My estranged nephew is on my doorstep.

Well, not my actual one, but rather Stiles and Scott's son, Liam Dunbar. He shifts from foot to foot uncomfortably as I walk up the stairs to my front door. Theo's had to go to the animal clinic for something to do with Deucalion and made a brief stop to drop me off at the front.

"Liam," I call out. He turns, his body language rigid. "Hey."

"Hello, psycho bitch that I'm not supposed to be talking to," he says, raising his eyebrows.

"I prefer Arden, but alright." I fish my keys out of my pocket and unlock the door. "What's wrong?"

I step inside and plop my bag on the ground, facing him. "Arden," he says. "Can I come in?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Are you sure I'm not going to murder you in cold blood and sacrifice you to the devil?" I ask sarcastically.

"Arden, I didn't mean it like that," he says, distressed. "Please."

I sigh. "Come in, Liam." He steps inside and I softly close the door behind him. "You want anything to eat?" I ask.

"Has Theo slipped belladonna into anything?" he asks, raising his brows and taking a seat at the dining table.

"Just the stuff in the fridge." When Liam widens his eyes, I say, "I was joking. Come on."

Liam shifts in his seat uncomfortably. "I, uh, I just want water."

"My grandmother brought over, like, enough food to feed the whole of Beacon Hills," I say. "Have something to eat, for god's sake." I pull out a container of food and open the microwave door, punching in the time.

"You're acting like a grandma, now," he says with a chuckle. "I've eaten. Trust me."

"Shh," I say, taking down a glass from the cabinet. "Sit down and eat. This isn't the Red Wedding."

I set down the glass in front of him and when the microwave starts beeping, I pull out the container and put a plate of food in front of the beta. "So what is it that you needed?" I ask before taking a bite of the food from in front of me. "Another gay club?"

A slight smile plays on his lips. "No, actually," he says. His expression darkens. "I really need to ask you something important."

"What is it, Liam?"

"Has Theo...done anything to Hayden?"

I straighten up. "Not that I know of," I say. "Why?"

He bites his lip. "I'm scared he's hurt her or something."

I shake my head quickly. "He rules by fear, but he's never hurt Hayden or the rest of the pack. He's not a bad person."

"Arden, you do know that he tried to break apart the pack, don't you?" he insists.

"Liam," I say, tilting my head to the side and leaning closer. "There are no bad people in the world. You tried to kill Scott, I killed three people about an hour ago. Stiles has killed people, Malia has killed people. We have to kill to survive in the supernatural world."

"But what about the guy who killed your mom? Wouldn't you consider him bad?"

"Of course I would," I say. "But does his pack? No. I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Liam. I absolutely hate Tracy and Josh. I think they're crap people who are nothing more than Theo's lapdogs. But does Theo like them? You damn bet he does."

He pauses. "Can I ask you a question, Arden?" I nod and he continues. "Do you think I'm a bad person?"

I feel a ghost of a smile playing on my lips. "Liam, you're, like, my favourite beta ever. Honestly, if I could adopt you, I would. But Scott and Stiles have already unofficially done that," I say with a small chuckle. I tilt my head to the side. "I feel like I need to protect you. Don't ask me why, but I feel like I owe you something."

He presses his lips together. "If you want to be in Theo's pack, then that's what you want and I'm not going to try to make you feel any different," he says. "But promise me two things. One, that you'll keep Hayden safe. Two, that you won't lose yourself. If you have to kill for whatever reason, do it on your own terms. Theo doesn't dictate you."

I smile. "Oh, come here for god's sake, Dunbar," I laugh and pull him into a hug, mussing his hair.

"Okay, okay," he says, pushing me away. "No need to smother me."

"Oh, shut up and enjoy the moment, Liam."

Later on in the night, with Liam gone and Theo still out, I get woken up by the doorbell. I groggily sit up, squinting slightly into the darkness. Who could that be at this goddamned hour? Theo had a key; unless he lost it, I can't fathom why he would want to use that freaking noise machine, especially at four in the morning.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and slip on the fluffy pink robe hanging from my door. If this is some supernatural shit, I swear to god...

