Castling

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May thirtieth, two thousand fifteen..

A new Alpha with slowly healing burns sat whimpering, cuddling two dead bodies to their chest, they no longer had the energy to sob or wail or howl, everything but their anger and sadness had emptied out of them over the hours that they had held the two figures and howled and howled with no Pack to answer them back.

At the edge of the charred clearing the fog covered lake could be seen, and on the lake there appeared a boat.

A man sat in the boat, rowing to the shore.

He was dark skinned and bald and he held an air of power and authority as he sat foot on land and walked over to the Alpha that was only barely clinging to life, the loss of their whole Pack alone could kill a Werewolf and then add in the burns from a fire where Wolfsbane and Mountain Ash were surely used as well as the new burst of Alpha Power with no Pack to stabilize it and it was a wonder that the Werewolf lived at all.. The fact that the new Alpha held their dead wife and dead child in their arms only added to all of the reason why the Werewolf should not have been able to live, most Werewolves died upon the passing of their Mates even without being as injured as this Werewolf before him was..

"Derek?" The bald man asked gently.

"Where were you?" Derek asked with a choked sob. "You were our Emissary.. Where were you when we needed you?!" Derek roared.

"I am still the Hale Pack Emmisary, Derek." The bald man said sternly "I was visiting Deucalion's Pack because that is where your mother, my Alpha, sent me..." The bald man's voice gentled and the saddness and horror he felt under the calm mask he wore came through in his voice "I was just returning .. And then I saw.. I had felt something in my magic but I didn't know.. Couldn't know that I would be coming back to find... This .."

"They're all gone." Derek whimpered. "They were killed.. All of them killed.. Even the children!"

The bald man nodded solemnly "I know.. I need to get you to a hospital.."

"No!" .. Derek shouted "They did this because of ME!.. Whoever did this.. I heard them.. They were after me... Me! .. They think I'm dead, Deaton.. Please.. Just let me be dead!"

Then Derek fell unconscious..

Deaton did what he could with his Druidry Magic to stabilize Derek and help him survive and heal..

Deaton turned around for a split second and Derek opened his eyes, lunged up and knocked the man in the head, dazing the man, and the Druid watched helplessly as Derek ran into the woods in a feral state, the new Alpha was still too injured to possibly live for long especially without a Pack..

May thirty-first, two thousand nineteen.

The entire Hale Pack is declared dead aside from their Emissary who technically wasn't a Pack Member..

In the woods, a feral Alpha werewolf comes upon a tree house that was built at least half a decade ago.. In happier times..

The feral Alpha remembers ... His little boy had been five-years-old.. It was just before Derek took his last Undercover Assignment.. He and Liam had built this tree house and filled it with things in preparation for if Liam turned out to be a Werewolf as most Born Werewolves don't come into their First Shift until a little after they turned five.. So Derek and Liam had filled it with things that smelled like family and home in preparation to keep Liam calm during what would be his First Shift.. But then Full Moons came and went and Liam remained Human and Derek had, had to move his family to the East Coast for five years, in which the tree house remained unused, yet still filled with the things that Liam and Derek had filled it with in preparation for Liam to Shift..

Derek climbed into the tree house.. The smells of family and home still lingered and were untouched by the scents of fire and death..

The scents calmed the feral Alpha and he curled up in a pile of shirts that had been left in the tree house for their scents..

One shirt was a solid black tee-shirt with Liam's tiny five-year-old hand prints in white paint with Paige's and Derek's in white paint near them forming a cluster that Paige had said with a laugh "formed creepy skull" to which Liam had exclaimed "Awesome!" .. Paige and Derek had taken turns wearing that shirt and having Liam wear it to bed to saturate it in all of their scents to keep Liam calm if he turned..

Now Derek used the faded, but still there, scents of his wife and son and of himself in happier times to bring himself just a little bit back to Humanity as he slipped on the black shirt with the white handprints that formed a skull..