LXVI

Advocatus Diaboli

Days have passed slowly in the wolf den for Miroku, but without the unpleasantness he'd been so afraid of. The one set to watch him is a shadow named Saya – a female, a flash of wolf-tail and sharp eyes that do not come into the light or his full view…but regardless, he thinks her beautiful just from the sound of her voice.

He had talked to her first because he was bored, and then, when she had answered, to hear it. Wild melodies in her voice – wild. And in her humor, and her response to the teasing all other woman abandoned themselves to or ran away from…

And yet, that was not all. Not like the others was she – not like the rest of these wolves. The bright eyes that watch him from ledges, doorways, behind the curves of the den's walls…they hold softness, and curiosity, and the faintest hint of something other beneath the wolfish gleam.

Today, in the wake of the Wolf Alpha's return, the usual silence and mutter of the den dissolves into laughter and lust. Rutting sounds, musky scents, the cries of names and moans in many voices fill the long corridors.

Today, for the first time, Saya comes out of the shadows, dressed in thin, dark fur, sweat on her skin and a hunger on her face. She comes out of the shadows with her hands already reaching for him, and he thinks that all this must be something to do with Kouga's return.

He is right – and he is wrong. For some it is a reason, and for some, like the one reaching for him, wrapping around him, it is an excuse.

"Miroku, you're mine."

"Saya-sama –"

"Mine, all mine. Look at me – I know you've wanted to. Look at me – touch me. I've wanted to know if everything you said was true, I've wanted to know you. Human, what is it…to be human?"

He laughs, touches her cheek and finds her hot, threads his fingers into her hair and succumbs to the inevitable pressure of her lips against his mouth.

"What is it a youkai needs to know about being human?"

She smiles at him, a secret smile, and shakes her head.

"Nothing I will share with you – but I will share with you."

He wonders if this is a ploy of the Wolf Alpha, if this is just youkai ways –if it's the one particular female with her hands stripping his robes from his skin.

He wonders, but he does not think. He will think later.

Kouga touches Kagome with careful fingers, so careful, too careful, a fluttering tease that draws moans out of her mouth and leads her hips up into his touch. She's learned eagerness at his hands, enough to deal shame a death blow, make her all but wanton. When she wants more, she asks for it, asks as he has taught her, but now for the first time he holds back even when she begs.

"Kouga. Empty, Kouga, so empty – please –"

"Can't, I can't."

"Kouga…"

His fingers skim soft wetness, dip inside her. Hot. So hot. He wants her more than he wants to breathe, and her words, her naked skin as she turns against him are no help for self-control. Yet it comes to him. Instinct compels him to hold back. Not now. Not yet. Not mate.

The growl is richer inside him than the want, the only thing that remains for him to cling to. But in this moment, for the first time Kagome's humanity is dangerous – to her, to him. Not to what he wants, and what he's been waiting for; never that.

But her skin is soft is beckoning and fragile, and he is youkai – Ookami – the Wolf, before and after all other things. Before and after Kouga, the one who'd chosen Kagome to be his woman…the one who had gentled her, protected her from all dark things.

I am dark things.

"Kagome."

She looks up at the sound of her name in the voice of the Wolf, deeper, darker, laughing even in its silences.

"Bad girl, Kagome."

She takes a breath but it catches in her throat when his thumb moves across the soft pearl of nerves he has been teasing.

"I can't give you what you want. You know that – you, who have not yet said yes."

Slow circles, the pad of his thumb torments her, sends heat looping down from his touch to the balls of her toes and back, up into the whirlpool in her belly, the liquid current that thrives and writhes under his stimulation, the rhythm for which she begs the missing beats.

"Kouga – Kouga – please, I need – inside me – something – so empty."

His eyes are red over her, blue consumed and all his desires bared before her, skeletons of want and need, brittle bones bent to show her marrow.

"Empty. You want me inside you, Kagome? You want something inside you?"

He bends over her mouth and kisses her, bites her lip until she bleeds and licks at the wounds. Soft and stinging the pain joins the unutterable sensations spiraling through her, and she breathes her affirmation against his lips.

"Want – need – Kouga please –"

"Don't move."

"Kouga –"

"Don't. Move."

He bends his mouth to her, licks up the spilled sweetness of her body, then presses two fingers inside. Her heart beats wild in her throat. Stretched now, squeezing tight around his intrusion, she can feel the prick of his claws in her thigh where he is holding her, the warm blood spilling down her skin, and she knows why he's forbidden her any motion. His fingers move inside her quick and roughly, rapid thrusts and over them the hot lash of his tongue.

She stays still, her awareness full of sharpness, but even as he's rough he's careful, and she cannot get enough. The red of his eyes – the wild restraint of his muscles trembling wherever she touches him – the growl in his voice when he asks her if two fingers is enough.

She comes undone, and for the first time the grasping of her body has something of him to cling to. She is sated, and still she wants more. The more she knows he will deny her until he, too, has what he wants.

What I want.

What I…

Want?

He lays over her, draws her hands down his body to the hard throb of his arousal, murmuring, all but begging himself, and Kagome licks his throat while she strokes him. In one moment, she is overcome by three things.

Her want for him – her need for him – and the way they are expanding within her, seeking the future. Seeking forever, the dream she has not yet dared to touch.

A/N: And so! More! Saya, of secrets, she who wants Miroku. Kagome, who wants Kouga...and can't quite have yet. And the potential for the future, drawn up in a single word: forever. Today's chapter title, "Advocatus Diaboli", translates to "the devil's advocate". Poor Kouga xD Enjoy this soft interlude while it lasts, for soon, the tide of the dark rises again! And of course, if you don't mind...

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