His breathing was deep and steady, while his well-defined shoulder blades painfully realized the hard, solid bark of the tree, which was over 30 meters old. His medium-length, medium-blonde hair was pulled deep into his otherwise clear forehead, blocking the intense blue from his view. A realization that he would otherwise have accepted with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders, as his nature was capable of much more. But right now, he didn't feel like the strong beta of the true alpha Scott McCall, who could release forces from himself that could cost an entire crowd their lives in a matter of seconds. Right now, he was a soaking wet, weak 17-year-old boy who couldn't believe who he was seeing.

"Hey little puppy."

Liam's eyes changed from gold to turquoise blue every second, as if they couldn't decide what they wanted. But maybe it was exactly this feeling that Liam couldn't identify, while he unconsciously pressed himself even harder into the uneven background, which led to not insignificant scratches on his upper cervical vertebrae. Familiar warm lines ran prominently down his pronounced spine and collected at the hem of his washed-out blue jeans. But nothing could have been less of a concern to him, and that was probably not because he realized that in a matter of seconds, thanks to his rapid self-healing, he was almost the same old man. But because of the tingling feeling on his cheeks.

He narrowed his eyes in shock, but it didn't help. The aroma of his scent literally tore him in two, with no way of stopping it. Gasping, the young wolf repeatedly fetched the oxygen he needed on land, but the release he so urgently demanded would not come. "Liam?" His voice was like the first in the raindrops of the sun, tickling his sensitive pale skin. "Look at me, please!" The inexperienced beta reared up, growling and trying not to comply with the request. But he had no chance, his sounds were probably still purely human and his inner wolf had completely disappeared, so he sighed in surrender and fluttered his eyelids. But what greeted him there overshadowed everything else that had come before, and that was not because he knew from the start that he had been right about who was standing right in front of his nose, but because of the eyes that stared greedily at him. Because these, these were blood red...

"No!!!" the panting boy screamed loudly as his body straightened up as if by itself. His gray nightshirt stuck to his trembling body, completely covered in sweat, while his tousled, medium-blonde head turned in all directions in confusion. His room was in the usual nighttime black, the mountain of all kinds of textiles right next to his bed was already taking on utopian proportions, and the half moon shining through the unlocked window confirmed that it was probably still the middle of the night. "Great, not again." The words came scratchily from his dry throat, and the exhausted teenager threw himself back into the crumpled pillows. Once again, the sleep he so desperately needed had not lasted long and once again he had been the one who had prevented him from getting it. But this time something seemed to be different. The young beta could have thought that he could perceive his unmistakable scent directly with his superhuman sense of smell, that he could feel it, like a single gentle touch, that his whole body was pulsing so much that it took Liam's breath away. A feeling that you wouldn't wish on anyone, not even your worst enemy. When the diaphragm sent out twitching alarm signals, the lungs burned and the sufferer grabbed at his throbbing throat, gasping.
The turquoise eyes opened unhealthily wide, while the rest of the body, fighting for survival, thrashed around wildly. The retractable springs of the mattress gave way with a squeak, dust flakes flew high into the air and in the middle of it all stood a young girl, almost a woman. Her long black hair lay completely disheveled on her head, her familiar green-blue eyes stared intensely and vacantly into his face, her facial expression taking on sadistic features before she half-bent over and made him understand something...
"You'd better be careful, little puppy!"

This time Liam screamed himself back to reality in complete brightness. It took him a few minutes to collect himself before he realized again why his sleep had ended so abruptly. Almost panicked, he jumped up to get to the other side of his room. The rimmed teenager tried to ignore the medium-sized wall mirror in the light wooden frame every day, but today, curiosity drove him right into it. He searched his entire neck with his numb fingertips. "I could have sworn it was here," he murmured absentmindedly as he twisted and turned the body part he was touching, but what he was hoping for disappeared without a trace. "I think I'm slowly going crazy," he said dejectedly, his long, medium-blond hair falling over his forehead. It wasn't surprising. With the enormous lack of sleep that the young beta had been suffering from for months and even though he had many advantages as a werewolf over a normal person, he too was slowly reaching his limits. His hearing and eyesight were now quite limited, he moved more slowly and generally felt exhausted and tired. Another reason to avoid Scott's presence, although that would be a pretty difficult undertaking, as he just discovered on the glowing display, which he picked up at that moment.

Pack meeting, today at 5:00 p.m.

Be on time! S.

