┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter one!
SIX SUPERNATURALS AND
A HUMAN WALK INTO
A BAR
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

( the dark moon, pt. i )

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

IF DOMINIC CAN MAKE it out of this nightclub alive, he'll start going to synagogue every Sabbath again. Mark his words.

The music pulses against the constraints of the walls, ceiling, and floor, causing the sticky, alcohol-soaked wood to buzz beneath his sneakers. His heartbeat is synced to the beat of each wild, electronic song that blares from the massive speakers near the DJ booth. People are everywhere. Dancing against each other, ordering drinks at the bar, or socializing on the sidelines. There's barely any room for breath.

Luckily, heat isn't a problem for him. Almost everyone around him is slick with sweat, including the half-naked bodies of topless men that are sprinkled throughout the crowd. Four months ago, his button-down shirt would've been stuck to him like a second layer and his hair would be plastered to his forehead, the chestnut curls turned a cedar brown from sweat. But the club may as well be room temperature from his body's lack of reaction.

In an effort to fit in, he'd ditched his usual hoodie and donned a red and black striped button-down with short sleeves, a silver necklace that dangles around his throat, and black jeans with a chain attached to his belt. Definitely more flashy than his typical style, but from the appreciative looks he gets from some people he passes, it doesn't make him look stupid.

His heart skips a beat at the sight of a tall, lanky boy weaseling his way through the crowd with a strawberry-blonde girl in tow. It's like his body is a compass and Stiles Stilinski is his true north; no matter how crowded the room, Dominic can always find his boyfriend in seconds.

A tap on the shoulder rips his attention away from the newcomers. He turns to see his best friend, Vera Pérez, frowning at him.

"Having fun?" she asks pointedly.

"Yeah," Dominic replies. "Sorry."

He's not supposed to pay attention to Stiles or Lydia lest they tip off the Calaveras of their attendance. But he can't help that his eyes automatically search for Stiles and his head is cloudy with worry. He and Lydia will be speaking with the head of the Calavera family, Aaraya, a ruthless werewolf hunter, alone. One wrong word will get their heads blown off before they get the information they came for.

Vera, of course, has no problem blending in, effortlessly conversing with those around her in perfect Spanish. With her naturally tanned skin from her immigrant parents, her brunette hair styled in messy waves, and a skin-tight, sheer black top that displays her black bra underneath, she looks like a native who just came here to party.

"Loosen up," Vera tells him. "Here."

She waves at a waiter who balances a tray precariously as he weaves through the horde of dancers surrounding them. "Disculpe, señor, ¿podemos tener uno de esos?"

The man raises a brow at her accent as he passes her a shot glass filled to the brim with clear liquid. "Eres de aquí?"

"La república dominicana," she replies with a shake of her head. "Y mi amigo... es de estados unidos. No habla español."

"Se ve asustado," the waiter says.

"Lo sé. Gracias." Vera hands Dom the shot, causing the vodka to slosh over the rim and drench his fingertips. "Bottoms up."

"I do not look scared," he mumbles defensively before downing the shot, cringing at the fiery taste of cheap liquor. At least that's one type of burn he can still feel.

Vera pats him on the shoulder. "'Course you don't. I'm gonna go make sure nobody else is messing up."

Leave it to her to assume the worst of her friends. But, to be fair, she's usually right.

Dom shakes his head to clear the jumbled thoughts jammed in his head. Though it had only been one shot, he doesn't drink much, and he can already feel the alcohol warming his bloodstream and loosening his tight limbs.

He supposes he has the advantage of not looking like he knows Spanish. After being neighbors with Vera since they were babies, he's able to understand most of the conversations he hears, even if he's used to Vera's Dominican accent and slang with the occasional Puerto Rican one thrown into the mix. That's why he turns his head when a guy says, "— las chicas calientes —" to his friend and nods at a spot toward the center of the dance floor.

Attention has turned to Vera, who is sandwiched between Malia Tate and Kira Yukimura, two new additions to the pack. Dom isn't surprised that Kira had been the next to start freaking out — she's more of an introvert, and the first time she'd spoken to them, she'd stumbled over her words and rambled about Bardo.

Malia has turned out to be a much more confident person than Dom was expecting her to be, having been trapped in the form of a coyote for eight or so years. She and Vera guide Kira into acting more relaxed and letting her body move with the beat of the music. The style of dance is deliberately tantalizing. Their faces are almost touching, fingertips skirting along hips and backsides, but never giving fully in.

It's the perfect distraction.

Something stirs in Dominic's gut, a supernatural pull in his navel that causes him to look through the crowd until he finds Scott McCall. He jerks his head toward the front door and jabs a discreet finger at the back.

