* * *

Sage stood out beside the mountain, she had almost forgotten to warn the pack about the silver located here—Which made communicating extremely challenging.
When Remus and a group had managed to go up, it was only a handful. Everyone here had an experience with silver once in their lives, some more than others.

So it was difficult to say who was struggling more than the rest, other than the pups, of course. It was pure torture for their little minds, and they even said it was worse than the altitude pressure from the plane ride.
Which made Sage give the pack breaks much more frequently.

"We're almost there, Luna," Torin said with a slight nod, and Sage frowned. "No, a storm is coming." The male had almost smirked had he not seen the turmoil in the young wolf's face, the burden had been placed on her shoulders for some time now that he sighed.

"It will be alright. They cannot fault you." Yes. They could.

It felt like a never-ending cycle of snow being her worst enemy, had she known it was going to be this bad, she would have mentally prepared for this type of torture. 

The whole journey felt slow, and Sage's actions felt sluggish in terms of plowing throw the gentle snow. And what was worse was that she collapsed out of pure exhaustion by midday, her motivation and devotion having masked her greatly.

Sage?!

Andy's frantic voice filled her mind as his beast went ahead and licked her cheeks. A steady whine escaped her, she didn't know what was wrong other than a gentle wave of sleep that threatened to loom over her.

It could be the silver, it's fresher when it hasn't been mined out. We'll settle nearby. It's all we can do for right now, especially with this storm coming in harder.

No! I'm fine. I can—

Andy's growl had silenced Sage's excuse. Torin's reasoning sounded plausible, and yet, it wasn't truly what was bothering Sage. The stress and the constant movement without a home was starting to weigh on her.

I'm not feeling so hot myself, maybe it's better if we head in for the night.

The Beta female had deemed, and thus it was decided. However, the chirping of Holly's Robin had called to the group of wolves and other beasts of her arrival. "There's a forcefield off that way, I don't know what it is, but it feels like a coven is hiding a getaway retreat in these mountains." She deemed and Sage whined out loud.

No, Crescent Moon facility. It's old and evil.

Andy had remained still, there was unsure tension in her voice, and he remembered a bit that Sage had mentioned a structor in the mountain—But no part of him wanted to venture further to search for it.

Nor risk the pack like that.

Sir? What's the plan?

He shifted to skin, wanting the witches to hear this as well, as he squeezed his fist and sunk further into the snow. "We go forward. Birds, scope out what you can but don't touch the forcefield. We'll deal with that as a pack." There had been a combined set of yowls and other noises that fell in line with an agreement.

"Is it the pup?" He questioned, his large hand coming to gently rub through her stomach's fur. Yet the small whimper was followed by a huff.
"It's alright, hun. We covered a lot of ground. Can you shift back?" She nodded, and thus Andy took a step back, however, the sudden chant of whines caused the rest of the wolves surrounding them to shoot their attention off towards them both.

Elena had come instantly beside Sage and sniffed her gently, there didn't seem to be anything wrong on the outside, but clearly, something was causing her pain.

Stomach hurts. Badly. Something's wrong.

Sage issued, and instantly Andy scooped her up in his hold and began to walk the treck off towards wherever this god-forsaken building may be. She begged him to let her go, that her stomach wasn't hurting anymore—But he was quick to silence her with a growl.

"Don't lie to me, Sage. Don't ever lie when it comes to our pup. If it's hurting, I will carry you all the way back to Half Crescent if I need to. Do you understand?" He wanted to make sure his point was made, and it surely was. The devotion could power him for years if she willed that from him.

But of course, there was a struggle.

"I don't do this for my benefit, pumpkin. You can thank me later." Severin and Grey withheld their chuckle, though it still appeared partly in their fur form. Leaving Sage to lock eyes to ether, and Torin had enough of the awfully friendly banter and huffed in relation.

"Sir! It's just up ahead!" A witch called out, and Andy picked up the pace and stood in attention to...Absolutely nothing. This didn't seem right at all.

"Are you sure...? This doesn't look like anything." Grey said, shifting to skin and trying to move his head up and around where the witches were all standing at attention. While their words sounded like pure nonsense for most of the pack, Sage listened to them and hummed in delight. Translating it in the back of her head, and without a gentle warning. The shields had been lowered, and the building that had been all but labeled as a tomb, was revealed.

Andy's teeth gritted at the sight of it, and his hold on Sage rose tenfold. He did not want to do this, but he came off towards Grey and motioned for him to take the Luna. Of course, she squirmed in an attempt to fight against the transfer, but Andy held a firm glare to either.

"She touches the ground you're sleeping outside, Grey." And thus that settled ether from allowing or trying to do anything of the sort. Instead, he followed a decent step behind the Alpha.

Torin had taken the liberty of analyzing the door, pointing to the insignia of the wolf carvings and sighed. "The Luna is right, this place reeks of death and destruction. What was it that this place was?"

Bad facility, they make silver rope and do bad things—But that was old Alpha, new Alpha clean everything up.

Torin had to withhold himself on the mention of Remus having cleared it up, that this was Sage's father-in-law who had done all these unspeakable things. Yet there was no instruction as Andy didn't hesitate to provide the door an offering of blood. After a few seconds on the wolf's snoot, Torin had snatched the Alpha's hand down.

"What are you doing?! Giving an object your blood is binding!" Andy turned his head over the horizon.

"I don't plan on sitting outside in a damn blizzard, and I don't think anyone wants to freeze to death just miles away from our destination. Evil or not, we're going in." He deemed, stalking forward without any sort of scanning of the room, however, Sage had started to panic at the faint smell of her packmates.

She internally died at the whiff of Jackson and Aurora, even the small lingering of Dante had given her a blissful feeling. Yet nothing compared to the familiarity of Remus Moon.

It smelled just as sweet as she remembered, though it didn't travel down to her heart the same way, yet foolishly, she didn't take that as being odd in any way.

"Looks like it's almost all set from the last time someone camped here, huh?" Sage barked in confirmation and scanned the room.

I remember that Reformed said there was a kitchen that they took food from.

"Alright, everyone sticks in pairs. Remember this is a graveyard, be respectful, and try not to mess anything up. We need blankets and a whole lot of burnable shit. No books, maybe a few ugly chairs like that one." He said, grabbing one of the many and snapping it in half.

With the tasks starting to weed down the crowd, Sage had been placed on the previously shared mattress of Jackson and Aurora. Giving her wolf a pure sense of calmness to enjoy , though, when Andy and her had finally been allowed the moment of privacy, he narrowed his gaze to her.

"We need to talk." He offered, and Sage titled her to one side. However, that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted the Alpha he knew her to be. Not the playful half-mate carrying his pup. This was serious, this was life-threatening and downright awful for him to consider, but he needed to.

Talk about what?

"Talk about what happens when we get to Crescent Moon."

______

Date: 11/07/22

Time: 10:40

Words: 1582

Author's Note:

We're nearing the end, and I'm getting excited!
I apologize that this is a short chapter but the next few were a little difficult to break up.

In addition to this, like the previous chapter with the gas station, this was another Creative Writing exercise where we had to revisit a location.

So welcome back to the mountains!

That sort of gives an understanding of how far away Sage and the pack are from Crescent Moon--And with two chapters left to go!

Should I get the tissues ready for then? I'll keep them on standby, just in case.

You know the drill by now, I will see you Friday and I hope you all have a fantastic week!