"I urgently need a shower" and how he needed one. Liam's entire body was completely sweaty and the shock of what he had experienced was still so deep in his bones that he felt like he was going to collapse under the weight of it. Lost in thought, he rummaged out of the wardrobe the first thing that came to his nervously moving fingers before the little young werewolf dragged himself resignedly into the adjoining bathroom. But one thing just wouldn't let him go. It was quite strange to jump from dream to dream, if not impossible? Reality was called into question by the senses that were in the flow, so that the dreamer believed he would never wake up again and then this name with which it called him. Only one person called him that, which only allowed one conclusion for the blood-licking Dunbar. All of this could not be a coincidence and he would move heaven and earth to investigate the matter.

As expected, the young Dunbar stood in the shower for a relatively long time and enjoyed the warm drops of the Water trickling down onto his emaciated bodies. It was Saturday and his stepfather had stepped in at short notice for a colleague in the hospital, so no one else could disturb him, well, except perhaps the realization of what was waiting for him today.
He knew full well that the scene he had witnessed yesterday in Stiles' former medium blue Jeep, which Scott now called his own, would be a topic of conversation. Frustrated, he formed his damp hands into fists, which then began to shake. How could he possibly explain his not entirely harmless outburst of anger and why he didn't react at all to his Alpha's panicked calls?

"It's all your fault." The honest words of his heart echoed through the entire bathroom as the soaking wet boy finally managed to close the faucet and get out of the stall. Lost in thought, he grabbed one of the oversized, colorful towels that completely covered him. Liam was pretty sure he hadn't dreamed while he stood, completely out of breath, on this bridge. The memorial that all of his friends knew, an innocent girl died there, although not in the way that was claimed. Because the culprit to this day remains her own younger brother. The blond, wet head shook like a dog's before he repeatedly looked into the wall mirror of his room and examined himself intensely for the first time in a long time. Worry lines were on the young face, the turquoise iris stood out through the intensely dark shadows under his eyes and the otherwise rosy cheeks looked almost sunken and pale. The young beta froze, he hadn't even realized what a picture he was presenting to those in front of him and now he was no longer surprised by the worried looks that the others were constantly throwing at him. So he had no choice but to attend the meeting. Even though his uncertainty continued to grow as he stared at his cell phone. "Shit! So late already? Damn!"

As quickly as possible he grabbed a hoodie that was lying over his desk chair as if it had been laid out for him. Liam probably found it very strange where it had suddenly come from and it wasn't the right size either, but the young wolf had absolutely no time to worry about such trivialities. Meanwhile the clock struck 4:30 p.m. and his car was still in the garage he trusted, so he decided rather involuntarily to take the bike. As if he were pedaling for his young, innocent life, he stepped on the pedals, which then clicked treacherously. Unfortunately for him, the McCalls' house was exactly opposite his, which he had probably never cursed more than now. Liam could only see his surroundings through a milky film, at the same time he was drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf. His entire organism seemed to want to make it clear to him that the excessive exertion was absolutely not good for him and when he finally saw the house, he simply threw the bike to the side, powerless, and remained lying there.

Completely exhausted, he wheezed to himself and watched the sky, blinking and with his limbs stretched out, as it began to spin like laundry in the spin cycle of a washing machine. It took a few quiet moments before his weakened body stirred again and made its bumpy way to the veranda. He tried as best he could to conceal the collapse he had just experienced, which would probably be an impossible undertaking. Because he was not the only one with supernatural powers and a very sensitive nose, and that really bothered him. "Well then, let's go into battle," he said just seconds later, before turning the knob of the white wooden door with a weak hand grip and pushing it open.

"Liam is out of control. It would probably be a bad time to tell him about Hayden's death."

"What did you just say? What about Hayden?" The young beta stared at his alpha in shock, childishly hoping he had misheard. But that was probably wishful thinking, because the remorseful look in Liam's dark brown eyes showed him something completely different. Even though he hadn't expected it, the whole thing still affected him quite a bit. After all, he had once loved the spirited girl with the full, curly black hair, the pronounced cheeks and the almond-shaped dark eyes before she broke his small, sensitive heart and disappeared forever. So something stirred in him when the young werewolf realized that she would never come back, never again. Or rather, the teenager thought he would explode on the spot as he unconsciously began to tremble.

"Liam, please sit down first, you're completely worn out." Even though he had pulled the black hood of his hoodie down over his face, Scott seemed to be able to see more of his condition, which was what the young Dunbar wanted, and to his chagrin, he was now so dizzy that standing firm in front of the whole group became a pointless undertaking, and he stumbled backwards helplessly. "Hey, slow down, little puppy." Completely stiff, Liam, standing in what felt like high voltage, met the pleasant-smelling person behind him. So he hadn't imagined it after all. The words that hit him early Friday evening on this very bridge, while the medium-blonde head turned around in shock and no one was standing behind him. Trembling resignedly, the teenager had made his way home in the pouring rain, stiff from the cold and from the unspeakable grief that still surrounded him.