Dom doesn't know if he'll ever get used to the power Scott has over him as his Alpha. He's known about the supernatural since he was five, thanks to Vera being close as siblings to a family of werewolves called the Hales, but he wasn't anything except human until a few months ago. He was in his family's shed in the backyard, doing his little brother's science experiment, when he'd accidentally started a fire and passed out.

He'd woken up covered in soot, unaware that he was presumed dead, reborn as a phoenix.

So now he's Scott's bitch or something. Which really isn't all that bad. He could have a worse Alpha, like Peter Hale, who had tried to kill them all a year ago.

Dom slips through the crowd, pretending to stumble a bit as if drunk, his eyes darting around the room for the back exit. At only five-foot-eight, this is difficult. He doesn't want to stand on his toes while he walks, so he just dodges his way through the dance floor and hopes he winds up somewhere useful.

He passes a series of hallways and a bathroom that has the distinct sounds of two people going at it coming through the door. Oddly enough, it's the perfect excuse when a hand plants on his chest and halts him in place.

"Where do you think you're going?" a man's gruff, accented voice asks.

Dom follows the arm up to see the most intimidating-looking man he's ever seen in his life. He has a neatly trimmed mustache, slicked-back hair, and a permanent frown etched onto his face. Not to mention he clears six feet and is as wide as a linebacker. Dom would know he's a Calavera even without the tattoo of a bullet on the side of his face.

He continues to play the drunk act. "Gotta take a leak."

The man jerks his head toward the black door to their left. "Bathroom is right there."

"Can you hear that, man?" Dom asks, slightly slurring his words and swaying on his feet. "I don't wanna interrupt whatever those two people're doin'. Figured you don't want me pissin' on your floor, so I was gonna at least take it outside."

Bullet Tattoo mumbles something in Spanish about Americans and steps aside. "Go."

"Thanks, man. You're a real one."

Dom squeezes past him and continues down the maze of back corridors until he finds a glowing exit sign. The door is propped open to the evening air, but it doesn't provide any freshness to the stale corridor. Instead, the stenches of reeking garbage, human waste, and several other unsavory things waft into the club. He wrinkles his nose and suppresses a gag, not wanting to alert the guard stationed just outside.

"Nadie en la cantina," a voice reports over the guard's radio.

"Front door clear," another says.

"South clear," the guard adds.

Dom creeps closer, trying to keep his breathing as quiet as possible. He remembers what Vera had taught him and repeats it like a mantra in his head. If he fucks this up, this mission will quickly derail.

The guard stands in the back alley, his eyes darting around at every external sound from the city. He's focused on making sure other people don't sneak in— so focused that he doesn't notice Dom approaching from behind, allowing him to strike the man in the vagus nerve in the back of his neck with a knife-hand blow.

The man collapses instantly. Dom catches him before he can fall, thanking his athletic build for allowing him to hold all two hundred pounds of his dead weight. He lowers the guard to the wet pavement with a cringe. Hopefully he isn't putting this guy in piss.

"North? ¿Norte?" a different voice asks through the radio. "¿Dónde está el norte?"

A moment later, Scott's response sounds through the speaker. "Stiles, take ten off the table."

Relief floods through Dominic's veins. Both the north and south guards are incapacitated now, and they're applying pressure to the Calaveras. He can only hope it'll be enough for them to reveal Derek Hale's location. If not, they came all the way to Mexico for nothing.

Derek had disappeared from Beacon Hills last month. While he has a knack for abrupt disappearances, he'll usually tell Vera where he's going so she doesn't worry. But this time he'd been there one day and gone the next, with nothing in his loft except bullets with the signature Calavera skull engraved in them.

Weeks' worth of planning had led them here, south of the border, ready to bargain with dangerous hunters. They had all been nervous about this plan. Except for Vera. When it comes to getting the man she considers her brother back, there's nothing she won't do. It's both admirable and a bit irritating.

"Adrián?" the linebacker's voice asks from inside.

Shit.

Dom flattens himself against the wall, lifting his chin to quiet his breathing. The sound of the oncoming hunter's footsteps grows louder. First, the barrel of a handgun emerges through the doorway, followed by tattooed hands.

Dominic cracks into motion. With his hand already aflame, he seizes the gun and wrenches it out of the man's grip, jolting at the deafening BANG! of a gunshot as the guard pulls the trigger. The bullet strikes the pavement and ricochets, lodging itself in Dom's calf. His limb buckles under his weight. Relying on the other leg, he smashes the half-melted gun across the guard's face, sending blood and spit spraying from his mouth. Then he sends a bone-crunching uppercut to his jaw, rams the gun into the man's temple, and jumps out of the way before the guy hits the ground.

