The Source of Solace

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, etc. Rumiko Takahashi has that singular privilege. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

THE SOURCE OF SOLACE

Bred as a weapon, and betrayed by her own kind, Sango's true identity was erased by Alteration. But it just left the way open for manipulation by those who would use her for their own ends. Assassination and Love collide in a star-crossing AU universe. K/S I/K

WARNING! Dark imagery and lime, foul language, adult situations and issues.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They had drawn straws. Neither of them had wanted to be the one to go and tell him. Either him, actually---Lord Kouga or old Genkaku. Both of them could be quite formidable when roused, and the simple fact was that neither Ginta or Hakkaku had much desire to rouse that wrath.

But bad news always traveled fast, and just as the two of them were dithering about just who would get to tell who what, an eerie howl of mourning rose over the port-side city. The long, wailing note was high enough to make Ginta’s teeth ache, and he watched as Hakkaku tried to control the shiver that threatened to make his teeth rattle.

“They know.” Hakkaku whispered.

“They always know,” Ginta replied with a casual shrug that just ended up becoming a worse shiver as the yipping ululations of wolfly mourning were raised in a piteous plaint to the uncaring night.

They both jumped as the door abruptly slammed open with some force. The thin wood cracked and splintered under the clenched grip of the old ookami’s claws as he stumbled inside, demanding in a harsh voice, “Ayame. Where is she?”

“Genkaku!” Ginta jumped to his feet to catch the old youkai as he nearly sprawled across the floor, stumbling over the step and weakened by the turmoil of churning emotions inside him. The youkai, never young, had aged in the last few minutes. It seemed as if the skull of Death was staring back at him with that pale, papery skin and those fierce, blood-glowing eyes.

Hakkaku rushed to assist his wolf-brother in supporting the old ookami to the nearest chair, where he sprawled in an unusually careless fashion, for once unconcerned with keeping up the appearance of rigid stoicism that was all but sacrosanct to the older youkai nobility.

“Ayame…my granddaughter…she’s dead…” The voice was hoarse with a depth of unwept sadness the old youkai could never show, rigid as his code of honor was. The rising howls of their four-legged brothers spoke it for him, though, as they rose in a continual cry across the deserted streets of Agariba.

“I must see her.” Genkaku stiffened, as if he would rise, but Ginta put a gentle hand on the bony arm as Hakkaku emphatically shook his head, no. The poor female had been found in her bed, her throat cut. All evidence showed that it had probably been a spurned lover that had done her in. The scents alone had made Hakkaku grimace in pity for the ignoble end to the fiery-haired female. It was wretched, and undignified, and it would break the old man to see it.

Much as they had all disliked Ayame and her grasping, spoiled ways, it was not an end he would have wished for her.

And when Kouga found out…

“He will die, whoever he is.” The old wolf rasped in a whispered snarl, his crimsoned eyes like glowing coals of promise. “I vow it.”

Ginta shivered as the wolves’ howling rose in chilling counterpoint to the old youkai’s snarl. The wind rose, adding its own mournful melody to the eerie cries that now filled the night.


ooOOooOOooOOoo


“You’re a monk?”

Miroku kept his expression carefully noncommittal, a slight, affable smile curving his mouth as the woman stared down her long nose at him from behind her thick spectacles.

~Skinny bitch.~

“But of course, miss---” He tried geniality; she wasn’t buying it.

“That’s ma’am.”

“Sorry?” He blinked.

“Ma’am. You can call me ma’am, if you feel the need to call me anything, young man. I, myself, am hardly young anymore.” She sniffed, as if he had accused her of such a distant prospect. Besides being skinny, she was wrinkled and sallow and would never have been what one could call pretty.

His smile was blinding. “You could have fooled me.”

She looked suspicious. She was quite capable of doing a nice lip curl when she put her mind to it. Her teeth were straight, if yellow. “Don’t think you can flatter your way past me, young man.”

Damn, she was tough. Touchy, too.

~Frigid bitch.~

“I could hardly flatter one of such obvious intelligence.” Miroku answered smoothly, his blue eyes darkening a bit as they narrowed slightly.

She surprised him by laughing out loud. She had a nice laugh, rich and velvety, and not at all in keeping with her spinsterish manner. Her black eyes twinkled at him, and she flicked her fingers at him, almost coquettishly. “Get on with you now! You’re incorrigible, is what you are. Very well. I’ll stamp you through, though I should know better. You, my young man, are not a monk, whatever you say. You have too much an eye for the ladies to have taken vows of chastity.”

