11. Chapter 11

“Now we wait for what ?” Peter yells, his hands over Chris’s, trying to stem the slippery blood. It’s not a gaping wound and for the moment it doesn’t seem like she hit an artery but there is no telling how much damage has really been done. “For him to die?”

She tuts at him as if he’s an errant schoolboy. “For you to become desperate.”

“What ?” Peter is shouting at her while Chris goes into shock, blood pouring out of his abdomen.

“Petey...hey…Petey.” Chris gasps.

“Don’t call me that, for fuck’s sake.” Peter’s hand are slick with blood. He always forgets how greasy it is.

“Heh. You hate it.”

“Yes. Shut up, you’ve been shot. Shut up!”

“Sorry I...fell...for you. Sorry. I love you.” Chris’s eyes tighten with pain. Peter wants to drain the pain, if that might be the last kindness he could offer, but it would sap him of energy that he will need to kill the murderous bitch. It’s a toss up, but in the end, he will always hold out for vengeance when he can.

“Don’t apologize. You fucking asshole, I love you too. Didn’t our damn mate mark prove that?” Peter rests his forehead against Chris’s temple. “Of course we’re this unlucky. You bastard.”

“Yeah,” Chris sighs, the tremors that were wracking his body fading away. It’s a bad sign.

Shasta steps closer and peers down at them. By the way she tips her head back and forth, it’s clear she’s looking for something. “Get away from us!” Peter hisses, tightening his hold on Chris.

She shrugs again and moves out of the casting circles, and then, oddly, puts the gun down on top of the dresser. Peter knows he should make his move, attack her now while she’s defenseless — the circles were not designed to hold him, and as far as he can tell there is no mountain ash in the room or on her person or, even more surprising, in the bullets.

But he can’t bring himself to let go of Chris, and he thinks she knew that all along.

In the same way he had kept his eyes locked on Chris when the former Korhonen alpha was standing over him with a huge, magicked blade, Peter can’t let go of him now as life slowly seeps out of him along with his blood.

“Petey.”

“Quiet.”

“Hey, Petey.” The bastard actually smiles up at him, his teeth bright white in the dim light of the bedroom.

“What?”

Chris moves one shaking arm away from his belly and holds it out. He’s down to a tee-shirt, Peter realizes, and the mate mark is there on Chris’s arm, vibrant reds and oranges glowing with power. Peter instinctively grabs his forearm with his hand, and Chris’s fingers wrap around Peter’s, so their palms are resting against each other’s mate marks. It burns but it doesn’t hurt, the magic of the connection bright like a fireplace in winter and just as comforting.

“Chris, please. Please don’t.” The tears are hot on his face even if Peter doesn’t feel like he’s crying. “I can’t. Not again, I can’t.”

“Feels good. You...always...make me feel…”

“No no no. I drive you crazy.”

"Yes, dear—" Chris's voice trails off. He is done talking, just shakes his head with a fond smile, trembling slightly as he starts moving past the pain and fear. Peter can tell — he’s seen similar wounds on humans before — that it’s going to be slow death, even if quick enough that making a run for the hospital would be pointless. They are stuck there, trapped as if in a cage for the long, agonizing minutes until Chris dies. That Chris might not even feel it by going into shock should be a blessing. Peter tightens his hold and looks up at Shasta.

“You’ve killed him for nothing you imbecile! Brace yourself, because when he dies I will tear you apart.” Peter slurs half the words through his fangs.

“Don’t be so sure,” she says, rolling her eyes. She turns her back to him as if he is the least dangerous thing in the room and starts rummaging through a large tote bag on the dresser. “I planned for this, remember? I just needed one of you to be in ‘mortal peril’ for the mate mark to manifest.” She actually forms scare quotes with her fingers as she talks and he plans to bite those fingers off as soon as he can make himself let go of Chris.

“The mate mark will only manifest with a boost from our emissary, that’s how it works ! It’s pack protection! It will only work to protect the pack! YOU ARE SO STUPID!” He’s yelling, and Chris grunts, blinking up at him. “Sorry, sorry. Shhhhh. It’s okay, I got you.” Peter lowers his face and nuzzles against Chris’s neck. He smells sweet and spicy, like Mexican chocolate, even under all the blood. It’s the way he always smells, the way their bed has smelled for weeks now. Peter never wants to let go.

“Right. It worked before because your emissary is powerful, and my pack — the Korhonen pack was a threat to all of you. I know that, thanks.” She pulls out a wooden box and shakes it at Peter. It is made of strong, old rowan wood and Peter can feel the alpha-magic pulsing inside.

“What is that?” He has a suspicion, but he hopes he’s wrong.

“This?” She holds up the box. “This is just you underestimating me.” She smiles and opens it up, rattling the claws inside. It’s not a full set, only three, but obviously from the former Korhonen alpha. “My alpha pulled these out years ago and gave them to me for safekeeping.”

“Your alpha is dead. ”

“Interestingly, that doesn’t matter.” She steps carefully into the outermost circle of runes. It brings her closer to Peter, which he likes, but on the other hand it means she’s feeling pretty confident about what she has planned. He starts calculating how fast he can get to her and slice her hamstring or gut her, but is drawn away from that again when Chris shudders. He damns himself for his untimely sentimentality, but he’s sure he can’t save Chris no matter what he attempts so does it matter if he waits a few minutes?

“What matters,” she says, bringing his attention back to her, “Is that I am a pack emissary, that I have a powerful objecst to focus my energies on, and that I have an alpha-spark to feed into spell.”

“Your alpha is dead ,” Peter snarls again.

“Yes, he is.” She talks like she’s explaining things to a five year old. Peter would be offended if her stereotypical villain monologue weren’t keeping her from starting whatever spell she has in mind. “But here’s the thing. You introduced yourself as a former Hale alpha, back during negotiations, remember? We heard rumors, but until that point I wasn’t sure.”

