Spider, Part Eighteen
"Truth "
by Vega
It took a long time for the wolves to want to speak.
Hakkaku came into the den a curled himself around one of the wolves and cried into the creature's blood-soaked ruff, trying to muffle his sobs, to hide them. Ginta had tears standing in his eyes but never shed them. He just went to his pallet, formally mine, and leaned back against the rock surface and stared at the ceiling.
Kabau limped over to me where I had been sitting by the fire alone, holding one paw up to his chest, and I noticed with a gasp of horror that his tail as crooked and one ear was torn in half. Immediately I whipped my sash off and bound it over his head, looking like a ridiculous bonnet, but stanching the bleeding.
Then I found two strong and straight bones in the pile of throw-aways from meals, apologized, then yanked his tail straight and bound it between the bones in a heavy but working sling. He licked the side of my face and slunk away into a corner to tend to the rest of his scrapes.
Kouga looked the worst and I immediately went to his side. He had staggered in and dropped onto his pile of furs, white as a sheet, dark smudges under his eyes, dried blood and tears on his face. He lay, face down, tail tucked between his dirty legs, left hand under his forehead, right hand sprawled out, and bloody.
I stood, grabbed an empty pitcher in my left hand from the fire-side, went to the waterfall and filled it, then brought it back to Kouga's side with the cleanest rag I could find on the way. I knelt beside him, rinsing the rag in the water first, and re-adjusting my now-tie-less kimono to sit closed, then touched it to the bloody patch on his right arm.
His Shikon Shard had been torn out, I saw. Again.
And he looked ghastly.
At the touch of the wet and cold cloth, Kouga jumped and lifted his face to me. "Let me die," he hissed, and his voice was no more than a harsh exhalation of breath. "I've failed my pack."
I pulled the cloth back and dipped it into the water, watching the blood patterns blossom on the surface of the pitcher's contents. "What happened?"
It was Ginta's voice that pierced the thick darkness, and not Kouga's.
"It was a trap," he said, his voice strangely hollow. "Naraku knew we were coming. That goddamned mutt-faced hanyou set us up!"
"No!" I whispered, continuing to clean Kouga's wound. "He hates Naraku! I've seen them fighting!"
Kouga pulled himself back onto his knees slowly, and I could see by the expression on his face that every muscle was screaming in protest. Then he reached out and set a heavy hand on my shoulder, deliberately close to my neck. If he'd had the strength, I think it may have been wrapped around my throat instead of just resting beside it.
"What do you mean, you've SEEN them fighting. I thought Naraku just stole your earring." I tried to pull back, to escape his hate-filled glare, but Kouga held me fast. When I hesitated, he gave me a small shake. "Answer!"
"I..." I licked my lips, nervous, and felt three yellow, one green, and two blue pairs of eyes boring into the back of my head. "I'm so sorry, Kouga... I'm so sorry..." I felt the tears sliding down my cheeks and over his hand, but still he did not let go. His grip shifted upwards and this time he did wrap his long fingers around my neck.
"Did you know about this?" he snarled, his weight resting heavily on his torn up arm. "Are you some sort of SPY!?"
"No, no!" I cried, " I swear it! What I told you was true, Kouga! I am from the future... but I lied to you about Naraku." I paused as a heavy sob racked my chest, and I collapsed against him. Kouga let go and wrapped his arms around me, resting his hands on my back. But his posture was stiff. He was distancing himself.
I heard Ginta and Hakkaku whispering behind us, and caught only a few of the words:
"...future..."
"... going on...?
"...set us up...?"
"I didn't set you up!" I screamed, tears flowing like a river. "I'm not a spy, I swear it! I'm so sorry!"
"What do you mean, you lied about Naraku?" I felt Kouga's chest rumble, the warmth of his body, of the lap I was lying in, but his voice... his voice was like ice.
"I wasn't mugged by him." I took a deep breath, the air making me cough, and they waited me out. "For three weeks, maybe more, I... I w-was his prisoner."
"Why?" The question held no concern. Only demand.
My breath hitched again, and I felt so guilty, so god-damned guilty...
