It's been nearly ten years since Kenneth Kavanagh last stepped a foot in Beacon Hills, California. He came to the aid of fellow alpha and friend Talia Hale while she dealt with hunter issues. After her untimely death, he never once thought he would see the inside of the town ever again. That is until he received a phone call from his dying daughter.
Now, he stands in an ally behind the local vet clinic in the town that is drenched in the blood of lost innocents while his daughter lays unconscious and hooked up to machines inside. It's been forty-eight hours since he arrived and she has yet to wake up. Despite Deaton's reassurances, he can't let go of his worries. Not until she opens her eyes.
The door to the vet clinic opens and the vet himself steps out. Amongst the things that never change in Beacon Hills is Deaton. The two men were never really good friends. In fact, their only mutual connection had been Talia, but Kenneth can't deny that the vet is good at what he does. There's no other person he would trust with his daughter's life.
"You should get some sleep," Deaton says kindly. "I will call you when she wakes up."
Kenneth shakes his head. "My daughter nearly died. I'll sleep when I finally see her blue eyes."
"Charlie will wake up but it's going to take some time. The poison in her system attacked both her body and mind."
"And how is it that no one knows who did it?" Kenneth asks impatiently. For forty-eight hours he's been asking questions that no one can seem to answer.
"We believe it's a darach. It means-"
"Dark oak," Kenneth says and smiles wanly. "I've kept up my reading. It still doesn't explain why a darach would go after my daughter."
Deaton's eyes widen. "Unless she knows who it is."
Kenneth nods. If he's honest, he suspected as much. Charlie's mind works differently. She senses things others can't. Things that not even a werewolf with enhanced sight, smell, and hearing can sense.. It's not the first time she's been targeted for knowing too much. Even when she doesn't realize what she knows.
Still, he can't shake the feeling that there's more going on than he's being told. He's heard the stories of sacrifices happening in the town but no one has mentioned them. This is the first he's heard of a darach. Also, the skinny kid with the odd name could barely hold eye contact when Kenneth asked why a poison made up of wolfsbane and mistletoe would have such a hazardous effect on Charlie.
"We've known each other for a long time, right?" Kenneth asks as he stares off at the morning sky. Deaton sighs. "Then you know me well enough to know that when I make a threat, I mean it which is I'm going to give you one chance to tell me what's going on in this town and with my daughter before I have to rip this town apart in order to find them myself."
"Unfortunately, I don't know as much as I'd like when it comes to Charlie. I do know this isn't the first time she's bled black blood," Deaton says.
"What do you mean?"
"A few weeks ago, one of the wolves had an important memory taken from them. In my attempt to retrieve it, she somehow connected with the wolf. When she came out of it, she had a nose bleed except the color wasn't red. It was black."
"And the other stuff? Why did the wolf need this memory brought back?" Kenneth asks.
Another sigh escapes the vet's lips. "The alphas."
In the world of werewolves and the supernatural, it's widely known that Kenneth Kavanagh is the only person that Deucalian, the demon wolf, has ever feared. Mostly it's because the latter learned exactly what happens when someone harms one of his daughters and Deucalian had been dumb enough to go after the youngest-- the only member of the family who isn't a werewolf. If the stories are true, Deucalian had been lucky to leave with his life and because the demon wolf feared Kenneth so did many others. Including the other members of the alpha pack.
