what he wanted from him.

Come hell or high water.

Honestly, while his instincts were pouting over Stiles being a literal realm away, it was a blessing to his sanity.

He never would’ve made it until Stiles was eighteen once the kid unlocked his dragel side with his control intact - and likely his hide un-shot by Stiles’s dad when the sheriff inevitably found out just how weak Derek could be towards those he cared about.

Derek’s wolf side could pout and grouse and howl all it liked.

Stiles being so far away was the only thing protecting them from the wrath of a protective, armed, father.

A good thing too.

Bullets hurt like a bitch, even if they wouldn’t kill him.

No, Stiles being in Nevarah was a good thing.

No matter how much it made the unfulfilled bond inside Derek ache with longing.

Stiles ducked his head contritely as he once more reclined in his spot on the partially submerged water loungers, his new friend Altan taking his turn in the “scold Stiles” parade.

Even if he had to wait until the next day to manage it.

Their dads had more than filled up the previous day with letting him know exactly how dangerous, foolish, careless, thoughtless, etc. his actions had been.  Some sympathized with what drove him to wish to disappear into the sea - but it still didn’t save him.  Though the lectures did soften once he revealed why he’d been so overwrought.

Discussing how your mother tried to kill you at one point because she believed in her delusional state that you were a monster out to kill her would throw anyone for a loop.

Stiles’s “loop” came with a side-effect of unlocking one of his shifts, albeit one that none of them were certain he’d be able to manage despite potentially having both the required genetics and power for it.

It wasn’t even that out of the question for a dragel with merrow heritage to have a merrow form.

In comparison with the sheer amount of magic that was required for a full shift into their dragon forms - something which still blew his mind and he couldn’t wait to learn, though it could take months of meditation and study to manage which: boo - shifting from a different version of the same species was hardly as intense.

Rare, apparently, without having help to guide the shift into the correct form.

But not as punishing on Stiles’s body and magic as his first full-shift was supposed to be according to just about everyone around him and his studies.

All of that aside, Stiles knew he’d fucked up, so he took the lectures - and the punishment decided on between his dad and Harry - on the chin like a boss.

That the punishment just happened to be restriction from going deeper in the water than his knees, and having to spend literal hours - there’s a magical tracking sheet and everything - practicing his portals (both alone and taking along passengers) which he’d been avoiding like Scott having an Allison-shaped hissy fit, kinda blew monkey balls.

Yes, he’d managed ‘portaling just fine…mostly.

It was a comfort thing and a state of mind issue more than anything else.

Harry’d picked up on that, like the cheater with his power that he was, in about two-seconds flat.

With how portals worked, they were steadied and powered only in part by the caster.

The rest of it was managed through extremely powerful and cognizant ghosts called caspers that agreed to a sort of half-undeath in order to continue assisting their people after death.

Portgas was the main casper for ‘porting, but there were elemental caspers as well for the four main elements that someone could use if they were aligned with that element and properly trained - and the elemental casper approved of them - as well as caspers who helped healers and pregnant people, which was awesome.

Stiles being Stiles, the fact that the bulk of Nevarah’s transportation network relied on dead people who were so powerful they became pillars of magic and continued right on trucking with helping their own after death was both terrifying and fucking awesome.

Still didn’t fill him with any sort of desire to rely on another - no matter how benign and supposedly helpful - to ensure he got from point a to point b.

Harry gave precisely no fucks about Stiles’s control issues - at least insofar as it came to ‘porting - and forced him to learn anyway if only so he had the skill in his back pocket in case of emergency.

Case in point: having his mind twisted around on itself by his well-meaning mind healer and just needing to get the fuck out before he went all feral on the nice lady dragel and tried to tear her and her entire office building in the general healing sector of Nevarah apart.

The gheyos had had their own turn at punishment detail - to far more whining at first.

Stiles may have been an athlete at school but that did not mean that he enjoyed running sprints and doing laps, let alone having a truly punishing physical exercise routine dropped onto him.

It was a conspiracy, he was certain of it.

One designed to make him far too tired at the end of the day to even think about disappearing on them ever again.

The practice with his wings - mainly just exercises for now - with Minh and Idan weren’t awful however, and both Hadrian and Devrim had promised both self-defense and weapons training if he got up to an “appropriate” level of fitness.

The bribing bastards.

Devrim was one of his favorite members of Harry’s circle.

Watching him bat around Erica and Boyd like a mama-wolf disciplining/playing with a pair of unruly pups had been one of the highlights of his life and the only thing better would be seeing him do the same to, say, Scott or Peter Hale.

Not Derek.

Derek, he thought from what he’d seen, might actually be able to hold his own in a fair fight now that he was all I’m the Alpha with the power to go with it.

Maybe.  Against Devrim.  And not with weapons but their fists and claws.

It was hard to say, given that Harry and his guys all had literal decades or more of experience on Derek.

Which had been one hell of a head-trip when he realized that Harry and Bran were the youngest members of their circle - and both of them were in their eighties despite looking like they were in their early twenties.

Stiles liked the gheyos, and not just because Hadrian, Wikhn, and Devrim in particular felt comfortable to his senses or familiar in ways that had everything to do with magic and nothing to do with how long he’d actually known them from what he could tell.

So yeah: he was being taken to task for his thoughtlessness and worrying his dad and Harry and the rest.

But it could definitely be worse.

Though that seemed to be one of the few constants in Stiles’s life: things could always get worse, and often did if he didn’t work to handle problems as they came instead of avoiding them like the plague.

Or Harris on the warpath.

Before he’d been arrested, anyway, though the trials from what little Stiles had heard wouldn’t be for at least a couple of weeks yet as they were still gathering evidence.

Which would put the Beacon Hills trials right before the anxiety-inducing festival known as the Hunt.  Wouldn’t that just be buckets of fun for Stiles to worry about: having to try and get himself ready to form his circle with a trial he was involved in always in the back of his mind until all of that was finally finished and put to rest.  Yay.

Because needing to get paired-up dragel-style lest he lose his mind wasn’t drama enough for one summer.

“...and you had no way of knowing that you’d shift, Stiles!”  Altan finished up his scold with a fierce scowl that only deepened his resemblance to his sire Alec.  “You could’ve died!  Mera didn’t teach you concealment spells for you to hide from the people who care about you!”

“I know, Altan, I know, I’m sorry.”  Stiles told him soothingly, genuinely contrite.  

He was sorry.  If not for what he did and the consequences than for how he’d worried everyone.  Until the last moments before his shift, he’d truly not believed he was in any danger.  He’d gotten complacent in his new status as a magical creature, perhaps.  Thought he was indestructible now…right up until fate decided to slap him in the face and remind him that there would always be something bigger, badder, and more dangerous than him.

Even if in this case it was a force of nature like the ocean rather than a sapient creature or being out for his blood.

“Believe me, with the drills that all your dads are getting in on, and the disappointed looks from my dad, I’ll never misuse a concealment spell on purpose ever again.”  Stiles lifted one hand in a swearing motion, then paraphrased the main point of pretty much everyone’s lectures over his disappearing act:  “Even if I really needed that time to myself, there were better ways I could’ve gone about getting it if I’d stopped to think for a minute instead of just reacting.”

“Good.”  Altan huffed, slumping back against his own lounger instead of leaning into Stiles’s space as he vented at least some of the worry he’d felt over the younger dragel the day before.  “You deserve all those drills, you know.”  He narrowed his eyes on the sheepish expression on his friend’s pretty face.  “Every last one of them.”

“I know.”  Stiles sighed, slumping into an exhausted pile now that he didn’t have to pay attention lest Altan get even more pissed off at him.  “And with Alec and Brishen and Wikhn all coming with us, I won’t even get a reprieve beneath the water.”

“Good.”  Altan huffed once more, settling in for a long bask and shifting to let out his wings, wanting to enjoy the sun and the spray from the waves.

“Vicious.”  Stiles muttered, closing his eyes and loosening up his own control so that he could really enoy the bask.  It wasn’t a disapproving comment, in the least.

“Merrow,” Altan muttered right back.

Fair.  Stiles decided, thinking about Alec and all the warnings he’d been given by Harry about how best to interact with him.  Let alone the far more exacting members of the water-dragel culture.

That was absolutely a fair assessment.

Stiles should know.

As he’d proven well over, he was certainly tuned into his merrow side.

And viciousness was only the tip of the iceberg on his less… earthrealm-accepted traits.

“Do we have everything?”  Harry asked as he chivvied both his bonded that were coming with them as well as the Stilinskis into order several days after Stiles’s little adventure.

Alec held up the charmed and expanded pack that held changes of clothes - both wetsuits like Alec and many other merrow favored as well as landwalker clothes in the unlikely (but still possible) event that they were needed - as well as the rest of their supplies for the trip to the palace in the main merrow city.

“Clothes, accessories, jewelry, healing supplies,” he began, then continued until he’d rattled off the extensive list of items that the other pareya as well as Quinn and himself had put together.

Notably, it held none of the gheyos’ belongings, as they tended to make their own preparations.

Preparations that often were heavier on extra weaponry than anything else but then: gheyos.

Stiles tuned out a little, instead fiddling with the platinum charm bracelet that Harry had gifted him the night after he arrived.  Deceptively dainty and shiny, it contained several charms already though it’d been implied that as he started hunting for bonded of his own that he’d likely find himself receiving additions to it.  As Harry wore a similar bracelet of gold that nearly dripped with jewels and charms, Stiles rather thought that the other submissive knew what he was talking about.

Wrapping several times around his wrist, it was a pretty piece made of marquis-shaped links connected with small round links.  Thanks to Harry, dangling from the links were a trio of charms: one made of gold that was embossed with the Gorgens-Nott circle crest, one with Harry’s personal mark (both of which were to identify Stiles as being under Harry’s/his circle’s protection), and the last a simple thing made of wood with an engraved design.  The latter he’d only been given the previous night, though his dad had had one just like it since the same night Stiles had received his bracelet and his dad a necklace that also had the same three charms attached to the simple black leather cord.

Stiles had never been someone who cared about jewelry but he’d found himself chirping with pleasure over the gift.

The wooden token was fascinating as it was enchanted to be connected to the bank account that Harry and his dad had set up for him, just like a debit card.

It would’ve been nice to have sooner, but he recognized that previously he hadn’t really been ready to explore Nevarah alone.

Honestly, before his little side-trip beneath the waves, he’d never even ported to or from his mind-healer appointments solo.

Something that if Stiles was reading the situation correctly was due to change - once they returned from the merrow waters, anyway.

Harry wanted him at least moderately comfortable navigating Nevarah before the Hunt actually began - and having him gain the experience with the city that would require was best done, apparently, before everyone and their mothers started arriving in a couple weeks and the city started filling to almost over-capacity for the festival.

“Be safe and return to us,” Stiles just barely heard the murmurs exchanged between his mentor and King Raspen.  

All the bonded who were present in the realm had popped in throughout the last hour or so to say goodbye to their husbands and houseguests - but as always, whenever Raspen was around, Stiles couldn’t help but keep half an eye on him.  Even knowing why still didn’t help much.  He trusted that his mentor and his circle didn’t mean him harm.  That didn’t mean they couldn’t or wouldn’t hurt him, if only on accident.  Raspen, simply due to the sheer strength he carried within him, was the worst for jangling at Stiles’s perception unless he’d managed to turn it down or off - which was a work in progress - or someone had hit him with a dampening spell.  

There were others that Stiles could logically see as a greater potential threat.

But to his perception?

Nope.

Raspen was the big-bad as far as Stiles’s Talent was concerned, even if of all the Gorgens-Nott Circle, Raspen was realistically one of the safest to be around.

Stiles’s instincts didn’t care about logic.

They cared about the fact that Raspen as a born–and-crowned royal of his kind had the power to make and unmake entire realms.

Compared to that, his instincts gave zero fucks about the bloodlust of the gheyos or that Harry could draw on the power of his bonded through their bonds to him.

Raspen, or any dragel royal probably, were the only threats in any room that Stiles’s instincts cared about with that combination of authority and power packed into one person.

Didn’t exactly fill him with glee at the thought of going to meet another one, not gonna lie.

Not that he’d ever say anything.

That was his problem to figure out, not Raspen’s or Harry’s.

Maybe his mind-healer’s.

Maybe.

For his part, Harry simply took all the warnings and well-wishes (as if he was departing for a strenuous journey to a far-flung realm instead of the merrow palace) in good faith, trading kisses with his royal husband and then Theo one last time before moving into place and linking hands with Stiles on one side and Brishen on the other.

“Take a breath,” Alec gave the standard warning - more for Noah than Stiles given the amount of practice he’d undergone over the last few days - for those unused to ‘porting, then cast the spell in his native merrow tongue.

A spell that rather than dropping them outside the gates to the Waters, where Crimson Tide stood sentinel, took them right to the reason for their visit:

His kingly cousin’s personal study, where Alcandor was sure to meet them in short order - once the alarms told him of their presence - and finally get off of Alec’s tail over the Returned.

Whether that was where he was supposed to take them…now that was a different story entirely.

Despite starting out in his plain human, landwalker form, it took Stiles all of two seconds on the other side of Alec’s portal to switch into his mer-ray shift.

Those two seconds consisted of blinking, realizing he was underwater and not in a dry room in the palace - he knew they existed from Harry’s stories - and swearing as he shifted automatically.

It was a rare show of trust that he didn’t look to his father first and ensure that the charm granted him by the combination of Brishen and Alec’s magic was doing its job before shifting.

He may still have his issues with dragels, dragel society, and his own place in it making him wary of the intentions of those around him - but when it came to his dad, he actually believed that they meant no harm and were only trying to do right by him.

Mainly because unlike with Stiles, when it came to Noah there wasn’t really anything to gain.

And his trust in this case was amply rewarded when he blinked his eyes open-then-closed to make them focus properly in the water and saw his dad floating comfortably in the water with what looked like a full-body air cushion mere millimeters thick surrounding him.

The exact same spell, he saw, that cradled Harry and Wikhn.

Brishen’s skin had gained a bit of a blue-white sheen, while Alec had fully shifted into his single-tailed merrow form, both of their trident pendants hanging down over newly-bared chests.

Stiles had seen both of their shifts quite often lately as they helped him with his own, often enough that the sight didn’t faze him in the slightest - where his own was still a little startling to see even if it felt as natural as breathing.

Whether air or water, depending on if he was on land or under the sea, regardless.

It took practice, hours of it squeezed in between teleportation circle practice, exercise drills, flying drills, and lessons of all kinds to allow him even a semblance of grace in managing his water-wings and tail.

Especially since, unlike an actual eagle ray’s tail, Stiles’s could be used with far more varied purposes than just propulsion.

He’d already discovered - on accident, Alec, accident - that it made one hell of a whip if he wasn’t being careful.

Later, under Brishen’s tutelage, he’d learned with extreme care to keep from damaging himself the ins-and-outs of using the long length and strong muscles of it to drive off a threat or otherwise protect himself.

“So,” a tall, elegant form blurred into the room in a streak of teal skin and navy hair.  “These are the Returned.”

The most beautiful face Stiles had ever seen - and he’d grown up with Jackson Whittemore - stared at them from under a dazzling crown that sparkled with swooping gilded chains and jewels.

Stiles gulped, eyes wide.

Oh boy.

That could only be Alcandor, the Merrow King.

Suddenly, despite all his preparations and his desire to just get it over with already, Stiles felt deeply, strongly unprepared.

Because if that, that was what the merrow had chosen as their king?

Then Stiles was absolutely not as ready to handle their “friendly visit” as he’d thought he was.

Alec and Altan had lulled him into a false sense of security.

A thought that he doubled-down on when he saw the merrow swimming in via tentacles who was a massive mountain of a creature with cheekbones that could cut glass and deep blue eyes that Stiles could happily die in.

He was not prepared.

More than anything, he suddenly felt like despite everything he’d thought, that he didn’t have anything in common with them after all.

That power he felt from them?

The beauty?

The strength?

What the hell did a hundred and fifty-one pounds (Quinn was pleased with the weight gain) of pale skin and fragile bones with a temper that could actual-facts level a building have anything to do with everything that these merrrow were?

Before he could lose himself in his thoughts for real, one elegant hand tipped in black claws reached out and flicked him between the eyes.

“Stop that.”  Alcandor commanded idly, arching a brow.  “My my, you really are quite like your adorable mentor, aren’t you little one?  I could practically hear your self-esteem shrivel up and cry.  You’re merrow, Stiles.”  Alcandor gave a regal sniff and a stern glare when the youngling looked like he was attempting to locate his tongue.  “And we are the most desired, beautiful, and powerful creatures to grace any realm.  Yes,” he rolled his eyes at the disbelieving look the little one leveled at him.  “Even you.”

Alcandor made a twirling motion in between them, barely stirring the water so complete was his control.

“Come, spin, let me look at you and how you’ve adapted to your form.”  He prompted, swimming easily in place and crossing his arms.  

He’d already greeted the others, including his troublesome cousin whose presumption he’d take out of his hide later.  The youngling however had been so lost in his thoughts - Alcandor could almost smell the angst even without the mental prompting from his bodyguard, one of his bonded gheyo suite - that he’d missed the greetings and introductions altogether.  He was so very young, especially for the power that nearly danced at his claw-tips, and had all the insecurities that tended to plague the youth.

It truly was a shame that he couldn’t be allowed to grow into his power and bond in his own time but on that everyone knew better than to tempt Lady Fate.

The sight he would make in a decade or two, unsealed and comfortable in his power, would have been one for the ages.

And Alcandor was petty enough to want the most (potentially) powerful submissive of his generation to Hunt and Bond when it was his element’s turn to Host rather than another having the honor.

Especially as it was his rival in Ebony - as both their elements and their personalities had ever been at odds of all the Nevarean royals of their generation - who would reap the rewards of Stiles’s need to Hunt and Bond a circle to balance out all that delicious power.

Such a shame.

Still, the youngling was one of his, and Alcandor as any merrow and doubly so as their King, took such things with the utmost seriousness.

He would do all he could for Stiles and his father.

And, given who he was, he could do rather a lot.

It was always a question of whether or not he would.

But, in this case given the relationships at hand, as well as Stiles and his father’s statuses as being among the Returned, if by direct descent rather than being one of the Lost themselves…

Yes, Alcandor decided as Stiles gave a lovely spin of his wing-like fins and elegant tail one he’d clearly practiced, his father watching on with blatant pride and not the least bit put off by his son’s very inhuman new features.

Yes, in this case, he actually would do all that was within his power to help the struggling youngling and his cautious father.

Watching the unbonded members of his court flail all over themselves at the daintily spotted fins of Stiles would prove to be quite entertaining if nothing else.

Especially if he caught the eye and interest of one of Alcandor’s proud Crimson Tide, the elite of the elite of merrow warriors.

Which, naturally, made them the finest to be found in any realm.

Perhaps if the chaos was grand enough, it might even distract his beloved submissive and queen Killigan from falling fins over tail into yet another catastrophe or near-world ending event with the Hunt only a few weeks away.

Perhaps.

A king could hope, anyway.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Fourteen: Lost and Found

Mesmyr swam slowly through the winding and twisting maze of corridors that made up the merrow royal palace.

For once in recent months, he wasn’t in any rush.

As with any member of a royal court, in the lead-up to the Hunt, Mesmyr had found himself busy indeed.  Doubly so as a member of Crimson Tide.  King Alcandor hated nothing so much as problems during the Hunt, when any-or-everything could cause loss of face for the Merrow before all of Nevarah.

Mesmyr and others like him, the elite gheyos who answered directly to the crown, often found themselves deluged with contracts of varying kinds during the preparation period before each Hunt.

Clean-up jobs mostly.

Quiet assassinations or reminders to particularly troublesome aqua-kin’e - or their enemies - who might get the idea in their kelp-brained heads to try and take advantage of both King and Court’s distraction as they surface for the Hunt.

Try, being the operative word.

It was a small - comparatively - contingent who surfaced every decade for the Hunt, but it was always one of significant power.

Significant enough that those who were truly too stupid to live might think that their absence created opportunity.

As if Alcandor was some krill-minded guppy and not the elite example of all a merrow should be: dangerous, intelligent, cunning - but most of all ruthless.

Mesmyr was proud to have followed his family’s tradition and trained his fins off for a position among Crimson Tide.

Prouder still when his elder brother defeated all comers to take up the mantle of the Crimson Tide, the merrow Blood Title holder, and currently the bonded ACE of the King’s circle.

Krymsen and their other brothers had always supported Mesmyr, even to the point of beating his first gheyo trainer into pulp when the suicidal fool dismissed - hurtfully, at the time - Mesmyr’s pretty face and beguiling form as being good for nothing more than a Vanity Queen.

As he’d apparently failed his family by not inheriting as a rare gheyo submissive.

Oh, Krym had had quite the time beating the scales off the fool for that.

Before promptly taking over training Mesmyr himself.

He knew better than anyone all that he owed to his brother, an elite and unparalleled warrior even from their illustrious clan.

Taking care of a few nuisances so that Krym’s circle could partake of the Hunt in relative peace was a simple enough way to repay the love and care and support that Krym had always lavished on him.

Even so, it was a nice break now that the missions had slowed with the bulk of the potential trouble-spots handled.

Before his break, Mesmyr hadn’t even seen the walls of his own home for more than a quick nap here-or-there in weeks, and Krym had started to get that look he wore every time he started fussing like their mera and muttering about Mesmyr looking for a nice King to take care of him.

(Krym better not have actually said anything to their family circle about Mesmyr running missions for Alcandor almost non-stop, or he’d scale and salt him, beloved older brother and fierce Blood Title or not.)

Thankfully, Mesmyr wasn’t on the roster for guard duty at the Hunt, so in theory he’d have time to get more rest before his family circle is due to host a feast for the Hunt that he’d have to present himself at.

With being the last unbonded one of their children, he knew better than to show up looking anything less than in optimal condition or the gentle nudges to Hunt and bond would become far more insistent.

Mesmyr hated upsetting his mera.

And as he’d yet to meet a merrow King who suited him, let alone a Sub or an Alpha…he was starting to think that he was getting to the point where he was going to have to upset his parents if he meant to ever have a circle and family of his own.

No one in his clan had bonded outside the water in four generations.

But with each Hunt that came and went, each potential King who sought his attention - the infamous Mesmyr, the King’s contracted ACE who handled problems in secret that his brother as Crimson Tide couldn’t publicly be involved in - or Sub who fluttered his way and left him cold and unmoved, every Alpha who saw his connections and not his self, he was starting to think that what he was seeking wasn’t going to be found beneath the waves at all.

Coming around one last corner between the royal wing of the palace and Crimson Tide’s training grounds, Mesmyr thought he saw the flash of a tail that he didn’t recognize.

Stopping, he spun slowly in place, seeking with both his senses and his power only to frown lightly when neither found anything amiss.

Shaking his head, thinking that he was more bothered than he’d thought by his circumstances, Mesmyr glanced around and then turned, disappearing into the shadows of the palace.

Hidden around the corner, tucked away and concealed in the shadows that felt so comforting, bright golden eyes peeked with fascination at a brilliantly colored tail, scales, and hair.

Wow.

Stiles knew he wasn’t supposed to be roaming around the palace alone, but he couldn’t help himself: the lure of the library Alec had sped past on the way to their guest rooms in the more landwalker-friendly section had beckoned.

And okay: he might’ve gotten a little lost.

Just a little.

They’d only been in the palace for one night, the king being far more gracious than either Stilinski had expected from all the dire warnings they’d been given about Alcandor, but it was enough for Stiles to see more kinds and types of merrow than he’d ever even considered could exist.

And that was with knowing that his own form wasn’t exactly the typical one thought of when he thought of mermen or merrow.

Especially given that both Alec and Altan had very pretty, lovely, single-tailed merrow shifts.

Stiles probably should’ve considered that since he had a form that wasn’t Disney-approved mermaid/merman that others wouldn’t look like that either.

Meeting the King’s ACE Kyrmsen had definitely reinforced that with his red-dyed tentacles, claws, and hair.

There were merrow with single tails and dual, with tentacles, with tails that looked like whales, with shark-forms complete with a fin in the center of their backs.

Jelly-caps that had tentacles sprouting from a divided bald-pate instead of hair.

Crustacean-types that had jointed limbs instead of tails.

Spiky types with poison and spikes for hair.

Anything-and-everything that one could imagine as a blend of human and aquatic life - and that was just among the merrow.

There were other aqua-kin’e: sirens, selkies, actual merfolk rather than merrow, and more.

Stiles had thought that Nevarah with its many types of magical creatures made for a diverse population.

It was nothing compared to the varied forms of life that thrived within the merrow waters.

His own merrow-shift of an eagle ray was practically tame in comparison to some he’d seen and all in a single day while being shown around by Alec and Harry as Alcandor made official arrangements for him and his dad to have a heritage test.

But out of all of them, he’d never been stunned speechless and almost let himself get caught where he wasn’t supposed to be like he’d been when he saw the merrow just now.

He’d been male, the flat if sculpted chest had made that clear, but rather than the shades of blues, black, grey, white that most merrow had with the exception of Krymsen, that merrow had been a vivid and gorgeous blend of fuschia and royal purple with splashes of indigo.

Gorgeous, maybe the most beautiful person Stiles had ever seen - and he counted Alcandor in that.

And worse, from Stiles’s perspective: dangerous.

The merrow didn’t have the massive build of Krymsen or even Alcandor, but every inch of that body visible beneath the armor of a warrior and the dangling trident pendant he wore around his neck was ripped with muscle in a show that put even Derek to shame.

Every piece of that merrow - for all that Stiles only saw him for a moment, it’d been more than enough to imprint it on his mind and memory - had made Stiles’s instincts want to sit up and purr.

Stronger and more fiercely than they’d done for Altan when they’d met - and Stiles could take a couple guesses as to why.

With the aura that the merrow hadn’t been bothering to control as he swam confidently through the halls of the palace, that had been a dominant merrow, and with the armor then Stiles would be willing to bet gheyo.

Given that most of his experience with gheyos were Harry’s, he couldn’t pinpoint it more than that.

But it was certainly enough to give Stiles a wake-up call.

The merrow he’d seen earlier that day were all beautiful and lovely in their own ways, but that one?

That one had been interesting.

Interesting to the point that Stiles had to admit - if only to himself - that maybe he was readier than he’d been saying for the upcoming Hunt.

And for reasons beyond needing to bond.

Having all the support in the world from his dad and Harry and the Gorgens-Nott Circle had been lovely.

Making a friend in Altan had helped him heal from the wounds Scott had left.

But Stiles was tired of being alone and the ache in his chest.

He wanted more.

He wanted…

The more he was coming to terms with his new state of being, the more he wanted what most submissives did: bonded and a circle of his own.

Seeing that gorgeous merrow, he could admit it: Stiles was slowly growing ready to hunt and court and bond.

Altan had made him think: maybe, one day.

That merrow made him want.

He knew his dad wasn’t, and wouldn’t be, happy about it.

Especially since even if they took how much faster time passed in Nevarah, he wasn’t eighteen yet - and both of them had been raised with eighteen as the benchmark of making future-impacting decisions like moving out and getting married of their own accord.

For dragels, it was very different but then they aged and matured differently.

Stiles had aged and matured differently than the humans around him, even if neither of them had ever known why before he’d broken through into his inheritance so spectacularly.

After that gorgeous pink-purple-blue tail flicked away, Stiles let out the breath he’d been holding and slipped back out of the shadows, mind locked on the bond he shared with Harry to lead him back to the guest rooms.

One close call was more than enough.

And had definitely given him enough to think about, without taking the time to pillage Alcandor’s library.

Especially since he thought if he batted his eyes innocently enough at the king, he’d probably manage to get himself an invitation to the library - if he played things right.

As long as Alec didn’t rat him out anyway.

Which, given Alec’s everything, could honestly swing either way.

Lost in his thoughts and schemes, the young unbonded dragel was ignorant to the eyes that watched him with a mixture of amusement - the youngling seemed to honestly believe that he’d slipped under the notice of a member of Crimson Tide, it was adorable in its innocence - and curiosity.

Mesmyr couldn’t recall a member of the court having an unbonded child of hunting age with such a lovely eagle ray form.

Councilman Viliak’s daughter was an oceanic manta, but she was an alpha with her giant span of wing-like fins and dark blue coloring.

Not the pretty pale silvers and marine coloring of with palest purple and pink speckling that quietly announced a submissive rank - a halfling submissive at that, given that dark brown hair and creamy skin.

He didn’t stop to consider the matter long as the young - unbonded, given the lack of marks on that lean neck - submissive swam away in the correct direction for the guest quarters.

Mesmyr had duties to attend to and his fellow gheyos to pummel into the ground.

Perhaps if the submissive was still on his mind afterward, he might spend some time reconsidering his long-held stance on surfacing for the Hunt.

If nothing else, agreeing to do so was certain to put Alcandor into a good mood and get his mera off his fins regarding his lack of interest in finding a circle of his own.

Whether it would be worth the hassle however…

Well, he still had time to decide.

And if the potential of checking another glimpse of what looked like quite the luscious ass above that slim ray’s tail, just barely concealed by filmy merrow-style robes helped him along in that decision, that was between him and his instincts.

Not for his king or brother or Kesmer-forbid his mera to know.

Harry watched anxiously as two members of the merrow council overseeing the duty of testing and welcoming potential Lost Children and their descendants cast a complex series of spells over each’s assigned Stilinski.

Seeing - and sensing - his beloved’s agitation, Wikhn folded his little love back into his arms, pulling Harry’s lithe back to rest against his chest.  Trusting, in a way that would’ve seemed insane when they first bonded into Harry’s circle, that should anything go wrong, Brishen was more than capable of handling it.  Especially here in the depths of his element.

Harry wanted the best possible outcome for Stiles and Noah.

Of course he did.

How could he want anything else for a pair who had faced and survived so much together?

But the Merrow were different in ways that even more than fifty years after bringing Alec to his side through his soulscream Harry still didn’t fully understand.

He did trust and believe that the merrow - or most merrow - would welcome the pair.

It was what strings might be attached to their potential heritage that gave him pause, or what expectations might fall onto their shoulders depending on what name the rituals came back with.

For his part, Alcandor watched - oversaw - every word and motion the pair of councilors made.

The ritual was being performed in the palace’s casting ground and at his command, but to preserve the integrity of the results, he had to allow the set processes to proceed.  The rituals had to be cast by the duly-charged ritual masters.  Without further interference - as some might see his actions already - to potentially influence them.

Such occasions were undertaken in a precise, agreed-upon fashion precisely to prevent any accusations of tampering.

As a King who’d won his crown through a bloody challenge against all-comers, there would always be dissenters seeking to stir trouble.

Futilely, but that often didn’t stop them as it should.

With both Alec and Alcandor’s suspicions regarding the potential provenance of their newest little ray halfling, it was more important than ever that the Crown uphold the approved process for confirming a suspected Lost Child’s heritage and potential merrow family.

Alcandor would not allow the Stilinskis to become yet another battle between himself and his detractors.

He would not.

A Returned undergoing the rites was always a blessing.

Each and every Lost Child was a gaping wound on the collective hearts of his people.

Finding even one was a gift beyond price.

For that alone, Alcandor might be tempted to sway events in the favor of those who found them, or grant the Returned themselves more than was considered by some to be their due.

Keeping the Crown’s claws clean of accusations of tampering regarding which of the Lost Children the Stilinskis descend from was nothing short of prudent.

Unless he wished to gift his ACE with a few dissenting heads to remove from useless shoulders.  Perhaps to take Krym’s mind off his vexing youngest brother’s stubbornness.  Not that the ACE could point any claws when it came to being stubborn, but in the way of older siblings everywhere that had never stopped him.

“Yarad.”  The shocked announcement from the ritual caster working over the elder Stilinski broke their audience from their thoughts - whether for good or ill.

Alcandor gave a vicious grin of satisfaction that was wiped away as quickly as it appeared.

He - and unfortunately, his irritating cousin, Alec was going to be impossible to live with after this success - was right.

Excellent.

“Noah Janislaw Stilinski is of direct descent of the Noble House of Yarad.”  The councilman announced formally, swiftly regaining his senses lest one of the piranhas of the Court used his shock to tear into him at some inopportune moment.  “At least one-half merrow heritage, the direct ancestor being within two generations of his self.”

For his part, the sheriff merely nodded his thanks to the merrow with his blueberry-toned skin and dark navy scales, before turning to watch as the other merrow working on his son continued to cast spells several moments after Noah’s own ritual was finished.

Which, from what had been explained to him wasn’t supposed to be the case.

While both Alec and an Advisor Kieran had explained the coinciding rituals, they’d noted that as Stiles was one generation down the line from Noah himself, it might take a little longer for his own ritual to be complete.

Or that the opposite was possible: because Stiles had inherited and not Noah, it could have been that his son’s heritage test would be over sooner than Noah’s.

And now, Stiles’s strange type of luck seemed to have kicked in all over again as they all waited for several long, increasingly tense minutes for the second heritage-test-ritual-thing to finish up and tell them what should be self-evident: that like Noah himself, Stiles was a descendent of this Yarad family and one-quarter merrow.

Despite his worry over his son however, Noah was quick to note that both Alec and the King seemed smug over the news of who he was related to.

A fact that Noah wasn’t certain how to take, much like how he felt about the merrow in general.

Not as a people, per se, but when he was dealing with them personally.

They were all a bit…mercurial, maybe, for his preference.

The open viciousness and cunning, those he could handle - he was Stiles’s father after all.

How quickly their moods seemed to shift between extremes, however, was a different thing entirely as in his experience as a cop, such mood shifts were rarely indicative of anything good going on with the person they belonged to.

“Yarad,” when the confirmation came with was with a hefty side of dry exasperation.  “He’s definitely a Yarad within three generations.”

“Why did it take so much longer?”  Noah couldn’t help but as even as Stiles nearly bolted out of the ritual casting space and over to his father’s side, scrubbing at his arms with a scowl all the way.

“His magic has a predisposition for concealment if that hasn’t been discovered already.”  The councilman explained, rubbing his forehead with one clawed hand.  “It did not appreciate the ritual trying to reveal part of it, no matter how benign the reason.”  He snorted, giving the King a knowing look.

A young halfing with a talent for perception, a ray merrow shift, and magic predisposed for concealment?

That couldn’t sound more like one of the Yarad Clan if they’d draped the youngling in advisor’s robes and put their crest around his slender neck.

One of the most secretive clans of noble merrow - and wasn’t that saying something with how rarely one even knew the makeup of the crown royal’s circle beyond the main triad, and in this generation even that much was unknown - the Yarad were a clan that most merrow knew of but rarely knew.

And with the loss of a merrow babe in the Torvak attack on a merrow nursery reef, the already secretive Yarad had become almost totally secluded in the aftermath.

To the detriment of the Merrow Courts, as the talent that ran through their line - the talent that young Stiles possessed - was one of the strongest and truest forms of perception found in any merrow or dragel clan.

“The formal notice will be sent to the Yarad as soon as we return to the administration building.”  One of the ritual masters warned - and it was a warning.

“Right,” Alec whirled, eyeing the Stilinskis meaningfully.  “That means we need to go.”  He chirped as soon as the councilmerrow were out of the room.  “Now.”

“Wait, what?”  Stiles perked back up at the merest hint of shenanigans afoot - or, er, afin?  “Why?  I thought one of the reasons we came down was to meet any potential family we have left?”

“That was before we knew they were the Yarad.”  Alcandor told them dryly, folding his arms over his chest.  “They can be difficult in recent decades after the loss of your apparent ancestor.”

“Tightened and closed ranks harder than a clam.”  Advisor Kieran muttered with a dark scowl.  “And the Courts were the worse for it ever since.”

“If you want to retain the choice of whether to dwell on land or in the water,” Alec explained crisply.  “Then we need to go before they arrive and try to sweep you up into their encompassing fins and behind the wards on their estate.”

“If you think Stiles’s ability to find and exploit a weak point in an argument it bad,” Brishen chimed in when Alec elbowed him roughly in the side when it seemed as if the Stilinskis were taking too long to agree.  “Then it’s nothing compared to how a fully-trained and skilled Yarad can use their family talent.  You’ll find yourself agreeing to whatever they want if only to end the frustration of trying to counter their arguments.”

Noah eyed his suddenly-sheepish son knowingly.

Yeah.

That sounded about right.

“I’ll handle the Yarad Clan.  With your permission,” Alcandor tacked on quickly at the look shot his way by Harry that was all burning green eyes and threats of a submissive’s ireful meddling.  He hid a mental shudder.  Anything but pissing off Harry and having him get Killigan on his tail for one slight or another.  He rued the day that those two were introduced - at times it seemed like neither he nor his cousin or Alec’s alpha had had a peaceful week since.  “And make it clear that any interaction or suggestions of returning to the family fold will be your choice and not any other.  An argument that will be much simpler if you’re both out of immediate grasp on land.”

Stiles held back an instinctive whine even as he nodded when Harry glanced his way.

With how busy the day had been, he hadn’t had time to either raid the palace’s library or go looking to see if he could spot that pretty dominant merrow from the night before.

