In the first days following her arrival at the den, Kagome had tried to settle into life on the cliffs as best as a human was able. There wasn't an abundant amount of things she was able to do, her humanity something of a hindrance when you're that far from the actual ground. While the ledge of the mountain where the Den was located was certainly big enough to move around, even to the point of getting away from everyone present if you wanted to be alone without going inside, her marked lack of upper body strength and claws made it to where that was just about the only place Kagome could go without the help of someone else.
When she did ask Kouga for something to do, even if it was small or less than pleasant, having never been good at sitting on her hands and doing nothing, the only thing he said in response was, 'we got it all covered, but there is literally never enough eyes on the cubs'.
A babysitter.
She had basically been relegated to a babysitter.
Under any other circumstance, that particular job was something she had no problem doing. She was great with kids, and the cubs seemed to have liked her on her first night, but within an hour of stepping outside during daylight hours, she discovered exactly why Kouga called the cubs 'little shits'.
As soon as the tiny hellions figured out they could go places she couldn't, the race was on, and it was to the amusement of everyone but Kagome. It wasn't that she didn't try, she did. It was that the little shits were actually little assholes, and she was out of candy to make them bend to her will. The only saving grace she had was Shippo, who could climb up the rock walls after the cubs.
By lunch on the second day, she had stressed herself out so much over the younger cubs, she was near tears, and Kouga finally took pity on her and pulled her aside while the cubs were eating. During the short conversation, he gave her a crash course on how life in a pack worked when it came to the rambunctious little bastards. He told her in no uncertain terms that if she acted like the omega, she would be treated like it, and no one listened to them, not even the cubs. With a grin and a chuckle, he explained that if she wanted the cubs to listen to her, she was going to have to make them, because they're cubs, and they don't listen to any fucking one they don't have to.
She asked him then if he would show her what to do, but he just winked at her before walking off and going back to what it was he was doing before he pulled her aside. While she glared at his back, she turned her attention back to the cubs as, one by one, they got up and started their games again. She did look to the mothers, who seemed perfectly content with allowing the children to do whatever they wanted, but with a shake of her head, she followed after the little ones and crossed her arms, looking back up to the higher cliffs where the kids decided was the greatest place ever to play.
The reason she didn't want the younger ones playing that far up was because there was nothing for them to catch themselves on if the lost their balance, and even though they were demons, that was a landing on solid rock. Clearly, others thought her unspoken fear was unfounded, but not an hour after they went up, a tail was stepped on, and the responding noise of pain caught the one that did it off guard enough for him to lost his grip, and fall he did. It was then she learned that even though it might not have looked like it, every single set of eyes were on the cubs, but the only one fast enough to catch the one that fell was Kouga, who jarred his shoulder in the process.
Though Kouga had turned blazing eyes up the cliff, it was Kagome that snapped at them, and when she did, every single cub listened.
"Get, your furry, fuzzy, little asses, down here." When they didn't move in a timely enough manner, she balled her fists and stomped her foot. "Now!"
That had gotten them moving.
When little feet hit the ledge, every single one slinked past the pissed off miko, tails tucked under the weight of the stink eye she bestowed on them. It wasn't until the last one was off the rock wall she shook her head and went to make sure Kouga was alright after the clearly bad landing when he made the diving catch, who just smirked at her as he sent the cub on his way before popping his shoulder back where it belonged. He hadn't completely knocked it out of its socket, but when catching a kid, bracing for impact to avoid injury isn't really possible.
After the incident with the cubs, the entire pack, not just the three females she had become close with, treated her differently, and Kouga had watched over the change with a very critical eye.
If it wasn't something one was raised with, the dynamic of a wolf pack did come with something of a learning curve, but Kouga had given her everything she needed during their conversation her first full day on the cliffs, and reiterated when he told her how to deal with the cubs, when he told her actions were what mattered. Nothing was just given away. Everyone had to earn their place among the ranks, and she would be no different. It was why he didn't show her what to do. He didn't not do it to be an asshole. He didn't help her because he couldn't, not if he wanted he wanted her to be accepted by the rest of the pack.
