Chapter Text
Her grandmother had always told her that if you were being hunted to find a mom preferable a human to cower with, throwing off the hunters trail they knew who a human was and just being near one would confuse them long enough for you to get away. At least that’s what her grandmother had always said, before she really died. But she didn’t think she’d find a human mom in the forest in the middle of the morning, panting and tearing through the trees limping a little with her injured ankle.
Cursing came from behind her as she darted under a bush squirming to hide from the hunters that were after her, eyes tearing up as a branch ripped her shirt through the middle hitting her torso. She felt the blood start to flow and then the stitching of her body trying to frantically heal all the injuries as quickly as possible. But some weren’t healing, some were made by a special dagger and wouldn’t close.
Tears pooled in her eyes.
“Where’d that little runt go?”
Someone growled around her, she cowered in the bush trying to contain herself from whimpering.
“She must’ve slowed down, that arrow hit deep in her ankle.”
With the reminder the girl had a peek at her ankle and almost sobbed. It looked disgusting oozing with a green and black muck as black veins spidered up her leg. It felt numb and extremely painful all at once like someone was sticking a thousand needles under her skin.
“Look, is that blood?”
“Ssh she can probably hear us, she must be near.”
The forest went silent and the girl strained to hear the footsteps of the hunters growing more frantic as she lost their scent altogether.
“Got you!”
One of the hunters jumped from her left and landed on her with a crash, she yelped and clawed at the man who howled with pain as she caught his eyeball. Blood gushed and he clutched it sobbing and cursing with the distraction she tore off running down the woods following a runners trail.
The girl was not expecting to find a human mom, but like fate had decided she’d soon run into one taking his kids (adults) on a run to get all their energy out.
“Ok, ten laps, GO!” Stiles shouted.
Clicking the stopwatch and watching as Erica, Boyd, Isaac and Scott took off through the forest howling and laughing. Stiles stood by the finish line timing the wolves as they did laps, he had said it was for missions but really they were so cooped up and hyper he had to get their energy out someway.
And this way worked the best for them, plus Isaac and Scott had been begging him for weeks to take them out to the woods so that he could time who was the fastest.
This was a nice outing too, it had been far too busy in Beacon Hills and they all needed a break.
“That’s one!”
Stiles yelled as a herd of wolves raced past him watching as Erica tried to shove Boyd aside, failing and ended up scampering under a thick undergrowth of bushes, sputtering as she exited.
Stiles stood holding the stopwatch humming away before he heard a strange noise from his left, it sounded like someone running but none of the pack should be coming that way.
Then crashing out of the bush was a seven year old girl, max, racing towards him dirty, bloodied and bruised head to toe. She had no shoes on and her feet looked like bloody stumps, shirt torn open at the torso with blood seeping slowly down it. And by the black veins crawling up her leg through her ripped pants that she was a werewolf, a young one at that, and she had clearly been running for a long while.
She spotted Stiles and sprinted as fast as she could, diving behind his back and crouching, shivering and sniffling. She clung to his legs pressing her face behind his knees panting from running so much, Stiles looked down.
“Sweetheart, are you ok?”
She didn’t answer him, only whimpering more than Stiles heard it, yelling came from the same direction as the girl, clearly two older males.
“Where’d did that fucking runt go?”
“I don’t know but when I find her I’m going to enjoy killing her.”
Stiles' blood ran cold and he whistled once, then twice for his pack. Just as the hunters came crashing through the bush, one gushing from his left eye socket that no longer held an eyeball, they eyed Stiles up and then noticed the snivelling child behind his legs.
“Boy you don’t know what you’ve got hiding behind you.”
One snarled inching towards them Stiles lifted an eyebrow, his hand itched for the bat that was leaned up against his leg.
“I’ll have you know, I know exactly who’s hiding behind my leg.”
Stiles growled and the sounds of wolves howling could be heard behind him, Stiles grinned as the hunters looked at each other baffled.
“Hand it over.”
One of them dared coming closer to Stiles, who reached for the bat. The man placed a hand on Stiles arm and gripped tightly with all his might, but Stiles wasn’t about to bend to their will that quickly.
“First of all she’s not an it, second I wouldn’t be going near a pack mother if I were you.”
Stiles tried to warn them he really did, but they just wouldn’t listen. That sucked for them because it was about to get messy real fast if they didn’t swallow their pride and run, his pack was known for being a little possessive with their pack mother.
“You? pack mother? Yeah right.”
The one with two eyes snorted, clearly not buying Stiles statement but all he did was shrug keeping his bat ready as he heard crashing from his right as his pack neared.
“Tried to warn you guys.” A sparkle hit Stiles' eyes.
At that moment Erica burst through the trees glowing eyes golden Isaac and Boyd closely following, with Scott eyes blood red on their tails all looking equally mad that someone was going against Stiles.
“Run.”
Grinned Erica and the hunters took off leaving all their weapons on the ground clearly knowing when to quiet and saving their own skin, the pack didn’t kill unless they had to and they all knew the hunters were full of shit.
Stiles rubbed his arm from where the one hunter had a death grip turning his head to smile at his pack.
The pack raced over to Stiles and he was hit with Erica busting into his personal space clearly not liking that he smelt just a tad bit like the hunter that got too close with him, Isaac came up on his other side scenting him as well.
“Ok guys we can do this later, we have bigger problems.”
Stiles hummed looking down at the covered child she was shaking even more looking up at them with big doe eyes, face almost completely covered with dirt, her hair a matted mass and clothing completely torn to shreds.
“This is a huge problem.” Scott looked at the child, Stiles sighed.
“Yeah the other one is how are we supposed to get her to the house?”
Isaac asked head resting on Stiles shoulder, both Erica and him took up all of their pack moms space clearly very possessive. Boyd wasn’t far off he was just better at hiding it, he’ll get Stiles to wear his shirt at home everything would be ok.
“I don’t think she’ll want to be carried.”
Erica’s voice was quiet, too quiet and everyone turned to look at her nestled in Stiles' shoulder. She was looking at the small child Isaac must’ve noticed too.
“Oh god.”
Stiles could feel the two of them tense and he looked down to study the child trying to piece together what the other two betas had seen, then the sinking awful sense of what the two had seen.
“We need to get her to Derek.”
Stiles whispered lightly, rubbing Erica’s back lightly and watching the child, the bruising on her neck and waist didn’t look good, the worse was the clear bite marks that littered her whole body and from what Isaac and Erica had barely spoken, Stiles didn’t think it was from a hunter.
Only one wound could stay longer on a werewolf and that was a wound from an alpha, and that sinking realisation was hitting the pack like a rock.
“How, she probably doesn’t want to be handled.”
Scott backed up fearing he'd upset the child with his very present and she whimpered softly curling into a ball, not liking all the attention she was getting from everyone. It was a shock to everyone when Boyd knelt down to be eye level with the child.
“We aren’t going to hurt you, we want to help.”
The little girl looked up at him sniffling eyes brimmed with tears, streak marks visible in her dirty face.
“If you’ll let me carry you back to our den, you don’t have to but it would be better than walking on that ankle.”
Boyd nodded towards her oozing ankle, she searched his face and then very slowly she nodded and held her arms out.
“Ok.”
It was a horse and Boyd carefully lifted the girl into his arm placing her snuggly on the side of his hip, her arms looped around his neck and she hid her face from the others.
“Alright, let’s get a move on to the house.”
Stiles gently urged Isaac and Erica to move, both seeming very shaken by the child, and they trudged back towards the rebuilt Hale house to find Derek.