AN: Eeee! Technically, this chapter should've been out yesterday, but I ran into some technical difficulties. Don't kill me for slacking off! ::twitch twitch::
Anyway, I like this chapter. It has everyone. The only essential missing is Sesshoumaru. Wah. T_T (Thanks to kidoaraku for her coolios face thingies n_n) Also, the 'good girl' line was taken directly from LKH's series, though not word for word.
Chapter Five: Haunted
"Are you three done yet?"—Miroku
:::=:::=:::
She followed him as quietly as she could, as if to disturb the night peace of shadows and starlight would result in some dire consequence, made more so threatening by its own obscurity. For the moment there was nothing but silence, punctuated only by the sounds of grass and weeds flattening beneath her slippers.
So it was quiet; so what? That was a good thing, right? After all, it meant that she wasn't going to give Inuyasha an excuse to crunch on her anytime soon.
Minutes passed. A dragonfly skimmed across her line of vision, wings a bare blur as it hovered like a miniature hang-glider before drifting away. Even the nightly chorus of insects was strangely absent.
She couldn't help it anymore. She needed to say something, anything. "Inuyasha!"
He flicked a hard gaze at her over his shoulder. "What?"
"Uh—well," she fumbled.
"You have something to say, girl, say it. Don't waste my time when your tongue twisted up into a knot."
"Gee, thanks," she almost snapped, then sighed. "I just wanted to say, uh..."
"Yeah?"
"You're, uh...trampling all the flowers!" she offered, lamely.
And he was. The Middle of Nowhere that they were currently stranded in, (or at least they seemed stranded, to Kagome) boasted a plethora of wildflowers, blossoms caressed silver by moonlight, but still glowing with thin edges of lady-slipper pink and tawny yellow and the lightest of light blue. Inuyasha scowled at her again. "I'm not—"
She pointed at the bruised petals that he had trodden to the ground. "You are."
"Feh! Worrying about stupid things like flowers..." He spun around and marched off in the general direction of the looming forests. She stared at the flowers in question. They looked back up at her with innocent faces.
"Damnit, girl, hurry up!"
She gave a start, then hurried after him.
This was all wrong. Good girls just didn't go out at one in the morning on impromptu hiking trips. Especially not with strange men—and this particular strange man was probably years her senior, if not in age, then in the matters of the world. Because when it came down to it, she was just a girl: exposed to "bad things" when times had been at their worst, but still sheltered by her mother's loving shadow. Kagome would've been the first to admit—she was naïve, in every sense of the word. Somehow she knew turning into a werewolf wasn't going to change any of it.
Wrongo, Kagome dearest. Inuyasha will probably try his damnest to remedy that, don't you think? After all, not only is he "strange", he's also selfish, and irritating, and immature, and most importantly, violent—
"Hey! Wake up, wench!"
Kagome blinked again. "Huh," she said, rather intelligently.
Inuyasha snorted. "I said at the pace we're going, we won't get to the goddamned forests until tomorrow night."
"But Sango said it was a ten minute walk from here," she said, recovering her wits. The meadow slumbered around them, quiet and undisturbed as a moment's peace. In the distance, the shadows of trees emerged from the grassy grounds, eerie and beautiful at the same time. A rustle caught her ears, and her nose twitched unconsciously as the smell of something small, a rodent perhaps, wafted through her nostrils, tangy and heated and bursting with life.
Uck!She shook her head so violently that her hair flew, whipping around in vexed ebony strands. One caught Inuyasha in the face, and he jerked back, snarling.
"Watch where you're swinging those things!"
"Next time don't come so close!" she retorted, but her words had no bite to them. She sounded—tired, even to herself. And she was, not just physically, but emotionally too. And psychologically. And mentally. And—
She sighed, a tiny breath that puffed out through her nose. What's the difference? she thought wearily. He's going to drag me with him no matter where he's going, or what time it is. So I can't really damn him to the deepest, most fiery pits of hell unless I want to get hauled along for the ride.
Life was cruel. God hated her. She was a werewolf.
Go figure.
"We're going to run," he declared, tone brooking no argument.
"I thought it was only going to take ten minutes?" she asked, trying for the calm, practical voice of reason.
"Feh! You're walking too slow!"
Damnit. Lack of caffeine was making her grumpy. Or maybe it's this trek through the woods with a werewolf who's into cannibalism, among other things. Yeah. That must be it. The calm, practical voice of reason could go screw itself for all she cared. "Okay. You can run, I'll just walk. But you'll be nice enough to look around for me when I get lost, right?" She smiled at him, sweetly.
"You won't get lost—" He was smiling, but there was something scary about it, like he was going to make good on his earlier threat to rip her apart like a favorite chew toy. "Because you're coming with me!"
Oh!