Exhaling, the smaller of the two closed his heavy eyes for a brief moment. He would have loved to give in to his desires and lean exhausted against the protective, muscular chest. But his inhuman sense of hearing, which had been playing the worst tricks on him at the most impossible times for weeks, was now fully there and let him pick up every whisper, no matter how quiet, that definitely must not have been intended for his cute ears. "Bring him here, Theo!"
The feeling of the heated breath of the chimera, which was palpably raining down on him. The careful touches of his hands, the warmth of which immediately passed on to him, it was simply heavenly and yet he felt the betrayal too deep in his bones, growling as he tore himself away and spun around wildly.

"What? No!!!" Tears formed in his eyes, which had just opened again, as the hood involuntarily slipped back and revealed what Liam wanted to hide at all costs. He felt completely exposed, while the looks of his supposed friends, painful like deep pinpricks, went right through him.

The youngest in the group hugged himself helplessly. He had never felt so alone, although that wasn't quite true, there was a time when he was sure that the sun would never shine for him again. The day Liam lost his biological parents and locked his emotions away forever in the darkest corner of his bleeding heart. That he had activated the fuse that led to his outbursts of anger? How could a crying boy have known that back then? The only thing the little, still light-blond kid with the intense, round eyes wanted was for it to stop. This unbearable pain that didn't let him breathe and he managed for a while to transform his sobbing personality into an almost arrogant person for whom nothing in life was more important than winning. The fact that this very drive for action would lead him to a falling out with himself was probably another way of his destiny giving him the middle finger. From the very beginning he did not accept the wolf in him. The superhuman being that showed him what he was feeling with every throbbing phase. Completely switched on and ready to explode at the slightest shock. This had been the case for Liam for years and now he had reached a point where he simply could not take it anymore.

Without another word, he turned around, thick tears streaming down his pale, battered face. He wanted to scream out his pain, while his weakening feet could barely carry him down the stairs. But he just couldn't manage more than a whispered whimper. Everything was conspiring against him. And finally, even himself. He crept forward with careful, delicate steps. He could feel the freshly mown grass squeaking under his soles as he reached out for the handlebars of his bike with his aching hands. "Do you really think that's a good idea? You can barely stand, kid." Sighing resignedly, the turquoise soul carriers closed while the rest of him just stood there stupidly. Couldn't Theo just leave him to himself, like the tempting chimera always did? Theo Reaken, the alleged werecoyote who came to Beacon Hills for one reason only.

"I came for a pack.
I came for the werecoyote whose first instinct is to kill.

I came for the banshee, the girl who is surrounded by death.

I came for the dark kitsune.

The beta with the tantrums.

I came for Void Stiles.

That's the pack I wanted.

Unfortunately, it doesn't include Scott."

Just the last sentence formed by his synapses made him feel completely different. From the beginning, this false rat was only out to get his claws into Scott's pack and as the distrust of him grew, Scott became the actual target in order to kill him and become the true alpha. Which, due to Liam's naivety, almost happened. The unease grew in the trembling little human as he turned around, gripped by anger with his last reserves of strength.
"Why do you care? Who do you think you are? Why do you think you have to protect me all the time? Why..."
The arrogant grin greeted him as always and Liam caught himself for a moment wishing he had been left to rot in the hole with his undead sister. The image of the greedy hands, penetrating blood, that mercilessly dragged the screaming false Alpha into the dripping hole, the then 16-year-old had never been able to forget it. Just as he opened this very mouth of hell less than half a year later to let this bastard back to the surface. Liam had been more than unsure at the time whether he was doing the right thing. But there was something in the dirt-smeared face, while the broad arms pressed him against the wall, that changed his mind and, in conclusion, gave the plague a new life. Theo was dependent on the puppy, whether he liked it or not, and it took on this burden, even though something would change between the two of them. But now all of that was history, the sword was finally destroyed and Theo free. So why were they standing here? Panting while their breath formed little clouds on the surface and the older man's green-blue eyes shone knowingly, as if they had a direct connection to the stars? The young beta was more than confused and frowned. Because something about this picture set off the alarm. He just couldn't remember what and where. This color or these eyes or this..."family"

A slap like on muddy mud. On freshly dug earth, where the inmate freed himself and, with a blank look, completely absorbed the fresh, living creature. "No!!!" the cry of the sunken boy was so loud that it even briefly shook the high, solid wall of the Wercoyote alias Chimera. Because it was him who was screaming, the only one he would always turn around for and the first for whom he would kneel and pull him protectively to him.

"Liam? What's wrong?"

It was rare that he spoke to him like that. But in that moment it was probably the only way to bring the screaming boy back to his world and then lose him again shortly afterwards. But not without pleadingly giving Theo the answer he desperately wanted to hear. Even if it broke his heart...

"I'm scared"