XXII
Tempus Fugit
Perhaps an hour passes before Kouga's time with Kagome is disrupted yet again – this time by the sudden, panting presence of Ginta and Hakkaku.
"Kouga-sama!"
"Kouga-sama, there's trouble -"
In a moment Kouga is on his feet, scattering pups in all directions. The light is long gone; the darkness in the den is broken only by a pale shaft of moonlight, scattered many directions as it come down through the rock.
"Trouble? Tell me – be quick!"
His eyes are glowing in the dark, and Ginta and Hakkaku exchange a glance; this is something new in their Alpha, but there isn't time to worry about it.
"The guards and patrols were leaving – they were attacked on the way out toward the borders. Four different groups, all of them turned back -"
"There's injuries, but no deaths – not yet. We called them all back and postponed the others and then came to tell you -"
Kouga eyes the two of the for moment, glances over his shoulder at Kagome. She is sitting up now, awake but quiet, watching and listening; Sho is on her lap now, though all the other pups have fled. She scratches behind his ears and meets Kouga's eyes.
"I guess you were right, Kagome. I should've listened; I'm sorry."
Again, Ginta and Hakkaku exchange a glance, but this time Kouga explains.
"She woke an hour ago – she had a bad dream – she said trouble was coming. Kagome...is there anything you can tell me about the trouble?"
"Wings -"
The word pops out of her mouth before she can stop herself, and then she stops and shakes her head, feels the same odd pulse of power and feeling within her that had driven her dream.
"Sorry, I – that's all I felt. Just...wings. Lots of wings."
She doesn't say that she can still feel it; it sounds too strange even to her, and Ginta is already looking at her with a strange expression. Hakkaku bears a grim face.
"The bodies of the youkai that the second patrol brought back with them are some kind of bird thing, but wings is...only about half the problem, I'd say."
Kouga stretches, and then shrugs.
"Whatever they are, they're trespassing and I'll have to teach them otherwise. Attack my pack, on their own ground? I don't think so."
Hakkaku interrupts his anger.
"Kouga-sama, these bird things, they're dangerous. Organized. And they've got a leader – a strange one. First patrol ran into him – them – it. Some kind of twin version of those bird-things; old and powerful and very, very nasty, and taking power from a shard of the shikon no tama. Almost took out Daiki -"
"Daisuke's son?"
Hakkaku nods, and Kouga raises an eyebrow at that, squeezes his right hand unconsciously, feels the pulse of power responding there.
"So there are more of them...and they have a leader...and I guess you and I aren't the only ones with shards in us, huh Kagome?"
Kagome closes her left hand around her right wrist; shards in her – she doesn't like to think about it. Kouga scowls in irritation, runs his claws through his hair and then stalks back to the ledge where Kagome is sitting, rummages around on a little shelf beside it and then pulls out the tie he uses to hold his hair back.
While he readies himself, he gives orders to Ginta and Hakkaku.
"You two will come with me; we'll hunt out the leader and kill it and then the rest should disperse back to wherever they came from. If they don't -"
Ginta interrupts him.
"If they don't, they might come back here. Half the guard is injured, and we've got too many pups to risk it."
Kouga glares at him for a long moment, then strips out of his fur, and crosses the room naked to choose fresh clothes. In normal circumstances, Kagome's sudden squeak of complete embarrassment might have pleased him – now, he is too distracted. He wraps fur around his hips, his calves, his forearms, and curses the lack of his armor.
He might need it now, against a foe who also bears a shard of the shikon no tama...against a foe who can fly.
A foe with an army.
Ginta and Hakkaku are thinking the same thing he is, but Ginta is the only one who says anything out loud.
"Your armor -"
Kouga shakes his head.
"No time. I left it in that village; I couldn't carry it and Kagome both. I'm fast, but not fast enough to get there before those things get here – never mind get there and back."
A small voice comes from behind them; Kagome's.
"Kouga – Kouga, couldn't you use the shikon no tama?"
"No luck, Kagome – it made me faster, but -"
"But that's only one shard, isn't it? Don't you have more? I mean – if you really need that armor...one shard makes you faster, so..."
Kouga's eyes gleamed.
"So more than one would make me even faster! You're a genius, Kagome!"
A/N: My sleeping schedule is all wonky, and this website is in a different time zone than I am. In any event, here is the chapter that belongs to June 26th; the chapter for today, June 27th, will be up in a short while. Many thanks to all my reviewers; apparently puppy piles are popular events...or maybe we just all want to be in one with Kouga? This chapter' title, "Tempus Fugit", I expect many of you already know means "time flees". More very soon, as today's chapter is already in progress!
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