His leg crumples underneath him, fiery pain shooting up from the wound. Dom catches himself on the wall. Panting hard, he crouches down and rolls his black jeans up to reveal the grisly injury. Tears sting the corners of his eyes. He blinks hard until they fall freely down his cheeks in rivulets.

This is going to suck.

Dom allows himself three seconds to brace himself before he digs his fingers into the wound, biting onto his knuckles to keep from screaming. The white-hot pain is so intense he almost passes out, his vision fading in and out, but he forces his digits, slipping from the blood spurting out in protest, around the golden bullet. It's easier when he extends his talons just a smidge, using their sharp points to grab onto the fine etching of the bullet and finally yank it out with a gasp.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—" he whispers through gritted teeth as he tosses the bullet aside. He draws in a shaking breath and wipes the back of his hand along his tear-soaked face. Then he rubs it on his injured leg and waits, trying not to sob too loudly so the sounds don't echo throughout the alleyway, as his torn flesh finally begins to knit itself back together.

He's not used to hand-to-hand combat, so his knuckles are bound to be swollen and bruised later, but for now, he's focused on saving his tears for the more important injury. He hasn't been shot before, but he had once been stabbed through the gut by an evil fox spirit that had posed as Stiles, so he thinks he'll be okay.

Two minutes later, he can stand. Dom uses the wall to ease himself to his feet. He's still wiping his blotchy face with his clean hand when the click of a gun behind him makes him freeze.

"Come with me, blanquito."

— ✯✯✯ —

He's led to the world's most disgusting bathroom and shoved inside. His still-healing leg makes him stumble, but he catches himself before he eats shit on the cracked tile floor. The door slides shut with a loud thud and the click of a heavy lock gliding into place.

"Oh, thank God," Vera's voice says. A second later, her small body envelops him in a hug. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I knocked two guards out," he replies nonchalantly. "Piece of cake."

"You smell like gunpowder and blood, and your hand is covered in it," Malia points out bluntly.

"I was also shot."

Stiles, who had been moving to greet him as well, stops in his tracks and blinks. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I'm fine," Dom assures him. "It made me cry a lot."

Stiles heaves a long-suffering sigh and wraps his arms around Dom, pressing his lips to his temple. The good thing about their three-inch difference in height is that it's perfect for forehead kisses. Though their relationship is only a month in, Stiles has already shown a preference for them, often choosing to deliver quick pecks on Dominic's forehead whenever he has the chance. Dominic, who has never experienced such softness in a relationship before, always blushes.

He does a quick assessment of Stiles as he pulls back. His raven hair is a bit disheveled, but other than that, he seems miraculously okay. In fact, all of them do — Malia, Kira, Vera, and — oh. Not Scott. He's lying unconscious on the floor.

"He got electrocuted," Kira supplies.

That'll do it.

Then something clicks. Dom surveys all of his friends again, his brows furrowing when he comes up one short. "Where's Lydia?"

Stiles opens his mouth to respond, but he's distracted by Scott starting to stir. They quickly move to help him sit up as he blinks and regains his senses.

"Scott, you okay?" Stiles asks.

"Yeah," the Alpha replies distantly, leaning into Vera's grip for a second. Then his mind catches up to him and his expression falls. "They don't have him. They don't have Derek."

"We know," Kira says. "But right now, they've got Lydia."

Dom's eyes flicker to Vera. Her face flashes with dismay at the mention of Derek before she smooths her expression back to normal. If he knows one thing about his best friend, it's that she probably put all of her hope into this rescue mission succeeding. When someone she loves is in trouble, she throws her entire being into helping them to keep from spiraling. And to have that hope crushed... Dom can't imagine the heartache she's experiencing right now.

"Lydia?" Scott asks. "What do they want with Lydia?"

"No idea," Vera replies. "But she has to be alive. They want her powers for some reason."

As a Banshee, Lydia has the power to predict death. She has already held the Calavera bullets in her hand and reported that Derek is not dead, but apparently may not be alive, either. Dom had said, "Schrödinger's Derek," at the news, and Vera had smacked him.

Scott gets right down to business with trying to escape. He approaches the metal door and places his palms flat against it, feeling for weaknesses. Then he jams his fingertips into the tiny space between the frame and the door's edge, straining to pry it open. Stiles raises a half-hearted fist in support that quickly drops when Scott gives up, panting.

"We already looked for a way out," Kira tells him. "I think a lot of people have."

Dominic looks at Vera. "Did you—?"

"Yeah," she answers. "Must be some mountain ash in the architecture or something."

