by Peyton Bogue
“Sage, listen to me,” Kai says, shaking his head. “The last thing we need is for you and Steele to be alone. This guy is threatening all of us. You’re vulnerable, Sage, and not to mention very breakable.”
“So are you, Kai,” Sage argues, shaking his head.
“Yes,” Kai agrees, “and that’s why Rhys should be the one to talk with him.”
“I’m the Alpha, Sage. He’s not even half as strong as I am, but he’s a hundred times stronger than you,” Rhys says, frowning. His tone isn’t condescending or patronizing, just honest and direct, as if he’s telling Sage a fact.
Sage shakes his head again. “You’re not in control of yourself, Rhys, and the masquerade is on the night before the full moon. If you threaten him, he’ll probably retaliate. You don’t want to kill him, and Kai and I don’t want you to either, but if you don’t go for the lethal blows, he will, and you could get hurt.”
“You could get hurt, Sage. Everything I’ll be feeling from the full moon is the same thing he’ll feel. He’s a bitten werewolf. We don’t know if he’s in control of himself at all. I’ve had years to learn control, Sage, and he hasn’t. I’m not okay with letting you put yourself in danger. That’s not happening,” Rhys says, scowling.
“Well, I’m not okay with letting you get hurt, Rhys. There’s not another way to do this,” Sage says, stubbornly setting his jaw. “Kai is just as breakable as I am, and letting you fight him is the opposite of what we’re trying to do.”
“We’re trying to get a very dangerous threat out of Rhys’s territory,” Kai says reasonably.
“Exactly,” Sage replies. “I need you both to trust me with this. I’m not going to get myself hurt.”
Rhys snarls and opens his mouth, but Kai’s phone abruptly rings loudly and echoes off of the brick walls of Rhys’s garage, and Rhys snaps his mouth shut as Kai fishes the phone out of his pocket. His package of M&M’s falls out of his pocket in his haste, and Sage rolls his eyes exasperatedly at the profane sounds the package makes as it collides with the concrete floor.
Rhys’s nose twitches when a few of the colored chocolates roll across the floor towards him, and Sage can’t help but to find the action adorable even amidst the scowl still marring Rhys’s face.
Kai answers the phone a second later, curtly saying, “Tate,” down the line and glancing at Sage before he looks down at the M&M’s, frowning.
Whoever is on the other line says something too low for Sage’s ears to pick up, but Kai’s eyes widen, and he nods vigorously for a few seconds, finally muttering, “Yeah, he’s alright. We’ll be there in a few,” and ends the call quickly.
“That was Mikalina,” Kai says to Sage in explanation as he pockets his phone and leans down to pick up the wayward chocolates. “Hazel found something else. We need to get back to the precinct. Mik also wants us to finish up all of our remaining case files so that we can focus on planning for the masquerade.”
Sage nods, looking towards Rhys and trying to catch his eye. Rhys is still staring at the M&M’s, glaring as he watches Kai pick them up. Sage sighs.
“I’ll meet you outside, Kai,” he says once Kai stands up. Kai nods at him, moving to throw the package away with a wanton sigh as he glances back at Sage and Rhys.
“I’m sorry about the break-in, Rhys,” Kai says apologetically, and Rhys nods at him. Kai glances at Sage, mouthing good luck, before he disappears out of the same door they’d entered from.
Sage turns back to Rhys, keeping his arms crossed, and sighs again when Rhys doesn't look at him.
“Rhys,” he says pleadingly, and Rhys meets his eyes after a moment, his red irises shining bright with fury. Rhys raises his eyebrows, and his own arms are crossed in front of his chest, the muscles of his arms pulled taut against his pale skin. Sage can’t tell if his claws are out or not as Rhys clenches his hands into fists, his expression unblinking. Another sigh lulls itself from Sage’s throat.
“What?” Rhys asks after a few seconds of silence pass. He’s furious, his eyes hard and unflinching as they regard Sage.
“I’m not dropping this,” Sage says resolutely, and Rhys makes another sound in his throat.
“Of course, you’re not,” Rhys says slowly even as his breathing remains uneven as he studies Sage’s face, as if he’s trying to calm himself down. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Sage blinks at him. He hadn’t expected Rhys to resign himself so easily like that, but Rhys is still showing that he cares about Sage’s opinions, even as he continues to fume.
