An hour or so later, Kagome's laugh echoed like chimes across the canteen. "God, they all hated me," she managed, still giggling. "A mere human, mated to the Lord of the West? Preposterous!" She struck an affected pose, looking down her nose imperiously at Dax before dissolving into giggles again.
"They hated you because you were human," Worf stated, though Kagome decided it was really more of a question. She shrugged, still smiling at the memory.
"That was part of it. And to be fair, I guess they had every right to hate me," she started. "I mean, OK, I'm human and most demons consider humans to be totally beneath them – and, as a human, I can't give him a full-blooded heir, and half-breeds aren't particularly well-regarded. Or weren't at the time, anyway; things have changed in the last few centuries. But it was more than that." She stretched her arms behind her chair, then began absently rubbing a sore muscle in her forearm. "Sesshoumaru was the most sought-after bachelor in Japan for hundreds of years before we mated. He was," she started, holding up one finger, "wealthy beyond imagination, thanks to his father's imperialist tendencies;" she added another finger and continued, "politically powerful beyond imagination, again thanks to Inu-Papa, and," she finished, bringing a third finger up, "personally powerful beyond imagination as well. He's the strongest demon alive, and has been for a thousand years. His aura is ..." She paused, searching for the right words. "With most people, their aura hovers around them about like this." She gestured with her arms, indicating a space around her head with a radius of a foot or two. "With Sesshoumaru – touching his aura is like ... it's like being dropped into the sea. It's ..." She shook her head in remembered awe. "It's endless. Just ... limitless power. It's staggering."
Opening her eyes, she realized that her new friends were staring at her in wonder. She grinned, and added wickedly, "He was also a prime piece of ass."
"Piece of ass?" Worf inquired, his tone clinical, as Dax choked on her iced raktajino.
"Sexy," Kagome agreed. Worf frowned.
"You can't say a thing like that and not tell us what he looked like," Kira said, grinning. "Most desirable bachelor in several centuries? Spill, girl!"
Kagome's smile turned dreamy and her eyes misted over. "He was ..." she paused, considering how to word it. "Beautiful. Terrifying and beautiful." She lifted her glass absently and sipped at the strange blue drink, wrinkling her nose at the sharply herbal taste. "Tall; even taller than you, Worf. Strong beyond imagining, physically and spiritually." Her smile broadened, and she called up his face in her mind's eye. "Silver hair down to his knees that never seemed to tangle; it was like a moonlit river. Gold eyes. Pale skin, perfect and completely unscarred despite all his battles. Stripes," she added, grinning and gesturing to her own cheekbones. "Two magenta ones on each cheek, and a blue crescent moon on his forehead, the mark of his mother's people." She traced the outline of a moon on her own forehead in illustration. "And the way he moved ... it was ..." She found herself at a loss again. "It was like water. Or like ... a panther? I don't even know. A predator. Strong, smooth, silent, completely self-assured, no hesitation; equal parts power and grace." She shivered, remembering the way he looked in battle – untouchable. Unbeatable. Elegance personified – deadly elegance.
It was so hard to believe he was gone.
To her horror, Kagome found that there were tears pricking at the backs of her eyes again. She snapped her attention back to her companions. Kira was regarding her with rapt attention, clearly loving every second of her description; Worf, Julian, and Miles were feigning disinterest; Dax had a look of understanding and compassion on her face that nearly undid Kagome's hard-won composure. She forced a cheeky smile to her face, coming up with a way to break this strange tension.
"And that was just his humanoid form," she added, as if it were a mere afterthought. Sure enough, all eyes suddenly lit with interest. "His true form is a huge white dog."
"A dog?" Kira and Miles cried in unison, while the others boggled at her. She grinned and nodded.
"A big dog," she agreed, amused by their shock. "He's probably ... mmmmmm ... thirty feet tall? Forty?" She looked around the room calculatingly. "He wouldn't fit in here," she decided. "Maybe out in the promenade, but not in here – unless you took all the furniture out and he were lying down, then maybe, I guess."
"Twelve ... meters ..." Miles whispered, stunned. Julian was gaping at her like a beached fish.
"So," Dax said, swirling her drink idly in one hand, the ice clinking gently against the sides of the glass, "You meant it when you said that you were a pack animal."
Kagome nodded. "I really did. I've spent the last eight hundred years as part of a pack; as the alpha bitch, as a matter of fact."
"What does that even mean?" Kira asked, bemused.
"Well," she started, "basically, it means I'm the dominant one in every interaction – unless it's with my mate. I am trusted to make decisions for all my packmates; I am responsible for their care and wellbeing. I protect; I provide. I offer submission to my mate and no one else."
"Submission." Dax's voice was skeptical. Kagome smiled and nodded.
"It made me nervous at first, too," she agreed. "I've always been an independent spirit, and it made me really antsy to think that I'd just have to mindlessly agree to whatever Sesshoumaru said. But that's not actually how it works." She ran her hands absently through her hair, wondering quite how to articulate it. "It's more a matter of trust." A glance around the table showed that though no one was convinced yet, they hadn't dismissed her as nuts – they were taking it better than she'd feared. Maybe constant exposure to other species and cultures would make them more tolerant of youkai society?
She took a deep breath and continued. "When I offer my submission to my mate, what I'm saying is that I trust him to act in my best interest, just as I physically, immediately trust him not to rip out the throat I'm baring to him. He is the one who makes the final decision, and I would be expected to follow his commands even if I disagreed with them – but as a matter of fact, that never happened. Because he was a good alpha. He always made the decisions that really were in our best interest, mine and the pack's. Eventually – and I have to admit, it did take a while – I stopped second-guessing him. We still discussed important things, but I trusted him more and pressed him for his reasons less." Her companions were nodding, though Dax still had a rebellious glint in her eyes that made Kagome smile. It reminded her a bit of her, as a fiery teen in feudal Japan.
