The last thing Ino expected was for her mother to be home. Her perfectly parked Escalade glimmered with a hint of newly washed windows and Ino could already smell the carpet freshener she always sprinkled down before vacuuming and wiping down every inch of the vehicle. She sighed and rubbed her forehead gently. Her mothers need to be clean and organized constantly, drove her insane. It wasn't just a normal need to be clean, it was more like a medical condition. She took cleaning to the extremes in all aspects one could think of.

"So you live in a mansion?"

"Hardly."

This was the main reason she hated bringing new people to her house. It was a three story Victorian style home with not as much as a smudge of dirt out of place. The gate entrance was guarded by skillfully planted rose bushes and carefully trimmed hedges. The fence itself was tall, white and picket.

"Then what would you call it?"

"A cage." Ino slipped the words off her tongue without thinking and quickly drew a sharp breath, "Well might as well introduce you to my lovely mother." Sarcasm was evident in her voice as she descended from the truck's passenger seat. "Be prepared for complete judgment and snobbish comments about your appearance and social status." Ino warned nonchalantly.

Kiba locked the truck and gave her a 'really?' look. "This should be fun."

Ino entered the home with him two steps behind her, "Mom, I'm home!"

"Why are you yelling?!" She answered her from the bowels of the house. Ino looked at Kiba and rolled her eyes, "You're the one yelling mother."

"I just want to make sure you could hear me..!" The clicking of her heels on hard tile floors became more prominent the closer she drew to the pair. "And young lady the next time you leave your room in shambles I will ground you until next month!"

"You wont be here long enough for that, and beside it wasn't that bad."

"Good grief I was picking up bras and stepping on CLEAN unfolded panties every other step I took! Why would you wash them and not put them up Ino?!"

"Mom!" She rounded the corner and stood in front of them, "Oh goodness I do apologize. I hate that you had to witness such squabbles between my daughter and I. Who are you, may I ask?" And just like that her mother slid her mask of charm right back over her features and played a wonderful smile.

"Inuzuka Kiba." He held one large hand out to her and for a moment Ino panicked thinking he was trying to shake her mothers hand, but of course not. He kissed the back of her hand with such grace that Ino's eyes were almost lost in the back of her head when she rolled them with distaste. "Oh well it's lovely to meet you, please have a seat. Would you like some tea?"

"If you don't mind."

When Ino's mother exited the room she stared at him with narrowed eyes and a slightly agape mouth. What she was looking at appeared to be a stray dog with sophisticated feline qualities.

"What?" He shrugged.

She shook her head and shoved him toward the couch. "You'll have to forgive me for being unprepared," Her mother continued as she entered the room, "My daughter doesn't normally bring such well mannered men home, if any at all." Ino turned her narrow eyes to her and they grew even more narrow.

"Oh darling don't give me that look. I've never seen you with a young man, besides Yoshino's son, the delinquent."

Ino sighed and sat back. "Here we go." She mumbled.

"I mean I understand he is your friend but you need to start drawing lines somewhere. My colleagues at the country club and fellow church members are beginning to worry about your future dear."

As Ino retaliated Kiba's eye wandered off from the conversation. There were pictures all over the place and trophies on every shelf in the house. Not just cheer leading trophies either, this girl had tons of academic scholarships and rewards. But yet her mom seemed so worried she'd turn and drop out on her and her fellow country club members. He inwardly laughed at the words 'country club'. It was an overly talked about title for meeting places of assholes who had too much money and loved to look down on society. Kiba could almost guess by the way she talked and the way she carried herself that she was apart of some fancy shindig like that. Ino's family must've been loaded.

He looked at her mother as she spoke, then back to Ino. She looked nothing like her, in fact she was the exact opposite. Brown hair, high cheek bones, straight posture, and brown eyes. Not that she wasn't a pretty woman, she just didn't compete with her daughter's blue eyes, curves, blonde hair, and thin thighs.

