Blood Runs Cold

Chapter Fourteen

Stiles had been so, so wrong when he had thought that Peter and Chris being together in the same room created the thickest tension imaginable. It turned out by adding his dad to the mix, the tension went up to a whole new level. Maybe it was because Stiles was finally able to smell it, hear the sounds of muscles tensing and hearts beating when he hadn't been able to when all of this began.

Regardless, Stiles was pretty certain that the air dropped ten degrees when Noah uttered out a tense and chilly, "Peter."

Peter's smile was his perfectly cordial one that showed a little too many teeth and didn't come anywhere close to his eyes. He held the door to his apartment open, but stood in the frame. "Sheriff Stilinski, what a pleasure." The tone of his voice made it clear that it was absolutely not a pleasure. "Stiles told me he was thinking of bringing you over."

"Sound less like we're stabbing you." Stiles rolled his eyes and shoved his way in. Even with werewolf strength, moving past Peter felt somewhat like trying to shoulder a brick wall down. "We solved the last issue your way and we saw how well it worked out, so this time we're doing it my way."

Peter gave him a flat, unamused look. "Well you'll be thrilled to hear that Deaton agreed with me on this — even if it probably took a decade off his life to do so. You can even call him yourself if you don't trust my word." He took a step back, just enough to let Noah through without having to force his way in.

"We really don't need to get the entirety of Beacon Hills involved with this," Peter continued. "Next thing you'll be telling me is you've invited the entire McCall pack over and I'll have to argue with Scott for the next ten years over the necessity of killing them before they kill us."

"Dear god are you always this unpleasant?" Stiles wondered how many times in the past his dad had been forced to be in Peter's presence if that was the sort of question he was asking. All he could think of was that one time Peter had picked Stiles up for school.

"Short answer, yes. Long answer, Peter's an insufferable drama queen who acts offended for twenty minutes anytime I bring necessary people into his apartment." Stiles spoke up before Peter could.

"I think you'll find I can be absolutely lovely when I want to be," Peter said, tone twinged with offense. "Maybe I'm tired of my apartment being the hangout spot for whoever Stiles wants to bring over at any given time."

"Shut the fuck up, Peter." Chris walked out of the office and scowled. "We get it, you want everyone to follow your plans exactly like you decide they should be. But guess what, you chose the wrong men to associate with for that." Thank god for Chris, honestly, Stiles wasn't sure what he would have done being tied to Peter without him. Stiles could keep up with the snark but he felt like only Chris ever had a shot at shutting Peter down.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Getting the police involved is a terrible idea seeing as the whole, oh I don't know, dryad killing humans who look at them thing is the problem here. And how many people in the sheriff's office are human?" He paused, Stiles guessed that it was for dramatic effect rather than waiting for an actual response. "Oh right, everyone but Parrish. Looking to thin out the ranks, Noah?"

Noah narrowed his eyes. "You can call me Sheriff Stilinski, Peter. Now how about one of you actually fully explains what's going on to me so this human can work out a solution." His words were clipped and annoyed. "Your plans in the past have caused too many sleepless nights and cold cases in the sheriff's office." Noah paused and fixed everyone in the room with a dry stare. "All of you are included in that, for future reference."

"Well it's absolutely perfect that none of the future murder victims in this plan are human are humans, isn't it?" Peter raised an eyebrow and sat down on the back of his couch. "Dryads aren't made of flesh and bone, they're more like walking wooden statues. If anything it'll look like some art students got incredibly creative in the Preserve."