* * *

It had been weeks since they returned from Mystic Grimm, the party for Luke and Ellie had been just that Friday and it was a hilarious exchange for Sage to see from an outside perspective what a bond could do from an unmated couple to a mated couple.

And Luke received another smug smile from his sister before it earned her a possessive growl, his wolf not liking that she was making fun of him and his mate.

But she meant it to be as harmless as possible.

Then again, who could really say anything against the Luna joking and teasing?
If anything it was refreshing than her being scared of her own shadow. In addition to this, Sage was making quick friends with Ellie.

They were partnered for the bear hunt training, and it was much easier to suffer together. But Ellie growing more in tune with her wolf and understanding how to channel that strength properly.

And Sage commented on that more than a few times, especially to Luke when Ellie was elsewhere. It was just small comments here and there, but she liked to see Luke's proud smile grin on his face.

Currently, she was going back home to take a shower, Blake and her had just taken a run. And he was big at dropping her off at her home before returning back to his lone cabin off near the packhouse, Sage hadn't really understood the concept of actually building a house. But it gave Blake a sense of accomplishment, and he made some friends from the pack while constructing it.

However, in the meantime, she decided to get cleaned up and have a decent wash under some hot water, hoping it would get the knots out of her arms and shoulders. 

Usually it didn't bother her to the point of complaing. But now it came in the form of slight tension in her stomach, which caused her to huff in confusion. Leaving her to look down and press her hand down to relieve some pressure.

From there she decided to take a longer shower, but in going back to look at her clothes she saw the small splotches of blood in her underwear.

Causing her to frown further.

"Why blood there?" She checked in the mirror to see if she was hurt anywhere down there, but she did see some trickles of blood down the length of her inner thigh.

She continued to question, out loud as well. Remus started to see this quite often, just thinking verbally was helping her speech more and more.

Her voice still wavered from confident to soft.

However, Sage simply put on a fresh pair of panties before going on with her day. She had a bit of homework, yet with the bear hunt in the coming weeks, it meant her schedule had changed for her tutoring session to be longer and only a few days a week instead of every day.

Today was her off day considering training was done, and she wasn't needed at the Pack House and thus—She was left with homework in the kitchen as she was watching diligently over the food cooking just a few feet away.

She knew to make basic things like pasta, and that was what her meal for lunch, which would end up being enough for Remus if he stopped at home.

Sage managed well enough with making her own plate of pasta, adding some Alfredo sauce from the jar and all. She was working rather well in adapting to her own individuality, eating and writing through the problems Evie had given her for the week.

However, the pain from before had returned, and she knew well enough that it wasn't anything she's experienced before. And as she wanted to finish her pasta, however part of her thought it'd be better to go to the pack doctor.

Cleaning up her mess at the table she found herself going to the bathroom once again, only to find more blood when she wiped. A sense of fear and dread soaked through her body as she hurried to get dressed and pulled a sweater over her shoulders. 

Soon enough she had managed walked past the packhouse, and a familiar face had joined her.

"Hey Luna, where you headed?" She smiled off towards Jack and pointed. "Mackenzie."
"What for?"
"I don't know, I go and ask." Jack thought for a moment, wondering if Remus had told her about the blood test that they wanted to do to see if they could compare it to surrounding packs.

But that was just suggested by the council just this morning, and Sage was off training so that couldn't be the possibility.

"Everything okay?"
"I don't know, stomach hurt." Jack had turned suddenly overbearing, and Sage stopped him in the instance with a warning growl. She was no a pup that needed catering to, and he showed his neck in reaction that he understood.

"Don't tell Remmy."
"Sage, I don't know if that's a good idea."
"I find out what's wrong then tell Remmy." He was about to try and convince her otherwise, but she was getting knowledgeably about her position, and this was something she decided to not worry her mate over until she found an answer. Which Jack could understand, so he made a motion to zip his lips and she grinned in response.

She knocked politely before coming into the setup, Sage could remember the first time she came in with Luke and Liam. But Mackenzie wasn't the only pack doctor here, she was just the only female.

"Good afternoon Luna, how can I help you today?" Sage blinked for a moment but then eyed to the side to motion to Jack's lingering form. Something that Mackenzie surely understood.