“Keyword here is former, you stark raving lunatic.”

“Ironic, coming from you.” She dumps the claws into her palm and tosses the box on the bed. “Did you know? Anyone touched by an alpha-spark keeps a bit of it.”

Peter pauses. He knows that — he couldn’t help but know that, feeling the small shard of power deep in his very bones. But he worked hard to keep that truth shrouded from those who might find out, or care. He is certain that Deaton knows (wherever that cagey bastard ran off to), but as long as Scott and Derek and, critically, Stiles did not know that it still lurked under his skin, they would not have any reason not to trust him. He had worked too hard for that trust to throw it away on their paranoia, however justified.

“So here we are! Mortal peril? Check! Emissary? Check! Supernatural tokens of great power? Check! And then there is you, with your tiny bit of alpha-spark deep down inside. I think we’re ready, don’t you?” She takes one claw and stabs it into the center of her palm, gasping a bit in pain. Blood wells up, fills her hand, and drips over onto the floor.

With her other hand she flips one of the remaining claws and with a flick of her wrist sends it sailing unnaturally straight through the air to embed in his neck. He howls with the pain and the shock of the foreign alpha’s power pumping into his blood and charging him up with potency the likes of which he has not felt since...since…

“Laura !” Peter screams, a sound so strong that it startles Shasta and wakes Chris up. Peter feels like a banshee as he screams his niece's name over and over, feeling that treasured part of her that still remains in him bursting to life. The insanity of abandonment, of fear, of hate, of vengeance bubbles up inside of him once again but this time...this time it is the spark he got from Laura that drives it.

Shasta’s blood drips onto the runes at her feet and the concentric circles start pulsing with magic, dark and twisted, trying to rip at his consciousness. Peter’s screams have shifted into furious growls and Shasta finally looks unnerved, chanting faster and faster, tossing her blood around to quicken the spell.

It is familiar when it happens again, when the phoenix pulls itself together out his body, the same bright but comforting fire rising through him as before. This time it spirals into being like wisps of smoke twisting into a tornado, the energy from Laura’s alpha-spark and Chris’s fresh blood churning over and over until the creature manifests over them and around them.

Shasta grins, her eyes wide open with awe and greed, and she uses the last alpha claw to reach out and try to snag the spectre.

But Peter already knows it won’t work.

He knows because the alpha-spark was never really his.

He knows because pack bonds are always, always stronger than even the darkest magic.

He knows because he will never to his (next) dying day forget how his pack bond with Laura felt before she broke it as she ran away from Beacon Hills.

He feels it now, burning through him like the legendary fire the phoenix is born from, as if it was always there, waiting to be reforged. It was the power that he sensed before, when Chris was manifesting the mate mark, and now he knows what it is thanks to the boost of the former Korhonen alpha’s claw in his neck, feeding into the power of his blood, his lineage, his pack.

Shasta is still reaching out to snag the apparition but as soon as the old claw touches the blazing red feathers it incinerates in her grasp, burning her fingers. She screams in pain and tries to jump backwards out of the circle but she is frozen in place. Trapped.

The phoenix screams and it shakes Peter to his bones but in the best way, as if Laura and the ancient line of Hale alphas are there, the fire of their collective sparks melting into his body and becoming one with him.

Becoming the phoenix.

Peter holds Chris tight with one arm and reaches a hand out. One massive claw moves with him, even if it is not him.

He is us, we are they, and all is one.

Peter feels his talons push into the former emissary’s chest, cracking easily through bone and cartilage. The fire engulfs her and he squeezes her heart in his claw until it burns to ash. Her screams are cut short when she dies, blood boiling and fat bursting into flame from inside out. He lets her fall and turns to his mate, still unconscious but not yet dead in his grasp. The fire from the emissary’s body jumps to the furniture and sneaks along the flooring, blooming as it latches onto throw rugs and bedding.

The phoenix holds the body of its mate and screams so loudly the windows shatter out. They are lost and burning together and their bellowing cries promise to the all the gods and demons that exists that if they die they will become the destroyer of worlds ...

“Peter.” The name is soft and gentle. It is quieter than the fire that is raging around them and it is separate, it is not them , it is not we. With it comes the heat of the flames and the bright blue of Chris’s eyes.

A loud mournful howl breaks into Peter’s consciousness, a sound so wretched and broken that he blinks and startles when he realizes that they are blocked from from escaping by the fire, which surrounds them now, a tornado of flames and ash. The howl, agonized and furious, starts up again and Peter knows it is Derek, who is outside and thinks his family is burning alive again .

Because they are — the house is entirely aflame, the fire is all around them and licks up the walls and the smoke is rising as if from a furnace. They should already be dead. The floor under them is broken charcoal, red hot from the fire burning out the wood. But his bare feet are untouched and the heat he does feel is distant from him, real but still comforting like the embrace of his pack.

Chris wraps his bloody arms around Peter and weakly pulls them even closer together. For a moment Peter is lost in time as Chris kisses him, lips chapped and cold and soft and so, so perfect. He feels his mate mark shift and change as he lingers in the chaste kiss, unwilling to let the taste of Chris go.

But Chris pulls back enough for his breath to gust over Peter’s cheek. “Go,” he whispers hoarsely, his head lolling to rest on Peter’s shoulder.

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Whatever grace the phoenix granted them won’t last for long but Peter hopes it is enough as he sprints through the burning wreckage and out the remains of his (formerly) nice bay window in the living room. When he lands in the yard a searing burst of heat goes up his back as his gas line explodes. He is knocked forward through the air straight into Derek and Scott and they all tumble into the street.

The shocked, tear-streaked expression on his nephew’s face is the last thing he sees before he blacks out.