Heartbeat // A Derek Hale Love Story (Teen Wolf)

Where Do I Even Start?

A/N: I'm super hyped for you all to read this chapter, it's one of my favourites of this book. Please let me know if you liked it, too. :D

- TAAF_

Derek's POV

Losing a member of your pack was like losing a limb. The grief that ripped through me like claws was only comparable to the day I came home to my home engulfed in flames and my almost my entire family along with it. Losing them was a pain that destroyed me. Tore me to shreds.

Laura was all I had left.

And as I beheld her mangled corpse, feeling the ice beneath her skin... I knew she was gone now, too.

I didn't know who had done that to her, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt why.

She was the Alpha of our pack, and whoever killed her knew it would pass to them if they were the one to do it. The understanding struck a match in me that ignited a roaring flame as I knelt next to her.

The tears of anguish turned quickly to rage that set me shaking like Lillian beside me. I took a deep breath to see if I recognized the scent of whoever did it, but... nothing. Just leaves and rot and blood.

"What are we going to do?" Lillian choked on the question, and I blinked.

Right. She was involved now. The idea of trying to lie to her now about what I was, was inconsequential compared to the half of my sister's dead body in front of me. To the hole it had torn open in my chest. I cleared my throat.

"I'm going to bury her," I murmured, steeling my resolve as I snuck my hands under Laura's blood-speckled shoulders and I stood up with her in my arms. I didn't let myself think about how light she was and how much heavier she should have been.

"What? No!" Lillian protested, scampering to her feet behind me. "This is a crime scene! You could get arrested for tampering with it!"

I knew she had a point, but I wasn't about to stop. I needed to look for-- for the other half of Laura's body, but I couldn't leave Lillian without explaining.

"Where do I even start?" I scoffed through tears as we neared my house, the gloomy, scarred structure that was once where my pack lived.

Lillian kept pace beside me, her heart hammering like an anvil in my ears as I focused on it; louder than I'd ever heard it. The sinking pit in my chest that swallowed everything right in the world only deepened at the thought of how terrified she was. What I'd brought on her.

I laid Laura's body down in the leaves next to the house and jumped up onto the porch to find a shovel. And I'd also have to get the wolfsbane studded rope kept somewhere in the house.

Lillian stayed outside, her panting graduating to hyperventilating. I knew I needed to tell her, but the news that her boyfriend wasn't human was going to do nothing to help her panic. I wasn't even sure if I could find the words to bring more terror on her.

Lillian's POV

Derrek started digging, and I nearly vomited at the thought of what the hole would be used for. He wasn't talking, but I knew he was going to say something. He had to. There had to be some kind of explanation for this.

He didn't open his mouth until the shovel was in the ground and he'd pried up the first of the dirt.

"I have to tell you something," he murmured, and I moved over closer to him with crossed arms.

"It can't be worse than this..." I replied, cursing myself for the tremor in my voice. One I didn't think would be going anywhere anytime soon.

"You might not believe me," he began, driving the blade of the shovel deeper into the earth with a grunt. "But I'm not human."