6. Chapter 6

The week progresses quietly, in that Peter and Chris do a good job of avoiding each other without looking too much like they are avoiding each other. Every morning Peter wakes up the little spoon or, worse , flat on his back with Chris curled around him like a koala with his head on Peter’s shoulder. After that, though, they both slink about the house acting like an old married couple without looking at each other. It’s a strain, but Peter’s lived through much worse than living with a handsome man he has a crush on, so he’s dealing.

All he has to do is wait until he hates Chris again, as is well and proper, and then they can get the bond broken. He’s not sure how exactly to do that, but he’s hoping that some fortuitous argument will happen or that he might somehow just stop being interested, that proximity will breed dislike. He’s aware that there are spells that can be used to hurry animosity along, but that would mean bringing his problem to someone with the magical ability and the flexible morality to cast those spells. Only one person in the entire region fits that description.

But Peter has absolutely no intention of discussing this with anybody, much less Stiles, despite the fact that it’s Stiles’s own fault for leaving the mess in Peter’s lap. At least he had the good grace to do so without telling anyone else.

Peter will have to send him a fruit basket when it’s all said and done.

Meanwhile, outside of Peter’s internal crisis, there is no indication that a Korhonen beta is around, but then, there wouldn’t be. If something is going to happen, Peter is sure it’s going to be the Korhonen alpha showing up to do a smash-and-grab for Lydia. This has Derek and Stiles, who are on protection duty at Lydia’s house along with Parrish, stressed out to the point of looking like zombies, and Scott ends up prowling around the perimeter of his terrority every night — which, at nearly 2,000 square miles, means he’s not sleeping much, which in turn means the rest of his betas are also not sleeping. Everyone is grumpy and snarling at each other and Peter feels like they have all regressed to their junior year of high school again. Excluding himself, of course.

Naturally, it is when Peter finally puts his foot down and insists that he and Chris take patrol for a night so Scott and the betas can sleep that everything goes to hell.

Peter is running it while Chris follows with his SUV along the roads that border the territory, which switch randomly from the highway that runs north of Beacon Hills proper to maybe-private one-lane unpaved roads. Four cities and eight towns reside inside the territory that McCall inherited from the Hales, the Preserve sitting right in the heart of it, all of it mapped and delimited by the lay lines feeding into the nemeton. (Peter makes no claim to ever having understood it.)

He’s not as fast as Scott so even running at a steady clip of 16 mph, Peter knows it will take at least eight hours if not more. He can sprint a lot faster but he needs to be slow enough to spot trouble.

“Turning on to Elberta Bluff Road.” Chris’s tinny voice comes across the speaker of Peter’s phone which is strapped to his arm. They decided to just stay on the call together, since Chris has the minutes to burn on his plan. It has dropped a couple times when Peter gets deep into the woods but it’s better than nothing.

“I’ll be crossing Route 17 in— OOF !” Peter crashes to the ground in an ungainly heap, his legs collapsing under him with no warning. He rolls over and stares up through the trees, tuning back in to hear Chris yelling his name over the phone. The numbing sensation is spreading up his spine and throughout his body, and he hopes that it isn’t a full-body paralytic that will shut his organs down. “I’m down!” He manages to shout as lungs tense up. “Paralyzed! I’m—” and his voice cuts out.

He can’t move anything, not even his eyes, but his autonomic system is still going, so he’s breathing and swallowing. If he’s pissed himself he will be taking the dry cleaning costs out of someone’s hide. Literally.

“Ah, Elder Hale.” One of the nameless Korhonen betas appears in his line of sight. “I apologize for the kanima venom dart, but our alpha has decided that negotiations are not as done as you had hoped.”

Chris’s voice shouts over the phone. “You bastards! You hurt him and I will burn your fucking den to the ground!”

The beta picks up the phone and smiles at it. “You Argents are good at that, aren’t you? Heh. Well, tell your alpha to wait for a call from us.” The beta finishes by crushing the phone in his fist. The same fist he smashes into Peter’s face, making his world go dark.

---

Waking up is worse than the nightmare he was suffering, his body feeling like it has been run over several times by a large herd of moose. He’s curled up on the bottom of cage that he barely fits inside. He shifts to try and wrestle his way to at least sitting up, hissing in pain when one of his bare shoulders hits the wood. Mountain ash, then. He’s glad they put a blanket on the bottom, or he would be in a lot of pain already.

After moving slowly for far too long, he finally sits upright, his legs crossed lotus style, hands on his knees, and takes a good look around. He realizes that he’s outside of a cabin at what is probably a children’s ‘away’ camp during the summer, given the lighting around the buildings and the parking lot off to his right.

He doesn’t recognize the place, but kanima venom generally only holds a werewolf for a few hours, so he knows that Korhonen has likely set up just outside of Hale-McCall territory. It’s going to be a trade, then.

He has a moment to pity Alpha Korhonen’s poor strategy when the emissary walks up and studies him for a moment. “Your alpha is stalling. Does he really think he can rescue you?”

Interesting. Peter stares back at her. “It’s amusing that you think he’s stalling.”

She smirks. “Don’t assume we haven’t planned this out.”

Peter sighs and rolls his eyes. “Good luck with that.” He then purposefully turns his head to dismiss her.

It’s Korhonen’s bad luck that no one in the Hale-McCall pack cares if Peter lives or dies. Hell, he thinks Lydia would probably delight in the idea that her choice not to join the Korhonens is what gets him killed. He hopes she dances on his grave, because that seems fair, given everything.

Derek might shed a tear, maybe. Maybe . Of all of them, Peter feels the worst about leaving Cora behind, but she’s a survivor just like he is. He knows she’ll be fine.

He sighs and watches dawn crest over the tops of the nearby mountains.

---

He’s not surprised when the emissary opens the cage and he’s dragged out to be beaten up. And, of course, it’s the alpha who takes the honors because that is the only way the damage will last longer than a few minutes.

No pain will ever match the time(s) he’s burned alive, so Peter takes it all with fair amount of zen, which is not what the alpha is looking for as a reaction. Peter ends up with his hamstrings sliced, his face scored by deep claw marks, one eye completely ruined, and numerous broken bones. He’s mostly upset about the eye, because even without the damage being inflicted by an alpha, those take the longest time to heal, and sometimes don’t heal all the way even so.

He’s also dropping his estimation of the Korhonens’ combined intelligence. Beating him to a pulp might be some kind of tradition, he supposes—revenge, a “message”, whatever—but it shows very clearly that they do not understand the dynamics of the Hale-McCall pack. If Scott and Stiles cared about Peter, hurting him would only further enrage them, not instill caution.

The Korhonen alpha is lucky only because nobody cares.