* * *

Remus took the next few days to read over his mom's diary, and he thought it both sweet and kind—A different version of his father in the perspective of a mate.

He wondered if he was viewed the same way, an asshole but adored in Sage's eyes.
His mom was active too, with Yoga and stretches. While he tried to convince Sage that it was good for her to manage this type of exercise, she didn't find it all that fun. So Jack or Blake would humor their Luna as they endured an hour session of pregnant yoga together.

Sage's stomach was really starting to gain visibility in the past week, which settled Remus' nerves on how far along she is. ANd Kenzie laughed in seeing how frantic her Alpha was in trying to find the logical approach in all this.

But the pup was healthy, and that's all that mattered. Along with the fact that Sage hardly ever put on weight as is, so it'ss nice to see that she was adding on the healthy amount with the food she was eating.

At one point Blake thought she was just an endless pit, and then other times it was a wonder she could keep toast down.

Currently, she had just finished a lesson and shut off the tv, Blake was already in the kitchen getting a few things ready for lunch as Jack promised to go over what the meeting was with the surrounding packs.

She learned that even within America the packs we're split up into districts. Meaning that the North, South, East, and West all had their 'clans' including three packs. 

Another reason why Crescent Moon was better friends with Grey Hallow than anyone else.

"I hope you're hungry Sage!" Blake said in the kitchen, he was feeling inspired and tried to make chicken stir fry. As Remus mentioned he wanted to introduce new types of food to Sage, and the first thing he could suggest was chicken stirfry with mixed vegetables and rice.

Course he made enough to feed a small army, but it had Sage hum as she patted her hands dry with a small cloth.

"Smells good."
"Big plate or little plate?"
"Big plate! Pup needs lunch too." He chuckled and poked at her swelling stomach, earning him a slap to his hand.

"No touch."
"Defensive, even when I helped paint the lil Alpha's room?"
"You poke to tease." He hummed, passing her the hefty plate with rice and filled the brim with this new type of food. Course it earned Blake groan of approval before she said it was good.

"You think there's enough for Jack and Alpha?" Blake questioned, and when the Luna didn't respond he turned back to see that her face was stuffed to the brim with food.

"Oh goddess, please—Sage, chew, small bites. There's plenty." She nodded, even if it did take a decent bit before she swallowed it all. "That last thing I need is for you to choke on my watch."
"I'm okay." She mumbled, making another—much smaller bite.

That's when Blake sat in front of her offering up a fresh cup of tea that he cooling in the fridge. She was in utter bliss, until a bitter taste whiffed into her nose.

"That's that new nausea tea hun, just get at least half down." She nodded, seeing that he had the sweet tea pitcher in temptation, though she had a separate as she knew she couldn't drink the prescribed tea all at once either.

"Wow, it smelled amazing!" Jack said coming into the house holding a folder in hand. He earned himself a greeting from either, but Sage was all smiles as she continued to scarf it down.

"I don't think there's any separating her from her bowl right now." Blake teased, but Sage ignored it as she popped another piece of chicken into her mouth, all while she read through the notes Jack took from the meeting.

"T-they come here for visit?"
"Yeah, it's our turn to host them. It's not that bad, I swear. And Mary's coming, yeah? You'll meet Silvertail, who's Alpha and Luna are...?" Sage perked her lips, taking a solid gulp of her tea to clear her throat as she thought of an awnser.

"Silvertail is Alpha Chris?... Alpha Chris and Luna Fiona."
"Yep! But they'll be coming in a few weeks, and that lil pup is a perfect excuse if you don't want to see them." Blake scoffed a bit of laughter as he rose a brow to Jack.

"Are you corrupting your Luna, Delta Jackson?" Remus said with a slight bit of gruff in his tone, and it caused Sage to tilt her head off in his direction.

He's in a bad mood Sage. Bad meeting.

Sage blinked for a moment and held up her fork with a bite to eat off of.

"Wow, I didn't think you were going to part with even a bite there, Sagey." She huffed off towards Blake's comment, but Remus found it adorable and took the offer. Humming a thanks to his mate before turning to the chef.

"Damn, that's good." He said with a smirk, coming to sit beside his mate and wait for another bite. And she found herself enjoying feeding him, while in her mind she pretended he was a pup.

The conversation around her started to flow as Eli and Julia came over to talk and go over the meeting as well as discuss other vital details. Sage asked her own questions here or there, especially when she didn't understand something or wanted it repeated so she could write it down.

However it was halfway through the meeting where the ends of her hair started to straighten up, she knew that feeling all too well. And while she lifted up the now cold nausea tea, it spiked further.

Sage...Don't Drink
...The Tea...

Sage looked around the room, knowing that it wasn't Julia's voice—And there wasn't any other female in the room it could've been.

So Sage took the first sign of nausea and acted, rising up from the meeting and hurried to the bathroom and tried her best to throw up the food enenly—But the way her body was shaking and her claws starting to grow she cried out for Remus.

He wasn't that far behind, knowing that she'd want a moment of privacy, but he took to running in at the sound of her frantic voice. Only to find her draped over the toilet with her blackened eyes and half her wolfish features coming out.

