Chapter Text
Every single thought evaporates out of Stiles’ head, with the exception of a single apt syllable: Fuck.
He instantly stops moving, terror tensing every limb. He even holds his breath to stay as still as he possibly can, trying to placate whatever enraged thing is in here with him, in the dark.
His petrification seems to pay off, thank god, and the ferocity of the growl wanes just a little.
Slowly, shakily, Stiles begins to take shallow breaths, trying to control the unpredictable effect his panic has on his already less-than-stellar muscle control, while he runs through his mental catalogue of what to do in the face of an animal attack. Ridiculously, the only fun fact he can dredge up is to cough when faced with an angry kangaroo (super helpful in this moment of extreme crisis, thanks so much, brain).
He does not – cannot – think about Ria, where she is, whether he’ll see her again. He can’t afford the distraction, and in any case will not allow not seeing her again to be an option. Not ever.
The red eyes stay trained on him, flickering now and then as the creature blinks, though it never moves its gaze from him. Stiles forces himself to look back rather than cringe away or give in to a Lydia-level screaming session, straining his eyes to pick up any details at all about what it is. No matter how hard he tries he can’t make out anything in the gloom surrounding those red eyes except a sense of bulk - a deeper, darker solidity to the shadows that makes up the creature’s form.
A solidity that, he realizes with a sickening, sinking sensation, is getting closer, underscored by the horrifying scuffle of rough scrapes and clicks on the floor that Stiles thinks must be claws.
The growl gets louder, closer, until it’s so close Stiles can feel the vibration of it through his skin, through his veins, through to the tip of every hair. The bulky shadow of the creature looms, breathing hot over Stiles’ neck. The dank smell of the room they’re in is overpowered by sweat, and something base, something primal – fear, sour at the back of his throat.
Stiles gropes for his lock picking kit but the angle is all wrong without shifting his weight, and if he does that then he leans further out towards the hulking silhouette of the creature, bridging the already diminishing gap between them further.
He flinches as he feels breath, hot on his cheek now, his heart kicking up into an uncomfortable thrum behind his ribs. He sneaks a glance over towards the creature, which just holds itself right up close to Stiles, in his space, growling - and suddenly Stiles notices that its breath, which is hotter than human breath would be, isn’t condensing. It’s dark as fuck wherever they are but it’s not cold, which means whatever the other half of this hellish tête-à-tête is, it isn’t the Ijiraq. And Stiles has only seen one other supernatural creature with glowing eyes and a hotter-than-normal body temperature, which means…
Werewolf.
Okay, he thinks. Okay. Could be worse, right? Better the devil you know, and all that. He swallows hard, and, acting solely on instinct, tilts his head just slightly to expose his vulnerable throat in submission.
If nothing else, he wants the creature to kill him quickly and not play with its food, so he hopes it will rip his throat out with minimal fuss.
The growling ebbs away into rough, ragged pants. Stiles barely dares to breathe as something soft brushes down over the length of his neck, inhaling his scent.
Stiles swallows hard, decides to take a chance that there is some aspect of humanity to this creature – is not at all above begging for his life if it will do any good, so he whispers ‘Please’, out into the darkness.
The creature freezes, then Stiles feels the heat of its body recede as is retreats from his personal space just a little. It’s the closest thing to a lifeline Stiles has, so he tries again. ‘Please. Please.’
And the creature complies, backing up further. Stiles notices another noise as it does so – a heavy, metallic scrape – the drag of chain on concrete – and it dawns on him he is not the only prisoner, here.
Which means…
Oh no.
The creature makes another noise – something close to a grunt. This time Stiles listens. Between his dreams and his increasingly dreamlike reality he’s been exposed to more than his fair share of grunts, growls and roars over the last couple of months, but this time, now that he has an idea of what he’s listening for, he detects a note that’s distinctly human, a timbre that sounds heart-stoppingly familiar.
It makes the noise again, and yeah, Stiles has definitely heard that particular intonation of grumpy before.
He licks his sore, dry lips. ‘Derek?’
There’s a pause, just for a heartbeat, and then the creature is back, face buried into Stiles’ neck, inhaling deeply, clawed hands pawing at Stiles’ chest, and Stiles turns his head, breathes the creature in, relying on scent to make up for his lack of sight and yes, thank god, when he gets his own nose right up close to skin he can catch the faintest hint of juniper.
Derek.
