A Coward 'Till The End, Lies.

"First things first," Xander huffed out, flopping onto the armchair Scott had been occuping earlier, Stiles climbing straight in to his lap after she'd made sure Derek was comfortable on the floor. As soon as she was still he began to speak.
"Moon stone poisoning is extremely... difficult to get right. Its risky aswell especially if it doesnt work plus moon stone is ridiculously rare, much rarer then wolfsbane and you cant exactly buy it from a supermarket. Mixing them together to make a poison like that," he lets out a low whistle to show just how 'impressive' that is, "I've only ever heard of one group of hunters that use it, did the guy in your basement tell you anything?"

Jackson shakes his head and for the first time Stiles notices the dried blood on his knuckles, wonders just how long the hunter would survive if her dad wasnt around inforcing the law.
"When he attacked us he said something about the Tannins," he paused to shrug wiping his dirty hands with the bottom of his tshirt, "Freaked Derek out real bad but past that...Hey, you alright?"

Every last trace of colour had drained from Xanders face.

"Xan, sweety are you okay?" Stiles asked pressing the back of her hand to his forehead to check his temperature, worried that the black stuff dripping out of Derek might have infected Xander, after all he's not quite human either.
Xanders silence hangs heavy in the air, his eyes blank and when a shiver spills down his spine Stiles feels it spread through her body too.

"The... the Tannins?" he manages to choke out, his eyes still far away seeing something different to a pack of almost adults spread around Stiles' living room, reliving something in his head that Stiles never wants to see.
"Are you 100% sure thats what they said?" Jackson nods slowly in response, reproachful, Xander sounds half mad with panic, his fingers curled in tight balls resting on Stiles' hips.

"Yeah, it's kindof hard to forget something you hear when you think youre about to be hacked to bits."
The lilt in Jackson's voice hints that he's supposed to be joking but he cant bring himself to smile, they almost lost their alpha and thats no laughing matter.

Xander nods his expression unreadable before motioning for Stiles to vacate his lap.
"Shit we're in so much trouble." he mumbles under his breath, way too quite for Stiles, Allison or the Sheriff to hear, the werewolves on the other hand.

"What do you mean?" Lydia questions, green eyes alight with fire, with life, Xander cant help the thought that it might not be for much longer.

The clocks ticking.

"Is it really that bad?"

Xander drags a hand down his face before rubbing at his eyes. Yes, yes it is, worse than you can possibly imagine. WE'VE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!
Xander bites back his inner turmoil, swallows the bile in his mouth and casts a worried look at Stiles. She's practically glowing with her pregnancy, close to 7 months, her belly round and constantly encircled by her own protective arms. She has the most gorgeous brown eyes he's ever seen, they make him never want to look at anyone else.

He sighs and nods.

"The Tannins..." Xander growls dragging his shaking fingers through his wild honey coloured hair. "The Tannins are my family. My father, Nathaniel Tannin, is their leader," Lydia's jaw hit the floor. Scott unconsiously curled around Allison his first thought always of his mate, Jackson looked ready to burst, questions clinging to the tip of his tongue held back only because Xander isnt done speaking whilst the Sheriff sat quietly taking everything in.
Stiles' hand found his upper thigh, squeezing it reassuringly even though her eyes were wild with confuseion.
Xander very slowly and deliberately made eye contact with every single one of them before shattering the eery silence that had fallen.
"Basically, we're fucked."

He ignored the terrified voice in the back of his skull that echoed a different set of words.

'No dear Alexander, it is you that is in dire trouble."

The next time he opens his mouth its to tell a story, the story of his anscestors.

The story goes like this: Eli Tannin was born in the 1700's to an extremely poor seamstress out of wedlock. He would grow up to be the eldest of three children, just him, his mother and two twin sisters.
By the time he was 17 he was the sole provider for his entire family, working three strenuous jobs for little pay. It was hard work but his family was worth it, his family was everything to him, his only light in the otherwise gloomy world.

One night soon after his 18th birthday a ginormous beast, half, wolf half human, with monsterous teeth and claws tore his family apart, literally tore them all to shreds in cold, cold blood.

The beast was the first werewolf.

The beast killed the entire town, savaged the men and women and worst of all the children. The cobbled streets were flooded with the blood of innocents, nothing could stop the wolf's rampage.
There were no survivers.
Except, on the night the werewolf attacked Eli's family, it left him alive. Alive but barely, tragically mauled and hours from death.
Three long jagged claw marks ripped up his torso, starting at his left shoulder and finishing just behind his right hip spilling warm crimson on the stone floor making his head woozy. A chunk had been torn out of his upper right thigh, teeth slicing right to the bone like a butchers cleaver through fresh pig. But worse then that was the human sized bite mark that sat high up on his neck. The pain was intense, white hot and icy cold, rolling his stomach and poisoning his veins. A million microscopic teeth tearing at his nerve endings and frying his insides.

In his agony, in his despair at his murdered family, he cried out for help. Cried out for anyone listening for mercy, to give him the strength to defeat the hellish beast.
He prayed for a god or an angel or a miracle or some kind of crossroads deal making demon he'd heard about at the local tavern.

Instead he got a witch.

Amara Rosalva was the most beautiful women Eli had ever seen. She looked like an elfish queen straight out of the legends as she appeared from nowhere surrounded by golden light.
Amara was tall and lithe and her pale green eyes glowed with the power of the earth, when she smiled he swore his heart actually stopped beating before picking up in a different pattern; stronger, faster. More alive than he'd ever felt.
One brush of her velvety soft finger tips had his wounds knitting together right in front of his eyes.

