The missing bite

His hand went to the side of his neck more often than not. At first, Derek thought it was merely a nervous tic, those long fingers reaching to the tender skin. But then he realized those fingers weren't just twitching; they were searching.-.-Derek didn't want to know. There was an eerie, growing hypothesis forming about why Stiles kept touching that spot, why he had been so devastated at first, and why he sometimes seemed to get lost inside his head, a wandering hand patting the empty space next to him.-.-The wolf started to hate how Stiles’s hand would occasionally drift to his left shoulder, searching, hoping for the mating bite that should have been there. He felt the primal, clawing need to bite there himself, to sink his fangs into that tender flesh and give Stiles the mark he yearned for.