Damn it.

But one look at the stress and tension blooming back to life on his dad’s face decided for him.

The thought of having more family was great - right up until it became a reality that might want to have a more controlling (if he was reading the situation right) claw in their lives than either independent Stilinski would be keen to allow.

He hated having to leave so quickly after they arrived - he’d barely gotten to see anything, and definitely hadn’t left the palace - but needs-must.

Their personal agency came before sightseeing - or pretty merrow tracking.

Besides, he consoled himself even as they circled back up, shifting into his normal form instead of his ray-merrow one in preparation for returning to the surface, it wasn’t permanent.

Just until the King could make it clear that the Stilinskis weren’t property to be reclaimed.

It’d be fine.

And maybe if he told himself that enough, he’d actually believe it.

After a long day of wrangling the Court, there were few pleasures that Alcandor reveled in with more relish than finally managing to relax onto the impossibly soft surface of his bed.

Notably among them, was when he could delve into that comforting space and find that he wasn’t alone.

On that particular night, one of a scant few remaining before he and the selected members of both the Court and the merrow as a whole will surface for the Hunt, Alcandor was deeply pleased to find himself sinking into not only the embrace of his bed but also both his beloved submissive Killigan and their bonded ACE Krymsen.

The two were not often apart, especially if Killigan had had cause to leave the palace for any reason, and with the nature of royal duties snatching moments together as a bonded triad was rare without another of their circle present.

And even more rarely occurred in the King’s private bedchamber.

Rather than question it, or play the haughty king, now that they were in private without watching eyes on their every move, Alcandor chose instead to accept the indulgence - especially as he knew once the Hunt began that such quiet moments would be few and far between.

Sinking into the comfort of his loves’ arms, he waited a long moment, then Krym finally let out a gusty sigh.

“My brother is driving me insane.”   The mightiest ACE the Merrow had to offer whined, to soft chuckles from his loves.

Killigan wrapped their lean arms around the bulky, sculpted chest of the warrior, propping their chin on one large bicep, batting their glorious blue eyes up at the sulking behemoth.

The relationship between the two brothers - one the oldest and one the youngest of their family circle - was one of warmth and unyielding support.

Now that he was also one of the foremost warriors of the merrow, Mesmyr had stepped up as an insurmountable barrier between his brother and unworthy challengers to the title of Crimson Tide.

But if Krymsen was a mighty trident, then Mesmyr was an assassin’s blade: both deadly in their own rights, if sharply different in execution.

A simple fact of life that led them to their current straits: Mesmyr making a decision and leaving his brother at a loss regarding how or why his beloved baby brother had come to his latest decision.

As well as trying to predict what the outcome and potential backlash might be…just in case.

Which, Alcandor had to admit, was merely prudent planning when it came to Mesmyr.

There were few merrow as joyfully vicious and mercurial as Alcandor himself within the court, but his favorite non-bonded (other than Alec’s Harry) was certainly one of them.

“What did he do now?”  Killigan asked in their soft voice, the royal submissive not having seen the vivacious ACE in quite some time.

Their royal husband had been keeping most of Crimson Tide busy lately in preparation for the Hunt after all, to the point that even their family members had been scarcely seen around the palace as they handled one potential problem or another.

Which was as it should be, but still made catching up with some of their more entertaining in-laws a bit difficult.

On the other claw, it kept the more irritating family members at bay as well, even if with the latest revelation regarding the newest Returned, Killigan and Alcandor were going to have to finally confront a problem that had long been brewing and stewing on the edge of one of the wildest portions of the merrow waters:

Killigan’s family.

Though it seemed, with the newest additions to the fold bolting before any of their noble clan could arrive at the palace to meet them, Killigan might finally have to surrender their title as the most rebellious member of the clan.

Killigan could only hope that the Stilinskis’ intransigence against the - gentle, loving, nearly inescapable - smothering of the Yarad Clan would turn out half so well as their own.

The relation was distant - Killigan’s parental triad from the circle of a cousin of the main branch, but still using the clan name and living within the estate - but it was there nonetheless.

Confronting the Clan Head over the isolationist policies that’d been put in place after Canto’s loss was never pretty.

But for one of his people, Alcandor would confront Kesmer, Arielle, Poeria, or even the Immortals.

It was one of his most attractive traits.

When it came to the good of the merrow, there was no barrier or boundary their King wouldn’t cross or a challenge he wouldn’t dare.

It was why they - both their people and his bonded - loved him so.

“He’s insisting, insisting! after years of disinterest, that he’s joining the Court when they surface for the Hunt.”  Krymsen groused, scowling even as he wrapped Alcandor and Killigan in his arms, the pair resting easily against his chest with all their royal regalia and dripping jewels removed for the night.  “Not as a guard, mind you,” he continued as Alcandor started combing clawed hands gently through his long red-dyed locks before passing pieces over to Killigan for braiding for the night.  Though he couldn’t be too irate with his irritating little brother when he had his loves in his arms and caring for him.  Especially when Killigan secured his braids with a spell that let him know that immediate sleep wasn’t on the agenda.  “No.  And he doesn’t want to join as one of the potential Intended available for courting either.  What is going through his krill-brained skull, I can’t even begin…!”  He spluttered out when Alcandor tugged sharply on one last lock of hair before coiling and spelling it out of way himself.

“He met Stiles.”  Alcandor offered with a smirk and dancing eyes when both of his bonded looked at him in surprise.  “Not officially.  But from his private report, they had a near-miss with Stiles wandering somewhere he shouldn’t have been and darting away when Mesmyr crossed his path.”

Letting his head fall back with a soft splat against the soft, squishy pillows, Krym groaned as if pained.

Oh gods, that was even worse than he was imagining.

Mesmyr wasn’t being his normal quiksilver self.

He was interested in a troublesome little bit of fluffy hair and flashing scales.

Kesmer’s bloody reefs.

If Mesmyr bonded away from the Waters, their Mera - to say nothing of the rest of their parental circle - was going to have an entire whale.

And who was going to have to manage the fallout with Mesmyr on land and out of easy reach?

Krymsen and the rest of his older siblings, that’s who.

The contrary little brat.

Krym would’ve liked to berate the monster that masqueraded as his adorably vicious little brother, but before he could sink too deeply into what-ifs and worst-case-scenarios to plan his counterattack and responses, his bonded set about taking his mind off of Mesmyr and his incoming drama in the best way possible:

With nothing at all that could be discussed in polite company, and a liberal application of effort of only the most pleasurable kind.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Fifteen: Hidden Wounds

Almost a month after Stiles and Noah had crossed realms to take sanctuary with the Gorgens-Nott Circle in Nevarah, they found themselves lounging in Noah’s guestroom, the elder with an arm over his son’s shoulders as his boy cuddled into his side on the wide, soft couch that sat in front of the wide windows overlooking the ocean below.

It had been one hell of a ride so far, and their Nevarean vacation wasn’t even close to complete - but there was a decision that had to be made nonetheless.

Noah had been insistent on taking leave from his position as sheriff to support his son.

Too insistent as far as some were concerned, but he’d done it regardless.

The problem they faced now was that while he had saved up quite a bit of vacation time to use in lieu of taking an unpaid leave of absence, it was eventually going to run out.

And elected positions being what they were, once he had to make the switch from paid to unpaid leave, everyone from the mayor to the county commissioner to his own deputies would start asking questions about when, exactly, they could expect their sheriff to either return to the fold or resign.

Noah would never admit it, but he’d been relieved that the trials for the Beacon Hills arrests had come while Stiles was having his realignment period.

He’d been summoned, as the Sheriff and able to give testimony regarding the Hale Fire and other events, but given Stiles’s state his absence had been considered allowable - especially as he’d already given memories to the investigators shortly after they arrived in Nevarah.

The elder Stilinski had been deeply reassured when his son’s realignment period had been a matter of a couple days rather than over a week this time.

It was still unsettling - watching his son grow tired and lethargic before lapsing into a magical stasis - but the lessened time was a relief nonetheless.

Both of them had been warned that as Stiles grew and matured, when or if the Gajos Seal was removed, as well as the ever-looming threat (at least in Noah’s mind) of bonding that his realignments would change as well.

What was only a matter of a day or two now might become a full week later - or vice versa, as seen with his first two realignments.

Until he was fully settled and bonded, it was impossible to truly predict, though the more realignments Stiles had, the better he’d get at noticing the early symptoms of an upcoming realignment and be able to prepare for it appropriately.

Bonding pareya would help with that apparently, the protective rank taking tracking and preparing for their submissive’s realignments as one of their duties, but until then they had Harry and his circle to help.

As they did with almost everything since Stiles’s inheritance.

But when it came to the Sheriff’s position, his duties to both Beacon Hills and his son, what Stiles and Noah truly wanted their futures to look like…

They couldn’t help them decide.  Not when it came to choices that would affect the rest of their lives.

“Alright, kiddo, talk to me.”  Noah finally prompted his son when it seemed like Stiles was content to aggressively snuggle his way nearly inside his chest rather than broach the subject of Beacon Hills.

Stiles hadn’t been nearly as pleased over the trials occurring while he was in what he’d dubbed Coma-Lite 2.0, but as everything was complete and finalized before he woke up, there wasn’t anything he could do about it other than work out the feelings the reminder of Beacon Hills always brought up in the training ring with whichever gheyo he could convince and/or cajole into working with him.

Rather than speak, Stiles just huffed and turned his face into Noah’s shirt.

“Alright,” Noah nodded with a soft sigh.  “Then I’ll talk.  I haven’t been shy about my thoughts on you returning to Terra.  I’m your dad,” he craned his head a little and met one golden eye that was peeking up from Stiles’s attempt at semi-hiding from the conversation they needed to have.  “Your safety will always come first for me, and I don’t believe you’ll ever be safe in Beacon Hills, no matter how much work everyone does to try and make it safer as long as there are people out there like Torvak and hunters, Terra isn’t a place I’d prefer you spend any time.”

“I know,” Stiles shifted, sitting up and facing his dad even as he kept from leaving his hold entirely.  “But I miss it, Daddio.”  He keened low in his throat, eyes watering a little.  “I really do.”

“Do you miss Beacon Hills?”  Noah asked, digging into the situation a little with his own gifts.  Whether trained from law enforcement or simply the way his magic chose to present itself it didn’t matter.  Either way, he was no slouch when it came to truth-seeking himself.  “Or do you miss the pack?”

Stiles let out a soft warbling cry when his dad mentioned the pack, unable to hold it in despite knowing that it would blatantly give away the root of his longing for what used to be home.

He wasn’t sure where home was anymore, or if it was more home meant his dad to him, or if it was on land or beneath the waves.

Stiles just didn’t know.

But he was missing something and it itched and pulled and ached more and more every day, side-by-side with an instinct that he knew meant with his last realignment he’d shifted from idly pondering the thought of bonding and was actively looking to hunt and court and bond.

If only subconsciously at first.

Though the way his instincts had cataloged Matthias (Harry’s oldest child) and Alexis’s (Harry’s oldest submissive child) circles when they’d come over a few days before for dinner and to help with Stiles’s dancing lessons had quickly drawn his attention to where his priorities had shifted as he’d been deeply dissatisfied that the majority of dragels surrounding him were already bonded and therefore unavailable.

Or like with Altan just not what he wanted yet, and he was not thinking about the implications of that too hard or at all if he could help it.

“Pack then.”  Noah nodded thoughtfully.  That was one theory confirmed.  “I have to be honest, Stiles.”  He sighed, running one hand through his hair.  “I think Nevarah is right for you, but as much as I’ve enjoyed our vacation, I’m not sure I’d want to stay long term.”  He shifted uncomfortably.  “I like it, everything has been great and Harry and everyone are gracious as hell but…”

“You’re bored.”  Stiles said bluntly what his dad was dancing around.  “It’s okay to admit it, Pops.  You might not miss the chaos of the last few months, but I know you love your job.  And there’s not a lot of demand for a human lawman in a place like Nevarah.”

“No,” Noah huffed a laugh, feeling a little sheepish that he’d been trying to hide the urge that’d started growing in the back of his mind the longer he stayed away from his job and the rest of his people in Beacon Hills.  “No there’s not.  And the sort of magical crime they do have isn’t exactly something I can help with.”

Stiles chewed on his lower lip for a moment, shooting his dad a searching look then broached the subject that no one thus far had been able to pin his dad down on, one way or another.

“You know, you could if you wanted to.”

Noah bit back the urge to swear as the conversation took the one turn he’d absolutely hoped - aside from the words Stiles and bonding being used in the same sentence - it would avoid.

That being of him and his potential, mostly latent, magic.

“C’mon Stiles.”  He sighed, lifting one hand to scrub over his face.  “What would I do with magic - and don’t say be a magical cop, kid.”  He warned when he saw a spark light up those amber eyes.  “I’m serious.  There’s a reason why everyone wanted me to take time and really consider what it would mean if I went ahead with having my latent potential unlocked or whatever.  I’m past my prime, kiddo.  Asking my body to handle that…”  he winced at the mere thought.  “It’s a big ask, one that I might not survive even with Quinn’s help and that of his entire massive healing clan.  And given the choice between maybe surviving with magic and definitely surviving without it?”  He arched a brow, cocking a look at his son.  “You know what I’m going to choose, son.”

“Yeah, I know.”  Stiles said mournfully.  It was sobering, and far too real to think about.  What it meant that his dad was in his forties - as a human - and without active magic.

It meant that Stiles was going to lose him.

That he was going to lose him far sooner than he likely would if Noah had inherited as a dragel or even unlocked or used his magical core beyond whatever minor, passive magic might be going on in the background.

Harry and Quinn had been upfront with him when he’d gone asking, once the difference in expected life spans between a human and a dragel - or even a magical human - became clear to him.

There were ways with magic to extend Noah’s life and vitality as he aged.

Potions, spells, even rituals that would help slow down the toll of time.

But they couldn’t halt it entirely, or slow it to the point that he’d age at a similar pace to Stiles and his potential children (maybe, someday) or even one that was close to it.

Noah Stilinski, by choosing to stay as he was and not take the risk that the admittedly-dangerous ritual to unlock his magical core and shove it into an active state instead of one that was mostly latent presented, was choosing to die far sooner than he potentially would otherwise.

It was a hard truth, a hard realization, to accept.

But it was just that: Noah’s choice.

Stiles had made his preferences clear over the last few weeks, but push come to shove, he had to respect his dad’s decision just like he wanted his dad to respect his own.

The only real light Stiles saw was that because of Quinn and the others, now he knew that he - barring a freak accident - would not be losing his dad anytime soon.

Eventually, yes, but not in the next few months or even years.

With literal magic in play, Stiles would have decades yet to enjoy his dad’s company.

It would have to be enough.

Even if it wasn’t everything that was possible.

There were times when what could be had to give way to what was.

Noah’s choice was just one of those times.

Whether Stiles liked it, or not.

“I’m staying through the Hunt.”  Noah said, and it was a promise.  “I put in for leave through the end of June, and by then the Hunt will be over, and if we go by days-lived instead of the Terran calendar, you’ll be eighteen.”  Noah’s smile was a little broken at the edges as he thought of all the changes that had come and gone and those yet to arrive.  “I always knew you were going to fly the nest kiddo.  I just didn’t realize that it was going to be with actual wings.”

Stiles groaned a little at the bad joke, but gave into his dad’s tug on his shoulder to lean back into his hug and hold.

“Theo and Harry will help me make all the arrangements to move your college fund and school records and everything over.”  Noah continued, focusing on the details of the transition instead of the emotions that threatened to boil over inside both of them at the discussion of their eventual separation.  “And I’m sure between Raspen and that Riven guy, that something can be set up to make it so you can come and visit as often as you want.  It won’t be any worse than going off to college.”  Noah tilted his head a little as he compared the two: Nevarah versus human college.  “If anything, I might actually see you more with magic in the mix instead of having to rely on regular travel.”

“I’m still gonna miss you.”  Stiles grumped, burying his head back into his dad’s sturdy chest.  “Who’s gonna take care of you if you’re all the way in Beacon Hills and I’m here?”  He asked plaintively.

Noah rolled his eyes with a soft groan.  “I am a real, adult, law enforcement officer, Stiles.”  He noted dryly.  “I am capable of taking care of myself.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes, expression hidden by his position and his dad’s arms.

Yeah, no.

His dad was great about taking care of everyone around him, but tended to skimp when it came to his own care - as Quinn’s rants about diet had made perfectly clear, thank you very much.

If his dad was serious about going through with returning to Beacon Hills - without Stiles - after the Hunt, then plans would have to be put in place.

And as much as it hurt - would always hurt, even if it dimmed with time - there were quite a few openings in and around Beacon Hills just waiting to be filled by people who weren’t scared off by the rumors of serial killers and mass murderers hitting the town one after another.

Hmm.

It would require more thought and some finagling, but if Stiles had his way, his dad would not be left to his own devices once Stiles was all bonded up and whatnot.

Fortunately, Stiles had a mentor and no fucks to give when it came to being sneaky if it meant taking care of his people.

Of whom, a certain stubborn bastard of a dad was at the top of the list.

Whether he liked it or not.

The ping and clink of fine-honed steel tapping together - more kiss than strike - rang through the air of the Gorgens-Nott training grounds.

Stiles had been beyond incredulous when the gheyos presented him with the pair of well-crafted daggers on his second week in Nevarah.

Someone wanted to trust him, him?, with a physical weapon?

Someone who wasn’t his dad and didn’t have a history of how serious he could turn in an instant with a gun or taser in his hand, who’d taught him responsible weapons handling from the cradle.

Someone who only had a limited set of interactions to base that decision on, and - let’s be real - they weren’t exactly a series of events where Stiles was all that rational at times, let alone stable enough to be trusted with stabby things that could hurt someone (or himself, realistically.)

It had only taken one lesson with Devrim to realize - they were neither overestimating Stiles’s potential nor their ability as teachers.

Instead, they were following up on a part of dragel culture that he’d been excited about - that almost all of them learned at least some form of self-defense, if not went through actual training on how to fight - and giving him a way to channel the burning mass of aggression that liked to flare up inside him at the slightest provocation.

Stiles had always had a temper, but the way he reacted after his inheritance was borderline insane.

It also had more to do with the fact of him being ferros and having amped-up instincts and what could only be described as primal urges than him suddenly being unable to regulate his mood or reactions.

As a ferros dragel, he was closer to their dragon ancestors than most.

It was a fact that not him or Harry or even one of the royals could change.

All they could do was manage it.

Bonding was part of it, yes, and a major factor in his long-term well-being.

But so was giving him constructive outlets for the new and/or stronger instincts and impulses that roared inside of him at the snap of a claw.

Hence: learning not only how not to hurt himself with sharps, but genuinely how to fight with or without them.

He loved it.

Fighting - whether in training to learn and hone skills or in spars where he consistently got his ass handed to him by Devrim and/or Zach more often than the others, though all of Harry’s suite stepped into the ring with him at times - was bone-deep satisfying now.

Before his inheritance, fighting had mostly been a matter of necessity.

One that had often frightened him since - as far as everything he’d been taught was concerned - he wasn’t supposed to revel in trading blows with douchebags like Jackson Whittemore.

Violence wasn’t supposed to be something he enjoyed.

Or at least, that was the message that he grew up with all his life, perhaps even doubly so compared to other kids due to his dad’s job and his exposure to the sheriff’s office and all that that had entailed during his formative years.

Discovering that there was not only a good reason for why he’d always struggled more to hold back when everything in him wanted to lash out than the people around him had been a balm to some of his darkest thoughts about himself.

Being handed a constructive way to deal with those urges - to rip and tear and rend and draw blood - had been a fucking revelation.

“Good,” Devrim praised softly, as Stiles followed him precisely through the forms, then called out the next steps.  “Viridian’s Transition series to Kamkar’s Dance, Stage Two.”

The gheyo prince smiled gently, white teeth flashing brightly against dark cocoa skin as Stiles met him step-for-step and strike-for-strike.

He’d taught his share of young trainees over the years.

Not many were as much of a pleasure as Stiles.

Part of that could be rightfully attributed to the fact that Devrim’s rather unique heritage tended to put most dragels on edge.  Not his circle or their children and families, but outside of those who knew him it was far more common for others to edge away from him out of an instinctive hesitance or distaste than anything else.  Stiles on the other hand, hadn’t reacted at all, even in the grips of his ferros rage.  Rather, the young halfling enjoyed Devrim.  Found him comforting.

It was odd, but wonderful.

Not unlike the youngling himself.

Stiles was clearly drawn to the gheyos more than any others in Harry’s circle, save for Harry himself.

He’d spend time with all of them, never failing to be willing to learn and engage.

But on his own, he’d seek out the Suite for sparring or more lessons once he’d been released from whatever he’d gone over with Harry that day almost twice as often as anyone else.

Altan made his claims to his new friend’s time, and the children blatantly shared an adoration of the young submissive that he lavished right back upon them, but Stiles was proving adept at managing his more dangerous instincts by seeking out the gheyos and what they had to offer.

It was refreshing.

Much like the youngling himself.

Stiles took to the sparring and training with a sass and vigor that was endearing to a group of lethal fighters who had spent much of their adult lives nearly bathing in blood before they bonded into Harry’s circle.

Stiles took each and every one of them as they were, and was willing to meet them on their level, whether that meant quiet enjoyment of their time together with Devrim, witty banter with Mihn, or serious adherence to his lessons with Hadrian.

It was a trait he shared in spades with Harry, and one that gave Devrim hope for Stiles’s future circle.

With his ferros nature, his circle was certain to be gheyo-heavy even if it wasn’t a true military circle depending on how events unfolded.

Devrim knew better than anyone what a blessing from the divine it was for a gheyo to meet and be accepted by a submissive who was as accepting of them and their needs as Stiles.

His Harry was the same, albeit a little more uncertain - at least in the beginning - and more fearful for them and what their natures meant when it came to causing them inevitable pain and injury.

Stiles was almost gheyic with how he was willing to listen and accept that they knew their limits and what their ranks demanded of them.

“Stage Three,” Devrim called out as they nearly completed the next set of steps, a smile flashing and being met in turn by the glee on Stiles’s own face.

The submissive was nearly glowing from the exertion, sweat painting his face and chest, and yet he looked alive and anchored in the moment.

Exactly as he needed to be, to keep from being lost inside his own instincts.

Perfect.

His form on the other hand…

Well, there was always room for improvement.

“Arielle, he looks just like her.”

The pained realization was spoken as if it was torn from within the chest of one Idris Nightshade, shadow joker and bounty hunter.

And most important to the matter at hand: the only living soul who might be able to provide some much-needed answers when it came to the mysteries surrounding the late and much-mourned Claudia Stilinski nee Gajos.

Taranis had tracked him to a far-flung realm doing reconnaissance on a potential bounty, his bonded partner nowhere to be found, and proceeded to tear into a scar that Idris had long thought healed over if not gone.

It would never be gone.

The pain of losing an Intended to tragedy never truly went away, even if it could heal with time and care.

Idris had been less than pleased to have the Maruke alpha hunt him down and deliver what amounted to a summons from Blood Raven but he was no fool: no one would be digging into the Gajos Massacre without cause.

Maruke had left him with one of the Gorgens-Nott Pareyas at their estate before taking himself off elsewhere - likely to the Pits knowing that one’s reputation - and they in turn had led him to a study overlooking a training yard.

Likely Blood Raven’s own, if the ceremonial weapons on display and preponderance of shadows were any clue.

Unable to help himself or settle in territory that was very much not his own for all that it was welcoming to his element, Idris had sent his wife another message, informing her that he’d arrived safely in Nevarah, and then wandered his way over to the large windows.

And there, he’d at last come upon a sight that answered questions he hadn’t even known were there to be asked.

Black eyes in a lean, dark olive-toned face grew hungry as they stared down at the tall submissive dragel below - one with mink-dark hair, creamy skin, and flashing golden eyes set in an expressive face - went through the partnered sparring drill with a gheyo leading him.

It was the sort of drill that was more dance than duel, and it was readily apparent that the dark-skinned gheyo - a prince, maybe, based on the build and air of overall competence - was a master at it.

“He’s her’s.”  Idris stated but with the air of a question, and was utterly unperturbed when a tall, masked figure stepped out of the plentiful shadows around the room.

Only a fool would enter a blood title’s territory and not expect them to appear at any moment.

The two others accompanying the ominous form of Blood Raven weren’t as expected, one the infamous form of Harry Gorgens-Nott, whose soul-scream had thrown the dragel Courts into an uproar by bonding a crown royal, a member of the merrow royal family, and a blood title all at the same time.

And that was without considering the connections and names held by the rest of his famously powerful circle.

High Noble by choice and borderline-royal by fact, there were few dragels who wouldn’t recognize the diminutive submissive with striking green eyes and identifying scar.

The other brought along by Lord Hadrian Maruke wasn’t known to him, but it didn’t take a joker of Idris’s caliber to connect the young submissive down in the training yard who possessed traits of his former intended and her family, add in a stranger, and come up with a close relative if not father.

Even if said-stranger smelled off - both of off-realm, and of not-dragel.

Oh, Claudia, Claudia.

Just what did your ruinous grief get you into, he wondered.

“That’s what we’re trying to discover.”  Harry told the whipcord-lean shadow dragel.  “Blood and heritage tests confirm him as a Gajos, and barring a challenge in the Courts, the apparent heir.  He bears a Gajos seal as well.”

“He has her eyes,” Idris grimaced in remembered grief.  “After she left Nevarah, I never thought I’d see them again.  But,” he glanced behind him at the youngling still dancing through drills below.  “They’re not a sight that is easy to forget.”

“No.”  Noah had to agree, as loath as he was to do so.  Especially with someone who so obviously had a breadth of history with his late wife - and love of his life - that Noah had never been privy to.

That he’d never even had an inkling existed in the first place.

“No, that they aren’t.”

“What happened?”  Idris asked desperately, hanging onto the fraying edges of his control by his claw-tips.  “Why do you need me to confirm what you obviously already know?”

Unspoken, went the grieving lament: what happened to Claudia?  Where is she?  Why isn’t she here?

For his part - for Stiles - Noah sighed and gave in gracefully, letting go of the resentment that wanted to burst to life inside him.

With a wave, he gestured the thin form of the gheyo joker over to one of a group of chairs positioned by the window - specifically so the ACE or others could observe training going on below - so that they could talk and keep Stiles in sight at the same time.

“Too much.”  Noah said heavily.  “Way, way too much and we only have half-answers and best-guesses to go on.  Which is why…”  He gestured at the joker once again.

Idris nodded, blanking himself of the emotions and memories that threatened to rip him to shreds all over again.

His Eris would be most displeased if he fell apart at any other claw but her own.

She’d spent far too long piecing him back together after all that had happened back then to want to have to go through it all over again.

And yet…she may yet have to regardless.

Because there was a child involved.

An inherited submissive, yes, but a child nonetheless.

If it would help that child, help Claudia’s child, Idris could do nothing less than tear himself to shreds and dig out every last iota of information he could share.

No matter how it hurt or what it cost him.

For the son of his first love - no matter how terrible things had ended - he would do nothing less.

No matter the consequences he’d have to bear.

It was the least he could do, after he’d failed her so.

Idris would not fail her son.

Even if it tore him apart.

Even if it killed him.

He owed Claudia that.

Eris would understand, though she wouldn’t like it.  She was a joker, just as he was.  She knew what it was to survive things that should have destroyed them.  That would have destroyed a weaker person.

She knew what sort of debts that such survival created when it wasn’t done entirely on your own will alone.

“What do you need from me?”  Idris asked, and mentally braced himself to answer.

“Tell us about her.”  Harry prompted.  “Tell us about what happened to Claudia Gajos, and why she ran all the way to Terra to escape it.”

Idris sucked in a wounded breath between clenched teeth, closing his eyes with a snap at the spike of pain the demand caused.

That.

Of course, it was that.

“Bring him up here.”  Idris said, when he at last managed to find words once more around remembered pain.  “If I’m going to tell this story, I’m only going to tell it once.  And no one has more right to it than him.”

Noah and Harry traded a look, then Harry turned to Hadrian who nodded solemnly, having an inkling from the joker’s reaction about just what kind of story the Nightshade dragel had to share.

A moment later, one of his shadows split off from the rest and darted down to the training field below where Devrim was running Stiles through his paces.

And then, they waited.

“What’s that?”  Isaac asked as he wandered into the loft after school, backpack slung over one shoulder.

Yeah, he missed Scott.

Kinda.

For all that the other wolf had been really wishy-washy on where he stood - one minute saying Derek was evil, the next joining the pack, then turning around and working with the Argents - he’d started becoming something like a friend to him before…everything.

But he couldn’t forgive what Scott had either been okay with or just didn’t care enough to find out about happening.

Things were weird without Scott - and yes, even Stiles.

Derek’s loft was just one of the major changes that had begun when Stiles lost his shit in an epic manner that Isaac didn’t know could ever be matched.

Isaac was officially in Derek’s care now, for one, instead of being bounced between foster care or group homes until he turns eighteen.

And with the help and support of Alpha Idonie and her pack from up north, it felt a lot less like it was their little fledgling pack against the world.

Coming home to a real home even if it was one that was heavy on the brick and industrial aesthetic, to an alpha that didn’t seem like he was constantly one inch from losing his cool was probably the best thing that’d ever happened to Isaac.

After the bite, obviously.

That Derek had calmed down enough to actually answer Isaac was an event that a month ago would’ve seemed impossible.

Not that it would’ve stopped, say, Erica from asking if she’d been the one to see their alpha staring in bafflement at what looked like a greeting card or something at the island that separated the kitchen from the rest of the open-plan first floor of the loft.

But, Isaac wasn’t Erica.

Anymore, he was starting to think that that wasn’t such a bad thing.

If he was less attitude and more thoughtful.

Quieter.

“It’s an invitation.”  Derek finally answered him after Isaac came back downstairs after dropping off his backpack in his room and returning.

“To what?”  Isaac asked, baffled.  Who would bother sending them an invitation?  Other than the Northrup pack, and, well, Stiles there wasn’t really anyone they really hung out with.

Especially Derek.

“To a full moon run during something called the Hunt.”  Derek frowned, perplexed and conflicted.  More about the potential implications of the invitation than anything else.  Then he told Isacc the sticking point: “in Nevarah.”

“Nevarah?”  Isaac’s brows shot up in surprise, eyes widening.  “Like, where Stiles and his Dad disappeared to with his scary dragon people?  Home of that Maruke guy who likes to bat me around like a puppy?  That Nevarah?”

Derek smirked at the mention of Maruke.

The older male was certainly adept when it came to training young wolves, that couldn’t be denied.

Even if the bulk of it was - as Derek well knew - exactly like Isaac described until they truly learned to trust in their strength, instincts, and reflexes.

Everything else could come with time and dedication.

But learning to trust the new skills they had?

That was coming a lot harder for some of Derek’s betas than others - and often in areas as different from each other as the betas were themselves.

“That’d be the one.”  Derek set the invitation aside, turning his focus on the here-and-now, not a situation he wasn’t entirely sure what to do about.

If he wanted to do anything at all.

Instead, he changed the subject, knowing exactly how to take his inquisitive beta wolf’s mind off of the invite until Derek made a decision one way or another.

“Do you have any math homework?”

Isaac scowled at the reminder, stomping his way over to the refrigerator and snatching up a soda before pouting all the way back up to his room, his sudden mood swing answer enough.

Ah.

That’d be a yes then.

Holding in the urge to sigh - Isaac would hear it even with the soundproofing that Derek had splurged on for all of the private areas of the loft, the curly-haired boy having ears more akin to a bat than a wolf when it suited him - Derek rose and padded after the kid.

It was times like this, with the reminder of Nevarah fresh on his mind and a situation that Stiles would’ve jumped into head-first to help out, that he couldn’t keep the thought of whiskey-eyes and a wicked smirk out of his mind.

The invitation was a temptation that Derek didn’t know that he’d be able to refuse.

But that was a worry for future-Derek.

Right now, Isaac was going to pass his junior year, even if Derek had to personally tutor him through Trig - or it killed them both, which at this point was entirely likely.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Sixteen: Brighter than the Sun

A quick series of cleaning and switching spells had Stiles presentable for company when his training time with Devrim was interrupted with news.

Idris Nightshade had finally arrived and was waiting in Hadrian’s study.

Not Harry or Theo’s, but Hadrian’s given Nightshade’s status as a gheyo joker and shadow dragel.

As he rushed through first the needed spellwork - smiling brightly as he felt his skin and hair feel clean if not necessarily as fresh as actually bathing would manage - Stiles could feel his mind twist and turn as he had no choice but to confront the thoughts he’d been resolutely hiding from.

And the longer it’d taken for Nightshade to arrive, the deeper he’d managed to bury them.

But now they were freshly uprooted and bared to his mind.

Kinda hard to hide from an idea when the very linchpin of it was sitting in front of him with shaking hands and haunted eyes.

The dragel who could only be Idris Nightshade had been a mysterious, if not terrifying, specter in the depths of Stiles’s mind.

Who was this person who held a place of the woman both Stiles and his dad had both loved so dearly and desperately - even if it seemed that they hadn’t known her, or at least parts of her, as well as they’d thought?

What dark secrets or ugly truths would Nightshade have to unveil?

How would he tear their worlds apart?

Looking at him, Stiles could at last understand the idea behind the idiom: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

That the fear of the unknown could terrify and torment and worst paralyze unlike anything else.

Idris Nightshade was hardly a devil, and yet Stiles’s mental catastrophizing had built him up into a potentially-villainous character of near-biblical proportions.

Nightshade wasn’t some demon from the depths of Claudia’s hidden past.

He was just a dragel.

A clearly sad, haunted one at that.

One that might be far more important than anyone knew - at least based on what Harry and Co. have been careful not to say. 

Not only was Nightshade likely to have information about Stiles’s mom, but it was possible that Nightshade was the thus-far unknown Third parental unit behind Stiles’s ability to inherit as a dragel rather than simply being a badass magical human.

And Stiles…had no idea what to think about that, especially now that the guy was sitting in front of him with cheekbones that he saw every day in the mirror.

“Stiles, this is Idris Nightshade.”  Harry took care of the necessary introductions.  “Joker Nightshade, this is Mieczysław Stilinski, son of Claudia Gajos.”

Stiles tilted his head a bit when the gheyo didn’t react, seemingly too lost in thought to respond as his black eyes were locked on Stiles’s face.

“You can call me Stiles.”  He offered by rote.

“Your name is Mieczysław.”  Nightshade sounded like he’d taken a hard punch to the gut: all breathless and choking.  Then he was clenching his eyes shut and shaking his head.  That they were here and she wasn’t…well, that answered most of his questions all without saying a word.  And tore him apart all over again in the process.  He’d thought after all these years that he was done mourning her.  Mourning what they could be.  More fool him.  “Arielle, Claud, what did you do?”

“You knew her,” Stiles breathed out, eyes wide as he blindly made his way to the chair next to his dad, reaching out with one hand and twining it together with Noah’s own, gaze locked on Nightshade the entire time.  “You really knew her.”

“Oh yeah, I knew her.”  Nightshade shook his head once more then blinked his eyes open, gaze burning with a thousand and one thoughts that would never see the light of day.  “Better than most, not as well as some, but that’s the nature of the beast when you’re trainees together.  Cliques form up, ranks tend to band together or complementary pairs will gravitate towards each other.”  He shrugged, eyes searching as they seemed to devour Stiles’s face and features with a whole new intensity.

“Why is his name a problem?”  Noah asked shrewdly, refusing to be distracted by the freely-offered information that the gheyo had tossed out and Stiles had nearly jumped on.  He’d been a cop most of his life.  He knew a distractionary tactic when he heard one, even if Stiles was far too blindsided by actually meeting Nightshade to catch onto tells that’d usually be like waving a red-flag in front of a particularly snarky bull.  “Claudia said it was his grandfather’s name.”

The sound Nightshade made was too dark and broken to be a laugh.

“It is.”  Idris agreed, head bobbing as he finally managed to tear his eyes away from Claudia’s son.  From Stiles.  “Or so I would assume, if Claudia did what I’m starting to believe she did.”

Turning towards the other dragels in the room, Idris posited a question of his own, the situation clarifying even more with a single introduction than any dancing around the issue would’ve done.

“Did you know?”

“Guessed.”  Harry admitted shamelessly.  “But the identity of his Third is obscured no matter what method we use to try and divine it.  Short of a blood test with a matching sample, I’m not sure that we’ll be able to get a definitive answer through the normal means when there’s a question of parentage.  Whoever Stiles’s Third is, someone did not want anyone learning their identity.”

“No, I imagine she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know.”  Idris felt a burning throb deep inside his chest.  “She didn’t want anything to do with our people or Nevarah after what happened.  I wasn’t surprised one day after everything was settled and her assigned trainer in the joker section pulled his observation spells that I returned to my room to find a message from her saying goodbye.”

Idris seemed at a loss for words for a moment, before turning back to Stiles with something like awe written all over him.