‘Oh my god,’ Stiles breathes out, relief suffusing him so hard and fast it gathers in tears at the corner of his eyes. ‘It’s you, it’s you, are you okay?’
Derek presses closer and Stiles frowns as something scrapes at the skin of his neck, smooth and metallic – something definitely not part the bumps and ridges of Derek’s beta-shifted face, unfamiliar though they may be to Stiles. It feels like something wrapped around his head, but Stiles can’t tell what, though the thought that Derek has been chained in any form fills him with white-hot, lancing anger. He tries to control it, knowing that Derek can pick up on the hormones in his scent, and all Derek seems to want right now is comfort. So Stiles tries to make a cradle of his body, as best as he can, to make it clear Derek is welcome to curl into him, and he keeps talking, spilling out any nonsense he can in a low, even tone.
‘It’s okay, I’m okay. I was so worried about you, but we’re right here, it’s gonna be okay. I’m so sorry I got you mixed up in this Derek, but I’m gonna fix it, okay? Gonna get you home.’
He twists his wrist around, trying to grab for the lock-pick kit in his back pocket. He’s gotta get Derek out of here.
He just manages to brush his fingertips against the soft leather of the case when a door in the middle of the opposite wall is flung open and light floods the space. It’s artificial, fluorescent, but after so long in the dark Stiles and Derek both flinch from the sudden, piercing brightness. Derek’s weight disappears, but Stiles can’t see why, can’t reach for him, and fuck he hates being out of control like this so much.
After several seconds blinking away the dark spots that have formed at the edges of his vision, Derek comes into focus – Derek who is red-eyed, dishevelled, partially shifted and bound at the ankle and wrists to thick metal chains. Most distressing of all is a rudimentary metal muzzle that wraps around his lower face. Despite this, he recovers faster than Stiles, spinning round and dropping into a defensive crouch between Stiles and the two guys who saunter through the door and stand, silhouetted brielfy against the searing rectangle of light from the door before the door swings closed.
One of them must flick on a light switch because a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling pops and flickers to life, and Stiles gets his first look at where they are (some sort of roughly hewn, grey concrete, windowless cell, with absolutely no helpful identifying features) and the guys who are holding them there.
At first Stiles thinks he’s seeing double, that maybe he’s concussed or something, but then he realises that the two guys are identical, though one is in a black tee, the other white. They’re all-American, muscle-bound, heavy-browed guys that Stiles doesn’t remember seeing around town before – hunters, maybe? It would explain the muzzle. But why would they keep Derek here in this state, why not kill him straight away? And why keep Stiles?
One of them looks up, and in the fluorescence of the bulb light his eyes flash deep scarlet.
Awesome, Stiles thinks, grimly. More werewolves.
Then the other guy’s eyes flash a matching shade of blood red.
Perfect. More alpha werewolves.
Stiles supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. He is, after all, werewolf-nip.
One brother looks them over and laughs derisively, sneering down at him and Derek, backed up as they are into a corner. ‘Looks like we interrupted a moment between the Alpha and his human pet.’
‘He’ll thank us, in the end,’ the brother in black (whom Stiles immediately names Abercrombie in his head) says. ‘Once he comes to his senses, he’ll regret every second he ever spent in human company.’
Interesting. Stiles hasn’t yet met a werewolf with an openly hostile attitude to humans and now he’s met two. Twin idiots, if you will.
They might be idiots, but they’re bright enough to maintain a calculated distance from Derek, Stiles notices, feeling a hot rush of pride that even shackled and clearly incapacitated in god knows how many ways, Derek is a force to be fucking reckoned with.
‘Why are we here?’ Stiles asks, raising his voice to be heard over the sinister rumble that’s kicked up in Derek’s chest. ‘What do you want?’
‘To stop unnatural alliances like yours, for a start,’ the one in white – Bitch, naturally - says, which is frustratingly unhelpful, exposition-wise.
‘Are you mad because we’re both dudes, or because we’re prettier than you, or what?’ Stiles needles, drawing his legs up to his chest to make room for Derek to do some hella-intimidating prowling.
‘Shut your mouth,’ Abercrombie says, sounding amused – almost bored. 'Before I shut it for you.'
‘Hey now,’ Stiles snarks back, ‘don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. It’s not my fault my waffle iron is hotter than you two.’ He smirks at the brother in white, who drops fang and lurches towards him, lip curled in ostentatious revulsion.
