XVII
Veritas Diaboli
"Kouga? I – something happened -"
"Yes! Yes, you amazing woman – why didn't you say you had power like that?"
"Power – I – what?"
She trembles; her eyes are wide and white with terror. Kouga strokes her cheek and laughs at her panic.
"Look Kagome – don't you know anything of what you can do; what you have done! Look at Sho!"
She turns her head and sees the leaping happiness of the little wolf and Shiori's face crinkled and restraining tears – there are other pups around her now, bigger than Sho but not by much, and Kagome smiles and then presses her face against Kouga's chest.
"Good – I'm so glad – oh I'm so glad. I was afraid something terrible was happening."
Kouga stands and brings Kagome up into his arms again; he squeezes her tightly, and then loosens his grip so abruptly when she makes a noise of pain that she clutches at him, afraid he's going to let her go.
"Sorry, Kagome – I'm just so happy I found you."
"I -"
She almost keeps the words back, but then –
"I'm happy you found me, too."
She tilts her head up toward his ear as if to confide a secret.
"You're much better company than Kaede -"
He turns his head her way and they are a breath apart.
"Is that so?"
"Yes -"
He presses his lips against her mouth and silences her with warmth – heat – the barest flicker, the most teasing promise of tongue. She has never been kissed until now, but Kouga's kiss is everything she was ever told a kiss should be and more. She lets out a stunned breath when he pulls back from her. The world is blue eyes and brightness; the sound of the waterfall – the scent of the green, growing wood.
Then she flushes the brightest red Kouga has yet seen, and turns away.
He doesn't mind; the only way she can escape his gaze is to press her face against his chest.
"Come on, Kagome. Let's go inside – I'll show you the den, and then you can rest."
"But -"
"The old woman told me you were to move around as little as was necessary. Don't think you'll get out of it -"
Her huff of breath puffs against his chest, and he grins.
"You'll be entertained enough – the pups are sure to drive you crazy, and I'll be with you. There's stories to tell, and hunts to be had, and Ginta will talk your ear off about the human world if you let him."
She pulls back from him and looks up at his face again.
"And I can't move?"
"Well – not much. And no leaving the den until that wound is healed! I didn't know humans were so fragile. Anyway, Sho was much worse off than you are, why can't you just heal that wound yourself?"
Kagome shakes her head and reaches her fingers down to her bandaged side.
"I – I don't know. I don't know what I did to help Sho."
Kouga brings her deep into the great cavern by the waterfall, and then up along a ledge and into a tunnel that cut through the mountain and comes out over a giant ravine. A river winds distant and glittering below them; a rocky cliff that leads up and up to a snow-capped peak rises on the other side of the river.
"We'll go back in a second – I just wanted you to see the back door."
"Back...door?"
Kagome stares at the sheer drop a thousand feet into the ravine, and huddles closer to Kouga.
"I think I prefer the front."
He grins.
"I thought you'd say that – but in an emergency, don't go down, go up. There's stairs."
He gestures with his shoulder to the right, and she sees them – narrow, dangerous, some of them cracking – she thinks it will be quite an emergency indeed before she dares climb those stairs. Kouga turns back inside then and brings her along a side passage that dead-ends into a wide chamber after fifteen or twenty meters. Light comes in from narrow shafts along the western wall and cracks and chinks in the roof. The floor and various ledges are plush with furs, and Kouga crosses to the widest and most thoroughly covered of the low ledges and lays Kagome down.
She winces, and sighs, and Kouga scents blood from her again, but she is distracted looking at her hair, and holds it up for him to see.
"Back to normal – I'm glad, I bet I looked weird with purple hair -"
"It wasn't so bad, but I like you better this way. You look...more like yourself."
She wrinkles her nose at him.
"You barely know me!"
"Doesn't matter – when I found you, your hair was black, you know. It wasn't until I tried to pull one of the shikon shards out of your back that it changed color. Not until all the shards were inside you -"
In an instant, Kagome recoils, begins to peer at her skin – her legs, her arms, the backs of her hands. She sees the faint scars, variously shaped and spread across her skin in odd places – there are far more of them on her right side than her left.
"Inside me? Shards of – what? What are you talking about, Kouga?"
He blinks at her.
"I thought you knew -"
"Knew?"
"About the shikon no tama. It was the reason I came; the reason I found you. It shattered – I didn't know that at first – I just saw the light from it, and wanted to see what it was. I thought there'd be some battle...something. Instead there was a someone – you – and hundreds of pieces of shikon no tama."
A/N: Today's installment features the title "Veritas Diaboli" - "the devil's truth". Kagome becomes aware of her own strangeness as it increases...and we move forward to the next level of doom! Look forward to the next chapter in about 3 hours; it will be one in the morning here then, and I'll be posting tomorrow's chapter as soon a its tomorrow! Tonight is my birthday so there's a bit of a party going on and I'll probably sleep all day tomorrow - I don't want to forget! So much thanks to all my reviewing fwooms, and especially love for velvet, without whom...well, this wouldn't exist! Onward, ever onward!
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