“But I guess even someone as stubborn as Claudia would’ve had a hard time fighting both tradition and the demands of our instincts, as I can’t imagine her knowingly making her son a thing she’d come to despise.”

“She blamed being a dragel for what happened.”  Harry’s eyes widened with shock.  “For the loss of her family.”

Idris shook his head a little, grimacing.  “It wasn’t as simple as that.”

“Nothing ever is.”  Hadrian noted dryly.  “What did happen, Nightshade?”

“Wait, wait.”  Stiles held up a hand, feeling small and lost even as his dad tugged him into an awkward half-hug in the space between their two chairs.  He could see the answer to his question in the facial features of the dragel in front of him, in cheekbones that didn’t match any of the faces or pictures surrounding him growing up and a leanness that was starkly different than his dad’s build, but wanted to hear it said anyway.  “Are you-  Are you saying that you think you’re my Third?”

“Mieczysław is my sire’s name.”  Nightshade told him simply, but honestly.  “When we were courting, Claudia said that we’d name our first son after my sire and our first daughter after her mera.  She liked the idea of grounding our kids in our families’ traditions, even if an actual circle was likely decades away at that point.”

“So she wasn’t lying.”  Noah felt a sense of relief wash over him.  “We did name our son after his grandfather, she just let me believe that it was her father, not yours.”

“She must have loved you a lot.”  Stiles said, as if it wasn’t tearing up something inside of him - and his dad too - to hear that while the woman they loved hadn’t lied to them, she sure as shit hadn’t held back when it came to omitting pertinent facts.

Like her fucking species.

“I believe she did.”  Idris agreed gently, then sighed and leaned forward, elbows popped on his knees.  “But sometimes, love alone isn’t enough.”

“What happened?”  Stiles reiterated Hadrian’s question now that his own - world-shaking as it turned out to be - had been answered.

And promptly stuffed into one dark corner of his mind until he was alone and could process without completely losing his shit, thanks, even if that’s the exact opposite of how both Harry and his mind healer wanted him dealing with upsetting information.

Sometimes, Stiles just had to cope in the moment - no matter how ostensibly bad the coping strategies were - and get through whatever the latest crisis was before trying to be all healthy about things, okay.

Okay.

“Stupidity and pride, in the beginning.”  Idris glanced down, focusing on the floor between his boots rather than the searching, troubled expressions on the face of Claudia’s son and husband - if he was understanding the undercurrents correctly.  “A group from our training year went out to celebrate settling into our ranks.  Everything was normal, great even.  Claudia, myself, some others were dancing and laughing, playing around.  The energy of our group drew others in and then…”  He bit his cheek, the taste of copper washing over him.  Grounding him in the present instead of allowing himself to get lost in the past.

“And then what?”

“And then the Vaughns showed up.”  Idris blew out a breath, scrubbing one hand over his face.

“The Vaughns?”  Harry asked, startled and sharing a worried look with his ACE.  Oh, oh no.

He’d known it was certain to be terrible.

Anything that was classed as a massacre and involved rank-shifted gheyos was never good.

But adding that cursed, now defunct, clan to the mix?

Theo was going to be livid when he found out.

Dead and gone for more than fifty years after a clan war with the Deveraine Circle, the circle of twin submissives Bhindi and Bahn Deveraine and their bonded where the Deveraines took the blood-price owed to them in the death of every Vaughn and their allies save for those underage, the Vaughns were once a blight on Nevarah.

Some called it overkill.

But as more and more crimes were revealed as soon as the Vaughns were no longer being protected by the Air Courts, and specifically the former Queen, Arista, due to a service they were charged with, the less anyone spoke of the terrible vengeance that the Deveraines demanded from their enemies.

Had Queen Arista been wise, she would have championed the Deveraines in the first place when one of the Vaughns took what he wanted from a submissive daughter of the Deveraine Circle instead of dismissing their grievance and sweeping the entire affair under the rug.

Kandra Deveraine was never the same afterward, forsaking her dragel inheritance entirely in preference for her elfin kin, and only ever returning to Nevarah once her dera Bahn arranged matters so that they could finally strike against the Vaughns and their allies despite the patronage of the Air Crown.

That the Vaughns were involved in crimes far more insidious and devastating than what one of their own had done to Kandra Deveraine was no true surprise.

More, an uncomfortable reminder that while dragels were powerful they could also be corrupt.

Idris nodded firmly, face grim.

“Our testimony wasn’t enough in the aftermath of Claudia’s family being wiped out.”  Idris admitted roughly.  “Too many circumstantial events, not enough evidence.”  His scowl was fierce.  “No one wanted to admit that one of our own would do such a thing over a refused match.  But then,” Idris gave Harry a knowing look.  “The Deveraines were high nobles, royalty outside of Nevarah, and even they couldn’t get redress for what the Vaughns did to one of their own.  An orphaned joker and her intended were barely worth humoring, back then, when the charge was against the Vaughns.”

“Which Vaughn?”  Hadrian asked the pertinent question.

He didn’t bother with whys or hows.

The former noble clan were infamous for wanting what they wanted and not accepting refusal well.

Rape and murder had already been attributed to their name in the wake of the clan war and the Deveraines dragging all their sins and crimes into the light.

Mass murder wasn’t all that far-fetched, merely the largest single crime, if not the worst.

“Roderick Vaughn, that fucking ACE that they were so damn proud of flaunting.”  Idris was nearly snarling at the memory of that fucker with his smooth face and greedy eyes.  “Claudia was getting a reputation for a hint of prescience.  Nothing world shaking or as terrible as what the Kadels handle, but these little throw-away comments she’d make to someone that ended up being a little too on-point.  One of our friends was joking around, flirting with one of Vaughn’s little hangers-on, and asked Claudia a question, if she thought they were going to gain a title.”  Idris ground his fangs a moment before forcing himself to loosen up.

If he stopped now, he didn’t know if he’d ever manage to tell it - all of it, not just the horrific ending - again.

“Only if you master a cursed blade.”   Idris repeated, the words seared into his mind after all the years of replaying that night over and over and over again to see if he could spot a moment where he might’ve done something different.  Something - anything - to change what came after.

But as always, he came up blank.

Claudia was going to be Claudia.

Roderick Vaughn was going to be a greedy, grasping bastard.

Short of turning back time and either completely ensuring that he never noticed her or killing him before he had a chance to lay eyes on Claudia, Idris could never come up with a way to avoid what crashed down on them.

“Then someone else asked a question, then another, then another.”  Idris continued, waving one hand in the air.  “Until everyone asked something about themselves or their family or,” he made a dismissive gesture.  “We didn’t realize it at the time, but Vaughn remembered what she said.  Each question and answer, and kept track.  Noticing when the first person mastered a cursed blade and gained their title in the arena.  Digging back further and trying to find other little moments where things Claudia said offhand ended up coming true.”

“They wanted a seer in their back pocket.”  Hadrian fumed, furious all over again at how a single clan had been allowed to run roughshod over their people.  And all because one Queen was convinced that they were indispensable.  Wrongly, at that.  “Anything to gain power without actually having to work for it.”

“Maybe.”  Idris shrugged.  “What the clan as a whole were after, I couldn’t say.  What Roderick was after?”  He hissed.  “That I know all too well.”

“Why?”  Stiles asked, filing away his mom’s potential foresight ability in the back of his mind.

“He asked a question.”  Idris nearly burned with long-banked fury at who was now a very dead dragel.  “One that should’ve told me…but I was young,” Idris took a breath.  “None of us realized what sort of person he was.  At the time, he was just a pushy ACE who Claudia couldn’t have been less interested in.”

Well fuck.  Harry traded a glance with Hadrian.  That didn’t sound good.

“I can still hear it ringing in my head.”  Idris continued, voice half-faded as if he was seeing a scene no one else could.  “What about you, little King?  What will your children be like?”  Idris clenched his hands into fists, thumping them together lightly in a tic that he thought he’d overcome years before.  “The person before him had asked about kids, and Claudia said something about them having an even dozen.  Gave him the opening.  And Claudia being Claudia, she answered him.”

Looking up, Idris stared right at Stiles and echoed his mother’s words from decades before he’d even been conceived.

“Bold and brilliant, powerful and beautiful, and named for his grandfather.”  - “That’s what Claudia told him, all smiles and sass, then we left.”  Idris turned to stare at Noah for a long moment, then focused back on Stiles.  “She refused a courting request from him a few months later, and then a second which he seemed to accept, and we never thought about the ACE again.  And then…”

“And then her family was murdered,” Harry murmured with wince.  “Everyone dead but the two of you.”  He shook it off, as he didn’t need Empathy to know just how torn up the Stilinskis were about Idris’s story.

“How did you know it was him?”  Stiles pressed, ignoring everything else.  As if he didn’t, he’d fall down in a screaming fit and he could not afford that.  Not now, and maybe not ever.  “Vaughn?”

“He was masked and his identity spell-concealed,” Idris ground his fangs in remembered rage.  “Just like all the rest,”

“Which was why you couldn’t get the Vaughns brought up on charges.”  Hadrian grimaced, all too familiar given his own enchanted mask just how effective certain types of concealment could be.

Idris nodded absently, continuing.  “But he spoke to Claudia after, when the pair of us were left bleeding and broken and rank-shifting.”

“Son of a bitch.”  Even Noah without being thoroughly versed in dragel politics from decades before could see where that was going.  “You didn’t survive.  You were left alive.”

“The refusals only made him want her more.”   Idris’s tone was darkly bitter - justifiably so.  “None of the Vaughns or their allies took rejection with any kind of grace, though back then it was just beginning to become apparent what sort of carte blanche the dowager queen was going to grant them.  We didn’t know yet that you had to be careful how you dealt with them, this was even before the attack on the Deveraine submissive,” Idris nodded towards Harry.  “Leaving me alive was a threat to Claudia: submit to what was demanded from her, or they’d take me next.”

“The lack of reaction from the courts must have been tantamount to announcing open season on their fellow dragels for the Vaughns.”  Noah’s everything was grim and furious at hearing what had been done to the woman he loved.  “No wonder Claudia ran.”

“Killed him first.”  Idris corrected, ghoulishly satisfied.  “Though no one could ever prove it.  Waited until I was in the middle of a spar in the Pits and couldn’t be implicated, tracked him down and destroyed him to the point that they needed diagnostic spells to identify him.”

“Not that anyone could ever prove it.”  Hadrian actually remembered that, how the Vaughns accused the Gajos survivor of killing their prized ACE.  He’d been busy training for his Blood Title run at the time, but that sort of stink around the murder of a high-profile gheyo tended to make waves even the hardest-headed gheyo couldn’t ignore.  “Even the Air Queen’s best investigators, and those from the Pits, couldn’t turn up anything about who killed him or how.”

Stiles and Noah traded a soft look, saddened at the edges with old mourning.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

The Claudia they knew was smart as a whip and loved nothing so much as finding and exploiting loopholes in others’ arguments or logic.

Honestly, the idea that someone pushed her to a revenge kill wasn’t that far out of hand either.  Claudia could be vicious when provoked.  As more than one suburban soccer-mom had learned if one of their little bastards tried to pick on Stiles, as happened all his life.  Kids could be far worse than adults - and far more prone to act on the instinct that Stiles wasn’t quite the same as them, even if they had no rational reasoning behind it.

Jackson Whittemore had only been the most recent and persistent of them.

“Your turn,” Idris once more locked those dark eyes on the Stilinskis.  “I’ve told you about why she left.  Where did she go?”

“I can’t say for certain.”  Noah shrugged a little.  “We met in California, both of us attending college in San Diego - Claudia as a full-time student and I was working on my degree while in the Marines.  When we met it was like…”  Noah sighed ruefully, having a better idea now about what might’ve been going on in the background that he was never consciously aware of.  “Gravity.  Two people just being pulled together.  Everyone around us were scandalized when we got married in less than six months but - we were gone for each other.  After my bid was up and we’d graduated, I took a job as a deputy in Beacon Hills while Claudia found a position at the library.”  He sent a fond look at Stiles.  “We didn’t know it, but Claudia was already pregnant when we moved, Stiles coming along about six months later.  Everything was…wonderful.”

Until it wasn’t.

Choking up, as he always did when the subject of the last few years of his wife’s life came up, Noah shook his head, blinking back tears.

“They called it frontotemporal dementia.”  Stiles filled in the blanks, crisply.  “Knowing what we know now, it was probably a result of whatever she did to suppress her dragel.  Her brain atrophied, and her mind just…”  he shook his head, tightening his lips.  “The last few months before she passed, it was as if she was already gone.”

Idris just nodded, thankful that they told him even though it obviously pained them to do so, Noah leaning over and pressing a soft, hurting kiss to the top of his - their, Arielle, their - son’s head.

With as much magic as dragels were made of, there was always a price to pay to try and change or alter or suppress them.

And the cost was always worse when it came after an inheritance, not that it was slight or pretty when it was done beforehand either.

Neither magic nor nature liked to be denied.

Given how thoroughly it was implied Claudia hid herself away with not even the slightest hint to her husband and child that she was in anyway other, that had to be exactly what she’d attempted to do.

Damn it, Claud.   Idris thought all over again, mourning the woman he’d loved all over again.  Why did you have to be so gods-damned self-sacrificing?  They could have figured it out.  They could have done something.  Now…

That was the catch though, wasn’t it?

If Claudia hadn’t done what she’d done, then Stiles wouldn’t exist - or at least, if he was meant, then not as he was now.

It was hard to truly rail against his lost love when their son was sitting as strong and brilliant and beautiful as she’d always claimed he’d be, right in front of Idris.

When their son was staring at him, filled with life and magic and burning brighter than the sun.

Idris could say, what-if, and could-have all day.

But he’d never wish away Stiles.

Even if he’d always mourn how he came about.

Much like, from what he could read of his son’s sire, Claudia’s other love felt as well.

Claudia had chosen as she did, had made her decisions and acted upon them.

Now all they could do was live with the aftermath.

With an internal nod, Idris tucked all the riotous pain and mourning away.  There would be time for that later.  For now, there was still work to be done.

“What do you have left to do to get Stiles confirmed as the Gajos Heir?”  Idris asked after a long silence had lingered, allowing everyone to at least try and come to terms with matters.  “We’ll also have to submit a blood test to get around whatever Claud did to conceal my being your Third.”

Stiles almost spluttered, taken aback by the subject switch, and then rocked again by the easy, near-instant acceptance from Nightshade.

What the actual fuck?

Just like that?

It couldn’t be that easy.

Nothing had been, since long before Stiles was kidnapped and subsequently tore through the bindings on his inheritance like a werewolf’s claws through metal.

Reaching out with his talent, Stiles blinked.

Or maybe it was that easy.

Everything about Nightshade radiated sincerity and acceptance.

To the point that even in the highly-improbable case that they were wrong about Nightshade being his Third, Stiles had a feeling he’d find himself semi-adopted regardless, just because he was his mother’s son.

Huh.

Dragels could be so weird, but at the same time so human that it could be mind-boggling.

Turning his head a little, Stiles met his dad’s questioning gaze, the older man firmly putting that particular decision in his hands.

It was his parentage up for debate after all, it was up to him if he actually wanted to pursue it officially instead of just seeking out answers to a few nagging questions.

Stiles thought about it a moment more, feeling and taking in everything his magic and instincts was telling him, then gave a slight nod.

Yeah.

Yeah, he thought he did want that connection.

Idris Nightshade might be a little broken and battered, a shadow joker which was a whole thing in itself, but so what?

If anything, him being less than perfect just meant that he’d fit into the jagged little family that was the Stilinskis.

Perfection was boring, anyway.

If the Gorgens-Nott Circle heard and/or felt the father-son pair each doing a damn good job of destroying a few things in their rooms, well.

They were only pieces of furniture.

Metal and glass and wood and easily enough repaired or replaced.

No one said a word about it, and they never would.

Noah and Stiles's sanity was far more valuable to them than any replaceable piece of furniture.

Idris’s wife showed up the next day, long after any heartfelt conversations were had and Idris was feeling his way through forming some kind of relationship with the family he never even knew he had, Eris nearly breathing fire and spitting sass like ballistic missiles.

It was official: Stiles was in love.

And no, Dad, it wasn’t just because she wore what amounted to an armored mini-skirt and bustier.

Fuck.

He wasn’t that shallow, jeez.

(Though it certainly didn’t hurt either, just for the record.)

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Seventeen: Unintended Outcomes

Stiles learned more in the weeks between blasting away the suppression on his dragel inheritance and the start of the Hunt than he - even with his ADHD and tendency to hyperfocus when interested - could ever have imagined.

At least, before realities like knowledge transfer spells and magical speed-reading glasses entered his life.

In the span of weeks, he found himself in possession of the sort of in-depth education on everything from magical theory to martial combat to dragel culture and society that would have taken years to impart on earth - and that was with his above-average learning speed taken into account.

And, as his bruises from the training yard could attest, it was far from a strictly theoretical education at that.

Stiles knew he had years yet before he reached the sort of proficiency with fighting that Devrim and Zach and the rest would accept.

But that was just the thing: he had years now.

It was the upside to the coinflip that was a dragel’s natural lifespan:

Yes, he would outlive his dad unless he or Ethan or someone convinced the Sheriff to go ahead with a ritual to fully unlock his magical potential.

On the other claw, Stiles would also live long enough that if he decided to spend a decade devoted to learning how to use a sword under Devrim’s tutelage or a trident like Brishen and Alec, he could.

He had decades if not centuries to devote to learning whatever his heart desired.

Stiles could become a scholar like Ethan and explore the archives of Nevarah or a handful of other realms if he wanted.  He could be a sought-after teacher like Harry, or a dragontamer like Charlie, or a Healer like Quinn.  (Alright, realistically, he’d never be a healer.  But the option was there)  Or, if he wanted, he could do and learn it all.

As the mentored student of Harry Gorgens-Nott, the options for his future were quite literally endless.

All but one, and the reason why two days prior to the Hunt’s official opening, Stiles found himself tucked in among Harry, Ethan, Wikhn, and his dad as they went to visit another of Harry’s bonded in his royal offices, meeting up with his new - somethings -  Idris and Eris along the way.

Stiles had to hunt and bond.

For him, with his power and tenuous grasp on sanity - at least, that was how it felt sometimes - due to his nature as a ferros submissive, there was no other option.

But as had been pointed out time and again, expecting him to successfully court and hunt with a part of himself still sealed away was an exceptionally bad idea.

Perhaps even more so than normal for him, given that while his mother was - as his Third, Idris, had confirmed - a powerful earth element, Stiles didn’t show any particular talent for using earth as part of his repertoire.  He wasn’t hopeless at it - it wasn’t fire after all - but he definitely wasn’t as skilled as he apparently should be.  Having one of a dragel’s parental triad being a certain element wasn’t a guarantee of skill in the child by any measure.  But it did tend to influence a child’s comfort with an element.

Stiles didn’t have that with earth, not like he did with shadows and water from his other two parents, and given the Gajos seal on him it wasn’t hard to imagine why he didn’t seem particularly adroit with calling to the most grounded (pun entirely intended) of the elements.

He had golden eyes for the love of curly fries, one of the main signifiers of an earth elemental.

Ask him to cast an earth-aligned cleaning spell or whatever, despite his apparent potential for an earth affinity, and the only word he can think of to describe what happens next is forced.

He had to force the magic to work with him in a way that not even fire spells reacted - they just needed a lot of practice to begin with, but once learned he can use them without feeling like he’s trying to climb Mt. Everest every time.

Fortunately, with the backing and support of a dragel that wasn’t bonded to the Earth King, they finally managed to maneuver around the bureaucracy that was holding up approval to have Stiles’s Gajos Seal removed.

Which, honestly, seemed like more of a headache for Harry’s circle than for Stiles.

All that careful adherence to protocol to ensure that no one accused Harry and his lot of avoiding or ignoring procedure due to having the King as part of their circle was one hell of a headache - and one that on his own, Stiles never would’ve had the patience for.

Idris returning and claiming him as both his own and as Claudia’s was a massive help in ways that Stiles only considered after the fact.

(Give him a break, there was a lot of not-good-vibes and angst that came with Idris, not the least of which was learning about what happened to his mom’s family, and gaining what amounted to step-parents who looked like the dragel incarnations of Xena: Warrior Princess and a skinnier Ares from the same tv show.  The fact that he now possessed a living parent who was Nevarah-raised and knew how to function in-and-around dragel society was a bonus he didn’t consider until after he processed all of the emotional issues that having a Third brought up.  Which in itself was a work-in-progress, thanks ever so much.)

So now there they were: Stiles and his Dad and new step-parents (because his Terra-raised brain had issues with calling Idris and/or Eris anything closer than that, which they were heart-rendingly understanding of and only made him feel worse) with support from Harry and a couple of his guys to get the last tangible proof of his mom’s existence destroyed.

Well.

Other than Stiles himself, anyway.

Everything else that lingered to remind the world that Claudia Stilinski nee Gajos ever was, were far more ephemeral: memories and pictures of memories, words on the pages of her journal.

Nothing of the same impact and feel of Stiles and the seal he’d carried, unknowingly, all of his life.

One of Raspen’s aides showed them into a ritual room deep beneath the earth, where the actual royal residence and palace and administrative center of the earth courts resided.

For this, apparently, the ones above ground where Raspen would preside over the earth element for the Hunt wouldn’t do.

Understandable, even if the mere idea of being hundreds if not potentially thousands of feet below ground was incredibly disconcerting in the way that allowing himself to sink to the bottom of the ocean had never been.

Stiles wasn’t afraid, per se.

It was more a sensation of being unsettled or out of sorts.

Discomfort rather than the visceral fear he would’ve expected.

He could tell that his dad wasn’t exactly at ease either, though whether that was due to the location or what they were there for, Stiles wasn’t entirely certain.

As Stiles went through the expected courtesies by rote - at this point between the knowledge transfers and all the practicing he’d done with various members of Harry’s circle as well as his mentor’s family in his children and their own circles, he could probably follow dragel protocol in his sleep (which was the point, from what he could tell) - he took the measure of the room.

Reaching out - just a bit - with his perception to try and get a baseline of the strangers he was being introduced to and how they might react to him and his.

Learning to use what his magic could instinctively do on purpose felt like an uphill battle more often than not.

But then there were times when he needed it to work and then all that effort felt worth it, no matter how frustrated he got at times with trying to parse out a flood of information looking for one specific thread that Harry had planted, or that Hadrian was intentionally hiding to make him search for, and so on.

He was relieved to see Quinn already there and waiting, standing next to who Raspen introduced as Lord and Lady Kalzik - who Stiles knew from what he’d been told were Quinn’s parents.

The thought of doing something as potentially fraught as forcibly removing a family seal without Quinn present - Quinn, who’d been helping Stiles every step of the way since his…problematic inheritance, claw-in-claw with Harry - was a world of nope.

Stiles hadn’t even given it a thought, so ingrained was Quinn being around for anything even vaguely health related - right up until they ‘ported to the earth courts without the healer.

So seeing Quinn standing at the ready with his master healer parents was a definite relief to a worry that Stiles had only partially been paying attention to.

Not the least of which was how Quinn would’ve reacted to having someone else treat Stiles.

Along with the Kalzik healers, were two other earth court heavy-hitters: Thomas Gorgens, the Earth Clan Chief, and Lord Alonso Orseno.

Together, the Kalzik, Gorgens, and Orseno lords provided enough representation of the earth courts that was at least if not totally impartial like Lord Orseno who of everyone had no stake at all in Stiles and his situation, were at least only tangentially connected through someone else - or multiple someone elses.

(It was interesting and amazingly complex: the connections between dragel circles and clans and families.  Thomas Gorgens was the adopted father of Isla Gorgens, who in turn was the mentor of Theodore Gorgens-Nott, aka Harry’s Theo and alpha.  Quinn was the son of the Kalzik Triad, with only his [sire or third, Stiles wasn’t entirely certain] father Patrick absent, Quinn who was soul-bonded to Harry and in turn bonded to Theo.  Alonso Orseno actually knew Quinn due to being close friends with his mother Surajini, Lady Kalzik.  And then of course: there was King Raspen, Harry’s soul-bonded, overseeing the entire thing.  Complex and interconnected, and that was only taking into account three members of Harry’s circle.  It kinda gave Stiles both hope for the future and hives over how many people/names/connections he was going to have to keep straight.)

“A warning, before we begin.”  Lady Kalzik spoke up with her soft voice, Stiles tuning back into the conversation that had carried on around him while he navigated through the introductions on auto-pilot.  “You will likely need to rest and eat a great deal tonight and possibly tomorrow as well.  However, if we,” her gesture encompassed herself as well as the other two Kalzik healers present.  “Deem it necessary, it is possible we may seek permission to utilize other measures in order to stabilize you.”

“What would other measures look like?”  Noah questioned even as Raspen directed Stiles over to a table set up with some papers that had to be completed before they could actually begin.

Eyes flicking rapidly over the pages, Stiles realized quickly that the set on top were all in regards to his Gajos inheritance - as incredible as the idea even was, that his Mom had cut herself off so entirely that a whole estate and accounts and a minor title of nobility had been abandoned in her wake and was now his to claim - and nothing that he didn’t expect.

Especially after all the conversations he’d had over the last few weeks with Harry and Theo and Raspen about the Gajos estate and what all it would entail once they finally managed wrangling his inheritance through the earth courts.

Stiles honestly didn’t know what to think or feel about the whole thing.

Idris’s arrival had been the final barrier, though Stiles didn’t know that until afterward.

For someone who’d been so insistent on leaving Nevarah behind, his mom had left the Gajos estate in trust and moreover in the claws of the only person she trusted: Idris.

It was strange.

Almost a half-measure from a woman who had always been incredibly decisive.

Stiles thought that the Gajos estate had been left bereft in Claudia’s wake.

But from what he was reading, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

He didn’t know if she expected to return someday or if she just couldn’t bear to leave her family’s legacy utterly without care, but for a dragel who’d seemingly never looked backwards after leaving Nevarah, she had taken care to ensure that if she ever did return or maybe a descendant ended up there, that there would be something remaining to welcome her/them.

Odd.

So odd, and yet another piece of evidence to support Stiles’s ongoing idea that he’d never really known his mother after all.

“A time-dilation chamber, most likely.”  Surajini said confidently, back straight and eyes steady.  “In other circumstances, it would be preferred to allow Stiles to rest and possibly go through a realignment period following the seal removal.  However, with the Hunt…”  She trailed off, rather than poke at what she knew from Quinn was a rather sensitive topic.

Ideally, after having a seal removed, especially one that appeared as strong and embedded as Stiles’s Gajos seal, a dragel would have weeks or even months to adjust to their new circumstances.

However, whilst that was ideal, the situation at hand was far from perfect.

Stiles from all accounts needed to court and bond during this hunt, not another.

And courting, let alone bonding a circle, with a seal in place was certainly not advisable with how one’s magical makeup could change in a moment once a seal had been removed.

Of the two evils, removing the seal and potentially needing to speed up Stiles’s recovery through a time-dilation circle was certainly the lesser.

A fact that Stiles apparently agreed with, as once he finished with his inheritance paperwork and had it whisked away by the King’s aide, he didn’t hesitate for even a moment to sign his permission on the medical forms - both for the seal removal, and for the care afterward, including use of a time-bending circle if deemed necessary.

Taking the forms handed to her, Surajini reviewed them swiftly before sending them away with a spell and turning to the others.

“All is in order.  Let us begin.”

Years later, when telling the story of his inheritance and all that had happened, Stiles never could find a coherent way to describe what it was like to have a seal as embedded and total as his Gajos Seal forcibly removed.

Coaxing it didn’t work.

Trying to tease it free of his magic failed.

All that was left was for the earth lords to combine their power and subsume it entirely beneath their will for him to be freed of it.

There was pain, of course.

A soul-deep searing away of a magical suppression meant to help rather than harm - but like with many things, what was intended never quite stood up to the devastating consequences that came when intentions failed and left only results behind.

Stiles remembered the discomfort at first of having the Kalziks backed by the earth lords poking and prodding at his edges.

Then the burn, and then nothing at all.

For him, under the influence of Lady Surajini’s magic and Quinn’s deft touch, the time between the beginning of the removal and when he woke afterward passed in a blink of an eye.

Unfortunately, time was not quite so fleeting for everyone else.

“I have spent entirely too much time recently staring at my son in a coma.”

Noah couldn’t help but say what was plaguing his mind as he stared through the glowing magical boundary that separated the time-magic-ritual-thing from the rest of the small room deep within the earth courts.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw Idris Nightshade who was taking his turn at the power crystal array to keep the magic working smoothly.

Stiles had been moved down to the space hours before, with the initial spells powered by the healers and the earth court lords, but the longer that Lady Kalzik insisted Stiles rest inside the confines of the time magic, the more power that was required to keep it going without interruption.

Harry had taken a turn, as had Raspen, but now they were on Idris who according to the healers was probably the last person who’d have to have a go at supplying power to keep Noah’s son alive and resting - and from what Noah gathered, was an implied nod towards the dragel's inherent power.

It was the first part that required so much magic apparently: unlike a normal resting period or even a magical coma, what they were doing - speeding Stiles through more than one realignment and basically forcing his body to age at a rate far faster than time actually passed outside of the circle - was far more dangerous to the person who needed it.

Which was also why it was a last resort - at least for the sort of intense use that Lady Kalzik was putting Stiles through with it.

It wasn’t what Noah had been told to expect.

But then…

He doubted anyone really expected the massive outpouring and backlash of magic that they would be facing when Stiles’s seal was removed - or that it wouldn't be earth-aligned magic alone that was released, though they had known that whatever Stiles's main nameless talent was, that it was most likely suppressed behind the seal.

It certainly put why Claudia might have been desperate enough to seal Stiles into perspective, beyond her own issues with being dragel and what that alone might have meant for their son.

Stiles was powerful.

No one had been hedging around that from the moment dragels appeared in their lives, treating it like a known fact: the sky was blue, Nevarah existed, and Stiles was powerful.

What no one expected, however, was that the power that showed with all but one of his seals and suppressions off was like the tip of an iceberg compared to what was locked away behind his Gajos Seal.

They knew the exact moment that Lady Kalzik and the others tore the seal away, just how much they'd been underestimating his son.

Hard not to, what with Stiles almost bringing the entire earth courts down around their ears, burying them under thousands of tons of earth and rock, complete with flame effects for impact.

Only the King’s quick thinking - and massive power - in throwing up a barrier to keep the outpouring of magic within the room rather than spilling out of it had kept them alive, along with Lady Kalzik’s quick hand with a knock-out spell.

No one was quite sure if the Gajos Seal was meant to lock away any talent - however minor - Stiles possessed for fire, but it became self-evident that that was what had happened - which complicated events, as they hadn't been prepared for it and without the presence and assistance of Idris and his wife, they might've actually been fucked as a result.

Noah didn't know what to think about Idris, but at least he was at a point where he could be grateful the dragel existed - as without him, there wouldn't be Stiles and now for more than one reason.

At least no one could ever deny that Stiles came from an earth clan now, everything else aside, even if Noah hated the way that it was proven as it led to the here-and-now with Stiles once more unconscious as he healed from the backlash of what other people had done to him - however well-intentioned.

“He’s strong, Noah.”  Idris told him, before pulling his magic back from the power crystal and standing with a sigh as he felt the pull from the array lessen and then drop off altogether.  "He'll make it through this with ease if probably a little soreness."  Idris should know.  As a born gheyo and a rank-shifted one at that, he'd gone through his fair share of interesting medical interventions.

A time-bending enforced rest and realignment was gentle and pleasant compared to some of the things gheyos go through for one reason or another.

Surajini must have programmed the end of the time-bending cycle from the start, keeping an eye on everything as they went, even if it seemed like she hadn’t done more than call in another person to help power the ritual circle since she and Quinn had set it up after switching out Stiles’s clothes for a simple set of plain, undyed cotton and set him on the simple cushioned mat in the center of the circle.

Moments later, Surajini confirmed it from where she was seated on the other side of the circle monitoring Stiles’s progress.

“He’ll be finished and we can wake him in a few more minutes, Mr. Stilinski.”  She reassured the worried father.  “And while the circumstances weren’t the best, and surely caused you far too much worry, I think you’ll be surprised at just how well he will be for it.”

“How strong he is,” Noah spared a glance for Idris when the joker came to stand at his side and wait with him, his eyes as ever pulled towards the handsome male or his wife whenever they were around.  It was at least half academic interest: what about Nightshade had so interested Claudia, to the point that they were what amounted in dragel society as engaged?  The other part...well, he wasn't interested in examining that too closely.  He and Claudia had always had similar taste.  To their detriment, or so it seemed at the moment.  “Has never been the problem, Nightshade.  All I want for him is to be happy and healthy.  Not having to spend days in a coma or hours in a magical time chamber because he’s too strong for his body to handle.  Would you want any different for him?”

“No.”  Idris admitted, easily dodging the rough semi-implied accusation in Noah's words.  “No real parent would want anything for their children than that they be happy and healthy.  And all bumps aside: Stiles is.   You’ve raised a strong, intelligent, happy child Noah.  Alone, without the normal support network that even humans rely on let alone the massive ones of dragel circles.  Be proud of him for all that he’s survived but for Arielle’s scales, be proud of yourself too.”

Ergen, Kesmer, and Orus knew that Claudia had done everything in her power to keep Noah from having the support in raising Stiles that was his due.

“You did it, Noah.”  Surajini added as the sheriff struggled to blink back the sudden tears in his eyes.  “Stiles is alive and safe and yes,” she added fiercely.  “Healthy and powerful too.  This was a precaution so he could enjoy the Hunt to the fullest more than anything else, not an unspoken rebuke on his health or welfare.”

“How-” Noah coughed a little, clearing his throat from the rush of emotion before it overtook him, staring at where he could see his son - as they’d said: alive and healthy and strong - rather than the others.  “How much time passed in there while we waited out here?”

“Six months, give or take, why?”

Noah blinked then huffed a laugh as he stared at his boy who indeed looked much better for taking the longest power-nap in history as the barrier came down: rich, healthy skin, lean muscle padding out his frame a little more than before, shoulders that might be a bit broader.  And the color of his wings and scales was far more vibrant and sparkling, with the barest hint of pale blue like his mer-form added to the glistening silver and peach.  His hair was grown out and thick, if a bit shaggy and needing cleaned up.

Stiles was going to be so put out, and Noah didn’t hesitate to say so.

“Why?”  Idris asked, genuinely baffled.

Noah smirked, mischief dancing in ice-blue eyes.

“Because,” he told them, “that means he missed his eighteenth birthday.  He’s going to have thoughts about that, and won’t be shy about sharing them.”

And to no surprise: Noah was absolutely right.

Though Stiles quickly got over it once he woke up with a reminder from his dad that even though his body was eighteen, within the earth-realm legally no real time had passed: he still could have a party and all of that later.

Not that it stopped Harry and his pareya from putting together a bash to celebrate anyway.

Or that Noah really tried all that hard to stop them either.

Stiles had survived it all, even if he came out the other end with a whole new batch of magic to handle and try to figure out how to use.

Noah would never mind celebrating his son.

Or the fact that despite the odds that’d been stacked against him almost from the get-go, he’d made it: Stiles was an adult in spirit if not the letter of the law.

And with that truth, Noah felt a part deep inside of him relax.

Just in time at that.

The Hunt in Nevarah was due to start the day after next, and with it would come a whole new shift in his relationship with his son.

But first: a party.

“And where are you two off to on the eve of the Hunt?”  The playfully challenging voice of Lord Zandian, High Noble of the Fire Courts and their Blood Title rang out through the evening air as Taranis and Callix Maruke waited outside the exit of the Pits.  

They were waiting on the arrival of the ACE courting Callix - and the reason behind his sudden desire to rank-up.  The Plant Fae wasn’t late - yet - but both Maruke heirs knew that with their family it was better to be early than to run the risk of unrepentant teasing and pranks if they’re late.  A fact that they’d yet to share with Shorian, though Callix at least hoped that his Intended managed the chaos that went claw-in-claw with the Gorgens-Nott circle with his typical aplomb.  

For his part, Taranis wasn’t sure of what he wanted when it came to the ACE courting his baby brother.

Shorian was calm and affectionate and understood the, ah, challenges of Callix’s inheritance and personality quirks it was true.

The Plant Fae seemed utterly besotted by Taranis’s darkling brother.

All of which was wonderful - but this was still his younger brother in question.

He had thoughts about Callix preparing to bond an ACE despite only being twenty-four years old, and almost none of them were logical but based out of sibling love and protectiveness.

“I honestly thought it would take the royal introductions to pull you out from the arena.”  Zandian continued as he came to stand flanking the pair who were leaning against a pillar not too far from the exits, but nearer the transportation “safe” zone pillars than the way towards food or the greater city.

As unbonded dragels, it was expected that both Maruke heirs would be presented along with their family circle - in their case, with the Earth Royals thanks to their father Raspen.

