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The arrow embedded in Cora’s arm hurt more than anything had in her life. It was a simple wolfsbane-covered arrow, dangerous but not deadly, and yet Cora felt like someone had stabbed her straight through the chest, tearing her heart to pieces.
It wasn’t about the arrow, nor was it about the pain. God, things would have been so much easier if the problem was the weapon. Unfortunately, Cora’s life tended to be the furthest thing from simple as one could get, and this time was no exception. Because the problem wasn’t the injury; the problem was the huntress behind the injury. The problem was Allison Argent, staring at Cora as though she had never seen her before, her eyes flashing dangerously.
The problem was Allison’s father, patting his daughter’s shoulder proudly, as though she had just achieved a great feat. The problem was Cora and her tendency to forget people weren’t made of their best traits. It was her inability to forget people were flawed, no matter how perfect they appeared on the outside.
“She’s a bitch,” Isaac snarled from his position next to her, pulling the arrow out of Cora before she could so much as protest. “A bitch who deserves everything that’ll come for her eventually.”
Cora knew Isaac was trying to rile Allison up, trying to get the Argents to make another move, but the hunters were already walking away from the scene, blank looks plastered on their faces. It shouldn’t have hurt so much, seeing Allison staring at her impassively, but Cora had gotten so used to that brown gaze being full of humour and love that the change was almost too much for her to handle.
“She’s just doing her job, Isaac,” Cora murmured. “I hurt a human, no matter how accidental it was, and it’s her duty to make sure I get the proper punishment.”
“Well her duty is crap,” Isaac snapped, pulling Cora up from where she had fallen on her knees, her jeans completely ruined by the dirt. “Besides, we all know Stiles hardly counts as an innocent and uninformed party. He knew what he was getting into when he stayed with us during the full moon, and he doesn’t regret a second of it. He got out with barely more than a scratch, and you guys hugged. I don’t know why Allison felt like she needed to do this, but it’s utter nonsense.”
“It’s what she’s been taught to do,” Cora sighed, biting back a wince as she accidentally twisted her arm in an effort to grab her discarded bag. “It’s not pleasant, and I’m not saying it won’t cause issues for us later, but it’s necessary. She didn’t enjoy this any more than I did, you know.”
“No, I don’t,” Isaac answered immediately, his gaze darkening as he stared towards the preserve’s exit, right where Allison and Chris were currently standing. “I don’t know, because she’s apparently gotten good enough at hiding her emotions to make it impossible for us to smell them. I thought she was… Damn it, Cora, she wasn’t meant to do this.”
“The only human in our pack is Stiles, Isaac,” Cora said gently, holding back her usual bluntness to comfort one of her favourite packmates. “Allison is our friend, your friend, but she’ll never be part of the pack. She’s a nice person, especially for a hunter, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s a hunter and will always despise us a little bit.”
“It’s messed up,” Isaac grit out, obviously trying to hold back tears of frustration. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I shouldn’t have to deal with this. She’s supposed to be on our side, but lately it feels like she’s been pulling away and becoming more and more like her father. More like-”
“No,” Cora shut that idea down instantly. No matter how strange Allison had been acting over the past few weeks, she was nowhere near as insane as some of her other family members. “She’s nothing like Kate. The only thing they have in common is a family, and I think we all know the apple sometimes falls far from the tree.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Isaac grumbled, but Cora knew he had gotten her point. It was one thing to blame Allison for her own, slightly misguided actions; it was another to blame her for her family’s bad history. “We should get you to Deaton, though, or at least to Derek. That wolfsbane will need to be taken care of, and I really don’t want to deal with our Alpha’s wrath if he finds out I didn’t look after you properly.”
“Tell Derek I’ll be back later,” Cora said, completely ignoring everything else Isaac had to say. She loved the boy, but there were some things she couldn’t do with him around, and this was one of them. “I won’t let my wound get infected, and I’ll make sure to get the proper treatment. You should go.”
“Cora, you can’t seriously be saying what I think you’re-”
“Go, Isaac,” Cora cut him off, her eyes never leaving the row of trees separating them from the hunters. “I’ll be fine.”