Miroku shuddered at the hideous thought, grateful that that, at least, had never been demanded of him. Mushin had protected him from that much at least, the old drunk.

“You are too kind, ma’am.” He bowed gracefully over her hand, even daring to lightly caress the sallow skin, unable to help himself.

“Go on with you!” She chuckled at his audacity. “I should reject your approval, but I can keep to my own business, mind you. What those holy orders choose to do with their funds is not my affair.”

“Thank you,” he said again, and made good his escape down the access tunnel to the decontamination chamber and the starship that waited just beyond. It would be a rough ride. The Raley’s Five was actually a merchanteering vessel, hauling cargo from one end of the galaxy to the other at the whim of demand and supply. It rarely took on live passengers, but Mushin had assured him that the captain and his crew could be trusted.

Just because the captain and crew could be trusted didn’t mean that he would be made more comfortable, Miroku realized with a growing sense of disgust as he was ushered in a perfunctory manner through the narrow confines of the ship’s interconnecting corridors. The harassed supercargo, who had been assigned the duty of escorting him, thumbed open an ancient hatch and waved him inside before hurrying away to see about some additional cargo being loaded into the lower decks.

Miroku looked at what was to be his home for the next few days and scowled. Mushin could have done better by him, no matter the depleted state of the temple’s funds. The old sot had probably spent it all on rare brands of sake to keep the pain of his aching joints at bay. That was always the old monk’s rather spurious excuse.

Tossing his meager belongings on the single bunk in the tiny closet he was supposed to be so grateful to have, Miroku sighed. He just bet there wasn’t a single woman on this damn ship. Mushin had a rather wicked sense of humor. It would be like the old monk to book him passage on the one ship in the universe that wouldn’t offer him any entertainment or feminine companionship. Mushin would just insist that it was for his own good, to help keep up his disguise as a traveling houshi with limited funds.

Miroku had plenty of his own funds, he just didn’t like to use them when he might be able to use another’s. Besides, there was a good possibility that one or more of his numerous accounts were being watched, and the watchers were just waiting for him to make a withdrawal so they could trace his location. There were ways to get around that, but they took time, and Miroku had found that time had become a precious commodity indeed, one that was fast running out.

So thus he was forced to endure the indignity of travel on a cargo-hauler, which could make the journey to Yoro Station in far less time than one of the luxury liners that did such brisk trade among the pleasure-seekers who had made Yoro such a hot destination, one in high demand. Prices bordered on the outrageous, and Miroku’s current disguise of poor missionary was one who could ill afford such expense. But damn, was it inconvenient.

Take that old broad for instance. If he had been using his own funds he would not have had to gain her tacit approval of the vouchers he carried on him, drawing credits against the temple’s accounts. That one had seen right through his disguise, and Miroku wondered uncomfortably if others might see through it just as easily. Perhaps Mushin had been right to book him passage on this clanking hulk. With no women to make him forget himself, he just might be able to pull off this monkish ruse.

Still, damn.


ooOOooOOooOOoo


His death was of little interest to all who would normally care about such things. He had been a rather unremarkable man in life, and in death, he proved even more unremarkable. His features, while plain and easily dismissed, bore a look of surprise on them in death that had never been present or known in life. The coroner thought idly that perhaps the heart attack that the medical examiner had cited as the cause of death had taken the poor man by surprise. But the dead man was approaching an age where a felling stroke was more of an expectation than a revelation.

The coroner cared little, and covered the dead body with a simple white sheet before interring him in the deep freeze to await proper disposal. Signing off the receipt, he forwarded the copies to the appropriate departments and went on to the next one. His hours were often full these days, it was almost surreal when he stopped to think about it…

The man had been the CEO of a small little company whose business was so unremarkable it did not even impinge on the disposal securities broker’s conscious even as he read the brief bio available on the corpse. His job was to stamp the correct forms with the correct seals, making certain that all was in order and as it should be before the family could come and collect whatever remains they wished to jettison. Most of the time it was hardly worth the bother or expense to embalm the bodies into sealed caskets for a ceremonial launch into the deep blackness of outer space. Most people could ill afford the stunning cost of such waste; they awaited the cremation and special urns to be delivered to their keeping, trusting in the Bureau of Burial to oversee the matter to their satisfaction.

The man’s death would be but a brief footnote at the end of a long, civil news coverage at the end of the last newsreel of the day. Perhaps there might be a mention in the business dailies, but perhaps not. The man and his discreet little investment firm were hardly in a league with the more influential corporations.

Satisfied that all was in order, the broker initialed and sealed the body’s identification paperwork, assured that other departments had done their own typically thorough jobs.