“Okay,” Sage replies, hesitant.
Rhys sighs deeply, shaking his head, and slowly walks over to Sage. His hand is light as he cups Sage’s face, tilting it up just slightly so their eyes meet, and kisses his forehead softly. When he looks into Rhys’s eyes again, Sage glances towards Rhys’s hand. His claws aren’t out, and he’s not as tense as he was moments ago.
Rhys leans his forehead against Sage’s, exhaling roughly through his nose. “We’ll talk about this later,” he repeats gently. A promise. He values Sage’s opinion as much as he values Sage’s safety.
Sage nods, moving closer so they can press their bodies together. Rhys’s lips press gently against his, and Sage kisses him back softly.
When Rhys pulls away, he mutters against Sage’s lips, “I knew we should have stayed in bed this morning.”
Sage laughs softly, humming his agreement as he winds his arms around Rhys’s neck and moves his fingers into Rhys’s hair. He pulls Rhys’s mouth to his again, and even though he knows that Rhys is still angry, Rhys kisses him deeply and sensually, and the press of his lips makes Sage feel lightheaded.
Sage pulls back a moment later, pressing one last peck to Rhys’s lips before he takes a full step away. He doesn’t have enough time to get lost in the feel of Rhys’s tempting lips.
“I’ll see you at home,” he says, and Rhys nods at him. He’s not smiling, just watching Sage with a downtrodden curve of his mouth and serious red eyes.
“Be safe,” Rhys says somberly, following after Sage as he walks towards the side door. He opens it up once they both reach it and moves into Sage’s space again to press another gentle kiss to his brow.
“I will,” Sage replies, smiling gently. “Get your eyes back to normal, grumpy.”
Rhys doesn’t say anything, just clenches his jaw as Sage turns around, walking out of the door quickly to catch up with Kai. Rhys watches him go, and Sage thinks he hears Rhys sigh grimly before he closes the door shut with a foreboding click.
◆◆◆
Kai tries to convince Sage to let Rhys corner Steele at the masquerade the entire drive back to the precinct. Every time Sage thinks that he’s gotten Kai to realize that their best way to get Steele to leave Rhys’s territory peacefully is for Sage to attempt to talk to him, Kai starts back up again about how Sage is going to end up getting himself hurt. Sage understands that Kai is just trying to look out for him, but he can’t help but think that Kai is being overdramatic like usual.
Breaking into Rhys’s garage is another line this omega has crossed, but he hasn’t exactly been violent towards any of them. Sage doesn’t want to see what lengths this werewolf is willing to go to, which is exactly why he tells Kai that they need to get him to leave now before he actually ends up hurting someone.
Rhys has admitted that he doesn’t want to go about this problem violently, and the last thing Sage wants Rhys to do is bend those morals. He’s not on board with killing anyone, and Rhys is clearly hoping to avoid that as well. Their best option is to try to talk Steele into leaving. Sage can only hope that he listens. He doesn’t know what they’ll do if he doesn’t.
Kai shuts up pretty quickly when Sage asks him for another option, and the few minutes they have left until they pull into the precinct parking lot is tense and silent. Sage isn’t trying to start a fight with Kai, but he needs Kai to understand that this is the only way to ensure that everyone remains safe.
Kai hops out of the Camaro as soon as
Sage parks it, and Sage sighs heavily as he pulls the keys out of the ignition. If Kai just needs some time to process everything they’ve talked about in the last half hour, Sage isn’t going to push him. He’ll come around eventually.
Mikalina eyes them warily when they both enter her office, and when Sage catches her gaze, she lifts an eyebrow in question. He shakes his head at her, giving her a thumbs up to signal that everything's okay and sits down on the sofa. She nods hesitantly at him, settling back into her desk chair. Kai sits down next to him, sighing softly under his breath, and doesn’t look at Mikalina or Hazel, who hasn’t moved from her own chair across from Mikalina’s desk.
The only new information Hazel tells them is that their suspect’s fingerprints did show up at the crime scene in Tehran. Both Grayson and Richards agreed to send them the rest of the file before they left, and Hazel pulls it up on her tablet to show them that the fingerprints on the guns implicated overseas matched the ones she pulled off the guns in Newsom’s trailer. Neither Kai nor Sage mention that they know that their suspect is Steele, and both Hazel and Mikalina continue on spouting theories and further planning the masquerade.
