Derek watched as the muscles around Stiles’ eyes finally started to relax. They were closed so that Derek could rinse the shampoo out of his Mate’s hair, and so that Stiles’ didn’t have to watch the blood flowing into the drain.
The stink of it was finally starting to dissipate; the stench of the other Alpha slowly being washed through the sewers where it belonged.
Stiles shouldn’t have had to take another life. Derek hates that he’s glad that Stiles was the one to do it, though. If Scott, or Derek himself, had landed the killing blow, the members of the horrendous man’s Pack would now be something extra they had to deal with. They would have been very, very obedient betas, but they had damage that no one in Beacon Hills had the time, or frankly, the extra compassion, to deal with. The Hale-McCall Pack had their own losses to come to term with.
Stiles hadn’t hesitated in taking the Alpha’s life because he’d taken the lives of three of their Pack, and put four more—Stiles’ father included—into hospital. There were funerals to be arranged, and relatives and several supernatural councils to be informed and dealt with. There was no way they’d have been able to cope with adopting the twenty-something people, many of them the dead-Alpha’s children or wives, into their Pack; the tension would have been insane.
They’d all breathed a sigh of relief when Stiles had separated the guy’s head from his body and one of his Pack’s eyes had bled red. The young woman had gone to her knees almost immediately and offered her own throat as penance for her father’s misdeeds; they’d waived it off, but followed her to the edge of the county.
Now, Derek felt himself breathing another sigh of relief as he could, finally, only smell himself, Stiles and coconut and lime. Derek lifted Stiles’ chin with one hand and pushed his lips lightly into Stiles’. He ran the other hand up Stiles’ chest, over his shoulder, down around his side and then over his ass.
He squeezed Stiles’ buttcheek lightly and asked, “Feel better, love?”
“Yeah. Thank you.” His eyes still weren’t open.
“You ready to get out now?” The water was still hot, but soon it wouldn’t be.
Stiles looked at him, finally, lashes heavy with water instead of the tears that had been there earlier. “Do I smell clean again?”
Derek pulled him as close as he could, and whispered right into Stiles’ ear, “You smell like you and me and over-priced tropical cocktails.”
Stiles smiled, and the stress in his body disappeared and he let Derek take his weight. “Almost perfect, then.” He kissed Derek hard as he turned off the water stream. “Want you to fuck me and knot me so deep that all I smell of is you. Make me forget, big guy.”
The last shutter clicked as a third head rolled across the floor.
Derek didn’t see. He was looking at Deucalion with eyes that could not quite believe. This was the man who had killed his parents and sisters, the warmonger, Demon Wolf, who parents used to scare their children into sleeping and doing their chores. He was dressed in the finest suit that plundered-money could buy, and flanked by women—Derek had heard them called many things, but he believed their names were Kali and Jennifer—who were as deadly as they were beautiful.
Deucalion did not look fierce now. They all looked tired, but the Demon Wolf in particular looked drained. His raids had taken the Argent Kingdom, the Ito Lands, and just recently those of the Hale’s last ally, Deaton. Deucalion had tried before for the Hale Kingdom. That time it had been Derek’s parents’ and sisters’ sacrifice that had stopped him. This time it had been Derek’s rage.
Derek looked at the heads of three of Deucalion’s other advisors on the floor of the throne room, blood sinking into the spaces between the polished boards. The eyes of two of them were cloudy. All of their necks were rough; the blades of the swords used to remove them had had been purposefully blunt. It had been three hours since the first one, and it was starting to stink.
Derek did not enjoy this, but the old ways had meaning to the people, even as they filmed what was happening on their iPhones.
The head of the most recent to die blinked a final time. Its eyes would soon be murky, too.
The she ‘wolf, Kali, turned and listened to something that a messenger whispered in her ear so quietly that no other ‘wolf in the room could hear. Kali’s eyes went wide and the grip she had on Deucalion’s arm relaxed a little, but she did not look pleased.
“May I be permitted to speak, my Lord Derek?” She was polite enough, if you ignored the way she bit out his name. Even if she didn’t die here, in front of the court, she would soon enough; Derek let it slide.
“You may.”
“We think we have found a volunteer for the Recompense.”
Derek couldn’t help the growl that grew in his throat. “I will believe it when I hear them speak.” The last one they had delivered, who’d left just before the third, and most recent decapitation, had been skittish and afraid and unable to answer Derek at all, let alone truthfully, when he asked if she came willingly. “I am still not certain you understand the meaning of volunteer. An hour may not yet have passed, but I will be happy to speed up my executioner’s swing if you continue to attempt to play games.”
It had been a strange pronouncement by Lydia the evening before, but Derek had no reason to doubt his seer’s predictions: Derek should ask for compensation for Deucalion’s attempt on his lands in the form of a volunteer willing to be publicly claimed. She said that Deucalion’s clan would bring him a tribute from their ranks.
The volunteer, Lydia had assured Derek, would be his Mate.
Peter had been the one to suggest the removal of heads for each hour that passed without Deucalion successfully producing the volunteer. Derek had thought it a little excessive, but hadn’t vetoed it.
Now, Kali whispered to Deucalion, and the man’s frown made his face seem even older than the last three months of battles had.
“This person has asked to be offered.” Deucalion had as much difficulty saying that as his minions did addressing Derek with any respect. His heart did not skip a beat as he spoke though, it seemed this was a true volunteer.
Kali mouthed something, presumably a name, at Jennifer, and the Darach also frowned. This tribute was not someone, it seemed, that they were happy to lose hold of. Now Derek was truly interested.