"I had a Shikon Shard...i-inside... m-my... my body. I spied on him, fighting Inu Yasha and his friends," I closed my eyes, but forced myself to continue, even as I felt Kouga's hands spasm on my shoulder blades. "I-in a place he couldn't ... f-find. He held me... tortured me in my sleep... h-he got into my... my dreams, even... t-touched me... wanted to know how I... I got here... I'm so sorry..."
Kouga's posture softened and he reached up with his good hand and pulled me upright to meet my eyes. He looked like he'd had the fever, and had been sick for weeks. No, scratch that, he looked like he was dead.
"K-kouga...!" I hitched and tried to touch his face, "What did he do to you...?
"Never mind me," he snapped, and shrugged off my touch. "What happened? Did Naraku find the shard?"
I nodded, fresh tears spilling.
For weeks I had blocked those memories from my mind. Every night I shied away from the nightmares that his touch induced, hid my wounded wrist, soothed Kabau when he nosed close to me to cease my sobs.
Every day I had smiled and played along, trying so hard, so damned hard, to forget what he had done to me... but sometimes, I would move and twinge something, or I'd start to ache, and all the memories, the horrible, terrifying memories of his touch, his hot breath on my thigh, his dusty drugged kisses, they would come back and threaten to drown me and I would scream but no one would hear it and I would start to shake and shiver and sweat so badly that it feels like I'd never stop, I'd never stop, I'd never...
"Stop, stop!" Kouga was screaming, shaking me hard. I suddenly came back to myself and realized that I had been shaking and screaming, leaking all over Kouga - and my wrist was bleeding again, too.
I stopped and he lifted my wrist to his mouth and I thought he was going lap up the blood, but instead he sniffed it.
"It reeks of poison," he whispered. "I just couldn't tell before. Naraku bit you, didn't he?"
"Y-yes. In a dream, and for real."
There was a pause as he took the wet rag I'd been using to clean his wounds and pressed it down on mine. Then Kouga asked, "Did he get the shard?"
"Half of it," I whispered. "There was an earring he gave me, to control me with, and that's what t-tore my ear."
"And where's the other half of the shard...?"
I looked meaningfully at my stomach, and it took a while for Kouga to clue in, but when he did he went even paler than he had been.
"W-what!?" he shouted, startled, "In THERE?!"
I nodded again.
"How the HELL did he get... it... out...?" It suddenly dawned on Kouga, and he swore under his breath, and pulled me right against him. "No wonder you're crying. Oh, god, I'm sorry..."
"I think he went after you," I whispered, "because he knows. He must know that I lived when he dumped me... he must be after the last half of it..."
"I won't let him get you," Kouga snarled, and his anger was suddenly a vibrant, living thing. "I'll kill that sonofabitch for our Pack, and for you. And then I'll get that goddamned hanyou!"
I nodded against his chest, sniffling.
I was thankful for his safe embrace... but how would I convince him that Inu Yasha would never work with Naraku? And then it came to me.
"Naraku o ou Mono," I said.
"What?" asked Hakkau, and I looked up to see that he and Ginta and the wolves had crept closer until they were within arm's reach.
"Naraku o ou Mono," I repeated. "I told you I was from the future - I'm descended from Sango, the woman with the boomerang who fights with Inu Yasha. I appeared in her village when Naraku attacked it because I dreamed about the attack. I ... wanted to help them. And the Shikon no Tama piece that had been born inside me made it happen because ... because according to history, I'm meant to go back and give it to the Miko, Kagome, so she can defeat Naraku. Sango, Inu Yasha, Kagome, the monk, Miroku, and the fox kit that you almost killed, Shippou... I'm the progeny of each of them. And they're known in my time as the 'Naraku o ou Mono', those who pursue Naraku. So Inu Yasha can't possibly have worked WITH Naraku!"
Gita blinked, stunned. Hakkaku's mouth worked like a gapping fish. Kouga took all this in with a knife-slice mouth and narrowed eyes.
"I'll give that you are from the future, PERHAPS," he finally said, "but I will have the truth from the Hanoyu bastard myself. For now..." His baleful gaze swept the den. "We'll sleep and recover. Then will track down that Naraku and twist his head around the wrong way."
~~~
"Sister? Sister?"
I blinked awake and looked over Kouga's sleeping form at Ginta on his own pallet on the floor.