In a heartbeat, he had grabbed onto her upper arms and lifted her against him. Somehow she found herself sprawled against his back with strong hands bracing and tight against her thighs. Any other time she would've thrown a fit (along with a few punches) for carrying her in such a questionable way, but for now she was too much in awe of watching the peaceful glade hurtle by at an unrivaled speed, the grounds streaking together into rich hues of viridian. When her hair streamed into her eyes, effectively blinding her, she nearly shrieked. Out of pure instinct, her hand clutched onto his shoulder, white the other one latched itself into the safety curtain that was his hair.
How he managed it, she didn't know. She had learned a thing or two about anatomy, the way humans were built, as contrasted with dogs, and cats, and horses, and whatnot. What he was doing was technically impossible—his back hunched to balance out her weight, his center of gravity all out of focus, yet still running at an incredible speed.
Lycanthropy was legal, but it hadn't gone mainstream enough for inclusion into general education. Not yet, anyway. So there was no way for her to tell, unless she wanted to switch her major to Preternatural Studies.
And it was running, wasn't it? Only it felt nothing like running. She closed her eyes, leaning forward against the set of his shoulders; if she hadn't been so distracted she would've felt the tense tremor run through his body before it leaked away. But she was too lost in her thoughts, too lost in the moment—if she squeezed her eyes shut, hard until little purple dots appeared in her vision and the sting of the wind melted—yes, she could believe, in odd bits and ends, in beautiful princesses and handsome knights and fairy-tale endings, or at the very least in a normal life where there were no such things as werewolves, or shapeshifters, or mikos, or other cruel, inconveniences that were un-fairytale-like in the extreme—
She had no sooner let her cheek rest against the warm, soft hair beneath her hands than she was unceremoniously dumped off onto her back.
"I'm not your cuddletoy, girl!" he bit out with a surprising vehemence.
She sat up, dusted herself off. "Are you okay?" she asked, trying to hide that curious edge to her voice and failing miserably.
He snapped out a sharp, "Fine."
"..."
"I said I'm fine!"
She shook her head, exasperated. "Are we there yet? Tell me you didn't just dump me off some few miles walk from the forest."
His face darkened to a red-stained paleness. Fury bled out from underneath the storm of his emotions—frustration, especially, with the golden eyes dilated into inky pupils and the irises themselves nearly gone. For a moment he looked like he was going to do something that they would both regret, but it passed in a few uneven heartbeats. He turned away.
What did I do? What did I say?Why is he so angry...?
"You're eyes..."
"Werewolf eyes," he said shortly. "We're here. Behind you."
For the second time that evening, Kagome found herself thinking about how Terribly Wrong this all was. I—I can't get use to this! Seeing in the dark like I've somehow got night-vision goggles surgically grafted into the back of my head—I'm not supposed to—
But of course I can see it. I'm a werewolf now! Whoop-dee-doo! Now why hadn't she thought of that before?
She scrambled to her feet, trying to erase the taste of fear from her mouth. "Okay." Then for good measure, she added cheerfully, "Let's go get 'em!" It only sounded a little forced. She gave herself a mental pat on the back.
"Why the hell are you so happy?" His voice came from behind her as she stomped through knee-high grasses towards the thickening of trees, where darkness gathered in a foreboding pool of pitch-black.
"Because if I'm not, then I'm going to be scared. And when I scared I have this strange urge to scream and scream and scream until I manage to get all the fear out of my system. So the only way I can avoid that is to be happy." Tension formed a hard knot in her throat as she trooped through the clustering trees like any good soldier. It didn't matter that she could see through the gloom, could see the tiny threads of moonlight that had somehow stolen their way through the canopy of leaves. It was all as clear as daylight, but in a night sense of the word. It was also as disquieting as hell. "Does that make any sense at all?"
Silence. Then: "You are a strange woman."
She gave a giddy half-smile at that, even though she knew he couldn't see her face. "Thank you. I think that's the first nice thing you've said to me since I met you at that bar yesterday." Another beat of silence. God, she couldn't stand this silence. "So talk to me about yourself."
"Why?"
"Because we obviously have nothing else to do." Because if I don't fill up this quiet with useless blabber I'm going to go insane. "I know! We'll play twenty questions!" She turned around to see him staring at her as if she were insane.
"Well?" she asked. A slightly frantic giggle tried to escape from her lips.
"I don't have the time—"
"But aren't I your—wolf pup?" Just saying it made her throat tighten up. So she smiled even wider, even though something wet nipped at the back of her eyes. "I'm stuck with you, Inuyasha. You don't have time to get to know some girl you turned into a werewolf, accidentally or not—why?"
"You're taking this too damn seriously!"
"I'm taking this too seriously? Hah! Ahaha! Ah—"
"Shut up!"
"No, you shut up!" and she was suddenly yelling, voice hoarse from anger. "I'm going to turn furry and grow fangs and howl at the moon the next time it's full! You have no right to tell me to shut up!"
She steeled herself from the verbal retaliation that she knew would come. But there was nothing, only the pungent smell of the forest around her and the quiet song that was the wind.
"Fine."
"Fine," she repeated.
"Go on, then."
"What?"
"I thought you wanted to play twenty questions, wench." He had started walking again, stride purposeful, as if leading them both to someplace that he had in mind. "Then play."
