The wolves
No one truly knows how their life will end—whether in pain or peace. The only hope is that it ends quickly.
Living away from home, away from family, had drained them.
They didn’t know what death felt like, but it had to be better than this.
To be freed from the chains of medication, deceit, lies, and the ever-lurking shadows of paranoia.
To wake up every morning haunted by nightmares, regrets, and the ghosts of the past—how had they become so fragile, so utterly broken?
Deucalion Blackwood had once been an alpha of the alphas. A leader carved from dominance, his presence a storm that commanded unwavering loyalty. But one mistake—one lapse in his rule—had left him shattered, wild, untamed, and blind to everything but raw instinct.
Once, his very name struck fear into those who dared to stand in his way. Now, he rotted in an asylum for the forsaken, surrounded by other broken werewolves. The scent of antiseptic and despair clung to the walls as doctors injected them with sedatives, stripping them of what little control they had left.
The Demon Wolf.
As a child, Deucalion had lived among a mighty pack. His father, an alpha of unparalleled strength, never spoke of his mother. No matter how many times Deucalion asked, silence was the only answer he received. So he had learned not to ask. But the longing remained—a quiet ache for something softer, something warmer.
His father had no use for warmth. He demanded perfection. Deucalion was to be the next great alpha, a leader worthy of the supreme pack.
And for a time, it seemed inevitable.
Until Gerard Argent and his hunters came, cutting their numbers in half.
And it had been because of her—the spark that betrayed them. She was a Peach, a creature born of Poland, if the stories were to be believed. The Peaches were healers, known for their soft, social nature. Their skin was pale, their cheeks flushed with an ever-present rosy hue, their eyes golden like aged whiskey. They were supposed to be peaceful.
So why had she sided with the hunters?
The question burned inside him.
Amid the chaos of slaughter and bloodshed, for the first time in his life, he saw fear in his father’s eyes.
“Run, Deucalion! Don’t ever look back!”
With his bonds severed and so many of his own lost, madness consumed him.
He slaughtered everyone in his path—hunters, strangers… even his own pack. Without realizing it, he killed them all. Even the one who had taken his father’s alpha spark, the one who was meant to pass it to him when he was ready.
But that never happened.
He took the spark too young, too unprepared. And that became his deepest regret, his most profound break. He had killed the only thing he had left—his pack.
So he built himself anew, through every twisted, brutal, illogical path he could find. With only one purpose driving him.
Gerard Argent.
When he finally forged his own pack—a pack of alphas, bound by power and dominance—he sought not just vengeance, but control. He strengthened his political and diplomatic ties, forged alliances with supernatural creatures… even with hunters.
But there was one group that had truly witnessed his wrath.
The Peach Sparks.
He had been young, blind in more ways than one. His vision was lost, but the real blindness had always been in his mind. Instead of unleashing his fury upon the hunters, he turned his greatest betrayal against the peaceful Sparks in Poland.
Because in his twisted logic, the hunters had merely done what hunters did. But the Sparks—their betrayal had been unexpected. Unforgivable.
And so, very few of them remained. A handful had managed to escape.
When the bloodshed was over, something inside him quieted. But not entirely.
Not until he met Talia Hale.
The most striking alpha he had ever seen. Confident, fearless, compassionate. And beside her, there was another—a Spark. A Peach.
He kept his distance from the Spark, uninterested in anything but Talia. But then, during one of their small meetings, he heard something that made him stop.
The Peach was pregnant.
It wasn’t a miracle, not exactly. But what captivated him was something else—the delicate, fluttering sound of a tiny heartbeat.
Like the soft, rapid thrum of a baby rabbit’s heart.
He had always been fascinated by that sound.
And so, without a word, he took it upon himself to protect her. No one noticed, but wherever the Peach went, he was there, lingering in the shadows. Not because she was his pack. Not because she was an ally. She was nothing
It was something else. Something strange.
A glimpse of humanity, perhaps.
He stayed until she gave birth. A boy. Small, delicate. A Peach through and through.
And then, only then, did he finally allow himself to leave.
When he returned, all he heard was that the Peach was dead.
He hadn’t even had the chance to see the child.
There was no time. No chance.
Because by then, he had lost
And just like before, he had allowed himself to make a mistake.
This time, it had cost him everything.
Gerard Argent had won.
—
Betrayal by family cuts deeper than death.
At least, that’s how it felt to Chris Argent, a man raised for one purpose: to be the perfect hunter. To never miss.