"Is it true?" Ginta whispered, over the heads of those sleeping around us. I nodded. "Oh. Is that why... Kouga said that you... didn't want to be my ... mate...it's because you're from the future...?"
I shook my head 'no' and he cocked his, puzzled.
"It's because you're my great-great-great-grandfather," I whispered back and he let out a little yelp of surprise.
Then I lay back down and closed my eyes, a smile playing at the corner of my lips.
~~~
Sandalwood.
I could smell it.
It was cloying in it's heaviness, and made my stomach roil. It made me ache in places deep inside me, hurting, ripping up phantom pain.
I tried to scream, but cotton, dry and thick, filled my mouth.
I heard a chuckle.
I whipped around, my joints feeling filled with ball bearing lead weights. I saw a flash of silver in the shadows... a death's head mask...
A sliver of light...
"You think I killed them because of you...?"
"I HATE YOU!" I screamed back, "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!"
"You think I don't know there's a piece left...?"
I fell to my knees on the groundless floor, hands wrapped over my abdomen. "You can't have it!"
"How do you think I've kept track of you...?"
"FUCK OFF!"
"Do you think the Miko sensed it when that wolf had three? I made sure she didn't. I want you back, girl."
"Then..." I sobbed... "Then why did you let me go?"
"Who said I let you go...?"
I looked up, around, but I couldn't see him.
"I needed a spy, girl... someone to evaluate the Ookami tribes... and you dropped out of the sky for me, perfect, ready..."
"No!" I wailed, "no, no!"
"Yes. And now that they are crushed, I will have your shard..."
I pulled myself to my feet, ignoring the burning in my wrist, on my forearm, between my legs...
"The Fuck you will!" I snarled, "Come and get it then, you sonofabitch! I'll claw your eyes out myself! The legends say I deliver this thing safely to the Miko and goddammit, if I have to tear you into shreds myself YOU WILL NOT STOP ME!"
The room around began to dissolve, as if acid was eating it away, in spots and splotches. His laughter began to fade away too, eaten, destroyed.
And I was left standing in black.
The sandalwood smell gone.
I had beaten him away.
Fire flared up suddenly on my wrist and I screamed. Flames leapt up my arm, sizzling, destroying, consuming. The hot breeze of the flames wafted over my face and chest, singing my hair and resting on my throat.
I screamed.
~~~
I was awoken by Kouga's hot breath on my neck.
I bolted upright, bashing my nose on his muscular shoulder.
"It was just a dream!" he was saying, "Stop screaming, it was just a dream."
"My wrist," I panted, "fire!"
He grabbed both of my hands between his good one and I realized that he was straddled over me, his knees on either side of my hips. "You're not on fire," he whispered soothingly, rubbing his other thumb across my forehead, his hands buried soothingly in my hair. "You're okay. You're here... with me."
"Oh, Kouga!" I cried and threw myself up at him. I felt his grimace of pain but he sat back on my legs and held me back. "He was using me - he was seeing through me... the whole time."
He breathed into my hair for a moment, "We were both used." I felt his lips press against my temple in a soothing gesture. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the softness and warmth. "It's not your fault."
"But the shard! The bites!"
Kouga peeled away from me, somewhat reluctantly I felt ,and looked at my wrist. We were both shocked to see that it was completely gone - not even a scar remained behind.
"Does that mean he's gone?" Kouga whispered.
"I don't... I don't know... I just... I just dreamed him... he said... he wants the shard..."
"He was just in your dream...?" Kouga sounded awed, and slightly scared.
"M-hmm..." I nodded, "Kouga... he knows where we are..."
"Then we'll leave!" he sprang to his feet, hauling me up. "I'll wake the others, we'll run, we'll get outta here and regroup and--" he swayed on his feet and I managed to catch him just before he fell. I lowered us slowly to the pelts and petted his head, making soft soothing sounds.
"You're still hurt, and sick. We can't move yet..." Kouga shivered in my embrace and rubbed his cheek into my thigh like a whimpering puppy. "Kouga, what's wrong with you?"
"I was... I was poisoned..." he said, his voice rough with hurt and suppressed anger and sorrow. "The Shikon Shard I found... it was tainted. It was a trap... I couldn't get to the palace on time... couldn't get it out... I couldn't help them..." he sniffed, "I failed them..."