"Um. Okay." She huffed out a breath, tried to roll the tension out of her shoulders. I can do this. I can do this. "Well, then, what is your favorite...ice cream?"
He muttered something.
"What?"
"I said I can't believe I'm—" he stopped, took a breath, and started up again. "Rocky road. I like...the marshmallows."
It struck her that Inuyasha didn't seem like a marshmallow type of person. But she wisely kept quiet. "Okay. Your turn!" That's it, Kagome. Blind him with your all-natural perkiness!
A rude sound issued from his throat. "Whatever."
Okay...so my perkiness isn't working. She blew bangs out of her eyes, still trying to keep up with his ground-eating pace. "Humor me, please?"
He glared back at her. She smiled sweetly.
"Fine. What's your favorite ice cream?" The words were guttural, as if they had been yanked out of his throat.
I already asked that, was at the tip of her tongue, but it was swallowed in an instant. "Coffee!"
"No fucking surprise there."
Ignore it. Ignore it. "Board game?"
"...Monopoly." He growled, seeing the surprised look on her face. "What were you expecting—Candyland?"
"No, no! Anyway, I like...uh, Scrabble!" She practically heard him thinking, typical, but she let it go. "What about—"
He stopped so suddenly that she walked into him. Stumbling around had its advantages, she decided, as he grabbed her elbow, fingers strong but not harsh. Despite her own insistence upon playing, she breathed a sigh a relief at the distraction. Don't think he minds at all, either. I was running out of questions.
"Be quiet."
Before them the covering of hanging vines and thicket of leaves cleared, and the sky swept out, midnight black but alive with stars. The ground sloped down into a small opening where not a tree had touched with roots. "Why?" Oh no, not the quiet.
"Listen!"
"What? To what—"
He covered her mouth, palm callused and harsh. She gave a surprised squeak, but even that was muffled as his fingers pressed harder. "Shut up!"
Listen.
There's nothing to listen to—
Her gaze tangled with his. He carefully removed his hand, but jabbed a finger into the side of her head, presumably at her ears. She frowned, but was quiet.
Listen.
The sounds of the forest. Her ears pricked, again as unconsciously as that of her itching nose, so eager earlier to sniff out edible rodents. She could feel her cheeks blanching at that thought. Edible...rodents...
Edible...
Listen...
The forest murmured around her, a nurturing, tender mother. A hint of a breeze sighed through brambles and leaves, all highlighted in pastel radiance, signed and sealed with the kiss of moonlight. She watched, and listened, entranced, as the dance that was forest life went on around her, in the curling tendrils of a delicate vine as it climbed up tree trunks, in the lonely call of a hunting owl, wings soaring and eyes a harsh heat in the darkness, in the tiny snuffling sounds of a rabbit as it dug through dirt and seed and leaves for her burrow—
—And in the way a deer picked her delicate way among the lush overgrowth.
Listen.
She breathed a wondering oh. The thing galloping in her chest was her heart, and she caught Inuyasha's eyes, dim starlight reflecting in the golden depths. He looked as hypnotized as she felt, both of them willing victims in the glorious heat of the hunt. The prey.
A doe. A doe without a mother.
That should've snapped her out of her dream world. But it didn't.
No mother. Not a defense in the whole world.
His fingers tightened on her shoulders. She hadn't even realized that his hands were on her shoulders in the first place. The whisper came so soft she might have mistaken it for the wind, if he had not leaned in so close to her ear, breath tracing shivery chills along the sensitive shell. "Stay. This one is mine."
The protest was on the tip of her tongue. Something snarled low in her throat, possessive and angry at being denied. She swallowed it, shocked at herself.
Warm wind trickled from around his curled fists, and his eyes closed. Standing there and looking up at him, she realized for the first time that he wasn't that much taller than her—a few inches at most. But he was lean, with muscle strung out on that limber frame, like a panther.
Or, well, a wolf.
She remembered. Hadn't he gathered her in his arms when they had escaped from Sesshoumaru? Hadn't he done the same again, when she had nearly lost control of her beast that second time at Sango's?
His breath hitched out, and his face tightened in concentration. When he opened his hands again they were elongated, furred silver, and tipped with claws. He smiled down at her, wicked as sin, eyes delighting in the promised hunt. Her throat constricted—but was it in fear? Disgust? Excitement? All three? None?
He was gone in an instant.
Gone.
She thought she caught a silver streak along the edge of her vision, but when she whipped around she was still alone.
Inuyasha—
Her ears grasped at a hidden sigh, nose seizing on the sudden scent of blood. Then a triumphant growl wrenched her head to the right—the smell of death crescendoed in her nostrils, potent and fresh and exciting and—
Her stomach revolted. Hard. The beast churned deep inside her belly, the change clawing at her human form, demanding to be released. No. I can control it.
Fight it.