His father had been a cruel man—merciless, calculating, devoid of warmth. Chris never truly felt like a child, never felt like a person at all. He was a weapon, sharpened and polished to carry out orders. His father must follow the Code, the sacred rule of their kind. Yet the man himself never followed it. Neither did his sister.
When Chris first arrived in Beacon Hills, he was little more than a shadow of a boy. Withdrawn. Silent. A machine programmed for survival, not for life. Conversations were difficult, social interactions nearly impossible. He moved through the halls like a ghost, speaking only when necessary, responding only to orders, tactics, and commands. The only company he ever kept was the company of books, pages turning under his fingers like whispers in the silence.
Then he met him.
Peter Hale. A boy younger than him yet somehow ahead in advanced classes. Chris knew nothing of him at first—what he was, who he would become. All he knew was that Peter was different. Sharp-minded, quick-tongued, charming in a way that felt effortless. There was a confidence in him, an almost magnetic pull that made people gravitate toward him.
Chris had no intention of getting involved. He had no need for friendships, no interest in distractions. But Peter had other plans.
“Hey, new boy!”
It started just like that. A casual greeting thrown over a crowded hallway, as if they had known each other forever. And then, somehow, Peter was always there. Every turn, every hallway, every empty space Chris had once moved through unnoticed—now filled with the presence of this relentless boy.
“I learned a new French phrase today. Want to hear it?”
Peter took ridiculous measures to get his attention. Studying French, of all things, just because Chris had come from France. And when everyone else simply called him “Chris,” Peter insisted on using his full name—“Christopher Étienne Argent, are you even listening to me?”
There was no ignoring him. Not for long.
And so, slowly, impossibly, Peter forced his way into Chris’s life. Into his mind. Into his heart.
They were in love before Chris even understood what love was. Before he had the words to name it. Before he realized that love could be something soft, something defiant, something entirely his.
But love was never meant to be easy for someone like him.
The day his father arranged his marriage to Victoria, Chris made a choice. He and Peter would leave. They would run, abandon everything, build a life beyond the weight of their families. He had planned it all—every step, every escape route.
Then he learned the truth.
Peter wasn’t just Peter. He was a werewolf. The very thing Chris had been trained to hunt. To kill. To fear.
But he didn’t fear him. He couldn’t.
It should have changed everything. It didn’t.
What changed everything was his family. Because no matter how much he wanted to run, he couldn’t escape them. Not truly.
So he stayed. Let Peter go. Forced himself to stop looking for him, to stop longing for what could never be. And though he did not betray him outright, he did not protect him either. He never told his family about the pack in their midst. But his father already knew.
Years passed. Chris married. Had a daughter—Allison, the one light in his world. And still, Peter lingered in his thoughts, a shadow that never faded.
They found their way back to each other, in stolen moments and whispered reunions. Until the fire. Until the Hale house burned. Until everything was gone.
Chris left Beacon Hills then. The sheriff had too many questions, and his family had too many secrets. It was safer that way.
When he returned, the town had changed. There was a monster lurking in the dark—an alpha, wild and ruthless. A threat. And Chris knew what he had to do. Hunt it. Kill it. End it.
But when the moment came, when he faced the beast, he hesitated. Because he knew. He knew before he saw the familiar smirk, before he heard the voice that still haunted his dreams.
Peter.
And in that instant, Chris realized the truth.
He had never built defenses against Peter Hale.
And he never would.
When he first turned into a werewolf, fear consumed him—not for himself, but for Allison. For the thought of hurting her.
He had spent his entire life in control, disciplined, precise. And now? Now he was a creature of instinct, of hunger, of rage. A monster with no leash.
But Peter—Peter was worse.
Blinded by fury, by a need for vengeance so raw it burned through him, Peter killed his own niece.
Chris had wanted to stop him, to find another way, to fix what had been broken before it was too late. But his father had no patience for mercy.
Hunting him down became his new mission. The orders were clear: kill him, no hesitation. And when death alone wasn’t enough of a threat, his father turned to other weapons—blackmail, intimidation, promises of harm to Allison if Chris didn’t comply.
So he ran.
He left Beacon Hills, believing—naively, foolishly—that it would only be temporary. That if he could find a pack, if he could learn to control himself, he could return.
But it didn’t go that way.
An alpha found him. Offered him guidance, stability, a chance at something better. And Chris—who had spent his whole life obeying orders—wanted to believe in someone else’s leadership for once.
But then he killed him.
It hadn’t been planned. It hadn’t even been a choice, not really. But when the blood settled, Chris was no longer just another lost werewolf. He was an alpha.
And with a pack under his command, he thought maybe—just maybe—he could find himself again.