"Will you be waiting out here, Delta?" He let out a solid nod before finding a comfy seat out in the waiting room. Remus would have his head if he left Sage by herself at the infirmary.

Sage followed after the she-wolf to the same room as before, and she sat expectedly on the table. "Is everything alright?"
"I don't know, I have stomach ache and I have blood here." Concern struck Mackenzie as she rose her brows, but attempted to remain calm.
But part of her was in worry, this was her Luna after all.

"How about you get undressed and we'll see what's the matter." She nodded, throwing the hood of her sweater off as well as her shirt underneath.

She was left in nothing but her panties, but she could already feel the slight wetness that was similar from what happened before.
Mackenzie didn't know what to expect, but this surely wasn't it.

After examining her, and doing countless other small tests. Mackenzie had come up with a conclusion. Though it was strange, more than strange it was just simply...Unheard of.

"Sage...I think I should share this with your mate present." Sage agreed, so she closed her eyes and called out to Remus.

Hey munchkin, I'm on my way home now. I'll see you in—

I'm at infirmary, can you come?

The bond tugged, as it was the roar she felt from Remus' wolf that caused the Luna to flinch, and that hadn't escaped Mackenzie's notice.

"He's coming," Sage explained, and barely five minutes passed before Remus managed to sniff out his mate. Only to find her sitting in a medical robe with a greeting smile on her face, though her eyes turned away as she wanted an explanation too.

"Munchkin, what happened...Did you get hurt in training?" He questioned, his hand coming to contact her the crease of her back to try and sense what was wrong. But it didn't work.

"Alpha, I told the Luna she should call you so I can tell you both. The Luna is fine, she came in with a stomach ache...Though that isn't what's worrying, sir." Remus' brows scrunched together, trying to soothe his wolf that their mate was fine.

Would be fine.

"I believe Luna Sage received her menstrual cycle, she is the correct weight for it to occur. And her stomach ache is a normal sign of symptoms." Sage sat in confusion, and as had Remus. He wasn't really understanding to she-wolves, and he too hadn't experienced what a mated she-wolf would be considering he hadn't taken that step with Kelly.

"She-wolves don't get menstrual cycles, sir." It earned her a tilt of the head.

"What menstrual cycle?"
"It's a human trait, that once a month that blood will release. Like you've experienced Luna, what I am more concerned with is..."
"Is that Sage is half-human, but that doesn't make sense. She has more Alpha blood in her." Mackenzie could only shrug her shoulders--Not having any more of an answer than to diagnose what was happening in this moment, and Sage pouted.

"So I bleed...Each month?"
"I'm not familiar with it, but I'll do research and we'll track it. And there are natural remedies to lessen the symptoms." While not entirely informative, the healer wouldn't allow her Luna to be in pain for the rest of this cycle, she would be the helping hand she needed.

"We have orders from the council that all the Alpha's in North America will be subjected to a blood test to see if there's any relation to Sage."

"Good. I was in favor of that...Alpha, may I?" With him present, it was in order for males to take a minute to calm their wolf with foreign hands on their mate.

"Sage...Mackenzie is going to take some blood, is that alright?"
"For what?"
"With your blood we can see if we can find some relatives. It's like if Luke took a test, we can tell that Leo is his dad." Sage thought on it before nodding, though she looked mildly uncomfortable. Especially in seeing the needle.

Remus had nuzzled into her neck, leaving a small kiss to his mark there in an attempt to settle her nerves. And he had, leaving her a giggling mess and making Mackenzie's job easier.

After it was all done, Sage turned to look at the vial and made a look of disgust. Shivering at the idea of being back in the labs, and otherwise making her anxious to leave.

"Okay to leave?"
"Of course, and I'll call if I find anything related to this. But I do want to send you home with this, it's to absorb the blood so it won't get on your clothes. You just stick it on the inside of your underwear." Sage watched in utter confusion about this demonstration, while Remus was taking a beating of his masculinity. Though he did know that if Sage was having trouble he was the closest person to come to for help, and so he listened to all he could.

"I also recommend taking it easy for the first few days, Sage said she noticed when she was in the shower. It should end between four to seven days." Remus nodded, and soon the doctor had left the room for Sage to get undressed and changed.