She crumpled onto her knees, head hanging as breaths came out in ragged gasps. The world pounded in one moonlit flash-frame after another. She dug her hands through the thick carpet of leaves, and they disintegrated, rotting at a touch. A scream choked hard in the back of her throat. I can control it.
"All wolves—control their beast—after first change—"
Someone was yelling in her ear. Hands yanked at her forearms, wrenching her upright until she was staring, unseeing, into Inuyasha's eyes. The smell of spilled death jerked at her beast, and the monster within herself warred with her miko blood, each fighting tooth to claw, neither succumbing an inch. She collapsed against his chest. Her nails had lengthened to long, sharp daggers. I can't. I can't. Dear god help me, I can't—
His warmth, his life burned, like fire through her clothing. She hissed, snarling. Wanted him. Wanted to tear him apart, rip him to shreds, taste the blood on her tongue. Want. Now. She lunged at him, knocking him over into the sloping grounds. Together they tumbled down into the bottom, where weeds and fallen branches scratched at her arms, her face, like they were alive. The deer lay next to them, eyes open and dulled to burnt-out charcoal. Forgotten. His face was pale gold in the light, shocked.
She went for his throat.
Close, close, so close
He caught her in a struggle of claws.
Control
She snapped at him with jaws only half-human.
the beast
The power spilled over her in a long wash of fire, the only warning the small grimace on his face as he held her close, hands locked and muscles taut as iron.
Can't
Her spine spasmed, bowed back until she arched up to the moon. Where he touched her—her wrists, her knees, the sides of her bared legs—her skin prickled like static electricity. It marched up the sides of her arms, spilling down and swirling sideways until her body was vibrating to the power. His power.
"I can control the change—" he said.
The pressure built. Like the air before a storm, heated and still—like violence waiting to explode into oblivion. She trembled, pain stabbing along her temple in little jagged spikes. It hurt. He was forcing his power down her throat, and it hurt.
Force me back
He growled beneath her, anger and frustration and heat channeled up into that massive aura of boiling energy, so solid that she couldn't move, couldn't breath, couldn't even panic—
No no swimming no water no ocean no
It broke. In a rush of pure liquid fire, it broke over her, pushing strands of hair back from her face, stinging in her eyes. She breathed. And when she lifted up her hands into the moonlight they were weak human nails, somewhat well kept but still sporting the consequences of anxiety here and there, the middle one chewed down to the quick, the thumb slightly nibbled—
And she broke down too, collapsing down onto his chest, and wept, for the loss of her normality, her humanity, her fairy-tale endings. And he let her. It was enough.
Just let me grieve...
She didn't know how long she stayed curled up on top of him, too shocked to move and too exhausted to care about their awkward position. Her limbs still shivered spastically, warm power running its course through her veins. Her teeth ached, her joints hurt, and her lip stung, but she was human. Human.
How had he...?
"I said I could control the change for myself!"
"You okay?" His voice came roughened with fatigue. After an awkward pause, his hand rose to pat her shoulder, uneasy as a nervous teenager out on his first date. Something told her Inuyasha wasn't used to comforting people.
"No," she snuffled, "But I will be."
Hah. Right.
She raised her head—and froze. His eyes, tawny orange in the starlight, were watching her, inches away. The heat radiating off him was a palpable thing, thick and tense. But the roiling energy that was uniquely his had stilled, like a calm surface of water. Kagome jerked her face away, body tensing in screaming awareness of how close he was. And yet at the same time, she felt the undeniable urge to reach out, physically, to pass her hand over his face, wonder at how tranquil his power had gone, how human—
She was dumped off onto her back for the second time that evening. "Hey!" It came out a harsh croak.
"Damnit! It wasn't supposed to be this hard!"
Fatigue dragged at her limbs, but she labored to her knees, touched a cautionary hand to his turned shoulder. "I thought you said you couldn't control the change in others," she said, quietly.
"I thought so to." He sounded tired, drained. From expending too much energy on me, she thought guiltily.
"...I can't feel your aura anymore, you know."
"Aura? That's what you call it?"
She hesitated. "Or your power." The palm of her hand hovered just above his skin as he turned his face towards her. "Normally, when I'm near you...you give off this...energy. That werewolf feel that Sango and Sesshoumaru had, too. But now..."
"Guess I don't have to tell you that part, then." He laughed, almost a growl. "What do they call it in China? Something—forgot—"
"Chi?"
"Yeah. Life force. Weres use it to battle if they don't want to fight, physically. Sometimes it's easier." He eyed her for a moment, then turned away, voice strained. "Looks like my wolf pup is going to be much more of a fucking nuisance than I thought."
Her fingers faltered, wavering. She didn't want to touch him, not like this. Not when he felt so normal. After all, Inuyasha the violent werewolf was easy to deal with, but how could she still hate him when he felt so human?
He hissed at her, teeth dull in the moonlight, and caught her hand, forcing it to his cheek. His grip tingled around her wrists, but the sensation of crawling fire ants was gone, like it had never been. Barely a hum of his power crept up to her fingertips, and she thought even that might have been her imagination.