Zandian was fervently grateful that despite his own High Noble ranking he was able to present during the presentation of the Blood Titles rather than have to walk with his family circle or otherwise make a spectacle of himself.  As he’d had cause to learn over the near-century he’d been the Blood Flame, he drew more than enough attention without making a point of the fact that he was still unbonded, thanks ever so much.  And the sort of interested parties who’d be drawn by a show during the presentations weren’t the sort of intended that he’d be interested in anyway, making it all a moot point.

“Our Mera is throwing a Hunter’s Eve party this cycle.”  Taranis replied easily to the infamous fire court champion.  Zandian was one hells of a good fighter, perhaps the best he could find for a no-holds-barred spar, and best of all didn’t give two fucks for the fact that Taranis’s pedigree was so damn prestigious.  He’d beat the shit out of him just the same if he’d have been an orphaned no-one trying to claw his way up the ranks of the pits as he would with Taranis being borderline royal.    It was one of Taranis’s favorite things about the bastard, how egalitarian he was about his beat-downs unlike some high-ranked pit fighters with fancy names backing them.  “And what sort of sons would we be if we disappointed him?”

Zandian felt his brows wing high in surprise.

That was a first.

Harry Gorgens-Nott was rather infamous for his disinterest in political and social games and scheming.

Outside of the required royal events, the circle as a result hardly ever entertained.

And a Hunter’s Eve party?

Now that was sure to ruffle some scales, as since Zandian hadn’t heard of it beforehand, it was certain to be as exclusive as all Gorgens-Nott events tended to be and with even less notice than normal.

“A family only affair, I take it?”  He tried to parse out just how offended his parentals were likely to be over it - as well as whether it was even worth it to go visit them as he’d planned if his Dera was going to be up in arms over how flagrantly Harry Gorgens-Nott tended to break social norms.  Such as throwing a last-minute Hunter’s Eve party, one that if precedent held would certainly pare down the attendance list at other events that might be happening at the same time.

The Prewitts and Deveraines almost always prioritized Gorgens-Nott events due to the family connections involved, and the Kalziks and Hartwoods weren’t much better when push came to shove.

“And a few others,” Taranis murmured as he watched Callix’s entire being light up with joy as Shorian with his head of vibrant leafy hair strode out of the Pits to meet them.  “But for the most part, yes, your Dera’s temperament - and bonfire - is safe, since it truly was a last minute decision.”

Zandian shrugged, unrepentant over fishing for information.

“I imagine I’ll be passing along your regrets, then?”  Zandian asked, side-eyeing the handsome blond, his fingers nearly itching to reach out and smooth back one feathery piece of platinum hair that had fallen forward and brushed against a sculpted cheek.  They weren’t lovers.  They’d never been lovers.  But when faced with as handsome - and dangerous - a bastard as Taranis Maruke, there were few gheyos who didn’t wish that the discreet creature was a little less careful about who he took to his bed.  But they had grown to be something like friends over the years, understanding the frustrations of each other’s parental situations and stations as each did.  To the point that the Maruke Heir wasn’t an uncommon sight at Zandian’s family home, the alpha liking a party as much as the next dragel and Zandian’s parentals being prolific hosts.

“Sadly, yes.”  Taranis shrugged.  “Though I already sent an apology and a gift to your Dera, so Lord Xeris shouldn’t be too put out.”

“Thanks for that.”  Zandian murmured, eyeing the gentle way that Shorian - a decent sort, if far more Fae than dragel - greeted the younger Maruke with approval.  A good match, that.  And a needed one, if want for the ACE convinced the younger dragel to stop holding himself back and actually start to shine in the arena the way that everyone who’d met the darkling knew he could.  Callix Maruke as a Princess had never made much sense to Zandian, but there’d been little he could do about it with the elements and politics involved.  “The last thing the Queen needs is one of her Clan Chiefs in a snit the night before the Hunt commences.”

“I’m not unfamiliar with the tempers that dwell in the fire courts, Zan.”  Taranis snorted at the very idea.  His father Charlie, the Queen’s mentored student, might be the most even-keeled Fire elemental going but his twin brothers were certainly not cut from the same cloth.  The fights between his Mera and the twin pareya could be legendary when Harry’s free-spirited personality clashed up against their protective instincts.  “The last thing my Mera likely meant to do was upset anyone.  He’s just excited and wants to celebrate his student, that’s all.”

“Oh?”  Zandian took the chance for one last shot at gathering information as Shorian tucked Callix carefully under his arm and steered them towards the waiting Taranis.  “I’d heard that he’d taken a mentee, but little else.”

Taranis eyed the ACE with care, mentally weighing pros and cons, before deciding to share a small bit of information.

Not the biggest tidbit that he’d tucked away regarding his mera’s student, not by far, but one that could potentially cause the most unrest - to a point - affecting Zandian personally rather than his social rank.

“Nightshade and Gajos.”  Taranis murmured nearly under his breath, Zandian’s face showing genuine surprise for only a moment before clearing away.  “And just turned eighteen, hence the party.”

Zandian mused on that as the trio took their leave for the Gorgens-Nott estate and the celebration that awaited them.

Gajos and Nightshade, hmm?

Now there was a combination he hadn’t heard about in a long fucking time.

It was certainly something worth passing along to the Queen.

Especially as it was the Fire Court’s turn at hosting the Hunt.

Having a child from that couple appear, and long after he would have been born if he’d been seeded prior to the massacre…it was going to reopen closed wounds, given the accusations at the time.

And they may not spend much time together due to the demands of their crowns, but his Queen was friends with Queen Dawne - and it was the Air Courts who were going to be the most upset with having the whole Vaughn-Deveraine clan war brought back into the forefront of Nevarah’s collective minds.

Setting his jaw, Zandian made for the portaling safe point, albeit with a different destination in mind than originally.

His Dera and fathers would forgive him for being a little late to their bonfire.

His Queen would not if she learned he had pertinent information and chose to withhold it.

And even for the Blood Flame, the thought of upsetting Queen Ebony was a fate to be avoided at all cost - along with her wicked black flames.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Eighteen: Let the Hunt Begin

Taranis smiled as the shadows around them parted, revealing the portaling room inside of his family home and he heard the cacophony of one of his mera’s rare - but always joyous - parties.

Harry Gorgens-Nott had always been more of a homebody than a social butterfly in Taranis’s experience, despite how effortlessly he tended to draw others into his orbit.

When he did choose to celebrate, it tended to be in exuberant fashion as a result, with significantly more care given to ensuring everyone enjoyed themselves than any concern over maintaining social status or doing what was expected from the bonded submissive of the dragel king over the earth elementals.

Following his younger brother who in a rare expression of excitement was all-but-towing his intended along in his wake, Taranis soaked in the sheer warmth and comfort that came with visiting his family’s home.

No matter what he tried, his own quarters in the gheyo section never quite felt the same.

Though given his mera’s talent for empathy, one of the strongest recorded at that, perhaps that wasn’t a surprise.

The Gorgens-Nott estate was overflowing on that particular night, people spilling from the open parts of the house and out into both the gardens at the front and the beach at the rear, the air filled with the scent and sound of happy Nevareans.

Catching the gaze of his father where Hadrian was holding up a piece of wall with his father Devrim tucked under his arm, Taranis nodded and headed that way even as his gaze coasted easily over the crowd.

Interested, and how could he not be with all he’s heard?, in seeing this student of his mera’s for himself.

Still, for the moment it seemed his curiosity would have to remain piqued but unsatisfied, as there was no dragel of the right age in the shadowy courtyard that Blood Raven had claimed for his own, other shadow dragels and/or gheyos coming to pay their respects to the infamous figure before drifting away.

Taranis wasn’t concerned.

The party was for the kid after all.

He was sure to see him at some point, and judge for himself just what kind of being magic and fate had deemed fitting for his mera to mentor.

Stiles laughed as he was spun mid-dance and swept up into the hold of yet another partner.

One thing he’d learned over the weeks he’d spent in Nevarah: dragels loved to dance.

A couple lessons with Harry as well as his bonded and kids, and now so did Stiles.

Instead of feeling uncomfortable or out of place, Wikhn and Altan taught him to move with the beat, conquer the ever-present question of what exactly to do with his arms, and to always look into the eyes of his partner rather than trying to concentrate on his feet.

He laughed again as he was lifted and twirled right into the arms of a waiting Altan, his friend’s dancing blue eyes twinkling with delight at Stiles’s enjoyment of his siblings’ antics.

Then the beat changed, and rather than a high-tempo piece that was given to throws and spins and twirls, a low, heavy pulse throbbed out.

The enchanted dancefloor that took up a section of their beach pulsed with lights in the night, as Stiles wrapped his arms around Altan’s neck and matched him step for step, practice making perfect as they moved in sync.

“Having fun with my brothers?”  Altan asked, only half-joking.

The other half of the motivation behind that question Altan wasn’t ready to admit to - even to himself - when it came to the adorable submissive who fit so ideally in his arms.

“And your sisters and other assorted relations.”  Stiles countered with a wicked, shameless grin and vivid golden eyes that showed his happiness for all to see.  “I’m an equal opportunity flirt, I’ll have you know.”

Altan didn’t have anything to say to that.

He wasn’t jealous - he couldn’t be, Stiles wasn’t his to be jealous of - but there was a twinge deep inside at the thought that after only having to share Stiles with his family (and that mainly his dads and younger siblings) he was about to lose his friend’s attention.

For at least the length of the Hunt, Stiles would be focusing on courting and being courted, trying to cement and solidify the foundations of a Circle.

There was a part of him - a tiny, teeny part - that wished in a vague, half-wistful way that he’d been an alpha or a beta.

Then maybe…

But that was just it.

He wasn’t an alpha or beta.

Altan was pareya through and through, with maybe the potential to bond into a circle as a healer if he so chose, but he wasn't a dominant rank.

It was the merrow in him without a doubt.

That possessive desire to keep Stiles to himself, however shallow it ultimately was.

Altan would certainly never say or do anything to show it, or even allow it to gain more traction inside him than the vague, half-formed wistfulness it already was.

His fathers had raised him better than that.

So while he would miss having Stiles mostly to himself in their joint free time, he was also happy that the weeks with Altan and his family had been good for his new friend.  Good to the point that Stiles was actually looking forward to the Hunt instead of dreading it.  There was a deep satisfaction in that truth for both himself and his inner dragel instincts.  They had helped do that.  Helped provide the comfort and safety and protection that Stiles - and his father, to a point - that the young submissive needed to feel secure and steady enough to Hunt.

That much Altan was ready to own.

Everything else that came with thinking about Stiles and hunting in the same sentence…not so much.

Resting his hands lightly on Stiles’s lean hips, Altan followed the sway and shift of the submissive’s movements, allowing his head to bow a little and almost nuzzle that rich head of mink brown hair.

“Any indications?”  Altan couldn’t help but ask.  Or torture himself.  Either way.

“I’m not sure you want to hear it.”  Stiles rolled his eyes extravagantly at Altan’s try me look.  Well.  He asked for it.  “You dads have kinda ruined me for other dragels.”  He stated bluntly, holding in the urge to snicker when Altan made a face, then admitted:

“My Mera has always been powerful.”  It was his standard reply when one of his friends was blushing over one of his dads.  Or all of them.  “His soulscream came during a battle, at the fear of Papa Charlie dying.  Who his soul called to as a result…”  Altan shrugged.  It was what it was, and both their family and Nevarah were all for the better for it, no matter how horrifying the thought of his sweet mera in that kind of situation was.

And as Stiles has spent time mostly with his gheyo fathers, Altan knew exactly what Stiles meant by being “ruined” for others.

All of his dads were exemplary in their own ways, but the gheyos…yeah.

Before his Mera’s soulscream, all of them had held titles in the gheyo pits, even if the greatest and grandest of them was held by Hadrian as Blood Raven, the Champion of the Shadow Court which meant that the others were often overlooked in comparison.

To the detriment of whoever looked at them across a sparring ring and saw them as less, a mistake that was often near-fatal.

“I want children.”  Stiles admitted quietly, ducking his head and hiding his gaze from those often insightful gorgeous blues.  “I don’t know how that would work with…”  He trailed off, tongue hesitating to say what had been growing stronger in the back of his mind.

“Military circles,” Altan easily followed where Stiles had led him with hints and half-hearted questions over the last few weeks.  It wasn’t what Altan would choose for himself, a military circle with all the bloodlust and danger that came with it, but if it was Stiles…it wasn’t not either.  Only time, and the choices his friend would make, would tell.  “Can have children, Stiles.  You’ve met some of them from the Black Dahlia’s circle when Mera introduced you to Shayla and Dyshoka.  What’s the real reason you’re hesitant to say what you want?”

“Three suites?”  The sound Stiles made was almost a whimper, complete with big, begging eyes that darted up to Altan’s steady gaze.  “Three?  Plus maybe more in jokers and other ranks?  What would I even…”  He blushed deep red, only keeping from an all-out flail by the music changing once more and Altan leading him into the new, up-beat tempo by taking his hands and lifting them together with his own over their heads as they turned in time with the dance.

“You still have time, Stiles.”  Altan reminded him, scrupulously avoiding thinking about what, exactly, an adorable submissive like Stiles would do with three suites of gheyos bonded to him.  That way lay madness and his entire extended family figuring out that he kinda, sorta, had a crush on their houseguest.  “And whether you’ll want a military circle or not also depends on the alpha and beta or betas you choose, remember?  That’s not all on you or something you have to figure out right now.”

Smiling helplessly as Altan seemingly effortlessly soothed his worries, he let the subject drift away on the currents of the music, following his friend - maybe more, maybe eventually he’ll…, maybe maybe maybe - through the dance.

High above them, on the balcony that overlooked the enchanted dancefloor, Taranis leaned on the railing and sent an arch look at his mera where Harry was sipping a glass of spiked juice and seemed quite pleased with himself at the sight below.

It was a pretty one, there was no denying that.

His younger brother made a striking picture with as seamlessly he danced and kept time with the lithe submissive in his arms.

A submissive that he now understood exactly how this “Stiles” had kept an alpha werewolf on his toes from an entire realm away.

To the point that for the first time in years, he felt his instincts to hunt and court and bond rouse with genuine interest.

“That’s the ferros submissive you’ve taken under your wings, mera?”  He asked with forced idleness, purple gaze eating up the sight of creamy skin burnished golden by the spell-lights of the dance floor and kissed with a slight blush.  Want.   His alpha purred deep inside of him.

There was a submissive that might handle him and all he brought with him.

He could feel it: the sheer strength that almost poured off of the submissive despite the little one clearly keeping his aura and power politely wrapped tight to his skin.

Taranis could sense a steady strength to his mera’s student - but one that balanced on a knife’s edge, ready to pounce and lash out with devastation if pushed.

And his shadows kept trying to draw near to the dancing form below that seemed to have thoroughly beguiled his younger brother, despite Taranis pulling them back every time from actually brushing up against the beautiful creature.

Now that was a submissive that might actually be able to take on all that Taranis brought with him - not his name, or his heirship, or even his station as a gheyo alpha - but his shadows and storms and cutting winds.

In his experience, submissives always took a look at his face and form and name and decided they wanted him - right up until they felt what it was to be one of his mera’s children for themselves, then suddenly bonding the Maruke Heir was significantly less attractive a prospect.

Submissives may be made by design to take in the excess magic of their circles - but there were limits, as any gheyo knew.

He knew it caused his mera pain - the knowledge that due to the makeup of the Gorgens-Nott Circle, that some of his children were faced with difficulties in seeking out a circle of their own.

It was hardly Harry’s fault, but his mera being the wonderful, caring, empathetic being that he was, he felt it just the same.

Events unfolded as they were meant to - Taranis had to believe that, as entwined as his family was with the immortals, whether they liked it or not - and most of his siblings had found bonded without issue.

Taranis was just a stubborn, bullheaded bastard about it.

He wanted a submissive that wanted what he offered rather than merely being willing to suffer it in exchange for the allure of his face and fortune and name.

In that, he and Callix were almost exactly the same, for all that his little brother had finally found himself an ACE who gave precisely no fucks about the darkling being one of the Maruke Heirs or a child of the Gorgens-Nott Circle.

“Mieczysław Stilinski.”  Harry confirmed, with a sly glance at his nearly enraptured son.  Hmm.  That was interesting, and a possibility he’d never even considered with how staunchly unattached his eldest unbonded child had been for several hunts now.   Stiles could certainly do worse, and with Taran’s issues from his fathers, Arielle knew the stubborn goat could hardly do better.  “Though I think he intends to register under Gajos-Stilinski to honor both of the parents who raised him.”

And ruffle a few scales while he was at it, and in that Harry and Stiles were perfectly aligned: Harry had never liked what the Vaughns and their allies were allowed to get away with, no matter that they got their comeuppance in the end.

The courts deserved to have a reminder of what happened when a clan was allowed to run rampant rubbed in their collective faces - yes, even his darling Raspen - if only to prevent it from happening again anywhen soon.

Catching the look out of the corner of his eye, Taranis turned and propped his hip on the rail, crossing his arms over his chest with an arch look for the green-eyed menace.

“Matchmaking, mera?”  He accused, if gently.  “One of your sons fins over tail for your student not enough?”

Harry wrinkled his nose at his too-knowing son.

Altan and Stiles were perfect for each other, thank you very much, even if he could tell they both had some growing up to do before anything was likely to happen there.

And was entirely not his doing, despite what Taranis was implying - a fact which Harry had zero compunction about pointing out.

“On the contrary,” this time Harry’s grin was all-out wicked as he nodded towards the dance floor below.  “That is what I call matchmaking.”

Frowning, but curious despite himself, Taranis looked over his shoulder and then shook his head with a laugh.

Yep, he had to agree.

That sort of blunt-force application of scheming was much more his mera’s style.

Effective as hell, he had to admit as he watched the student - Stiles - catch sight of Harry’s last-minute addition to the guest list and yell with glee before darting away from a surprised (and if Taranis could read his brother at all, a bit mournful) Altan.

Right into the arms of a figure that Taranis recognized all too well.

He should.

He’d spent a good part of his recent time on the earth realm avoiding their fangs and claws in spars.

If the invitation for the full moon run in Nevarah had given Derek a few things to think about - especially Stiles and what, if anything, he wanted to do about the pull he felt towards the often-infuriating boy - having Riven show up out of nowhere to take Derek and the pack to a last minute party threw his mind into total chaos.

Especially since the mage - who was fucking terrifying and Derek wasn’t afraid to say so given all the impossible shit that the dragel had done with the ley lines in Beacon Hills, like literally pulling a kitsune out of a trap made of the Nematon, and unlocking quite a few of Derek’s memories that had been hidden by either his mom or sister, which he had a National Geographic’s collection worth of issues regarding - wasn’t about to take no as an answer when he was picking them up on request from his submissive, Harry.

Harry, who happened to be Stiles’s new mentor, and terrifying in his own right.

(Let’s be real: all of the Gorgens-Nott circle were terrifying in their own unique and horrifying ways, and as Derek was actually starting to enjoy living again, he had no intention of pissing any of them off, but especially not the submissive who was the sun the rest orbited around.)

His betas were overjoyed - both at the prospect of a party and getting to go to Nevarah several days early - and were quick about rushing to the loft.

Even Isaac, who notably wasn’t Stiles’s biggest fan - at least before he literally died trying to protect the pack, for all that his hidden magic revived him moments after his heart stopped.

It still stopped.

Stiles still died protecting Derek and the Hale Pack.

And that mattered far more to wolves than Derek thought even the new arrivals in their lives realized, or else they wouldn’t have dangled a chance to see Stiles and moreover celebrate him and expect anything but what happened: the pack barely greeting their hosts in Harry and his alpha Theo before following their noses straight to Stiles.

It was only Derek’s hand on the back of her shirt that kept Erica from literally pouncing on the newly inherited submissive.

Well.

That and Derek’s soft growl of warning as his hazel eyes drank in the sight of Stiles laughing and dancing and what looked like flirting with an extremely pretty male that smelled to Derek’s alpha nose of magic, astringent healing herbs, and the sea.

The sound that Stiles made when he caught sight of them, turning towards Derek and the wolves like he knew they were there before he ever saw them was nothing less than fucking adorable, a combination of a musical trilling-chirp that couldn’t be further from canine but was still understood by Derek nonetheless.

Then he was darting towards them faster than any human could manage, and Derek could do nothing but smile and reach out to catch him before he plowed him over.

His arms came around those newly-muscled shoulders almost of their own accord, Derek burying his nose in the curve of Stiles’s elegant neck as he chattered a mile a minute.

Home, he felt his instincts rumble.  Ours.

Holding Stiles close, Derek let out a pleased rumble filled with everything that he didn’t even know how to begin to say, as Stiles slowly rambled to a stop as he realized not only who had caught him - but that Derek wasn’t letting go.

Stiles had always been the kid who had to learn that the stove was hot by touching it after someone told him not to.

He could never just leave it.

He had to know for certain and for himself.

It was why talking about Derek with those around him - his dad, Harry, even his mind healer - had never really helped him figure anything out about the often confusing and/or contradictory werewolf.

Especially since with Derek Hale, as Stiles had learned over the months he’d been around the older version of the boy he remembered from before the fire, the wolf had gone from quiet, even shy to functionally mute.

Derek threatened bodily harm as easily as breathing, everything about him designed to warn others away.

But Stiles had never truly been in danger from the werewolf.

Others?

Oh, definitely.

But never Derek, not really.

He was incredibly physical, by far the person most likely to touch Stiles or anyone else around himself that Stiles had ever met.  Derek had never been shy with his body.  He moved around people and didn’t avoid brushing up against them - if they were his.

Which somehow, somewhen, had started to include Stiles even before he’d proven himself - no matter how near-fatally - by defending Derek’s pack against Gerard Argent.

For a guy who would loudly declare that Stiles was on his own, call him a brat or a child, Derek would also be right there pushing him out of the way of a feral Peter or keeping him from a swipe of kanima!Jackson’s claws.

Derek wouldn’t say three words when a look would do, or verbalize what he thought or felt when a brush of his fingers against Stiles’s skin was declaration enough - for a wolf, anyway.

Which left Stiles with a problem, as despite being dragel and having all the tools - supposedly - that a dragel could use to understand the world around him, he’d been raised human.

And humans counted on words more than anything else.

Stiles had to learn how to interpret the actions and body-language and silent signals of everyone around him all over again after having been forced to learn the words and verbal cues that humans relied on to communicate.

It left him a bit unsure of what he was supposed to rely on and trust when it came to understanding the beings around him - especially a certain Sourwolf.

As a dragel, the answer was supposed to be himself.

Or, more properly, his instincts.

He’d had it almost drummed into his head: when in doubt, especially with his talent in play, always always trust his instincts.

So, when he saw the smiling, smirky faces of the Hale Pack sauntering into the beach party the night before the Hunt, led by none other than the super confusing Sourwolf Supreme himself…that’s what Stiles did.

He trusted his instincts.

Even when they said: run.

Not away, but towards.

When they said mine, my wolf, mine, he believed them even though he still had questions.  Doubts.  His instincts were certain in a way that Stiles himself rarely was.

And, what did you know?

It seemed they were right.

Because Derek didn’t dump him on his ass, even as he babbled to cover up his confusion.

He didn’t shove him away or let him fall.

No.

What Derek Hale did was catch him, and hold him, and rumble deep in his chest a sound that a human couldn’t possibly make but that Stiles understood deep inside nonetheless.

Trailing off, Stiles shot a meaningful look at the betas, all three of them scattering with no more than a roll of Isaac’s eyes and a saucy wink from Erica.

Who promptly latched onto Boyd, pulling him towards the dancefloor though the large, silent wolf seemed entirely okay with his situation.

So, that had happened since Stiles had been gone.

Noted.

Isaac followed in their wake but in true Nevarean-party fashion wasn’t alone for long.  Stiles didn’t quite recognize the pair of pretty forms and faces that drew the cherubic beta into their grasp.  But he wasn’t worried.  This was a Gorgens-Nott party, anyone who Harry trusted enough to let them onto his circle’s property would know better than to try anything shady.

Turning a bit in Derek’s hold, but not trying to break out of it, especially when the wolf gave a quiet, protesting rumble even as he lifted his handsome face from Stiles’s neck, alpha-ruby eyes shining boldly in the dim lighting of the party, Stiles let out a questioning little chirp before clearing his throat and relocating his words.

“I think there’s a conversation we need to have, Derek.”  He stated firmly.  “Don’t you?”

The wolf nodded slowly, a hint of dread cresting over his face as his logical mind started to catalog exactly how he’d instinctively behaved since the moment he stepped out of Riven’s - seriously disorienting, how did anyone travel like that, let alone regularly? - portal and caught a hint of a much-missed scent profile.

“Hey, none of that.”  Stiles teased him out of a downward turn to the wolf’s mood before he could really get lost in a brood, reaching down and taking one of those massive hands in his own and tugging him - not unlike Erica and Boyd, and boy was he glad the she-wolf was too distracted to tease - towards the house.  And more importantly: privacy.  “It’s nothing bad, and you did nothing wrong.   There’s just…things.”  He made a face, irritated with himself that he couldn’t come up with any better way to word what was rambling through his mind than that.  Than things.   Real coherent there, Stiles.  A+, not going to cause confusion or dismay at all.  “That we need to talk about if this,” he swung their hands between them gently.  “Is actually going to happen.”

“You’re right.”

Stiles nearly gave a fist-pump (and did bounce a little on his next step) in victory when the alpha managed to mentally make his way back to verbal.

Awesome.

The conversation they needed to have would go much quicker if Stiles didn’t have to rely on decoding werewolf body language and canine-verbal cues instead of, you know, actually talking no matter how painful the latter always seemed to be for Derek.

“We do need to talk about things,” Derek’s tone was dry even as he fought a smile from breaking out across his face as he eyed the hands clasped between them and followed Stiles into the shadowed interior of the house.  “Because I…missed you.  More than I thought I would.”

Then Derek did smile, though it was more of a knowing smirk, as Stiles too focused on Derek behind him forgot to watch what was in front of him and nearly did a face-plant onto the hallway floor as he tripped on the short ledge between the patio and the hall, almost going ass over teakettle into the house.

Almost.

Huffing a soft laugh, Derek caught him up using the still-clasped hands between them, swooping Stiles with his effortless alpha-wolf strength into his arms without hesitation.

Arching a brow at the slowly-blushing face of Stiles as he stared up at him with those big Bambi eyes from within the cradle of his arms, Derek tilted his head a little in question.

“Th-that way.”  Stiles waved a hand vaguely towards the interior of the house, far too distracted by werewolf-y muscles and tanned skin and whoa hello there handsome face, you’re much closer than usual, to be an effective guide.

Derek rolled his eyes and then lifted his head a little, casting for a scent and then followed the strongest concentration of “Stiles” scent that he could find buried under the profiles of more than a dozen other people who clearly lived in the building and left deep imprints of themselves behind.

Stiles’s was shallower, not nearly as embedded in the walls and fabrics, but it was still there.

Letting his head fall onto one thickly-muscled shoulder with a soft thunk of exasperation - with himself, mostly over how his brain decided to short out in spectacular fashion over a single showy move from a brawny werewolf - Stiles remained hidden from those too-knowing red eyes.

Stupid, strong, pretty wolves with their muscles and their reflexes and grrr.

He wasn’t going to survive this, he just wasn’t.

Derek Hale was a danger to humanity-er, to dragel-kind, and should be locked away for his own good.

Or Stiles’s.

Whatever.

Potay-to, potah-to.

Little did they know it, but several pairs of eyes watched the pair disappear into the private section of the Gorgens-Nott estate.

Some with resignation - Noah, rolling his eyes and looking away from the scene; Isaac, exasperated at the pair - some with glee: Erica, Harry.

Then there were the others, who watched the gorgeous scene of a lithe, beautiful submissive and dark, handsome werewolf with something else in their minds entirely.

With interest.

It was a pretty scene after all.

The sort of thing that tended to play over and over again in the mind’s eye.

If one was interested in that sort of thing.

Whether the one interested liked it, or even if not.

Not every dragel or dragel-kin tended to participate in the Hunt after all, not everyone necessarily wanted a circle or a submissive to call their own.

Or in some cases, hunting simple wasn’t in their plans for the current cycle.

But that was the thing about making plans: they change.

Sometimes, it was even on purpose.

In others…well.

Other times it was because of a doe-eyed submissive who was far too attractive for his own good.

Damn it.

“You can put me down now.”  Stiles pointed out, even if it was a bit garbled from his face still being smushed against a well-padded shoulder cap.  “So I can die of embarrassment in peace.”

Derek snorted softly.

Please.  If Stiles was capable of that kind of shame, neither one of them ever would have made it to Nevarah in the first place.  The sheer embarrassment of having to make up unbelievable excuses to cover up the reality of werewolves existing would’ve done him in long ago.

Either that, or his former crush on Lydia Martin and subsequent obsessive behavior would’ve killed him.

One or the other.

“I don’t know,” Derek told him blithely.  “I think you’re perfect exactly where you are.”

Stiles lifted his head with a squinty-eyed glare up at that bland, perfectly controlled face as Derek unerringly found the door to Stiles’s guestroom, the submissive opening it with an unconscious wave of his hand.

The absent-minded show of power had Derek giving a slow blink of surprise, even as he shouldered his way into the room, arms still occupied with his bundle of sass masquerading as a dragel submissive.

“No.”  Stiles said with finality.  “You’re not allowed to be charming.  That’s a line too far.  You can’t look like,” he waved a hand encompassing Derek’s everything even as the werewolf at last set him down on the plush rug in the center of his room.  “That and have graduated magna-cum-laude and be an alpha werewolf and be charming.  It’s too much, my poor heart can’t take it and you’ll ruin everyone you meet for anyone else.”

Derek felt his brows lift in surprise.

He never told Stiles about his honors at college or even that he had a degree in the first place.

Though the surprise quickly faded away after a moment’s thought.

It was Stiles.

He’d have honestly been more surprised if he didn’t research him than the fact that he admitted to it later, albeit in a roundabout fashion.

“I prefer to think of it as raising standards, not ruining expectations.”  He finally countered when Stiles ran out of steam with a huff, hands propped on his lean hips and looking adorably perturbed, muttering: wolf's got jokes, under his breath.

Oh this was going to be fun.

Potentially tense, and likely painful at moments, but fun.

The kind of fun that Derek couldn’t remember enjoying since before he lost his family to his own stupid, thoughtless, mistake.

Moreover, he finally had an answer to a question that had been plaguing him ever since Taranis pointed out the inconsistency in his intransigent refusal to consider a future with Stiles:

Yes, Stiles - what they could be together - was worth the compromises both of them would have to make to satisfy their instincts.

Derek’s to possess, and Stiles’s to have a circle rather than a singular mate.

Stiles was worth it.

They were worth it.

Now he just had to convince one vicious, stubborn, beautiful, caring little brat that Derek, a person he’d only ever seen be uncompromising, was willing to give a little in order to gain a lot.

More than a lot.

A mate.

A werewolf’s mate, which was everything.

“What are you doing here, Derek?”  Stiles finally asked in exasperation, hands falling to his sides as he felt a wave of weariness wash over him.

It had been a long day and most of the evening first preparing for the party and the beginning of the Hunt the next day, then being tugged this-way-and-that by Harry as he introduced him to people.

And all of that was before he was “rescued” from making nice with the fancy-dressed and fancy-named people who congregated inside the house in preference for the younger, or just more casual, group outside the house that filled up the courtyards and garden and most of all the dance floor.

The Hale Pack showing up was not an expected addition - a bonus, not a detriment - but still unexpected.

He hadn’t been ready for it, not nearly prepared enough to handle seeing Derek again with his thoughts still wishy-washy when it came to the alpha.

His instincts, on the other hand, had clearly come to an agreement.

One that now Stiles was going to have to deal with, especially since they apparently were on the same wavelength as Derek’s…leaving the two of their logical minds to try and sort out what to do next after the wave of mine/yours that washed over them.

It wasn’t entirely without warning.

There were certainly signs before Stiles had left for Nevarah.

But never in his wildest dreams had Stiles imagined Derek fucking Hale showing up at a party like some kind of Prince Charming and literally sweeping him off his feet.

Like - what?

“I’m here for the exact same reason as everyone else outside.”  Derek stepped forward, almost-but-not-quite closing the distance that Stiles had retreated to as soon as his feet hit the ground.  “I’m here for you.”

Error 404 - page not found.

Stiles.exe has crashed.

Stiles choked on a breath, flailing wildly as he coughed.

What?

What?

He had a whole, whole speech and everything planned.  If Derek didn’t shoot him down with immediate ruthlessness anyway.  And hopefully after Stiles already had the foundations of a circle to keep him from an epic meltdown if/when Derek inevitably rejected him.  There were notes!  Bullet points!

How dare-?!

“What?”  He said weakly, eyes large and voice soft as Derek stepped forward once more.

Taking the chance that Stiles didn’t know - earlier instinctive risk aside - that he ever would’ve managed consciously taking.

“I’m here,” Derek’s voice was more gravel and growl than human.  Hitting a note that Stiles had honestly never heard before - and he’d been around werewolves for months and sparring with Devrim, a werehyena-hybrid, for weeks.  “For you, Stiles.”

He stepped forward one last time, booted toes coming to rest just an inch shy from Stiles’s sneakers that he was wearing despite the party because: dancing.

Reaching out, Derek lifted one large, tanned hand and cradled the side of Stiles’s jaw with exquisite gentleness - a testament to the alpha’s utter control over his supernatural strength that even in the depths of Stiles’s disordered thinking (this was not going the way he expected.  Nope.  Not at all.) he couldn’t help but be impressed by - his thumb delicately caressing the soft skin and dainty mole just kissing the line of bone.

“If you want me to be.”  He finished, tilting his head a bit in question as hazel eyes stared down softly into wide, nearly dazed, amber-gold.

Now: Stiles was confused as hell.  His well-thought-out plan of how to tackle the Derek-Hale-sized issue in his life had just been scattered and torn all to shreds and tossed to the four winds.  He had nothing left to go on.

But one thing Stiles had never been was stupid.

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” he breathed out, as his hands came up, holding the back of Derek's head and tilting it down, then Stiles took Derek’s lips with his own, smiling all the way.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Nineteen: Anchor

Their mouths met and released in a desperate dance of lips and teeth and tongues, hands sliding into and then holding firm in mink-dark hair as slender fingers clung to training-honed shoulders.

“Fuck,” Derek panted out between kisses as he tore his mouth away, an actual thought (however intrusive, but very much a sign of his instincts for his continued survival) rather than instinct-fueled desire making itself known, even as Stiles did his best to distract him from it in the form of nipping kisses to his jawline.  “Your dad is going to kill me.”

The noise Stiles made was almost too rough to be called a laugh.

“I’m eighteen.”  He told the wolf - who had the worst damn timing ever.  Honestly.  What the fuck, Derek, what the fuck? “That’s why the party and I’m guessing why Harry decided to play matchmaker.”

Or how quickly Harry decided to play matchmaker, rather than wait until Stiles was already entrenched in Hunting or already had bonded and/or intended to handle as well as his pushed-aside bone deep attraction to one Derek Hale, Sourwolf Supreme.

It made sense however.

The sort of alphas and other potential intendeds and bonded that would be bothered or out-and-out put off by Stiles coming with a wolfy-shaped attachment weren’t the sort of people Stiles wanted to spend the rest of his very long life with anyway.

So, point for Harry he supposed, even if he didn’t necessarily enjoyed being so overtly managed.

For his part, Derek blew out a relieved breath, his forehead falling forward to rest against Stiles’s own as the tension brought on by the thought of the Sheriff’s potential fatherly outrage melted away.

Then he had another thought - one that wasn’t driven by desire for his make or rightful fear of his mate’s sire (the Sheriff had access to a large assortment of firearms, any of which may not kill him unless used for a headshot but would sure as fuck hurt.)

“I thought your birthday wasn’t until October?”

Stiles felt a pleased tingle deep inside.

Derek - broody, get off my lawn Derek - hadn’t just found out his birthday, information that Stiles didn’t remember ever volunteering around the wolf, but he’d remembered it.

Still, the timing of this wolf…

He snorted, clever hands burrowing unhindered beneath layers of leather jacket and skin-tight cotton to finally touch supernaturally warmed bare skin.

“Do you wanna talk about the timey-whimey nonsense Quinn and his mom pulled out of nowhere to help me?”  He asked, his voice little more than a needy growl.  “Or do you want some of this?”   Stiles pulled back slightly, just enough to wave one hand meaningfully down the length of his body.

Even though it meant sacrificing a hand from its vital explorations of the delightful - and diligently sculpted - ridges and valleys of skin and muscle hidden beneath Derek’s clothes, it was also a sacrifice Stiles was willing to make.

Temporarily.

For effect if nothing else.

Stiles had no problem whatsoever making a small temporary sacrifice towards a larger goal.

In this case: proving a point and how ridiculous Derek could be all at the same time.

Questions gone at the speed of light at the dual sensations of having Stiles’s hand caressing his lower belly and having his lean form displayed so nonchalantly in tight clothes that for once were designed to show off Stiles’s fit body instead of hide it, Derek reached out and pulled his mate back into his kiss.

Answering the little brat the best way he knew how: with actions, not words.