It was only when the family came to collect their dead that the broker again had cause to remember the man’s name. Shuffling through numerous data-links, he was a bit embarrassed to tell the family, which consisted of a tired-faced old woman and the man’s dejected wife, that he had misplaced the man’s paperwork. He tried to explain how busy they were, how cumbersome the whole process. Red-faced, he summoned the coroner, who had disposed of the body, to at least come and pull the man from storage. He could always straighten out the paperwork later.

The broker dithered, trying to engage the unwilling into small talk to relieve the interminable wait. The minutes ticked by, until the broker fell into an uncomfortable silence as the two grieving women patiently waited for their departed to be brought to them. Growing impatient, the broker finally excused himself from their nervous presence, and went to look for himself just what the hell was keeping the coroner with the damn body. He had better things to do with his time than to be waiting on some incompetent underling to fumble through his damn job…

But the broker stood in shock as the coroner writhed his hands in confusion.

“But I tell you, sir! The body has disappeared!”


ooOOooOOooOOoo


The golden eyes were coolly assessing as he watched the last newsreel without blinking. He was utterly relaxed, with wine and prepared refreshments to hand if he wished to partake of them. His discreet servants had bowed themselves out long since, and the overhead lights had been dimmed, as always, as the evening passed into late night.

He glanced at the expensive timepiece kept for the purpose on his mantel, and mildly noted just how late it was. He had been watching the vid-screens for quite some time, hoping to catch something that he might have missed. He was usually not so enamored of the media that he would watch the boring drone of the repetitive business dailies. He had plenty of underlings to do that for him, paid handsomely for their skill in extracting information and putting odd bits of this and that together to come up with some rather surprising conclusions that often stunned his contemporaries when he let those precious nuggets of information fall into their laps. Fortunes had been made on a simple word of advise in the right youkai ear, and many of his contemporaries were grateful for his generous help, and quite indebted to him for his munificence. He, of course, took their vows of eternal gratitude with a gracious forbearance that did not give any hint to the quiet triumph that would lighten his golden eyes to a buttery hue.

For with each small victory, he was closer to his goal. Already his supporters, both willing and unwilling, were more numerous than any other Taiyoukai could now claim. It was a quiet movement, a discreet shift among the youkai ranks that was slowly turning toward his favor. Soon he might be able to seize the reins of power whenever he wished, rather than moving discreetly behind the scenes, playing the Game as deep as any youkai had ever dared.

For Sesshoumaru was a great player of the Game. He rather enjoyed its intricacies and its twisting meanderings of politics and honor, they perfectly suited his intrinsic nature and his clever mind. His own personal ambitions were ever for that intangible aspiration of power. Power was not just the ability to make his wishes known and have them carried out---he could pay any underling to do that, if that was what he wished. True power was the ability to affect change, to steer whole worlds and entire galaxies to his merest whim, whatever it was at that particular moment…

It was a worthy goal for him, supreme conquest.

Not the bloody conquest that had marked the long reign of his father. Inutaisho had brought more worlds under his dominion than any other youkai Lord in the long history of the known universe. He had uncaringly made many a bitter enemy, and had been hated and feared just as much as he had been lauded and feted. Even as his sycophants had fawned over the old inu Lord in his last years, they had secretly derided his choice of a second wife.

Taking a human woman as mate was almost unheard of. Fathering a half-breed bastard in his dotage had lost the last shred of barely civil respect his youkai contemporaries had ever had for him. Inutaisho could have cared less. The old inu’s aims and ambitions had ever been rather petty and insipid to his true son and heir’s way of thinking. Sesshoumaru had higher ambitions than that of his father. He would make his will known, oh yes, and felt, but he would do it with skill and finesse, not by bullying others into submission.

From the first day he had taken control of the inu clan’s vast holdings---at his father’s sudden death at the hands of the dragon clan’s reigning Lord, Ryoukotsusei---Sesshoumaru had slowly built up his power base, working behind the scenes and manipulating events to his own benefit. He had carefully planned his revenge on the draconic clan, since that was what was expected of the son of a reigning Taiyoukai of his standing. The youkai noblesse had watched to see just what he would do, and Sesshoumaru had known that he had had to act with swift ruthlessness to avenge his father’s death, or lose face before those watching avidly for any sign of weakness in the son of so great an inu Lord as Inutaisho had been.

Ryoukotsusei had died at his own hands---clan honor demanded no less. But Sesshoumaru had drawn the line there, feeling that honor had been more than satisfied with the death of his father’s murderer. He did not take out his justifiable wrath on the whole clan, which many a lesser youkai would have done. That particular dragon clan had been a small one, Ryoukotsusei had only three worlds to his credit, and he had only sought the fame of killing one of greater strength than he when he challenged Inutaisho to unequal combat.