"Sage...Hun, what is it?" That was a good question, what is it?
So she attempted to close her eyes, listening to what was making her wolf so utterly defensive. And it was clear what she had to do.

Retracting her claws she made sure her fingers were there before she stuck them in the back of her throat, forcing herself to throw up.

To say Remus was shocked by her actions is an understatement. He wanted to stop her from forcing it instead of going about it naturally. And yet when he touched the bond he could feel his own wolf pacing.

There is clearly something wrong here.

He didn't waste another moment before calling Kenzie, but it was still worrying about what caused such a shift. Usually there would be much more of a warning—And Sage wouldn't act so harsh in expelling it out.
She hated throwing up, so what was it?

Blake stumbled into the doorway to look at his two leaders. "Goddess, what the hell happened?!" He cursed, and a threatening growl set him back.

"It feels like she's having an allergic reaction..." He managed to get through his beast's voice, and he managed to soothe her through the aches and pains.

While Blake was cursing himself, running through a mental list of what could've caused her to have this response. However, when Jack offered up the tea again, her wolf yelped.

"No!" She croaked, throwing the mug away from her, leaving the ceramic glass to shatter and break. "Need to shift."
"No. No, hun, you have to stay in skin. Deep breathes munchkin, for the pup...There's too much pressure if you shift now." Goddess, it felt like she was choking.
Gasping for air—And all the others could do was sit in wait.

When Kenzie arrived, however, she went to quick work in trying to figure out the cause of her nausea. But it wasn't nausea, and the healer was horrified in having to share her findings.

Sage was currently in the guest room while the Alpha was going over the list of ingredients with Blake. Desperetly trying to find one that might've caused it.

But as Kenzie approached the crowd, everyone stopped.

"The Luna is alright...I've called for a truck to bring her to the infirmary." She said in hopes that her voice didn't appear fallen or stricken with sadness.

"And the pup?"
"Stable...For now."
"What?!" Remus growled, his shoulders drawn back as he attempted to stalk forward towards the healer.

But Eli and Jack were quick to hold him back, while Blake looked star fallen. "What happened?"

"The Luna was experiencing a partial miscarriage. I'm afraid I can't say anything more until we bring her back to the infirmary to run a proper digonstics check." Remus' eyes burned as much as his heart, his mate was lying in the other room confused as to what was going on.

But in the record of this, McKenzie sniffed the air—startled by that horrific scent that she followed it down to the broken mug that was left forgotten in the commotion.

"What's this?"
"Sage's tea, it's supposed to—"
"WHERE DID YOU GET IT?!" Blake hadn't realized what broke the healer's expresion, but the woman attutide turned within a slip second of her discovery.

And Blake could only point off towards the cabinet.

Over the course of the last few weeks, Sage has been given a surplus of gifts. As all the she-wolves wanted to aid her in this blessing, and yet...This one was not a blessing.

McKenzie never worked so damn quickly, sorting through the scents with Blake until he held up the right one. "How much did she drink?" She said, and Remus took hold of the package instantly.

"A few gulps, she didn't really like it so—"
"What is it?!" It wasn't a growl that came out of Remus, it was the Alpha himself, demanding what it was.

"Murax Leaves..." While it took the other males in the room a moment to understand the severity of the situation, Julia took her own smell of it.

"Sage wouldn't have known what it was." The Beta female said, her own breath catching as she started to cry. She had been the one to put all the teas in the cabinet after seeing them on the porch, but never did she expect that one of the many would hold Murax Leaves—One of the goddess' natural forms to stop an unwanted pregnancy.

But Blake was dealing with his own guilt, considering he brewed and served her the tea.

"I want my mate at the infirmary and I want a pack gathering within the next half hour!" Remus yelled, and the backs of everyone in the room stood straight at the order.

Sage, on the other hand, started to become delirious. The blood between her legs was familiar, but that thought scared her.

"Come back..." She whispered, but not to the pup—She could still feel her pup. She wanted to hear the voice again, it told her not to drink the tea, but didn't say why.

She and her wolf wanted to know why.

When Remus came into the room, the last shred of sanity had left him as he took in Sage's voice. Her angelic, lofty voice.

"...Come back." Which only left him to pick up his mate and make his way to the infirmary vehicle. But as he turned back to the group, Remus' eyes fell on Julia.

"Get the witches on the phone. I want them here, tomorrow at the latest." It was in proper reassurance that if the healers couldn't help that they could have a backup plan.

Yet the second Remus had closed the door to the car and raced off to the infirmary, the air drew still as either the Beta and Delta's breathe and heartbeat had grown in sync.

It left both Julia and Blake to take a cautious step back, their wolves were starting to feel the instinctial urge to take charge, as the Luna had been stricken down—It left the Alpha in a weakened.
Resulting in the next set of tiers to take control of the pack.

Julia, being the Beta female, felt a rather strange hum running through her veins as she flipped her hands back and forth. "What's happening?"