Derek rises fluidly to his feet with a savage roar and throws himself as far as the chains will allow, claws slashing viciously through the air until they connect, just barely, with the skin of the younger guy’s jaw.
‘Woah,’ the other brother says, grabbing the first by the scruff of the neck and hauling him back out of Derek’s reach. ‘No killing the prisoners. Not if you value your own life, and mine.’
‘Fine,’ he spits out, pressing the back of his forearm to the nasty looking cuts on his face. ‘But we at least need to chain up the dog properly.’
Abercrombie rolls his eyes, reaches back and picks up a weird looking metal stick from where it was resting against the wall. Stiles' stomach lurches as he recognises it from his dream – and Derek obviously recognises it too, judging by his furious, frantic struggling.
‘No, please!’ Stiles begs. Not this, he can’t let this happen to Derek again. ‘I’m sorry, okay, I’ll do whatever, tell you whatever you want, please, anything, please…’
But they ignore him, thrusting the metal into Derek’s flesh, ignoring him as he drops to the ground and convulses.
‘Fuck…’ Stiles breathes shallowly, trying not to vomit. He has to look away, knows Derek probably wouldn’t want him to see him like this anyway, but his stomach lurches up to his throat and his pulse hammers in his wrists.
Eventually Derek sinks down to the ground, prone and quiet. Each brother grabs a limb and they drag him to the far wall, yanking the chain that attaches to his wrists high up and attaching it to a metal hook in the wall above Derek’s head, high enough that Derek is drawn up to his toes, stretched out and completely vulnerable, eyes glazed over. He’s still partially shifted – Stiles would put money on it being something to do with the grotesque muzzle that covers his face.
Stiles grimly decides, in that moment, to take these two guys down, along with anyone else they’re working with.
Abercrombie leans in close to Derek, running his fingers over the muzzle. ‘You know,' he says, soft and silky. 'I had such high hopes for you. The alpha of Beacon Hills. The stories they tell about you... Thought you'd make such a fun addition to our pack.' He laughs, a dry, skeletal thing. 'Then to get here and find you on your knees for that...' He throws a disgusted glance over towards Stiles, which, rude, man.
Derek doesn't say anything, but he lifts his chin so he can look right into the alpha twin's eyes, and doesn't look away.
Abercrombie smirks. 'Pathetic. So, you see, you've forced our hand on this one. We never wanted to do this to one of our own.' He looks over at Stiles, who is glaring daggers at him from his corner, then crosses the space between them faster than any human could and squats down. ‘You on the other hand,’ he says, grabbing Stiles by the chin and tilting his head so their eyes meet, ‘I would thoroughly enjoy killing.’ His fangs lengthen and Stiles feels the sharp points of claws digging into his jaw.
‘So why don’t you?’ Stiles shouts, trying to covering his fear with volume and false bravado. ‘What do you want with us?’
‘You’ll see,’ the guy says, grinning over to his brother. He stands swiftly, and Stiles thinks that’s it, they’re leaving, but then suddenly he kicks out hard, catching Stiles square in the stomach.
Pain explodes over his abdomen, making tears prickle behind his eyes, and he slumps to the side a little, coughing.
Derek comes to instantly, roaring and thrashing so hard to get loose that Stiles hears the tearing of tendon and flesh in his shoulders and wrists from across the room. Derek ignores it, but Stiles can’t.
‘Derek,’ he yells as hard as he can through the pressure in his chest, ‘Derek don’t…’
Bitch snorts in amusement. 'Enough,' he says to his brother. 'Time to go.' Then he produces a couple of bottles of water and says, ‘We’re under orders to give you these. I’ll just leave them here…’ He throws them down on the floor, out of reach of Stiles’ legs because he really is an epic dick.
‘I look forward to seeing you later, human,’ Abercrombie winks.
Just before he leaves, he turns out the light.
The lock clicks in the door, leaving Stiles and Derek alone again in pitch darkness, and that is it, Stiles is done with this helpless damsel in distress shit. He sits up as straight as he can, ignoring the way the metal of the handcuffs breaks the skin on his wrists as he fumbles for his kit once more.
It takes longer than he’d like to get free of the cuffs, but at least he’s free, thank fuck, and he stands on shaky legs.
‘Derek…’ Stiles scrambles over to him, surprised by the familiar weight of his phone in his pocket. He grabs for it. ‘Derek, I’m gonna get us both out of this, okay, I’m just gonna – fuck…’ The phone comes to life, but there’s no signal at all – which is presumably why he’s been allowed to keep hold of it at all.