"No, no," I said, "no, you were used. WE were used..."
He sat up and stared me in the face. "You're too intelligent for my own good..."
"They're your words."
He smiled slightly. "I know."
His hands came up, brushing lightly over my shoulders and neck to hold the sides of my head. He shifted forward and I felt the hot press of his thighs on the outside of mine. Fur brushed my arm and I looked down to see his tail resting there. That's when I noticed that Kouga was wearing nothing. No armour, no kilt, no leg bands, nothing.
Kouga, Prince of the Wolf Youkai, slept in the nude.
"Kouga, what are you...?"
"Shhh..." his eyes roamed over my face. "Don't talk any more."
"But Kouga, there's other things I need to tell you--"
He surged forward and kissed me suddenly. It was hot and passionate and filled with desperation. Desperate to forget, desperate to be forgiven, desperate to just be held.
When I kissed him back, I'm sure my kiss felt the same.
And before I knew what had happened, his hand was sliding into the loose folds of my robe, and mine was smoothing back his bangs, and for a brief flash of time, everything was okay in the world...
~~~
I dreamt of home.
Of my mother, worried sick about me. Of my great-grandmother, wherever she was. Of my Uncle Sesshoumaru and his strange white hair and tattoos.
I dreamt of my father, the healthy, happy man he was before my fourth birthday, before the cancer strangled him in his sleep.
I dreamt of school and homework and the dog Mom and I had when I was seven.
I dreamt about the time I was teased for being a half-breed; for being Japanese-American. Half-breed indeed.
I dreamt about all the times I had smelled things that no one else in school had smelled, seen things, felt things that no one else could feel, sensed things... and they suddenly all made sense.
I dreamt about the kid's life I'd saved while working at summer camp because I could smell the peanut butter on the little girl's jumper.
And I cried in my sleep, holding Kouga tight.
And I wanted to go home.
~~~
Author's notes:
I love how I make it sound like I planned to do this all along...
Reviews:
I posted too fast! No reviews here!
"Truth "
by Vega
It took a long time for the wolves to want to speak.
Hakkaku came into the den a curled himself around one of the wolves and cried into the creature's blood-soaked ruff, trying to muffle his sobs, to hide them. Ginta had tears standing in his eyes but never shed them. He just went to his pallet, formally mine, and leaned back against the rock surface and stared at the ceiling.
Kabau limped over to me where I had been sitting by the fire alone, holding one paw up to his chest, and I noticed with a gasp of horror that his tail as crooked and one ear was torn in half. Immediately I whipped my sash off and bound it over his head, looking like a ridiculous bonnet, but stanching the bleeding.
Then I found two strong and straight bones in the pile of throw-aways from meals, apologized, then yanked his tail straight and bound it between the bones in a heavy but working sling. He licked the side of my face and slunk away into a corner to tend to the rest of his scrapes.
Kouga looked the worst and I immediately went to his side. He had staggered in and dropped onto his pile of furs, white as a sheet, dark smudges under his eyes, dried blood and tears on his face. He lay, face down, tail tucked between his dirty legs, left hand under his forehead, right hand sprawled out, and bloody.
I stood, grabbed an empty pitcher in my left hand from the fire-side, went to the waterfall and filled it, then brought it back to Kouga's side with the cleanest rag I could find on the way. I knelt beside him, rinsing the rag in the water first, and re-adjusting my now-tie-less kimono to sit closed, then touched it to the bloody patch on his right arm.
His Shikon Shard had been torn out, I saw. Again.
And he looked ghastly.
At the touch of the wet and cold cloth, Kouga jumped and lifted his face to me. "Let me die," he hissed, and his voice was no more than a harsh exhalation of breath. "I've failed my pack."
I pulled the cloth back and dipped it into the water, watching the blood patterns blossom on the surface of the pitcher's contents. "What happened?"
It was Ginta's voice that pierced the thick darkness, and not Kouga's.
"It was a trap," he said, his voice strangely hollow. "Naraku knew we were coming. That goddamned mutt-faced hanyou set us up!"