"A crisis, we need to call the witches and try to figure out who sent the tea."
"You don't think it was the witches who did this? How would they even know she's pregnant?" Blake took that into consideration, but another thought drifted into his mind as he sniffed the air.

"Come on, Almost-Luna." Julia narrowed her brows towards him in confusion but then her attention went straight back to her arms. "That's what...That's what's happened?"

"Rogues are kinda like that too, makeshift Alpha gets hurt we rise up. It must be a common pack thing." He nudged her to get going, though he was Sage's charge, his devotion to her was still reigning through as they located her phone and dialed the number.

The infirmary had been evacuated, and Sage was connected to multiple machines and cleaned from the loss of blood.

His eyes hadn't returned back to their normal hues, instead, they were still the demonic blackness as he didn't dare move his attention elsewhere.

Even when Elenor was trying to make the Luna comfortable, the she-wolf was helping at the infirmary, having taken up  an interest in medicine to become a healer.

"Kenzie wants to bring a dobbler...It'll let us hear the pup's heartbeat." She offered in a bit of warning, but all Remus had done was let out a strict nod.

He was feeling overwhelmed, especially after hearing what Sage's mumbles consisted of. In trying to reach out to someone who wasn't there, to their lil Rue or little male pup.

Elenor left for a moment before bringing up a rather large machine attached to a monitor. It attracted Sage's attention, and what they failed to take into account was that it looked exactly like some of the machinery that she's seen in the underground.

The stress rallied and Sage tried to get up from the bed, or she had until a hand settled above hers and let out a squeeze.

Mate is safe. Check if pup okay.

"Pup's...oohhkay." She said in a daze, and it took much more effort than she realized to make her limbs move the way she wanted them to, so he helped her in interlocking their hands together.

Leaving her distracted as Kenzie started up the machine. "Luna...the gel is going to be a little cold." She said in warning, but Sage giggled at the feeling before a ball started to roll around her stomach.

A washing sort of noise honed in on Sage's right and she turned to look up at the screen. She didn't know what it meant, but her wolf felt at ease once she heard the pup's heartbeat.

"There...It's a little spiked, but otherwise the pup looks fine." Kenzie said, her own emotions coming to interfere with her work. But Sage simply smiled up to the healer.

"Thank you." Elenor had lingered at the door, but a breathless sigh escaped her. The two extra females in the room soon left their Alpha couple alone, though it didn't take long before the entire pack was notified on the assembly.

While most didn't know what it meant, those closest to the Alpha did—There will surely be a reckoning, especially when Blake had made his way to the infirmary, against his own better judgment as the whiff of chemicals drew his wolf to become guarded.

He came across the only two in the building and instantly fell on his knees in both submission, prayer, and even a chant of begging for forgiveness.

But Remus and his wolf knew that Blake would never act against Sage, so when her tired eyes wondered off towards him she smiled. "Don't drink tea." The Alpha growled in confirmation, and it wasn't long after his beast spoke that he started to undress before shifting to fur.

Once his paws patted onto the floor, he managed to jump onto his mate's bed and cuddle on her legs to keep her down, while his head rested onto her stomach. His ear could just make out the heartbeat of his mate and pup.

Bringing the crisis down in the pack.

"Come back..." Her voice had caused Remus' ears to pin back, while Blake couldn't help but choke.
"The pup?"

Pup healthy.

Blake was close to crying himself, the tears were right on the brim of falling without his consent.

"Sir—I swear on the goddess herself that I didn't—I didn't know." His voice was breaking, and it caused Sage to turn her away from her mate and his puppy face to Blake.

"Oh-kay?" Her voice was slurred, but the pain emulating from her charge was enough to be concerned. So he wiped his tears away and nodded.

"Just thankful that you're okay, Sage. You have us all worried." She hummed, gaining some more control of her limbs as she wiggled to get more comfortable as well as hold Remus' cheeks in her palms.

"Hi wolfie..." She whispered, and Blake found it in himself to leave. Sitting right in front of the door and eyeing the healers and nurses on duty before he caught Elenor's questioning eyes.

Do you know?

Leo and Luke said they felt a pain, and the pack assembly later?

The pack could feel that?

Yeah, Leo's Master of Arms. And hearing Eli demand a meeting means that Alpha couldn't—The nurses aren't allowed to speak about it.

Remus found himself staying up until the last possible moment before he needed to leave his mate.
While his wolf tried to will him back into the infirmary bed, seeing Sage still on the defense and her eyes never loosing their midnight darkness.

Instead she looked to him in curiosity. "Rue okay...?"
"Kenzie is making sure the pup stays that way, if she comes in I want you to have them link me and tell me. Alright?"
"Stay...?" She said, her hand reaching out and her eyes threatening to cry.

"Mate safe. Pup safe. I'll find who did this."

______

Date: 08-18-2021

Time: 10:43

Words: 3194

✨Author's Note✨

The Blood Moon is in full effect, and we're about to see the full force of
Alpha Remus Moon of the Crescent Moon Pack.

One who will stop at nothing to protect his family.

See you Friday🤗