He mashes at the screen until the torchlight comes on, but it’s not enough, not enough to let him help Derek as quickly as Derek needs, so he reaches out, feeling around blindly until he finds one of the water bottles the Moron Brothers left for them.
Stiles curses as the bottle falls and rolls away, grabs again, finds it. Once he has it he puts the phone on the floor near Derek, sets the bottle on top of it, and as the light filters through and is dispersed by the water the gloom is lit with an eery, blue-ish light. It's by no means perfect but it’s enough.
Derek, who is hanging from his wrists at a very strange angle, is watching him from the corner of his eye. He makes a noise – a wet little laugh, and mumbles something but it’s mangled around the muzzle-contraption.
Stiles gets to his feet and goes to him. ‘Hi,’ he whispers, swallowing hard to stop himself from crying. Derek won’t make eye contact, and looks so defeated Stiles’ chest aches.
‘Gonna get you down now, big guy,’ Stiles whispers, grabbing for his trusty kit. It takes several minutes to figure out the lock on the ancient manacles (and what the fuck is with these guys and their aversion to fucking cable ties, Jesus Christ), stretched up as Stiles is on his toes, and with limited light. The muscles in his arms and shoulders protest after a while, so god knows how Derek must be feeling, but he finally gets it with a little hiss of triumph.
Derek falls heavily to the floor.
Stiles isn’t quick enough to catch him but he follows right after, putting his arm under Derek’s head and tilting it so he can work at the clasp at the back of the muzzle. He notices a prong of silvery metal that is designed to enter the mouth once the muzzle is clasped tight, and wonders if it’s this that is stopping Derek from shifting at will. The muzzle springs free, and Stiles removes it gently but throws it violently, trying to get the wretched thing as far from them as he can. He turns his attentions straight back to Derek, using tender fingertips to smooth over the red-raw indentations the muzzle has made in his skin. He’s never been in such close proximity to Derek’s unfamiliar, werewolfy features. Stiles can’t help but stare, nosey individual that he is.
Derek notices him looking. ‘Not scared of me, huh?’ he slurs weakly.
‘No,’ Stiles says, immensely relieved that Derek seems to be able to form words now. He hopes it means whatever has kept him trapped in this semi-shift is working its way out of Derek’s system.
'I didn't know you,' Derek rasps out. 'With that thing on my face. I didn't know me. I could have hurt you.'
Stiles finds one of Derek’s hands with his free hand and takes it firmly. 'Okay, truth time. I was scared. For you, not of you. As soon as I knew it was you it was gravy. You might not have known my name, or yours, but you knew who you were. You'd never hurt me.’ He knows Derek can hear the truth of his words, hopes they settle somewhere in Derek as certain and solid as they feel to Stiles. Derek has done nothing but have Stiles' back over and over. In fact, out of the pair of them, Stiles has been the one to do the hurting.
There's a pause, where Derek studies him intently. Then he says, ‘Gravy…’ and rolls his eyes, which makes Stiles grin.
‘Admit it, there’s no one else you’d rather be stuck in a concrete cell of doom with right now.’
‘I’d rather be stuck in a cell of doom with anyone else right now,’ Derek murmurs, lisping slightly around his fangs which would be extremely endearing were his words not all mean and chest-crushing.
His hurt must be visible even to Derek and his famous obliviousness, because he squeezes Stiles’ hand and says, ‘I’d rather have you safe.’
‘Oh.’ Stiles ducks his head, glad that the gloom will be going some way to tame his blushes.
‘Though you have your uses,’ Derek says, nodding towards the lantern Stiles made. ‘Clever little shit.’
Stiles beams. ‘Damn right. Lucky you.’
Derek smiles but then his eyes scrunch closed in pain and his mouth turns down at the corners.
‘Derek…’ Stiles curls his fingers around Derek’s palm. ‘What can I do?’
A noise punches free from Derek’s chest, high and pained, and Derek sucks in a breath. ‘My shoulder,’ he says. ‘I... think it’s dislocated.’
‘Shit. Okay… It’ll heal though, right?’ Stiles asks, looking down over Derek's too-pale face. The indentations from the muzzle have faded already but sweat beads at his temples and his eyes are underscored by dark, bruise-like shadows.
‘Yeah, but...’ Derek says with a bittersweet little grimace. ‘In the wrong place. It'll heal where it is now...’