She met Dax's gaze and nodded. "I always knew that it was possible that a time would come a time when I might have to defy him; if he gave me an order I couldn't follow in good conscience, I would not have followed it. But that was a last resort – it would have meant the end of my marriage, the end of my status as pack ... and possibly the end of my life. But as I say, because Sesshoumaru was such a good alpha, I found myself worrying about that eventuality less and less. And in any case, every relationship takes compromise, right?" Kagome didn't miss the little exchange of glances between Dax and Worf – hit the nail on the head, she thought with a certain satisfaction. "His compromise was to listen to my counsel, to take my feelings and beliefs into consideration before he made his decisions. Mine was to make allowances for his instincts, which demanded submission. In private, I talked and he listened – but I was always the model mate in front of others. Submissive and obedient. Docile, even." She grinned wickedly at a sudden thought. "But only to my mate. Everyone else learned the hard way that I refuse to be pushed around."
Her smile faded a bit. Sesshoumaru. He was always there; her protector, her support. He didn't let anyone push her around, either. She was happy to fight her own battles – but only did so when he didn't get there first, or he would have disposed of anyone who so much as looked at her askance. Her champion. She turned her eyes deliberately away and faced the dark window, not even noticing the explosion of swirling cloud and golden light as the wormhole flickered open.
...
The doors to Quark's slid open, and Commander Sisko and Constable Odo entered, accompanying a tall stranger. Dax gasped and the rest of the table – save Kagome, whose eyes were still fixed sightlessly on the window – turned to look at the new arrival. He was wearing tattered robes of white and red – and he had long silver hair and stripes on his cheekbones. Dax lay one hand over Kagome's and squeezed, hard.
"What—?" Kagome started, before noting that everyone was looking behind her. As soon as she'd opened her mouth, Dax noted, the stranger's eyes – golden eyes – had snapped to their table and he'd frozen completely. Slowly, hesitantly, Kagome turned in her chair to follow the direction of everyone's gaze.
Their eyes met. A hush fell over the whole canteen; even Quark's crass banter came to a halt as he watched the pair speculatively from behind the bar, the glass he'd been polishing forgotten in his hands.
Kagome stood on trembling legs and took a few steps towards him, not breaking eye contact. For a moment she paused, still a few feet away from him.
"You have masked your scent and aura," he stated quietly, the rich baritone voice washing over her skin like a caress.
She nodded distractedly and gave him a weak smile. "You've hidden your aura, too. Unknown territory, right?" He inclined his head in acknowledgement. She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath, releasing the barrier that hid her scent from him.
His eyes flashed red and he gulped in a ragged breath. Suddenly, she felt as though she were suffocating; she needed him, now. With a broken sob, she hurled herself into his arms.
Strong arms caught her as though she weighed nothing, and she found herself enveloped in a crushing embrace. One clawed hand slid through her hair, the other pressing her tight against his body; his shoulders were hunched around her, as though he were trying to physically surround her. His nose was in her hair, in her neck; he was drinking in deep, greedy pulls of her scent like a drowning man pulling for air. Her hands were fisted in the worn silk of his robe, her face buried against his chest; she couldn't help the tears that were pouring down her cheeks.
He drew back from her for a moment, palms on her cheeks, and she found that his eyes were red, his stripes dark and jagged, his fangs elongated. He slid one hand back into her hair again and tugged, pulling her head backwards; she took the hint and bared her throat to him. With a low growl, he took the offered throat between his teeth, fangs scraping gently against the tender skin. She shut her eyes, reveling in the familiar sweetness of the gesture. His beast satisfied, Sesshoumaru began licking up her neck in long swipes, burying his face in her shoulder again as she threaded her fingers through his silk-soft hair, rubbing his scalp and nuzzling his temple with her cheek.
Finally, reluctantly, he pulled back, his eyes – now golden again – dark with concern. Cupping her cheek in one clawed hand, he asked, "You are unharmed?"
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak around her tears. "I'm fine," she managed after a moment.
His brow creased in a scowl. "You look pale." He looked her up and down, and his scowl deepened. "You have gotten thinner."
She managed a watery smile, though even that broke when she opened her mouth to explain. "I thought you were dead," she whispered, her voice cracking; she bit her bottom lip, hard. A tear overflowed from one eye and slid down her cheek, followed almost immediately by another, then another. Before she could do more than take a shaky breath, she found herself hauled back into a strong embrace, a big hand stroking her hair, a soothing rumble vibrating through his chest under her cheek.
She felt him take a deep breath. "I'm never letting you out of my sight again," he growled, his voice full of conviction.
She managed a little chuckle, and drew back to look him in the eyes. "Ditto." He smiled at her, one of his rare, genuine smiles, and pressed his lips tenderly to hers. She found herself responding to his kiss with abandon, slipping her tongue wantonly into his mouth, scraping her fingernails against his scalp, arching her body tight against his, making him groan appreciatively into her mouth as his hands molded her tighter against him.
When he drew back she could only blink up at him, eyes clouded with passion, breathing erratic, face flushed, wondering what was wrong. He slid a claw gently down her cheek and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "When we don't have an audience," he whispered into her hair. She gasped; she'd completely forgotten where they were and the fact that most of the inhabitants of Deep Space Nine were staring at them. She glanced around her, abashed; yep, everyone was staring. Miles gave her a big thumbs-up, Kira smacking his shoulder in good-natured rebuke; Worf was looking impassively into his prune juice; Julian gave her a cheeky jerk of his chin and a broad wink; Dax was grinning like a Cheshire cat. She flushed hotly and buried her face in Sesshoumaru's shoulder. His chuckle rumbled through her, a healing balm to her aching heart.