And, best of all, finding the single fool-proof way to keep Stiles both focused and quiet which previously Derek would’ve assumed would take an actual act of the gods to manage.

With a deep growl of want, Derek closed the distance between them and took the mouth that had done nothing but sass, and snark, and tease for months.

Stealing the very breath from Stiles’s lungs - like Stiles had stolen Derek with a single glance that had seared him to the bone and an adamant: I’m not afraid of you.

Strong hands with instinct-darkened nails a breath away from shifting fully to wolven claws slid down that lithe, tempting body that Stiles so nonchalantly flaunted mere moments before.  Hands gripped and flexed on lean hips, Stiles shivering at the commanding touch.  The kind of touch he’d always wanted but never been able to have.  Not until Derek.  Not until his wolf came into his life.  Only to gasp a moment later as Derek palmed his ass, then tapped lightly.

It was more tease than strike, Stiles’s eyes narrowing on the playful smirk that crossed the alpha wolf’s face at his little gasp of reaction.

An expression that turned utterly wicked as the wolf’s hands found their target: the seam of Stiles’s lithe thighs where they kissed the lower curve of his perky ass.

Hands flexed with power and a wolf’s inherent strength as Derek gripped and lifted Stiles into the air by the back of his thighs - to a dick-hardening soft moan of shocked need at the effortless display.

A human sound followed at once by a very dragel purr as Stiles followed Derek’s unspoken cue and wrapped his legs around Derek’s waist as the wolf turned them towards Stiles’s large-enough-for-a-party bed.

Stiles’s instincts were going wild with a tangled mixture of pleasure and satisfaction.

Such a strong bonded.

Such an excellent wolf to choose and be chosen by.

Derek was in no way perfect.

Stiles knew that better than anyone.

But Stiles would also be the first one to admit that he himself was far from flawless.

What Derek was, was ever willing to try.

To stand back up.

To take a shot.

To just keep going when it felt like everything and everyone was falling apart around him.

Derek Hale, above everything else, was a survivor through sheer persistence.

And, Stiles being Stiles, he knew a thing or two about persistence.

“Fuck, Derek,” Stiles hissed out, breath panting as the werewolf made quick work of ridding them both of their clothes - even tearing and ripping when necessary in lieu of slowing down - and his bare back hit the cool, soft sheets of his bed.

The contrast was stunning to his dragel-charged senses.

Derek’s near scorching skin against his own.  Wolf-hot.  Sending heat pouring into Stiles and bringing shimmering scales forward in delicate traceries of dragel tattoos under Derek’s adept hands as his own nails shifted from human-frail to the vicious claws of his dragel.

Then there was the cool, but growing warmer, softness beneath Stiles that might just be the only thing keeping him grounded instead of losing himself entirely to the feel of Derek’s hands and skin and teeth, or perhaps even drowning in his own instincts to bite and take and claim.

Stiles wanted nothing more - but also, nothing less - than to let go of the unrelenting control he’d been taught over the last weeks.

To let everything, all the pain and drama and chaos of the last months be pushed under the pull of his instincts or seared away in the flare of Derek.

And then, just when he thought he might - when the pull was strongest and the temptation rose to lose himself entirely - Derek was there.

A nip of his teeth against the oh-so-sensitive tip of his ear.

The rasp of his stubble on the inside of his thigh.

Lust-roughened growl tearing out so low and vibrant that Stiles felt it more than heard it.

Derek’s voice, rasping in Stiles’s mind, teeth tugging at his bottom lip when Stiles bit down on it to keep from keening out in need.

Keeping Stiles focused instead of lost inside of himself.

“Let me hear you, Stiles.  I want to hear you.”

Anchoring him in the here-and-now instead of the beckoning rush of his own most basic self and the power - but also the danger - that waited there.

Protecting him - even from himself.

“Derek, Derek, I can’t, Derek please.”

Strong hands grasping and caressing, exploring places on his body that had only known his own touch before.

Derek rumbled a pleased growl deep in his chest as Stiles gasped and moaned underneath him.

He’d been - not afraid, not quite, but anxious maybe - for a long moment when it seemed like Stiles was slipping away inside his head and instincts.

He knew - better than most probably ever would - what it was like to lose yourself in the undertow of instincts and want and need all tangled up and pulling you this way and that.  Derek had never gone feral - not the way that Stiles reportedly had - but he’d definitely toed the line after he lost his family to his own naivety and a huntress’s bloodlust.  He was a wolf.  He knew just how easy it could be to slip.

And how hard it was to keep from falling back into that easiness of letting instincts and rage and base need when you’ve already taken the plunge once.

Especially if you didn’t have bonds to pull you back.

There was nothing more terrifying to Derek than having his mate under him, arching up and gasping under his touch one moment and then going quiet with a haze threatening to cloud his eyes and mind the next.

He growled and then bit down, the sharp sting pulling Stiles back and keeping him there, if only for a moment.

No no no, that won’t do.

Derek didn’t come this far, survive and decide to live to lose his mate now.

Teasing became intention as Derek stopped playing and driving Stiles higher, one finger buried inside his cunning little mate becoming two and then three.

Human teeth giving way to wolven fangs as Derek moved his hands, his right wiping the excess lubricant pillaged from Stiles’s nightstand on his rock hard cock before moving to the back of Stiles’s knee, coaxing one long, lean leg to wrap around his hip.

Arching a brow in question, Derek pressed up against Stiles’s stretched hole as the dragel mewled in protest at the change and the hands that had been prepping him so thoroughly were taken away.

“Do it.”  Stiles finally managed, squirming against Derek even as he knew it wouldn’t do a damned thing to convince the alpha wolf to move - unless Derek wanted to.  The toppy bastard.  “Please, Der, please.”

Stiles threw back his head in wordless offer, and then what could have been moments or a lifetime later he cried out in dueling pleasure and pain that hit him and pulled out the heart-cry of a hunting submissive towards a potential mate as the wolf made his claim in fangs and cock alike.

The bond snapped into place just as ruthlessly as Derek’s length insistently burrowed inside of him, without mercy or hesitation.

Flexing his own jaw as he panted under him, Stiles wrapped himself around his too-handsome wolf as Derek groaned into his shoulder when he finally bottomed out.

A groan that turned into a howl of triumph as Stiles at last gave into his instincts fully and bit down on that tempting length of muscled neck.

Returning claim for claim…but also more as magic and instinct tore through them like a wildfire.

As powerful as it was unexpected.

At least to them, anyway.

Shift.  Twist.  Click.

“What the hell was that?”  Noah asked as he felt a wave of something wash over the party.

A wave of something that he couldn’t help but notice came from the direction of the house - and more importantly, where Stiles had disappeared off to with a certain grumpy werewolf in tow about an hour before and had yet to reappear.

Whether with or without said grumpy werewolf.

Narrowing his eyes in suspicion on a certain green-eyed dragel with a flare for both the occasional prank and meddling, Noah waited patiently.

Or not, once he took a good look at Harry, as the expression the submissive was bearing was nothing short of smug while Theo at his side seemed both impressed and exasperated.

So, par for the course from what Noah had figured out over the weeks he’d spent getting to know their hosts while the Gorgens-Nott Circle focused on training Stiles among everything else it seemed like they had a hand - or claw, as the case may be - in managing when it came to Nevarah.

Well-connected didn’t even begin to cover it when it came to the Gorgens-Nott Circle, even if half the time it seemed almost like more trouble than it was worth to juggle everything - and everyone - involved.

The turn out for Stiles’s party was merely case-in-point as far as Noah was concerned.

“Soul magic, Noah.”  Harry’s grin was as brilliant as it was self-satisfied.  “That was ambient soul magic from a new soul bond being recognized and sealed.”

All around them, dragels and dragel-kin raised their voices and glasses in celebration of the newly soulbonded, even if they didn’t have the slightest clue in regards to who-what-how it came about.

Soulbonds were always a blessing.

It took Noah - a consummate lawman and solver of both crimes and puzzles - to connect the dots.

And promptly splutter in paternal outrage.

“Soulmates?”  He felt a flush raise to mottle his suntanned face in shock.  Thinking about Stiles selecting and hunting and courting bonded was one thing.  Having a sudden addition of a wolfy son-in-law via soul bond - and he wasn’t an idiot, he’d done his research to understand what Stiles would be going through, both Eris and Idris had been more than thorough in helping him understand when he hesitated in taking his questions to Ethan or Theo, Noah knew what forming and moreover sealing a soul bond entailed - wasn’t exactly what he’d been planning on.  Even if he had had an inkling that there was something between his son and Derek Hale.  There was a world of difference between a nebulous something and a fucking sealed soul bond thank you very fucking much.  “Stiles and-? Soulmates?!”

Harry just nodded, that same infuriating smile planted on his face as he bounced - and yes, it was definitely a bounce - away from the irate father and over towards Bahn, leaving handling all that paternal outrage in the capable claws of his alpha as he caught up with his fellow submissive.

Theo at least would be able to relate.

None of his loves had taken well to the idea - logic aside - when the first one of their children decided to hunt and bond and create a circle of their own.

(Harry hadn’t been any more prepared than his bonded, but he wasn’t about to admit it, especially whilst still riding the wave of a successful matchmaking scheme, thank you very much.)

“Here, Noah.”  Theo handed the human sheriff a glass filled nearly to the brim with firewhiskey.  The poor bloke deserved it after having his first round of the Harry Affect smack him right in the face.  “Have a drink before you have a coronary.”

Grumbling - even if he thought he was entitled to a bit of fatherly outrage in the wake of knowing, and fuck, did he wish he didn’t know and could bleach the knowledge from his brain permanently, that his son was currently being deflowered by a werewolf several years older than him in the house behind him - Noah took the magical liquor and tossed it back immediately.

And promptly started coughing his lungs out as he breathed literal fire for a solid minute as the infamous effects of the spirits hit him.

But on the brightside: he wasn’t thinking about his son doing things with Derek Hale anymore, so there was that.

“Smooth.”

Theo shot a glare at his beta as Charlie wandered over and hooked his chin over his shoulder, the fire dragel merely watching as Stilinski was clamored and coddled by Ethan and, interestingly enough, Idris Nightshade after the unpleasant shock of the firewhiskey.

“Very cunning.  So Slytherin.”

“Shut up.”  Theo nudged his beta fondly before turning into the larger dragel’s embrace.  “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Never said it didn’t love.”  Charlie grinned charmingly as he pulled Theo into his arms, ready as always to hold one of his loves or their children (or, much as it was strange to think about sometimes, their grandchildren) when they sought him out.  “Never said it didn’t.”

Stiles purred in contentment as he cuddled into his living pillow.

Derek’s well-sculpted muscles weren’t there just to look at after all: it was functional, the innate strength and physical ability of an actual-facts magical being designed for protection and defense of what was their own.

It was also nicely squishy when not flexed and tensed, a reality that Stiles very much appreciated given the givens.

Such as finding himself with a soul bond against all logic and reason with one of the most handsome men he’d ever met.

And he was a dragel with ties to the merrow - by now he’d met quite a few people who in a different world would make a killing as supermodels or leading faces in movies or on TV.

“Did you have any idea when we saw each other in the Preserve months ago that we’d end up here?”  Stiles couldn’t help but ask.

Even with Harry and his mind healer asking him more than one leading question regarding the wolf who was currently making himself at home in his bed after a round of what could only be described as a mind-blowing way to lose his virginity - Stiles’s not Derek’s, unless that was the wolf’s first time with a guy but with how adept the wolf had been he was thinking most likely not - and reveling in the afterglow (and aftershocks) of a sealed soul bond, Stiles almost couldn’t believe the turn his life had taken.

That it had taken him here: with a sealed soulbond to Derek Hale.

Derek Hale of the gorgeous eyes and sassy murderbrows, musculature that belonged on a Renaissance sculpture and a protective drive that was nothing less than lethal.

Stiles could feel Derek inside of him in a way that didn’t have anything to do with the physical act they’d partaken in and everything to do with magic and resonances and metaphysical bonds that were somehow both ephemeral on one hand and on the other as solid and real and unbreakable as corded and braided steel reinforced with titanium.

Potentially possible to break but also unfeasible from an actionable point of view.

How Stiles had ended up here, with Derek, he almost couldn’t fathom beyond: magic.

Derek shifted a bit, his left arm flexing where it held Stiles firm to his side around the submissive’s waist, large hand resting gently on one smooth hip, his free hand stroking down the lithe length of Stiles’s spine, clever fingers unerringly finding the silken patches of shimmery scales that made up Stiles’s dragel tattoos that were part birthmark and part magic as he considered his mate’s question and how best to answer it.

“There was a draw.”  Derek finally admitted long moments later.  “Not, not love at first sight or anything.”  He carefully tiptoed his way through what he’d known instinctually about Stiles but had never had to verbalize, even to himself.  “More a sense of potential.”  He decided.  “That you could be someone important to me someday.  The more I got to know you, got to see who you were beyond the snark and the masking scent of Adderall, the stronger the draw grew.”  

He blushed a little when Stiles rose up a little, one hand bracing against his sternum as those mesmerizing amber eyes - almost wolf gold - stared down at him in bashful shock, the faintest hint of pleased surprise showing in his scent and the dusting of red across his cheekbones.  

“By the time we got out of that pool,” he bit the bullet and laid it out for his mate.  Because if not for, and to, Stiles, who else would he ever want to know?  Who else deserved to hear it, if not his snarky little mate who had fought so hard for Derek and their pack, even when he’d believed he wasn’t part of it at all?  “I knew you were a strong potential for my mate, even if I had perfectly justifiable,” he emphasized when Stiles narrowed those stunning eyes and opened his mouth to object.  “Reservations when it came to your legal age and your dad having easy access to firearms.”

“Point.”  Stiles muttered with a pout.  Even if he was distinctly put out at the idea that he - that they - could’ve been together, could’ve been right here months ago.  “Dad absolutely would’ve shot you if you’d tried to ask me out, let alone anything else, before he found out about,” he waved his hand, “everything.”

Stiles blinked a thought occurring as he settled back down at a soft tug from Derek’s hand guiding him back into place snuggled up against the wolf’s chest.

“Did it change?”  He asked, following the thought down the cause-and-effect trail Derek’s admission had taken him.  “The draw, I mean, after I…?”

“Oh yeah, like you wouldn’t believe.”  Derek huffed with a hidden eye roll.  

His ever-inquisitive mate.  He already knew he was in for a lifetime of questions that half the time he probably wasn’t going to want to answer.  That was okay.  If it was for Stiles, he’d figure out how to find the words.  Just like he knew Stiles was learning to read what Derek wasn’t saying, too used to being surrounded by werewolves and other shifters who used body language and chemosignals far more than they relied on spoken words.

“Without the masking of your meds and the more spells and seals Quinn removed from you, even just at the start at the warehouse, it…”  He shivered a little, a flash of heat flaring through him at the mere memory of the first time he scented Stiles after the warehouse and Quinn had finished taking off most of the spellwork screwing with his little mate.  “Let’s just say for the sake of me not being shot by your dad, it was a really good thing that you’ve been a literal realm away.  I’ve got good control, most born shifters do, but,” he shrugged, a bit uncomfortable with the thought he might’ve acted on his instincts despite his own values and issues regarding ideas of maturity, adulthood, and legal age of consent.

“I could’ve broken it?”  Stiles tried not to be pleased by that idea but…yeah.

His moral compass when it came to mundane, human ideals that could be distinctly arbitrary depending on where one lived and grew up didn’t exactly point due north.

As if stepping over a state line made a sixteen year old suddenly more mature and able to make their own decisions than it did on the opposite side of that line on a map.

Still, he knew law and order was important to his dad, so he’d always tried to stay on the right side of the law even if his grasp of morality was shady at times.

At least in part, or so it seemed, because he’d never actually been human.

“I’m only a wolf, Stiles, not Superman.”  Derek wrinkled his nose at the spicy tinge of pleasure that his mate got at the idea of breaking Derek’s control.  That was not a piece of ammunition that the little brat actually needed in his already well-equipped arsenal.  Though given that the bond gave them both a window into the other’s very self, it wasn’t like he would’ve been able to keep it a secret just how weak he could be to Stiles.  “Something would’ve had to give eventually,” then he grinned wickedly.  “Especially with how you tended to smell whenever you were around me.”

An embarrassed whine was pulled out of Stiles’s throat as what his soulbonded meant slammed home with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball.

Scent.

Derek.

Derek was a werewolf.

Werewolves could smell chemosignals.

Fuck.

Fuckidy fuck fuck fuck.

Derek knew every fucking time that Stiles got turned on around him.

Oh, fuck his life that wasn’t fair.

Whining softly as Derek quietly laughed at his pain, the asshole, Stiles buried his face in the warm, pleasure-scented skin of his new bonded as he quietly died of delayed mortification.

(Although…it did put just why Derek would get utterly exasperated with Stiles at seeming random into perspective.  Fuck.)

“Here,” Derek reached out the next morning after a warm morning snuggle had given way to showering and finding the overnight bag he’d packed outside Stiles’s door.  One large hand reached out and gently held Stiles’s arm, while his other fiddled with something he’d taken from his bag.

Fiddled with something and Stiles’s charm bracelet, a fact which almost had Stiles bouncing in eager glee.

Both at the implied present - and no, Stiles didn’t feel an ounce of shame over his good-natured greed when it came to honest gifts - and at the knowledge that if Derek was gifting him with a charm for his bracelet, that meant that he not only came prepared for the potential that they might end up courting at the very least but had done research about dragel courtship.

Excuse him while he had a justifiable mental swoon over Derek showing just how thoughtful he could be.

“Alpha Northrup told me that a traditional gift is of the intended’s clan crest.”  Derek softly explained as he carefully opened the clasp on the small charm and set it just so on Stiles’s platinum bracelet.  “Which fits with wolf tradition as well.”

His eager grin softened with understanding as Derek gently turned Stiles’s wrist in his hands, so that the charm he’d placed on the formerly-empty underside was on show.

It was small, about the size of a dime, and in the same platinum as the bracelet itself but the size of it wasn’t as important as the form - and the meaning behind it.

Three arms branched out in gentle curves to spirals, surrounding a tiny - but flawless - gemstone forming a perfect triskele.

The Hale Pack Crest, an exact match in metal and what Stiles thought was a ruby for the tattoo that took pride of place on Derek’s back between his shoulder blades in ebony ink.

Stiles had a feeling that the small gemstone center would be an exact match for Derek’s alpha-eyes, and though Derek was just as new to using his native magics as Stiles, he could feel that whatever spells were set into the charm, they were Derek’s alone rather than a commission from Riven or a member of the Northrup Pack.

They felt like Derek, like the senses of steadiness and a hidden depth of rage that the alpha kept under careful control.

“Taranis almost threw me through a window out of frustration trying to teach me the anti-theft, anti-loss spells.”  Derek murmured with a self-effacing smile.  “But I wanted to do it myself.  I wanted you to have a piece of me to carry with you always, even when I have to be in the earth-realm instead of here with you to carry out my duties.”

“We’re soul-bonded, Der,” Stiles leaned over and gave him the softest of kisses in thanks.  “You’ll always be with me now, though the sentiment is very much appreciated nonetheless.”

And if that softest of kisses quickly devolved into kisses of a much different type as Derek bore him backwards onto the bed, well…

It wasn’t like they had an appointment or anything to keep.

On the contrary.

When it came to new bonds, and how they wanted to affirm them, they had all the time in the world.

Later that day after their lazy lie-in with a sleep-snuggly Derek (and fuck, Stiles just could not with that, his wolf being cute was a step too far for his heart to handle) and an awka-awka-awkward “morning after” brunch containing both his Dad, his Third and Step-Eris, and most of the Gorgens-Nott Circle because fate hated him, Stiles found himself and Derek rounded up like so much sheep and herded first into a transportation portal and then to the registration office for the Hunt via Harry playing the insistent sheepdog.

Stiles and his Dad had already undergone one round of registration not long after they arrived in Nevarah with Harry and the rest, but there was a difference between citizenship registration or a visitor’s visa and registering for The Hunt.

A big one, actually, from what Stiles could tell and how deadly serious Harry was being.

But, because Harry had already had Stiles come down for the sponsorship paperwork/registration to start hammering out his residency in Nevarah, at least his Hunt registration would go faster than if he was only a visitor.

Small mercies.

Especially since Derek wouldn’t be registered at all beyond being a temporary visitor, not even one registered for the length of the Hunt, having only just arrived the night before at the last minute for Stiles’s party.

Traveling via Mage-Express had its perks as well as its downsides.

To say nothing of being the soulbonded of a sitting royal.

Harry and his lot knew a thing or two about finessing paperwork and streamlining processes but even so: Derek would have to handle a bit more bureaucracy that morning than anyone else due to both his newly-bonded status and as the alpha of his pack since they were all staying longer than a single night.

Especially if he didn’t want him and his to be utterly reliant on the generosity of the Gorgens-Nott Circle, which he absolutely did not.

It would chafe at everything it was to be an alpha wolf to allow his mate’s mentor and their circle to provide for him and his betas while in Nevarah, not in the least because while it would take a bit of time and some forms, he could link at least one of his Terran accounts for access in the nevermore realm.

It didn’t make much sense to anyone to shunt the pack back to Terra until the Full Moon Run they’d all been invited to, what with the bonding and all.

Which meant ensuring that they had funds to work with, though a tag-team of Harry and Theo had managed to plow any thought of Derek and the betas trying to find alternate accommodations into the dirt and thoroughly buried them.

Though how that was going to work with managing the Hale territory in Beacon Hills…as well as Stiles not really wanting to return to Terra permanently…yeah.

There were still some wrinkles regarding his and Derek’s bonding to iron out, to say the least, even if they wouldn’t be a major issue until after the Hunt.

But for the moment, all they had to manage was registering for the Hunt and Derek working out the financial issue.

Everything else, they could, and would, handle as it came.

Harry ran his Circle through the registration process like a well-oiled machine, well-accustomed to the procedure.

If it also gave Stiles a template for what to say and what was involved (as well as Derek, though his betas had been attached to Harry’s circle to simplify things) that was just a bonus.

The betas could be sponsored by Stiles’s new circle now that the submissive had sealed a bond to an intended.

Even if they’d gone from Intended to Bonded at a speed that was quick even for the Hunt, if one was only counting from when Stiles had thrown himself into Derek’s arms the night before and not everything that had led up to that little display of joy mingled with trust.

It was certainly the first time they both acknowledged that there was a draw at the same time, that much Harry was certain of.

Otherwise, Stiles could very well have come into his inheritance with a bond to the wolf already in place, given how insistent soul-bonds tended to be, even just in the nascent stages.

But, asking a new circle that didn't even have an Alpha let alone a foundational triad, to take responsibility for their wolfy visitors - Derek's pack or not - wasn't the sort of pressure that Harry or anyone really wanted Stiles to have to deal with.

What with everything else the newly inherited submissive had on his plate.

Though as a downside, what with Harry’s circle going first, the young gheyo manning the chosen registration gate for the Hunt was absolutely focused on their job instead of zoning out with the routine of it all.

And for another, as tended to happen both as a consequence of the mass of arrivals for the Hunt and being who they were, they’d also drawn a crowd.

Which could work in Stiles’s favor, and most likely would, but would also make sorting the wheat from the chaff when it came to favors and courting requests that much more difficult.

Taking a deep breath with a comforting squeeze to Derek’s hand that had been firm on his since the moment earlier that Theo had called to circle up for the portal to the registration gates for the first day of the Hunt (after they’d all been inspected, both their attire, accessories, hair, and in the case of Stiles and several others makeup which had Derek’s wolf perking up and panting at the sight of gorgeous golden eyes rimmed in shimmering golden liner) Stiles stepped forward onto the glowing blue square for his measurements.

“Mieczyslaw Stilinski,” he began with the required information for his Hunt registration.  “Submissive, Nameless, Gajos-Stilinski Circle, Gajos Noble Clan.”

The registration gheyo blinked a moment in surprise as the quills all around them skittered to record his information - and the watching crowded kicked up with whispers and murmurs.

Whispers and murmurs that reached a less trying not to be obvious level when Stiles took another breath and then shifted into his preferred halfling form - well, on land anyway - that not only showed off his dragel attributes, but also his ferros markers in the tiger-like striations that pulsed with his power against his wings.

Cracking his neck, he eyed the registration gheyo expectantly, smirking a little as their eyes grew wide and pupils dilated a bit in desire before they snapped themselves back into professional mode.

All around them came a round of approving whistles at the sight of his compact, but beautiful, wings, the gheyo’s measuring tape making quick work of taking down the information on size and span.

“Beautiful,” the gheyo murmured, then blinked and waved Stiles forward.  “All done, a copy of your first records are available for purchase after the Hunting Season.”  They managed to hang on, only to blush a little at the cheeky wink that Stiles gave them as he stepped and turned, waiting on Derek.

“Derek Hale,” the wolf began, like Stiles having picked up on the format.  “Alpha Werewolf, Companion, Earth, Gajos-Stilinski Circle, Alpha of the Hale Pack.”

Without warning, Derek shifted into what most called the warrior shift - at least when a wolf had more than a single transformation to call their own.  Growing several feet in both height and breadth, he was a massive mountain of wolfman in ink-black fur and ruby red eyes.  With a howl he rose up showing off all of his improved musculature and the impressive black claws on his paws and the sinister white teeth inside his wolf-shifted muzzle.

The crowd whistled and cheered at the sight, a fact which had Stiles shooting a smug look over Derek’s shoulder.

Oh yeah.

That big bad wolf was awesome all right, and more importantly:

All Stiles’s.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Twenty: Proper Plotting

Derek soothed the irritation caused by the imminent separation from his newly bonded mate with a long, tongue twining kiss that had the good Sheriff coughing out a reminder that they were, in fact, still in public.

Not that either Derek or Stiles gave a fuck.

It was less than ideal, truth be told: bonding immediately prior to the opening of the Hunt.

If only for one specific reason that had been laid out in excruciating detail by their hosts: hunting submissives were expected to spend the first day apart from any current bonded or intended they may have.

There were all kinds of explanations for why that was the tradition.

But in the end what it came down to was simple: it was difficult, if not impossible, for a hunting submissive to focus on actually hunting for new members of their circle if they were worried in any way, shape, or form for their current circle.

Part of it was tradition, and part superstition, but it was a known quirk of the Hunt that how a hunting submissive spent their first day of the Hunt tended to be an indicator for how the rest of it would fall into place for them.

Derek could be a selfish asshole when he wanted to, and his possessive instincts were not happy to say the least about being parted so quickly from his mate, but he would never want to ruin an event as important for Stiles and his future by trying to sabotage him - even if it came from a place of good intentions.

He forced himself to be satisfied with a long, deep kiss, then let the Sheriff and Theo cut him away from Stiles and direct him further into the city.

If nothing else, the sheer frustration that sorting out his financials might pose should probably keep him from focusing too much on what trouble Stiles might be getting up to.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Oh, who the hell was he trying to fool?  He was absolutely going to brood about it until they met back up later.  But in the meantime, he might as well get some errands done.

It would let him spend more time with Stiles without having things to do to pull him away again if nothing else.

Finally Stiles pulled away, to the tune of a faint whine in the back of Derek’s throat.

“Try not to miss me too much, Sourwolf.”  He teased gently, his smile warm and eyes bright.  “Or let Erica completely empty your pockets on shinies.”

The she-wolf herself scoffed, tossing her full head of blonde curls.

“Please,” she arched her brows knowingly as Boyd tugged her back against his broad chest, the betas having naturally formed up around their alpha pair once they’d all passed through the registration gates and into the city.  “Like he won’t spend most of the day trying to…”

Whatever juicy little tidbit Erica almost let drop was promptly smothered under the broad hand of her alpha courtesy of alpha-fast reflexes and Derek’s sheer fearlessness in the face of a she-wolf after being raised with several sisters.

Stiles snickered at the flailing of Erica in the headlock provided by her alpha as Derek tugged the wolves away, following his dad and Theo’s amused lead towards the bank that both used in Nevarah, his male betas following the comical pair in turn.

“Try and stay out of trouble, kiddo.”  Noah said with a sigh before he fell in with the group, leaving his son in Harry’s extremely capable claws.  “I’ll make sure your wolf makes it back to the estate in one piece, despite what will no doubt be Ms. Reyes’s best efforts.”

“Thanks, Dad, love you.”  Stiles chirped, then spun to face his mentor with an overt eagerness he was blatantly using to hide all the anxiety over the Hunt.  He bounced a little in place.  “What’s the game plan, oh captain my captain?”

Harry laughed a little and shook his head at Stiles’s antics, then turned a bit when he felt who he’d been waiting on, arrive.  And only a bit late, at that.

“You’re not actually going to spend the day with me.”  He admitted shamelessly as Stiles’s eyes grew wide in surprise mixed with mischievous glee.

No doubt Stiles smelled shenanigans afoot.

The elegant forms of the Deveraine twins headed towards them at a fast - but somehow graceful - clip as the Deveraine circle - just like the Gorgens-Nott before them - quickly split off into various groups to start out the Hunt on the best possible footing.

Which, unfortunately for Harry and the twins, meant socializing and making introductions and talking to all the right - or depending on their goals for that round of the Hunt, the wrong - people.

“What do you mean?”  Stiles asked, grin spreading with delight at the sense of impending chaos.  “I thought you made a deal with my dad…?”

“I may have…implied.”  Harry’s grin was equally foxy as Stiles’s own over the minor - and well-meaning - bit of bamboozlement that had occurred in order to ensure Stiles was actually able to begin the Hunt without hovering parental units or brooding wolf-mates.  “And let certain parties make their own assumptions.”

“Neato.”  Stiles gave another bounce to go with his wickedly appreciative grin.  “When and where do I need to meet back up with you to prevent my Dad from instigating WWIII?”

“The entrance to the Dive, let’s say seven o’clock.”  Harry offered after a quick conferring glance with Bahn, Bhindi as usual ignoring Harry and/or Stiles after little more than a short nod of acknowledgement.  “Since we’re having a late dinner to account for everyone’s flittering around today, deal?”

“Deal.”  Stiles nodded, then with a cheery wave darted off solo into the crowd, already with a place or two in mind that he’d scouted previously.

Though before the real fun, he had an errand or two of his own to run.

Honestly, he thought it said a lot about how much Harry had grown to trust him after the whole disappearing act in the merrow waters that he let him run around the Hunt solo.

It wasn’t complete freedom - he did have what amounted to a curfew - but it was progress nonetheless.

Now…where was that tailor shop that did his clothes when he first arrived?

If he and Derek were going to walk as part of the introductions - and they (well, he) were hunting - then Derek was going to need something more than just denim and a leather jacket as his lessons had made clear over the previous weeks.

No matter how well the handsome wolf tended to pull it off.

Taranis had to admit - to himself if no one else - that how powerful the wave of soul magic that came after the Hale Alpha and his mera’s student disappeared was, surprised him.

He knew why.

Despite what some people might think due to his refusing all of his previous potential matches, he wasn’t being stubborn merely to be stubborn.

He was an alpha like any other, as even being a gheyo alpha didn’t change that core need and desire for bonded.

For a submissive to call his own, to bring under his protection and care, to lavish all the love and affection he was capable of, on.

Taranis had even said it himself: by mere dint of being Harry’s mentee, it was guaranteed that the young submissive was powerful, and added to that an alpha werewolf like Hale…the soulbond wasn’t much of a surprise.

That it had been significant enough - had loosened the submissive’s control enough - for the wave of soul magic to hit the lingering partygoers was where he’d found himself on the back claw.

He’d already had a vague notion of potentially courting the young submissive.

Stiles was gorgeous, powerful, and clearly affectionate from the little he’d personally seen.

From what he’d heard from his family, the young one was also shockingly intelligent, with a wealth of magical power and gifts, and was caring and good with kids.

Combined with feeling a draw to the submissive, and the thought had occurred to him - any potential of his family trying to matchmake aside - that Stiles might manage to handle what Taranis brought along with him - both in power and what his gheyic instincts demanded of him and his rank.

The wave of soul magic had changed what was a nascent maybe, if, into a solid: yes, I want that.

Taranis wasn’t a fool.

That soul magic wasn’t for him, it wasn’t a soulcry or a soulscream that would rip its way into an unknowing intended.

But what it had done was grant those who’d felt it an idea - soul deep - of just what kind of people both Stiles and Derek were, and how they matched each other.

Moreover, if one had the mind and instincts to listen, it also was the sweetest of lures.

Come, touch, if you can pay the price.

Not in a nefarious way.

But as an honest warning.

When Taranis had shaken the lingering touch of the soul magic off, he’d noted more than one of those remaining partygoers who looked almost repulsed by the magic.

As well as a few who like himself seemed as if they’d been hit with a lust spell, however swiftly managed and brought under control.

Most of those present hadn’t seemed affected at all, many knew what had happened but hadn’t had any more reaction than they would to feeling a pleasant, if balmy, breeze like his own parents or the members of the Deveraine circle.

Nonetheless Taranis had been careful to note those who felt more - whether for good or ill - and ensured that if they were strangers to him he swiftly discovered their names and connections.

Hearing of Stiles he was interested, seeing him he was intrigued.

At the slightest touch of what he held inside him, Taranis became resolved.

There was no guarantee, even with the potential they had for a possible soul bond, that Stiles would choose him.

Given his connections and power, unless they were put off by the werewolf soulbonded, Stiles was going to be glutted with offers from dragels and dragel-kin of every rank.

Taranis however wasn’t his father’s son for nothing.

And with the gheyic bent that a ferros submissive naturally possessed, well, Taranis had a pretty decent idea of how to start his courting endeavors - even if he’d yet to officially meet Stiles, as silly or even presumptuous as that might seem from the outside.

Which brought him to his current bit of aggravation: trying to track down the one gheyo in all Nevarah that he could always count on to give him a hell of a fight, even if previously they had all been mostly-friendly spars and not exhibition matches.

For a figure as high profile as High Lord Zandian, the Blood Flame, the massive fucker could be almost impossible to track down at times.

Thus far his tracking endeavors had failed in Zandian’s usual haunts inside the Pits, leading him to setting one of his shadows to locating the contradictory bastard outside of the gheyo section - which in turn had led Taranis all over Nevarah as the petty asshole flitted from one part of the city to another.

Now, Taranis knew Zandian.

He knew how that vicious son of a bitch fought - and thought.

There was no way that Zandian wasn’t running hither and yon out of anything other than a desire to be contrary - once he’d noticed that Taranis had tagged and was actively tracking him.

Which, given that Taranis hadn’t sent out his shadow with a desire for discretion, but just results, was really his own fault at the end of the day.

Only for Zandian to - thankfully - eventually tire of leading Taranis on a chase through the city when he finally stopped for longer than a few moments at the basking rocks bordering the fire district.

The flashy bastard was all spread out and gorgeous with his vibrant wings on display when a moody Taranis stomped over to him, ignoring the stifling heat of the basking area.

It wasn’t out-and-out the lava fields after all, merely bordering them, and while not necessarily comfortable for non-fire types, it wasn’t inhospitable.

Add in that Taranis, like his mera, had an affinity for every element, and he was able to traverse the sand easily enough, despite it not being his preference.

“You,” he shot the smug ACE a vicious glare.  “Are a cunt.”

“Well, that’s not a very nice thing to call someone who you’ve spent a good hour tracking all over the city, now is it?”  Zandian shot back with a smirk.  “Especially when a message orb would’ve probably served just as well.”

Taranis lifted a lip in a half-snarl at the fucker.

Who was absolutely right, but that was beside the point.

After the second dead-end, it became about the principle of the thing, rather than convenience.

“The subject isn’t one I wanted overheard, you ass.”  Taranis told him heatedly.  “And whether you were around your family circle, Queen Ebony and/or her court, or that fucker of a psuedo-mentor of yours, there would’ve been someone around capable of cracking a privacy spell on a message orb.”

Wrinkling his nose as he pushed himself upright from where he’d been lounging on a lovely piece of obsidian specifically designed for basking, and flicking his large wings back to allow him to sit and face his friend, Zandian supposed that Taranis had a point.

Still.

Tagging any ACE, let alone a blood title, with a shadow and then tracking them - or attempting to - without prior agreements was the sort of thing that left one wide open to fuckery if it was noticed.

And Zandian wouldn’t be Zandian if he hadn’t taken the implied invitation to screw with one of his friends.

At least a little.

It was harmless really, with the only thing lost on Taranis’s part being a bit of time, and some of the restraints on the big bastard’s infamous temper.

“Alright,” Zandian sobered.  “What’s going on Taran?  Did something happen last night?”

He couldn’t imagine what could’ve gotten his friend into a strop in less than a day, especially with the usual troublemakers all tied up with jostling for position in the Pits to make a good showing for the Hunt rather than working on irritating the infamous Maruke heir.

Taranis’s mera tended to be quite selective when it came to invitations to his rare parties at their family estate as well.

Leaving Zandian a bit lost over what riled up his friend that had him risking Zandian’s own temper if he’d been offended over being tracked instead of taking it as an opportunity to poke at his often too-serious self.