Sesshoumaru had seen the benefit of forgiveness. True, he had demanded the dragon’s clan submit to him, as was proper, but he had stunned the youkai community when he had graciously allowed the clan to live, as long as they pledged him their undying loyalty. It had been a brilliant move on his part. There was no one as ferocious in his support of the inu Lord as that of Ryoukotsusei’s son, the new Taiyoukai of the Draconi worlds. Ryousetsu had done well enough by him to warrant his continued support, though the dragon’s personal gambling habits had grown a bit expensive in the last few years…

A small announcement at the close of the current newsreel caught the lounging Taiyoukai’s wandering attention. Golden eyes narrowed as his expression tightened for a moment. The death of a minor businessman was not important in itself, but it tickled at a faint memory in his mind, and he wondered how this man might be connected to the other associates he had contracted to kill off his greatest opposition.

Contracting assassination was tricky at best, and the Taiyoukai had a particular distaste for such pithy mechanizations, though he would never allow his personal tastes to ever interfere in what he considered had to be done. Kouga of the Wolf Clan had become too much of a liability to the achievement of his own goals, no matter what his own personal feelings were in the matter. The ookami Lord was young and charismatic, forthright to the point of rudeness, and as direct and simple in his beliefs and his actions as a Taiyoukai of Sesshoumaru’s caliber would find distasteful. But the ookami could not---or would not---recognize his own appeal to the younger, restless factions of the youkai nobility.

Sesshoumaru had ignored the young ookami heir, feeling that so blunt and spoiled a youkai lordling could never gain power or support on his own. It had been a mistake, and a rather costly one. When the Taiyoukai thought about it, he had even been slightly grateful to the outspoken ookami barbarian for befriending his young, hanyou brother. Inuyasha had always been a difficult burden to bear. Sesshoumaru did his duty by the crass half-breed, had given him whatever he wanted and taken care of the young hanyou’s corporeal needs, but Sesshoumaru would never understand what drove the passionate, almost human nature of his younger brother…

It didn’t matter, really. Inuyasha had chosen to make his own way in the world, and that was that. Sesshoumaru was actually relieved that the hanyou had decided to seek his own fortune among the ookami clans. He, Sesshoumaru, had done his duty by the brat, and if Inuyasha wished to disgrace their family by taking for himself yet another human onna as mate, then it was for the best that he leave the inu clan to do so. Sesshoumaru had worked too hard for the support of the traditionalist party to suffer their outrage on his behalf for what his stupid brother chose to do with his life.

Sesshoumaru had always supported youkai tradition. Not that he precisely cared one way or another; it was all the same to him, though tradition did offer the easiest means to his goal, and provided solid, unquestionable rules to play the Game by. It was simply the easiest method to gain power among the oldest youkai families, for they had always supported the conservative agenda. Their outlook was narrow, their views almost regrettably predictable. It was no challenge to understand what motivated them, and to manipulate that motivation to his own use.

The hardest thing for him to admit was that he had perhaps made a mistake in driving so deep a wedge between the more traditional elements of the youkai nobility and the younger generations, who always saw change as something good and something worthy to pursue, if only in defiance of their elders and their rigid beliefs. He had underestimated the strength of their growing numbers, and that the brash young Kouga would become such a magnetic personality in the budding movement.

Kouga was, perhaps, an unknowing magnet. The ookami could care less what others thought of him. He was as unlike his reclusive father as Sesshoumaru was his. The Taiyoukai had to admire the ookami’s stubborn character even as he despised Kouga’s blunt directness and shrugging unconcern. The young ookami lord had ridden over any opposition there had been among his own clan, dictating more liberal policies that would have had his conservative father spinning in his grave with agitation if he knew. But Kouga had been smart, and played his own internal Game among the wolf clan well. The young ookami had turned the financially ruined, separatist clan into a rising force to be reckoned with. He did this with decisive action and abrupt change, and his relative fame had spread even as his clan had recovered their wealth and former standing among the youkai noblesse.

Kouga’s vicious retribution on the oni clan---when that miserable fool of a spider Naraku had challenged ookami clan honor by first capturing, and then slaughtering, a whole shipload of wolf youkai in the middle of a celebration onboard the familial ship Crusade---had only fueled the ookami Lord’s growing fame. It had done Inuyasha’s standing no harm, either, having been in on the bloody revenge. The younger youkai were quite taken with the romance of it all, the fools, and thus the growing liberal movement had gained support, their numbers swelling almost overnight by that simplistic---and necessary---act of swift retaliation.

