Chapter 8

As soon as Sage met up with Stiles this morning she could not only sense his gratitude for the girl but also his anger towards his bestfriend. Sage told the boy many times on their ride to school this morning that he didn't need to tell her thank you for saving his father because she would do it all again.

At first, Stiles told the girl that she didn't owe him anything and if anything it should have been his bestfriends duty to protect his dad, but Sage quickly threw in how as his guardian her duty was not only to protect Stiles but to also protect the people he loved- including his dad.

Sage sat in the back of the class- a few rows over from Stiles, she watched as his lips formed into a scowl as he noticed Scott enter the classroom. The blonde sighed slightly, she knew no matter what she said to the human he would still be mad at his best friend. She guessed his reasoning was because his best friend chose to save Allison- a girl who he's known for less than a month over Noah, a man he's known his whole life.

Stiles was just grateful that Sage was a vampire and had the ability to heal because if she had seriously been hurt, he didn't know if he could forgive his friend or not.

"Still not talking to me?" Scott asked him and heard him sigh. "Okay, but can you at least tell me that your dad is okay? I know Sage is fine cause she's currently throwing a smirk my way for whatever reason." The blonde felt her smirk grow from hearing the raise in Scott's heartbeat, she knew he was afraid of her and she loved soaking herself up in his fear.

Sage watched as Stiles continued to ignore the young werewolf which didn't deter him. "I mean it's just a bruise right? Some soft tissue damage? Nothing that big? Okay, you know I feel bad about it. Like really bad." Stiles rolled his eyes, not turning around. "Okay. What if I told you that I'm trying to figure this whole thing out, and - that I went to Derek for help?"

Sage watched in amusement as Stiles looked like he was mentally fighting himself before finally turning to Scott, "If I was talking to you, I'd tell you that you're an idiot for trusting Derek. But obviously, I'm not talking to you." Stiles said then turned back around in his seat while the blonde silently chuckled.

The bell rang and Sage continued to watch Stiles in amusement, she could practically sense his mind filling up with curious thoughts about what Derek could have said to Scott. Stiles knew that his curious mind would slightly outweigh his anger for Scott, he couldn't stop himself from turning around as he looked at Scott. "What did he say?"

*~*

"The what of who?" Lydia asked, barely able to hide how bored she was. Sage could sense that the strawberry blonde was still freaked out over the video store incident and was trying her best to get over it.

"The beast of Gevaudan," Allison said, not really caring if her two friends looked uninterested or not, the fact is that she found it interesting. "Listen. A quadruped wolf-like monster, prowling the Auvergne and south Dordogne areas of France during the year 1764 to 1767. La Bete killed over a hundred people, becoming so infamous that King Louis the 15th sent one of his best hunters to try and kill it." She read aloud, Sage perked up slightly after hearing the beginning of the story, she was very familiar with the story- she knew about the rampaging werewolf that roamed the streets of France, she also knew the story about who killed the beast.

"Boring." Lydia countered

"Even the Church eventually declared the monster a messenger of Satan."

"Still boring."

"Cryptozoologists believe it may have been a subspecies of a hoofed predator, possibly a mesonychid."

"Slipping-into-a-coma bored."

"While others believe it was a powerful sorcerer who could shapeshift into a man-eating monster." Allison continued to read, ignoring all of Lydia's comments. "Any of this have anything to do with your family?" Lydia asked and the Argent girl nodded, "This. It is believed that La Bête was finally trapped and killed by a renowned hunter who claimed his wife and four children were the first to fall prey to the creature." His name was Argent." Allison said making Sage squint her eyes at the huntress.

Allison turned to look at the blonde, "Sage you must have heard the story right? I mean you lived your whole life in France?" Sage merely nodded at the girl- "Oui."

"So you've heard about it. About my ancestors?"

Before Sage could shoot down the girl's dreams Lydia had spoken up, "Your ancestors killed a big wolf. So what?" Lydia asked, clearly unimpressed. "Not just a big wolf. Look at this picture. What's it look like to you?" Allison asked as she turned the book only to reveal a drawing to Lydia and Sage.