It's too worn out to be called up so soon again.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Something twisted underneath the surface of his eyes. "Don't give me that!"
She flinched back. "What—"
"So I'm not powerful enough! I can't control your beast without weakening mine!" He threw her hand back to her, and she instinctively cradled it against her chest. "We can figure out a way to restrain it, damnit!" He was roaring, and the sound echoed around the darkness, disturbing the stillness of the trees as his last words bounced back to them like the hymns of crazed forest nymphs. Damnit...damnit...damnit...
She reached out to touch his face before she could stop herself, moved by the seething self-anger she saw there. "It's not your fault..."
This time it was his turn to flinch back as her fingertips grazed past his temple. "You don't get it," and his words were choked. "If you can't control the beast—I can't always help you—you don't understand—" and he staggered to his feet.
"Inuyasha, I—"
"You'll die, damnit!"
She blinked once. Her hand dropped back to her lap, lifeless.
"It's your miko blood, I knew it would act up. It let you change over from witch to wolf, but the same thing that guaranteed your survival is fighting against your wolf form." He sucked in a ragged breath. "You'll fight it every time, every time you're near a kill, or feeling some extreme emotion. But you can't. You're not supposed to fight the change." He was talking fast, words running together in a panic. "You'll almost always lose, and if another alpha as strong as me isn't around, you'll change into a mindless wolf, attack anything that moves within a mile's radius of you. And it will be all beast, no human. And then you'll go insane, or die from changing too much, damnit, why are you looking at me like that?"
"Inuyasha..."
"I can't let you die! Not one of mine—"
"Behind you," she whispered.
He stiffened. Froze. Still as a corpse. "Damnit."
"You're scaring all the prey away with your fucking theatrics. I need to feed, you know."
Inuyasha whirled around so fast it was like he hadn't moved at all, but was facing towards the stranger in the first place. "Where the hell are you, Miroku?"
"Don't call someone I'm not." He slipped out of the shadows. Kagome's nose twitched at the feral, wild scent that invaded her nostrils; the energy that whipped her hair back screamed danger and wildfire. The stranger chuckled.
"Inuyasha—" she started.
"I don't know who he is," he growled to her over his shoulder, answering her unspoken question. He directed his attention back to the wolf—and she was sure of it. He was—a wolf. A powerful one. An...alpha. "Where's Miroku!"
"Here," came a calm voice, and then another man materialized out of the shadows. She thought she recognized him, the glimmer of those violet eyes that flickered over them, only a touch curious. "Long time no see, Inuyasha," he said, and it might have been sardonic.
Inuyasha straightened. "You're here on the pack's bidding?"
The stranger snorted, tossing back a long tail of onyx hair. "On the Ulfric's." He spat the word out like it was poison.
"Kouga." Miroku's voice held warning, and more.
"Miroku," the wolf called Kouga tossed right back.
Inuyasha, she wanted to say. But her throat was frozen shut.
"Is that a challenge?" Miroku's words had softened in warning.
Kouga glared with heated cerulean eyes. "Not yet."
"Jesus, take your squabbling somewhere where I don't have to listen to it!" Inuyasha rumbled at them. But still he sounded tired.
Kouga looked like he had something much more on mind than just squabbling, but then his gaze flicked sideways—to her. She flinched back unconsciously, and he smiled.
"Yo, who's the girl?"
"No one of your concern." Miroku said calmly. He looked over at where she lay on the leaves too, eyes brushing over her body from head to toe in blatant appreciation. Then he turned back to Inuyasha. "Yours?"
"Hey! I'm not anyone's property! This is the twenty-first century we're living in—" and then she remembered she was currently speaking to a trio of wolves.
On second thought, how did she even forget in the first place?
"Quiet, wench." Inuyasha, voice a whiplash of warning. She resisted the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him. "Yeah," he said, turning back to Miroku; and then to Kouga: "Don't forget it, brat."
He shrugged. "Don't matter if she's gonna die anyway."
Kagome's throat tightened, and she had bolted to her feet before she knew what she was doing. "How can you even talk about that like it's nothing, you bastard?"
"Kagome!" Inuyasha crossed over to her in a flash. She stifled her anger against his shoulder. "Control yourself," he whispered-growled. But he didn't try to touch her, only leant her a brief moment where she could lean on his shoulder. "Stay," he said, and then he turned back to the two wolves, leaving her to brace herself against the tree.
"Huh..." Kouga was still eyeing her. "Got yourself a feisty chick, Inuyasha?" He tossed back his head, laughed. "That's what they use to say about your other one, you know. Cute little thing—" he sniffed in her direction, "—and tasty too." The look he gave Inuyasha was sly.
Other one?She didn't see Inuyasha move, but he was suddenly gripping Kouga by the throat, pinning him up against the side of a tree. "Don't," he snarled, and pure, unadulterated hate roughened his voice to a rasping growl. "Don't speak her name! Not to me!"