‘Oh.’ Stiles frowns. ‘So you need it to be… relocated?’
‘I don't wanna ask, but…’ Derek presses his mouth closed in a thin line, trying to stay in control of himself and god, he’s been through so much already Stiles has to try to help if he can.
‘Okay,’ Stiles says. ‘Okay. I’ll just… I’ve never done this… And I don’t… Fuck, I don’t have signal on my phone, I-'
‘Stiles,’ Derek interrupts him. ‘It’ll be okay. I know you can do this. I need you to do this.’
‘Yeah.’ Stiles nods. ‘I- Okay. Um. I’m gonna lie you down.’ He sets Derek’s head down on the concrete floor and with Derek now lying flat he can see that holy wow, one shoulder is seriously not okay and that is super gross.
‘Derek…’ he whispers under his breath, a little angry now because he knows Derek did this trying to get to him. ‘What if I can’t do this. What if I hurt you?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Derek says simply. ‘I heal.’
Stiles sighs because that is such a very Derek-y thing to say.
‘That is,’ Stiles grits out, fighting the now-familiar build of nausea that burns in his throat, ‘not the point.’ He blows out a shaky breath as he runs a hand over the shoulder and down Derek’s arm, muttering to himself all that he can remember from Biology class, late night Youtube videos of frat boys doing stupid shit to each other and then trying to fix it without telling their parents, and the parental first-aid course he took. He takes careful hold of Derek’s forearm and gently pulls, but Derek’s whole upper torso moves, Derek hissing involuntarily in pain. Fuck.
Thinking fast he braces a foot gently against Derek’s rib-cage to give him some counter-traction, and grabs again for Derek’s forearm, pulling it down and slightly towards Derek's abdomen, increasing the pressure in slow increments since he doesn't know what the fuck he’s doing. All he can do is pray on everything he loves that it’s right.
Derek closes his eyes but otherwise stays motionless, and Stiles has no clue if he’s okay or not. After a few endless moments he feels something give deep within Derek’s shoulder, and the angle of Derek’s shoulder becomes normal again. ‘Oh god,’ Stiles breathes in relief.
‘Thanks,’ Derek sighs, offering up a strange toothy smile, then he promptly passes out which, rude - what if Stiles had wanted to pass out? Stiles tuts over Derek’s bad manners even as he settles back down on the floor and awkwardly hauls gently gathers Derek up so he’s lying in the V of Stiles’ legs, his upper half cradled in Stiles’ arms.
Stiles lets himself close his eyes, and allows the relief of having Derek solid and alive in his arms provide a temporary buffer from the horrors of their situation. His heart feels like it’s gone ten rounds with an angry kangaroo (presumably because it hadn’t thought to cough in self-defence). His stomach aches, a respectable bruise no doubt forming where Moron Brother number 2 had kicked him all unsportsmanlike, but the ache in his chest is worse. He misses Ria, yearns to know she’s safe.
With Ria in mind, he starts to hum the Polish lullaby his mother sang for him and that he now sings for her, smiling involuntarily at the memory of the near-immediate state of ataraxy the song induces in his daughter.
He hopes it does something similar for Derek, strokes his hair and, very carefully, his face while he sings. And slowly he notices the ridges in Derek’s brow smooth out under his gentle fingertips, his eyebrows return (he makes a mental note to ask Derek where they even go because what the fuck, could that be any more ironic), and his fangs recede.
Eventually the Derek in his arms is Derek in his fully human form. Stiles holds him just as carefully, and continues to sing.
After a while, just as he’s about to launch into his twelfth or thirteenth rendition of the lullaby, he notices that Derek’s eyes have opened, and Derek is watching him, his battered but beautiful face inscrutable.
Stiles looks down at him, brow raised. ‘Stalker,’ he says, but the accusation holds no heat, just affection.
Derek looks embarrassed to be caught and makes to sit up, though he’s clearly still unsteady from whatever was in his system. ‘We need to move,’ he says.
Stiles stops him with a palm firmly against his cheek. ‘You need to recover.’
‘You don’t tell me what to do,’ Derek grits out. ‘I am an alpha werewolf’
‘Yeah. You’re also a stubborn pain in the ass,’ Stiles shoots back. There’s nothing he wants more than to try and get back to Ria, but he knows he can’t get past Abercrombie and Bitch without Derek at least being able to support his own weight. ‘I want to get out of here as much as you do, believe me. But I need you strong, Derek, I need you healthy, I need… you.’ He bites his lip. ‘Please.’
