by Peyton Bogue
“You wanted us to think it was her, so that you wouldn’t be considered a suspect. So, what was it, Minerva? We know it was you who called emergency services off of Eliana's phone. You told us yesterday how much you cared for her. Show us that. There's no where else to go. There's nothing else you can do. Stop this now before it gets any worse. We have your DNA in Eliana’s bed, Minerva. Do you realize how bad this looks for you? You need to tell us the truth."
Minerva remains silent, glaring. Sage narrows his eyes at her.
"Were you having an affair with Eliana’s wife?” Minerva snorts. Sage backtracks quickly, asking, “Were you having an affair with Eliana?”
“What? No, of course not,” Minerva scoffs.
“Then what was it?” Kai continues, crossing his arms.
“I was in love with Eliana,” Minerva says harshly. “I would never do anything to harm her.”
“But you did, anyway, didn’t you?” Sage asks, and Minerva’s cat-eyes sharpen as she watches them, her jaw clenched. “What did you do, Minerva?”
Minerva doesn’t say anything for a moment. She pauses, and Sage watches as her hands begin to tremble. “Eliana was always looking out for me,” she says quietly. She inhales shakily, bringing her eyes up to meet Sage’s. “We weren’t apart very often. She went with me to every single one of my oncology and chemotherapy appointments.” She pauses, before her jaw tightens. “But her wife wanted her home more.”
“Why did you kill her, Minerva?” Sage asks.
“Eliana told me that she was going to stop coming with me to my appointments so she could spend more time with her wife and daughter,” Minerva bites out, angry.
“She was picking her family over you,” Kai says, nodding. “You were going to lose your support system.”
Minerva nods, enraged. “But I was her family, too! I was so mad at her. So, I checked out the bottle of hair dye and put the nicotine in it, but I swear, I felt awful about it. She came to my hotel room to tell me how sorry she was that she’d no longer be going with me to my apointments two hours after I’d already helped her apply the hair dye. I pushed her into the wall and her head started bleeding.” She takes a deep breath. “I followed her down to the hotel bathroom, but she was already unconscious. I tried to revive her, but she wasn’t responding, so I ran. It’s. . . the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“Where did you get the nicotine from?” Sage asks.
Minerva’s hands clench into fists. “From someone in an online chatroom. I don’t know where he got it from.”
“How convenient,” Kai says, rolling his eyes.
“We're going to need the name of that chatroom, okay?" Minerva clenches her jaw at him. "You thought you could get away with it, didn’t you?” Sage guesses.
Minerva whispers, “I don’t even have the cancer anymore. My oncologist called to tell me I went into remission this morning.”
“If you tell us where the hair dye bottle is, we’ll make sure that the D.A. knows how. . .remorseful you are,” Sage tells her, raising an eyebrow. A silent offer; a confession for a more comfortable incarceration.
Minerva closes her eyes, inhales a shaky breath, and a tear drops down her cheek. She turns around, reaching for her purse, and both Sage and Kai cautiously place their hands on top of their service weapons, ready in case she tries anything. She may be acting like she’s cooperating, but neither Kai nor Sage are going to discredit any last ditch attempts she might make to evade her arrest.
Minerva just turns back to them, extending a Ziploc bag that has the hair dye bottle safely tucked inside of it. Another tear drops down her cheek.
“Thank you,” Sage says, taking the bottle and handing it to Kai. He reaches into his jacket pocket, where his cuffs are, and slowly takes them out.
Minerva just turns around, her hands already placed behind her back.
Sage glances at Kai, sharing a look, before tightening the cuffs around her wrists.
“Minerva Carlisle, you're under arrest for the murder of Eliana Kell. You have the right to remain silent. . .”
◆◆◆
What the hell? Kai can screw off, Sage. There is no way that freaking Chopped is better than The Great British Baking Show. Rhys’s message reads when Sage is finally able to look at it after they’d taken Minerva into custody.
Sage chuckles when he reads it.
It’s cathartic, Ree, he replies, grinning.
Rhys Becker: Take that back right now. There is nothing cathartic about Chopped, you punk.