But power twisted something inside him. Or maybe it simply revealed what was already there.
The pack never truly accepted him. Not after what he had done. He was their leader by force, not by loyalty. And the isolation, the resentment, the weight of it all—it made him something worse. More savage. Less human.
And in the end, it led him here.
Eichen House.
A place for the broken. The lost. The ones who had no control left to hold onto.
—
Peter Hale had everything.
The golden child of his family, adored by his parents, worshiped by his older sister—who, in his eyes, was second only to their father. At school, he was the kind of boy everyone either wanted to be or wanted to be with. Charismatic. Handsome. The one who could turn heads just by walking into a room. The boys and the girls wanted him
His teenage years were a series of reckless romantic(sexual) escapades, each more audacious than the last. Dating two girls on the same day and miraculously avoiding getting caught. A night tangled in sheets with two vampire boys whose hunger wasn’t limited to blood. Flings with people older, more experienced, like Corinne—the woman who, unbeknownst to him, would one day give birth to his daughter, Malia. He wouldn’t learn about her existence until much later, when he woke up from a coma to find she was already a young woman.
But out of all his affairs, one stood apart.
Chris Argent. A hunter. The greatest love of his life—until the fire.
Back then, Peter was the kind of boy who sought out thrills like they were oxygen, who wanted to taste everything the world had to offer. His curiosity often landed him in trouble, enough that the town’s new deputy, Stilinski, knew him by name. The man was stern, a straight arrow who loved his pregnant wife and took his duty seriously. No matter how much Peter pushed, the sheriff never let him get away with anything. He scolded him, dragged him home, shoved him toward a better path that Peter never quite cared to follow.
He had been content, in his own way, until the new boy arrived from France.
The first time Peter saw him, he was walking alone, utterly indifferent to the world around him. Unbothered. Unimpressed. The one person in school who didn’t seem to care about Peter at all. He hated that.
So, he stuck to the boy like glue.
And when he found out his name—Argent—his sister warned him. Everyone did. But Peter was young, reckless, arrogant. He thought he could handle it. He wasn’t afraid of hunters.
He should have been.
Chris was ice, locked away behind walls so thick it was a wonder he even knew how to breathe. He didn’t understand pleasure, or life, or anything beyond duty. So Peter made it his mission to teach him.
He never expected to fall in love.
For years, they lived in the quiet space they carved out for themselves, away from their families’ watchful eyes. Talia, his sister, eventually found out. She didn’t approve, not entirely, but she didn’t condemn him either. She asked to meet Chris.
And Chris… Chris had already melted into their world. He spent enough time with the Hale pack that he became a part of it. Even the children adored him. Peter’s niece, Cora, was only a year younger than Allison, so Chris would bring her along whenever he could, letting the two girls play together.
Then he betrayed them.
The hunters came with fire and silver. They didn’t just kill wolves; they slaughtered everyone. Their pack had humans, too, and they burned just as easily.
Peter lost everything that night. His family. His trust.
When he woke from his long, deep sleep, the world no longer felt real. His mind was a haze of anger, of something dark and primal that ate away at who he used to be.
He wanted vengeance.
He hadn’t meant to kill his niece.
He hadn’t meant to.
He loved her.
Laura—his first niece, the one who carried the weight of their family after the fire. He had watched all his sister’s children grow, had sworn to protect them with the same fierce devotion their mother once had. He never wanted to hurt her. Never wanted to hurt any of them.
But intentions didn’t matter.
She was dead. By his hand. And no matter how many times he told himself he hadn’t meant it, the guilt remained, curling around his ribs like a vice.
So he let the monster take over.
He tore through the world with rage and brutality until the supernatural division of the FBI finally put him down. They dragged him to Eichen House, the place where they threw away creatures like him.
And that was where he saw Chris again.
At first, all Peter wanted was blood. Revenge.
Every time they crossed paths in that cursed place, Peter attacked, clawing, ripping, desperate to make the traitor suffer. Every time, the guards intervened—shocking them, sedating them, leaving them limp and gasping on the cold, sterile floors.
It became a cycle. Attack. Pain. Darkness. Wake up and do it all over again.
Until, eventually, Peter grew tired.
Tired of fighting.
Tired of trying.
So he stopped.
—
Derek wasn’t much different from his uncle during his teenage years. In many ways, he was a mirror image of Peter—his role model, his closest person, not just an uncle but something more.
But his first real heartbreak shattered that reflection.
