"Damnit Kagome." Kouga told the open air. His lip curled downward and fingers traced over Kagome's still hand.
The others had been gone for hours and hadn't returned. The hut fell so quiet, Kouga could only listen to his own thoughts. Or replay his own thoughts.
And thinking about just an hour ago where his Kagome ran off from them and got herself trapped behind the shield wasn't putting his mind at ease. None of them had any reason to believe that may happen…but now it was very apparent that Naraku was out to hurt her in particular.
"Damnit Kagome." He repeated softly when the memories returned of their frantic search to retrieve her behind the shield. "You're not supposed to get that far from my protection. Don't ever do that again."
He dropped his head down to stare at the swirls in the browning wood and let out a breath. The fact that he failed to protect her had become prominent in his mind but then the dog demon didn't either.
Things had changed though, he knew. Kagome wasn't just the girl he was chasing after anymore. Kagome was the girl who had kissed him and returned his interest. Kagome was going to be his woman.
The memory that sprung up of the time at his den elated his heart a bit. He let his eyes trail over to her pale pink lips with the thought. Carefully he reached out and gently brushed them, his heart picking up in speed.
They were soft under his finger tips and he let his thumb trail down her chin, over her jawbone. Barely brushing her neck, he traced it down to her collar bone and stopped at the edge of the blankets.
His thoughts left him for the briefest of seconds.
And then she spoke.
"Kouga?"
He snatched his hand away like it'd been burned.
"Uh Kagome!" He stuttered out, drawing himself back half an inch.
The girl didn't open her eyes but pinched her brow and kept talking.
"…freezing in here."
It took a moment for him to understand the muttered words before he snapped up straighter and glanced around the hut. Squeezing her hand before he let it go, he rushed to retrieve a pile of blankets that had been neatly stacked in the corner near firewood. Returning, he carefully draped it over her, finding his heart pounding loudly enough to make his hands tremble as he did it.
"How you feeling—what did that monster do to you?" Kouga's questions ran over themselves and he awkwardly perched himself by her side again.
His hands kept shaking so he clasped them together roughly in his lap, partly unsure of where the intense emotion arose from.
Kagome's hand shifted, curling around the edge of the blankets that covered her. She twitched when immense fatigue attacked her muscles, but she still opened her eyes.
The room seemed dim and she found herself staring at a wooden ceiling. Her thoughts tried to click the location together but she gave up quickly. Letting her eyes nearly drift to a shut again, she tried to focus on the wolf-prince's question. But her mind was muddled and felt like it'd been stuffed with cotton.
"Um…" she tried to remember.
The sudden image of a twisting purple sky caught her mind and her breath hitched. She opened her eyes again, focusing on the ceiling, when the disturbing image faded away.
'No' Kagome told herself, 'That was a dream'.
She blinked, finding the wooden ceiling shift away to give into the image of the swirling purple sky. She shut her eyes instantly.
No, Kagome kept figuring. There wasn't a purple sky. The shield was purple…but she had been in a cave. Perhaps the two were interrelated? But then Kagome pushed the idea away. No the dream had been terrifying. She wasn't suffocating when she was in that cave.
And then it came to her. Cerritomato, the demon that was sent there to collect her soul. She shifted uncomfortably at the thought. But before it left her she voiced it.
"Um…I didn't see Naraku." She started, aware of the wolf-prince's concentration even with her eyes shut. "I ran into one of his incarnates. One that he created…just for me, he said."
Kouga's lips peeled back over his fangs and he fisted his hands in his lap at her each words. Any relief that Kagome had woken washed away when his thoughts darkened.
"He tried," Kagome tried to word it and found the memory difficult to voice. "Tried to see my soul. He wanted to destroy it but he couldn't."
Kagome lapsed into silence for a second and Kouga snatched up one of her hands. Her skin was freezing and he covered her hand with his palm. Drawing it onto his own lap, he found himself urging her continue.
"Why couldn't he?"
Kagome took an uneven breath and let her eyes barely drift open.
"He said it was broken. I think because Kikyou had some of it."
The wolf prince cocked his head at the odd name but didn't interrupt. He stressed himself to remember everything she said to report to the old lady.
"But then I tried to escape. I tried to purify him with my hands." Kagome said it sounding puzzled herself.
She let her eyes trail to Kouga's face and her heart clenched when she found the frown there. His brows pinched in concentration and his eyes seemed agonized.
Kagome almost wanted to stop to make him feel better. But the idea, she knew, would be futile. Instead she tried to finish the tail end of the story.
"When I grabbed him, he tried to push his energy back into me. Like, his negative energy." She crinkled her nose. "it was burning my hands."
As soon as the idea occurred to her, she jerked her free hand up to the dim light in the room. Blinking uncertainly, she looked over the white skin, flexing her knuckles.
Kouga's gaze too caught it, and he spoke for her.
"There aren't any burns on your hand Kagome." He snatched the hand out of the air and drew it closer to him.
Kagome's cheeks would have warmed if she didn't hurt so much and she let out a sigh.
"Well, at least I thought they were burning. And then…" And then she had remembered Kikyou and Inuyasha. She remembered Kouga. Her heart fluttered and she forced herself to look away.
If the wolf-demon noticed, he didn't say anything.
"And then the energy exploded from me. And I blacked out."
Kouga nodded firmly.
"That's what took down the shield." The story left his stomach twisted and his emotions darkened. He tightened his hands over hers and repressed the anger that boiled up inside him.
"Kouga," She suddenly asked, looking back toward him. "Where are we?"
"Uh—" Caught off guard at first, he tried to remember the old miko's name. "Kaede's hut. We're trying to help you get better."
Kagome's thoughts clicked together and she made a small noise of acknowledgement.
"Are you guys okay?" She then asked, shifting herself under the blankets.
"You should be worrying about yourself Kagome." He bit his tongue before he could chide her about endangering herself. But before they mated, she would certainly get an earful.
His thoughts made his face flushed when he listened to them over again. When they mated. He tried to ignore it.
"Am I not wearing any clothes?" Kagome suddenly asked and Kouga's face burned.
He jerked his head to the side when she pulled one of her hands away and inched the blankets up.
"The old lady insisted on taking them off." He murmured but couldn't quite quash his unsightly reaction.
Kagome's heart skipped a beat when she did find her body free of clothes and she dropped the blankets back down. The surprise hit her harder than the actual fact. She was wearing blankets, and her bra and panties. While nothing she wanted to be caught in by any of her male companions, it wasn't disastrous. Catching Kouga's reaction, she almost thought otherwise.
"So, um…where are the others?" She forced the change in subject, but her voice had gone higher than she liked.
Kouga rushed to fill her in, his words sometimes tumbling over each other before he quickly finished. Slightly confused by his hurry, Kagome didn't say anything. And when Kouga chided her to rest, she did find her strength falling away from her again.
Nodding in agreement, she nuzzled the blankets and slipped off to a dead sleep.
~*~
A/N: sporadic update times right? Check my profile for the explanation.