As a phantom, Vera can turn intangible and phase through objects, people, or walls. But no supernatural creatures with shape-shifting abilities can breach a mountain ash barrier. Plus, after the death of their friend Allison Argent last month, in which Vera had turned intangible so a sword that was supposed to strike her had killed Allison instead, she hasn't been too keen on using that power.

"I say when that door opens again, we take out whoever's standing in the way and run for it," Malia says.

"What about Lydia?" Kira asks.

Malia stares at her blankly. "What about her?"

"We're not leaving without her," Scott replies, turning his attention from the scratch marks on the wall beside the door. Evidently, Kira was right— this room has been used as a prison cell for a lot of people before them, and they had been desperate to escape.

"Why not?"

"Because we don't leave people," Stiles tells her. "Rules of the wild kingdom don't apply to friends."

"Is that what you would do as a coyote?" Kira questions. "Leave her for dead?"

"If she was weak and injured, yeah," Malia answers. "If hunting had been bad that season, I would eat her. Then I'd leave."

"Well, Lydia isn't weak or injured, and she's the smartest one out of all of us, so we're not leaving her behind." Vera's tone is icy. Though she's the smallest in the group at five feet, she makes up for it with her big personality and intimidating nature. Standing with her weight on one foot and her arms crossed, her defensive glare could cut diamonds.

"She's very protective of her friends," Stiles explains to Malia, whom he's taken under his wing to help her acclimate to the human world. "And she's also right."

"Alright, guys, we're not dead yet," Scott says. "And that means Aaraya wants something."

"But if the Calaveras don't know where Derek is, that means they didn't take him from the loft," Kira says. "Right?"

"Unless they did take him and someone else took him from them," Dom points out.

"Maybe he left on his own?" Stiles pipes up.

Vera shakes her head adamantly. "Every time he's done that, he's told me. He wouldn't just disappear— especially not when my mom's back in Santo Domingo. He told her he'd keep an eye on me."

"Well... how certain are you? You know, Derek's not the best at communication."

The withering glare Vera gives Stiles in response could kill an entire field of crops.

Stiles scratches the back of his head uneasily. "Okay. Point taken."

"Maybe someone else got to him," Scott says, his brows furrowed in thought, ignoring the miniature argument unfolding in front of him. Vera and Stiles bickering is something he's gotten used to. By now, he can tune them out.

"That doesn't explain why the bullets had the Calavera family logo on them," Vera reasons. Her voice is impatient now, and Dominic can't blame her. It feels like they've been running in circles, exhausting every lead, and everything had pointed to the Calaveras being the culprits.

The lock clicks. The group turns toward the door as it slides open to reveal a group of armed hunters. Before any of them can react, they spear out electric batons that jab into Scott's midsection, causing him to double over. Dominic quickly pushes Stiles behind him so he doesn't get hurt. One of the hunters captures Kira, while two others haul a seizing Scott out of the room. The last man eyes the remaining teenagers with his baton extended threateningly. Malia releases an animalistic snarl, but doesn't try to attack him, knowing that the others will be hurt if she does.

In seconds, the door slams shut again.

"What the hell do they need Scott and Kira for?" Dominic asks. His heart is racing again, trepidation flooding his veins. He hates feeling trapped like this. He doesn't realize he's picking at the dried blood on his right hand until he scratches himself too deep and winces.

"Can't be anything good," Stiles sighs.

"And Vera, too," Malia adds.

Dom turns to her. "What?"

"Vera's gone."

Both he and Stiles look around the dilapidated bathroom to find that she's right. While Dominic had only watched the hunters take two of their friends, she's nowhere to be seen.

Nowhere to be seen. If this room is lined with mountain ash, the hunters had broken the barrier by opening the door. Vera could easily have turned invisible in the chaos and slipped out unnoticed.

He loves her, but God does she make him want to throttle her sometimes. She acts at the drop of a hat— he doubts she even has a plan.

"She snuck out," he says.

Stiles puts a hand to his forehead in exasperation and dismay.

"What?" Malia asks. "Like, she did her ghost thing?"

"Phantom," Dominic corrects her. "She hates it when people call her a ghost."

While he couldn't be paid to sit on the waterlogged, dirt-stained floor, Malia is more accustomed to filth and has no qualms about the germs that are probably coating the grimy tile. She rests her head against a cracked sink basin and closes her eyes. As a werecoyote, she has the same advanced senses of a regular werewolf. The problem is that she is not used to using them yet.

"Do you hear them? Can you hear Scott?" Stiles asks, his voice growing increasingly impatient the longer Malia sits there in silence. "Can you hear Kira? Lydia? Vera? Anybody? What are they saying?"

