chapter twenty eight
"willing to take the risk"

      "YOU DON'T STILL LIVE HERE, do you?

Lynn heaved out a thick pant as she helped Derek place a still unconscious Isaac onto the same wooden table from all those months ago — with the wide open books and laptop. She shifted her arm underneath Isaac's armpit so she would no longer be sharing half the boys weight, and Derek did something similar to finish placing him onto the board wrapped in a soft blanket.

"No," Derek replied to the curious Scott, and then bent down a few yards away towards the old living room would've been where a tree trunk had now grown into the house. Several pieces of wood were covering the food, so he started aimlessly throwing them to the other side of the room. "The county took it over, but there's something here that I need. It'll help heal a wound from an Alpha."

"I don't get it," Lynn spoke up with furrowed eyebrows, glancing down to Derek still fumbling through some branches and then back up at the sleeping Isaac. "It already healed."

"Not on the inside," Derek explained, and Lynn's narrowed blue eyes just grew even more confused.

Lynn stopped paying attention to the two boys as they continued an individual conversation, and she shifted to now glance at the unconscious Isaac. He always managed to look so soft, so peaceful when he was asleep — no thick eyebrows furrowed or wrinkles eyes, just unburdened.

With a gentle expression, Lynn placed a hand around Isaac's cheek as she pushed one of his many light brown curls out of the way of his forehead. She just stared at him for a moment, wondering if perhaps she had made a mistake of some sort, ending the fling the two of them were sharing. Not even noticing the noise from Derek had stopped, the girl placed a warm kiss on the side of Isaac's cheek.

Where Derek just stood as a silent on-looking, however, there was a hurt expression that flashed across his face — even if it was just for a second. Scott seemed to notice the way Derek just stopped all movements and how his eyes were steady on Lynn, piecing one thing with another, and then his face softened.

"You care for her."

Derek jerked his head away from staring at Lynn, upwards towards Scott, and after realizing that he could the man looking at Lynn in the first place, he went back to scrambling through some herbs for Isaac's wound.

      "You should talk to her," Scott continued on in a hushed voice, making sure the girl in the other room wouldn't be able to hear them.

      "About? Look, you're not here for a therapy session, so you guys should just leave," answered Derek, and Scott was wondering what the hell happened in Derek's past to make his walls so heavily guarded, so impenetrable.

      Derek rose up from his knelt down position with a few pieces of a purple herb in his right palm, and then he walked back into the other room where Isaac and Lynn were residing — with Scott quickly on his tail.

      "I'll tell Isaac you dropped by, Evelynn," Derek stated, but she immediately flashed him a glare when she quite literally felt the venom in his tone of voice. "Scott, grab me some water for the paste."

      Realizing the tension that was growing in the room with each passing second, he reluctantly exited the room towards the kitchen on the other side of the broken house.

      Lyn released Isaac's hand as she got up from sitting softly on the wooden desk, her nostrils flaring a bit as the anger started to pulse. She hooked her fingers around Derek's elbow, bringing his attention towards her instead of the mixture.

      "What's got your panties in a twist?" Lynn sneered, her eyes searching those of Derek's as she slightly loosened her angry expression into something gentler.

      "Nothing," Derek responded with a thick voice, and even though she hadn't known the man even more than a year, she knew his tells.

"It's clearly something," answered Lynn, but once again, Derek just stayed quiet — and slowly, the patience she had for the werewolf was thinning out. She took away her hand from holding Derek's arm, and then aimlessly ran it through her brunette strands of hair. "You aren't actually jealous, are you?"

      Derek switched over his shoulder towards Lynn, allowing a swift scoff to leave his system, "I'm most definitely not jealous."

      "You do realize I can smell emotions, right?" Lynn questioned with narrowed eyes, and then she let a heavy sigh escape her lips. "I-I don't get it, you don't talk to me for four months, and then you give me the death glare the second I do see you? Is it Isaac? Is this what the cold shoulder's about? Because honestly, Derek—"

      "—You never came back."

      Lynn's angry rant than came to a short pause as Derek's voice boomed through the small area, and she clasped her pink lips back together as her eyes fluttered towards his.