Prior to her handling of the situation with the cubs, her presences was tolerated at best, which was normal for any female trying to join an established pack. Whether or not that's what happened in the end where was Kagome was concerned, she would still have to go through all the bullshit that entailed, either until, or after, that decision was made. It truly did not matter how Kouga felt about her. If she couldn't get the females of the pack behind her, if she did one day become he his mate, all she would be seen as is their alpha's female, which was drastically different than the pack's alpha female, and the one position he had absolutely no say in. He could force any wolf to submit to him, but he could not force their submission to someone else.
They had to do it themselves.
If Kagome couldn't prove herself a leader, and another female came along who could, the outcome wasn't really something Kouga wanted to think about. On top of a huge safety issue where his human was concerned, he would be expected to produce at least one male cub with that female to carry on the line of succession, which could lead to multiple attempts if female cubs were born first, but he didn't want any cubs at all that Kagome wasn't the mother of. The thought actually made him physically ill, but he couldn't do anything but wait and see if she either sank or swam.
But Kouga had the cunningness to outwit a fox, which was why he had her watching after the cubs. Getting the cubs to submit to her was both the fastest and easiest way to get the women to do so. He didn't lie when he said the little ones didn't listen to anyone but him and their respective mother, so if she could get the cubs to listen to her, she would be over halfway there.
Which was proven when she was able to get them off the rock face.
He had discovered why Kagome was placed where she was on her first night, but it had nothing to do with how she was seen by the women that first time. It was because the women knew how she was seen by him, so they decided to put her on the raised rock so he could see her better, not for any other reason. While the explanation at the time made him roll his eyes, he said nothing about it. Honestly, if he had truly been that concerned about her safety, he would have had her so completely surrounded by wolves no matter where she laid her head no one would have gotten within ten feet of her without losing a limb or two.
As an aside to that point, if the miko was ever his in any capacity, she would sleep next to him, period, end of statement, so it wouldn't matter. If she was 'just' his female, she would be in his bed, and if she found herself elevated to the pack's alpha female, he would sleep in hers. He didn't fucking care. As it was, for the three nights so far Kagome had been staying at the den, she had been sleeping in the main chamber with him, even though her pallet had been made up on the platform every night.
Which was where he had began to see the changes in how the females were treating the human, but even more shockingly, her kit.
It was the responsibility of everyone to protect their alpha female and her cubs, and after Kagome's commanding of the other cubs, that very night, Kouga noticed the women laid down in a much tighter formation around the platform in their chamber than they had the night before. The reason had nothing to do with Kagome, either, because she had already decided she wasn't sleeping there. Shippo, however, didn't want to sleep in the main chamber, which put him in the smaller one by himself. Normally, orphaned demon children were ignored, their fate left to the Kami over whether they lived or died, but because the women had seen Kagome treat the kit like he was her cub, they treated the kit like he was her cub.
From what Kagome told him, the sleeping arrangements were more of a personal thing than they were anything. She did understand that she was basically living among animal minded creatures, but just one too many times she had turned around and saw two or more pairs having sex, and that night, she happened to see a couple of males follow those same women into the area where she was supposed to sleep, and she wasn't really a fan of the show, so to speak.
When it happened again the next day, Kagome had asked him about it, and he basically laughed at her.
"It's just a rut; not really a big deal around here. When a female goes into heat, the clock is ticking for her to get pregnant, and it's a waste of time to go somewhere private."
"So, this happens all the time?"
"Pretty much, yeah. We're driven by instinct, Kagome, and if instinct says to fuck, we fuck. That's just how it is. We don't see it the same as humans do, and we certainly don't have the same aversion to an audience. Sex is sex and it's done for a purpose."
"Okay, so you don't do just to do it?"