"Stiles, babe," Dom says, placing a hand over the boy's, "give the girl a break."

"I... I can't," Malia says, her jaw set in frustration. "I can't concentrate. I... There's too many sounds — and voices —"

She's on the verge of a freakout. Malia isn't used to helping others, and it doesn't make it any better that when she tries, things go haywire. It's no wonder her first instinct is always to fend for herself— it's much easier that way. Honing into her abilities and relaying information is the hard part.

Stiles is experienced with anxiety and panic attacks. He recognizes the irritation in Malia's voice and knows it can quickly lead to her losing control, so he quickly bends down to her level and keeps his voice calm. "Okay. It's okay. Just breathe. Breathe with me, all right? You practiced this with Scott before, remember that?"

Malia nods. "I'm trying."

"It's okay. It's okay. Just focus on something."

"Here." Dominic flicks out a hand and keeps a flame in perfect balance in the middle of his palm. Moving slowly so as not to elicit a fearful reaction, he crouches down adjacent to Malia and watches as the fire dances in her dark eyes.

Fire has the unique ability to entrance people. Dominic wonders if it's some ancient, prehistoric part of humans that finds it so captivating, but sometimes when he needs to clear his head, he'll spark a small flame on his hand like this and stare at it for hours. There's something about the way the orange and yellow coalesce and the heat bathes everything around it that fills him with calm.

Malia has the same reaction. She locks onto the moving flame, her breath starting to come out more evenly as she watches it.

"Pretty, right?" Dom asks.

He's very glad that this worked and Malia didn't see the fire as a threat, then throat-punch him across the room. She's unpredictable like that.

He glances over to see Stiles already looking at him. Stiles gives him an appreciative nod. The warm glow of the fire bathes his pale skin in a soft orange light, and damn, if they weren't in a precarious situation right now, Dominic would lean over and kiss him. But then he would probably burn Malia and all hell would break loose, so he forces himself to rip his gaze away.

When he does, he notices that Malia's deep brown irises have frozen to a cold blue. It's a sign that it's working. She's tapping into her abilities, clearing out the clamor enough to pick out something useful. Dominic lowers his hand and lets the flame die out.

"I hear... sparks," she tells them. She grows more confident with each word, her eyes darting around in response to whatever she hears. "Electricity. They're electrocuting Scott — the lady — Aaraya — she's interrogating him, saying he knows who took Derek."

"That makes no sense," Dominic says. "We thought they took Derek. Does she think we came across the border and snuck into the nightclub of hunters for fun?"

Stiles places a hand on his knee as a silent signal for him to shut up. "What else do you hear?"

"She's asking who had a reason... a vendetta particular to the Hales... and Scott's saying he doesn't know. They're turning the power up to three. Someone who could've turned without him knowing?"

Malia flinches in response to hearing Scott's torture. Dominic can't blame her. If he had to witness that, he'd be cringing a lot more than she is.

The lights start to flicker. What were once dull, fluorescent sheets of white now strain against the source zapping away their power, dipping the trio into darkness that lasts for agonizing seconds at a time. Dominic hopes that Vera, wherever she is, doesn't blow her cover when she struggles to see.

"They're killing him!" Malia exclaims.

The bulbs turn a searing bright before dying out once again. They flicker weakly in response to the power surge. Then they abruptly return to normal, flooding the bathroom with dusty light.

"Scott knows who it is. I think he broke the machine," Malia says.

"Well?" Dominic presses. "Who is it?"

She listens for a moment before saying the last name he could have expected. "Kate."

_______

a/n:

i love writing dom's focalization POVs already because he's just so... dominic. if you've read mostly ghostly, i hope you can see the differences between his and vera's narration styles. it usually takes me a hot second to get used to being in a character's head for the first time, but this time, it was easy. probably because i'm already used to writing dom that i tend to already know what he thinks.

what are you most excited for in this book? for me, it's entwining kai and the others into the plot. and also writing more stominic because i love them <333

— kristyn

TRANSLATIONS:

Disculpe, señor, ¿podemos tener uno de esos?: Excuse me, sir, can we have one of those?

Eres de aquí?: Are you from here?

La república dominicana. Y mi amigo... es de estados unidos. No habla español: The Dominican Republic. And my friend... the United States. He doesn't speak Spanish.

Se ve asustado: He looks scared.

Lo sé. Gracias: I know. Thanks.

Las chicas calientes: The hot girls

Nadie en la cantina: Nobody in the club

¿Norte? ¿Dónde está el norte: North? Where is the north?

Blanquito: White boy

( word count: 4.6k )