The picture portrayed the beast very well. It stood enshrouded in mist, peering out of the darkness with red eyes and sharp claws. Bodies of women and children lay at its feet, looks of pure terror frozen onto their dead faces. Lydia stares at the drawing, her heart rate starting to elevate.

"Like a wolf," Sage muttered, her eyes flickered over to her strawberry blonde friend only to see that she had a dazed look on her face as she stared at the image. Her brows furrowed, "Lydia?"

"Lydia?" Allison called out to her as well feeling a pang of concern.

This seemed to snap Lydia out of her shock as she looked at the two who were staring at her in concern. "Just like Sage said. It looks - like a big - wolf." She stood up, giving them both a forced smile. "See you in History."

The ocean-eyed blonde watched as her friend strutted out of the cafeteria, head held high. But she knew that Lydia was still in shock from having seen the alpha.

Allison looked a little deflated from the fact Lydia had shot her down, Sage reached into her bag and pulled out a small little gift. "Here." She said handing the box to the brunette, "Happy belated, I wanted to give it to you on the day but you were off with Scott." Allison stared at the girl in awe as she looked at the box in her hand.

"Sage, you- you didn't have to get me anything."

"It's nothing, open it."

Allison opened the box to see a small little charm bracelet, it already had three charms on it- an Eiffel tower, the letter A, S and L. Allison gasped after seeing the charms, "It represents us you know, the Eiffel tower because our names are French and our initials and the bracelet is silver because your name means silver." Sage said and Allison reached over to hug the girl.

"I love it Sage, thank you."

Sage watched as the girl quickly put the bracelet on her wrist, she was about to thank the blonde again, but Stiles had run over and hauled her out of her chair. "Sorry Allison, you can talk to her later."

*~*

Sage found this plan stupid, she knew the reason why Stiles was going through such lengths but she was also glad that she was included in the plan. She knew if Scott had gotten too angry and shifted he would have killed Stiles, then she would have had to kill him and every other werewolf in town.

She sat on one of the benches not bother looking up from her sketchbook as Stiles filled the young werewolf in on the plan. "Put this on." He said handing something to Scott who took it and looked at Stiles weird, "Isn't that one of the heart rate monitors for the track team?" He asked and Stiles nodded. "Yeah, I borrowed it." He said making Sage scoff. "Stole it." She corrected.

Scott cocked his head. "Isn't that Coach's phone?"

Stiles had a phone in his hand, and he nodded. "That, I stole."

Scott smiled. "Why?"

"Alright, well, your heart goes up when you wolf out, right? When you're playing lacrosse, when you're with Allison, whenever you get angry. Maybe learning to control it is tied to learning to control your heart rate."

"Like the Incredible Hulk," Scott smiled.

"Kind of like the Incredible Hulk, yeah," Stiles sighed.

"No, I'm like the Incredible Hulk," Scott said, smiling smugly.

"Would you shut up and put the strap on?" Stiles snapped, making Scott laugh. A few minutes later Scott stands with his hands behind his back as Stiles duct tapes his wrists together. "This is not exactly how I planned to spend my free period." Scott said, "Sage looks like she's enjoying herself, what is she doing anyway?" The shaggy-haired brunette asked his best friend.

"She's drawing, I noticed she's been doing it a lot, I just never asked what she draws cause she never brings it up." Scott merely nodded at his best friend, moments later Sage closed her book and made her way over to Stiles, she watched as he began to pick up a lacrosse stick "Ready?"

"No."

"Remember. Don't get angry." Stiles drops a handful of lacrosse balls at his feet and picks up his lacrosse stick, "I'm starting to think this is a really bad-" Scott started to say but then a lacrosse ball soars right into Scott's leg making Sage smile, "Ow." She couldn't help but find some joy in the young werewolf's pain, it must have been because Stiles was enjoying himself.

Stiles picks up another ball and tosses it. This one nails Scott in the shoulder.

"Okay, that kind of hurt." Scott grunted, "Quiet. You should be thinking about your heart rate. About staying calm." Stiles says and holds up his phone to show Scott's rising heart rate.