"Of course we do it just to do it. I said it was done for a purpose, and sometimes that purpose is just because you're scratching an itch. We just don't care about privacy. As a matter of fact, just about the only time that comes into play is if the pair is newly mated. At that point, the male is driven by a completely different instinct, which is to protect what's now his. If that's not the case though, it happens where it happens.
"Even in front of the cubs?"
"Even in front of the cubs. I told you, we don't look at sex the same way humans do, and as long as the cubs don't get too close, there's no cause for concern. Males get kind of snappy when they're in the middle of a rut, but as soon as their done, it's like it never happened. He'll walk away come back when she's ready for another round, or on a rare occasion, he'll hang around her for her entire heat and fight off other males, or he won't and a different male will take his place. As soon as her ass goes in the air, she's fair game to whoever gets there first."
"So, what you're saying is, a woman spends her heat getting raped by whoever happens by."
"Not even close. That's comparing us to humans, and human is the last thing we are. We are instinct driven demons evolved from instinct driven animals. Every female you see here can walk around naked all fucking day and no one will even look in her general direction, in heat or not. Can you say the same about human women?"
"No."
"When you're dealing with demons, it's whole different game with a whole new set of rules. Every race has their own way for females to show their interest in getting laid. Reptiles, for example, will literally crawl under a male reptile. Felines roll over onto their backs and show their bellies. Canines, like wolves, put their asses in the air. It all means the same thing. She wants to fuck. Rape is mostly a human horror that rarely happens in the demon world, because a female demon that's not in the mood or wants nothing to do with you will fuck you up."
"Good for her."
"Agreed. Now, as I said, rape in our world is rare, but it does happen, and the circumstance is always the same. A lone female, either already in heat or getting there, gets within scenting distance to a male of the same species, and upon actually seeing the male, the female decides he not worth her time, usually do to genetics, which she can tell through scent. It means she'll have a sickly cub to raise, and depending on her region of the land, a sickly cub is almost positive not to survive. However, shitty genetics or not, it is still a male demon she's dealing with, whose sole purpose is to carry on his line, with the physical ability to force her submission. While he may succeed, he's not walking away the same. In my pack, I don't tolerate that shit. If a female isn't in the mood or decides she doesn't want to run the risk of having a male's cubs for whatever reason, that's that, and he'll either back the fuck off or I'll throw his ass over the side of the cliff. The only male my females submit to is me and I'll kill anyone that tries to challenge that. They all know it, too."
"Your females?"
"My pack, my females. Unless they are mated, they're my responsibility. It's an alpha thing."
The explanation had clearly taken the human off guard, but Kouga saw no reason to lie about it. Plus, he would be lying if he said he didn't find her discovery that literally as soon as the act was done, it was business as usual fucking hysterical. She had actually been talking to someone, who walked away from her, fucked someone, then went back after he was done and literally picked up the conversation where he left off, much to the young miko's pure abject horror.
Clearly, it was something akin her own personal Hell, but the result was she not only became very cautious of her actions and movements, but she would then plant her ass right next to Kouga, and wouldn't look anywhere but the ground or his eyes when she started to hear growling.
Another thing Kouga noticed over of those first couple of days was an obvious restructuring of the female ranks. The three women Kagome met on the first night, Eriko, Akimi, and Maeko, prior to Kagome making friends with them, had been relatively low within the female hierarchy. Now, however, they were being treated much better, and the handful who used to get preferential treatment that snubbed the miko when she arrived were starting to be snubbed themselves; something that no small amount of the other females thought they deserved.
As he watched the ripple effect Kagome's presence had on the pack, Kouga also saw what kind of effect the pack had on her. While there was still a noticeable level of heartbreak present, she didn't cry as much as she did when she first arrived, and though the cubs continued to dry hump her every last nerve, she would join in on their games every so often, much to their excitement. It hadn't been his intention for her to take the stress the little ones offered in spades onto her own shoulders, but once she stopped seeing the demon children as much more breakable human toddlers, she began to laugh at their antics along with everyone else, which had been his intention. She did still snap at them when she saw something going on that clearly shouldn't be, but she didn't follow them around waiting for them to get hurt anymore.