"No!" I whispered, continuing to clean Kouga's wound. "He hates Naraku! I've seen them fighting!"
Kouga pulled himself back onto his knees slowly, and I could see by the expression on his face that every muscle was screaming in protest. Then he reached out and set a heavy hand on my shoulder, deliberately close to my neck. If he'd had the strength, I think it may have been wrapped around my throat instead of just resting beside it.
"What do you mean, you've SEEN them fighting. I thought Naraku just stole your earring." I tried to pull back, to escape his hate-filled glare, but Kouga held me fast. When I hesitated, he gave me a small shake. "Answer!"
"I..." I licked my lips, nervous, and felt three yellow, one green, and two blue pairs of eyes boring into the back of my head. "I'm so sorry, Kouga... I'm so sorry..." I felt the tears sliding down my cheeks and over his hand, but still he did not let go. His grip shifted upwards and this time he did wrap his long fingers around my neck.
"Did you know about this?" he snarled, his weight resting heavily on his torn up arm. "Are you some sort of SPY!?"
"No, no!" I cried, " I swear it! What I told you was true, Kouga! I am from the future... but I lied to you about Naraku." I paused as a heavy sob racked my chest, and I collapsed against him. Kouga let go and wrapped his arms around me, resting his hands on my back. But his posture was stiff. He was distancing himself.
I heard Ginta and Hakkaku whispering behind us, and caught only a few of the words:
"...future..."
"... going on...?
"...set us up...?"
"I didn't set you up!" I screamed, tears flowing like a river. "I'm not a spy, I swear it! I'm so sorry!"
"What do you mean, you lied about Naraku?" I felt Kouga's chest rumble, the warmth of his body, of the lap I was lying in, but his voice... his voice was like ice.
"I wasn't mugged by him." I took a deep breath, the air making me cough, and they waited me out. "For three weeks, maybe more, I... I w-was his prisoner."
"Why?" The question held no concern. Only demand.
My breath hitched again, and I felt so guilty, so god-damned guilty...
"I had a Shikon Shard...i-inside... m-my... my body. I spied on him, fighting Inu Yasha and his friends," I closed my eyes, but forced myself to continue, even as I felt Kouga's hands spasm on my shoulder blades. "I-in a place he couldn't ... f-find. He held me... tortured me in my sleep... h-he got into my... my dreams, even... t-touched me... wanted to know how I... I got here... I'm so sorry..."
Kouga's posture softened and he reached up with his good hand and pulled me upright to meet my eyes. He looked like he'd had the fever, and had been sick for weeks. No, scratch that, he looked like he was dead.
"K-kouga...!" I hitched and tried to touch his face, "What did he do to you...?
"Never mind me," he snapped, and shrugged off my touch. "What happened? Did Naraku find the shard?"
I nodded, fresh tears spilling.
For weeks I had blocked those memories from my mind. Every night I shied away from the nightmares that his touch induced, hid my wounded wrist, soothed Kabau when he nosed close to me to cease my sobs.
Every day I had smiled and played along, trying so hard, so damned hard, to forget what he had done to me... but sometimes, I would move and twinge something, or I'd start to ache, and all the memories, the horrible, terrifying memories of his touch, his hot breath on my thigh, his dusty drugged kisses, they would come back and threaten to drown me and I would scream but no one would hear it and I would start to shake and shiver and sweat so badly that it feels like I'd never stop, I'd never stop, I'd never...
"Stop, stop!" Kouga was screaming, shaking me hard. I suddenly came back to myself and realized that I had been shaking and screaming, leaking all over Kouga - and my wrist was bleeding again, too.
I stopped and he lifted my wrist to his mouth and I thought he was going lap up the blood, but instead he sniffed it.
"It reeks of poison," he whispered. "I just couldn't tell before. Naraku bit you, didn't he?"
"Y-yes. In a dream, and for real."
There was a pause as he took the wet rag I'd been using to clean his wounds and pressed it down on mine. Then Kouga asked, "Did he get the shard?"
"Half of it," I whispered. "There was an earring he gave me, to control me with, and that's what t-tore my ear."
"And where's the other half of the shard...?"
I looked meaningfully at my stomach, and it took a while for Kouga to clue in, but when he did he went even paler than he had been.
