Chapter Text
Peter was a bit of an enigma. He was proud of that fact. His family loved him, and with his nieblings he was the fun uncle. To those who knew his reputation as Left Hand of the Hale Pack, he was feared and respected. They knew what he would do for the protection of his pack - even going beyond his Alphas orders to ensure he got the result needed. To those who didn’t know him, who he met at bars and clubs and even the occasional coffee shop and grocery store - he was a pretty face wrapped in mystery and a great one night stand. How could one who created such pain, touch others so softly? How could someone who laughed at screams of pain, go home and cuddle up to children without losing a hint of sleep? Peter didn’t need the answer. He was who he was. He was a soft center, with diamond sharp claws, and able to turn any head he wanted.
Some of the people he tortured, asked him if his pack was disgusted of him. Their taunts an attempt to get under his skin; he would flash them all his pearly white teeth, lengthening them to fangs as he spat ‘no’ in their face. Though he would never admit it, the thought did get under his skin. Had from the very moment Talia listed him as her Left Hand. He was without a doubt the right person for the job, but he had seen how his mother’s pack had flinched away from the steel-eyed man that was her Left Hand. At dinners he sat at the end of the table so no-one would brush elbows with him. The children all quieted down when he walked into the room. Peter himself had always been a little afraid of him - but the man had never seemed bothered by any of it. An illusion that quickly shattered when Peter started to learn from him. The more time Peter spent with the old Left Hand the more he noticed the small tenses whenever the pack flinched, the hint of a sour note in his scent when he walked out of a suddenly silent room. Their fear hurt him. Just as Peter knew it would hurt him when he finally took over.
So, Peter made a vow, a promise, to never bring his Left Hand duties back to the pack. He bought an apartment just shy of an hour away from the pack house, on the other side of Beacon Hills, and after any mission he would go back there. He would shower, scrubbing the scents of blood, fear, pain, and other people off his skin. And then he would decompress, tea, a book, sometimes a work-out, sometimes a favourite show, and on the rare occasion a game. Anything to push down the vindictive, power-hungry, and sadistic emotions that ran rampant during his time away. He was a bit of sociopath - always had been, it was why Talia chose him for this job. But that wasn’t a trait the family would find comforting, so he shoved it into a corner and piled family Peter on top of it. And it worked, none of the children of the household looked at him as anything other than fun uncle Peter. He kept his reports succinct with with adults, enough so that they could ignore the rumors of what he actually did and accept the wolf in front of them.
Still he enjoyed the hunt, looked forward to every mission, sometimes he even searched for a reason to leave just so he could let loose. It was a disposition that would never lead to holding a lasting relationship - though he never let himself think on it too long. He had a family, he didn’t need to start his own. And one night stands meant he never had to worry about those pesky emotions getting in the way - with them buried deep in the back of his mind he could pretend they didn’t exist. He was so good at ignoring it, and indulging in pleasure as he saw fit, that Peter had forgotten they were there. He was satisfied with his life, thrived in it even. He needed nothing more.
Until he did.
It had one of his trickier hunts. The group of hunters were good at hiding their trails, but they had been getting steadily closer to Beacon Hills, and if there was one thing Peter would never suffer it was a hunter in his territory. It took him two months to track down their current hiding place, hitting cell after cell of subsidiary groups. If he wasn’t so proud of his personal hygiene he would be absolutely dripping blood by now. But at last he had found them.
The group had stopped longer than usual, having picked up a magic user, that he could hear them beating on. They were looking for information, but the being they were interrogating wasn’t cracking - his answers just enough to keep his tortures talking and engaged, but never enough to actually give them anything substantial. It was impressive. As he listened, Peter found himself more interested in the man being tortured than in the hunters.
As beaten and bleeding as he was, the magic user was still attractive. The magic user was a mess of blood and pain, but it only made him more compelling, not less. He was tall, with long, elegant limbs that didn't quite seem to fit with the childish roundness that still haunted his face. Every inch of his skin was marked by torment: thin, crosshatched welts from the whip, dark bruises blooming like rotten fruit along his ribs and thighs, dried blood caked at his hairline and along the cut of his jaw. And yet the lines of him – the tendon and muscle shaped by real struggle, the stubborn curve of his mouth, the proud angle of his chin – made him hard to look away from. Even the red, smeared and splattered across his too-pale skin, seemed more like a statement than a weakness. It was as if the pain only burnished his edges sharper, made the lean body more sculpted, the bones of his cheeks more defined, the eyes even more arresting.
Peter had watched this particular interrogation for almost two hours, crouched in silence on the rafters above, safe in the shadowed beams of the hunter’s warehouse. He could have struck at any time; but something about the prisoner’s performance made him linger. This was more than survival. The magic user played the line between defiance and capitulation with a master’s touch. Every time the hunters thought they had broken him, he managed to slip the noose, offering them just enough – a grunt, a wince, a half-gasped confession that made them think their methods were working – only to twist around and mock them anew, forcing them to start over. It was a performance layered with cunning, a testament not just to willpower, but to a mind that refused to be cornered. Peter admired that.
