Kouga's warning

"What do you want to do today Shippou?" Kagome rubbed her hair with her towel and sighed against the cool morning breeze. "Your father's not here so no boring lessons or any fighting or training." Indeed Yamazaki had made sure Shippou trained ever day and sparred with him but unlike Sesshoumaru and Hiro, Yamazaki made sure they spent no more than two hours a day fighting. He respected his childhood and let him play in between the training and lessons. The young kit was torn between joining in with the Western Inu brothers and revelling in sparring and being the cute little boy his adoptive mother envisioned him as. It had become a general understanding that he would have two separate faces.

"I don't really mind, I just can't wait until I'm strong enough to go hunting too."

"Well why don't I tell you a story?"

He grinned immediately, all of the children in the whole wider pack knew to never pass up the opportunity to hear one of Kagome's stories."

15 minutes later Shippou sat with wide eyes as he listened to how the noble Kagoro persuaded Inuyoshi to not kill the werewolf prince for he had only wanted to protect his pack. "And the wolf prince's name was... Kouga."

Shippou opened his eyes... was it true? No, it was just a story but Kouga was here, standing there in front of them by the river, hands on hips. "What's up squirt?" He said in that brash manner of his with a crooked smile. "You won't mind going to play by yourself for a while would'ya? I got something I gotta tell Kagome for a sec, ok?" Shippou knew when he was being dismissed and immediately left to go and play by the water.

"What's up Kouga?" Kagome asked with a bright smile.

"I'd wipe the smile off woman. Touga's not happy, I was visiting the west a day or so ago, the day Sesshoumaru and Hiroki went off with your mate. He's planning something big, I think he might be planning on overriding Yamazaki's mating mark," he touched the star on her neck. "Take the kid and go, anywhere, I'd say come with me, but there is a bug going around leaving most my pack sick, that's why I went to the West, get some information, you might come down with it too. I know you won't accept protection, you won't want anyone to get hurt, but Touga's off his rocker with all this inter-pack violence he's forever planning."

"Look, there is nothing to worry about Kouga, Touga is not the strongest one, he might be able to beat Yamazaki, but Hiro's always there to keep him in line."

"There's one thing you're forgetting, Hiro's not here."