Derek glares at him, but he settles back to where he was, weight resting against Stiles’ body.
Stiles feels gorgeously warm, all of a sudden, sort of hazy around the edges, like a tropical tide ebbing in and out, and his pain is - Wait... his pain is... He looks down to see Derek's hand pressed against his bruised stomach, black lines of pain snaking their way up his forearm.
'Stop that,' Stiles smacks his hand away. 'Don't you dare. I'm a big boy, I can handle a bruise. You need to focus on getting yourself better.'
Derek fully huffs like a sulky school boy and then pouts which is way more attractive than it has any right to be. When Stiles looks back up to meet Derek's eyes, he realizes he's been busted staring at Derek's mouth. Derek's eyes drop to his own mouth, then, and Stiles becomes very aware of how much of each of them is pressed against the other.
Derek clears his throat, breaking the spell which had begun to weave itself around them, entirely inappropriately given the less than romantic circumstances. 'We really should move,' he says.
‘Give it a few minutes, okay?’ Stiles manages. ‘We can talk ‘til you feel better.’
‘Great.’ Derek sounds less than impressed with this plan.
‘Yeah,’ Stiles bounces a little where he sits, jostling Derek in his lap. ‘I have questions! Like, a lot of questions.’
‘Oh god…’ Derek says, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking like he’d give anything in the world to pass out again if he could.
‘So…’ Stiles says, consciously trying to remember not to jiggle his legs like he usually would in case hurts Derek. ‘Abercrombie and Bitch are twin alphas, huh? I didn’t know that could happen.’
Derek scowls. ‘It can’t.’
‘Oh.’ Stiles blinks rapidly as he processes that. ‘What… does that mean?’
‘It means at least one of them has had to kill for it.’
’Oh.’ Stiles blanches. ‘Oh, man.’ He notices the tension that has once again settled into all of Derek’s joints at the mention of the two alphas who stand between them and freedom. ‘Okay, next question,’ he says overly brightly in an attempt to distract Derek just a little from their dire straits. ‘Vampires: are they a thing and do they sparkle? Discuss.’
*
Derek makes a supernaturally rapid recovery once he’s fully regained consciousness and Stiles has liberated him from his ankle chains, though his shoes are nowhere to be found. He even does an angry standing-backflip (which is like a regular standing-backflip but with added glowering) to prove to Stiles how very fine he really is, which is highly persuasive and also ridiculously hot. This turns out to be embarrassing on many levels now he knows Derek can not only smell his reaction to him, but can presumably smell it a whole bunch on account of their being trapped in what is effectively a ventless bunker, so, yeah. Awkward.
Stiles wonders, for a second, if all the emotions he has felt since they’ve been here are still in this little room, trapped, with no place to go – if Derek has to taste Stiles’ fear at the back of his throat as well as his own, his exhaustion, his pain, his lust. He wonders what being heartsore smells like to Derek. Although right now, his arousal has probably eclipsed everything else because jesus god, standing backflips. Stiles is but a man, after all.
Derek, to his credit, just clears his throat and carries on checking the door for weak spots. It's solid metal, which reinforces Stiles' suspicion that they're in some sort of bunker, and the hinges are too close to the wall for Derek to get any sort of purchase on, so Derek decides on a more direct route - brute force.
As a precaution Derek puts his ear to the door and listens, eyes flashing scarlet as he tells Stiles he can make out Boyd’s heartbeat, albeit faintly, which means it’s some distance away. There’s no sign of any other life close by, he says.
‘So,’ Stiles says, a little breathless, ‘we know the alpha twins are under orders from someone. And we know they’ve been watching us long enough to set a trap for Boyd at the museum to separate us. Ready to find out what the fuck is going on in this crazy town, once and for all?’
‘Yeah,’ Derek replies, biceps straining as he heaves at the door handle, making the bolts holding it shear with metallic squeals. All too soon Derek pulls the handle right out of the door.
(Hot.)
The door swings open a crack in its wake, let a slice of bright light cut into the room.
Derek shoots him a quick glance. ‘Are you ready?’
Stiles, who is not remotely ready, nods enthusiastically, all jittery bravado. ‘Yes. Definitely. I got your back, Der.’
Derek grins, a flash of white teeth in the shadow of the door. ‘Lucky me.’
Then he pulls open the door and slips out into what’s beyond.