Kiba shook his head discretely.

Then he caught a glimpse of a man on the wall. He arched an eyebrow at the great similarities this said man held to Ino. There was no denying it, that was her dad. She even had his nose...

Later-

"Sorry you had to talk to my mom." They had stayed for what seemed like forever to her and wasted valuable studying time. Now night was approaching fast and she still didn't have her car from Kiba's place.

Kiba nodded as he drove them back to his house. "She's not bad.."

"It was a lot better when dad was here, you would've liked him Kiba.." He glanced over at her as she gazed through the passenger window, "Probably."

"He evened mom out. She wasn't as high maintenance with him around..he was kinda like the glue between me and mom."

"Glue?"

"Yeah. But now there isn't much left between us, I'm sure you noticed." It was close to the same speech Ino gave all of her friends after they'd had the joy of meeting her mother except this time it seemed to have more of an emotional drain to it. It was like Kiba was a vacuum and he sucked everything out of her until she poured her heart out to him without even trying. Why did she feel this comfortable around him? It's like her walls weren't even there, they never existed. "How long has he been gone?"

"A few years.. I dunno, I lost count."

"You were close, huh?"

"Yeah." Ino smiled and her face lit up at the thought of him, "We used to participate as a father-daughter pair in the annual academic challenge at my school. We won every year.. dad said it was because I was smart, but he was the one who did all the hard stuff. He loved math."

"Is that why you like math?"

"How do you know I like math?"

"Because that's what you always begin our lessons with."

Ino gave him a guilty chuckle and nodded her head, "Dad and I loved a lot of the same things but we were only mutually good at one thing and that was math. You should've seen the stuff he taught me! I was doing trig when I was 7 years old. "

Kiba pulled into his driveway and shook his head, "In a way, he sounds like a cruel, twisted parent."

Ino laughed, "Yeah but I was just as cruel and twisted as he was with math skills superior to yours now at the age of eleven."

"Oh you're funny...!" He exclaimed and tapped her nose after shutting the truck off.

Ino hopped out of the truck and shut the door. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the sky above them and the once bright clear view was now clouded, "Looks like a storm is coming." Kiba nodded, "Yeah I smell it."

"Really? What's it smell like?"

"Hard to explain." He pointed toward the far end of the sky where the clouds were pitch black and lightning could be seen in the distance. "Holy crap, I better get the car and go."

As if on cue, thunder ripped through the woods and a strong wind gushed through them. "Oh my god..!"

She grabbed the side of his truck in an attempt to stabilize herself before making a run for it. The weather only worsened in the few seconds it took before lightning severed a tree trunk and sent a century year old oak tree barreling down.

Tsume stood on the porch watching as the snap of the trunk broke the sound barrier itself. Her eyes narrowed in on Ino's small form walking away from the truck. A strong gust of wind pulled the tree toward the forest floor and right over top of Ino's path. Ino had felt the wind and even saw the shadow of the large oak engulf her before she attempted to out run it. She could see Kiba running in front of her but just barely through the harsh downpour that had swooped in over them and it gave her slight motivation to pick up her feet and not die by the bark of a tree.

Then he stopped. She ran into his back and tried to scream at him to go but words didn't form.

When she was sure they were dead she clenched her eyes shut, waiting for the pain that would soon follow. When said pain didn't make it's appearance she forced her eyes open. She wasn't entirely sure what she was seeing or what she had seen in the middle of all her panic but she was pretty sure that she saw a tan arm, similar to Kiba's, fling the entire tree against the force of the wind, causing it to land in the entrance to the Inuzuka driveway. Tsume pulled them both inside and got them some towels and hot cocoa. Ino's hands were shaking from both cold rain and adrenaline.

"What just happened?" She looked at him with accusing eyes. He sipped his cocoa and shrugged, "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

"You fell and I grabbed you up, the wind caught the tree and smashed the entire entrance to the driveway." That was a lie and she knew it.

His over the top temper.