“I want to put on an exhibition.”  Taranis explained succinctly, glancing away when Zandian’s improbably violet eyes turned baffled instead of amused.  “A real one, not the waste of my time that most of the challengers wanting to take a crack at the Maruke Heir tend to put on.”

Zandian wasn’t too proud to admit that for a long moment he was utterly lost.

Unless it was to defend his unofficial title as the Nameless Champion, Taranis rarely bothered with fights as showy as an exhibition match, preferring actual - and often borderline or outright deadly for his opponent - spars deep within the Pits where there were rarely if ever an audience outside of the gheyo ranks.

Which meant…

Zandian’s face lit up with unholy glee.

“You’ve met someone.”   He announced more than said as realization sparked.  “You’ve met someone and want to show off.”  Bouncing up, Zandian let his wings flutter behind him for a moment as he met that stormy gaze head-on, the two nearly an exact match for each other in height and build.  “Taran…,” he grin was beaming, even if on the inside he was a bit sad.  Another of his friends, a younger one in Taranis, matched up.  He wasn’t jealous or envious, not exactly, more a bit…hollow.  Lonely.  Not that it, or his personal dramas, mattered in the wake of his genuine happiness for his friend.  “Of course, Taran.  Of course I’ll help you win them.  Who are they, what sort of match do you want to put on?  When?”  He frowned a little, thinking of his nearly-packed schedule given that the Fire Element were hosting this round of the Hunt and his own duties being more significant as a result.  “When might be the sticking point, Eby has me running a bit ragged as Blood Flame, especially the first and last weeks.”

Taranis shifted a bit anxiously under the bombardment from Zandian, glancing away from that perceptive gaze and then back again as Zandian’s genuine excitement made him smile.

He knew his family would be happy for him - even if it hadn’t been to someone connected to them already, everyone would celebrate one of their own finding a bonded and circle for themselves - but this was different.

There was no duty or expectation involved in Zandian’s cheer.

Only the pure happiness of a friend for another friend.

He huffed a little, knowing that his mera was going to be nearly insufferably smug when Harry got confirmation one way or another over it but…

“It’s my mera’s student.”  He admitted with a sigh softened with affection for his troublemaker of a mera.  “Stiles.  He’s…”  Unable to find words, or at least the right words, Taranis waved a hand, knowing that as a dominant rank himself, albeit an unbonded one, Zandian would understand how that moment of knowing was more instinct than anything easy to share or articulate.

“If he’s caught your discerning eye, Taran,” Zandian arched a knowing brow, rescuing the younger dragel from having to try and make him understand what Taranis just knew.   “Then he must be someone special.”

“He is," Taranis told him, thinking of golden eyes and the warm touch of soul magic. "He really is."

"Then I'll help you win him." And for Zandian it was just that simple. His friend needed a bit of an assist to get the attention of his chosen submissive. Zandian would provide.

"Thank you, Zan."

Stiles couldn't help but feast his eyes on all the vibrant sights surrounding him in the market he'd wandered into after putting in the order for matching "hunting" robes at the tailor.

Dragel and their kin flocked to Nevarah in droves for the Hunt, and the markets thrived with goods and wares on show as a result.

There a glass artist set out a display of miniatures - including one of a nytura, which Stiles had to get for Harry as it looked like a mini-Shadow.

That Stiles had made a sound that was inaudible except to some types of canines on meeting the second of Harry’s familiars in the sweet nytura, that looked like a type of feline-dragon mix in pure black, was a secret he was going to take to the grave.

Shadow was fucking adorable, and a troublemaker, which made him the perfect companion for Harry.

So yeah, he used his new payment token for the Gajos accounts for the second time to get the shiny for Harry as a sort of thank you gift to his mentor.  

(The first time was for the matching hunting robes for him and Derek, the Gorgens-Nott Circle had expensive taste and as a result Stiles knew better than to bring anything their fashionista bonded would consider subpar into their estate, let alone for official purposes like Walking.  Which involved the sort of expense that his personal account set up by his Dad would cry over.  But better dipping into his inheritance than deal with Bran giving him another lecture about proper turn out, thanks.  Let alone what Alec would have to say…)

His Gajos accounts saw quite a bit of traffic that day.

Walking outfits for Stiles and Derek.

The little statue for Harry.

Wandering into a jeweler’s shop that called to him saw him leaving with not only a courting gift for Derek but also matching ones for the puppies.

But for all that gifts and trinkets and what could be considered favors drew his eye - and opened up his wallet - no one person snagged his attention.

At least, not until he found himself oohing and awwing over the displays of custom blades at Raven Shield Armory - the sort of expensive, high end place where one did not simply ask about prices and everything was custom ordered and fitted.

The sort of place that elite gheyos frequented, as he knew quite well.

After all, each and every one of Harry’s gheyos had at least one blade from Raven Shield, if not more in addition to their matched set of “bonding” blades that Hadrian had apparently purchased them after they were all called to answer Harry’s soulscream and had settled in as a functioning, cohesive suite.

“You have good taste.”

The comment came from a little way to the side of him, Stiles turning his head and finding himself confronted with a pair of improbable eyes: a strange mixture of gold and silver that didn’t quite want to be one or the other.

They matched the face they were in, one that managed to be beautifully masculine that didn’t leave even the slightest hint of ambiguity.

And possessed a nearly blinding - and stunning - white grin formed of a well-sculpted mouth.

All in all, this friendly stranger was a gorgeous example of a gheyo, and that was before the thick golden-blond hair and thickly muscled body were taken into account.

“I have thoroughly educated taste.”  Stiles corrected with an arch of one brow.  “My oret’s circle are the “many hands make light work” type.”

Stiles didn’t supply any more information, curious about this bold gheyo - bold and given the lack of claiming marks on what Stiles could see of his neck, unbonded gheyo - and wondering about just how bold he might be.

Or, alternately, how interested in a random submissive window-shopping at Raven Shield.

(Which, granted: Stiles took a bit of a review and scan of the shop when he walked in.  Other than a very bonded-up submissive well over what Stiles would estimate middle age near the commissions counter, he was the only dragel of his rank present.  He imagined that might spark either interest or concern, depending on the person observing him.  Thus far, Mr. Bold Gheyo seemed like the former more than the latter.)

The armory wasn’t exactly part of the gheyo section of the city…but it wasn’t not either, as while gheyos made up most of the customer base, they weren’t the only dragels or dragel-kin who purchased elite-quality blades or armor.

Or so Stiles had been told the one time he accompanied Idan to the shop to pick up an order, apparently a surprise for Mihn’s next birthday…or the next time Idan really pissed off his princess, honestly with the way those two were it could go either way.

“And does your oret’s well educated student have a name?”  Mr. Bold Gheyo asked with a flash of a shameless grin that showed off a flawless smile.

“Stiles,” he smiled back almost against his will in the face of such an outpouring of charm.  “And the bold gheyo would be?”

“Ziya Arcadios, Gheyo Prince.”  With another one of those charming grins, the now-named Ziya twirled his fingers in a flashy - but clearly practiced - little display and then offered Stiles what he’d conjured (or summoned, it was hard to say which with how fresh a lot of Stiles’s magical education was) with a flash of breezy silver-blue magic.

Stiles recognized that elemental touch, even if it wasn’t the most prevalent among his teachers over the last few weeks.

Zach might be shy, and Idan a bit reticent, but Mihn didn’t have a subdued bone in his entire body.

Ziya Arcadios, Gheyo Prince who was apparently Hunting, was an Air Elemental.

Which fit with the blond hair and the silvery-blue tinge to his eyes, even if it made Stiles all that more curious about how the golden hue to his gaze came about.

He had a feeling the answer would be something along the lines of magic, given that neither of the tones in Ziya’s eyes were the sort found among non-magical beings.

Stiles hesitated a moment before taking the offered favor and accompanying gift, little more than a trinket, of a small piece of cardstock about the size of a standard business card and a flower.

Though not any flower.

Fashioned out of burnished copper for the green tinge and what looked like glasswork, the tiny white flowers spearing up from broad leaves Stiles would recognize anywhere.

Mainly because despite their awesome scent and dainty appearance, most people tended to cook with basil rather than gift it.

At least in the modern era, as since Harry, Ethan, and the others had - as he’d told Ziya already - thoroughly educated him before unleashing him on dragel society, he knew that in floriography basil meant to send someone good wishes.

So: bold, yes but not presumptuous.

And, it deserved to be repeated: handsome as fuck.

“I have to warn you, Ziya Arcadios, Gheyo Prince,” Stiles’s typical sassiness reared its head, trumping his temporary hesitance at the first overt offer he’d been given.  And no: Derek didn’t count, that was so different what happened between him and his wolf might as well be in a different universe not just a different realm.  “That I don’t have an alpha I’m courting yet, or a beta, let alone an ACE.”

Ziya laughed softly, tapping his own empty neck in emphasis. Unless the single mark the adorable submissive bore was from a werewolf halfling and not a pureblood, he'd assumed there wasn't an alpha involved. At least, not an alpha ranked dragel.

“That’s okay, I rather thought so.  But the Hunt lasts for weeks and this is only the first day.  It’s impossible to know what might happen, or how fast or slow.  I’m not the sort to wait and see when I find someone or something that interests me.”

“Thank you, Ziya.”  Stiles smiled, genuinely grateful that the gheyo had taken his warning in the spirit it was meant and not as an oblique rejection.  He gently secured the basil token to his tunic collar with a spell - Bran having had his way with dressing Stiles and Derek for their first day at the Hunt, resulting in a lot of silk tunics over tailored trousers - and then put the cardstock favor his pocket.  “I’ll keep that - and you - in mind.”

“Please do, beautiful.”  Ziya’s grin was irreverent, even as another gheyo - this one much taller than the broad-shouldered and strongly muscled prince - came over with an exasperated look on his equally-handsome face and ushered the blond out of the shop with a scolding look.  

“Next thing to a bonded pair you’ll find, those two.”  The attendant who’d been playing silent witness - and chaperone - to the scene offered once he knew that the ranked pair were well outside the shop and therefore beyond the muffling charms that kept the interior quiet for their clientele.  “Ranked and partnered in the Pits, but waiting until they find a suite to bond according to common thought.”

As it wasn’t outright gossip - and the cute submissive had clearly been both interested in Arcadios and acting in good faith towards the prince - the attendant didn’t hesitate to share what he knew.

“Why would they wait?”  Stiles couldn’t help but ask when the near-daze that having so much handsome utterly focused on him had passed.  

And also: wow.  If Ziya was the next-thing to bonded to his friend…then damn.  Why the hell would he be interested in Stiles when he had that to go home to?  Tall, dark and handsome didn’t even begin to describe the other gheyo.  If anything, like with Derek, it only started to scratch the surface.

The shop attendant frowned a little in confusion over the question.

“To bond, if there’s a pull there and they’re together then…?”

From Stiles’s perspective as someone who’d been counseled over and over again to listen to his instincts - when they weren’t trying to toss him ass over tea kettle into a feral drive anyway - it didn’t make any sense.

The shop attendant made a comprehending noise.

“Oh, well of course.”  He had a slight furrow between his brows.  “Unless there’s a soulcry or a soulscream involved, or they’ve been courted by a mage, most lower-ranked gheyos," which in this case meant Queen through Princess: their suite-ranks, not fighter ranking or anything like that, "won’t bond before they bond into a suite.”

“Why?”  Stiles reiterated, still not getting the point that the clerk apparently thought was self-evident.

“Because it gives them more flexibility.  Not all ACEs court pairs or triads, instead working on building an entire cohesive suite.  When they’re doing that…”  He shrugged.

“It’s easier to manage if you’re only working on bonding in one person at a time.”  Stiles filled in as the light dawned.  Then immediately frowned.  That seemed kinda shitty to him.  That a couple who clearly cared about each other would wait to formalize anything because it might make them less attractive to prospective circles or ACEs.

“They’re a ranked pair, Queen-Prince, which makes things easier than otherwise, but yes.”  The shop clerk shrugged again.  “That’s the way of it, usually.”

“That sucks.”  Stiles’s reaction was succinct and also not the norm from the bemused look it got him from the pareya shop attendant.

“It does, sometimes.”  He admitted.  “But you’re Hunting, so it’s something to keep in mind even if your oret didn’t tell you about it.”

“He’s not the sort of person who would’ve cared about easier or not.”  Stiles already knew even without asking - though you better believe he would be asking now that he knew about it - why it hadn’t come up.  “And, well,” Stiles gave a rueful glance over his shoulder towards where the gheyo pair had disappeared into the crowd enjoying the Hunt.  “I don’t think I’m the sort that cares, either.”

“Good,” the pareya beamed, storm-purple eyes dancing.  “All the realms would be a little better if we cared a little more about people instead of protocol, I think.”

“Me too.”  Stiles grinned, then - half because he was genuinely interested and half because he was grateful for the mini-lesson - asked about the dagger he’d been eyeing when Mr. Bold Ziya came over to chat him up.  “What sort of protective enchantments can you put on this?”

“What sort are you interested in?”  The clerk got down to business.

“Something that can cut through mountain ash and purge wolfsbane, if you have it.”  Stiles knew immediately what he wanted.

Derek might have made the first official move with his triskele charm, but you better believe that Stiles wasn’t about to slack on the wooing.

Soulmates or not: there was going to be wooing.

Heaps of it.

After all the damage and trauma both of them had been through, they deserved it.

With a knowing glance at the Claim mark on the curve of Stiles’s neck, one that was in the clear lines of a triskele surrounded by the outline of a wolf’s paw, the shop clerk presented a list of the enchantments they could put on the dagger that had drawn the submissive's eye.

All the while, he had to admit: the Arcadios Prince wasn’t wrong.

The submissive definitely had good taste.

Too bad that Tyr was on the clock and couldn’t responsibly take the time to flirt.

Though whether he’d send on a favor of his own when his shift at his shift handling clients instead of working the forge or playing with enchantments was done…that was another matter entirely.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Twenty-One: The Dive

As Stiles left Raven Shield Armory, he tucked the claim slip for his commission into his pocket.

Ruefully, he wished that he’d listened to either Harry or Bran that morning.

Both - along with a few looks from Ethan, George, and even Fred - had tried to convince him to either add an expanded pouch to his belt or throw on a small crossbody bag to hold whatever favors or tokens he might receive, as well as carry a supply of coins or candy for the kids who ran around playing messenger during the Hunt.

Maybe it was due to his still at-times-lacking self-esteem, but Stiles had internally scoffed at the notion he’d have so many tokens and/or favors that he’d need a special way to carry them.  Outloud, with Derek looking on as an adorable but completely unhelpful audience when it came to fending off Harry, Stiles had made a glib comment about pockets and otherwise dodged the issue until Theo called for them to circle up.  Looking back on it, he wished Stiles from this morning was a little less embarrassed about the whole thing happening in front of Derek and his Dad, and a little more believing in the older dragels’ advice.

Because he’d barely been alone an hour and he’d already collected his first favor - and given the eyes that he could feel on him now that he was paying attention, he wasn’t sure if that was just because Ziya was being bold or if the others around him were having a hard time discerning his rank or availability.

Which was fair.

After all the lessons and practice on keeping himself and his dragel aspects under control - because he struggled with that a lot to say the least, especially keeping his claws in - he’d automatically pulled everything in tight and kept all of him, including his aura, wrapped up and concealed.

To anyone who wasn’t really paying attention to him, he probably just looked and/or felt like a magical human visiting the Hunt rather than a hunting submissive.

And well…that just wouldn’t do given his purpose for this Hunt.

A full circle might not happen over the next weeks.

It was entirely possible that he would need to wait to fill out all of his ranks until the next Hunt, or court potential prospects by introduction through various connections instead of the more open attitude of the Hunt.

But Stiles had a goal: to find, court, and bond with enough of a circle to keep himself from becoming a danger to himself or others.

Which meant that others needed to be aware that Stiles was Hunting and open to offers.

It was an interesting thing to keep in mind though, as it put Ziya’s boldness into a slightly different perspective than just taking a chance on approaching a submissive.

Ziya Arcadios, somehow, had realized Stiles’s rank and status without any of the usual methods readily available, at least until he got close enough to pick up a hint of his scent - and that was interesting.

Though given that Prince ranked gheyos were often trackers for their suites, not entirely surprising.

Mind made up - and only halfway because he didn’t want to lose track of Ziya’s favor among the others he was supposed to be collecting that day - Stiles eyed the nearest market stalls and then headed straight for one advertising pretty trinket bags.

Perfect.

And if his next stop after buying an expanded, two-compartment crossbody bag was at the candy stall a couple spaces down, well.

Call him an optimist.

Taking a breath - once he was mentally prepared - Stiles focused and then let his wings shift out into being on his back, gliding smoothly through the enchanted openings in his clothes and into the open air.

Shimmering and silver, with lines of peach and hints of palest blue scales, Stiles’s wings shone under the Nevarean midday sun to murmurs of approval surrounding him.

He extended them a moment, enjoying the flex as others instinctively moved to give him room.

They weren’t the largest wings, more on the solidly compact side than elegant or impressive.

But the coloring was lovely - even if he did say so himself - and the stripes that at the moment merely glimmered a bit with him being calm could glow with power at the drop of a hat, turning wings that otherwise seemed utterly within the expected normal range for a submissive (even with the hints of pale blue that gave away his merrow heritage) into the outright threat display of a ferros sub.

Stiles glared a little in exasperation at his clawed fingers - he hadn’t meant to let them sharpen and emerge as well, damn it - then huffed silently and moved on with his life.

He was ferros, and while that altered his life in massive ways - such as having to rush to bond rather than wait once he’d already been thrown into a feral drive - it also was telling in smaller ones.

Such as having body parts like claws, fangs, scales and even wings all with minds of their own.

Tucking his wings back behind him to keep them from knocking into other people or the stalls and wares around him, Stiles moved forward through the market.

And, almost on cue, found himself faced with a beaming kiddo around eight or nine (probably, sometimes with dragel kids it could be hard to tell) who was nearly bouncing on the balls of her feet, a card folded over and sealed with a chunk of old fashioned sealing wax clasped gently in her hands.

A favor, delivered the more casual way via kiddo couriers who worked for candy and small coins rather than the more formal method of presenting them personally or the truly hands-off/no-pressure method of sending them to the favor collection point near the gates.

This one was more cardstock - and like the other, though he’d been more focused on Ziya and the trinket than the actual favor itself - embedded with the sender’s magic.

Which was the whole point of favors from what he’d been taught.

A way to see - without anyone’s pride being wounded or feelings hurt - if a potential suitor’s magic was a match for an intended or if it felt right among other considerations when building a circle.

“Thank you,” he smiled down at the kiddo, taking the favor after a quick check to make sure it was safe - Harry had been thorough in all the ways that favors were to be handled, and since this one was being hand delivered, it wouldn’t be scanned by the wards on the Gorgens-Nott estate - and trading the little girl with her curly pigtails for a candy.

Glancing at the name - it wasn’t one he recognized, but that wasn’t surprising since other than his mentor’s circle and their immediate connections he hadn’t met many people in Nevarah - Stiles tucked it away into his new bag and then carried on.

Orienting himself a bit, he headed north towards the Dive, his path taking him farther away from the gheyo district than the pseudo-border that the armory was kitty-corner to, and quickly found himself blushing as he exchanged candy and the equivalent of fifty-cent pieces in Nevarah currency to kiddos as he went for the favors they carried.

Okay then…maybe he didn’t entirely think things completely through.

Though one thing was for sure: by the time he made it to the Dive, he’d definitely be ready for something to eat on one of the food court levels, as it seemed like he couldn’t go more than a block before being stopped by a kiddo messenger - and sometimes more than one.

He wasn’t being dogpiled like in some of the horror stories he’d heard from when Bahn Deveraine would come over to visit with Bran and Harry…but it wasn’t the lackluster result he’d been thinking was more likely.

Stiles was certainly getting an education in how he was seen by dragels.

And while it left him with what felt like a permanent blush…he couldn’t say he didn’t like it either.

Stiles was riding a high of pleasure - his dragel vanity had been both roused and soothed by receiving favors, most of which had felt at least neutral if not good to his senses on a surface level - mingled with embarrassment when he arrived at the Dive.

The attention, though he’d been prepared for it, was a lot.

At this point he knew it was mainly due to having some of his dragel attributes on display.  Being a submissive meant that he was literally designed to be attractive to the other ranks with his large eyes and shimmering scales.  But it still felt good.

Even if he was struggling to understand how/why the others around him thought he deserved it after living all of his life up until a couple months ago convinced that there was something wrong with him due to how the people around him - the mundane humans, anyway - responded to him.

Brunch had also definitely worn off and like he thought he was ready to hit one of the food courts that Bran had told him were every ten or so levels as the Dive ascended or descended depending on which portion of the Dive you were visiting.

Which made sense as the Dive was one of the main attractions of the Hunt.

Busy - if not quite filled to overflowing at it was early for the Hunt - dragels of what seemed like nearly every element and type took to the air from one of the launch balconies, some playing games or simply enjoying flexing their wings while the higher up in the marked off lanes of the Dive were reserved for more daring maneuvers and gheyo antics.

At least, of the above-surface areas, not the actual “dive” portion of the deep crevice that specifically attracted deep dive practice and riskier aerial stunts.

All of which, naturally, were seen and noted by the ever-shifting crowds of dragels on the viewing balconies and open-air areas of the Dive itself.

Many of whom were Hunting submissives, exactly like Stiles himself.

He took a moment after arriving and noted the busy spaces to politely retract his wings though in exchange allowed his scales - a bit thicker than a regular submissive - to show through on the bare skin of his face, neck, and lower arms.

With being almost totally surrounded by strangers, trying to pull in his claws would be a losing endeavor, and Stiles didn’t even bother.

The addition of scales made the thin metallic line of gold surrounding his eyes - courtesy of Bran and Mihn’s deft hands with makeup tutorials over the last weeks - shine that much brighter in contrast, drawing attention though he didn’t know it to his large gold-tinged amber eyes that were almost as telling in their way as the colors of his scales.

With a mental coo for the adorable kiddos learning to fly on the closest levels to the surface - either early inheritances or being from a family that got their wings early, which happened sometimes with air elementals from what Bran said - Stiles joined in the movement towards the upper levels of the Dive crevice itself.

Kids, families, and newly inherited dragels were all well and good, but what Stiles was interested in he didn’t think he was going to find in the more “family-friendly” areas of the Dive.

Hunting dragels were already strutting their stuff in the air above and around the Dive - and after a snack, Stiles was absolutely ready to be an appreciative audience, even if he didn’t find a single likely prospect while he was at it.

Stiles let his nose - and his stomach - lead him first to a type of kabob stand offering grilled meat (a type he’d never heard of before, let alone tried) and what looked/smelled like pineapple that he itched to sink his fangs into and made short work of as he wandered over to a type of dumpling stand.

It didn’t really matter the culture or people, Stiles generally counted on most cuisines to offer a type of dumpling and a bread that was uniquely their own.

Saved from immediate starvation - or the emergence of a hangry ferros submissive - by the swiftly-devoured kabobs, Stiles was in good stead to make the wait in the significant line for dumplings that looked like a steamed variety served with a collection of dipping sauces.

Yum.

The same food stand was offering a selection of hot or chilled tea infusions, and with Quinn’s stringent dietary lectures in mind, Stiles ended up with one he was familiar with, if spiked with mango nectar instead of blood like tended to be the case at the Gorgens-Nott household when spiking was involved.

Feeling a bit on edge - despite the food - at the mass of people cluttering up the bulk of the tables within the food court area itself, Stiles took his order from the server with a smile and quickly made his way using the enchanted walking paths down three levels before posting up at an empty section of the open air railing that had a ledge for his food and drink.

And from there, was happily content to munch and sip away while feasting his eyes on dazzling and glittering scales and wings in every color of the rainbow.

Dragels really were a beautiful species, and he’d challenge anyone to see them en masse at a place like the Dive and try and protest otherwise.

The Dive was interesting.

Part of it was a spire with launching pads and access to the air streams and flying lanes above Nevarah.

The other part was a large, deep crevice that continued down into the earth so far that you couldn’t even see the bottom from the surface - and that was where the largest concentration of gheyos and/or air elementals were found practicing deep dives and riskier aerial maneuvers far away from the more open air lanes above the surface but far below the air elementals’ aerial city.

Stiles had chosen his snacking vantage point well, and spent a fun hour or two leaning on the railing and enjoying the antics of his fellow dragels - including tossing a favor or two of his own in appreciation for a particularly well-executed stunt or show of control.

The magical barriers surrounding the edges of the Dive crevice kept any flyer from being bombarded and taking injury, but appreciative dragels could toss a favor onto the secondary landing platform on every level.  Flyers would land on the primary platform - which was likewise enchanted against tampering - and then cross over to the secondary platform before either taking another flight or heading into the crowds.  There was enough distance between the two - primary and secondary - that anyone wanting to send a favor to a flyer could manage it - and ensure that it was received by the dragel that'd caught their eye and attention in the first place.

It was just after Stiles had sent off his second favor of the trip towards a lovely dragel with bright turqouise hair who'd completed a seemingly effortless death-drop manuever when a group of dragels showed up that Stiles knew - at least on sight and could match names to most of them - along with a handful of dragels that he’d never seen before.

Even if, based on features and coloring, he could probably make a decent guess about what family they belonged to, if not the exact circle and/or parentage.

The Black Dahlia was pretty hard to forget once Stiles met her, and her pretty companions and bonded in Shayla and Dyshoka were likewise memorable.

One of them alone was beautiful, add several of them together and it merged into unforgettable territory.

Despite the Black Dahlia herself being distinctly not the type of Alpha he was looking for, for himself.

Too mercurial from what he’d seen and heard.

Too firm on the tough love scale, the sort that if she thought it better would act cruelly to make a clean break and allow for healing rather than try and soften her tactics.

An impression that was in no way lessened as one of the Black Dahlia’s circle caught sight of him - Dyshoka, the tattletale, he was so ratting her out to Quinn for it and letting her brother handle the interfering with Harry’s carefully arranged bit of freedom for Stiles - and the Alpha herself came over to interrogate-er- talk to him.

“Stiles?”  Dahlia Deveraine asked, frowning deeply at the sight of the lone submissive without a single companion holding up a bit of railing at the Dive.  “It is Stiles, right?”

Her Dyshoka had been certain that it was the new student that Quinn’s circle had picked up lingering at the railing alone.

And when it came to that sort of thing, Dyshoka was rarely wrong.

“Mieczysław, officially, Alpha Deveraine.”  Stiles greeted the alpha formally, given that they’d only been introduced the once and that was brief when the gheyo alpha came to pick up her bonded and children from spending time at Harry’s helping Stiles acclimate.  “But given the close ties between oret’s circle and your own, Stiles is fine.”

Seeing their alpha approach the lone submissive, several of the others dropped down - including one of their party who’d simply come for the enjoyment of stretching his wings among family rather than anything else.

“Dyshoka,” Stiles gave the beta a genuine and warm smile.  “Lovely to see you again.  No Shayla or kiddos today?”

“Not at the moment.”  Dyshoka returned smile for smile as Stiles greeted the rest of their party that he knew, then took over the introductions to the rest of their lot and friends/family members who’d joined in on the trip to stretch their wings and keep an eye on things at the Dive.  The Air Element might not be hosting this hunt, but that didn’t mean that Lady Paielda was lightening up on either their or her own circle’s duties.  If anything, the infamous Blood Title was being more strict than ever.  “Mieczysław Stilinski, allow me to introduce the others you’ve not met: Rook, Gheyo ACE; Mei, Gheyo Queen; Calla, Gheyo Queen…”

Stiles may have tuned out, just a little, during Dyshoka’s introductions but it wasn’t entirely his fault.

Pretty dragels were pretty okay, and Stiles may not actively have ADHD anymore but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get distracted by the shiny.

And that elfin dragel with delicately pointed ears, a pretty face that looked quite a bit like Bahn Deveraine, and golden hair and eyes was all the shiny.

His name was Ariki Deveraine, apparently Dahlia’s younger brother, he was a Beta, and most vital for Stiles - he didn’t have a single claim mark on show (and with the cut of the tight white sleeveless wrap shirt, there was a lot on show.)

(Was Stiles drooling? He wondered vaguely.  He was reasonably certain he might be drooling, but there was quite a bit involved with Ariki’s everything that was worthy of drooling over.  And the way he looked was only the tip of it, before taking into account the soft touch of his magic or the warmth of his golden eyes.)

“Come on, Dahlia.”  Ariki broke in before his older sister - a dominant rank to her armored toes - could really let loose with the scolding that he could see was waiting on the tip of her tongue for the young submissive.  “It’s the Hunt, and I’m sure - Mieczyslaw, was it? - has taken the appropriate precautions and let those who need to know where to find him.  He’s Hunting,” Ariki glanced significantly at the token attached to the collar of the cute - if a bit tongue-tied, though it was a lot of powerful gheyic energy to be subjected to without warning whenever the Black Dahlia came around - submissive’s collar and the bag that no doubt had favors and tokens stashed inside at his hip.  “Let him be.”

“I’m meeting with Harry and your Dera?”  Stiles darted a glance between the Deveraine siblings, feeling a bit relieved when they both nodded almost in unison at the label.  “Bahn?  At the Dive entrance at seven.”  Then he tacked on: “you can call me Stiles, all of you.”

“Harry does have his traditional moments,” Dyshoka reminded her alpha with a soft glance at Stiles.  “And you know what your mera and dera are like.”

Dahlia gave an extravagant roll of her eyes.

Traditional didn’t even begin to cover it when it came to Bahn and Bhindi Deveraine, so she could see her beta’s point easily enough.

And it was the first day of the Hunt.

With an absent flex of magic, Dahlia checked the time, noting that there was less than two hours before Stiles was due to meet up with his mentor and her dera.

It was manageable, if requiring a bit of a flex to her own schedule but…

“Would you like to wait with us?”  Dahlia offered as a compromise.  Stiles wasn’t one of hers or even a sibling to worry over, but she couldn’t help but want to protect the young, newly inherited submissive.  Especially after what she’d heard - here and there - about just how he came into his inheritance.

It was enough that any gheyo who heard about it - no matter the status or rank - would want to join a hunt for the perpetrators if between them Stiles and Harry along with Harry’s circle hadn’t taken care of things already.

An old hat at having people who weren’t technically authority figures watching out for him as it was all part and parcel of being the Sheriff’s son in a relatively small town, Stiles merely smiled and agreed rather than fight the gheyo alpha on it.

Not because he didn’t think that he could manage to swing things his way, but rather because he didn’t think the victory would be worth the effort.

Especially with pretty shiny calm gentle Ariki being part of the bargain.

Even if Dahlia herself wasn’t picking up on his more ulterior motives, content with his agreement.

And not familiar with Stiles to be aware that it was when he was at his most agreeable that others should be their most suspicious.

“Want to try?”  Ariki asked gently as the young submissive’s eyes were drawn to the edge of the Dive for the fourth time in a minute despite keeping up a rather good chatter with Dyshoka and Mei, the changeling settled into their pink-haired male form for the moment, while the others took turns taking dives and keeping an eye on the crowds.

“What?”  Ariki found himself nearly pinned into place by the sudden intense focus of those brilliant amber-gold eyes.

They had flecks, making them more hazel than brown, but the flecks were either bright blue or black - though he had a feeling they, like many dragel’s eyes, may change with magic use or mood - and not the expected gold from an earth element.

And Stiles was an earth element, Ariki could feel it surrounding him: a thick and deep, grounding presence even if it wasn’t a true elemental calling as Stiles was Nameless.

Infamously so, actually, as the last Gajos and not immediately claiming a place among the Earth Courts.

It’d taken him a little while to place Stiles as the last Gajos given how he was introduced by Dahlia’s Dyshoka, but he’d caught on eventually mainly due to what Stiles wasn’t saying as he talked to the handful of Dahlia’s circle and their friends, including Ariki himself.

Stiles had a force of presence, a charisma and focus that was intense when one was the sole object of it, and Ariki couldn’t say he didn’t like it without lying his ass off.

Powerful, as if that was ever in doubt with the ferros hints there for anyone to see if they were paying attention.

Though maybe he was being biased as he’d spent enough time around his sister’s submissive in Shayla to know the tells, even if the Imaldis heiress had never - yet - tipped over the edge from ferros potential into an actual ferros submissive.

No alpha though, so no way to know for certain what type of beta the pair would be hunting for once they’d bonded, which made things a bit…trickier than normal.

Not impossible, however, and definitely worth consideration.

Especially given that Ariki recognized the workmanship on that little token Stiles was wearing proudly as belonging to two of his favorite gheyos.

“Do you want to try the Dive?”  Ariki clarified.  “With Dahlia’s lot to make sure you get some room, it should be safe enough even at this level to try it for yourself.”

Stiles’s eyes gleamed in thought as he eyed the nearest dive platform with greed and the adrenaline junky tendencies that led him to searching for half a dead body.  In the dark.  With only another teenage boy for company.

Granted - that had not turned out the way he’d planned it, but…

“Are you sure it’d be okay?”  Stiles double-checked, turning to take in the various dragels who were flying and diving and otherwise showing themselves to advantage at the current level.  “I’m not a gheyo and still pretty new to the whole flying thing.”

“We can clear a path.”  Mei agreed after sharing a look with Dyshoka, climbing to his feet and darting off to share the plan with the others.

Farbeit for one of them to scuttle another dragel’s courtship attempts.

And from the looks Ariki had been sending the cute sub’s way - however covert - Mei had a feeling that courtship was definitely where Ariki was heading, even if he hadn’t already admitted as such to himself yet.

Yet.

“You heard them,” Ariki popped up and held out one hand to help Stiles to his feet, their small group having set up a bit of a picnic spot not far from where Stiles had originally been watching at the viewing rail.  “Up you go, we’ll take care of you.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Stiles muttered under his breath before giving in with good grace, reaching out and taking the offered hand, Ariki helping him to his feet with strength that Stiles didn’t expect from the lithe dragel-elf halfling.

Huh.

Stiles knew dragels were often stronger than they looked, even the ones that were stacked with tons of muscle but…that must be a lot of lean muscle hidden under the careful drapes of Ariki’s shirt and flowy pants that banded at the ankle with how easily he’d hoisted Stiles to his feet.

He wasn’t exactly a featherweight thanks to Quinn’s intense focus on Stiles and making sure he didn’t have an actual eating disorder, just some general bad habits left over from being an American teenager with lacking appetite thanks to an Adderall prescription.

Combine Quinn’s mealtime vigilance with the physical training from the gheyos and Stiles was in the best shape he’d ever been - and the scale showed it.

“Trust me.”  Ariki asked sincerely, golden eyes meeting Stiles’s own with a direct steadiness that he couldn’t dismiss.  “I won’t let you fall.”

Stiles took a deep breath, feeling something stir with his instincts from the firm hand still holding his own and the steady gaze of the older dragel.

“Okay.”  He decided.  “I’ll trust you.  Just…try and keep me from making a fool of myself, ok?  I’m not always…graceful.”

Ariki chuckled low in his throat, then gave that hand that was almost burning to his inner dragel a soft squeeze before slowly letting go.

“I’ve got you, Stiles.  Promise.”

Stiles sucked in a shocked, quiet breath through his nose as he felt his heart stutter inside his chest.

There was no way Ariki knew - no way he could know - what those words meant to him.

That didn’t stop them from working.  From grounding him, and reassuring him.  Even when nothing else did.

Then he was following Ariki’s careful instructions and diving down down down, his heart stuttering for an entirely different reason altogether.

And true to his promise: Ariki took care of him and never let him fall.

Harry and Bahn were chatting lightly about nothing of real substance - Bahn being his occasionally catty self about the various submissives they’d seen and greeted in the submissive areas of the Hunt and Harry either chiding him or playing along depending on which submissive it was that’d caught Bahn’s eye - when Harry felt his student approaching through their bond.

Then he saw him come around a pillar and felt his eyebrows jump up in surprise, Harry nudging Bahn to get his attention.

The Deveraine submissive immediately took his cue, turning his head - and his gaze - with seeming idleness as he didn’t miss a beat in his chatter.

Only to feel a bloom of deep satisfaction spring to life inside him.

Claw-in-claw with the urge to, ah, help matters along by introducing Stiles to an alpha or ten that he knew would be positively inclined to a certain kind of beta.

Say, one like his Ariki?

Who was walking side-by-side with the adorable - and cunning, one should never forget cunning - student of Harry Gorgens-Nott.

The adorable, unbonded, hunting submissive student of Harry.

Oh yes.

This was simply sublime and even his persnickety twin Bhindi would have to agree that short of an actual royal match, their Ariki wasn’t going to find a submissive better suited to him - and one less likely to want him for purposes of social climbing - than their Harry’s mentored student.

But the pair in question were still some distance away - long enough for Harry and Bahn to exchange a careful word or two about the matter.

“My Taranis agreed to take some of his younger siblings to the Prewett bonfire tonight.”  Harry said in what to a random observer would be a total non-sequitur.  “Given that Altan naturally won’t attend.”

Bahn felt his plotting little heart skip a beat.