I don't even care about looking like a marshmallow if there's some authoritative supernatural figure on the other side of the door. They showed up in my doorstep at four. What did they expect?

I trudge down the stairs and stop by the kitchen briefly to pick up a kitchen knife before edging closer to the door. I take a deep breath, grabbing at the doorknob and twisting it slowly.

I pull the door open slowly, the sound of it creaking echoing through the hall. I almost let my mouth fall agape at the person on my doorstep.

"Loving the robe," Malachai Parker says. "It just screams badass siren."

I furrow my brows. "Wh-What are you doing here?" I demand.

"It's sort of a long story. May I?" He steps into the hall and I shut the door behind him. "Where's the hubby?"

"Huh?"

He raises his eyebrows. "After our little rendezvous, I asked around to see what you could possibly want with Isaac Lahey. And what I uncovered did not disappoint. I heard that you're the better half of that psycho chimera, Theo Raeken."

I tilt my head to the side, jutting my bottom lip out slightly. "And where did you hear this?"

He laughs. "Now, it wouldn't be much fun if I told you, would it? Look, supernatural creatures enjoy a good gossip as much as anything, Arden." He pauses, furrowing his eyebrows. "Where's the kitchen? It's hungry work teleporting from Oregon to Beacon Hills."

He doesn't wait for me to answer before pushing past me and towards the kitchen. "Oh!" he exclaims. "Yum, cupcakes." He swipes one off of the table and wolfs it down.

"Why are you here, Malachai?" I demand, folding my arms over my chest

He waves a hand around dismissively. "Please. Call me Kai," he says. "Okay, so let's start from the day you asked me to take you to Portland State University. Well, of course it's not everyday I get a siren coming to me for directions to a werewolf, so I was understandably curious. So I dug around a little, and found out you were no other than Ian Caraway and Alexandra Demitri's daughter." His eyes sparkle with some sort of excitement. "You have no idea how many people are after you, Arden."

I roll my eyes. "Is this the part where you kill me?"

"No, actually," he says. "Here's the thing, I don't hate you, Arden, and I need some friends in the supernatural world. I've got information for you, and you're going to listen closely. I've got information on a man called Lucien Caraway in Santa Barbara who's believed to be the alpha."

"Lucien Caraway is the alpha," I say. "He's my half-brother."

"Maybe you're smarter than I thought," he remarks, grinning. He digs into his pocket. "I have a picture."

He pulls out his phone and taps a few times before looking pretty satisfied at the screen and holding it up to me.

Lucien Caraway has big dark blue eyes which contrast against his medium skin tone, a sharp jaw and dark brown hair. The picture is slightly blurry and it's taken at an awkward angle, but Lucien's facial structure is still blatantly evident. He doesn't look much like Lena, but I can see how he's got some genes from my dad. He doesn't look a lot like my dad, but then again, neither did I.

"This is my brother," I breathe. I look up at him. "This is the man that killed my mother." I furrow my eyebrows slightly. "He's not in Beacon Hills."

"No," the witch says. "But I think his pack is."

I straighten up, handing the phone back to Kai. "Do you know anything more?"

He chews on his lip momentarily, clearly deep in thought. "He works in a coffee shop at this address." He sets down a small piece of paper onto the table.

"Coffee shop?"

"Yeah," he says. "Evil masterminds need to pay the bills, too."

"Do you know where he lives?"

"It's the second address," he says, pointing to the note.

I stare at the paper for a second before turning on my heel and heading through the hall towards my bedroom, my steps fast and purposeful. "Where are you going?" he demands.

I stop mid-stride. "I'm going to get dressed. I need to find Theo."

"Do you even know where he is?" Kai asks.

"No," I say. "He hasn't answered any of my calls, which probably means he's doing something overtly diabolical."

He sighs. "He's at an old army base," he says.

"What? How did you—"

"I'm a witch, Arden," he says. "I know everything."

The old army base is a large cluster of industrial buildings, all equally as dismally looking as the last. As I approach it, I see a car already pulled up. Theo. But there's not one figure; there's three. "What the hell is he doing here?" I mutter.