Sage Kaelan: I love The Great British Baking Show just as much as you do, Rhys.
Besides, I don’t think it’s better! Kai does! You’re the one that put on Chopped last night. Sometimes I just need the intense camera angles to get my blood pumping instead of those sweet British pleasantries.
Bullshit, Sage, comes Rhys’s response. You were half asleep last night. You missed all of those intense camera angles.
Sage Kaelan: I was distracted.
Rhys Becker: I didn’t do anything! You’re the one that climbed into my lap!
Sage smiles at the message, feeling his cheeks darken.
Before he can reply, Rhys sends him another message. And I don’t remember you complaining about missing Chopped when I had my mouth on you.
Sage Kaelan: Oh my, God, Rhys.
Rhys Becker: So, should I not do that thing with my tongue for you again tonight?
Sage’s entire face turns red.
Sage Kaelan: Rhys!
Rhys Becker: Sorry. I know you’re working. I don’t want to get you all worked up. I didn’t mean to take you away from your important detective work.
Sage Kaelan: You always get me worked up, you jerk. You're such a tease. I’m going to hold you to that tongue thing. I’ll see you at the restaurant tonight, grumpy.
I love you, comes Rhys’s response. Can’t wait. Tell Kai to fuck off :).
◆◆◆
“Hey, Devil and Prada,” Hazel hollers at them as they walk back through the precinct doors a few hours after Sage and Kai have made their arrest, “nice work on the Kell case.”
“Yeah, you, too, Hazel, just as long as I get to be Devil.” Kai points at her, high fiving her before walking towards his desk, a big grin on his face as he sips at a to-go cup full of soda from the Mexican restaurant he and Sage had eaten at for lunch.
“So.” Hazel smiles at Sage, stepping forward and tucking a stray lock of her brown hair behind her ear. "I’m not letting you celebrate your big case alone at Aunt Laila’s engagement party. Kai mentioned you needed a date.” She smiles up at him. “What’s the dress code, again?”
Laila Kimura's engagement had been a real headliner when it was announced that she'd be marrying the heir of a tech Fortune 500 company, and Sage shouldn't be suprised that Hazel, as Laila's niece, would be invited to such a spectacle.
As the son of a Scottish immigrant, and a single mother no less, Sage had met Laila after his mother had struggled to find afterschool care for him while she worked for the city's Social Services Department. Laila and Sage, having been school friends and teammates during their conjoined soccer phases, had spent much of their childhood together until high school, when Laila had been accepted into a prestigious private academy. Sage spent many evenings and nights until he was fourteen years old at the Kimuras' dinner table eating ochazuke and warabimochi and learning how to make dumplings from Laila's Obaachan.
He hadn't known Hazel while he was growing up, but he'd known through overhearing some of Laila'a parents conversations that Laila had become an aunt when she was only three years old. Hazel's position at the precinct, while offered to her because of her vast forensics knowlege, is also mostly in part as a favor from Mikalina's gratitude for Laila after Laila had brokered a new budget for the precinct through her extensive skill set as New York City's Assistant District Attorney.
Her engagement has been one of the most talked about events of the year. Laila, as the daughter of two working class Japanese immigran
ts, is practically a modern day storybook fairytale come to life—a woman working her way up from rags to riches through the social hierarchy by marrying her very own prince charming. Sage shouldn't be suprised by Hazel's invitation. While he's sure that she's only asking him because she doesn't want to be alone at what is sure to be a grand extravaganza, he's also just as enamoured by Laila's grandeur as Hazel is.
“Hazel, you don’t have to do that,” Sage assures her, shaking his head even as he smiles politely at her generosity.
“Oh, come on. Free drinks, and I’m assuming Laila’s vapid soon-to-be-husband insisted on a good caterer. Besides, if you’re going to stand me up for that movie tonight . . .” Hazel trails off, smiling at him.
“And you’re just doing this out of—” Sage starts, raising his eyebrows.
“Charity, yeah. Poor little detective with no one to go with him,” Hazel laughs, nodding.
