The problem with killing was always getting started.

It was never what anyone expected it to be, at least at first.

Get a few years of it under your belt and that changed, but when you were young and naïve and clean of it, it was never what you thought.

Take a knife for example. Depending on how you went about it, if you got lucky or not, it was either going to be a lot more easy or a lot more difficult than you'd planned for.

Get lucky, or get smart as the case might be, and you turned your hand, and the blade would slip between the ribs like nothing. Find the lungs or the heart, send blood pouring forth to splash over your hands all hot and sticky…

Easy.

When you didn't get lucky, or if you were just plain stupid, that's when things really got messy.

When it wasn't as easy as you thought it would be.

Then all of a sudden you're panicking, hacking and slashing away desperately in a blinding-hot fury, splattering and slicing all over the place…

Fearful, because you'd fucked up.

Peter could hardly remember those times anymore.

He'd always been one for the mental game himself, manipulation, wearing people down, but there had been plenty of times in his young adulthood, in his other life, when the long con hadn't been feasible and death was the quicker and simpler answer. He'd acted as enforcer, first for his father's pack and then later in his sister's, and even though Talia had hated violence, had always gone for the more democratic solution, it hadn't stopped him from being needed. He'd provided a service, one that he was good at, even after he'd found a mate and settled a bit inside his skin.

The fire, Sarah's death, all those deaths, had sent him careening back to a time when he'd been young and in his prime, vicious, powerful, and aggressive. Tearing his way out of that coma, the death of his niece at his own hand, those things had twisted him, forced him back into that mindset of kill or be killed, and for a long time that was where he'd stayed. It worked really, because where Scott was unwilling to get his hands bloody and Derek was just incapable of doing anything the easy way, Peter was waiting in the shadows with a backup plan.

For all intents and purposes he'd found a place again - protect the pack - and that felt rather right, even if his main directive was and still remained himself. He wasn't above the occasional disappearance when it meant saving his own skin or even just saving him an inconvenience, but he'd never minded being the muscle, if only because it gave him an outlet for his more violent tendencies. Often it came with the added bonus of convincing others to underestimate his intelligence, his charisma when he really laid it on thick. It never lasted of course, but the element of surprise was always nice.

Still, Derek's little ragtag band - well, Scott's now really - actually did get things right every once in a while, even though that was mostly due to the lovely Miss Martin and the incomparable Stiles Stilinski.

Kicking the body of this week's monster into the hole he'd dug in the middle of the Preserve, Peter cursed and touched a hand gingerly to his side.

He never had quite been able to get a full-bodied grip on that boy, and it was his fault that Peter's fingers came away from his side bloody.

He wasn't as stupid as all the others so he would never say it, but sometimes he really did wish the kid would leave the battles to the professionals.

And Peter, he was a professional.

He should have known that knocking the idiot out of the way just a second too late would get him sliced.

He'd thought he had time.

If Stiles' tenuous control of his spark hadn't wavered at the last second he might've.

As it was, he'd gotten three neat, parallel stripes across his belly for his trouble, curving up and around his side, ending just beneath his ribs. The tingling numbness that was spreading out from the wounds suggested that the yet-unidentified creature he was currently burying had had some kind of venom in its arsenal, and he imagined that he wouldn't be healing for a while.

Snarling, Peter pitched the last scoop of earth in over top of the thing and spat on the grave, swinging the shovel up over his shoulder and heading back through the trees towards the new house at a bitter-paced march. After the disaster down in Mexico, his double-cross to cause Kate's final death and Derek's so called evolution, his nephew had gotten some sort of burr in his tail that had him coming back to old territory, using money from the vault to tear down the old house and erect a new one in its place. Strange, since it was no longer his pack, since his betas had dropped off left and right, but the remnants that they could scrape together seemed to enjoy the place. Scott was there on any given day with his new beta Liam, and Lydia, Kira, and Stiles were almost always waltzing in and out like they owned the place. Braeden and Malia had decided to leave, much to Peter's delight, only to be replaced by the computer genius Danny Mehealani and the young deputy Kyle Parrish.

Seemed everyone in Beacon Hills was turning into something these days.

Peter paused at the edge of the trees and considered the house that had loomed up large and imposing before him, whose windows were all lit with a warm, golden glow, spilling light out onto the grassy yard that had been cleared so many years before. This was how things made sense - objectively he knew that. He fit here, in the shadows looking up at the light with the taste of blood still in his mouth. He liked it here. But time passed and fires banked down to ashes, and going in from the cold didn't feel so wrong as it had before.

Strange.

Shrugging it off, hissing between sharp teeth when the movement tugged at the torn skin and muscle of his abdomen, he crossed the wide lawn and pitched his shovel into the toolshed at the back of the house with a cruel smirk and an immense feeling of satisfaction, dusting off his hands and whistling a jaunty tune as he took the steps and ducked inside through the French doors off the back of the patio.

No scramble of movement or barrage of questioning greeted him as he entered, and that was fine because that was how he remembered it. Kicking off his muddy boots, leaving them to filthy up Derek's precious hard-wood floors, he padded in socked feet towards the room at the back of the house that Stiles had dubbed the War Room. Apt, in his opinion, if rather pompous - it had nothing on the office where Talia had always waited for him after he returned from a job. She had been a master of keeping her cool, maintaining her composure in the face of crisis, but she had nothing on her emotionless black hole of a son.

Derek barely flicked a glance in his direction when he entered, just continued to address Scott's pack like it was still his, standing side by side with the True Alpha who still couldn't fully accept what he was. The boy seemed incapable of taking his responsibility into his hands the way an alpha should, even after all these years, and that was what disgusted Peter most about the whole thing. Being an alpha was something that was earned; you either fought and killed to take it or you trained and battled your whole life to inherit it. It should never just come, should never just happen.