"W-what!?" he shouted, startled, "In THERE?!"
I nodded again.
"How the HELL did he get... it... out...?" It suddenly dawned on Kouga, and he swore under his breath, and pulled me right against him. "No wonder you're crying. Oh, god, I'm sorry..."
"I think he went after you," I whispered, "because he knows. He must know that I lived when he dumped me... he must be after the last half of it..."
"I won't let him get you," Kouga snarled, and his anger was suddenly a vibrant, living thing. "I'll kill that sonofabitch for our Pack, and for you. And then I'll get that goddamned hanyou!"
I nodded against his chest, sniffling.
I was thankful for his safe embrace... but how would I convince him that Inu Yasha would never work with Naraku? And then it came to me.
"Naraku o ou Mono," I said.
"What?" asked Hakkau, and I looked up to see that he and Ginta and the wolves had crept closer until they were within arm's reach.
"Naraku o ou Mono," I repeated. "I told you I was from the future - I'm descended from Sango, the woman with the boomerang who fights with Inu Yasha. I appeared in her village when Naraku attacked it because I dreamed about the attack. I ... wanted to help them. And the Shikon no Tama piece that had been born inside me made it happen because ... because according to history, I'm meant to go back and give it to the Miko, Kagome, so she can defeat Naraku. Sango, Inu Yasha, Kagome, the monk, Miroku, and the fox kit that you almost killed, Shippou... I'm the progeny of each of them. And they're known in my time as the 'Naraku o ou Mono', those who pursue Naraku. So Inu Yasha can't possibly have worked WITH Naraku!"
Gita blinked, stunned. Hakkaku's mouth worked like a gapping fish. Kouga took all this in with a knife-slice mouth and narrowed eyes.
"I'll give that you are from the future, PERHAPS," he finally said, "but I will have the truth from the Hanoyu bastard myself. For now..." His baleful gaze swept the den. "We'll sleep and recover. Then will track down that Naraku and twist his head around the wrong way."
~~~
"Sister? Sister?"
I blinked awake and looked over Kouga's sleeping form at Ginta on his own pallet on the floor.
"Is it true?" Ginta whispered, over the heads of those sleeping around us. I nodded. "Oh. Is that why... Kouga said that you... didn't want to be my ... mate...it's because you're from the future...?"
I shook my head 'no' and he cocked his, puzzled.
"It's because you're my great-great-great-grandfather," I whispered back and he let out a little yelp of surprise.
Then I lay back down and closed my eyes, a smile playing at the corner of my lips.
~~~
Sandalwood.
I could smell it.
It was cloying in it's heaviness, and made my stomach roil. It made me ache in places deep inside me, hurting, ripping up phantom pain.
I tried to scream, but cotton, dry and thick, filled my mouth.
I heard a chuckle.
I whipped around, my joints feeling filled with ball bearing lead weights. I saw a flash of silver in the shadows... a death's head mask...
A sliver of light...
"You think I killed them because of you...?"
"I HATE YOU!" I screamed back, "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!"
"You think I don't know there's a piece left...?"
I fell to my knees on the groundless floor, hands wrapped over my abdomen. "You can't have it!"
"How do you think I've kept track of you...?"
"FUCK OFF!"
"Do you think the Miko sensed it when that wolf had three? I made sure she didn't. I want you back, girl."
"Then..." I sobbed... "Then why did you let me go?"
"Who said I let you go...?"
I looked up, around, but I couldn't see him.
"I needed a spy, girl... someone to evaluate the Ookami tribes... and you dropped out of the sky for me, perfect, ready..."
"No!" I wailed, "no, no!"
"Yes. And now that they are crushed, I will have your shard..."
I pulled myself to my feet, ignoring the burning in my wrist, on my forearm, between my legs...
"The Fuck you will!" I snarled, "Come and get it then, you sonofabitch! I'll claw your eyes out myself! The legends say I deliver this thing safely to the Miko and goddammit, if I have to tear you into shreds myself YOU WILL NOT STOP ME!"
The room around began to dissolve, as if acid was eating it away, in spots and splotches. His laughter began to fade away too, eaten, destroyed.
And I was left standing in black.
The sandalwood smell gone.