“Rhys just has something going on tomorrow night,” Sage shrugs, unrepentant. The real reason that Rhys isn’t attending is because Laila’s engagement party tomorrow night is on the night of the full moon, and although Rhys has exemplary control over himself, he doesn’t want to risk anything going awry in front of a large number of people in case the moon begins to affect him too much.
“I’ll already be there, Sage. And at least you’ll have someone to talk to,” Hazel replies, shrugging as she does that thing again where she weighs his options for him.
Sage bites his bottom lip, deliberating. After a moment, he nods. “All right. Thank you, Hazel. I’ll meet you there tomorrow tonight.”
The night actually ends up going pretty well. The hours pass by relatively quickly when he has Hazel there to talk to amongst the elite and pretentious socialites. He makes sure to talk to Laila and her fiancé, assuring them both that Rhys will be at their wedding in the coming months and that he's terribly sorry that he couldn’t make it as he congratulates them on their milestone.
Laila just pats his shoulder and gives him a peck on the cheek as she tells him that he looks nice and handsome in his suit.
Sage misses Rhys the entire night and texts him religiously to check in to make sure that Rhys is doing alright and doesn’t feel any urges to go off howling at the moon. Rhys had been completely fine and in his right state of mind last night as they ate dinner at the small Italian restaurant a couple of blocks away from their brownstone that they’d met at after Sage had finished at the precinct for the night. He’d been equally as normal this morning, having had years of practice to control himself and not be influenced by the pull of the moon. Sage still worries about him, though, and doesn’t want Rhys to be alone if he feels like the moon’s affecting him.
Sage had even told Rhys that he’d pass on Laila’s engagement dinner that night, that Rhys’s wellbeing was more important to him than celebrating a friend’s engagement, but Rhys had gently refused and quickly assured Sage that he was fine, would call if he wasn’t, and that Sage needed to go to support Laila because he would feel guilty about it later if he’d neglected to attend something that was so important to his friend.
Sage tells Rhys that Hazel is technically his date for the night, and Rhys’s eyes flash red in slight dismay, but he’s otherwise okay, but not completely content, with Sage attending the dinner with a date that isn’t him. Sage promises to be quick, that he’ll be back within two hours, but he’s left with a multitude of text messages the entire time he’s gone (push her into that one fountain under the patio if she touches you). Sage assures him many times through his replies (I am not going to do that!) that he has nothing to be worried about and teases Rhys relentlessly about his possessiveness as the night passes along.
The night ends after Sage drops Hazel off at her condo near Flushing Avenue because it’s late and Hazel took the subway instead of driving and Sage is gentlemanly enough to offer her a ride home. He makes sure she enters safely into her building before he pulls away, heading back south towards he and Rhys’s brownstone.
As he walks through their front door a little while later, he’s feeling pretty content and happy with how the case and the night has ended, and it gets even better when Rhys catches sight of him in his suit and decides to literally tear it off of him.
Their activities that night are a little more driven and fast, a contrast to how Rhys normally acts with Sage, but Sage knows that it’s just the full moon making him act this way. It never bothers Sage, and he’s left feeling tired and satisfied when they’re finished and cuddled up together on the couch.
Sage’s suit lays thrown on the ground, mixed in with Rhys’s oil-covered work clothes, and he lets out a contented sigh.
It continues like that for the rest of the week. Sage and Kai had solved their case pretty quickly, receiving good praises from Mikalina, and the rest of the week is mostly slow. They’ve consulted on a few small cases, but by the time the next week is coming around, it’s still pretty uneventful at work, and Sage finds his mind drifting to Rhys much more during the day when he doesn’t have a case to distract him.
Then, of course, that’s when the weirdness starts.
Sage first starts noticing it a week and a half after the Kell case. He’s extremely used to living with a werewolf now, so he usually doesn’t give much thought to Rhys’s normal wolfy behaviorisms—eyes, shift, and all.
That is, until, Rhys’s eyes shift red and stay red the entire time he and Sage are making love one particular morning.