"Okay, stay calm. Staying calm. Staying totally calm-" Scott mumbles to himself then lacrosse ball whacks him in the knee making him groan, "Son of a bitch.

"You're enjoying this too much," Sage laughed. He winked at the girl and threw the third ball. It missed while Scott muttered 'stay calm' over and over as a fourth ball made contact with his shoulder. Ball after ball, Stiles chucked them at Scott, using all of his force.

"Wanna try." Sage looked at the lacrosse stick that Stiles pointed in her direction, "If I do, it I'd probably break a bone, force and speed and shit."

"Hm okay." Stiles continued to throw ball after ball and Sage watched as she could smell the anger coming off the brunette, she could not only hear the heart monitor spike up but she could also hear his heart pounding against his chest.

She put her hand down on Stiles's lacrosse stick, "Stiles..."

Stiles looked down on the phone to notice his heart rate was at 158 and raising. "Scott?" He called to his bestfriend who was kneeling on the grass. Both of his hands digging into the dirt, strands of torn duct tape around his wrists. He ripped the duct tape apart. "Stay back," Scott grunted and Sage stood protectively in front of Stiles just in case.

After hearing how his heart rate slowed down, Stiles and Sage ran over to the teen wolf who looked up, sweat dripping down his forehead. "You started to change," Sage stated, Scott nodded at her. "From anger, but it was more than that. The angrier I got, the stronger I felt."

"Then it is anger. Which means Derek's right?"

"I can't be around Allison."

"Why? Just because she makes you happy?"

"Because she makes me weak."

*~*

Sage sat in a vacant seat in Coaches class, she had continued to sketch in her book until she felt the familiar pull against her chest. She looked up and saw both Stiles and Scot rush in- "Let's go! Sit, sit, sit, sit. We got a lot to cover today. Let's go! Quicker!" Coach shouted as he dropped a pile of books onto his desk.

Stiles smiled at the blonde as he started to make his way over to her but Scott shutdown that thought real quick. "Stiles, take the seat behind me."

Stiles moved to take the seat but it was too late as Allison sets her stuff down on it making Stiles back away and sit down in the seat he was originally in. Sage chuckled quietly, shaking her head as Stiles sat down in front of her.

"I haven't seen you all day." Allison whispered making Scott slightly turn his head towards her, "Uh, yeah, I've been, uh, super busy." Scott said nervously. "When are you gonna get your phone fixed? I feel like I'm totally disconnected from you."

Sage hadn't noticed that Stiles had turned around to look at her, he smiled softly as he watched her sketch in her notepad, the way her hair fell in her face every time she took the edge of the pencil and tapped it against her lip.

He quickly peaked down to see what she had drawn but he couldn't fully make it out. From where he was looking it looked like an outline of a row of on windows, but that wasn't what made him furrow his eyebrows. In the right-hand corner of her notepad, she had drawn a dark shadow-like image that appeared to look like a bear as it loomed over its own shadow. As Stiles went to lean over to get a closer look, Coach Finstock had addressed the class.

"Let's settle down! Let's start with a quick summary of last night's reading." Coach said and a few hands went up, "Greenberg, put your hand down. Everyone knows you did the reading. How about, uh...McCall?" He said making Scott look up at him alarmed.

"What?"

"The reading."

"Last night's reading?"

"Ehh... How about, uh, the reading of the Gettysburg Address?" Coach quipped. The class laughed,

"What?"

"That was sarcasm, McCall. Familiar with the concept?" Coach asked and Scott nodded, "Very." He said glancing back at Stiles, who smiles proudly making Sage laugh. "You do the reading or not?" Coach asked and Scott slightly shook his head, "I think I forgot."

"Nice work, McCall. It's not like you're not averaging a 'D' in this class." The class chuckled and Sage frowned, knowing that this could get a rise out of the young werewolf. Coach leaned in a little. "Come on, buddy. You know I can't keep you on the team if you have a 'D'. How about you summarize, uh, the previous night's reading?"

Stiles leaned over on Sage's desk, she looked up at him in confusion until she saw the phone in the human's hand. Just as she believed the werewolf's heart rate started to rise.