It was then that Sesshoumaru had realized that he must find some way to take down the ookami Lord. He was too dangerous an element in the ever-changing loyalties of youkai politics, too bright a rising star. Regardless of how the ookami Lord personally felt about the situation he now found himself in, he was the one the young liberals were centering around, polarizing the disorganized factions of the liberal movement and thus fueling the movement’s power and momentum.

The irony of it was, if Kouga even knew how strong his popularity was, he would not care. It amazed Sesshoumaru how little the ookami cared for the careful political dance known as the Game, and how casually he let his disgust be known.

Still, politics was politics, and the Game must always be played.

Settling back into the thick comfort of his padded chair, Sesshoumaru steepled his long, elegant hands in front of him, a thoughtful frown marring the pale perfection of his crescent-crowned brow. His spies, carefully placed after many long months of wary manipulation and infinite patience---for that particular play had needed a delicate touch of only someone of his skill, audacity and daring could ever contemplate---had finally rewarded his perseverance and come up with quite a few disturbing revelations. The ‘Company,’ as he had so blithely named it in that long ago interview with the now-deceased Gyorg Laveshi, was not as cohesive as it would like to have others believe. Many of the Company’s clients would be more than a little alarmed if they knew the truth of the situation, that the Company was as divided by internal strife as any other, overburdened corporation who had---what was the quaint saying---too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

But what might be forgiven in a financially sound, if bureaucratic, industrial subsidiary, could prove disastrous for a company of such illicit activity. Too much internal strife and turmoil in such a crucial operation could prove the tool less apt than needed for the delicate jobs it was often used for. There were unseen players in that particular Game that Sesshoumaru knew too little of. He might use the gambit, and the information he could deduce, to his personal advantage if he knew more, but his spies, carefully planted as they were, were still not in a position to do much more than observe. They were not able, say, to make a move of any importance, to trigger some type of crisis or conflict that would make the in-fighting factions of the Brotherhood consolidate themselves into a more cohesive unit. Their weakness might prove their undoing. Manipulating that undoing might prove to his advantage. To have the assassin’s guild in his debt, by threat or by tacit appreciation, now that would be a goal worthy of his attentions…

A fine brow slowly rose as a notion occurred to him. In light of this most recent news---the sudden death of a man who the Lord knew full well had been one of the more radical proponents among the divided Brotherhood---there just might be something there that he could use, if he were quick to take advantage of it…

Golden eyes glinted in the shadowed room, a slow smile curving across the sculptured lips on the beautiful cold face of a stone angel.


ooOOooOOooOOoo


“What the hell are you doing?”

A black brow rose as the lounging ookami smirked.

“Watching.”

“Watching what?” Inuyasha demanded of his friend with a dark scowl, before a muffled thud drew his attention to the far left. “Oh.”

Sango, unaware of their scrutiny, struck out at the defenseless tree with another whirling kick. Bark chips flew from her second scored hit. Inuyasha watched in some fascination as the slender taijiya took a step back to then attack the dead tree with a flurry of kicks and fists that had her slowly, but steadily, circling the trunk in a strangely poetic dance of fluid motion. Each thrust of leg or arm was full of constrained power, each move one of calculated precision. It was breathtaking in its deadly beauty, for measuring the height of Sango’s strikes on the thunderstruck tree’s bole, each move had been carefully designed to take out an opponent with limited effort on the taijiya’s part.

“Damn,” Inuyasha said with feeling.

“Yeah.” Kouga’s look was smug.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes at the wolf’s continued conceit of ‘his’ woman. The hanyou suspected that Sango might have a few choice words to say about Kouga’s blatant claiming. But then the ookami was a stubborn one, and the taijiya still acted a bit shy and tentative---though she still seemed rather insistent that there was no way she could ever be considered a good candidate as the wolf’s mate. If he were to lay odds, and he already had, than Kouga would be in for one rough ride. The girl would lead the ookami a merry little dance, and Inuyasha, for one, was going to enjoy every damn minute of it.