"Well," the witch says. "Considering the stuff I've heard about him, I would say he's most likely going to shoot up the place, but, you know, that's just me."

I push on the door and clamber out, letting my talons extend simultaneously. As I grow closer, the features of Theo, Malia and another woman become clearer. She's beautiful, with skin the colour of chocolate, dark flowing hair and full lips.

And she just so happens to be pointing a rifle at me.

"Braeden," Malia says. "Put it down."

Braeden lowers the gun, her eyes still never fleeting mine. "Who is she?"

"Your friends are nice," Kai mutters and raises his brows.

"Arden," Theo smiles. "What are you doing here?" His face quickly twists into a frown. "And who's the guy?"

"I'm here for you," I say. "And that's Kai. He's a witch."

"Nice to meet you all," Kai says. "Kai Parker. Professional sociopath and witch."

Malia scowls, her eyebrows lowering. "Theo didn't —"

"I'm sorry," I say. "But I have something I need to talk to Theo about urgently. You're not the only one who has problems. You know that, right?"

Malia opens her mouth to respond, but the words spoken next aren't hers. "Whoa," Kai remarks. "Live savage, not average."

I turn around and give him a stern look before turning back to the group. "What are you doing here, Theo?"

"The Desert Wolf is here," he said, his voice low and quiet. "I'm helping Malia find her."

I cock an eyebrow. "And she couldn't do it herself?"

"Uh, hello?" Malia says. "You're talking about me like I'm not here."

Don't say anything, Arden. Don't say anything, don't say anything, don't say anything. "You know, I just think it's really funny how you have time to help Malia find her mom, but don't have time to help me find my brother."

"Arden, I —"

"No," I cut him off. "I know just how important finding the alpha of the Vinceret pack is to you. If you didn't want to help, you should've just said so."

Theo parts his lips and I think he's going to counter-argument me, but then he claps his mouth shut again. Finally, he says something. "I took you to Eichen, Arden," he reasons. "I would help you further but, quite frankly, I think you can handle it on your own."

"I can't handle it on my own! I can barely handle questioning a former pack member, for goddamn sake!"

"Calm down," Malia urges. "She'll know we're here."

"How about this, Malia? I don't give a fuck whether she knows you're here. I'm getting out of here."

I give one last scathing ice cold glare at Theo before turning away.

I hear Kai scurry after me to the car and he barely has time to get in before I start up the car and drive away. Anger bubbles up inside of me and I grip the wheel so hard that my knuckles go white. "You know he was just trying to help," Kai says.

"Trying to help Malia."

"No, he wasn't. He wasn't helping Malia at all. He was trading her."

"Trading her?" I demand.

"Trading her to the desert wolf for something."

"What was it?"

"I don't know," he says defensively. "I'm not an omnipresent mind reading creature, I just sensed his unease." When he sees my blank look he says, "Clairvoyance. I used clairvoyance."

"I thought you were mega-powerful," I say bluntly, raising my eyebrows.

"I am mega-powerful," he insists. "So do you have a plan for this or...?"

I chew on my lip. "No. You?"

"I am the accomplice, you're the one in charge."

I sigh deeply. "Okay, okay. We'll go to Luke —"

"Who's Luke?"

"Luke is the lawyer helping me. Yeah, that's right. I have contacts, Malachai. Anyway, we'll see what he knows about Lena, Lucien's mom, and whether he can get any other information from the police."

"You've got this really planned out, haven't you?"

I ignore him and continue. "So when we finally find the elusive Lucien, we'll follow him until we have him in a good position and then I'll capture him and torture him for information."

Kai grimaces. "Not sure whether to be worried about how casual you sound," he says. "I'm thinking that I can do an illusion spell on you. Make you look like someone else."

"Oh, shit, can you actually do that?" I say in awe.

"Yep," he says. "I'm thinking Kim Kardashian. You?"

"You're stupid, Kai," I say. "What's the real Kim Kardashian going to do when she finds out someone's been traipsing around in her skin?"

"Okay, okay," he says. "God, you really are no fun. I'll just disguise you as some other hot girl, and I'll maybe even find a way to turn down how annoying you are."