Sage tunes out most of the planning, occasionally glancing at Kai as the two women in front of him talk about the ball’s security detail and about how to bypass any curious searches so their weapons won’t be found. He watches as Mikalina sends an email off to the D.A.’s office to ask if they can receive invitations and listens when she tells each of them to stick to an alias while they’re at the ball. Kharkovy knows who he, Kai, and Mikalina are, and adding their real names to the guest list could raise an unnecessary red flag. She dismisses them to continue their work after half an hour passes, but she calls him back to ask if he’s alright and if everything is okay with Rhys.
Sage admits that Rhys had a break-in at his garage but leaves out all of the details about the omega, thanking her for letting him and Kai rush over to Rhys’s workshop to make sure that Rhys was okay. She waves a dismissive hand at him and smiles, telling him that she’s glad that Rhys is alright.
Sage hates lying to her, especially when she knows how he gets when he thinks that Rhys is in trouble, but he can’t tell her that Rhys is an Alpha werewolf and is very capable of defending himself, so he just thanks her again and excuses himself to his paperwork.
The rest of Sage's day consists of case filing and trying to convince Kai to go along with his plan. Kai finally cracks after Sage hounds him for three hours, admitting that he’s just worried about Sage’s wellbeing and doesn’t want him to get hurt. Sage affectionately nudges Kai's shoulder, assuring Kai that he’s going to be fine, and that he’s going to have Kai there with him at the masquerade to back him up and help him should he need it. His words seem to settle Kai, and Sage finally gets him to admit that his plan is the only way to resolve this entire dispute peacefully.
The remaining few hours spent on their paperwork finds the both of them offhandedly haggling each other. Sage jokes that Kai’s girl is going to be jealous when she finds out that Kai is going on a date with Mikalina, and Kai blushes a deep red and tells him that Rhys is going to lose his shit when he finds out that Hazel is Sage’s date to the ball. Sage huffs at that, but he can’t deny that he's not looking forward to telling Rhys about his impending date.
When they finally call it a night just a little past eight thirty, Sage still has a lot of unfinished case files that he and Kai didn’t get to. Mikalina tells them both that it’s fine if it takes them a few days to finish them, just that she wants them to have all of their filing done completely before the ball so that they have time to go over their plan again.
Sage pulls up to he and Rhys’s brownstone five minutes before nine o’clock, and Sage sighs as he heads up the stairs towards their apartment.
When he opens the door, he’s immediately met with the smell of Indian spices, and a quick glance towards the dining room table tells him that Rhys picked up takeout from the Asian market a few blocks down.
He takes his briefcase off of his shoulder and sets it down so that it’s propped up against the side table, throwing his keys into the dish and sweeping his eyes across the living room.
Rhys isn’t on the couch or in the dining room, and Sage doesn’t hear him in the kitchen, so he moves to walk down the hallway towards their bedroom.
He finds Rhys inside of the room they’ve made their home gym, and Rhys is already looking at him when Sage leans against the doorway. His eyes are their normal gray as he meets Sage’s gaze, but he doesn’t say anything as Sage watches him.
Rhys is shirtless and only in a pair of track shorts as he lifts two weights above his head, his back flat against their bench press. He holds Sage’s gaze as he continues to slowly move the weights up and down. When he catches sight of them, Sage sees that both barbells are two hundred and fifty pounds each.
Rhys isn’t sweating though, which means he’s taken Sage’s warnings about overworking himself into account, and Sage smiles softly at him, watching as Rhys’s muscles tense underneath the skin of his biceps.
Rhys stops moving after a few more reps, and he sits up quickly, setting the weights back into the rack. He turns to Sage, crossing his arms.
“Did you have a good day?” he asks, and Sage quirks an eyebrow at him.
“Did everything go okay at the garage after Kai and I left?” Sage asks, avoiding Rhys’s question. He’s not finished with their conversation from earlier.
Rhys just nods, moving to pull at the hair tie he’s got holding his hair back out of his face. He runs his hand through the dark locks and shrugs.
“I aired the place out after you left,” he answers, “and cleaned up the glass. Got myself calmed down. Then I went back to work.”