Goodness of character didn't mean that Scott deserved to be an Alpha, and it certainly didn't mean that he was prepared to be.

"So this is over then?" the puppy-eyed boy asked, and Peter barely bit back a snarl. He should be telling them, not asking. "Everything's taken care of?"

And there it was, finally all eyes on him to have done the dirty work their dainty hands were too soft and white to be sullied with.

"You tell me," he demanded smoothly, his eyes burning blue, and beside Scott Derek snarled but he ignored it. He was a beta now with no more technical right to rank than Peter had, and he found himself with a growing sense of irritation whenever it came to his so-called pack members. "I did my part; was the warehouse cleared?"

It had been a bloody mess when he'd left, hauling a rolled-up carpet over his shoulder.

"We took care of it," Derek responded gruffly. "Did you get rid of the body?"

"Put it with the rest," he shrugged, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall to kick out his feet, crossing one ankle over the other, all nonchalance even though it hurt. "But at this rate we're going to have to find a new burial ground."

Derek rolled his eyes, brushed him off.

Peter was entirely serious.

Their little Nemeton beacon was actually becoming something of a problem, and if there was one thing Peter had never had a problem with before it was finding a place to stash a body.

"All right then, I guess we're done," Scott said awkwardly, getting to his feet. "Let's go home; we've got school tomorrow."

Peter watched silently as the teenagers began to file slowly out of the room, a sudden wave of weariness coming over him. He was rather exhausted - he hadn't slept in three nights and the fight had taken a good deal of energy out of him, to say nothing of the blood loss. Now his body was fighting futilely to heal itself, and that too was taking its toll, his eyes drifting shut as he leaned back against the wall and the room cleared out.

He was debating the merits of staying over in one of the house's many guest rooms - an option that had the benefit of irritating his nephew to back it up - when the smell of Doritos and Speedstick and Mountain Dew swamped his senses, that and the ever-present wisp of charcoal, a Spark coming into its craft.

Peter's hand flashed out on instinct and caught Stiles tightly by the wrist, a low growl rumbling up from deep in his chest before he'd even opened his eyes.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice like gravel as his irises flared, but the boy just glared at him and grabbed the bottom of his Henley with his free hand, rucking it up around his ribs.

"You're not healing," he stated, just this side of a dumbfounded question, and Peter narrowed his eyes, using his grip on the boy to shove him roughly away. His heartbeat was pounding thunderously in Peter's ears but there was a hot sort of electricity simmering low in his belly where Stile's had grazed his flesh, and he was too close for the werewolf to think of anything but forcing him away.

He didn't like being backed up against a wall.

"Yes I am," he sneered, tugging his shirt back down to his belt as Stiles stumbled back, caught his balance.

He didn't know what the boy's game was but he certainly wasn't going to turn up his belly and expose a weakness to him. Aware of it or not, he was perhaps the most dangerous person in this pack with the exception of Peter himself, and that wasn't even factoring in his developing spark. He had a mind and a deviousness that Peter both admire and respected, and with respect came understanding. Acknowledgment that he could be someone dangerous to him.

A threat.

So it was unnerving that suddenly he had his hands on Peter, was standing in his space where he was used to being the pack pariah, avoided at all costs. It wasn't so bad as it was at the beginning of course, when he'd first resurrected himself or when it had looked like he was siding with Kate against the pack, but he was still uncomfortable with any show of affection or concern, even if deep, deep down some small, insatiable part of his wolf craved it.

But now Stiles was watching him with those huge, amber eyes, calculating, haunted, and yet somehow still innocent enough that they were just begging to be ruined, and Peter was left wondering why he suddenly wanted to know if the boy's hands would be hot or cold against his skin.

He'd thought about it before of course, more than once in fact.

It would certainly be a type of challenge, seeing if he could manipulate the young man into that position, and there were few things he loved more than a challenge. Stiles was smart, and he knew Peter like few others did, saw beyond the mask of charm and charisma that he could slip in and out of like a well-worn jacket.

Unfortunately, Peter suspected that there was something more to the desire than that, and that was the only thing that had kept him from just sinking in his teeth and taking a fat, juicy bite.

Just like that time in the parking garage where'd he offered Stiles the greatest thing he could, offered to take him, make him, and there was something whispering along the back of his mind, something small and reptilian, driven by instinct that said there was more to come. Something greater. And Peter knew how to be patient. This sort of thing was what he lived for, and he lived it with relish.

In this instance though, he was running blind. For once he didn't know the end-game, didn't have a fully-formed goal set in his sights, instead just a pale, gangly boy wreaking havoc on his decisions.

Tonight had been a perfect example.

He shouldn't have done what he did, wouldn't have expected it from himself. He'd…

"You saved my life."

Peter blinked, looked Stiles up and down.

The boy looked as confused as Peter felt.

"You… you're Peter, you shouldn't have…"

"Then next time I won't," he cut in smoothly, easy as anything, pushing off the wall and sidestepping him to make his way towards the door. Pissing Derek off wasn't worth sticking around. "Be less of an inconvenience to me."

"Peter!" Stiles barked, and the wolf almost kept going, just to annoy the kid a little bit more, but then there was a hand on his elbow wrenching him around hard and the young man was staring at him with something like deadly determination in his eyes.

"Thank you."

And hell, what was he supposed to do with that?

He didn't know.

So instead he did what he did when he felt like he was playing against a stacked deck; he shrugged the kid off and he left.