But Remus had understood what the doctor meant in providing these pads, there was visible spotting and in remembrance of this, he linked Mackenzie and asked for her to keep her research by herself.
There was no telling what others would do with this information.

When Sage was finally dressed, and the pad applied to her panties. Remus watched as she tried to get comfortable but then pouted. "When we're home I think you could take another shower, and I'll let you borrow some sweatpants munchkin." She let out a small smile but still hated the idea of something so bulky in between her legs.

Remus had missed Jack's presence when he stormed in the first time, however he was quick to rise up and greet his Alpha. Only to be ordered to call Eli and meet at the his home.

It was confusing sure, but the three managed to walk rather quickly to see Eli waiting by the front door. "Is everything alright?" Remus nodded his head before claiming he'd be back in a minute after he set up Sage.

The Luna hadn't bothered in letting the hot water fester, but it did feel nice to get cleaned up and put into more bagger pants and clean panties. Though she didn't want to rip or ruin the nice ones, so she reverted back to the ones she would wear prior to Jade's gracious gift.

When Sage returned back down, Remus had told them what happened. And Jack gave his Luna an encouraging smile, however Eli couldn't shake off his worried frown.

More than worried, of course, Remus wouldn't care if his mate was partially human or had some sort of human parents in her blood. But pack politics were brutal, and it was a universal standpoint as well.

And on top of that, it was slightly offensive to know that a Luna is partially human. It didn't matter if an Omega was mated to a human, it's where they would stay and their children wouldn't rise much more in rank than that.

"What wrong?" She questioned, especially when Eli wouldn't meet her eyes as he was battling out his own prejudices. "Nothings wrong Munchkin, I told Eli and Jackson what happened with Mackenzie."
"Remmy...I don't want to be human." She said, and it was clear that she was starting to feel heavily uncomfortable with herself.

"That's not something we can control hun."
"But birdie says I am Lycan." Eli perked his attention to his Luna and nodded. "She did, she would've said if she found something else, wouldn't she?" A slight trickle of doubt started to sprout to the three males while Sage stood in wait before turning to the kitchen and getting another bowl of pasta.

Sir, you can't just leave out the part where there hasn't been a Luna with human blood in—

Don't. The pack will rip her apart. There isn't a single human here.

Remus eyed his Beta and the male nodded while Jack had remained quiet and kept a watchful eye on his Luna.

Do you think the witches would lie?
Jack pondered to the two before him

They seemed to like Sage, maybe they thought they were doing her a favor. But even Makenzie was surprised with this, the only thing we can do right now is keeping it between us.
Remus ordered, and either agreed until Sage turned over her shoulder and dropped her attempted spoon.

And she looked positively pissed.

"Munchkin?"
"Don't leave link open if you don't want me to hear." She growled, removing herself from the kitchen as she went to the back door and right down the stairs.

Neither Jack nor Eli could've predicted that type of reaction, or how beautifully formed her sentence had been. However it issued Sage to go on a hunt on her own, though the idea of a menstrual cycle transferred to her wolf as well.

But it didn't matter much as she found herself in the familiar mountain that held Remus' scent. She had been clever and used a trick she learned recently from Leo.

Masking her scent.

Remus hadn't been anymore enraged that Sage had been so angry with him to the point of hiding somewhere in the pack, and what was worse is that he couldn't involve the Elwoods as it meant explaining the situation.

And that in itself was worrying, that they learn that their surrogate pup could be human?

Remus had attempted to find his mate, he informed Blake of missing the Luna and for one reason or another, he favored silence and wasn't social to many wolves in the pack.

Making him the perfect person to divulge that Sage was slightly missing.

"Sounds a little more than slightly missing, Alpha." He said, continuing to chisel the wooden figures—A habit that Sage was interested in and he promised to make her a few things.

"She heard something she wasn't supposed to."
"Hmm, and what'd that be?" He questioned, and the Alpha's arms wrapped over one another. "Classified."
"You're right...But it's funny because I can see a lot from my little cabin, and I think I saw the Beta escort the Luna off that way. The infirmary perhaps? I'm not dumb, Alpha."
"I didn't assume that, and more watchful of your Luna than I first thought."
"Well we were supposed to go hunting, but it's been a while so..." He titled his head and shrugged his shoulders.