The younger boy opened his mouth, obviously ready to protest, but some of Cora’s exhaustion and yearning must have shown on her face, because he only glanced at her one last time before huffing and running away. She wondered how long it would take for him to find Derek and drag her big brother back to the scene of the ‘crime’. Not that it mattered, since she would be long gone.
Still, her heart warmed at the reminder that her pack cared about her, no matter how rocky her integration had been. They were far from the perfect family; Derek was still too stubborn, Peter still too crazy, Cora still too unattached, the betas still too hesitant, but they were getting there. Now, if only Allison could cooperate with Cora’s idea of perfection…
The brunette snorted. Right, as though that had ever been an option.
“You can come out, Ally,” Cora said, loud enough that the huntress would hear her, but quiet enough that Chris would remain conveniently oblivious. “I know you’re lurking around like the bad little huntress you are.”
Allison huffed underneath her breath, a broken little sound, and Cora glanced in her direction as she waited for the younger woman to make an appearance. When she did, she looked decidedly sheepish and more than slightly pained, and Cora’s heart broke all over again.
God, they were messed up.
“Come here,” she whispered, knowing Allison would catch her words, superhuman hearing or not. “Please.”
The plea seemed to do it for the huntress, since Allison was rushing towards Cora less than a second later, wrapping her in a delicate embrace that was clearly meant to soothe the werewolf. Unfortunately, a single hug wasn’t going to solve their many problems, especially not after the events of that day.
“I’m sorry,” Allison murmured, sounding painfully honest.
Cora believed her. She had to, given the way Allison’s heart stayed steady and sure as she spoke, no sign of a lie anywhere. So she believed her, as she always did when Allison apologised for something she had done whilst on hunter duty. It was becoming a bad habit, and one Cora knew would break them up eventually.
“You’re still hurt, aren’t you?” Allison asked softly, letting one of her fingers linger over Cora’s wound. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but Cora had gotten used to being handled roughly a long time ago, so Allison’s gentle touches didn’t even phase her. “I shouldn’t have used one of the wolfsbane arrows. I should have just stuck to silver.”
“Your father wouldn’t have let you do that,” Cora pointed out. “And you wouldn’t have been doing your job properly, which wouldn’t have been good for either of us.”
“I shouldn’t have to do this, Cora,” Allison insisted, her hands fisting into the werewolf’s leather jacket as she spoke, her voice dripping with passion and sadness. “I shouldn’t have to hurt the woman I love just to show my father that I can still hunt even when I’m dating a werewolf.”
“It’s either that or sneaking around, and we both know how well that went the first time around,” Cora reminded her, knowing she sounded more dejected than she should have. Allison hated seeing her cry, which was the only reason why Cora was keeping her usual masks up. If she took them down now, she was almost certain she would burst into sobs. “Look, Ally, I know you didn’t mean it. I know you didn’t want to hurt me, and that’s more than enough.”
“No, it’s not,” Allison shook her head. “It’s so far from enough, Cora, and you don’t even seem to realise it because despite everything my father says about you, despite what the rest of the pack thought at first… You’re not cold-hearted, Cora, and you’re not made of stone. You shouldn’t have to deal with abuse doled on you from your own girlfriend just because I’m too cowardly to stand up to my parents.”
“I mean, with a father like Chris Argent, I can’t say I blame you,” Cora shrugged, ignoring the way her heart pounded at Allison’s sweet words. She couldn’t let herself get attached; that was the one rule she had set for herself when Allison had first kissed her, and she couldn’t break it now. She couldn’t get attached to a huntress, no matter how pretty she was when she smiled or how kind she was when she got away from her insane family. “I’m fine, Allison, you barely even scratched me. Believe me, I’d much rather get shot by my girlfriend than by my girlfriend’s father.”
“And I’d much rather you not have to get shot at all,” Allison retorted. “Is that too much to ask for?”