"You're a dick, Kai."

We stop outside Luke's workplace and Kai says he'll stay in the car — probably because the weather's too cold for his bratty ass or something — while I drop by quickly. I stride up to the office, unsure if Luke's even here this early. The lights are on, so that's something. The sun has risen by now, and the streets are beginning to fill with peak hour traffic.

I push open the door gingerly and step inside. There's no one at the front desk so I resort to bracing myself to go down the hall alone. The door to Luke's office is slightly ajar and I can hear the faint sound of paper brushing against paper as I approach.

I open the door slightly and peek in. "Luke," I say. "Hey." He's not dressed in his usual proper attire; he wears a jeans and a black v-neck shirt. Although I'd always taken him as a no-nonsense person who lived for their work and probably never took the time to bulk up, he had a solid, fighter's build with broad shoulders.

"Arden," he says in way of greeting as he looks up at me. "Come in." I take a step inside and quietly shut the door behind me.

"Thanks for the file," I say softly.

"Oh, any time, truly," he says. "It was a pleasure to help you."

I rock back on my heels awkwardly. "Is it too much to ask for some more help?"

He takes a step towards me. "Not at all," he says. "Another file?"

I shake my head. "Not necessarily. I mean, I need you to tell me if there's anything that my mom said about my dad's affair. Anything concerning a son called Lucien?"

He shrugs. "Take a seat. I'll see what I can find."

He begins shuffling through papers and folders on shelves at the far end of the room. "Do you have school today?"

"Yes."

"Are you going?"

"I'm going to Santa Barbara," I say. "I heard Lucien Caraway lives up there."

"Are you sure it's safe? Do you want me to come? Today's my day off." Ah, makes sense. No wonder he looked so casual.

"I already have people I'm going with," I say as levelled as possible. "But thank you."

"Be safe, Arden," he says. "You don't know who you're dealing with." He pauses, as if remembering something. "Why aren't you telling the police?"

I lean in close, narrowing my eyes at him. "Do you really think that a human clawed my mom until she died from blood loss? Do you think that an animal would have such precision in carving up her body?"

He folds his arms over his broad chest. "Are you trying to tell me that there's some sort of supernatural murdering troupe terrorising Beacon Hills?"

I swallow hard, setting my jaw defiantly. "All I'm saying is that that was no regular kill," I say. "And I'm going to find out who did it."

"There's nothing on a Lucien Caraway anywhere," he says abruptly. He turns back to me. "Do you know who you're even looking for? Or are you looking for a needle in a haystack?"

I pull out my phone and show him the picture that Kai sent me. "That's him. I know where he lives and I know where he works. I know what I'm doing."

He raises his eyebrows, grinning. "Looks sort of like you, I think," he says, before he adds something as an afterthought. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you're a fucking hacker."

"Not a hacker," I say, getting to my feet. "I just know who I can trust and who are my enemies."

He takes a step towards me. "Do you trust me?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.

I chew on my lip, studying him. "No," I say, a smug smile stretching its way across my face. I make start towards the door.

"Arden," he says, as I'm halfway towards the door. His voice sounds almost amused. "You're trying to play God without anyone's permission.

"And if you're not careful, someday it's going to get you killed."

* * *
Hello my loves!! I'm very sorry but since I've just gone back to school I probably won't be writing chapters as fast as before (I'll probably still be able to do one every three or four days just not as long) and holy shit are things stressing me out, they've started talking about how we need a good ATAR to then graduate (basically a year 12 score to get into university) like IM NOT READY STOP I JUST WANT TO WRITE THEO FANFIC LEAVE ME ALONE,,, Also I was wondering whether you guys liked me sort of going off on a tangent and creating a separate story from the Teen Wolf main storyline. Tell me what you prefer: mainly Teen Wolf storylines or mainly original storylines. Either way, I have to make some parts original because of the lack of Theo in 5b *cries in Greek princess* Also how many of you watch Mr Robot? Just asking because it's honestly amazing and y'all need to watch the shit out of it right now. Until next time,

Georgina xx P.S sorry for the long A/N oops