“I apologize.” The cop finally looked back up at his face, seeming thrilled. “It’s just—it’s been so long. And we finally have you.”
That was a bad word. Not found.
Have.
Stiles wrenched his hand free and took a step back, but before he could even think up a gameplan, he felt a prick in his neck and jerked away, reaching up to slap one hand against it and twisting in the same moment.
One of the others had come up behind him while he hadn’t been paying attention, and his vision began to swim even as his eyes caught sight of the half-empty syringe the guy was holding.
Derek even does up Stiles’s seatbelt, which Stiles thinks he should comment on, because it’s not like he got hit with kanima juice or something. He’s fine. But then Derek’s already sliding behind the wheel, and Stiles keeps losing little pockets of time.
Everyone is born with a matching mark. Someone to care about and for.
Stiles meets his the day after a serial killers burns his home to ground, his dad and mom inside. Social Services doesn't bother placing him in foster care, just snaps a picture, and puts it on the matching service.
He doesn't know what he expects from Peter and the rest of the Hales, but it certainly isn't a pack of wolves.
Everyone knows the Hale’s take in strays—maybe it's in the hope that one day they’ll be willing to take the bite, or maybe it's just that they're pack creatures that take one look at a human without a family and immediately have to adopt them. Stiles isn’t sure which it is. Maybe it’s both.
He just never thought he'd be one of those strays.
There are a lot of things Stiles has forgotten. Some of them by choice, because some memories are too painful and that’s what you do to survive; some of them because they were taken from him.
When Stiles learns that his estranged father has died, he resigns himself to returning to Beacon Hills, a town he barely remembers. He's prepared to clean out his father's house and settle the estate. He's not as prepared for his father's mysterious girlfriend Talia, a series of unexplained animal attacks in the woods, and his own complicated feelings about what family means.
And he's certainly not prepared for Peter, Talia's much-too-tempting brother.
He's ten when his soulmate slips into a coma. He's eleven when he sees his soulmate for the first time. He's sixteen when he actually meets his soulmate.