He sat back further in his throne and and snapped out, “Then bring them, now. We will not wait the hour this time.”
The doors to the hall opened again, and Derek wondered if the rest of the room could hear his gasp or see the way his cock had hardened in his pants. The young man’s heart beat was strong and his head was held high. He wore the same robes that had been wrapped around the frightened woman only half an hour before.
Peter whispered to someone, “Be ready to dim the lights and bring the libations.” Apparently he, at least, had heard Derek’s reaction.
Derek stepped down off his throne platform, around the puddles of blood, and over to the soft bench that had been placed in the centre of the room. The young man—he could not be called a boy, he had twenty summers on him at least, if not a few more—had the dark hair and eyes of one from the west, but his skin looked more like one from the north. Derek sucked in a sharp breath and tasted the sharp bite of magic in the young man’s scent. No wonder Deucalion didn’t want to part with him.
“What is your name?” Derek asked the tribute.
“Stilinski, my Lord. I am late of Deaton’s court.” His voice was rich and deep.
Derek’s cock grew harder.
“Do you stand here as a volunteer?”
“I do, my Lord Hale. A year ago I watched them kill my friends and family before they took a handful of us into the
Deucalion
clan. I have no wish to see any further blood shed. I don’t know if I will survive your bite, but I offer my body and my throat to you.”
No lies. Derek stepped closer, and the young man finally showed an ounce of fear. He should, even if Derek had no intention of harming him.
“Very well.”
Derek heard Peter’s whispered, “Now,” and most of the lights faded and the guards started to herd the bulk of the audience out. The Recompense needed witnesses, but only one or two were necessary. Derek’s uncle, his parents’ four advisors, and Deucalion and the last two of his, would be more than enough eyes to observe the physical claim.
The doors clicked shut at the bottom of the hall, and Derek stepped to the end of the bench. Stilinski dropped his cloak to reveal that his skin was even paler on his torso. Derek wrinkled his nose at the Deaton clan-mark high on the young man’s back. It would fade with the bite, at least.
The young man placed his hands on the bench and leaned forward, presenting himself. Derek breathed in again as Peter popped the wine bottle open.
Lydia, no matter how bizarre her predictions, had never been wrong, and she hadn’t been this time.
Derek didn’t even bother shrugging off his jacket. He went to his knees, pulled Stilinski’s cheeks apart and licked a stripe up the young man’s balls and over his hole. All Derek could smell was desire, then he tasted the champagne Peter was pouring and said, “The knot will pull the first time, but I will make this as good as I can for you,” to Stilinski. He just managed to address Deucalion before his fangs dropped, “We accept your Recompense for now. My Mate will decide your fates tomorrow.”
A veces uno retrata a sus amigos y los redescubres. Yo no sabía que Germán le encantaba cocinar, o que tomaban sol cuando podían en esa terraza tropical que era lo que hoy es su hogar. Tampoco imaginé muchas otras cosas, a pesar de todo, abrieron las puertas de su casa sin saber que su felicidad podía ser retratada, su casa y su intimidad cotidiana de fin de semana fueron una de esas circunstancias que me recordaron porque retrato gente, porque retrato amigos y amantes.
These pics make me think Sterek. (Because almost everything does.)
I had the thought that maybe Derek is not really kinky in any sense. Like, he’ll indulge Stiles in almost anything, and will happily join in the fun for Stiles’ sake on a fairly regular basis, but for his own sake, a good vanilla fuck is really all he needs. But then maybe he gets into photograhy as a hobby, just as a general thing, taking pictures of puppies or flowers or, you know, aesthetics.
And then of course Stiles has to go and make a filthy suggestion to bring it into the bedroom, and ohhhh okay yes, Derek could be a fan.
But he can’t just take a filthy, shaky phone cam pic of Stiles’ lubed hole stuffed full of dick like any ol horndog, nooo, it has to be all composition and lighting and goddamn technical things, and for fuck’s sake, Derek, we’re trying to get off, here!
So, okay, for Stiles the whole thing is pretty damn boring, and he regrets all the life choices that brought them to this, because his boner wilts the longer Derek fiddles with settings and moves them around to catch the light, but somehow Derek’s dick never really goes down. Stiles blames werewolf stamina, ugh, fuckers. Stiles just reaches a point where it’s just -sigh- okay, look, do your thing, I’m gonna put on my hoodie now, cause it’s cold as balls in here, and it’s not like we’re moving much to heat up anymore. And I might as well do my studying while you finish up back there, k? k.
So he’ll literally just be hanging there, wondering if this is how omegas feel in all those knotting fics, while Derek is doing his thing. And Stiles only complains a little bit, because he DID ask Derek, repeatedly, on a regular basis, if there was anything kinky HE’D like to try, and if this turns out to be the answer, then Stiles can deal, he’s an accepting boyfriend.
But the thing is, Derek really does get off on it. The more perfect he gets the shot, the more he really captures the beauty of Stiles’ back, his gorgeous ass, even his slightly disgruntled face? The harder he gets, and by the time he’s finally happy with the shot, and manages to fire off a few frames, catching it just right? That’s when he tosses the camera aside and fucks Stiles through the goddamn floor, and OKAY, Stiles is back in the game, totally approving of this, 100%.
At least right up until the next time he spends 20 mins on hold while his boner deflates. Oh well. He can learn to live with it. Derek went along with the Han Solo roleplay, Stiles can deal with this.
shealwaysreads 