“I don’t know, Allison, is it?” Cora threw her hands in the air, pushing herself away from Allison and dodging the younger woman’s arms when she tried to reach for her again. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to get out of this conversation. Do I want to get shot at by my girlfriend? No. But I also clearly can’t do anything about it, since you’ll come to hunt me down even if the only thing I did wrong was accidentally scratch Stiles in my enthusiasm to cuddle with the pack. So I don’t know if asking not to get shot at is too much to ask for, because you don’t seem to have an issue with it when it comes down to the finer details.”
“Cora, come on, that’s not… You know that’s not true,” Allison winced, but her hands curled around her bow – which she was still carrying, even though it had made Cora bleed less than ten minutes earlier – when the werewolf took a step in her direction.
“You hunters will always be afraid of us, no matter what we do to prove you can trust us,” Cora whispered, shaking her head sadly when Allison tried to deny her words. “I know you love me, Ally. I know you do, alright? And stupidly enough, I think I might have grown to love you a little bit too, no matter how many warnings Derek gave me about this exact scenario. But love will only get us so far.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Allison breathed out, her voice sounding more devastated than Cora had ever heard it.
She was contradicting herself without even realising it, and it only served to make Cora angrier – or more heartbroken, perhaps. Was it really so hard for Allison to understand that Cora wanted her to stop? Was it really such a stretch for Cora to expect her girlfriend to defend her against her father’s misguided intentions?
“I don’t know either,” Cora finally said, brushing away Allison’s tear with the pad of her thumb. “But I think you should take some time for yourself and ask yourself a few important questions. Think about what it would mean to truly be with me, beyond the relationship we’ve been maintaining so far.”
A relationship that consisted mostly of kisses behind their friends’ backs and sweet nothings murmured when Allison thought Cora was asleep. A relationship built on serious conversations that always stayed just a tad too superficial for either of them to know what was going on in the other’s head. A relationship that was comfortable, but too flimsy for Cora’s tastes.
“Are you breaking up with me?” Allison murmured, and Cora knew she was thinking about the terrible way Scott and she had parted when their relationship had fallen apart. “Is this your way of saying you’ve finally had enough of hanging out with a huntress?”
“This is my way of giving you an out, Ally,” Cora smiled sadly, brushing her fingers against Allison’s cheek and breaking her own heart when the huntress leaned into it greedily. “This is me telling you to think about what it means for you to date a werewolf. This is me asking you to think about whether or not you’re ready to start choosing me over your family, because I’m not sure I can deal with this for much longer. I’m a werewolf, Allison, and that’s never going to change. You being a huntress, though? That’s far more subjective, and I don’t want to get attached to you if you’ll only kill me in the end.”
“I would never-”
“Wouldn’t you?” Cora inquired, suddenly feeling more tired than she had in months. “If your father had come to you today, saying I had killed someone during the full moon, can you promise me you would have held back and kept me safe?”
Allison hesitated, and that was the only answer Cora needed. She didn’t want to be with someone who hesitated, no matter how much she cared about Allison. The only thing she could hope for now was that Allison would choose her in the end. Maybe time apart would be good for them, no matter how much it broke Cora’s heart to step away from the woman she lo- the woman she cared about.
“What if I can’t choose?” Allison sounded so young, and Cora was suddenly reminded of how little the woman had experienced in her short life. She hadn’t lost her family, hadn’t had to deal with people trying to kill her – except maybe Peter, but Peter was absolutely crazy – and didn’t have to live in fear of someone finding out about her secrets. “What if I take all the time in the world to think, and I still can’t choose?”
“Then you’ll never have to see me again,” Cora answered. You’ll never see me again would have been more appropriate, but she wasn’t sure Allison was ready to hear that. She hadn’t seen the darker sides of Cora’s mind yet, the ones screaming at her to run and leave the pack behind, and now wasn’t the time to let those demons out. “I won’t be your second choice, Ally.”
“But you love me,” Allison said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You told me you loved me.”
Except Cora couldn’t love her. She couldn’t love someone the way she had once loved her family, absolutely unconditionally, because she couldn’t lose them again. She had barely agreed to let Derek back into her heart, and he had to love her the same way she loved him. She had told Allison she loved her, but until the younger woman could promise her something more, Cora wouldn’t be able to tell her again.