The point ears.

The abnormally large eye teeth.

The sense of smell.

His hearing ability.

And now, just his brute strength.

Tsume sat across the room from them examining the situation. Ino just stared at him. How could the girl not know? or not even be suspicious for that matter..

"You're a werewolf."

Tsume nearly spat her cocoa out with laughter, "Well that's insulting." Kiba just shook his head at Ino and turned the t.v. up.

"Due to a rapid change in the whether, we are under a state of emergency. As a result we encourage everyone to stay in their homes tonight as we have detected hurricane like winds in the southern region. Emergency hotlines are open and waiting for your call.."

"Kiba turn that down!" Tsume demanded in an annoyed voice. "Anyway, you wont be getting out of here tonight, Ino. So I need to map out a sleeping chart...You could have my daughters old room but Kiba converted it to a weight room-"

"She'll sleep with me." Ino looked at him a little weary of closing her eyes around him for a long period of time. He was hiding something..

"You think I'm going to let a couple of young hormone crazed teenagers sleep in the same bed tonight?"

"Mom, stop. Hana's husband stayed the night like a million times before they were even talking about being married. Ino doesn't care so don't put up a fight to make this family look like it has morals."

Tsume looked at Ino and shrugged, "Oh, you don't care? Okay."

Later that night-

Ino sat on the edge of the bed uncomfortably. "I'm not sleeping with you.. because I think you're lying to me."

"Ino will you give it a rest..? I told you what happened."

"You threw the tree. I saw you throw the tree. And your ears? You're teeth? I didn't want to say anything but this is all too weird and I don't feel comfortable sleeping around you until I know."

"And you think knowing is going to help you sleep at night?"

He turned the t.v. off and slid his hands behind his head. "Trust me, nothing to worry about. Just freaky winds and luck."

Ino sighed and started to believe she really was crazy. "Well give me a blanket and pillow and I'll.. sleep on the floor here.."

"No, you're not sleeping on the floor. Just sleep with your head down that way and I'll stay up here. That way we don't actually touch."

Ino hesitated but reluctantly agreed. "Alright..you stay up there..."

She covered herself up and Kiba turned the last remaining light source off. "You alright like this?"

"Yeah, I'm not afraid of the dark."

Ino hardly slept for the first few hours of the night. She tossed and turned uncomfortably. Every time she dozed off the thunder woke her again and the lightning had woke her up screaming at least once.

Ino was sure she was aggravating Kiba with her trembling and her fear of lightning. It was almost child like. This time, when lightning cracked she didn't scream she just held it in and trembled as she clenched her pillow. Sure she has always been scared of lightning but never had she ever been this scared of it. Maybe it was the room she was in? Maybe it wasn't the lightning at all? Either way she was unnecessarily freaking the fuck out.

A loud boom came from outside and she squeaked. It had sounded like another tree falling.

Then she realized it wasn't the lightning she was afraid of, it was the thought of a tree coming through the house while she slept. One tree flying toward her was enough for her entire life. Another tree hit hard and her body instinctively jumped. The bed shook slightly and Ino tensed when she felt Kiba's large body shift. Hopefully he had just rolled over. Believe it or not she felt pretty bad about keeping him awake for as long as she did.

Two warm large hands grabbed her waist gently making her jerk. Her wide blue eyes met a pair of sleepy looking amber ones. "K-kiba?" She was accustomed to his large rich chocolate eyes, nothing like these ones.

He didn't answer her but she could clearly see it was him. She felt him melt on top of her shaking form like butter. His head laid beside hers so his hot breath was on her neck. The silence was oddly comfortable between them and even though it sounded silly she felt better with his large form on top of her smaller one. She felt encased in a large wool blanket of protection.

Her face rested on his shoulder and she took in his scent before nodding off. She thought she'd heard him mumble something like, "I like your shampoo" or "You smell good" but she couldn't quite make it out. Maybe in the morning she could ask him..