XCVIII

Tentanda Via

Kagome is still for a long moment after Kouga leaves her, her fingers clenching and unclenching in the fur. He's never denied her, not once, never before touched her and stepped away like this. The heat beneath her skin, creeping from her toes upward and from the tight points of her nipples down, has never pained her in quite this way before. It occurs to her that she could touch herself, finish what he started – that he won't take long to come back with her clothes, and that he won't be able to resist helping if he sees her.

Then she thinks that probably, that's what he wants, and so she is not doing it. Not even if she wants it, too. Instead she sits up and stays right where she is, watching the entrance to the room and waiting for him to come back. He wants to tease her, does he? Well, fine. Two can play that game, buster.

She sees him come around the corner, sees him slow as he gets closer; sees him stop, his fingers clenching on the leather of her kosode, as he steps in the room. She gets up at once, and takes two steps forward, pulling the celestial underrobe from his arms. "So you never did tell me how far it is."

He stares at her, confused or disappointed, she can't tell which. You deserve it either way. Her skin is still tingling; it's not better being close to him, either, feeling the weight of his gaze. One arm at a time, she puts on the glittering robe, then pulls her hair out of the collar and draws the neckline close to her throat. "The place we're going, I mean?"

The robe seals itself, needing no tie. She takes a step closer to him, settles the skirt so its lines are straight, and tugs at the kosode he's holding so tightly, smiling at him. "Kouga? Did you hear me?"

He blinks twice. She thinks he's breathing very deeply, very slowly. "I'm thinking. And it's not easy, looking at you. Not easy breathing the scent of you, wanting me."

"That's your own fault!"

"Yes. It is." His grin is sharper than usual, and when he drops her clothes on the furs in favor of grabbing her, only the magic of the seamless fabric keeps his claws from scratching her skin. He's careless now that she's wearing it, trusting it to protect her. She likes the easy way he touches her, the feel of his claws when they can't hurt her. How he can see everything, but, she thinks, this robe will protect her from him in all ways. So won't he be prevented even from touching her skin?

She's waiting for him to try, but he bends over her, embraces her, and presses his cheek against her cheek instead. "Do you know what it feels like, knowing I could take you now, knowing you already said yes? Watching you wanting me, squirming in your skin? And now you'll be all mine for a few days, just the two of us -"

"You – I – there are no words, Kouga!"

He laughs silently. She can't see his face, but she can feel him shaking against her. "If you want to tell me you don't like it, I'll listen to what you say. I'll bring you to bed; I won't tease you like this anymore. But Kagome, that doesn't mean I don't know the truth. Even just me talking about it makes you want it more; I can taste it in your scent." His arms tighten around her, then relax. "You still have to tell me what you want, though. I can't use your body against you."

She shivers, and he presses her against his chest, warms the curve of her ear with his breath. "Are you cold, woman?"

"No."

"Then… do you want me to stop? Not to deny you?"

"Yes. And… and no." Then she leans up on her toes, and doesn't kiss him, just sweeps her tongue over his bottom lip and grins when he sucks in a breath. "But I'm not going to make it easy for you."

"You're not supposed to. The last lesson of a courtship is that you can't really lose when you vie with your mate." He traces her lips, the line of her jaw and her cheek. "If you get what you want, entice me more than I can bear, won't I be happy still? If I get what I want and you wait until Obon, won't you still be pleased in the end?"

"Hmm… that makes sense, but…"

"But?"

"Maybe before we go I should find Kameko and see if I'm allowed to bet."

This time he laughs out loud. "She won't let you, no more than she'll let me. Now, what did you ask me?"

She looks up at him from under her lashes and gives him the most evil grin she's capable of. "Before you got distracted?"

"Yes, wicked woman. Before I was distracted."

She tosses her hair over her shoulder with a dismissive flick of her hand, and snickers at him. "Like you don't deserve it. But it's not that important, I just wondered how far we had to go."

"I can't really say, that's a tricky question. It's far, but not as far as it seems. Meaning it doesn't take as long to get there as you think it does while you're going. No matter when you leave, or how long the run takes you in the end, it's always twilight in the flower forest, and you always arrive at dusk on the day you left."