When she spoke it was without words, her thoughts filtering straight into his brain with a voice so sweet it made the berries his sisters picked in summer seem sour in comparison, and they were the sweetest he'd ever known.

She offered him a deal, great power. He would be faster, stronger, his senses unmatched, his eyes able to see even in darkness, he would be able to heal most every wound. An unstoppable hunter.

He'd be able to defeat the beast.

He could avenge his family.

The yes was out of his mouth before he could even consider it and then his body was being torn into tiny dust like fractures before he was being stiched back up. Different. Not quite human.
Better.

Amara's voice was but a whisper in his head when he finally awoke, naked, alone and not quite the same person he had been when he'd passed out.
His blood felt thicker in his veins as he marched into town to slay the beast that had taken everything from him, only, Amara hadnt warned him that the bite from a werewolf could turn a human, she hadnt mentioned that the whole village he was trying to save was now a pack of rabid, feral werewolves who's alpha had fled to spread the infection across the world. She hadnt warned him of the nightmares that lay ahead.

By the end of the night his hands were stained in more blood than could ever be washed away.

They say killing a person changes you, but killing everyone you've ever known rewrites you completely.

Eli became the first Tannin hunter, a race bound by the poisoned blood of a not yet turned werewolf and the power of a witch, an inbetween creature, not quite human, too powerful to ever be innocent. Passed down from parent to child. Every single Tannin raised as a hunter, without choice.
It didnt matter either way though, the need was there, pounding along with their heartbeats, the blood lust stronger than anyother sense, hunthunthunthunt.
They were every bit as cursed as the werewolves.
Amara's taunting voice echoing through every hunters mind; occasionally helpful, whispering how to make poisons that only harm the wolves, leading them to mines of moonstone to make weapons, but mostly she was a hinderance, whispering that their end was coming, mocking the decendants of a man who had tried to do the right thing but became a monster instead, spawned generations of them in his wake.

Doomed to forever hunt or be hunted, the Tannin way.

But the single worst thing about being a blood bound Tannin hunter?

"We're notoriously difficult to kill," Xander's eyes flashed bright green a shade darker than Amara's had been and finally met the pack's eyes.
The pack who were all in different stages of disbelief, mouths hanging open and eyes wide.

Unsurprisingly its Stiles who's the first to speak, "I thought your surname was Winchester?" she sounds hurt, as if she hadnt been lying to him this whole time too.

The sigh that leaves his lungs is weary but the hand that wraps around Stiles' is strong, reassuring, it says; Im still here, Im still me.
"I changed my name to my mothers maiden name when i turned 18, I didnt want to be associated with my dad," he pauses and Stiles squeezes his hand in reply; Im here too, I made you a promise aswell. It warms the icy grip around his heart.
"My dads a monster."

The pack nods in unison and its a little bit creepy. Cute but yeah, a little too stepford wives.

"So that knife you've got, it hurts werewolves?" The sheriff asks taking a drag of whisky from a tumbler that Stiles hadnt even notice him pouring, she pouts but doesnt comment, Xander did just drop a fucking huge bombshell on them all, hell even Stiles with all her ADHD and overactive imagination is having trouble prossessing it!

Xander nods pulling the knife from his belt and tossing it to John to have a look at. Its an ugly thing, even more so with the chunk used to cure Derek missing from the butt of it. The blade is brutally jagged, almost like the teeth of a shark. It looks like something out of a science fiction film. A weapon from another planet.
"Its not fatal just stings like a bitch plus a wound from moonstone takes ages to heal compared to a normal wound. Its only when mixed with wolfbane and the blood of a Tannin that it gets fatal." he shoots a wary glance at Derek's still sleeping form half wishing the alpha was awake so he didnt have to explain everything again but glad that hes unconsious because he can still be selfish awhile longer, can still pretend Stiles is his whilst the older man is unable to demand her attention. The Tannin part of him screeches to kill the wolf but his humanity is stronger, he's supressed his hunter side for 21 years a few more days will be a piece of cake.

Ohhh, the thought of cake has his stomach rumbling embarrasingly loud in the quiet of the living room, making everyone chuckle.

Xander manages a grin and decides that hes said enough for the night, not everything but enough.

"On that note," Allison annouces getting to her feet and dragging Scott with her, "Scott and I have an extremelyawkward dinner with my family to attend, we'll fill them in on everything here if thats okay?"

Xander nods his agreeal with a soft smile. Hes so tired all of a sudden.

"Yeah, I've got to go check in with my family too," Jackson says pulling Stiles into an unexpected hug before following the happy couple out of the door leaving a sleeping Derek, Lydia, Xander, Stiles and her dad.

"Well, I'll start dinner!" Stiles decides but is pushed back into the soft pillows of the armchair by Lydia who has now switched from 2nd werewolf in command to overprotective god mother of Stiles' unborn baby and she is imfamously more terrifying as the latter.
"Me and your dad will cook, you, rest!" Stiles quickly agrees curling further into the chair, her doe eyes heavy as she glances from Derek to Xander in equal measure.

After a few minutes of just sitting Xander slaps his thighs and stands up, stretching his limbs stiff from sitting still all afternoon, he needs to get out of the house for a bit, clear his head, get some fresh air. The sheriff thinks its a great idea and even lends him a sweatshirt as Xander forgot to pack his while he paniced making sure Stiles had everything she needed.
He presses a sweet kiss to her temple that makes her grin softly but shes already falling asleep and she probably wont even remember it when she wakes up.
"Love you Stiles."
"Lub oo too Xannydur."

Half of Xanders mouth tugs up in a half smile as he pulls the patchwork quilt off of the back of the sofa and tucks it around her before leaving the house, and the girl of his dreams, behind for just a little while.