"Who?" Kouga laughed, despite the hands around his neck. He raised two muscular arms up to Inuyasha's wrist, then wrapped fingers around the forearm holding him by the throat. For a moment there was nothing but electric silence, the two wolves wrestling against one another, neither willing to give any ground. Then Kouga laughed. "Which one are you talking about?" The air thickened with his power, so solid it burned when she breathed it in. "The new girl, Kagome?"
She watched Inuyasha grimace as Kouga continued to pry at his hand. Saw the fine tremble of his shoulders. Don't. You're too weak—
"Or..."
"Shut up!" Inuyasha roared, and the air crackled again.
"—Kikyo?"
"Shut up!" And then he lifted Kouga up, the muscles is his arm straining, to throw him through the air. Some part of her noted the irony of this (this really is a cheesy B-movie) before the thought was wiped out—and Kouga crashed into a tree next to her. The impact of body and wood made a sickening thunk before sliding onto the ground. She tried desperately to bury the terrified noises that were scratching their way out of her throat.
Miroku was watching dispassionately. "He had that one coming."
There was blood. Not a lot, but enough to show up stark red in the moonlight, staining Kouga's white shirt crimson. She took a few steps towards him, unreasonable fear beating in her heart.
"Kagome," Inuyasha panted out, "Don't you fucking dare go near him."
"But he's hurt!" she cried.
Miroku tsked. "And naïve, too," he said softly, almost to himself.
"What if he—"
"He's a werewolf, Kagome!"
But she had already taken the last few stubborn steps to reach his side. Packed dirt ground and scratchy grasses rubbed her knees raw, but she forced herself to turn him over, to place searching fingers to his pulse. Breath exploded out in a relieved sigh when she found it, strong and beating underneath the burning skin. She rocked back on her heels, then turned her head to see a very-pissed-off Inuyasha. The word rapid dog came to mind—
—and a hand latched onto her wrist, yanking over to the side. Kagome toppled over with a surprised oomph before landing on the stranger's chest. His grip tightened on her shoulders, tugging her forward until she was face-to-face with him, legs straddling his stomach and his blue-green eyes biting into hers. She nearly screamed again, but then outrage sparked somewhere in the back of her mind; her knee came up, hard. He twisted aside, avoiding her like a ghost. She squirmed in his grasp. The grin on his face was wicked, his hands yanking her forward again, closing the distance between their lips to a distant breath. He smiled, murmured, "You smell good, wench."
His mouth came up crushing warm and tangy against hers. A hand snaked into her hair, wrenching her down until she cried out in anger; he deepened the kiss to possessive, and bruisingly hard. When they broke apart she was gasping for breath, and the bad-boy grin was still on his face. "And you taste good, too."
"You bastard," she screamed, and swung a hand in to slap him in the face—
Inuyasha chose that moment to interfere, snagging her wrist in mid-strike and hauling her off Kouga like she weighed less than a feather. His face was distorted in fury, and a snarl broke off his tongue. The power trembled in the air, less potent, less choking than before, but still there. She felt the way he shuddered against her though, frame supporting both her and channeling his power. Again. No, it's too soon.
"Inuyasha, don't—"
Kouga struggled to his feet, the gash on his shoulder still leaking blood. His lips twisted in a half smile. "So this is the almighty half-breed Inuyasha, eh?"
Inuyasha snarled wordlessly. His frame shook harder; the air thickened some more. She screamed something into his ear, but even she couldn't make any sense of it as the words lost themselves in the all-encompassing roar of his rage.
"Is that all you can come up with?" Kouga swayed, but the smile stayed on, a challenge, a baring of teeth. "Let's see some action, bastard—" And his beast roared to the surface, those cerulean eyes swirling into pinpricks of sea green. A blast of heat tore her hair back from her face, and she ducked instinctively. Inuyasha's arm curled hard around her, muscles tight. She felt him shudder again as Kouga's aura marched over them, crushing and yet weightless at the same time; felt him fight back with his other arm outstretched, the power pulsing together, the pressure riding all three at the same time.
I'm useless. I can't do anything. Always.
Stop, she tried to whisper into his hair. It smelled like fur and musk and spicy heat. You can't do this.
Help him.
Help him!
And she did, tearing herself away from his arms and flinging her body the short distance between them and Kouga. She crashed into his side—the impact left her head spinning, and they dropped down together, rolling to a stop near the base of a weathered elm. But the struggling power that had made it so hard to breathe had disappeared.
When Kouga raised his eyes they had gone normal again, cerulean but no longer glassy. "Why the hell did you do that? I was winning—"
Until Inuyasha dragged her back up. "Why the hell did you do that?" he yelled, voice gone rough as granite around the edges. "You can't interfere in a challenge, wench!"
Silence.
"Are you three done yet?" Miroku moved into her line of vision, bending down next to Kouga.
"Damnit, Miroku!" Inuyasha. "Why didn't you stop the bastard?"
A low growl trickled out from Kouga's throat. "Watch who you're calling bastard, half-breed."
Kagome tried to tug her hand out of Inuyasha's grip. "Will you let me go?" she snapped when he stubbornly held on to her.