“I love the people who choose me, Allison,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could, well aware that her eyes were probably red from her efforts not to cry and that her shoulder was still dripping with blood, aching fiercely from the wolfsbane.
“I could choose you,” Allison whispered. It sounded like a question. It sounded like a promise. It sounded too far away for Cora to hold onto it, so she tugged the huntress close to her and breathed in her scent, wondering how on earth she would get through pack meetings with the woman around. “I could.”
“And maybe you will,” Cora said, a hint of hope making it into her voice. “But until then, you should think. Talk to your dad or whoever else you usually go to for advice and choose me. Or don’t, that’s completely up to you.”
“But you want me to choose you, right?” Allison asked, and there she was. There was the woman Cora had fallen for. There was the brave and loyal huntress who had a sharp tongue and an even sharper aim. There was the loving girl who would burn the world down for her friends and family. “You’re not just asking me to do this because you want me to leave and choose my dad and never see you again, right?”
“No, Ally, that’s the last thing I want,” Cora admitted, even though it pained her to say those words out loud. It was dangerously close to attachment, and the last thing Cora wanted was another link holding her back in Beacon Hills. Derek had already been a mistake.
(He wasn’t a mistake, she knew, and neither was Allison. Sometimes fear worked in mysterious ways.)
“I still love you, even though I think taking time apart is the worst idea you’ve ever come up with,” Allison whispered, tilting Cora’s chin up and pressing their lips together lightly. The touch was – as always – enough to set Cora’s entire soul on fire, and the only thing that kept her from reaching out and kissing Allison more deeply was the certainty that space was exactly what they needed. “I can’t promise you anything, you know, but…”
“I know,” Cora cut her off, her eyes blazing with understanding. Family was a complicated thing, especially in a world of hunters and werewolves. “Now go.”
Allison lingered for a moment longer, slipping something into Cora’s hand and squeezing her fingers one last time before stepping away and all but sprinting out of the preserve. Once she was gone, her scent the only thing left behind, Cora looked down at her hands and almost broke into a fit of hysterical sobs when she caught sight of the anti-wolfsbane cream Stiles had created less than a month earlier. Of course Allison had had some all along.
She rubbed it into her shoulder before she could think anything more of the gift, sitting cross-legged on the ground and knowing she should leave if she didn’t want Derek to find her alone and broken. And yet, as the cream soothed her aches and clung to her heart, she found that she couldn’t move. She couldn’t bear to do anything other than stare at the jar in her hands, at the blood dripping from her clothes, at the trees Allison and her father had burst from earlier.
Derek found her less than ten minutes later, having probably caught both hers and Allison’s scent. She wondered how much Isaac had told him about the confrontation; wondered how fast he had bolted from the loft once he had realised what was going on. Most importantly, wondered when she had become so dependant on her brother’s presence and comforting words.
“Oh, Cora,” he murmured as he dropped onto his knees in front of her and wrapped his arms around her far more tightly than Allison had. The touch grounded her and, as Cora took in his familiar scent, she tried to force all thoughts of her huntress out of her mind. “So much for no attachments, huh?”
A broken laugh tore past her lips, and she clung onto her brother even tighter as he lifted her up and cradled her close to him, as though she was something precious, something he needed to protect. It never ceased to amaze her, the many ways in which Derek had changed since she had come back from South America. He was better now, not even hesitating to touch her even though she probably reeked of Argent, and Cora couldn’t have been more thankful.
“I want her to choose me,” she whispered a few minutes later, just as Derek placed her in the passenger seat of his car. He looked down at her then, his hazel eyes full of love and understanding and sadness and caressed her cheek ever-so-gently.
“She will,” he said, his voice radiating of certainty. “Allison is a smart woman, and anyone with half a brain knows that you’re the best option, no matter who’s up against you.”
And even though Allison herself hadn’t been sure, even though a part of Cora told her family would always come first and Chris would always surpass her, even though she was too broken to be someone’s first choice, she let herself believe in her brother’s words.
Allison loved her, and she would choose her the same way Cora had chosen her repeatedly, even as she told herself she was unattached.
Fear worked in mysterious ways, but love even more so.