A/N: First story. Big fan of the WOTOW series, and I find Bitten to be a fun TV show that pays homage to the books. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I can only dream about owning it all...

I stood on the central pedestal of Marguerite's Bridal and Alterations, hoping that lightning would strike out of a clear blue sky and rocket through the shop's main window, killing me on the spot. Not that I was particularly keen on being found dead in a sea of pink taffeta, but neither was I overly joyful about having my picture taken in it on the day of the wedding. Somehow I just knew that photo would make its way onto Facebook in a mock Throw-Back-Thursday post. Because this dress looked like it died horribly in the '80's and had only been resurrected for my personal shame.

I'd once had the misfortune of saying it would take my twin sister getting married to lure me back to Bear Valley, NY. Penance for making that bargain? The above mentioned, oft clichéd, pink taffeta, ball gown bridesmaid's dress.

More layers of pink skirting shot out around me than there were clouds in the sky, all sparkling with silver glittery accents. Contrasting harshly—or should I say blending well?—with the silver nose ring, lip ring, and the silver piercing of my eyebrow. You don't want to know what it did in connection with the multiple colors in my hair.

I looked like the ugly love-child of Scarlet O'Hara and Marilyn Manson, flecked with Tinkerbelle dust just to round out my humiliation.

"You look stunning!" Mama Sophia smiled.

Stunning? Not quite the "S" word I would have used. I wisely hid a wince. "Thank you."

"It's so good of you to come home for little Charlene's wedding."

I plastered on a smile every bit as fake as the synthetic cloth I was wearing. "Wouldn't have missed it for the world." I lied.

The smile on Mama Sophia's face took on a knowing quality. At eighty-nine years young, she'd seen more of the world than most people ever dreamed. She'd been sixteen the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, a newly married woman that saw her nineteen year old husband leave for war. Pregnant, too, with my grandfather. When her husband was killed in action two years later, Mama took it upon herself to pick up where he left off. She joined the Army as a translator, helping to develop the secret code used transmit messages right under the Nazi's eyes.

To this day, you couldn't get the old lady to tell you what she saw, what she read, and how she did it.

Believe it or not, she was the inspiration for Peggy Carter in the Captain America comic books.

"I know you hate it here, Charlotte," she replied. "So it truly means the world that you came back for this."

I sighed. There was no use lying to Mama Sophia. "It's not Bear Valley, and you now that. It's the memories."

"Memories can be good things, even the bad ones," The oddly soothing click-clack of her cane against the aged tile floor letting me know she approached before I saw her reflection in the mirror. Soft hands patted the merciless layers of pink with precise care. "The bitter reminds us of the sweet. And the sweet to appreciate the things we have, child. You will always have a place in Bear Valley. It's your home."

There was nothing I could say to that that wasn't offensive or mean. So I didn't.

Bear Valley was a place that time literally forgot. When I stepped out of Marguerite's shop, I felt as if I was stepping backwards in history. The 1960's saw the largest boom this sleepy little hamlet had ever experienced. The inclusion of two production plants at the north and south boarders of the town drove a scattered population of about five hundred into a small city of something slightly north of eight thousand residence. Most everyone in the town owed their living to one plant or the other.

There were three coffee shops in the town—two for tourists and one for the locals. None of them were Starbucks, thank you very much. All the stores were locally owned, with every business tailored to the community. Shops lined the sidewalks of the "downtown" slice of Bear Valley instead of clubs or high end boutiques. Kids still rode their bikes on the sidewalks, and the most anyone ever had to fear after dark was a pack of teenage boys armed with rolls of toilet paper and rotten eggs.

The older women still got their hair set once a week at Miss Millie's Salon, and the men went fishing every Saturday morning while they waited for their wives.

I stood on that sidewalk and closed my eyes, trying to tell myself that I was really back. That I could leave at any time. That there wasn't some giant noose around my neck, slowly tightening with each breath I took.

"You sure know how to blend in."

I jumped in spite of myself. "Thanks, Aunt Karen," I grinned, spinning around to face her. "Or should I say Sherriff Morgan?"

My aunt pulled me into a fierce hug, and I let myself sink into the scents of good ivory soap and the starch of her uniform. I'd always wanted to be like her when I was growing up. She was one of the women in this town that didn't feel the pressure to marry as soon as she was legal and pop out a passel of kids. She'd followed her dreams to law enforcement, and turned convention on its ear when she'd been elected as the new Sheriff.

I'd been away at college when all that happened, trying to forget that Bear Valley ever existed.

"You look good," I smiled, stepping back. Taking in her dark brown hair, her fierce eyes. "I mean that."

"And you look… frightening," she laughed.

I stood out like someone had pasted a clipping from Modern Goth magazine against the set of Leave It to Beaver. Jet black hair streaked with blue, green, and purple, pulled severely back from my face in a high pony tail. Too many piercings to count ran up and down my ears. Big-ass, gaudy, inverted pentagram necklace in sterling silver hanging from my neck.

