Hatake Sakumo was a sly old wolf who took his duties and responsibilities to his pack and his friends very seriously. And the sudden decrease in females in the last hundred years or so was definitely something that he had been looking into since he wanted his son to mate and have cubs of his own one day in the near future. Which was part of the reason why he had sought out the human female Umino had adopted as his sibling.
He had been curious about what sort of woman, a human no less, would risk life and limb to save a shifter being tortured to death by a group of men.
He had left Shifter town the day after the woman had brought Iruka back to be healed by the physicians in the Shifter built and operated hospital in the middle of their city like town. And had gone looking for the woman using the scent that he had gotten from a scarf that she had wrapped around one of Iruka's legs to stop the bleeding from where one of the men had peeled off a portion of his skin and found Uzu Namikaze working in an art gallery just several blocks from where Iruka had been attacked.
On impulse he had walked into the gallery and looked around while the woman had been in the back on her lunch break and had found out that not only did she work in the gallery but she owned it too, and even had her own line of painting on display there too.
He had picked a small, card like watercolor painting of a pink, white and soft yellow colored rose with a little lavender and sky blue and mint green butterfly on one of the petals. All in all it was a rather lovely painting. Which was why he had bought it before leaving.
After that he had gone home and hidden the painting, then waited for his next chance to observe the woman. He had tracked her through the streets every morning and again on her way home every night and had noticed that she had some very peculiar habits and friends.
On one occasion he had seen her talking to a woman, a street walker by the way she was dressed and had seen her get between the woman and her angry pimp and drop the pissed off guy before he could lay his hands on the frightened woman.
And on another occasion he had seen her buying ice cream for some troubled teens and talking with them before she had walked off with them and he had followed her and been slightly surprised to find her in the court yard of a local youth center playing basket ball with them until it got too dark for them to stay out and play.
All in all she didn't seem to discriminate between people, species, skin color or gender. Which was why he had thought that perhaps she would do well among the shifters. Since she had helped Iruka, and obviously held no hostility towards their kind, Sakumo had formed a plan to remove her from the humans and place her near his pack so that she and his son would meet.
But that hadn't told him much about her at the time. So off and on for five years, he had tracked, and observed her before finally getting impatient and deciding that it was time that she became a part of his family.
He'd known from the moment that he broke into her apartment and wrecked it, that Iruka would throw a fit thinking that she was in danger and demand that she be allowed to move into their territory to live under Kakashi's protection. He'd also known from the moment that he went to introduce himself to her the night after the 'fake' break in that she would make his son one hell of a mate if he would just try to woo her.
He'd known it the second she had looked him in the eyes, that she was no weak simpering miss. She would be able to handle anything that they threw at her.
Which was why he found it so funny that Kakashi was backing away from her like she was rabid or something after mentioning his need to mate-claim her, to protect her from other shifters in desperate need of a mate.
Kakashi was the pack alpha, he wasn't supposed to back down or away from anyone or anything. Doing so was considered an act of weakness.
But Sakumo had done the same thing when he had first met Kakashi's mother. His self preservation instincts had simply refused to let him stand his ground before the tempting, dainty, little female that had held him in her thrall.
From the way Kakashi was reacting to Namikaze, he would guess that his son was obviously feeling overwhelmed by the woman's fury, and was unsure about how to react. No doubt he wanted to snap and snarl at her to get her to bow to his will, but things didn't always work that way for an alpha who had just met his future mate.
Uzu appeared to be the kind of woman who would tear a person apart if they stepped out of line with her. Which was good. It meant that she would do well among the pack.
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Kakashi wasn't sure how to react to being backed into a corner. Part of him wanted to lash out, to shift and pounce on the woman who had his trapped and make her bare her throat to him and acknowledge him as the leader. But part of him wanted to pounce on her for another reason entirely.
His blood felt overly warm in his veins, and his heart was thudding against his ribs in a peculiar fluttering pattern, and his skin suddenly felt much too tight.
What is this? Why did he feel so strangely?
It's what you would call chemistry fool. She defies you. Challenges you. And it turns you on. An unfamiliar voice echoed through his mind. Kakashi shook his head. No. That couldn't be true, Kakashi didn't enjoy being challenged. He was used to using force to get his way in almost all situations.
He didn't do it because he wanted too. Or even because he liked too. He did it because as an alpha, he couldn't resist a challenge. It was simply a deeply rooted part of his nature. Still...it was an interesting theory. And definitely something that he would want to examine more closely in the future.
The woman got quiet, and after a second or so seemed to calm herself down despite the fact that he could all but smell the tightly leashed rage under her skin. The scent was so strong that it made him want to sneeze.
God she had some issues, huh? "I'm sorry that you weren't told about the mate-claim thing before moving here." Kakashi said lamely before explaining. "Usually it would be done by the first male that set eyes on you. But it is really for your protection."
"You don't have to explain it to me like an intellectual cripple. I know that there are only a handful of women shifters. It's just a bit offensive to find myself stuck in something similar to an arranged marriage with a total stranger-" Uzu said as she looked around, just now noticing that Sakumo Hatake was strangely absent. "And where did your father get off too? He asked to make me dinner then he disappears into thin air."
Kakashi didn't say anything as she walked over to the door and reached out absent mindedly and placed one hand against his upper arm without realising it and Kakashi stiffened a little bit as a jolt went through his system as she leaned out the door and looked around before spying Sakumo Hatake over by a car across the street, digging around in the trunk and pulling out some plastic bags.