I had beaten him away.
Fire flared up suddenly on my wrist and I screamed. Flames leapt up my arm, sizzling, destroying, consuming. The hot breeze of the flames wafted over my face and chest, singing my hair and resting on my throat.
I screamed.
~~~
I was awoken by Kouga's hot breath on my neck.
I bolted upright, bashing my nose on his muscular shoulder.
"It was just a dream!" he was saying, "Stop screaming, it was just a dream."
"My wrist," I panted, "fire!"
He grabbed both of my hands between his good one and I realized that he was straddled over me, his knees on either side of my hips. "You're not on fire," he whispered soothingly, rubbing his other thumb across my forehead, his hands buried soothingly in my hair. "You're okay. You're here... with me."
"Oh, Kouga!" I cried and threw myself up at him. I felt his grimace of pain but he sat back on my legs and held me back. "He was using me - he was seeing through me... the whole time."
He breathed into my hair for a moment, "We were both used." I felt his lips press against my temple in a soothing gesture. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the softness and warmth. "It's not your fault."
"But the shard! The bites!"
Kouga peeled away from me, somewhat reluctantly I felt ,and looked at my wrist. We were both shocked to see that it was completely gone - not even a scar remained behind.
"Does that mean he's gone?" Kouga whispered.
"I don't... I don't know... I just... I just dreamed him... he said... he wants the shard..."
"He was just in your dream...?" Kouga sounded awed, and slightly scared.
"M-hmm..." I nodded, "Kouga... he knows where we are..."
"Then we'll leave!" he sprang to his feet, hauling me up. "I'll wake the others, we'll run, we'll get outta here and regroup and--" he swayed on his feet and I managed to catch him just before he fell. I lowered us slowly to the pelts and petted his head, making soft soothing sounds.
"You're still hurt, and sick. We can't move yet..." Kouga shivered in my embrace and rubbed his cheek into my thigh like a whimpering puppy. "Kouga, what's wrong with you?"
"I was... I was poisoned..." he said, his voice rough with hurt and suppressed anger and sorrow. "The Shikon Shard I found... it was tainted. It was a trap... I couldn't get to the palace on time... couldn't get it out... I couldn't help them..." he sniffed, "I failed them..."
"No, no," I said, "no, you were used. WE were used..."
He sat up and stared me in the face. "You're too intelligent for my own good..."
"They're your words."
He smiled slightly. "I know."
His hands came up, brushing lightly over my shoulders and neck to hold the sides of my head. He shifted forward and I felt the hot press of his thighs on the outside of mine. Fur brushed my arm and I looked down to see his tail resting there. That's when I noticed that Kouga was wearing nothing. No armour, no kilt, no leg bands, nothing.
Kouga, Prince of the Wolf Youkai, slept in the nude.
"Kouga, what are you...?"
"Shhh..." his eyes roamed over my face. "Don't talk any more."
"But Kouga, there's other things I need to tell you--"
He surged forward and kissed me suddenly. It was hot and passionate and filled with desperation. Desperate to forget, desperate to be forgiven, desperate to just be held.
When I kissed him back, I'm sure my kiss felt the same.
And before I knew what had happened, his hand was sliding into the loose folds of my robe, and mine was smoothing back his bangs, and for a brief flash of time, everything was okay in the world...
~~~
I dreamt of home.
Of my mother, worried sick about me. Of my great-grandmother, wherever she was. Of my Uncle Sesshoumaru and his strange white hair and tattoos.
I dreamt of my father, the healthy, happy man he was before my fourth birthday, before the cancer strangled him in his sleep.
I dreamt of school and homework and the dog Mom and I had when I was seven.
I dreamt about the time I was teased for being a half-breed; for being Japanese-American. Half-breed indeed.
I dreamt about all the times I had smelled things that no one else in school had smelled, seen things, felt things that no one else could feel, sensed things... and they suddenly all made sense.
I dreamt about the kid's life I'd saved while working at summer camp because I could smell the peanut butter on the little girl's jumper.
And I cried in my sleep, holding Kouga tight.
And I wanted to go home.
~~~
Author's notes:
I love how I make it sound like I planned to do this all along...
Reviews:
I posted too fast! No reviews here!