"How about you summarize the previous night's reading? No? How about the night before? How about you summarize anything you've ever read? In your entire life." Flustered, Scott blinks up at him while Stiles watches the heart rate monitor on his phone continue to rise.

"No? A blog? How about, uh, how about, uh... the back of a cereal box? No? How about the adults-only warning from your favourite website you visit every night? Anything?Thank you, McCall. Thank you. Thank you, McCall! Thank you for extinguishing any last flicker of hope I have for your generation. You just blew it for everybody. Thanks. Next practice, you can start with suicide runs. Unless that's too much reading."

Just as she thought Scott was about to wolf out in front of the whole class, however, she then noticed how his heart rate began to slow down. She looked up, only to find Allison leaning forward in her chair, holding the boy's hand under the desk. She stared at the conjoined hands, listening to how his heart rate went back to normal.

Sage quietly hummed to herself as she looked over to an equally shocked Stiles.

Scott McCall had just found his anchor.

*~*

"So you got him beat up?" Sage questioned the buzz-cut haired boy who sat in her bedroom. He had rushed straight to her house right after he was let out of detention. The French girl was a little shocked to see the boy on her doorstep but was very happy to invite him into her home.

Stiles continued to look around her room, painted in a cream colour but it wasn't littered with picture frames like other houses. She had some paintings that looked like they could be worth millions of dollars, but Stiles still had yet to see something in the girl's room that represented her. It was impersonal.

It kind of made him sad, like she could pack up and leave anytime she wanted.

"What's the matter?" Sage asked the boy, sensing his discomfort in their bond.

"W-what nothing?" The blonde-haired girl gave him a pointed look as she crossed over her room to sit next to him on her bed.

"Stiles."

"It's just, uhm, your room- it just doesn't scream you," Stiles muttered, looking around the room. Sage furrowed her eyebrows- not really understanding why that could upset the boy. Sensing the girls' confusion Stiles carried on, "Okay, you know how my room is basically scattered with books and papers, and it's got Star Wars poster littered on the walls and Mets merchandise?"

Sage nodded. "Yeah well, all that stuff represents me you know? Like scattered books and papers represent-"

"How scattered your mind is?" The girl joked, Stiles scoffed, "Yeah I guess you could say that- it's my ADHD, you know? I got a lot of energy and cant really focus on one thing."

"Yeah but that's what makes you, you, and yeah maybe you cant focus on certain things all the time but from experience I know if you focus on one thing at a time then you'll be fine." She said. Stiles hadn't realised how close they had gotten, he just stared at the girl in awe- he hadn't managed to do any further research on Guardians and their bonds but he realised he kind of didn't need to.

The way he felt for this girl couldn't even be described in words. He watched as her eyes twinkled slightly as she continued on speaking, he noticed her eyes twinkled when she spoke with passion. He already knew so much about the girl, how she always had her hair straight even though it was naturally wavy, how she only spoke French when she was bored or was in a heated discussion, how fiercely she cared about Lydia and Allison. And even if the girl said she hated Scott, he knew she cared about him a little bit. And it meant a lot to him.

Sage realised that Stiles had stopped talking after a while, she looked up at him, his whisky orbs staring down at her. She sucked in a slight breath after she inhaled his scent, she could smell a sweet scent mixed in with his natural scent. To her, the human boy smelled like pinecones and baked goods, it was her favourite smell.

But now, now she could smell pinecones, baked goods and sweet honey- almost like nectar. She stared back at the boy, not realising that she stared up at him with the same longing expression he stared back at her with.

"Stiles..."

"Yeah?"

But they didn't need to say anything, they didn't need to express how they felt with words. Because they knew.

Even if they didn't know it.

They knew.

*~*

Stiles's Jeep roars into the parking lot and he, Sage and Scott get out. "This is a terrible idea." Sage said and Scott sighed and nodded, "I know."

"And we're still going to do it."

"Can you think of something better?"