She frowns; he waves away her impending questions with one hand, and kisses her for good measure. " I don't know why, don't ask me. I only know the way, not how it works or how it was made." He leans closer, bends to kiss her neck, her shoulder – but as she expected, the heavenly robe doesn't move out of the way, even when he pulls at it. He can't even shift it past her collarbone.

His frustrated growl is extremely satisfying. "Kagome. Your clothes are defying me."

"Wasn't that the reason you gave it to me? You said it would protect me even from a daiyōkai."

"Yes, but it's not supposed to protect you from me."

She meets his eyes, lifts her eyebrows, "Only from everyone else's bad intentions, not your good ones?"

"Oh I see." The hunger that she'd seen for the first time that morning lights his eyes again, and she wonders if it's always there, lurking beneath the surface; if it's just that it's only now he's willing to let her see it. "You did it on purpose."

"Yes. You said you were going to be good, but I didn't believe you." She turns and picks up her kosode, shakes out the length of it and puts it on, but slowly. She can feel his eyes on her, tracking every movement, and then his hands, with the excuse of helping her smooth the layers and do up the ties.

"That might… have been very wise." But he holds her close anyway, even when she's fully dressed, his hands on the waistband of her hakama. "Now, are you ready? You don't need shoes? You don't want to tie up your hair?"

"I have shoes? Not just winter boots? Since when?"

"Since… since… I don't know, since I sent Ginta out to find you human things the first time, probably. We do know you're human."

She wrinkles her nose at him, lifts her foot and wiggles her toes. After running around barefoot for most of a year, whether that's outside in the wood or inside the den on stone floors and furs, her feet are callused enough that the lack of shoes hasn't bothered her for a long time. "Yes, yes, but none of you wear any, so I didn't think about it. Finding out just the things it doesn't occur to you to tell me is going to take a hundred years, isn't it?"

Kouga looks sufficiently repentant; she grins, and snickers, and shakes her head. " Well, never mind, anyway. I haven't been wearing them, so my feet are used to the ground, now. Unless we're going somewhere particularly spiky, but it doesn't sound like it."

"No. And where you can't walk, shoes wouldn't help. But you should wear them anyway." He tilts his head toward the way out. "I can hear it raining; it'll be pouring soon. Won't you get cold if your feet are wet? Usually you stay indoors when it rains."

"You are learning human better, I'm impressed. But if it's raining… should we still go? Even with a cloak, it won't do any good for me to wear shoes and then get soaked anyway."

He shakes his head, and there are secrets in his smile that make her want to go even if the rain becomes lightning and a gale. "No, it won't matter. We'll be above the clouds, and then we're going south, where the rain came from. It'll be clear that direction, once we get away from the foothills. You wear your cloak, and wrap up well, and I'll carry you until we're out of the rain."

She takes his hand, despite his reluctance to let go of her hips, and drags him toward the threshold. "Then let's go. The longer we wait, the more chance that something is going to happen and then we won't be able to leave."

He follows her down the passage to her own room, shaking his head slowly while he navigates around the other Wolves. "I don't like it that you're probably right. Spring used to be relaxing. I could run around and do whatever I wanted, drag the pack behind me, or run alone. Hunt wherever prey was running, dig out the sleeping season and wake it up. But now."

She glances up at him and smiles half a smile. "It's my fault. I know. You'd be lazy as anything if I wasn't here, is that it?" There are, in fact, shoes in the stacks of clothes. Geta, straw sandals, lacquered zori with pretty patterns – she frowns for a moment, staring at the gilded embroidery on a pair of Chinese slippers. Where had they gotten those?

Kouga stands at the threshold, waiting, while she digs into the piles of furs and clothes that are stacked around her little chamber. "I don't mean it like that, woman, it's definitely not your fault. Whether you were here or not, something would be going on north of us." He scrubs a hand through his hair and blows out a breath. "Don't mind me, it spoils my mood whenever I think about it, that's all."