Long black skirt, black boots, black shirt, black leather jacket… Okay, maybe I had overdone it today. Sue me. I was nervous in returning to the place that had pretty much branded me a witch the day I learned to talk. Was it any stretch of the imagination that I'd dressed the part today?

I grinned anyway. "I don't suppose you get the industrial-goth crowd around here much, do you?"

"Only when their parents force them to come to town for a vacation in the 'good old north.'"

My grin became a smirk. "I don't look like a rebellious teen."

"To me, you'll always be a rebellious teen, Lotte."

It was said with so much fondness beneath the snark that I beamed a smile all over again. "Do you have time to catch up? Want to get coffee or something? I think the usual spot is still open…"

Her smile wilted a touch, becoming something grim. "I'm afraid not. I've got to make a stop before the day is over."

I made a show of glancing around the lazy, near-comatose street. "No offense, but there isn't much in the way of stops in this town. I bet I could walk to the coffee shop and you'd meet me there before I sipped my first cup."

"That would be true if I was stopping in town."

That made me blink, made a tingle run down my spine. There was only one place within miles of Bear Valley that could be considered a stop, and that place had enough rumors whispered about it to make me look like a saint.

Stonehaven. She was going to Stonehaven. And from the look on her face, it wasn't for a social call.

"You're going to the Danvers place, aren't you?"

No one in town said the name Stonehaven out loud without looking over their shoulders. Like it was a curse or something. Say it three times in the dark before a mirror and old Malcolm Danvers would come and swallow your soul. Or so we all thought as children. As adults?

The wind chose that moment to kick up in a fit of dramatic pique, sending a scattering of scarlet-tinted fall leaves around us like loose tears. I shivered despite the presence of my jack. Aunt Karen shrugged uncomfortably. Apparently even the superstitions of children held power in the light of day, no matter one's age.

"Why are you going… there?" I pressed, not sure why I wanted to know, but unable to stop asking.

Aunt Karen gave herself a shake. "There have been some wolf attacks in the area, Lotte."

I blinked again. "Wolf attacks?" I echoed dumbly. "What does that have to do with … the Danvers?"

"Nothing, most likely," she replied. "However their home sits in the middle one hundred plus acres of forest. We've got some uneasy people in town that may take it upon themselves to go trespassing under the guise of 'investigation' if I don't check it out first."

"You mean you have a bunch of idiots with guns and not a lot of income that are jealous of the Danvers family holdings."

A touch of a grin erased the worry line from between her eyebrows. "You always could read between the lines."

"What you call reading between the lines, most people called creepy witch craft," I waggled my fingers at her for emphasis.

She laughed. It was the first real, joyful sound I'd heard since arriving. "I've missed you, Lotte."

"Me, too," and it was my turn to let my smile fade. "More than just a wolf attack has happened to get the town riled up like that. What really happened?"

That laugh became a sigh. "Someone died from the attack. And you know how the regulars can get when they don't have someone to blame."

I shivered. Oh, how I knew what it was like to be the scapegoat. "Yeah, I get it. Listen, can I… can I come with you?"

She eyed me a long moment, no doubt remembering the last time I'd paid a visit to Stonehaven. "Why?"

"It may go easier if you have someone with you. You know, with the townsfolk, I mean. I'm not the most credible witness in everyone's eyes, but I'm better than nothing. Besides, I don't like the idea of you going up there by yourself. I know you are the sheriff and all, and that you can more than take care of yourself. But you're my only family outside my sister and Moma Sophia that gives two craps about me. I'd like to think that entitles me to a little worry on your part."

She couldn't argue with that logic. I saw it in her eyes. "You say in the car the whole time," she ordered. "You may have changed since you left Bear Valley, but most of us haven't. The Danvers still don't appreciate interlopers on their land, so stay in the car. Period."

No one had ever been inside Stonehaven that wasn't somehow related to the Danvers family. I'd always found it amusing that there were so many Danvers 'cousins' that came and went at odd times of the year, but no one who was ever 'father' or 'mother' or 'aunt' or 'sibling.' No, it was always cousins. Save for Antonio Sorrentino and his son, Nick. Those two always visited Stonehaven when Clay and Nick were kids.

Hell, I'd gone to school with Clay for a bit before his grandfather, Malcolm, had yanked him away for private tutoring. Clayton Danvers presence in public school had met the bare minimum to establish him in the system. We'd shared a third-grade class for about two months, desks side by side. And on the times he'd said he'd forgotten his lunch, I'd shared mine with him. Hiding beneath the bleachers in the gym, because he didn't want anyone to see him eating it.

Years later I would understand it was because Malcolm said he couldn't have any lunch. It had to have been a punishment for something. But whatever that had been, I was too young to ask about it and he was too sad to talk about it.

I wasn't lying when I said the rumors about Stonehaven ran rampant in my home town. And more than just isolation bred those stories.