A bonded submissive for one of his dominant children was one thing he always wanted for them - but being part of a bonded triad was always better.

And that was before the extras that came with an alpha of the Maruke Heir’s skill, status, and talent came into play.

Even at her most disagreeable, Bhindi would have no cause for objection if the match at hand was to the last Gajos and the Maruke heir.

To say nothing of what Ilsa would think of one of her children bonding to the son of one of her fellow blood titles, who was also the child of her own mentored student’s circle.

Bahn had to mentally rein himself in - all of that was conjecture.

The match had to be made before he could embroil himself in the political and social maneuvering that came claw-in-claw with one of his children bonding into and/or creating a circle of their own.

“Ariki enjoys a good bonfire, and there’s sure to be dancing.”  Bahn responded, not missing a beat for all the mental twists and turns he’d taken in a matter of seconds.  “I’ll have to encourage him to attend.”

The pair - submissives, but more: parents - shared a look and then focused on their charges as Stiles and Ariki each caught sight of them and smiled.

Though while Stiles’s was open and natural, Ariki’s had more than a hint of suspicion.

He knew his dera after all.

But even with knowing how Bahn could be, and that he was one of the people Stiles was meeting, he couldn’t help but volunteer himself to escort Stiles over to the entrance gates to the Dive when Stiles’s alarm spell had gone off in time for him to meet with his mentor as arranged.

It’d gotten him more than one knowing look from his sister and friends, but it was worth it.

“Did you have fun, Stiles?”  Harry asked after greeting the pair, Bahn echoing him albeit focusing mostly on examining Ariki with a parent’s discerning eye.

Likely trying to tease out Ariki’s level of interest in Stiles without having to risk the beta’s hidden and rare - but formidable - temper with outright meddling.

Deciding in a moment of precise discretion to keep the more…advanced stunts that the gheyos had coached him through - to both Dyshoka and Ariki’s disgruntlement - to himself, Stiles smiled brightly and nodded.

“Good.”  That was enough for Harry.  Hunting was serious business yes, but as far as he was concerned it should also be fun.  “Let’s get you home to your wolf.”

Still smiling, Stiles said his goodbyes and let Harry whisk him away to the Gorgens-Nott Estate.

After all: there was a party starting at sundown that he was supposed to attend, and the day was far from over.

He’d like to get in at least a few cuddles from his sourwolf before he headed back out - as even if Harry didn’t have opinions about whether or not the first day of the Hunt was over at sundown or not, Stiles wasn’t about to put Derek through a bonfire hosted by a bunch of Fire Elementals.

Stiles was occasionally an asshole.

He wasn’t outright cruel - and especially not to those he cared about.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Hale Pack Crest

Derek felt a sweeping wave of relief and affection rush through him as he felt as much as saw Stiles arrive back at their temporary home of the Gorgens-Nott Estate.

He’d been keeping an eye - so to speak - on his bond with the sassy submissive throughout the day, so he knew Stiles was fine.

Embarrassed, pleased, shocked, attracted, annoyed, hungry, satisfied, and even aroused and thrilled at times, with rare pockets of calm sprinkled in there - but overall fine and nothing alarming came through their bond.

Which helped him keep himself under control by a significant measure.

Along with Devrim taking him in paw and guiding him through a few were-specific meditations and sparring drills once he’d returned from running his errands in the city and found himself with a well-spring of energy from his power boost via bonding and nothing to do with it anyway.

Knowing was never the same as seeing and scenting for himself, however, and he didn’t truly calm himself until the portal cleared and he found himself with an armful of pleased, happy mate.

His pleased, happy mate at that.

Derek gave a content rumble as he drank in the scent of warmth that nearly dripped off of his mate and overlaid the thick traces of cool air and strangers that Stiles had picked up over the course of the day apart.

It was a muddle even for a wolf’s nose to parse through, but even so nothing stood out as alarming, allowing Derek to just sink into the comfort of having Stiles safe and back in his arms after spending most of the day apart.

Apart with a purpose, but apart nonetheless.

“C’mon cuddlywolf,” Stiles teased him softly after they’d been locked in a deep hug for several minutes - long enough for George to come looking for them for dinner, in fact.  “I’m glad to see you too after being apart, but we’re holding up dinner - and no one wants to see a hangry Rukai or Cara.”

Stiles shivered lightly at the very idea, his sudden change of scent at the memory from earlier in his stay with the Nott circle enough to pull Derek out of his scent-wallowing.

Dinner was nothing short of fun with the inclusion of Derek and his betas, even if his dad got a suspicious look on his face every now and again.

Someone was picking up on the way Harry was phrasing his questions about Stiles time at the hunt, he thought, but didn’t want to give away the game or make a false accusation if he was wrong.

Especially as, given that Stiles had gotten most of his deductive skill from his dad, Noah was probably reviewing the conversation regarding Stiles’s first day at the Hunt in his mind…and likely realizing it was never outright stated that Stiles was going to be with or around Harry the entire time.

He knew his dad, and he wasn’t going to be impressed that was for sure.

But rather than complain or start drama, it was also likely that Noah would just be much more careful about how things were worded.

Harry’s verbal tricksiness may have worked out in Stiles’s favor, but it was also going to cause some tension between his dad and mentor which now that he was thinking about it he wasn’t thrilled with.

It’d been Harry’s call, however, and he trusted the older dragel to deal with whatever fallout came his way.

He had to: with everything else going on and having experienced just a single, lower-key day at the Hunt, Stiles already knew he wasn’t going to have the capacity to negotiate a truce between his dad and mentor if the two actually started fighting over Stiles and how to handle his inclusion in the Hunt.

“Killigan confirmed this afternoon that the Yarad clan head and their circle will be surfacing as part of the Merrow Court.”  Alec announced when there was a lull in the conversations surrounding the table towards the end of the meal.  “Noah, Stiles,” the merrow glanced at each of them in turn.  “I would expect a request for a meeting to arrive as soon as the Royal Introductions are finished on Friday, though you are of course under no obligation to meet with them on their terms.”  He thought for a moment, debating with himself, before adding: “In fact, I would recommend against it and counter the first request with an alternative that would benefit your own schedule so long as it doesn’t put them off for more than two additional days.”

Derek looked over at his mate with a frown, confused about who these Yarad might be or what they could want with Stiles and his dad.

He and his pack had been told enough over the course of the day to know that it certainly wasn’t to do with Stiles’s late mom or his third parent - even if the idea of the latter had thoroughly blown the minds of Derek’s betas, mundane born and raised as they were.

“They’re dad’s merrow relatives.”  Stiles murmured as Noah thanked Alec for the warning - and advice.  “Killigan is the Merrow Queen and from one of their branch families, making them a distant cousin of sorts.”  He bit his lip self-consciously then admitted: “From what Alec has told us, it’s kinda like trying to argue with a dozen me who are trying to smother you with TLC and safety precautions - all for your own good, of course.”

Derek, Isaac, and Boyd all shuddered almost in unison at the very idea while Erica let out a delighted cackle.

“Finally set to meet your match when it comes to arguing, Batman?”

“Not really.”  Stiles countered.  “Kinda hard to have an actual argument with someone when one side holds all the cards - and in this case it ain’t them.”

Noah gave a slight shrug when Derek looked his way for confirmation to go with Stiles’s cockiness.

The kid wasn’t wrong.

With Noah planning to eventually return to Beacon Hills and Stiles set to form a circle, there wasn’t really a play that the Yarad could make - powerful clan of merrow nobles or not - that would end with an outcome the isolationist clan would be happy with.

Though it was possible that Killigan and the rest were taking a jaundiced view of the situation and expected the worst.

If it were Noah, even with the tragedy - or perhaps because of it - that was the loss of one of their own, he’d be willing to take whatever steps were necessary to bring one of his own back into the fold.

If it were him, but there was no saying that the Yarad Clan Head was anything like Noah except for the genetic relation that they share.

“Taran volunteered to escort everyone tonight, Altan.”  Harry smoothly changed the subject from the potentially upsetting meeting between the Stilinskis and the Yarad Clan.  “If you would prefer to avoid the fires and rest.”

Altan sent a perplexed glance towards his mera, not entirely sure how Taranis came into things to even volunteer as absent as he’d been from Nevarah for months, but grateful for the chance to rest regardless.

Healers and medics of all specialities and ranks weren’t able to take an unofficial holiday for the Hunt like most everyone else.  They like vendors and guards were kept just as busy - if not busier than normal - with the influx of visitors.  And that was without any potential emergencies, which from everything Altan had ever heard from his family, friends, and colleagues/teachers always seemed to occur in one form or another during the Hunt.

Not that Altan wouldn’t enjoy a bonfire at the Prewetts, there was always sure to be good music and entertainment at one of their parties, but weighed against the opportunity for rest he’d take the latter.

Especially since a Prewett Party - let alone a Hunt bonfire - didn’t tend to end until dawn or near it.

“Party?”  Erica’s head lifted, eyes alight with interest.  “Fires?”

“Bonfires will be a staple most nights throughout the Hunt.”  George explained simply.  “As it’s the Fire Court’s turn to Host.”

“Our uncles are throwing tonight’s given the close relationship between our grandmother Sadara and the Fire Crown.”  Charlie supplied when it appeared his younger brother was just going to leave it at that.  And completely leaving out his own connection to the Crown while he was at it.  His student-mentor relationship with Ebony had never been about politics, and he didn’t intend to start playing things that way now or ever.  “It will certainly be an event, but not exactly the sort of thing that’s to everyone’s taste, even with the safety spells to prevent accidents and injuries that Queen Ebony has insisted on being used for open events.”

“Open meaning not restricted to Fire Elementals alone, in this context.”  Ethan added at the slight confusion present on the faces of all four of the werewolves.  “There will be events, games, and parties throughout the coming weeks, including the Full Moon Run that you’re all invited to, that are restricted in one way or another for either the comfort or safety of those attending.  Ranks, elements, social status,” he smiled softly at the teenagers - both their visitors and his circle’s own two.  “Age, and so on.”

“You’re welcome to come with us.”  Ari, the circle’s eighteen year old submissive home from Academy for the Hunt offered, easily picking up the silent cue from his fathers.  “I’m not really Hunting this round, but a lot of the parties are still fun regardless.”

“Can we, Alpha?”  Erica asked, batting her eyes demurely at the older wolf.

Derek snorted, barely holding back the urge to roll his eyes.  As if Erica had been demure a day in her entire life.  Even back before the bite she’d been withdrawn, not bashful.

“Since Stiles already agreed to go before we arrived: yes.  Try not to end up bonded into a random circle.”  Derek said wryly.  “Nevarah or not, you still need either my or a guardian’s permission for that as you’re wolves, not dragels.”

“Boo, hiss.”  Erica wrinkled her nose at him in mock-aggravation.  “Party pooper.”

None of the Gorgens-Nott Circle asked about why Derek wouldn’t be going, even though it wasn’t outright stated, but all of them could tell that there was more to it than merely obeying Harry’s stricture about Stiles spending the first day solo.

Especially as Noah was giving him an understanding look, and Stiles cuddled up to his wolf extra close.

There was definitely a story there, but as usual taking their lead from Harry and his empathy, none of them pushed - for the moment.

“Don’t forget to check your mail for favors whenever you get around to sorting them, Stiles.”  Harry reminded his student when the meal was finished and everyone was splitting up - many of the younger generation to get ready for the bonfire.  “I had the collection point put an automatic forward on anything addressed to you or members of the Hale Pack.”

“Favors?”  Isaac asked, blushing.  “For us?”

Harry eyed the blushing cherub of a wolf sardonically, then the pin-up worthy bombshell blonde and her towering statue of a mate.

“Uh huh, you’re not fooling anyone here with that blush and those curls, kid.”  Harry rolled his eyes.  “You all know what you look like.  And given that your alpha has bonded a dragel, you’re all well-aware that it’s a possibility.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s Stiles.”  Isaac countered.

Noah’s quickly stifled laugh didn’t save him from a betrayed look of outrage from his son as several members of the Gorgens-Nott Circle chuckled.

“And one of my mates has a pureblood werehyena for a parent.”  Harry shot right back.  “As well as my godson having a bitten wolf for a sire.  Being other isn’t a crime or an impediment in Nevarah, curly.  Honestly the only trouble or roadblock you might run into is being Terran-born - and even that isn’t set in stone.”

“I’ll show you and the others how to go through your favors - real or potential - tomorrow.”  Stiles half offered and half ordered.  “Now go get dressed before this Taranis shows up and has to wait.”

“Oh that’s right.”  Harry said as if it had just now occurred to him that Stiles hadn’t met his oldest unbonded child.  “You, ah, left the party last night before you could be introduced.  No matter,” he waved an airy hand in the air as Stiles and Derek blushed bright red at the sideways reminder of just what they’d been up to instead of being introduced to people.  “We’ll make sure you’ve met and know who to go to if there’s an issue at the party, before you leave.”

“Mhmm.”  Charlie gave his favorite bit of trouble a skeptical look as he pulled his submissive into his arms and back against his chest once the would-be partygoers had all cleared out.  “That wasn’t suspicious at all.   You’ve been spending too much time with Bahn - or not enough meditating and talking with Maury - if you’ve become that transparent, my love.”

“I’m not exactly trying to be subtle,” Harry huffed.  “I adore my student but in many ways he’s just like me.   And believe me: when it came to sex, love, and attraction I was blind as a ruddy bat until my inheritance hit me between the eyes.  And even then it took me months to figure out why I was so drawn to Theo.  The Hunt - while the timing could be better - is the best thing that could happen to him when it comes to sorting out a circle.”  He wrinkled his nose.  “Takes care of all those awful teenage insecurities and ambiguities with attraction and flirting.”

Charlie sighed but it was fond.  When it came to wanting his children to be happy, there was no one who fought harder or more fiercely for them than their Harry.  It was one of the most lovable things about him: the depths of devotion he had for those he loved.

That that same devotion and desire for his happiness had fallen onto Stiles as well surprised exactly nobody.

It was the method that they might have qualms about, not the motivation.

Mind made up, Charlie bent over and swooped up his meddling little love into a fireman’s carry, blatantly ignoring Harry’s protesting squawk and vigorous - if suspiciously ineffectual for someone trained by Blood Raven - attempts to squirm out of his hold.

Clearly if Harry was devolving into matchmaking he’d been ardently neglected by Charlie and their bonded.

It was an exhausting job, but for the sanity of their children (and himself) Charlie would absolutely work to remedy that situation.

And given the interested - and heated - gazes following them, he likely wouldn’t be the only one.

Stiles swiftly found himself pinned under roughly two hundred pounds - or maybe more, it was hard to say with how strong and dense werewolves were - of snuggly, growly alpha werewolf once they cleared the door to what had become over the course of the last day and night, their room.

Not that he was complaining, for the record.

The opposite in fact.

The opposite so hard that if it weren’t for Stiles agreeing to go to the Prewett bonfire a couple weeks ago when trying to hash out even a vague schedule for the Hunt with Harry and Bahn and their assorted pareya - with a couple gheyo like Wikhn and Loren chiming in for good measure - he would skip the entire party and just stay with his cuddle-wolf.

A soft testing feel of their bond reassured him that Derek was feeling a little ruffled and out of sorts from missing him throughout the day, not actually neglected or truly upset.

Simply in search of reassurance, for all that the quiet man would likely never say anything out loud.

“I’m not going to ask you to either stay or come with.”  Stiles said after several long minutes of snuggles and scenting - both of which had Stiles shifting as his hormones and instincts threatened to take over.  But, even with as new to being a dragel as Stiles was, he knew that showing up to a party still flushed and heated from having some, ah, one-on-one time with his wolf wasn’t a good idea unless he wanted to play dragel-catnip.  “But you are always welcome to come with me, now that the official first day solo trip is over.”

Stiles thought - and debated with himself - a little more when Derek just grunted in non-response then added:

“I know what everyone says about dragel circles, but this won’t just be my circle.”  He met those mercurial blue-grey-green-gold eyes head on when Derek suddenly shifted to face him rather than burying his nose in the curve of Stiles’s neck.  “I may be the pivot point, or the glue, or whatever, but I see what Harry has with his guys, how cohesive and together they are - even Alec and the Weasleys - and I want that for us.”

“It’s not fire itself that’s the problem.”  Derek admitted once the overwhelming feeling of warmth, of being seen faded into something controllable instead of a hazy comfort.  “It’s the scent.”

Stiles made an abrupt noise at that, eyes wide with realization.

Fuck.

Fuck, for a wolf?  With a wolf’s nose?   Fucking hell, of course it would be the scent memory that stuck with Derek more than the sight or the feeling of fire or anything else.

Stiles couldn’t even imagine what that had to have been like: a burning house already smelt foul to a human nose.  Add in actual bodies combined with a wolf’s sense of smell?  It deserved to be reiterated: fuck.

Though he imagined the crackle of flames and the sound of screams wasn’t any easier to deal with, despite it not being the primary trigger Derek had surrounding his family’s death.

“Here,” Stiles wiggled a bit, managing to unearth himself from under the mass of wolf that’d been pressing him steadily into the mattress.  Sitting up he dug in one of his expanded pockets, pulling out the first gift he’d gotten and fiddled with enchanting in between watching stunts at the Dive.  “I got you something while I was wandering today.”

More than one something, actually, but he wasn’t going to say a word about the dagger until it was ready.

Which with the Hunt and the influx of orders Raven Shield no doubt got as various parties either set out to court gheyos or worked on spoiling the ones that were already bonded into their circles, could be weeks away.

“Well, got the pack something.”  Stiles corrected with a blink as he handed over the drawstring gift bag to Derek.

Lifting his brows in - cautious, it was Stiles - interest, Derek deftly expanded the opening and reached in, pulling out one of what, after a moment’s investigation, were at least a dozen small clamshell boxes.

The sort of clamshell boxes that often held jewelry.

“Stiles,” Derek held up the first one and watched his mate’s expressive face closely.  “What did you do?”

Rolling his eyes - no faith, honestly, you get a guy arrested once, and… - Stiles reached out with his new-and-improved reflexes, managing to actually snag the box from Derek’s hand (to some surprise on the part of the werewolf, and smugness on Stiles’s) and opened it up.

Secured inside was a simple platinum stud earring, maybe half or less the size of a dime, in the shape of a triskele - of the Hale Pack crest.

Nestled in the center as a tiny gemstone chip that glowed softly in the light, Stiles noting that it was one of the citrine ones and not actually meant for Derek, though Stiles handed it back regardless as he traded the wolf for the bag and rummaged through until he found the proper jewelry box and the ruby-inset pair of earrings it contained.

And the whole time, he was narrating his thought process for his - at first suspicious but then almost gooey with affection in their bond - wolf.

“At first I was thinking bracelets,” Stiles held up his wrist and twisted it a little, making the assortment of charms that he was starting to collect dance.  “But then I realized: wolves.  Anything that dangles or catches was probably a no-go, even with spells to keep them from being ripped off or lost or to make them shift with you.  Earrings on the other hand?”  He smiled victorious as he pulled out the box with Derek’s earring and its match and opened it to show off.  “While I’m not going to say it’s impossible for an earring to get lost - or torn out, which, ouch - it would be a lot harder especially with the sort of spells these come with.”  Then he sobered and explained the actual idea behind the gift.  “I know it’s going to be hard for you, both during the Hunt and after when we have to spend time apart.  So I bought a set of matching charms - in the form of earrings - that’ll let anyone who has one that’s been activated be able to track another active earring from the set.”  He blushed a little, looking away as Derek’s hazel eyes got intense both at the mention of inevitable time apart and how Stiles had chosen to try and make that inevitability better - for everyone.  “And in the case of these two,” he squirmed a little, even with the bond not thrilled over showing his soft underbelly.  “We can use them to sense each other’s heartbeat.”

“You’re,” Derek struggled for a long minute to find words under the wake of the feelings and instincts that Stiles’s gesture and gift brought to the surface.  “You’re giving me a way to always find you, and to know that you’re ok.”

“Not just me, for the finding.”  Stiles corrected.  “Anyone who’s keyed into one of the charms and has it physically on them.  But, yes?”

Well, okay then.   Stiles thought absently as Derek plucked the jewelry and bag out of Stiles’s hand and set them aside along with the box he held before launching himself on top of Stiles and bearing him backward onto the bed under a rush of heated kisses and whispered praises.  That wasn’t what he’d expected for a reaction, but he certainly wasn’t complaining.

No sireee.

It was a ruffled and flustered Stiles that presented himself to Ethan in search of cleaning and tidying spells a mere ten minutes before Harry’s Taranis was supposed to arrive, but it was worth it.

With how reserved Derek could be - and generally was in public - Stiles would never regret any time spent with his wolf being affectionate or - dare he even suggest it - lovey.

The sex was great, don’t get him wrong.

As an avowedly-lamented former teenage virgin, the sex was fucking awesome, pun absolutely intended, and he likewise intended to have a lot of it going forward at every opportunity.

But the soft looks?  The gentle touches?  Moments when all the damage and pain and trauma seemed to melt away and leave Derek actually looking like a sweet guy in his early twenties instead of a hardass a decade older?

That was what he was quickly coming to crave when it came to his wolf, even if with their soulbond he could always feel Derek deep within him and know just how fiercely the wolf cared - both about him, and their pack.

Stiles could know and feel all day long, but the expressions of that were what he cherished, almost as much as the wolf and the bond they shared.

Cherished far more than the overt shows of protectiveness or the desire to provide, though he didn’t take those for granted or dismiss them either, such as Derek’s bashfulness when he’d added a payment token linked to the new Hale accounts in Nevarah to Stiles’s bracelet.

Or the quiet command to their betas to keep an eye on Stiles at the party.

Those were more for Derek’s own instincts and peace of mind than they were about Stiles, and he accepted that.

But there was something about the squishy parts of his Sourwolf that just did it for him, he wasn’t gonna lie.

Of course, it was Erica that noticed the new sparkle that both Stiles and Derek were sporting, the small triskele charms now taking pride of place centered at the top of the cartilage on their right ears - both with the red gleam of a tiny ruby solitaire in the center of the silvery gleam.

“Oh my god,” her enthusiasm was high enough pitched to almost be a squeal.  “You guys got couple’s piercings, that’s too cute!”

“They’re purposeful, not cute, Erica.”  Derek scoffed, even as the tips of said-ears started blushing - on both of them.  “So you better pick where you want yours.”

“Purposeful?”  Boyd asked with an interested glint in his eyes as he looked from one of them to the other.  He’d been paying attention as they walked through the city earlier, and around their new hosts and noted that for all the sparkle and gleam that a lot of those around them wore, he’d seen that some of it was more utilitarian than immediately evident.  Items being stored inside various accessories that weren’t bags or pockets was the most common thing he’d noticed, but thought there might be more to it as well.

“Purposeful.”  Stiles nodded firmly as he held out a trio of small boxes each containing a stud identical to the one that Derek originally saw, each with the same shape as his own but with the citrine center stone for the tracking enchantment rather than the ruby that held that as well as the sensory one Stiles had had linked between their earrings.  “Trackers.”  He explained, adding the caveats about the lower-powered/enchanted citrine charms that Derek hadn’t let him get out before, ah, showing his appreciation of Stiles’s gift.  “They won’t work over multiple realms, and there are certain types of high level wards that can block them, but for running around the Hunt or back in Beacon Hills they’ll definitely do the job.”

He sent Erica and Boyd a long, knowing look then added: “and they have an SOS function that’ll light up the rest of the linked charms, that I’ll teach you all how to use tomorrow since with the safety spells in play at the Prewetts we won’t need them tonight.”

“Thank you, Batman.”  Erica said with a rare softness, blinking back tears as Boyd pulled her into his side in comfort.

“Thanks, Stiles.”  Isaac agreed, turning the small box over and over in his hands as he darted a look between his alpha pair and the two previously-kidnapped packmates.  “Really man: thank you.”

“Right,” Erica straightened up after a moment, hearing the other party-attendees coming their way as Ethan carefully pretended to have seen nothing where he waited to check on his children and their turn-out before they left.  “So: do they need to be in a certain spot to work, or?”

“Piercings are most effective.”  Stiles told them, following her cue and tapping the upper curve of his own daintily-pointed dragel ear.  “They’ll shift with you, standard enchanting on Nevarean jewelry, and are spelled against both loss and theft so,” he shrugged a little.  “It’s really up to you.”

Color Stiles unsurprised when after a moment to confer, all three of the betas chose to copy their alpha - and subsequently Stiles himself - with right-sided cartilage piercings.

And with a spell taught by Ethan weeks ago, in less than a minute each all three of them had perfectly performed and healed piercings.

Just in time for the others - and their escort - to arrive.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Twenty-Three: Spite - 1, Manners - 0

Stiles Stilinski was expecting a couple of things when he met the aforementioned Maruke Heir for the first time, based on the way Harry and the others, including Maruke’s siblings, all talked about him.

Taranis Maruke was the second oldest child of the Gorgens-Nott Circle, and the oldest unbonded child - responsible, maybe a little rebellious.  He was one of a couple children that didn’t have Harry or Bran’s direct involvement in being created, via magical shenanigans (which had flummoxed Stiles for a solid three days after learning about it) but had been carried by Harry despite the submissive not actually being one of his direct parents - powerful.  (Dragels were wild, and at times the stuff of Stiles’s nightmares.)  He was a gheyo, from the suite’s stories about him - dangerous.

And from Altan and Ari’s complaints - absolutely a dominant rank.

All of which combined led Stiles to fully expecting to meet a version of Hadrian but with Riven’s occasionally snappish temper, honestly.

An ACE.

Stiles was not expecting the at least six and a half feet of dangerous, thoroughly muscled, platinum blond who strolled through the doorway between the transportation room and the gathering area just outside it.  For that large, expertly-sculpted form of dangerous-pretty to saunter on into Stiles’s orbit.  And, with the closeness that came with being in near proximity to each other, for the submissive to get slapped in the face with the sense of Alpha.

Taranis Maruke wasn’t the ACE that Stiles had expected given the stories that shouted dominant rank, or potentially the Joker that he halfway thought the others were dancing around explaining.

Taranis Maruke was a fucking Gheyo Alpha and Stiles was not prepared.

Not prepared to the point that Stiles was feeling distinctly set up.

Though given the set-up in question, so long as the personality wasn’t a complete let down or disaster to go with the… everything else, Stiles wasn’t sure if he’d manage to actually be mad about it.

There were far worse things Harry could slip from the bottom of the deck when it comes to Stiles than letting him be blindsided by hot like burning.

Even if Harry never would’ve thought about or put it like that.

Dragels were private about their children.  Protective.  Even once they’d left the bosom of their families for the wider (and often wilder) realms.

Taranis wasn’t even the first time Stiles hadn’t been aware of basic demographic info on one of the Nott kids.  He’d had no clue what Ari’s name was before he’d come home for the Hunt vacation from school.  Just that one of their kids was a male submissive away at what amounted to magical college.

And that had only come up because Harry and Ethan had been explaining Stiles’s options for higher education to the Stilinskis.

Stiles knew logically how many children the Nott circle had.  He knew the number, had the names, even knew a thing or two about them from stories.  But he also couldn’t match up those names to a handful of them if they were right in front of him.  

He expected he’d meet all or most of the kids over the course of the Hunt as it was very much a festival time and the Nott pareyas had been making entirely new (or maybe old) wings of the house appear out of magical storage for the use of their “away” kids - bonded or otherwise.

But expectations often differed from reality, and Stiles was being forcefully reminded of that in the gorgeous face and form and dominant aura of Taranis Maruke.

“Stiles, this is my son Taranis Maruke.”  Harry introduced them easily, shoving his inner glee over Stiles’s stunned silence at seeing Taranis down deep where his perceptive student hopefully wouldn’t parse it out.  “Taran, this is my mentored student, Mieczyslaw Stilinski.”  He flicked a look over the wolves, catching a far too entertained expression on Erica’s face - might have to keep an eye on that troublemaker before she sets off Stiles’s near-legendary obstinance to being handled - before continuing.  “I believe you’ve already made the acquaintance of the Hale Pack from Beacon Hills.”

“I have, mera.”  Taranis smiled even as he bent down and bussed a courteous kiss to one uptilted cheek before greeting the wolves - and the owner of his fascination.  “Alpha Hale, betas.”  He nodded, then turned the full force of his attention to Stiles.  “I’m glad to finally meet you, Stiles, I’ve heard alot about you over the last weeks.”

Stiles managed to shake off the feeling of being starstruck - or maybe the dragel equivalent of scent-drunk like a wolf could get, aura-drunk? - before he made a total ass of himself before the gheyo alpha.

Though if the sharp-tinged amusement coming through his bond with Derek was any sign, and the brief gleam of what he thought was satisfaction he caught from the alpha in question, he probably wasn’t entirely successful in hiding how his everything had basically gone from lissome, lazy afterglow to attentive and on-point the moment Taranis Maruke had prowled into his vicinity.

Amusement that swiftly changed to an all-too-familiar exasperation as Derek gave him a look out of kaleidoscope eyes that seemed to say:

This one?  Really?

Then Derek blinked and it all shuttered away, the alpha of the Hale Pack pushing forward beyond the attentive mate.

If Taranis was what Stiles’s type was when it came to dragels, then Taranis - or someone similar, maybe less aggravating if possible - was what Stiles was going to get.

Derek would make sure of it.

Anything so that his mate would be safe, anchored even against himself and his power.

Their bond only allowed through what Derek could handle.  It was an unfortunate truth of how dragel bonds worked - or so Theo had explained during the day while everyone worked to keep Derek occupied and out of his own head - that even if a bond could feasibly tolerate more than what was necessarily safe, the submissive would never instinctively allow it.  Bonds were meant to help and stabilize dragels.  They were intrinsically different from a pack-bond or a mate-bond within a were’ or shifter pack or pairing.  But the source of them outside of soulbonds was the inherent magic of a submissive.  They were both linchpin and - though Theo had hated the comparison - the magical sink and cache of a circle.

And that cache - that magical battery - would sooner overload and explode than send an iota more power than a bonded could handle outside of themself.

Stiles would sooner fall to his ferros nature and let his power tear him apart from the inside out than drive Derek mad with power he logically had no hope of fully processing and assimilating - even if it would help him temporarily.

With what Derek could feel spinning and swirling and dancing inside of his mate, even with Derek to provide at least a fraction of the anchoring that he needed and Harry’s circle working with him to keep from overloading, the reality of Stiles losing himself to his own nature was far too real and present a danger.

Derek would not lose anyone else.

Not if he could help it.

And if, as he’d told Stiles, that meant a dragel circle, then a dragel circle Stiles would have.

Even if his adorable fucking mate got tongue-tied the moment a dragel alpha entered his space.

Or maybe that was just Maruke.

Given that Derek had yet to see Stiles around any other unbonded alpha, he honestly didn’t know which it was, or if there was something else going on.

The attraction, however, he couldn’t mistake, even if he wanted to.

At least Stiles objectively had good taste, even if Maruke wasn’t really Derek’s type.

He was a powerful fighter, Stiles seemed to like him - at least superficially, and to Derek’s wolf that was all that really mattered.

“Hi.”  Stiles managed with a mental nudge from Derek pulling him out of his head.  And not all because of being hit with the full force of Taranis Maruke without sufficient warning.  But also because his instincts and perception were bombarding him relentlessly, especially once he followed through on the manners that’d been drilled into him and offered the alpha his hand.  “Nice to finally meet the guy keeping watch on Beacon Hills.”

Taranis gently accepted the hand, a little surprised but also not.

Stiles had been raised on Terra with mundane sensibilities.

Even months under the tutelage of Taranis’s family circle wouldn’t undo years of habits, especially when stressed.

It might be unbecoming of a dragel of Taranis’s rank, training, and status, but he was rather smug over the thought that meeting him was enough to override his fathers’ training and revert Stiles back to the manners he’d grown up with.

Though on the other claw it worried him some, as while Taranis found it charming, other dragels wouldn’t be nearly so sanguine about lapses in manners and protocol, no matter the reason or cause.

If anything, some would be even more offended than otherwise if they knew Stiles’s Terran-raised status was behind such a lapse.

It roused Taranis’s protective instincts, right along with those large amber-whiskey eyes.

For his part, Stiles had no intention of letting Taranis in on the secret that he’d broken dragel protocol with a significant portion of intentionality.  A fact that Harry very well knew as the look his mentor shot him was a mixture of exasperated and amused.  Hey.  It wasn’t his fault if no one warned the hunk of alpha-goodness that Stiles had perception.

Or that by taking his hand, Stiles managed to blow right beyond whatever blocks or shields that the alpha might be using, allowing him to get a better idea of who Taranis Maruke was before stepping one claw outside the safety of the estate in his care - or deciding whether or not to allow attraction to grow into genuine interest.

Though from the shocked arch of blond eyebrows, and the widening of storm-violet eyes, Taranis at least was aware enough for Stiles’s power to be discovered rather than coasting under the surface unobtrusively.

Good.  Stiles’s inner dragel instincts purred with pleasure.  The strong alpha isn’t a fool.

“Empathy?”  Taranis asked with a chagrined little tilt of his head as he gave that slender hand a firm squeeze, taking in the strength and growing calluses - his dads were teaching him more than protocol, excellent - before releasing him.  He was far from insulted, and found himself far less worried than before.  It wasn’t an instinctual lapse in protocol then, but an intentional one.  Taranis didn’t know whether to be impressed at the blatant use of his biases against him, or rueful that he fell for it.

(Both.  It was both.)

Stiles merely beamed an unrepentant grin up at him, leaning into Hale’s strong embrace for a moment before stepping away after a parting kiss.

“Something like that.”  Stiles told him shamelessly as the betas snickered behind them and Derek rolled his eyes at his antics.

Even Harry and Ethan were amused, the former hiding a laugh in a cough as the latter merely turned his head away, the full force of his smile falling on his younger adult children who were all enjoying Taranis’s fumbling far too much.

No one knew what Stiles sensed about Taranis through their swift clasp of hands, but then no one needed to.

Stiles knew, and Stiles was all at once utterly at ease leaving the estate where before he’d been dawdling a bit and trying to bury himself in his wolf’s embrace rather than leave him for the hours he’d be at the bonfire.

Derek wasn’t forgotten by any means.

“Be safe,” Derek murmured, his thumb coming up to rub gently over the delicately pointed upper curve of Stiles’s ear where the Hale Pack Crest now took pride of place.  “Try and keep out of trouble.”

A stern look at his betas made it clear that his words weren’t for the mate in his arms alone, all three of them saluting sassily, even Boyd.

“I’ll take care of the puppies, Worrywolf.”  Stiles leaned back in, resting his palms on strong shoulders and pressing one last peck on a high cheekbone.  “We’ll be fine.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about,” Derek muttered, giving a clearly-commanding look over at Maruke who took it in good grace despite his scales being ruffled at the implied order.  “And Stiles?”

“Yep?”  Stiles bounced a little on his toes as he followed the others all filing into the transportation room, glancing back over his shoulder at where Derek was watching next to Harry and Ethan, arms crossed over his chest.

“Happy hunting.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose behind him as the puppies towed him away, even knowing that there was no way Derek could or would see it.

He’d feel Stiles’s reaction through their bond - and that was what mattered.

That last-word-grabbing Sourwolf.

Stiles felt what Derek didn’t say in those two words: his resolve that Stiles have what - or rather who - he needed.

That sense of him? Really?  But also: if he’s what you want/need/like, go for it.

For a werewolf that was possessive of what was his, even for an alpha of his species, Derek was also proving to be far more supportive than Stiles had ever expected, even in his wildest “what-if” daydreams.

“Circle up.”  Taranis called, darting a glance over at Stiles almost against his will.

That hadn’t sounded like a leave-taking to be worried about, but Stiles seemed quiet and introspective, far more than the common Hunt refrain should cause.

But likewise, Stiles wasn’t distressed so…none of his business.

For the moment anyway.

Besides which: Taranis was escorting a hunting submissive in Stiles, a not-really-hunting submissive in his little brother Ari, three beta werewolves who may or may not be hunting, and an unbonded beta in his younger sister Trysta (though with her secondary affinity for Fire, he was the least worried about her at a bonfire of all his unattached siblings and niblings).

He didn’t have time in-the-moment to try and parse out meanings and inflections and unspoken conversations between a bonded pair.

Though as the shadows melted away from them at the arrival point for the bonfire and he saw one of his favorite siblings waiting patiently in the tanned face and smiling-golden eyes of his sibling Rathna, he felt a bit of relief course through him.

Of course his parents wouldn’t have dumped all responsibility for such an eclectic group on Taranis alone, no matter how capable he was.

At least - not during the hunt.

With a strong earth affinity to rival all but their father Raspen - their sire, in fact, though they hadn’t been marked for the crown on their birth, which everyone was thankful for as it heralded a long, peaceful time of rule before the crown changed hands - and a pareya at that, Rathna was probably the steadiest of all his siblings for all that they were far from the only earth element among their number.

Chocolate curls tumbled down to shoulders half-bared by the choice of traditional Indian dress and sari, and a lovely face smiled at them even as an excited Ari tugged his new friends over to meet them.