That's what's bothering him? She frowns, thinking about it. "I don't know, isn't whoever it is causing trouble because of the shikon no tama? That is my fault –"

He growls at her, low but sharp, and for the first time she absolutely understands what he's saying without any translation. "Alright then, not my fault, but because of me. And even if there would be problems without it, it wouldn't affect you so much, or the pack." She pulls a pair of leather boots from under the thickly furred winter ones that she should put away for the year, and stares at them. Waterproof? Water resistant? Maybe? "It wouldn't have as much to do with you, anyway. Kameko said as much-"

"Kameko should talk less, then."

"Kouga. I told her things were changing anyway, whether I was here or not." He frowns, silent, as she sits to pull her shoes on, wiggling her toes again at the now-unfamiliar sensation of her feet being restricted. "There, shoes." But he's staring at the floor now, and she crosses the room, reaches up and touches his face. "Kouga?"

He looks up at her as soon as she touches him; his smile is back, but more brittle than she likes. He reaches into a pile of folded leather and shapeless furs and pulls out a cloak; how does he know where her things are better than she does? Carefully, he wraps it around her shoulders, and she peers at the shimmer of the surface.

"Snakeskin." He speaks to answer her curiosity. "From a thousand year old snake, no less."

"A thousand year old –"

"I only skinned it, I didn't kill it, you don't have to worry. It was a prize from a long time ago. Some other Alpha's conquest; who knows from when?"

"But if it was so valuable it was kept so long-"

"I've already told you, Kagome. You're my only treasure, my priceless pearl. Everything else is just decoration for you, whether it's gold or silver, fur or leather, silk or jewels."

"Even lacquered, gilded zori?"

"Even whatever that is." She snickers, but he's wearing a serious expression still, and pulls a hood of the same material over her head and ties it under her chin. "I found a heavenly robe for my heavenly maiden; of course I'd skin a demon for my queen of hell." He leans into the shadow of the hood to nuzzle her cheek, then steps back again, and tugs on her hand.

She follows him outside, but stops at the entrance of the den, looking down at the river, and the valley, and the Wolves moving through the trees and the drizzling mist of rain. It had been bright in the morning, barely a hint of clouds when she had come out to talk to Kameko, but the sky is menacingly dark now, promising a stormy afternoon.

Out of the corner of her eye, she peers up at Kouga and then elbows him gently in the ribs. "Hey. You're still frowning, stop thinking about it. We'll deal with it when the time comes. And it's not like all change is bad, is it?"

"Maybe."

"But just me being here, isn't that change? You can't be upset about that."

"You being here…" He does stop frowning, but only one corner of his mouth turns up. "You're not the first human to mate one of our Wolves, Kagome. That's not really a change. It is for me, because it's me, but that isn't… the same."

"Then tell me about them?"

He blinks at her, obviously confused. "Huh?"

"The other priestesses who came from the future and lived with your pack, let an Alpha court them… said yes."

"I… you know, when you say it like that –" He smirks a little bit, looking out from the ledge toward the waterfall, and then turns to look down at her. The smirk widens, and widens, until she can't help but roll her eyes at him.

"Yeah, yeah, you're the Alpha of Alphas. No one's ever caught a mate like you have."

"Now you admit it." She can feel her cheeks heating but there's no one near them to hear him, and at least he's smiling again. "And you were complaining about being the center of attention."

"Just because it's true doesn't mean I have to like it. I love you, Kouga, I do, but there's days I wish I –" She stops. Takes a breath. Rearranges her words. "There are days I want to be more like Shiori, or Suzume, or Harumi. Just… a pack mate. Just someone you love, with no other responsibilities, and nobody looking at me for any other reason. And then when we're mated, just your Alpha, like any other Alpha."

Kouga squeezes her fingers and wraps an arm around her waist. "Look around, what do you see? No one who wants you to be anything else. Be what you want. Not a miko, if you don't want to be. Not the shikon no tama's guardian, except as much as you need to guard yourself. Not a stranger, but my pack mate and partner. Not a woman from the future, but the woman who will be my future. Be Kagome, just Kagome. I love Kagome. She's very beautiful, my Kagome, very sensual, very smart. Her words are sweet, and her heart is honest. She helps me with everything, makes everything better. Why would I want her to be anything else?"