"Did she contact you at all?"
"No. But I wouldn't mind lending a nose, might cost you though." The Alpha growled, but it only caused the male before him to smirk.

"Get that from your little mate?...I just want to know what happened." And in compensation, Remus explained. Yet the entire time he was hoping that either his Beta or Delta would tell him that they found her.

"I've seen a lot of shit, Alpha Remus, but I can tell you that's normal."
"N-normal? What do you mean?" Blake rose up from his seat on his porch and pocketed his supplies before placing it inside and continuing back out with the Alpha.
He was one to keep to promises.

"Pumping us filled with hormones, I've seen she-wolves face heats without mates. I've never seen any pups, young or in their teens. But I wouldn't doubt that those filthy disease-bearing humans would want to lay with our she-wolves...I just don't think Sage is a product of that." He said, closing his eyes and trying to find where the last place Sage's scent was located, and sure enough, he found it.

"She's smart."
"And it's fucking infuriating sometimes."
"Well maybe you should've phrase the 'the pack would rip her apart' better, or listen to her advice and I don't know, block it from her." Blake snapped back, and for once Remus had taken the advice.

"It's not her fault."
"It's not a fault. If you could get past the word barrier--the lack of communication but can't get past the idea that there might be human blood in her, then why the fuck am I bothering to help? Out of everyone in this pack, you think she wants any relation to the species that hurt her?" Remus hadn't rightly thought on that front, but with the relationship of mate and charge, the two made quite a bit of distance.

And he recalled this cave when he had his own separation from the pack.

"This is where I stayed when she had her first heat."
"It's like you want me to hate you."
"We didn't mate yet." Blake's eyes widened as he attempted to think back to his time in the cells and nodded.

"That'll be the hormones."
"It was normal for she-wolves to get their heat in the cells?"
"The humans wanted to understand us, I think--And many like me, thought that they want an army." Remus wasn't that surprised, but it was the idea of confirmation that made his blood boil.

"They tried to impregnate her."
"I'm not shocked, a strong wolf?... Let's just say she was at the nicer facility." It was clear that Sage was a 'prize' and wasn't treated with unnecessary beatings, but then again...She was submissive to those people.

"Five minutes?" Remus nodded and thus Blake found himself charing up the hill but kept a leveled distance between the Luna and himself.

I don't think you've shown me this hiding spot.

No. I keep hiding spot secret.

Hmmm, do you hide from him a lot?... He's worried hun.

Good. He's mean.

Mean? He told me what happened Luna, he's being cautious.

No. He no like that I might be human. But my wolf says I'm not.

I don't think you are either, humans don't usually survive the shift.

But I have Alpha blood.

That would've confirmed your death hun, that would've been worse on a human to share Alpha blood. Why don't you come out? I was waiting to go hunting with you hun.

I don't want to go anyway. Pack rip me apart.

Like you'd take that disrespect? The pack wouldn't dare, they love you and I doubt they'd care if you're part human or anything else. You make their Alpha happy and you help them.

I don't want to talk to Remus.

Well that's easy, you just ignore him hun. But no sulking in a cave, we're wolves but we have better homes than this.

It caused her to huff, but she placed her nose just under his jaw as a sign of thank you before rising to her feet. But she ultimately felt the dampness in between her tail and leaking into her fur.

I not—I'm not comfortable.

It's not supposed to be, Luna. It's just something we have to deal with. But hey, you get a break from training for a few days.

She followed him slightly down the mountain, and although she didn't look at Remus directly...She saw him in her peripherals, and it was hard to ignore the guilt and regret that permeated the air around him.

And while she slowed down to be careful of the sudden drop in elevation, Remus misunderstood her being cautious to a greeting. Although his wolf attempted to lick her snoot in apology, she snapped back and huffed.

Remus turned back to Blake and the fellow just blinked. He wouldn't let anyone else into his mind, it was one of the many things he still had to himself that he refused.
But in this moment he allowed a small discussion.

She's heading back to the house, but don't expect her to fall back into sync. Her wolf is pissed—says she's not a human.

Her wolf didn't know she was an Alpha either.

Or did she and she simply didn't know what it meant? For as long as you've known her, has she been submissive or just apologetic?

______

Date: 06-04-2021

Time: 11:21

Words:  3691