Kouga sprawled across the porch steps, seemingly indolent, but he watched the taijiya with tense anticipation. Inuyasha scowled down at his friend, who ignored him and his sarcastic jibes, much to the hanyou‘s disgust. He couldn’t get a rise out of the infatuated ookami. Growing bored as the taijiya continued her exercises, now doing a strange series of movements in the more traditional forms of a kata, the hanyou finally wandered back inside the cabin to go looking for his wife. He might just be able to get a rise out of her, at least. Kagome was ever so easy to piss off…

Make up sex was the best sex, after all.


ooOOooOOooOOoo


Unaware of her rapt audience, Sango allowed her movements to slow. Her breaths were deep from her exertions as she allowed her tensed muscles to relax minutely. She felt sore all over, though she felt elated that she had remembered so much so easily. The motions of the time-honored routines had come stiffly at first, but grace and balance had returned as she concentrated. Her body was not at peak performance, the lack of daily training and consistent exercise were telling, but that would be easily remedied as she continued to work on her kata.

Dropping into a full lotus, the taijiya stilled. Slowly rising to a seated position, she rested her opened hands on her bent knees, closing her eyes and settling into the peaceful trance of pure being that was the end of her routine. She let her thoughts wander into the perfect symbiosis of that quiet meditation, her awareness drawing inward as she steadied breathing and pulse into a synchronized, slow rhythm. Falling into that perfect state should have been fairly easy, she had always enjoyed the settling of her mind at the end of her daily workout, but something nagged at her, disturbing the perfect tranquility of mental stillness. A slight frown of unasked tension marked her brow as she tried to seek within to see just what it was that disturbed her. Finding nothing that had not already been there and deliberately ignored, she decided it must be something outside of her that must be intruding on the peace of the moment.

Opening her eyes, she gasped.

Kouga, head tilted slightly to the side, was mere inches from her mouth, a lavish gleam in his too-blue eyes as he leaned forward to kiss her. He had thought to take advantage of her distraction, to creep up on her and take her by surprise.

Brown eyes smoldering, Sango’s curled fist shot out to punch the obnoxious ookami right in the gut. But his reactions were faster than hers, and he quickly curled his strong fingers over her hard fist, stopping it in midair. His slow smile was toothy as she all but growled at him.

“That was dirty, wolf.” The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them. A slow blush rose to stain her pale cheeks, though Kouga grinned at the silent challenge in her gaze.

“Yep.” His reply was inane, but the look in his smoldering blue eyes was anything but. They burned a lazy path down her sweat-dampened shirt, taking in every revealing curve of the simple blue cotton tee. Sango felt her breasts tighten as her stomach did flip-flops under that heated appraisal, and she let out a heavy breath she had not realized she had held.

A claw came up to trace the curve of her cheek. She flinched involuntarily, but he persisted in combing an errant strand of black hair behind her ear. His look was strangely tender as she stared up at him, her own rather quizzical and wondering.

“Why…?” She breathed the half-question, having too many crowding her mind to make any sense of them. Why was he so stubborn and persistent? Why was he interested in her, and so suddenly? The past revealed to him should have had him haring off as far from her side as he could get, instead of always trying to find some lame excuse to get closer. Why did he have to insist that he loved her and why did he have to insist that there was now no other for him? He was insane. She was human, a displaced assassin and a dishonored taijiya. There couldn’t have been a worse choice of mate for him in this universe had the Fates contrived the whole thing with maniacal giggling.

“Why not?” He tossed back with a typical shrug of unconcern. “Maybe, taijiya, it’s because it’s you.”

She shivered. That damn wolf knew too many ways to get right under her skin. He said things that made her heart tighten in her chest and had her head shaking in denial, just as it was now.

“You don’t believe me.” His voice was warm, amused. He was so close, his breath whispered on her heightened skin, making her shiver again. There was a knowing glint in his sky-blue eyes as he slowly curled his fingers through her loosened fist, his thumb delicately caressing her palm before tugging slightly, so that she leaned closer. Her breath caught as he tilted his head, her eyes fastened on the sensuous line of his lips as strange sensations fluttered in her belly. She watched as they moved again, whispering softly, “You will, though.”

“Will what?” Her eyes blinked back up to his in surprise.

“Believe.”

She shuddered, and he suddenly caught her mouth with his, claiming her lips as he would try and claim her heart, branding his desire on her parted lips even as his free hand curled through the sweaty tangles at the nape of her neck, bending her head slightly so that he could deepen the kiss. His tongue swirled into her mouth, and Sango gasped as new sensations unfurled throughout her body, making her tingle in strange places as her stunned awareness drowned deeper within his passionate embrace.

The kiss was not hard and demanding, as she had half-expected it would be. It was instead an invitation to share, and tore down the defensive walls she might have erected against something that was more possessive or domineering. He was deliberately careful not to cross that unspoken line, though it was hard, for his ookami instincts snarled for him to haul her beneath him, to lay his claim and claiming in lines of fire across her delicate white skin as he made her submit to his strength and admit his love even as he possessed her utterly---mind, body, and soul.

