Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or plot devices of Teen Wolf. Those belong to Jeff Davis and MTV. I’m just borrowing them for a little while.
Sweat coats Charlie’s back in a thick, slippery sheen. Droplets collect in the waistband of her loose-fitting yoga pants as they drip down her skin. Still, the hand that jerks her up off the ground does so without issue. She reacts immediately, kicking out. Her foot connects with a hard stomach. The hand not holding her arm, grabs her leg before she can pull away. He pins her against the wall.
Never the type to give up, Charlie whips her head back, the sound of crunching bone filling her ears. She manages to squirm her way out of his grasp and offers a final kick. He catches this one, too, and uses his own foot to knock her legs out from under her. Together, they collapse onto the hard floor, his body on top of hers. Charlie chuckles.
“If you wanted to be on top, all you had to do was say so,” she says to her beautiful, green-eyed alpha. Derek’s body shakes with his own laughter.
“Maybe after you shower,” he says and crinkles his nose.
Gasping with mock outrage, Charlie takes full advantage of his distraction and flips them over so that she’s straddling his waist. His green eyes spark with delight and he runs his fingers up her legs. When they reach her waist, he raises up to catch her lips with his. Charlie smiles into the kiss and rakes her nails down his chest. A low, heady growl escapes him.
Just as his fingers pull on the drawstrings of her pants, she pulls away and stands up. Derek’s puckered lips turn into a confused frown. He raises his eyebrows at her, questioning her actions. Charlie merely sashays in the direction of his bathroom.
“Someone thinks I stink,” she says. Derek opens his mouth to respond but is cut off when the sports bra she wears leaves her body. As she walks, she shimmies off the pants and disappears into the shower. When the alpha doesn’t follow, she peeks her head around the door.
“You’re stinking a little, too.”
…
Derek wraps his arms around Charlie’s sleeping form. She’s curled into a ball by his side making it difficult to cuddle but not impossible. His fingers find the small mass of black veins and he strokes them. At the beginning of the summer, the blonde had said the spot was merely a bruise. Now, three months later, Derek’s sure it’s anything but a bruise. He doesn’t push it, though.
The topic puts Charlie on edge. Derek knows it’s because she’s scared. She thought that after the kanima issue was resolved, all the abnormalities surrounding her would go away. Instead, they continued. There’s no progression. She’s still scarred from the burns of the Hale house and her trip into the woods but she heals faster than a normal human and she picks up conversations here and there that she shouldn’t be able to hear.
There was one incident, though. Derek remembers being terrified, confronted with the very real possibility of someday losing her. After the kanima, he had let go of that fear only to have it come hurtling back with such force that he felt winded.
…
The body lying in Derek’s arms stiffens for the fifth time. He raises onto his elbow and turns her towards him. For the first time, Charlie shoves him away from her and refuses to allow him to rotate her. She bats his oncoming hands away and slides to the edge of the bed.
By now, Derek is scooting closer to the blonde. Panic swells in his chest and he sets his hand down to brace himself behind her. That’s when he feels the warm, sticky wetness. He looks down at the dark spot. It feels like blood but the scent is off.