"Actually, yes, I can. Right now, I'm thinking of shopping." Sage grumbled to the duo as she leaned up against the human's jeep. Really and truly Sage wanted to spend more time with Stiles, just before Scott had called and interrupted them they were so close to kissing. She was a bit upset with the werewolf but he was Stiles's bestfriend. She had to learn to like the boy, cause she wasn't going anywhere.

Stiles shrugged. "Personally, I'm a fan of ignoring a problem until eventually it just goes away..."

"Just make sure we can get inside," Scott said and Stiles yanks out a set of bolt cutters out of the back of his jeep.

A pair of headlights approached as Derek's Camaro parks in a nearby space. Derek steps out from behind the wheel and the two teenagers walk over to him while Sage just stayed back and watched in boredom.

"Where's my boss?" Scott demanded and Derek nodded to the back of his car, "In the back." Scott and Stiles peek inside the Camaro to see Deaton Bound, gagged and blindfolded. "He looks comfortable," Stiles muttered then he and Scott started walking to the school doors.

Stiles turned to look at the blonde, he wanted her close by but he also needed to ensure that Derek didn't do anything to Deaton. "Uh, Sage. You mind watching him? We'll only be five minutes."

Sage wanted to argue, but she knew that she didn't trust Derek on his own so she nodded at the boy. "Where are you going?" Derek asked and Scott and Stiles turned to him, "You said I'm linked with the Alpha. I'm going to see if you're right."

Before they could walk away Stiles turned to the older werewolf giving him a stern look. "You better not do anything to hurt her or upset her." Stiles tried not to flinch when he saw the glare on the werewolf's face, he just stammered out more threats before his bestfriend dragged him away.

Sage chuckled as she leant against the hood of Stiles's jeep. She looked at the werewolf who was giving her a questioning look. "What?"

"I don't know much about vampires, but I know a true bond when I see one," Derek said, taking in note of how the girl threatened him before about Stiles safety and how Stiles's eyes seemed to follow her every move. He knew what a bond looked like, formal or informal- either way, he knew the Stilinksi boy was well on his way to falling in love with the vampire.

Human and vampire.

A tragic love story , like the hunter and the werewolf.

"We don't call it a lovers bond, its called a guardian's connection." She told him defensively, she had no idea why she got all defensive when the older werewolf called it a bond. Maybe because she knew what a werewolf's mate bond was and wanted in no way to be associated with it.

Derek looked at the girl, shocked, "Wait- you think that's what I'm talking about?" Sage furrowed her eyebrows at him, wanting to question him further but she heard what sounded like a dying cat that echoed through the loudspeakers.

"How does someone even make that sound?" She snickered under her breath, but the older werewolf looked anything but amused. "Oh come on, you seriously have a stick so far up your ass that you didn't find that amusing?" Derek was about to argue with the vampire, but they then heard a loud roar that practically shook the ground. Sage winced at how loud it was, her ears rang a little pitch noise in its path. She hated werewolf roars.

She watched as she saw both Stiles and Scott practically glowing with happiness at what they did. "I'm gonna kill both of you!" Derek threatened once he saw them. "What the hell was that?! What are you trying to do, attract the entire state to the school?!"

"I didn't know it would be that loud." Scott said and Stiles laughed."It was loud. And it was awesome." He said making Derek glare at him unamused, "Shut up." He said and Stiles rolled his eyes. "Don't be such a sourwolf," Stiles said, making the blonde giggle.

But Scott's eyes drifted to Derek's open car door, "What'd you do with him?" Scott demanded, taking note of his missing boss.

"What?"

Both Derek and Sage looked towards the car and saw the door was open. No sign of Deaton anywhere. Sage was confused, she was with Derek the whole time, he never moved Deaton- but how could she have not taken notice of him escaping?

"He didn't do anything. That doesn't make sense." Sage muttered, glaring at the open car door.

All of a sudden Derek jerks forward. Blood spurts from his mouth as he rises up into the air, held by a dark figure with laser red eyes. Sage wanted to fight him, but she needed to get Stiles to safety, Stiles having the same idea, pulled her along with him and Scott towards the school.

As soon as they ran into the school, the alpha let out a deafening roar behind them.

*~*