Lydia woke to a sudden chill in the air. Her eyes flew open and she quivered beneath the blankets, but she dared not move. Darkness surrounded her, and her eyes only adjusted to the lack of light because she'd been asleep for a few hours. Her heart raced and she tried to force herself to be calm but she couldn't. An irrational fear chilled her mind and numbed her, and she carefully trained her eyes around the room. There was nothing at first, and she took a deep breath in an effort to calm down. Everything was fine. There were no big spooky monsters waiting to kill her.

But her heart continued racing.

There was movement out of the corner of her eye, and she snapped her head toward the shadows, seeing a shape materializing out of the darkness. This had really been happening too much lately.

Eve's smile was the first thing to come into focus, then the rest of her. She was dressed in black leather, and the smile wasn't the one of cool nonchalance. It was menacing, like she was hungry and hadn't eaten in months. Before Lydia could open her mouth to ask her why she was here, the vampire queen's eyes turned a murderous shade of red and she bared her fangs, hissing as she leapt toward Lydia. The last thing the girl heard was her own scream before everything went black.

Lydia gasped and sat upright in the bed, instantly regretting the sudden movement as a twinge of pain shot across her rounded belly. Grimacing in discomfort, she breathed heavily and placed a protective hand over her stomach.

"Lydia... what's wrong?" came that familiar gruff voice as Derek sat up beside her in the bed. She couldn't look at him. The nightmare had been too real, and she felt so unsafe in the aftermath. She knew she was being silly, but her half-awake mind couldn't reason as proficiently as her wide-awake mind could, and she couldn't get the image of Eve attacking her out of her brain.

"It's... nothing," she lied, looking around the corners of her room to assure herself that no one lurked in the shadows. She knew she couldn't close her eyes again, not yet, as long as the fingers of that nightmare itched at her mind.

"You're lying; I can hear your heart beating like you just ran a marathon," Derek argued, a strong arm encircling her shoulders as he pulled her against his bare chest. Brushing down her hair, he kissed her forehead tenderly. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"You could say that."

She felt him smile against her hair, and she ran her hand over her pregnant belly. There's was only a month left to go, and she had to do so much in that time. Apart from trying to prepare for a baby coming into her life, she also had to deal with the king of all vampires and his crazy wife and the fact that she was a succubus. Not to mention one of her best friends being a doppelganger for said-king of all vampires. She had no idea what she was doing or how things would work out this time. Before, she'd known clearly what had to be done: save Jackson. There had been a plan, and although it hadn't worked as planned, she had succeeded. Now, there was no plan; Eve had gone missing with Stiles in-tow, and the rest of them were basically sitting around waiting for Adrian to show up and kill them all.

That wasn't entirely true - she was being unfair - but it was how helpless she felt most of the time. She wanted to solve everyone's problems, and she wanted to know Stiles was safe, but she couldn't do any of that. All she could do was wait. Waiting was not her preferred option.

At school the following morning, she felt drowzy and out-of-sorts. Being eight months pregnant was bad enough on her nightly sleeping rituals, but the nightmare hadn't helped matters any. Rubbing her eyes, she swallowed the cotton in her mouth and opened her eyes to maneuver her way down the hall. Every one stayed out of her way nowadays, and she'd dropped down the social totem pole since her pregnancy news had gone viral. She didn't mind much though because she had far more to worry about than whether Joe or Mary thought she was the queen of the school.

She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts - and her exhaustion - that she almost didn't see him. Then she realized who was walking toward her, and her heart leapt with relief and joy.

"Stiles!" she cried, smiling broadly and running toward him, throwing her arms around him in a bear hug. He hugged her back with a small little chuckle and when she finally released him, she placed her hands on his arms and looked into his face. His hair was ever so slightly longer, and his eyes glittered almost hungrily as he looked down at her, but she sensed a feeling of immense relief in him that erased her doubts. She didn't think twice about whether this was Stiles in front of her or his look-alike Adrian Begnoche. Besides Scott, she was the most likely person to recognize Stiles when she saw him.

"Are you okay?" she asked, unable to keep the worry out of her tone, "When that bitch took you, we didn't know if you were alive or dead. I could have...grrr."

Stiles laughed, his eyes flashing mysteriously, and she couldn't tell if he was hiding something from her or if she'd touched on a sensitive topic. Gently, he touched her arm, running the palm of his hand over her shoulder as he focused intently on her eyes and smiled.

"I'm fine. You know you don't have to worry about me," he commented amiably, his voice calm and easy unlike she'd seen him before. "I'm a big boy."

His words were uncharacteristically soothing and a bit defensive, and her desire to believe this was him was the only thing keeping her clinging to her belief that Stiles was the person standing in front of her. But the more she looked at him, the more her inner doubts began nagging at her. His hair was longer, but after having a shaved head for most of his life, perhaps he wanted a change? His eyes were the same color, but there was a glint to them she'd never seen there before. She couldn't decide if it was a world-wizened glint or a maliciousness, however. It was his eyes that bothered her the most. Stiles never looked at her like he was hungry or angry, even when she'd told him she was in love with Derek and she would never feel the same way about him.

This was not Stiles.

She felt her chest swell, not with fear as she would have felt in the past, but with a strange sort of defensiveness which imbued her with confidence. Perhaps it was her motherly instincts kicking in, she didn't know, but she felt a low burning sort of anger over the fact this vampire would walk into her hometown - into her school! - and impersonate one of her best friends. He wanted to enslave her boyfriend, take him away from her and their child, and perhaps he had killed Stiles already. The rage began boiling within her, but years of practice at hiding her emotions served her well.

Lydia smiled a smile this vampire who didn't know her wouldn't be able to tell wasn't sincere. She reached out and instinctively gripped his hand, throwing him off guard for a brief moment before he recovered his expert composure. She could see it now so clearly, and she didn't know how she'd missed it before. His face was the same, but everything about him screamed difference. The evil rolling off of him was tangible, but she steeled herself, figuring he couldn't very well murder her in the middle of the hallway without drawing every eye in the nation - and the world - down on him in an instant.

Looking directly into his eyes without knowing why, she made sure he was focused on her as she spoke. Her voice was soothing, different than she'd heard it before with a strange sort of power to it as she spoke. "You are a big boy, aren't you?" she asked softly. His brow drew down slightly in confusion, but Adrian couldn't tear his eyes away from hers. Reaching up, she ran the backs of her fingers down the side of his familiar yet strange face, keeping him locked with her gaze the entire time. "You aren't Stiles at all, in fact." He stiffened beneath her touch but didn't move to attack her. Her self-confidence had swollen to a point that she somehow knew he wouldn't, and he couldn't even if he wanted to.

"You're Adrian, and you're going to leave. Now."

A surge of something within her gave her a hot flash, like a fire had sparked and rolled off of her, hitting Adrian full in the face. His eyes lost their focus on her and he instantly straightened. She watched in surprise and awe as she could see his muscles struggle against whatever spell was over him. He was a powerful vampire, and he had the strength to fight her, but he didn't have the will to do so. His brown eyes - so like Stiles's - glared at her, but he didn't move toward her.

"We will meet again, succubus," he hissed the last word like a curse and turned, stalking away from her.

Backing against the wall of lockers behind her, Lydia sucked in a huge breath and finally felt her heart racing wildly. What had she just done, and how had she done it?