Taranis was far from the only one with a soft spot for this particular sibling, even if no one would admit it for fear of wounding others’ feelings.

Especially for the older siblings, as they all remembered the early years of tears and struggle while Rathna found themself as them rather than her or him.

The younger ones had always known Rathna as Rathna and never really questioned it - or how much strength it had taken them to be them even in as accepting a society as Nevarah.

“They/them,” Rathna answered the unspoken question written all over the normally blunt Erica’s face as the she-wolf took in androgynous features, typically-female dress, coupled with broad shoulders and a flat chest.  Their smile was soft and understanding, having been well-informed of the provenance of their family circle’s current guests.  “Or simply call me by my name.”

“Your sari is gorgeous, Rathna.”  Erica recovered from her almost-disastrous social gaffe with aplomb.  “I’m honestly envious.”

Stiles bobbed forward and took his turn at greeting one of the “missing” faces from his list of Gorgens-Nott kids.

“Catwoman is right,” he agreed cheerfully.  “Even if I doubt I could ever pull it off, personally.”  He wrinkled his nose playfully at the pretty dragel, taking in the sense of calm, protection, that was interesting but didn’t really do anything for him.

Probably because he had his gaze locked on a different Gorgens-Nott pareya-kid, but that was his business and not something he was thinking too hard about while Altan was still firmly on the “waiting until I’m done with training” bench.

While Taranis was an entirely other issue, thanks very much.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Rathna studied the lithe submissive with canny eyes, one henna’d hand with its perfect manicure coming up to cup their chin in thought as their younger siblings all darted away after being subjected to tracking and protective charms by both Taranis and Rathna before being unleashed on the unsuspecting partygoers.  “If you were honestly interested, I’d be happy to help you, Stiles, or any of you.”  They offered generously to the trio of werewolves who despite being “freed” from Taranis’s immediate presence remained hovering around Stiles and Rathna at the edge of the Prewett estate.

Rathna didn’t have to ask why the wolves were lingering.

A single glance at the bond mark on the cute submissive’s neck - bold and proud above the neckline of the silk t-shirt he was wearing in a shimmery silver - would tell anyone with eyes and the sense to use them why a group of betas might hesitate to leave him alone in a new place.

As for why Taranis was hovering instead of taking off after their younger sibs, well.

That also didn’t require anything approaching genius intellect to add up.

Stiles waved his hands in the air, blushing.

“No, no, nope.”  He was glad for the offer, but that was just asking for trouble.  “I’m both clumsy as hell and have negative amounts of actual fashion sense.  I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that me in any kind of garment that could tangle around my legs would be an epic disaster.”

The wolves all had to laugh in agreement at that, snickering over remembered stumbles, fumbles, and falls they’d played witness to over the years of shared schooling with one Stiles Stilinski.

“You look great though.”  Stiles rushed to assure them, not wanting to cause any offense over basically tossing their well-meaning offer back in their face.  “Really, I’m not trying to flatter you or anything just: way bad idea.”

Rathna took the denial in good-humor, smiling at the hilarity of the teens, even as they shot Taranis a knowing glance.

He’s cute.   Golden eyes seemed to say with a mischievous gleam.  Funny too.

I don’t know why you’re my favorite.   Taranis narrowed his eyes on his sib.

Yes you do.   Rathna’s expression almost sang.

“Oh it’s not that hard, and if necessary there’s always a spell to help us along.”  Rathna wound one golden-tan arm through Stiles’s cream-pale, the wolves falling in behind them as they directed their new friend into the chaos that was a Prewett bonfire.  “But that aside: you’re well turned-out for someone without an ounce of fashion sense.”

“They have a point, Batman.”  Erica popped forward and snagged Stiles’s free side, to a there-then-gone snarl from Isaac who’d been edging towards the submissive.  She flashed a fang of her own in warning, the curly-haired beta rolling his eyes and then glancing away with a soft huff.  Hah.  Sucker.  As if she was going to make things that easy for him.  “It’s only been a day, but I’ve already seen you better dressed than, like, ever before.”  

She scanned the current choice of shimmery-silver shirt - silk, maybe - that was tailored, another change, fitted black leather pants, and a belt and boots that matched in a thicker-shimmery-black scale pattern that wasn’t snakeskin.  Dragonhide, maybe, but she hadn’t seen enough of it to be sure.  Add in the thin line of silver eyeliner and dusting of gold eyeshadow, and the sparkle from jewelry at his wrists and ears, and Stiles was turned out.

The holster-like bag attached to his belt and then buckled around his thigh just above the knee was a very…hot, touch, and she wasn’t afraid to ogle it and the attention it drew to his bubble butt.

She was happily mated, she wasn’t dead.

Stiles snorted softly.

“If you think anyone trained - officially or unofficially - by the Deveraine twins would let their student be anything less than well-turned-out, then have I got some news for you.”  He scoffed, rolling his eyes.  “Harry, Bran, Mihn, and even Idan went shopping with me multiple times since I’ve arrived and put together outfits including accessories for every day and scheduled event.”  The dry look he shot all of his companions - except for Taranis and Boyd who both winced with sympathy, having had their own run-ins with fashion-minded family/friends/significant others - was scorching.  “As well as extra options and alternatives in case of fashion emergencies and unplanned events.  Believe me, I would much rather be wearing my comfy flannel and broken-in jeans.”

Just because he now knew enough about fashion - particularly in Nevarah - via his education didn’t mean that he wanted to use it.

More accepted both the necessity and the inevitable.

Some battles just weren’t worth the fight.

And it wasn’t like Bran had thrown his old clothes away… just pushed them to the very depths of his closet until after the Hunt.

“Your sacrifice is appreciated.”  Taranis told him soberly - and only slightly teasing.  “I’m sure my younger sibs were very happy for someone else to be the subject of our father Bran’s fashion focus for once.”

“Explains how Trysta got that minidress passed him,” Rathna agreed with an amused twitch of their lush mouth.  “Mera would be more focused on the length than the color, nevermind that that shade of orange does nothing for her complexion.”

Stiles shrugged even as he stared a little in awe at the literal dozens of bonfires - of various size and circumference - filling the massive field laid out in front of them as they came to the crest of the small hill they’d been easily mounting, even Erica in her skyscraper heels.

“Whoa.”  Stiles blinked, sweeping his honeyed gaze from one edge to the other at the mass of people and fire below.  “I see what Charlie meant by the Prewetts taking hosting seriously.”

And it was a Serious Affair.

At first glance, there were at least a handful of different areas for all that they all contained bonfires, some with “standard” flames in shades of yellows, oranges, and white while others danced with purples or greens or blues and even true reds.

He thought he even spied one that was entirely black in the distance, side-by-side with one that was wholly white.

The “standard” bonfires were circled by seating areas and tables on tables overflowing with food options.  Stiles was unsurprised to see the “blue” flame fires by the refreshment tables, and at that point started to see the patterns involved.  Green were by quieter spots, purple ringed the dance floor.

And the black-and-white marked the boundary, beyond which most likely was the rest of the estate and the “private” areas that weren’t open for the party.

With a soft whoop, Erica pulled on Stiles’s arm, reaching back and latching onto Isaac before towing both boys without mercy over towards the dance floor.

Letting go of Rathna with an apologetic look, Stiles let himself be swept along with her excitement, as Boyd gave both Taranis and Rathna a nod of farewell - for the moment, anyway - before following at a calmer pace.

A soft silence below the hubble-and-bubble of the party below washed over the pair for a moment.

Only to be broken with a playful glance out of exquisitely painted eyes.

“So,” Rathna dragged their tongue over the edge of one fang.  “A submissive to move the infamous Maruke heir does exist.”

Taranis huffed, crossing his arms and looking away, every inch the put-upon and much-aggrieved sibling.

“Oh, come on Taran.”  Rathna latched onto one elbow and jiggled his arm before the gheyo could disappear into the plentiful shadows cast by the myriad bonfires and accent lighting spells below.  “You know I only tease because I’m happy for you.  All of us would be, will be, when everyone finds out.”

And they would find out.

In a family as connected and loving and interwoven as theirs, secrets never really stayed such for long.

Especially with an empath for a mera.

That was one of the best - and worst - things about Rathna, Taranis admitted to himself.

They always knew when something was serious.

It wasn’t empathy, not like their mera had, and it wasn’t the same as the sheer unrelenting pull of whatever gift it was that Stiles had he’d felt sweep through him earlier.

Rathna was just good with people.

Which was an excellent thing, given that they were a counselor at Merlin Academy.

Arielle knew, dealing with hormonal teenage dragels and dragel-kin, and all the drama that came with them, made being good with people a major necessity.

“Some of them already do.”  Taranis unfolded his arms and laughed a little at the flamboyant pout he was being terrorized with, genially offering his arm to escort Rathna down to the party-proper.  “Mera has not been subtle.”

“Mera wants all of his children to have the best.”  Rathna remembered more than one suitor they’d had chased off by a protective mother-dragon in Harry Gorgens-Nott as well as more than one well-meaning introduction that had never gone anywhere.  “But more than that, he wants us happy.   Whatever that might look like.”

Taranis shared a rueful look with Rathna.

If trying to keep secrets from an empath was impossible, especially one they shared any kind of bond with, then trying to fool one was quite literally a fool’s bargain - something far too few suitors with ill-intentions had realized.

All of them had had their little heartbreaks as a result, as their mera simply was not the “let things play out” or hands-off kind of parent.

Not when it came to their futures and their happiness.

Harry’s version of them having the ‘best’ match wasn’t the same as most parents.  Especially given his high-noble/royal status.  Harry Gorgens-Nott didn’t give two fucks for status or wealth or bloodlines when a suitor for his children came calling.

He cared about the quality of their hearts.

And if they didn’t measure up…well.

He certainly wasn’t one to back away from a scandal, a trait that his student seemed to share given that he’d immediately bonded his wolf rather than wait until he’d at least got the foundations of his circle in order.

“C’mon, big brother.”  Rathna smirked, tilting their head towards the dancefloor where a certain trio of wolves surrounded a hunting submissive - a hunting submissive who had his scales out and on show, gleaming and tempting under the dancing light of the fires - were already owning a portion of it, despite having only just arrived.  “Let’s go show a certain cutie that you can do more than play silent statue.”

“Hey,” Taranis protested lightly.  “We did talk - a little - before we had to leave.  He knows I talk.”

“Ah,” Rathna agreed solemnly, before making their point: “but does he know anything else?”

Unable to argue with that, and unknowing of what it was Stiles had parsed from him after punching through him like a tidal wave, Taranis shut up and let Rathna tug him onto the floor - and once more into Stiles’s orbit.

The power hiding inside Taranis Maruke was impossible to ignore, Stiles realized as the alpha joined them.

He moved to the throbbing, hot beat spilling out of the DJ’s literally magical mixer set up with the grace and predatory ease Stiles had come to expect from gheyos.

It made sense as more than one of them had pointed out: if they could dance, they could fight and vice versa.

In that way: the inexorable pull that Taranis had on Stiles made his decision to unleash his perception on the gheyo alpha very much a double-edged sword.

Perception, Stiles had been warned over and over again, could be a weapon as much as a tool.

This wasn’t even the first time that his curiosity had made it backlash against him: just the most recent and with the worst timing.

He’d been feeling petulant at the set-up, he’d admit it.

So Stiles had acted out.

Whipping his perception against Taranis with the vague idea that there had to be something wrong with the perfect-seeming alpha.

Out of nowhere, on the heels of a fun day and bonding Derek Hale, had appeared this alpha.

Tall, obviously strong and definitely powerful.  A gheyo alpha who could both handle Stiles and all the challenges that his ferros nature came with, but also the possibility that that same nature would demand a full complement of gheyo suites possible.  With the training and connections that could take on anything that a full three suites would bring in turn.

On the face of things, Taranis Maruke was perfect, even the vicious scar on his face burnishing his perfection rather than detracting from it.

Stiles had been determined to find something wrong with him.

Even if he had to cheat to manage it.

Because while perception wasn’t as big of a cheat as say empathy (you’re not slick, Harry) it was a tool that few dragels could either utilize for themselves or hope or even know to defend against.

Punching through Taranis’s empathic shields that he likely maintained because of his relationship to Harry, had been an impulse.

It was also unethical and flat-out rude, and he expected to hear about it whenever his dad found out.

It had also epically bit him in the ass.

Because…Taranis Maruke wasn’t perfect.

He was more ambitious than Stiles honestly would’ve expected considering his family.  He had a temper like whoa.   (Though at least he’d called that right when making his original assumptions about the Maruke heir.)  He had a thick strain of bloodlust inside him that like any gheyo wasn’t all that hidden.

But.

But.  Holy fuck balls Batman, the level of devotion that man had inside him.  Love and affection that threatened to pull Stiles under with just the hintest of brushes up against them.  And an active mind with shielding that Stiles didn’t even come close to cracking with only the split-second read he’d done of the alpha.

He was perfectly imperfect, and Stiles didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with that.

Other than what he was already prepped to do, anyway: listen to his instincts.

And those all said…yummy, but make him work for it.

Not exactly an actual plan, but meh.

Plans never went exactly right anyway.

And with how smooth Taranis was about cutting his way between Erica at his back and passing her over to Rathna to handle, Stiles wasn’t even mad about it.

Arguably: if Taranis was interested in him after he’d tested him with his perception, he really only had himself to blame.

Stiles found himself more okay with that than he thought he’d be when it came time to get serious about an alpha no matter who it ended up being.

That didn’t mean he was going to swoon over that wicked grin or anything.

Fuck that.

His instincts said to make the alpha work for it…and that was exactly what Stiles was going to do.

If the arched brow the alpha gave him when Stiles spun out of his hold on his hips and into a closed-tangle with his puppies said anything, Stiles rather thought the message had been received loud and clear.

Awesome.

Let the games begin.

Chapter Text

Sins of the Mother

Chapter Twenty-Four: Jokers Wild

Playing cat-and-mouse across the dancefloor with an alpha like Taranis Maruke was a dangerous game filled with cutting-in werewolves, eye-twitch-quick spins and holds, and challenging glances.

It was also fun as hell - he could say fun as fuck, but now that he had been sullied by the hands of one Derek Sebastian Hale, he could actually understand in fact and not just theory just how high of a bar that was, at least when Derek was involved, and hesitated to use it - as well as thirst-making.

In more than one way.

Four songs in and Stiles was ready for a break, a need that Taranis - somehow, despite just meeting him - managed to read as Stiles once more spun out of his hold.

Taranis and Stiles locked eyes for a long, charged moment, then the alpha nodded his head and turned into the dancefloor rather than towards Stiles.

Just like that, huh?

Noted.

Whether that graceful acceptance without forcing either of them to lose, to concede, was a matter of age, experience, maturity or just Taranis himself, Stiles couldn’t say.

But he liked it, nonetheless.

He liked it a lot.

Stiles definitely wasn’t on Terra anymore, as if he needed the reminder with dragels and dragel-kin all around him showing off glimmering scales, pointed ears, and literally magical colors of hair and eyes.

And skin?

Stiles blinked as he made his way with Isaac coming up at his side, Erica and Boyd waving them off when Stiles made a questioning gesture towards the refreshment tables.

The pair were quickly enveloped by the crowd of bodies filling the dancefloor, and without needing to play wingmen to Stiles’s game with Taranis, just as quickly wrapped up in each other.

He could’ve sworn…

But, no.

That was impossible.

Merrow did not take part in the Hunt in any fashion until the Merrow Court made their official introduction on Friday, even those who lived in Nevarah.

It was a respect thing, apparently, that Stiles didn’t entirely understand but went along with anyway.

For him, it meant not going in the water during any of the beachside events or locations and showing off any merrow features.

Which basically meant staying out of the public waters full-stop, as he still couldn’t entirely control that, much like how his fangs or claws sometimes just decided to be on show whether he liked it or not.

Especially if he felt even mildly uneasy, but…anyway.

Merrow.

Merrow who couldn’t possibly be lingering in the shadows at the far end of the party, despite Stiles thinking he saw the glint of fuschia and purple scales against indigo skin when one of the bonfires flared unexpectedly.

Before Stiles could truly start doubting his sanity - or his eyes, one or the other - he found himself tucked onto a bench adjacent to the refreshment tables by an insistent Isaac, who in turn hurried off to nab them both drinks, all without a word.

“He’s not bothering you, is he?”  

An unexpected - and new, but somehow not strange? odd - voice asked from behind him, Stiles turning his head to see a pretty, ah, pretty damn exquisite, actually, tall drink of water nearly slide out from the shadows.  That was absofuckinglutely a shadow-type, or at least a Nameless who was heavily shadow-oriented.  Tall, dark haired - ink-black like the shadows he’d slipped from - with moon-pale skin, Stiles didn’t have an ounce of doubt in him that this was anyone but someone skilled with and born from shadows.

Though as the eyes caught the edge of the light above them, Stiles had to go back to his qualifying statement: a Nameless or a halfling who was heavily shadow-aligned, as those eyes weren’t the endless black of a true shadow-type.

And between Idris, Eris, and Hadrian, Stiles definitely knew what a pure shadow-dragel looked like.

“What?”  Stiles asked belatedly, after being shot a bit of a judging look over his blatant staring.  “I’m sorry?”

No sooner had Stiles shifted a bit with embarrassment, a light blush not caused by his playful exertion on the dancefloor coloring his cheekbones, than Isaac was back at his side with a suspicious sideways glare at the newcomer even as he passed a glass full of a sparkling something to Stiles.

The darkling merely lifted his lip and showed a bit of fang in offense at Isaac’s rudeness, the beta werewolf wrinkling his nose in distaste, before Stiles’s unsubtle cough broke their stare down and both looked away.

Yep.

Not a pureblood dragel, definitely a halfling with that reaction to Isaac, but he was still laying money down on the shadow-affinity.

His entrance didn’t allow him to do anything else.

“Maruke.”  The exquisite creature nodded back towards the dancefloor where Taranis had disappeared.  “He wasn’t bothering you, was he?”

Isaac snorted disdainfully over how off the stranger was, even as Stiles whapped him lightly on the arm for being rude as he took a moment to think via sipping at his drink.

It was light and bubbly and a bit zippy?

Kinda like the lovechild of ginger ale and lemonade whilst also being nothing like that at all.

Nevarah was as awesome as it was strange and awkward and weird at times.

“Do I seem like the kinda submissive who’d have a problem shoving off an insistent suitor?”  Stiles finally settled on a direction to take, even as a lovely example of an Earth Fae - from the green, plantlife bedecked hair and beautiful leaf-green eyes - came up to enfold the darkling from behind, slightly pointed chin slotting familiarly into place on one lean shoulder.  “And even if I was, why would you want to take on someone like the Maruke Heir?  I’m new to Nevarah and even I know that he’s got something of a reputation in the Pits.”

If the gheyo curling himself around the tall darkling didn’t give it away, the aura when Isaac was rude would’ve.

His potential rescuer, if Stiles was right about the stranger’s motives, was subtle like most shadows but every gheyo had tells.

And given Stiles’s parentage, and mentorage, he was more familiar with what tells shadow-inclined gheyos possessed than most Nevarah-newbies would be.

The Earth Fae bit off a chuckle, burying his face in his taller-companion’s luscious hair.

Something of a reputation.

That was one way to describe the uncrowned Nameless Champion, the infamous Bloodborn and Heir of Blood Raven.

Also known as…

“He’s my older brother.”  Callix Maruke arched a sculpted brow at the little bit of trouble that was otherwise known as his mera’s student.  And his rude little ‘wolf companion.  Though not the wolf companion.   He and Shorian hadn’t lingered long at his mera’s party (they didn’t tend to linger long at any party), but they had seen the arrival of a pack brought along by his father Riven.  And how this same submissive had been drawn to the alpha like a magnet to a lodestone.  “If beating some sense into his dumb alpha brain didn’t work, I’d tell our mera and that would see it sorted.”

Callix didn’t believe that Taran was bothering the submissive.

Taran was a picky asshole, but he wasn’t a pushy cunt like some dominant ranks could be.

But Callix wouldn’t be himself, or a gheyo worthy of his rank, if he didn’t check anyway.

Though thankfully for his personal preferences, it seemed everything was fine.

And as this was a Prewett party and not one thrown by his immediate family circle, as soon as was polite they could leave without having to fear for disappointed parental looks being tossed his way.

Stiles chuckled a little.  “Alright, I have to give you that one.”  He narrowed his eyes a little on the darkling, sorting through names and descriptions and mentally ticking off boxes.  “That would make you…Callix?”

Negative reaction to Isaac, dark coloring and exquisite features, gheyo, one of Harry’s kids.

Honestly, other than the “complicated” Callix, Stiles couldn’t imagine who else this could be since he’d already met Taranis.

“And you’re Stiles.”  Callix shot him an inscrutable look.  “This is my intended ACE, Shorian.  Shorian, my mera’s mentored student Stiles.”

Shorian’s sharp-but-delicate features remained perfectly pleasant as he greeted them, even if all he did to do so was lift away from where he was plastered against Callix’s back, with a bright smile and a nod.

“Pleasure, I’m sure.”  Leaf-green eyes took in the lithe submissive carefully.  

On the surface, Stiles seemed like any other submissive, if a bit more obviously on edge than most with his claws on show.  But if one took the time to look, as Shorian always did when something or someone concerned Callix or drew his attention, then they’d notice the thicker scales decorating that pretty face and drawing attention to honey-gold eyes.  Ferros.  The submissive who’d drawn the attention of both Maruke sons was ferros.

And wasn’t that an interesting turn of events?

Callix, despite what he’d implied to Stiles, and perhaps even what he told himself, wouldn’t interfere in Taranis’s affairs reflexively.

There was more to it, something about Stiles that had snagged Callix’s interest - and given that they’d been at the party the night prior when it’d been hit with a wave of soulmagic, Shorian would be willing to bet just what had caught Callix.

It wasn’t anything Shorian himself had been considering, not so quick on the tail of finally finding a King of his own, especially with all the training and work that had gone into helping Callix settle into his new rank.

But when such an opportunity for a complementary bonding presents itself in the form of an adorable, powerful, warm submissive, only a fool would let it pass them by.

And Shorian was no fool.

The thought of playing negotiator between the two Maruke heirs for the rest of their long, long lives made him want to break out in hives, but it wasn’t a major consideration as Taranis and Callix generally managed to get along well enough.

It was the rare times they knocked heads that Shorian was already dreading if things played out the way he thought they might.

For his part, Stiles felt himself almost drowning in those leaf-green eyes, the rich tone reminding him of the lush - and often dangerous - landscape of the Preserve.

With the way they were at ease with each other, how comfortable they were in each other’s space, how Callix nearly sank back into Shorian’s hold for all that it seemed like Callix was the one propping them both up…it almost overloaded his perception for the second time in one evening.

There was work between them as well, and that was nearly as intoxicating as the rich sense of restrained power that the pair represented.

Stiles knew that Callix hadn’t always been a King-ranked gheyo.  Devrim had explained it to him when he was learning about the gheyic ranks and how they could shift.  That there were times when a gheyo might decide to try for a higher or different rank and undergo significant amounts of training in the attempt, often without the guarantee of success.

Callix Maruke had apparently been one such gheyo, who after his inheritance could have gone for King or potentially even ACE status from the start.  But he hadn’t wanted it, and the attention that came with it as a high-ranked Maruke gheyo, until he met Shorian, and then that was that.  They started courting, and a large part of that played out in the Pits as Shorian supported Callix in leveling up his ranking.

Harry’s suite were all overwhelmingly proud of Callix for taking that step, and bragged on him and his progress in the fighting circuit quite a bit whilst training Stiles.

Not that they weren’t proud of all of their children.

They just had a soft spot around Callix, their “complicated” child, and it showed when Stiles knew which questions to ask, and from whom.

It had occurred to him over the weeks he’d been preparing that one of the easier ways to be certain of a suitor was to pick from those with a character reference given by someone he trusted - and he didn’t trust many people in Nevarah other than the Gorgens-Nott circle.

He’d carefully filed away every bit-and-bob that the proud parents had let slip about their children - bonded and unbonded - and even their grandkids, doing the same with Altan and Cara and the others that came around.

Especially Cara at times, as young children tended to pick up more and see more clearly than most people ever realized.

“Likewise, Shorian.”  

Stiles returned the greeting, tucking his thoughts carefully away in the back of his mind to consider in greater depth later - when the impact of their… everything wasn't bold and in his face to distract him (shiny, so much shiny everywhere he looked) - and tilted his head up towards a certain angelic-faced beta wolf who was nearly pouting.  

“Ready to dance more, Isaac?”  He asked, allowing the Intended pair a graceful exit if they pleased, without keeping them tangled in conversation now that Callix had done what seemed like a welfare check, and it seemed they did as Callix turned and tugged Shorian deeper into the shadows.  “Or want to come with me to find our hosts.  I should probably say hi given how they’re connected to my mentor’s circle.”

“If we dance, is it going to turn into another round of Keep Away: Stiles Edition?”  Isaac asked with a raised brow.

Stiles made a face at the beta wolf.

So much sass in the puppies.

Despite Stiles knowing - having asked, no matter how hard it could be at times to get words out of him - that Derek chose betas who could benefit from the Bite and Pack, there were times he couldn’t help but think that Derek made them pass some kind of sass-potential test before biting them.

Every single one of Derek’s puppies - and yes, Stiles was including that dickhead Jackson - were sassy as hell, even if it was harder to see in, say, Boyd than it was Erica.

“Nope.”  Stiles shook his head rather than rising or maybe falling, to the bait, one hand covertly sliding into his pocket and running a finger over the favor that’d been slipped inside during one of Taranis’s successes at snagging Stiles - short as it’d lasted before Boyd had helped whirl him away.  “That’d be rude and monopolizing as long as there’s no official courtship.  He’ll just keep an eye on things now.”  He tilted his head rather than being rude and pointing, over towards where Taranis was leaning on a tree, half hidden in shadows up on one of the slight hills speckled around the field.

The alpha was far from the only one taking advantage of the terrain to watch over the dancefloor and partygoers.

Stiles was pretty sure he’d seen a flash of Charlie’s hair at one point, and knew that there were far more gheyos patrolling the edges of the party than Isaac would likely ever realize despite his advantage via enhanced senses.

When magic was involved, honestly no level of enhancement would help against it if the caster knew what they were doing.

At least: sensory enhancements wouldn’t help alone.

Stiles made a mental note to ask Devrim to go over searching for the absence of sensory input, since unless their new wolfy mentors had been thorough when it came to weres-vs.-magic, they’d probably never realize it was something they needed to learn.

Especially for Derek’s sake, as while the others could choose at any time to return to Terra and not come back, or otherwise stay away from magic and magical beings, Derek was kinda stuck with it given the givens.

“Dance.”  Isaac decided with a nod, taking Stiles’s now-empty cup and along with his own tossing the empties in the marked bin.  “From the little I’ve heard about our hosts tonight, meeting them is gonna be a whole thing.”

Stiles just laughed and allowed himself to be guided along back to the floor, thinking of his own introduction to the Prewett twins.

Well.

The sassy!pup wasn’t wrong.

“Are you all having fun?”  Charlie made his way through his uncles' party to find the bonfire that was crowded with his children and their friends, including Stiles and his wolves.

The group had been expanding and retracting over the last hour as the sun had set several hours before and many attendees were beginning to wind down.  Friends would come and join and laugh before darting back into the party itself or taking their leave.  Some would get a second, third, or fourth wind and rejoin the dancefloor that was currently being dominated by shadow-types who’d inundated the bonfire after sundown.

Dragels who thrived during the day may be waning without a boost of energy, but the darklings were still going strong.

More than one of Charlie’s children or grandchildren among them.

Bright blue eyes ran a quick check over the gathered younglings.

Ari was beaming and glowing, a fraction of a step away from outright snuggling into Rathna’s embrace whilst also leaning towards one of his friends - a vampire at that, who was keeping a good distance from the wolves surrounding Stiles.

Not-really-hunting, Charlie’s freckled arse.

For their own part, despite their hold on their younger sib, Rathna was almost asleep sitting up, though Taranis had that well in-claw with a firm arm around their shoulders on their far side.

Trysta was rather smugly blocking her older brother from being next to Stiles if the mischief on her face was any sign, and had wiggled herself into a space that was almost too small to hold her and had her plastered between the alpha and submissive.

Stiles didn’t seem to mind with his laughing eyes, and the she-wolf was flat-out cackling over something-or-other while her dark statuesque mate watched her out of besotted eyes and Isaac huffed on the far end of the seating space’s half-circle arrangement.

Nope.  Charlie decided at once.  Whatever mischief was about, he wanted nothing to do with it.

A chorus of agreements - some sleepier than others, for all that Taranis and Stiles seemed the most aware and/or awake - answered his question, even as his troublemaking uncles Fabian and Gideon managed the near-impossible and wedged in to surround Stiles, others shifting for them whether willingly or otherwise.

That it ended with a disgruntled pair of Trysta and Erica tangled up on the ground at the pair’s feet neither paid any attention to, despite vows of vengeance pouring onto their fiery heads.

Though to be fair, compared to the kind of threats that their phoelix bonded likely wielded like a lash when she was angry from Charlie’s experience of Inanna, the huffing and puffing of teenagers - even teenaged wolves and dragels - likely seemed like nothing in comparison.

Charlie had long thought that his uncles’ didn’t quite have a decent grasp on basic self-preservation, and nothing he’d ever seen of them had convinced him otherwise.

And he said that as a dragon tamer.

“Little foxy!”  Gideon chirped as Stiles flailed as he tried to keep his seat amongst all the jostling, shoving, and not-discreet-at-all elbow-jabbing.  “Little foxy, you’ve been keeping secrets!”

“Why do you call me that?”  Stiles asked, for probably the tenth time since he met the dynamic duo that night terrors were made of.  Their nephews were nothing, nothing, compared to the Prewett twins.  Though when all four of them teamed up was the sort of occurrence that apocalypses were fashioned out of.  “I’m not a kitsune or a fox shifter, my dudes.”

Fabian sent him a sly look.  “We could always call you Bambi?”  He offered with false innocence.

“Foxy is fine.”  Stiles was quick to retrench himself, shuddering a little at someone like Erica - who was already giving him a wicked, calculating grin - deciding that calling him Bambi was acceptable.  Yeah, yeah.  Big brown eyes.  How original.   “And what secrets are you two on about?”

“Hmm, methinks the foxy is playing dumb, Fabian.”

“Methinks he might be trying to be modest, Gideon.”

“Methinks you’re both being ridiculous, I know you don’t talk like that the way your nephews do.”  Stiles snorted, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest when his fellow submissives tried to latch onto him.  “How about pretending to have those well-bred manners Lady Sadara is so proud of, hm?  Isaac, Boyd, Erica,” he glanced at each wolf in turn.  “Say hello to our generous hosts for tonight, the infamous Prewett twins, Fabian and Gideon, Cursebreakers and general nuisances.”

A quick round of greetings, with Erica looking particularly delighted in a way the spelled nothing good for Stiles, then the twins were focused intently back on Stiles.

“The news about your soulbond has been making the rounds,” Gideon explained quietly, under the cover of Fabian’s raucous teasing of the other younglings.  “But more than that, there’s been copious speculation about what happened when your Gajos seal was removed.  That something occurred everyone is in agreement about, but what exactly has drawn the attention and worse, curiosity, of more than one court.”

Stiles bit back the urge to roll his eyes.

There were times, more and more often actually as he had additional exposure to the royal courts because of his mentor, that he thought living so long had only resulted in far too many bored aristocrats with nothing better to do than cause drama.

Or to ferret it out, as even at his most obstinate Stiles couldn’t avoid the reality that some of the events surrounding him - both before and after his arrival in Nevarah - were nothing short of theatrical at times.

Theatrical and often traumatic, but with how self-absorbed most people are - no matter the species - most tended to focus on the former rather than the latter.

With the knowledge that Gideon was probably informing him both as a courtesy and to try and find out how Stiles wanted the situation handled, Stiles made a decision.

“Derek and I have at least known of each other all my life.”  Stiles kept his voice pitched low, thankful for how seamless the twins were when it came to these sorts of situations.  “One of his sisters was in my grade, both of our families were considered pillars of the community we grew up in.”  Stiles darted a quick look up at Gideon’s face to check that the other was still thoughtful and didn’t seem like he disagreed with the narrative presented.  “And we helped, fought with and alongside, and grew close to each other over the months prior to my inheritance.”

“Not a sudden outburst of soul magic then.”  Gideon quickly understood the party line that Stiles and his hosts were intended to walk about the scandalous decision to bond a companion before even an alpha.  Especially for a submissive of Stiles’s social position, as little as Stiles liked to acknowledge it.  “But something that built over time.”  He nodded firmly.  That was something they could work with.  “What about your seal?”

“Dodge it.”  Stiles honestly didn’t have a better idea.  “Talents are private, and family seals even worse.  If all else fails, sic Bahn on them.”

Gideon snickered at the idea of using the royal elfin-dragel as an attack dog on nosy parkers, but also couldn’t deny that it would certainly be effective.

“C’mon, guys.”  Stiles stared in exasperation at his joint-custody puppies for a long moment, hands propped on his hips.  “I’m just going to the bathroom.  I am a real grown up magical dragon hybrid.  I can and I will manage to make the trip without an escort or guard!wolf.”

The guilty wolves in question - Erica and Isaac, the latter of whom had barely left Stiles’s side at all, a situation that when Stiles lightly poked at it with his perception didn’t give him a clear understanding about - either pouted (Erica) or gave him the saddest puppy eyes (Isaac) before looking away.

“I know Derek didn’t order you to play velcro-wolves.”  Stiles tapped his foot impatiently, glad that the situation wasn’t urgent but knew he was quickly getting there and wanted this handled.  

In this, they weren’t any different than setting boundaries with suitors or bondmates, even if the motivations were totally different.  He knew these wolves, they were his packmates, and there was a bond, albeit a starkly other one compared to a dragel bond.  If he gave the wolves an inch, they’d take the entire damn realm when it came to being overprotective and paranoid.

Not without good reason.

They’d all survived some shit together.

But still.

Stiles could and absolutely would take care of himself.

“What’s with the cling-on act?”  He prompted when they remained silent, only to feel shaken - more shaken than he expected - at the answer.

“Peter’s here.”  Erica admitted after sharing a long look with Isaac, darting a glance over her shoulder to where Boyd was talking to some of the others.  But also, Stiles now noticed, keeping an eye on the party around them.  “We knew he left for more training in Nevarah, he told Derek before taking off.”  She rushed to explain, words almost tripping over themselves as Stiles’s expression, and, well, everything seemed to hold itself in and almost darken at the same time.  “But we weren’t really expecting…”

“We saw him talking to Maruke when you were flirting with that woman.”  Isaac added only semi-helpfully.  “They had a thing before Peter left.”

Isaac flinched when Erica elbowed him sharply, and Stiles felt conflicted.

He…he didn’t even know where to start with all that.

That the alpha he’d been strongly considering from first-sight had apparently had a thing with Peter-Zombiewolf-Hale?

It wasn’t like Stiles could fault his aesthetic taste at least, even if he was feeling strongly judgemental about the personality in question.

Peter Hale, much like his nephew, was hot like burning.

For, you know, a psychotic spree killer who Stiles set on fire and helped kill.

Because make no mistake: Derek tearing his throat out was a mercy.

What Stiles did to him with that molotov cocktail would’ve killed him slowly.

Stiles had gotten a cliff-notes summary about the whole Peter-playing-Lazarus thing.

Derek seemed to think that death had somehow stabilized him, made him more himself from before the fire than the feral creature they’d had to put down.

But Stiles…Stiles didn’t know what to think, if only because Peter had both caused a lot of pain and trauma, but also he hadn’t seen him for more than a few moments since his return to life.

Or undeath.

Or whatever.

He did think it was telling, however, that even in his heightened protective borderline-feral state following his inheritance, that he hadn’t tried to attack Peter, which made him inclined to trust Derek’s judgment.

“And we know you have history, so…”  Erica trailed off, shrugging.

“Peter isn’t going to hurt me.”  That much Stiles was pretty certain about.  Yeah, he’d had his moments of roughness with Stiles when he was feral, but he didn’t do him any lasting physical harm.  Caused nightmares and hypervigilance, absolutely, but he didn’t put so much as a bruise on Stiles.

And when Stiles told him no to the Bite, Peter had respected that.

That alone bought the former alpha a bit of grace with Stiles, even if it hadn’t been enough to save his life when Stiles considered him a danger to all of Beacon Hills, not just the Argents.

“I appreciate the character reference, Stiles.”  A voice that had haunted Stiles’s nightmares for weeks came from directly behind him.  “And you’re right, of course,” Stiles turned slightly to take in the view as Peter came out of the shadows.

And it, as always, was one hell of a view.

“But then, you are the clever one.”  Peter’s smile was both sardonic and charming at the same time, which was par for the course from Stiles’s perspective.  “I would never harm you, even if you weren’t my beloved nephew’s bonded mate, and a valued member of the Hale Pack.”