      "What?" Lynn murmured, suddenly feeling as if she were the smallest person, the way that Derek's expression shifted to hurt almost made her feel that same pain.

"I was going to teach you to fight, you were supposed to come back," Derek softly explained, and Lynn could quite literally feel the way her heart was breaking in two with how little Derek's voice was.

"You lied to me, Derek, you went behind my back because you knew I wouldn't be on board with you killing Jackson," Lynn replied with a gentle tone, not so much anger was written in his voice anymore. "I just—I just wanted you to apologize, t-that you didn't mean any harm...I waited all summer for one text, or one call, I just wanted to know you cared."

"—I do care, Evelynn! That's the problem!" Derek suddenly shouted, flinging his arm up aimlessly as Lynn unconsciously flinched from his swift change to harshness.

"I'm a problem?"

Lynn looked as if Derek had just kicked her puppy halfway across the room, and he felt as if his entire body was going to cave at how hurt her face was.

"I care for you so much that it is a problem," Derek corrected, taking a step forward towards the girl, his green eyes fluttered between Lynn's eyes to her pink lips.

Slowly, he raised a palm to touch Lynn's cheek, and although firstly she flinched when his soft skin connected with hers, but almost instantly melted into his touch. She closed her eyes as she just enjoyed the moment for a second, knowing that no matter how much she cared for Isaac, or any of her other flings, they had never once made her feel like this.

"Everyone around me gets hurt," Derek whispered gently, taking another step closer to Lynn where they were only inches away — where she could quite literally feel his breath bouncing off her cheek. "Everyone I care about ends up hurt, and I couldn't do that to you."

"Maybe I'm willing to take the risk."

Lynn peeled open her blue eyes to make eye contact with Derek, those beautiful emerald green eyes of his — she imaged she could never get tired of looking into them.

"You shouldn't," Derek dropped the gaze, at the same time he lowered his hand from Lynn's cheeks, and she quite literally wanted to whine at the fact they were no longer touching. Derek backed away a foot, turning around so she could only see his muscled back. "I'm not a good person, little wolf, you should—"

Lynn didn't even know what had come over her as she wrapped her fingertips around Derek's wrist to pull him to a hault. He peeled open his lips to surely question what she was on about, but was interrupted as Lynn's lips crashed into his.

Instinctively, Derek placed both his warm hands on Lynn's cheeks while pulling her body even closer to his. Lynn draped her arms over Derek's shoulders as she just melted into his embrace. She had never felt such a strong fire between two people in her entire life, nothing compared to the amount of butterflies — no, the entire goddamn zoo that was trampling around her stomach.

"I'm willing to take the risk," mumbled Lynn, her heavy breathes bouncing off Derek's now wet lips.

Derek rose his finger to brush a few of Lynn's brunette strands away from her face, tucking them behind her ear as she enjoyed the fireworks that followed his fingertips against her skin.

Derek looked unsure though, as if he didn't even trust his capabilities to protect Lynn from himself — from the Alpha pack she has no idea about, from Deucalion, from anything that would come their way.

"You're scared," Lynn furrowed her eyebrows as she backed a foot or so away, looking weary. The stench of Derek's fear flooded her nostrils, and it utterly confused her. "You're never scared."

"You should just go home, little wolf," Derek sighed, and Lynn almost looked a little offended.

"What? We kiss and the second we stop, you just push me away," Lynn stated, almost as if it were to herself, like she wasn't even surprised.

"You kissed me," corrected Derek, and Lynn let out a little scoff at the fact he was being so childish.

"You kissed me back," Lynn retorted, folding her arms over her chest as she didn't dare break eye contact from his emerald green ones. "Derek, why are you so scared? You're scared of...of me?"

"No, it's just—Evelynn, you don't know everything about me, if you knew the real me then you would be miles away," Derek explained, and that anger from before was suddenly flooding her veins.

"You're scared of trying."

a/n: little awkward ending sorry not sorry i'm splitting it in two chapters oops. also thank you guys for 50k views!!! wow i love u

BUT HOW DO YALL FEEL HUHHH??? LYREK (is that their ship name??) FINALLY KISSED AHHHH