Other than those professing to be of blood relations, no one was allowed past the massive ironwork gates that walled off the properly from the outside world that weren't there on official business.

"This was a bad idea," I murmured, watching those gates swing inward. A tingling had started in my fingertips, a familiar warning that something was going to happen here. Something that, while it wasn't necessarily bad, wasn't exactly good for me, either. "I shouldn't have asked to come here."

Aunt Karen shook her head, keeping her eyes on the road. "Then stay in the car. It's probably better that way."

Said as if she, too, felt the tingling.

There were so many rumors about the Stonehaven Cult (what the town cruelly referred to the Danvers family as behind their backs). Sex cult, demon worshiping, aliens, drug-runners, mafia… Take your pick and it was probably said when their backs were turned. Even the house itself seemed to lend credibility to the rumors, a massive stone structure dating back to pre-civil war days. No one knew how many rooms it held, no drawings on file anywhere that people could access without a warrant. And the land itself seemed to breathe displeasure with each turn of the tires down the crushed stone driveway.

The tingling became a slight tremble, so much so that I tucked my hands into my pockets, trying to hide it. Aunt Karen noticed anyway, a slight frown on her mouth before she hid it behind her cop expression.

I don't know what I expected to see when we pulled to a stop, but it wasn't a twin-pack of Danvers standing on the front porch. I don't think my Aunt expected that, either. That flat cop expression twitched ever so faintly as she put the car in park. Jeremy Danvers and Clayton Danvers reclined causally on the front porch. Clay dressed as I'd remembered in relaxed fit jeans and untucked flannel, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Jeremy in trousers and button down shirt, a vest complimenting the outfit. Also with sleeves rolled halfway up his arm.

Like they had been in a hurry to move something. Or were preparing for a fight.

I didn't like those thoughts, and glancing over at Aunt Karen, I could see she didn't like them either.

"Stay in the car," she repeated, casually loosening her gun in its holster. "I'll just be a moment."

Both men were staring at us so intently I was mildly surprised there weren't lines on my face from it. I swallowed hard, closing my eyes. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. I was fine. I was fine. There was nothing wrong. I was sitting in a cop car for crying out loud, with an armed woman that happened to love me standing not six feet away.

The trembling spread through me like wildfire anyway, lancing up into my chest, spearing my heart.

And then it happened, the thing that I'd avoided for years now. I hadn't had a vision this powerful since I'd fled Bear Valley as a teen. So long ago, in fact, that I'd stupidly ignored the warning signs: the tingling, the falling leaves, and the stir of the wind at just the right moment. It was all coming back to me now that I was home, now that I was in the place that had started the whole thing.

The vision washed over me, propelled onward by the… otherworldly sense of this place. It was old, Stonehaven. Old in ways that had nothing to do with temporal measurements and everything to do with a scale that didn't exist in mortal reasoning. I could feel myself ghosting through its walls, through time itself, drawn by a heartbeat made of earth and rock.

A cage. Myself in the cage. Screaming. And Jeremy Danvers on the other side, a look of sorrow on his features. A blond woman beside him, kneeling before the cage, grabbing my hand and telling me I could do this.

The vision shifted, and I saw Antonio Sorrentino in a fight on the side of the road. A flash of silver and his gut ripped open, his scream muffled as he fell to the dirt.

Another shift. The blond woman shot in shoulder, running from someone whose heart was blacker than death. Knowing that if he caught her, she'd beg for death before he'd give it to her.

Another shift… and I found myself back inside my own skin, staring through the windshield into Jeremy's crystalline eyes. His mouth made movements, apparently saying whatever my Aunt wanted to hear. But those eyes stayed on mine. Pulled at my soul in a way that wasn't a vision and more of a… I don't know what it was, honestly. Just something that wanted me to get out of that car and walk over to him.

My hand was on the door handle when Aunt Karen turned away, heading back towards the car. She broke the line of sight between us and I gasped, leaning back in my seat. Feeling as if I'd run a mile in two seconds.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Aunt Karen muttered, putting the car in reverse and turning out of the drive. "They're refusing to allow the search."

I was never so grateful for shoving my hands in my jacket. She couldn't see how badly they were shaking. "They aren't the source of the attacks."

"It's too early to determine that," she countered, turning the SUV in the drive and heading towards town. "It would have made my job easier if they'd let the search team onto their land. A lot of hunters are showing up in town and it's only a matter of time before one is stupid enough to cross onto Stonehaven land."

"They aren't the source of the attacks," I repeated, not sure how I knew that. Just that I did. Lovely, the impulses were returning right on schedule with the visions. God, I hated this place. "I think they would have handled it if they were."

"You say that like you know for certain."

I kept staring into Jeremy's eyes through the rearview mirror as he and Clay faded into the trees. "Call it a hunch."

The conversation died and I didn't have the heart to try and carry it forward. Not with the memory of Jeremy's eyes on mine, and that vision flash-fried into my grey matter.