She doesn't realize how tense she was until she feels herself relaxing in his embrace. "I was trying to make you feel better, but look at me. How do you always know the right thing to say?"

"Because I love you. I want you to be happy. I'll always tell you the truth, the best way I can. It's like how I gave up doubting you, because whenever I need you to, you understand what I want, what I need… everything, you always understand everything. It's like that, Kagome."

"I didn't know I was doing anything special."

"Exactly. So how can I explain?" He snatches up a bag she hadn't even noticed, and puts it over one shoulder; food? Something else? It sounds like a bag of rocks when it settles against his back, but he doesn't say anything about what's inside. "Let's go, woman. Didn't we already–"

"Yes. South, you said?"

He nods. "But we have to start at the top of the mountain."

She blinks at him in confusion. "This is the south face; won't we just have to come down again the way we went up? Why…"

"I don't know. I told you, it's far, but not as far as it seems, and…" He stops, scratches his head, shrugs. "This is hard to explain, I've never tried before. It's not about where we're going, it's about where we've been when we get there."

"What? You know what, never mind. Magic makes no sense. Seriously."

"Says the miko?"

"Says the yōkai. I can only go by what you said." She follows very closely and very carefully as he brings her around to the back stairs. He'd shown them to her the first day he'd brought her here, the Wolves' secret escape. Now, as then, she is absolutely certain she'd be safer trying to jump off the mountainside than running up these stairs, especially as they are now, made slippery by the rain. But with her hand in Kouga's she's as safe as if she was on level ground, and only tries her best to step carefully.

He moves quickly, jumping over uneven parts of the staircase and tugging her along with him, skipping up shortcuts he's obviously learned over time. It grows cold quickly; there's a faint swirling of snow amidst the rain the higher they go, and she shivers. But it disappears just as quickly as it came, as they circle around the eastern side of the mountain, up past the cloud layer and into the full glare of the sun.

The air is thin this high, and she finds herself breathing hard, but she still only stops when Kouga does. The clouds look like an ocean of mist has been poured between the summit and the forested valley below. Their tops are shining and translucent where the sunlight touches them; the layers beneath obscure the landscape with silver and shadows.

Kogua squeezes her hand. "Now, we can start. Do you trust me? Are you ready?"

"Yes, of course I do." Half-reluctantly, she drags her gaze away from the view and looks up at him. "But ready for what?"

"Going down. We can only take three steps to get to the bottom of the mountain, Kagome. More, or less, and we'll have to try again."

"Three?"

"Mm. I know you can run, but since we don't know how far you can jump, you'll just have to hold on."

He sweeps her up off her feet and hugs her close to his chest; he can't actually be serious? "Kouga? That – it's an entire mountain. Three steps? How-"

"You'll see. Hold on, I said. Go on." She wraps her arms around his shoulders, and he grins fiercely at her and then doesn't run, just… plants one foot and jumps, not up but outward, away from the mountain's peak.

She almost screams, but holds her breath instead; the wind would steal it from her otherwise. The clouds and then the rain beads on the iridescent snakeskin of her hood and cloak. Her hakama suck up the water and stay dry as a bone; is it because they're dragon skin?

She can't see anything around her but the mist dewing her lashes and Kouga's look of concentration. It takes him longer to start falling than she thought it would, but gravity inevitably snatches them back into its grip, and suddenly there's green all around them, leaves and branches snatching at them. She sees a twig snap across his cheek, leaving a cut that heals before the blood can spill, and she flinches - but then his feet touch the ground. There isn't even a leaf caught in her damp hair.

Kagome touches his cheek, or tries to, anyway, but he turns his head and catches her finger gently between his teeth. "Don't distract me, what if I take a step? Then we have to go back and do it again."

"Sorry, sorry."

"You are not." He leans down a bit, butts her forehead with his. "My beauty is a little liar, hmm? But you can't get away with it when you blush like that, silly woman."

"Hehe… caught, I'm caught." She grins brightly at him. "What's the penalty?"