The lessons she was learning by way of the cubs had also gotten her to lighten up on Shippo, which not surprising to any demon present, allowed him to blossom while he played with the cubs, because their 'games' weren't really games; they were teaching tools tailored to the learning abilities of children. Kouga noticed the kit's first morning at the den that he didn't know what he should for how old he was, which had nothing to do with Kagome's over-protectiveness, and everything to do with his lack of socialization when he was younger.
Foxes tended to have litters of kits, so Kouga would bet his entire territory Shippo wasn't actually an only child. Whether his siblings died after they were born or his mother died before she had her whole litter, that he didn't know, but what he could clearly tell was his father was far more interested in whether or not Shippo could use his magic than he was in whether or not the kit could defend himself or form any kind of meaningful bond with demons his own age.
While Shippo was a fast learner, he was also extremely socially awkward, and anytime one of the cubs got too close to him, his eyes would spark in near terror as he backed away in the most submissive manner Kouga had ever seen a male use. He was unable to tell the difference in social cues, not knowing when someone wanted to play or if they were actually looking for a fight, which the older cubs did do on occasion. For the fact Shippo's scent said he was almost fifty years old, he was a terrified little ball of fluff. His fall back was always flight, even if he would come out the clear winner in most of the altercations, and if the ookami was honest, it was fucking depressing to watch.
It had taken several hours that morning before Kouga just could not stand back and allow that kind of shit to continue any longer. He snagged the kit, pulled him off to the side, and spoke with him the same way he had numerous times before with a vast majority of the cubs. Actually being very good with kids, only ten minutes later, Kouga sent a much more confident Shippo back out to play. Kami bless the woman however, Kagome had that shit undone in no time flat, but as she began to calm down over her own situation, and finally realized Shippo wasn't actually as young as he looked, the kit was doing much better as far as standing his ground went.
Something else that never left Kouga's mind was the conversation he had with Kagome that first morning. Or, more specifically, the end of it. While kidnapping the woman again had crossed his mind many times over the last couple of years, there was no part of him that thought the mutt wouldn't once again come after her. She had something Inuyasha wanted, which was her ability to see and sense the Shikon shards. Without her, he wouldn't be able to collect them anymore, but it was because he knew that, the wolf was more than slightly curious what the fuck the dog was thinking.
Unlike everyone else, who was only focused on the length Inuyasha went to to get rid of Kagome, Kouga wanted to know why he went to such a length. There had to be more to it than what was said. He also wondered if whether or not kidnapping the girl again would have stopped this event from happening. If he would have taken her from Inuyasha again at any point over the years, and actually kept her from him as he knew he could, would she still be able to go back and forth to her own time?
There was, of course, also the secondary questioning of whether or not, if he had, if she would be his by now. At no point since he found her in the woods had she held him at the distance she used to. She didn't shy away from his touch like she had. If he was gone for part of the day, her eyes would light up when he returned. She just looked at him differently than she did before, and everyday that passed, the sidelong glances became more frequent as the distance she always kept herself from him got smaller. While he had no choice but to consider the fact part of that could have been in his head, there was no arguing the fact that, at night, she didn't just sleep in his bed to get away from the nightly activities; she slept wrapped up in his arms, and by her own choice.
He knew what he promised her, but damn it if he wasn't just this side of the line of begging for there to be no way to send Kagome back where she came from. The longer she was constantly around, the more receptive she appeared to be when it came to his offer, the less he wanted to exhaust all options before just giving up. He couldn't do that to her, but fuck if he didn't want to. There was a time where he not only could have, but absolutely would have. Now, however, he loved her too much to hurt her like that.
Besides, there was still a couple of more days before her friends returned, so there was still time to change her mind and get her to choose him over whatever long off shot they might find to undo whatever it was the dead bitch had done to her pathway to a time she told him he no longer existed.