Losing his first love hit him harder than he expected. And because grief always needs a culprit, he blamed himself. He withdrew, pulled away from the world, even from Peter and Chris, who tried to drag him out of his shell. They invited him out, tried to make him laugh, but he only wanted solitude. No one could reach him. No one could get in.
Until Kate Argent came along.
She didn’t just step into his world—she tore it apart. She shattered every fragile defense he had, broke through every wall he’d built. And what she did to him was something he would never, ever be able to forget.
She preyed on a teenage boy with ruthless cruelty.
And then, because of one reckless mistake, she burned his family to the ground.
He carried that weight. The unbearable guilt. It didn’t matter what Peter thought, didn’t matter if Chris was involved that night or not—Derek knew the truth. It was his fault. He was the reason his family died.
No one ever helped him process that grief, that trauma, that destruction. He just carried it forward, silent and suffocating.
Then came Braeden, the mercenary. She was incredible in her own way, but Derek refused to make the same mistake twice. He wouldn’t let himself love, wouldn’t let himself get attached. So one fleeting night was enough.
But that one night created his son, Eli.
And after that, everything unraveled.
His monstrous uncle woke from his coma. Laura was lost. Cora returned. Gerard Argent crawled back from whatever pit he’d rotted in. A fox-demon called the Nogitsune made its presence known. Fear for his son, the fractures in his pack, all of it pushed Derek into becoming an Alpha, True Alpha , unlike Peter.
But it didn’t last.
The more he fought, the more he lost himself. He became something dangerous. A threat. And when hunters failed to contain him, the FBI stepped in.
Now, he was here. Locked away with his uncle—the man who murdered his own sister and clawed his way back to life through the suffering of teenage girls. The man he could never trust.
And maybe, just maybe, that was the worst part.
—
"Maybe it’s worth a try"
Melissa pleaded with the four stubborn wolves, her voice laced with the kind of patience that had long since frayed at the edges.
“No, Melissa. We’re done with magical. If a new one comes, we kill them.”
Chris’s voice was flat, emotionless, as he took another slow sip of his coffee, utterly unbothered. The rich scent of roasted beans curled in the air, but Melissa found no comfort in it.
“I was told it’s a girl,” she pressed, glancing at each of them, hoping for even the smallest shift in their expressions. “Maybe she could take care of you, you know?”
Silence.
They continued their breakfast as if she wasn’t even there. The clinking of cutlery, the scraping of chairs against the wooden floor—it was all a pointed dismissal.
Melissa sighed, rubbing her temples, just as a warm hand landed lightly on her shoulder.
“Don’t bother, miss McCall. They’re idiots,” Marin muttered with a knowing smirk. She was their overseer, the only one who managed to keep them in line—at least, most of the time.
Marin had been part of Deucalion’s pack before… before everything fell apart. When she heard he’d been cast out here, she hadn’t hesitated to follow. But the man she once knew had lost faith in everything—his people, his bonds, himself.
“Look,” she tried again, “I won’t be taking care of you forever. Neither will miss McCall. Sooner or later, you’ll need the druid. She can heal you.”
Still, no answer.
Marin clenched her jaw, then kicked the nearest chair. Hard.
It belonged to Peter.
“I’m talking here!”
Peter didn’t flinch, only tilted his head lazily.
“And none of us are answering,” he said, bored. “That means we’re not interested. If you bring the druid here, she’ll be our dinner. Simple as that.”
Maruin planted her hands on her hips, eyes narrowing. “You know that would get you punished.”
Derek finally spoke, the first words he’d uttered all morning. “We’re used to it.”
She swallowed, looking between them. These weren’t just wolves—these were ghosts wearing skin. Hollow, hardened men who had forgotten what it meant to be anything else.
Still, she refused to stop trying.
“Please,” she said, softer now. “If she annoys you, do whatever you want. But at least give her a chance. What do you have to lose?”
For the first time, someone actually considered her words.
Deucalion.
The eldest, the wisest, the most dangerous of them all.
He leaned back in his chair, the faintest smile curling his lips. Polished, effortless, the kind of smile that made it easy to forget just how ruthless he was.
“Very well, miss McCall.”
Melissa’s breath hitched.
“I’ll give her a chance,” he mused. “But if she says one thing that annoys us, don’t expect her to live.”
Melissa exhaled sharply, pressing a hand to her chest.
“Thank God.”
They agreed to give it a chance—only because Melissa had begged them to.
They valued her, in their own way. She was the only one who had ever cared for them without expecting anything in return, without hidden motives or unspoken debts. While the rest of the world saw them as nothing more than beasts, she saw something else—something human, something worth treating with kindness.