Sango made a small noise in the back of her throat, in wonder and permission, perhaps, though she could not have said that with any certainty. For a moment, she allowed herself to drown in the pure sensations that pooled throughout her senses, reveling in an opening of experience and awareness she had not really known before. She was no innocent; there had been others, but always it had been for duty and for clan. Though there had also been the deliberate, sadistic violence of Naraku’s corruption, and it was that thought that had her shuddering in fear as the realization came to her that Kouga’s kiss, inviting and exhilarating as it was, had broken through her barriers even more easily than Naraku’s deliberate manipulations of pain and torture on her shattered mind.

Wrenching herself away from the ookami’s embrace, Sango tried to jerk back away from him, but Kouga had quickly grabbed hold of her shoulders and refused to let her go. His claws curled, and his eyes flashed crimson with anger for a moment at her sharp denial of what lay between them. Seeing it, Sango struggled the harder.

“Damn it, woman!” Kouga growled.

“Damn it, youkai, let me go.” Sango hissed in reply, all of her protective instincts screaming at her to run! For the ookami could manipulate her body and her control too easily, and she did not like it one damn bit.

“Gods, Sango, what can I do to show you I won’t ever hurt you? I’m not Naraku, damn you!” His blue eyes flashed as he tried to haul her into his hard embrace and she angrily fought him.

“Holding me against my will doesn’t help, Kouga!” Sango hissed, angry that she couldn’t twist out of his hold as easily as she had thought. The muscles stood out on her bared arms at the strain, but he didn’t even appear to have broken a sweat.

“Fighting me won’t help either, taijiya!” He growled back, his eyes narrowed.

“You’re just like him, like all of them.” She spat, her eyes dark shadows in her pale face.

There was pain in his eyes, and anger. His voice was quiet, and hoarse, as he let go of her, saying, “Damn you, Sango.”

She scooted back away from him on her butt, but it was the pain in his brilliant blue eyes that had her bow her head in sudden contrition for the causing of it. “I’m sorry, Kouga.”

He tilted his head back, to look up at the intense blue of the chilly afternoon sky, and let out a gusty sigh of exasperation. “Damn it, taijiya, I told you never to apologize to me.”

“But…” Sango curled a fist and thrust it into the grass beside her as frustration lent strength to her confusion. “I don’t understand what you want from me, Kouga!”

“Acceptance.” He shot back, equally frustrated as Sango shook her head even before he finished speaking.

“I’m not what you think I am, Kouga. I‘m not what you need. You are just feeling sorry for me, though you shouldn‘t. You‘ve built up something in your mind that isn‘t really there, something you should---”

“Don’t tell me what I feel, Sango. Because I know.” His voice was fervent, hard.

Sango looked at him, her brown eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Kouga, you are my friend…”

“Friend.” He spat the word.

“You shouldn’t even be that.” Sango looked at her hands, which she had folded in her lap. She drew her legs up, and hugged her knees, resting her forehead tiredly against them. What more could she say to him? He was so stubborn and so damn youkai, so damn sure of what he was and what he wanted. How could she deal with that? Emotions were too raw and new to her limited experience. His emotions, so strong and forthright, scared her shitless.

*Coward.*

She winced, knowing it was true.


ooOOooOOooOOoo


Kouga wanted to strangle her. How could he get it through that thick skull of hers that he loved her? That for him, there could now be no other? He had made his choice, damn it, and that should have been enough.

Right?

He didn’t know what to do to make her love him. He felt, for the first time in his many, long years, uncertain and unsure of how to proceed. The taijiya was a boil of over-raw emotions and fears. She was as prickly and as tightly shielded as a spiny needle-thorn plant, which fired hundreds of tiny darts into the unlucky paw that dared to trod on it.

He wasn’t used to curbing his actions or his emotions; he had never been one to really care who the fuck he pissed off by something he did. He was Taiyoukai, damn it, not some weak, pathetic excuse for an omega ookami. Things between him and the taijiya should be as simple and uncomplicated as they were between that dog-eared mongrel Inuyasha and his mate. He loved Sango; she should recognize it, accept it, and return it.

Course, he would have to earn it. Her love. But that was easy, or should have been.