A hint of sharpness gleams at her from his smile. "You'll find out, but later." He jumps again before she can say anything else. This time she watches the trees flash pass in fascination, sees how easily he seems to judge how to turn his body, even falling through the air, even while the ground is invisible beneath the forest canopy, so that he lands on his feet and she's protected from everything.

She sucks in a breath, hitches herself up a little bit and squirms because she can. "One more step?"

"One more step." Again, he jumps, but it's not nearly as high, or as far. They skim the top of the trees, and when he lands again it's on open grass. The mountain is half hidden behind them; they're already in the foothills, and the rain has faded to a damp, misty fog.

"Where to now?"

"Now, we run south." He puts her down gently. "Until the sun passes over us, from east to west."

"So noon, then? That's three… no, almost four hours." Idly, as if she means nothing by it, Kagome slides her hands up his arms, across his shoulders, up the back of his neck. "I can run as fast as you can, but –"

"I know. I'll carry you when you're tired." He leans closer, closing the distance between them. She can feel him breathing faster, his heart beating faster. "Or I could just carry you?"

She stands on her tiptoes and steals a kiss. Alone here, nobody watching, nobody to hear, she kisses him like he's always kissing her, deeply and completely, without a care for anything else in the world. Eventually, she has to breathe, but she doesn't move very far, just lifts her lips from his mouth and settles back on her feet, staring up into his eyes.

With one hand, she unties her hood and pulls it off; he takes it from her, and she lets him kiss her again while she undoes the knot of the cloak at her neck. "I don't want you to carry me all the way, Kouga." She speaks so close to his lips that the words are a kiss. "I wished to run as fast as you could for a reason; I wanted to keep up with you. But I've been wondering, does that mean if I start first, you can't catch me?"

She turns on the spot and darts away from him, moving as swiftly as she can.

Kouga stares after Kagome for only a second, long enough for him to see waves go shimmering through the long grass as she runs through it. Then he leaps after her, chasing her laughter. The ends of her hair and the trailing iridescence of her cloak brush over his fingertips, then escape his grasp, glimmering in the sunlight. The snakeskin blows back off her shoulders and whips around his body carrying the scent of hers; he catches it in one fist and it streams behind him like a banner while he runs after her – but her words are coming true.

As fast as he goes, as fast as he can go, she's always before him. Twin whirlwinds surge across the plain, but he can't close the distance of the half dozen steps she took before he moved after her – not after five minutes, not after ten. She's going so fast that air pressure pulled up around her pushes him back even farther, but rather than try to speed after her, he settles into a loping run.

A Wolf knows how to catch its prey.

He lets her race the horizon and disappear from his sight, but the invisible trail of her scent leads him on south, just like he told her. There's no danger near them; he would smell that, too. So she can run, but that just means she'll have tired herself out when he catches up. Eventually, like all prey does, she'll have to slow down. Then he'll pounce, when she thinks she's safe, and she's least expecting it. When she's growing impatient, and incautious; when she's wondering where he is, why he's taking so long.

Yes. Then, Kagome.

He wonders what he should do when he catches her; not what she wants him to, what she thinks he will. She ran so he'd chase her down, thinking that he wouldn't be able to resist when he did. He knows that, and it's so good she knows how to play this game… He still doesn't intend to give in, though. It will mean they have to start over, if they stop too long, and that will waste one of the nights they have to spend away from the den.

But he catches himself biting his lip and breathing too deeply after the lingering trail of her scent, tastes blood and laughs at himself while he runs. Is he just fighting useless battles when the war has already been won?

Maybe she's right, his irresistible woman.

Maybe she learned how to play a little too well.

A/N: Well, who's fault is that, Mr. Alpha? Hehehe. This week's title, "Tentanda Via", means "the way must be tried". TADA! Who's rooting for Kouga? *raises hand*. I know, I know, I'm also responsible for his doom, but TECHNICALLY he did it to himself. Speaking of doom… who wants to visit with Kagura in Naraku's Torture Basement ? Forgot about that, didn't you? Fair warning: the pleasant interlude is coming to its end. Our regularly scheduled catastrophes will soon be back on the menu…

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