Sage nods at him, moving out of the doorway so that Rhys can walk out of the room. Rhys shuts the lights off and closes the door before he turns and heads towards their bedroom, opening the door and walking towards their closet. Sage follows after him, frowning.
Sage's eyes immediately settle onto their bed when he walks into their bedroom, where a black, sleek metal headboard has replaced the wooden one Rhys had accidentally broken. Sage had mostly forgotten that Rhys had broken it, too distracted by Rhys’s residual panicking to think about fixing it. Clearly, Rhys has just replaced the entire wooden headboard with metal, either because this new one will be a tad sturdier than the last one or because it goes just as nicely with the rest of their bedroom furniture. Whatever the reason, Sage is happy with Rhys’s choice, but his lips are still turned down in a frown as he watches Rhys.
Rhys walks into the closet and starts rummaging through what Sage likes to refer to as his comfortable clothes, pulling out a soft, white t-shirt. Sage moves to his nightstand, unbuckling his holster, and takes out his gun. He opens the top drawer of his nightstand, making sure the safety on his gun is switched on before putting it, alongside his holster, into the drawer. He unclips his badge from his belt buckle, setting it inside before he closes the drawer.
Sage walks towards the closet, tugging the pull-over he’d worn to cover the bruises on his neck over his head as Rhys exits the doorway.
The white t-shirt Rhys is wearing hugs his middle, and Sage can practically count each of his abs through it. He follows Rhys’s movements as he walks past the doorway, his arms crossed as he walks past Sage with his usual scowl on his face.
Sage turns his head around to continue watching Rhys, but Rhys just sits on the edge of their bed, pulling his phone out of his pocket and tapping on the screen with his thumb.
Sage holds back another sigh as he sets the pull-over in the laundry basket, pulling out a pair of soft shorts and a long sleeve shirt from his own plethora of comfy clothes. He quickly removes his work shoes, then moves to take the jeans he’d been wearing off of his hips, glancing up at Rhys again. Rhys’s eyes remain on his phone screen as Sage steps out of his jeans, and Sage tugs the shorts on with a roll of his eyes.
He grabs the long sleeve, shoving his
arms through the sleeves as he faces Rhys, eying him when he pulls the collar over his head. He crosses his arms, his own muscles straining against the cotton sleeves, and leans against the doorway of the closet, pinning Rhys with an expectant look.
When Rhys doesn’t look up from his phone screen after a few seconds, Sage huffs loudly, and Rhys’s eyes snap up to his. He fixes Sage with an irritable look, muttering, “What?”
Sage raises his eyebrows, and he frowns again. “What’s wrong with you? Are you mad at me or something?”
“Why would I be mad at you, Sage?” Rhys asks, turning back to his phone screen, but his eyes are pinched, and his brow is pulled down in frustration. He actually does look really mad.
“Hmm,” Sage scoffs, growing angry, “I don’t know, Rhys. You’re the one acting like you’re pissed.”
Rhys’s eyes snap up to his again, and there’s fire in those gray eyes as he shoves his phone away and crosses his arms, snarling, “Yeah, Sage, actually, I am mad at you.”
“Yeah, Rhys, I can see that,” Sage replies, scoffing as he shakes his head.
Rhys glares at him. “How could you possibly think that being alone with an omega werewolf is a good idea?”
“Jesus, Rhys,” Sage says, sighing. “I thought you said we were going to talk about it. That’s what you’re mad about?”
“Fucking—” Rhys cuts himself off, exhaling deeply through his nostrils. “Yes, Sage, that’s exactly what I’m mad about. You are completely disregarding your own safety just so that you can have a little talk with your Army pal.”
“No, I’m not, Rhys,” Sage starts, stubbornly squaring his shoulders, but Rhys growls, cutting him off.
“Yes, you are, Sage,” he says harshly. “I don’t care who the hell he is. He’s dangerous. He could hurt you. He could kill you. Don’t you get that?”
“Yes, Rhys, I get that. But he could hurt you, too! You know how pissed you’re getting right now at the thought of me getting hurt? Well, how do you think I feel?” Sage asks, and he feels his face heat up angrily. “What do you think I would do if you got hurt because of him? Because you’re risking everything to try to protect me from something that might not even happen? How do you think that would make me feel?”