Sage has Rhys growling hotly underneath him as he works himself down onto Rhys’s shaft, panting loudly into the open space of their bedroom. It’s both of their days off, so they’d decided to sleep in and indulge each other. Sage hadn’t thought anything of it when Rhys’s eyes had shifted immediately when he began to smell Sage’s arousal, but his eyes have been like that ever since, even well after they’ve both calmed down and come down from their endorphin high.
Rhys has never had his eyes stay that bleeding red this long, and they’re glowing fluorescent well into the night. Sage can tell he’s a tad freaked out that they won’t change back, but he otherwise thinks nothing of it. Sage is pretty worried about him, and he just wants to make sure that Rhys is alright.
Rhys insists that he’s in control of himself and doesn’t even feel like he’s going to shift, so he’s pretty clueless as to why his eyes aren’t changing back.
His eyes are their normal gray when they both wake up the next morning, and once Sage is assured that Rhys is alright and feels good, he’s heading into work bright and early that next morning, only mildly worried.
He gets even more worried when the next time they make love that night the very same thing happens again.
But it’s not just the eye shifting that has Sage more than a little concerned. A few days after the last eye incident happens two weeks later, Rhys’s claws start to extend from where he’s got both of his hands gripping Sage’s ass.
He’s up and off Sage immediately.
Sage is breathing hard, more than a little worked up, and confusedly looks towards the other side of the room where Rhys is suddenly standing, not sure why Rhys had stopped.
Rhys’s eyes are normal this time, but he’s looking down at his hands, where his sharp and pointy claws have sprouted from his fingernails, and looking decidedly very freaked out.
Rhys had refused to touch Sage for the rest of the night, even after his claws had retracted back into his fingernails, too scared that he’d accidentally wolf out and hurt Sage.
The thing that’s worrisome to Sage, though, is that these incidents don’t just happen when they're in the throes of pleasure, where Rhys is worked up enough from the arousal that he accidently shifts in some way like he has been for the past few weeks.
No, they seem to keep happening all the time.
Sage will catch Rhys walking around their brownstone now, growling at noises Sage doesn’t have the ability to hear, and just being outright cranky.
He’s never outright volatile towards Sage, though,
and he hasn’t really changed how he acts, but it’s as if he does things now that he has no control over.
It’s sort of like he’s restless. He’s antsy and anxious a lot. He told Sage a few nights ago that he feels as if his wolf is unsettled, like he’s so agitated that he feels ready to crawl right out of his skin, even though he doesn’t have any idea why his wolf is so on edge.
And Rhys is even more protective over Sage now, which was already pretty prevalent to begin with.
He’ll glare at anyone that looks at Sage too long when they go out to grab dinner at a restaurant or out grocery shopping, and he gets downright growly when Sage walks through their door on his way in from work every night and doesn’t smell like Rhys.
Work has picked up tremendously at the precinct now too, and it’s as if a new case appears out of thin air each time he and Kai close one. They’re both constantly running themselves to the point of exhaustion to keep up with each new homicide, and it seems like every time Sage is stumbling through he and Rhys's front door after a hard day at the precinct, he’s getting called right back in before he can even sit down and have a conversation with Rhys. Rhys is not having any of it, and he glares and scowls as Sage just gives him a soft kiss and heads back out the door quickly before Rhys can try to convince him to stay.
It’s hard leaving Rhys like this when he so blatantly doesn’t want Sage to go to his very dangerous job, brooding and scowling as he stoically watches Sage leave every morning or when he gets called back in, clearly frustrated that Sage is charging right back into danger. Sage feels his heart sink every time he’s walking out of the door, trying to convince himself that Rhys isn’t trying to make him feel guilty for doing his job, and reminds himself that Rhys is just being overprotective like usual. Rhys has never acted like this before, even though he’s voiced his tendency to worry about Sage when he’s at his job plenty of times. It’s never been like this, though, where Rhys is all but begging Sage not to go.
Sage can tell that Rhys is trying to fight that protective urge and knows him well enough to see how Rhys is desperately trying to show that he doesn’t want to force Sage to do anything that Sage doesn’t want to do. His wolf is highly uncomfortable with the thought of Sage leaving the safety of their brownstone, and the entire ordeal is making him even more growly and phlegmatic.