His eyes cut back to her, and there was a softness to them that he couldn't hide, like he was relieved. But the words that came out of his mouth next were anything but grateful. "I'm your dominant. Don't question what I say!" And then he pushed her aside, roughly, but not before whispering a gruff, "Thanks."
She staggered but didn't go down. Did Inuyasha just thank me?
Inuyasha stalked towards the two wolves, every line of his body trembling in exhaustion. His rough breathing was the only sound in the entire forest; not a rustle of life stirred. Kagome shivered. Somehow they sensed the power. They felt it coming, some kind of warning sign. The shiver crawled up her spine again. And then they hid.
"Miroku..."
His lashes came down to veil glittering eyes. "Inuyasha."
She heard Inuyasha swallow. "Why did you go over to him, Miroku?"
"Sesshoumaru-sama..."
Inuyasha hissed. "Yes."
"Our Ulfric is fair, and strong. I can...rely on him."
Kouga gave a disbelieving snort, but stayed silent.
"You couldn't stand him!"
Miroku inclined his head gracefully. "That's true."
"So much—everything's so different." Inuyasha went quiet for a moment. "You know Sango...she hates your guts now."
"My, my," Miroku laughed, but it was bitter to listen to, like trying to swallow broken glass. "How eloquently you put it."
"Why did you...leave her?"
The air flared; she recoiled warily. Rage snapped at the surface of her skin like furious, fire-breathing dragons. Miroku was growling. "Because you left us!"
"I—"
"You ran, Inuyasha! You think Sango and I could ever forgive you for that?" His voice dropped down to a whisper. "Sneaking away, leaving us to deal with the consequences ourselves. Naraku wanted to kill us, did you know? For being supporters to that traitor Inuyasha, he said. He wanted to kill Sango. You think I would've willingly let that happen?"
The sound of Inuyasha's broken breath hissed across to her ears. "No," he said, defeated.
"...I struck a deal with him."
"My brother?"
"Yes. Sesshoumaru isn't stupid. He knows how strong I am."
"Your service for Sango's life."
He laughed. "How quickly you catch on, Inuyasha!"
"Miroku—"
"You know, it really isn't all that bad," he interrupted. "Acting as the Ulfric's bodyguard. One of the most powerful wolves in the pack. No one would dare challenge me. The perfect life, no?" A tremor of harsh regret strung through his words. "Except Sango refuses to talk to me anymore. She can't even look at me."
Stillness. Even Kouga was watching, albeit with a small smirk playing along his lips.
Miroku snorted laughter. "She hates me for betraying you, you know. Oh, the poetic irony. You flee, and your supporters are torn apart by your cowardice. Perfect."
"I didn't think—"
"Of course you didn't! You never think!"
Kagome found her voice. "We'll tell her! She'll understand! We'll tell her and—"
"Don't you think I've tried to explain already?"
Her hand went up to her mouth as Miroku spun her way. "She won't listen!" he roared. "You think she would believe you, some newly turned wolf pup," he pointed at her, "Or even better, you," he stabbed a stiff finger in Inuyasha's direction, "Our fearless leader who ran away with his tail tucked between his legs?"
"Damnit, I didn't—" "You're not going to apologize, it's already too late—""I needed to get away. I had no time for challenging Sesshoumaru—"
"You couldn't even think straight, and yet you wanted to go out on your own—"
"I'm sorry!"
"It's not enough! Tell that to Sango, Inuyasha—!"
"Stop!" she screamed.
They stopped.
"Why are you wasting your time arguing? Can't you see this is getting nowhere? All this bitterness—this hate—it's all in the past! Can't you just let it go?" Unreasonable anger forced the torrent of words out. "I don't know what happened to everyone back then, but it couldn't be so bad that you have to—to—" and she yelled, desperately, with eyes squeezed shut, as if it were easier to keep her anger that way, "—declare never-ending hatred or something so completely stupid for each other through all eternity? And this exactly what it is! Extreme, utter, stupidity!"
Power crackled. Oh great, now one of them is going to steamroll me apart with his life-force/chi thingie—and then she opened her eyes to see the warm light of flames dancing in front of her eyes, eating up the dead forest leaves beneath her hands.
Three pairs of wolf eyes stared at her, all in apparent shock. She reached out in giddy disbelief, then snatched her hand back as the flames seemed to flickered out towards her like fingers hungry—for her. The small fire spat out sparks, and one landed on the skin of her arm; she stifled a cry, trying to shake it off. It died out before her eyes, toning down to a dim glow of orange before it disappeared altogether, leaving behind only blistered leaves and the sharp stench of something burned in the air.
I think they just forgot about my little screaming fit. Which was a very, very good thing.
It was Kouga who broke the tense silence. "She didn't taste like a normal were. I was wondering which flavor."
Normal were. Her thoughts swung around woozily. Normal werewolf, born as a shapeshifter. Not a crossover from another race. That's what he means.