But what fascinated him even more was the undercurrent of joy in the prisoner’s pain. Whenever a new cut opened, the magic user gritted his teeth, sure, but there was always a flare of pleasure in the amber of his eyes. Not a masochist, not exactly – just someone who had learned how to wield their own suffering as a weapon, turning agony into leverage. The kind of person who would never ask for mercy, but might take it out of curiosity, just to see what happened next. And then there was the way he looked at his captors. Not with hatred, or even fear, but with a kind of reckless, amused contempt, daring them to go further. A devil-may-care attitude that made the hunters more desperate by the minute, as if their own urgency was being stolen and thrown back at them.
Peter found himself thinking, again and again, of what it would be like to bring this one to heel. To watch those mocking eyes widen, just once, with real surprise – or better yet, real desire. The thought wormed its way into his head until it was impossible to ignore. Perhaps saving the little fly from the spiders web would grant him enough favour to satisfy his interest.
Peter swung into the room, slipping silently along a back wall his claws noiselessly opening the throats of the two people closest to the entrance. It was the third man he went for that broke Peter’s stealth, letting out a warning cry, the end of it cut off in a bloody gurgle as Peter tore apart his neck. The darn idiot, Peter growled to himself. He ruined his plan, and no doubt would ruin his clothes too. He sighed inwardly, Peter had liked this top.
The man closest turned, his gun raised to fire as Peter jumped him. The werewolf just barely missed the stream of bullets, cashing into the man. The man flailed as Peter’s hand gripped onto his head; the man’s attack riffle swinging outward continuing to spue its projectiles onto his comrades even as Peters teeth sunk into his neck. The next man managed to get a few good hit in. Bullets prepared for a magic user not a werewolf. They still stung as they slide through his flesh, tearing open his skin and borrowing into his abdomen. But as quickly as their trail of bodily destruction was laid it healed. Some of the bullets becoming encased. They’d be a pain to dig out later but for now Peter’s focus was solely on killing every hunter present.
The hunters quickly abandoned their guns. Instead they grabbed at hidden daggers; always prepared for anything, they moved at him with poison tipped knives. This time the damage stayed as they cut open his flesh. For every blow they managed to land on him, Peter managed four to them. The wolfsbane stung as it sank into his blood, a burning trail poison that made his stomach roll with nausea and his heart beat pound erratically in his chest. But Peter only let the pain push him harder. He tore into the next person with double the fury, enjoying the crunch of their bones as they fell under him. Within minutes the lackeys lay about him in puddles of their own blood. Peter whipped around to go after the leader only to see the magic user standing over their cooling corpse, wiping clean the edge of a small jewel hilted dagger.
The chair he had been tied to was a mess of ash on the ground where Peter had last seen him. The man had freed himself and taken down the leader without Peter hearing a thing. He was incredible. Peter, let his eyes rove over the man’s body. His shoulders held tension, and his stiff movements spoke to the pain flowing through his body, but the air around him was coiled with power.
“You asshole,” The man turned to him, his amber eyes blazing with furry. “You ruined everything! Do you realize how close I was?! And now they are all dead, and can dead men talk? No they can’t, that the whole point behind the saying. And I need these men to talk. Now I just let myself sit their for hours without getting the reward. This is worse than the whole marshmallow thing from when I was a child. Okay, I was supposed to get two marshmallows but no! You had to show up and eat it, now I get nothing. How is that fair? It’s not. You’re probably healed by now and I will have to baby these lashes for at least the next week. And for nothing.” Peter felt his eyebrows raise with shock. He wasn’t entirely sure he understood all of what the man was rambling at him but he found the lit of his voice even more appealing now that it was unleashed on him, than he had when he was hearing the sassy one-liner answers he’d been giving the hunters.
Hunters that he obviously didn’t need rescuing from. Peter watched the man pull the boots off the hunter and onto his own bare feet before lifting the side of his torn shirt and pressing the knife flat against his ribs. It disappeared, as if merging with his skin. How peculiar. Peter thought to himself, he itched to slide closer to learn what else the man might be hiding, but his senses urged him to caution. Anger hung around the beauty like a fire storm, burning against Peters nose and causing his wolf to bristle.
“Sorry to foil your plan. I’d hate for you to go home empty handed, how about I make it up to you. Dinner, perhaps, for stealing your marshmallow.” Peter put on his most charming smile, one he knew could cause anyone to melt. But he wasn’t met with the usual rush of lust. Instead the man’s scent burst of a citrus of amusement.
A look of incredulousness crossed the mans features before he broke out in a sarcastic laugh, the sound of it rubbed Peter wrong. If the man laughed, Peter wanted it to be a real one, free and twinkling, with the wide expanse of his pale throat on display. The desire took Peters breath, and made that small box of repressed emotions in the back of his mind jingle for attention. “If you think for one minute I’m going anywhere with Peter Hale, you’re crazy. I’m not an idiot. Thanks but no thanks wolfman. Plus dinner doesn’t get me the information I needed. I’d say see you around but I’d really rather not. Time to go home Todo.” He clapped three times, crossed his arms over his chest and disappeared, leaving Peter alone surrounded by bodies with the sensation of cotton plugged ears.
By the time the shock wore off Peter found himself smiling wider than he had in ages. A thrill of a new kind of chase zinging in his bones. He had no idea who this magic user was but he was smart, powerful, and funny. Peter was going to track him down. Oh they would see each other again, Peter would make sure of it. And hopefully next time he’d get the other man to agree to more than just dinner.