"I thought she was changed from faerie, or a necromancer, at first," Miroku said evenly, like he hadn't just been trying to tear out Inuyasha's throat a minute ago—figuratively speaking, of course. "Then you are a witch?" he asked her, so politely too.
She stared at her hands. A distant, irreverent part of her mourned the ruins that had once been her nails. "I didn't know..." she whispered, turning up her eyes towards Inuyasha. "Did you?"
He gave a weary growl. "Fire, eh? You're just full of surprises, wench."
"Can you call it again?" Kouga this time, on all fours, moving towards her with all the fluidity of a true predator. His eyes smoldered in suggestion. "A miko turned by lycanthropy..." he whispered, lip curling up. "No wonder Inuyasha made you his own..." He was near her now, growl reaching her ears in undertones of distant heat. The burnt leaves made no sound underneath his weight. "And of course, there's always you looking like his beloved Kikyo..."
In a flurry of snarls and twisting limbs, Inuyasha had thrown him aside. This time Kouga rolled only a short distance before coming to all fours, crouching down onto some fallen brambles. Moonlight danced in flickers along his bronzed skin. He was laughing; pure, joyous sounds of amusement, both chilling and strangely intoxicating to listen to, like drinking too much of a fine wine. "It's been fun, Inuyasha! I think I'll let Miroku deal with the rest of this bullshit." His eyes swept over to Kagome with barefaced promise. "I'll be seeing you," he said, and this time the words weren't directed to Inuyasha at all.
He vanished into the shadows, moving away until only the smell of him remained, sweat and acrid cigarettes. She shivered. Inuyasha growled. Miroku sighed, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like blast that Kouga.
"Is he always making trouble like this?" Inuyasha asked. She almost reached out to touch his back, but he tensed. His entire posture screamed don't. Her hand went back to her lap, where it clenched into a white fist.
"Yes." Miroku leaned up against a tree trunk, face closed. "Ever since him and Kagura joined our pack there's been nothing but one difficulty after another." He cracked open an eye. "You know Sesshoumaru wanted you to kill Kouga for him."
"Would've been happy to."
Miroku shook his head. "But you almost lost. Why?"
"Shit. You—?"
"Yes, I noticed."
"Can't fucking hide anything from you, Miroku."
"Is it because of—" he gestured to Kagome, "the miko and her unstable transformation?" Still talking about me like I'm not here. Kagome was just too drained to care.
"So what if it is?" A bitter laugh. "You going to run and go tell daddy?"
Nothing from Miroku, not even a glimmer of anger. Just resignation. "He has my loyalties, no more. The threat to Sango's life holds, even now."
"Not if I overthrow his-tight-assed-majesty," Inuyasha said, but the bone-deep weariness still stamped down the usual ferocity of his voice.
Miroku only stared with his arms crossed. "You should've killed Kouga when you had the chance. Maybe it would have curried you some favor from your brother."
"I don't need his favor!" he snarled. "And Sesshoumaru wouldn't be happy about it either way!"
"The Ulfric. Now that you are pack again that is what you will acknowledge him as." His voice had gone formal, frosty.
"I'm not pack yet, technically. And I don't have time for your formalities, Miroku. You've been here for too fucking long."
She sat there, fists curled up. Staring at nothing. Listening to them argue. And a childhood rhyme came back to her, her father's voice deep and hearty and laughing, joking with her, tugging at her fists, ruffling her hair.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who's the fairest of them all?
"We've gone through so much today, haven't we?" Miroku's laugh was distant but just as cynical. "When all I needed to do, really, was to tell you that the pack reception will be two nights from now. At the holy grounds. You know when, and who, and what."
Pretty little girl with bonny blue eyes and shiny black hair...
A quiet yes from Inuyasha.
Kagome the human?
Kagome the miko?
Kagome the werewolf?
She looked up blindly to see him watching her from his seat on the forest slope. His knees were drawn up, arms folded over in weariness. He was staring at her, transfixed, eyes studying her face, almost as if he were trying to memorize every arch, every line, every contour. When he saw her looking back he snapped his face away.
"And Inuyasha—"
She imagined if he had ears they would have twitched in Miroku's direction.
"Give this to Sango for me."
A flash of metal caught the moonlight. When Inuyasha opened his hand, a silver cross lay there, chain a delicate spill of slight links and diamonds burning white fire. Miroku smiled, before the glitter of quicksilver disappeared as quickly as it had come.
"Tell her to keep the faith," he said, and then he departed, melting away as completely as Kouga had done before, leaving them to stare across darkness and the obscurity of ashen starlight to each other.
Still the cross blazed bright faith in their own little cavern of the unknown.
:::=:::=:::
AN: Long. Tired. Must stop speaking in short sentences. Cannot find the energy to type even more convoluted prose. Anyway. Review. Please. It cures cancer. It fills the stomachs of the poor. Among other miraculous things. ARGH! (Shamelessly ripped off from ClamChowder. But you shouldn't mind that. *smiles sheepishly, then falls down dead*)