He let out a gusty sigh, sick of all this back and forth bullshit. He hated playing games, always had. He had always despised the pompous, arrogant youkai who took such delight in their Game of internal politics and honor, though his stern father had seen to it that he knew the rules and would know how to play when and if the need arose…

Perhaps there was need now. Sango was not going to give up her stubborn denial of the truth without a serious fight. He didn’t want to fight with her. He wanted to take her in his arms and show her just how much it was she meant to him, how much he wanted to cherish her and protect her…

Perhaps it had been wrong of him, to arrogantly assume that she just needed a few days to get over her stupid misgivings and fall madly in love with him. Perhaps she needed more time, but damn it, he was never good at waiting. He wanted her, badly, and more than for just a quick tumble in the grass. He wanted her to want him, and to return the need he had for her, to be with her and by her.

He stared at her bowed shoulders, where she wearily rested her bent head against her raised knees. He speculated on how best to proceed. His stupidity of the moment, in rushing her, had come to bite him right in the ass. The taijiya was curled in on herself, huddled in a ball, protecting herself from him. That sucked, and was hardly what he had wanted.

He should probably leave her alone, leave her to sort out her own feelings and come to her own conclusions. He should give her some space, and some time to think---time to come to terms with the startling revelations of her past, and to understand that none of them, Inuyasha and Kagome included, would ever hold any of it against her. Perhaps, she might even come to realize just how much it was she cared for him, though she would hardly admit it right now. But the tenderness he caught in her eyes, the concern she had in hurting him and in failing him---even her unspoken desire for him, especially with her burdened past of sexual savagery---all told him that she did, in fact, care for him, and deeply.

He just needed to get her to realize it, and maybe it would be best for both of them if he were to absent himself from her side. Maybe then she would let her defensive shields down and come to admit that she loved him as much as he did her. Didn’t absence make the heart grow fonder? Wouldn’t it be in his best interests to just leave her alone?

Fuck that.

He didn’t want to leave. He needed to be close to her, to impress upon her that his love wasn’t just some stupid pity for her dark past, that he meant what he said, and that she was his. All this stupid questioning bullshit was just aggravating the hell out of him. He had fucked up, rushing her and overwhelming her with his real need for her, and he now had to rectify that fact. He had to take it slow, as Kagome had suggested, and tackle her barriers one solid shield at a time. The best way to take down a walled fortress was to lay siege, and wait for the best opportunity to strike…

Blue eyes narrowed, he stared at her in speculation on how best to start the assault. First things first, he had to get her used to his touch. Not only when she was knocked out and snoring, but when she was awake and aware. He had to be adroitly casual about it, as if each caress was thoughtless on his part. He had to be careful, and he had to be devious.

He had, actually, to play the Game. And this one, with such a reward, was not as distasteful as he would have thought.

Stretching out a hand, he deliberately laid a light claw on her shoulder. She flinched, but steeled herself to look up at him. He didn’t like her automatic reaction, but he arranged his face into one of chagrin.

“Sango, I’m sorry.” He even managed to put a sorrowful twist on his rough growl. He wanted to grin as she quickly unfolded herself to reply earnestly that it was not his fault, that it was entirely hers…

Suppressing the urge, he shook his head, sadness etched in every defeated line of him. “Sango, I don’t know how to show you just how much I truly care for you.”

Alarm flickered for a moment in her earnest brown eyes, and Kouga quickly added, “As a friend, of course.”

Her tentative smile was shy with understanding. “Kouga, it’s okay. Truly. I have my own…things…to work through.”

“Then you forgive me?” His look was boyishly hopeful and he almost crowed as she fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

“There’s nothing to forgive. It was I who acted…hastily.” She looked contrite, and back down at her hands, which now rested in her lap.

“No, Sango, it was I who acted like an ass. I’m the one who needs to beg your forgiveness.” Kouga insisted, touching her shoulder again with light emphasis. She didn’t flinch away this time.

“Maybe we were both hasty.” Sango said slowly, reluctant to admit any wrong on his part, but wanting to console his youkai pride.

“You are too sweet.” True enough, though he felt like would drown on the sentiment. He used her blushing silence to lightly hug her, daring to press a light kiss on her cheek. She flinched, but not as quickly as before. He explained in throaty intensity, “That was just to show my appreciation.”

She gave him a rather suspicious glance, but he was innocence itself, a vapid smile on his face. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but she said nothing, merely allowed him to help her to her feet. He draped a casual arm across her shoulders, hauling her close to hug her in a quick, friendly embrace.

“I’m glad we’re friends, taijiya.” He said with blithe cheer, keeping his arm over her shoulders as he steered them back toward the house. Tense at first, she slowly relaxed as he did nothing more, even smiled a bit when he oh-so-casually mentioned that dinner might just be ready, and that he was hungry enough to eat a horse.

“Would you really catch and eat a horse?” She asked, the delightful innocent.

“If he wasn’t fast enough---sure.” Kouga’s laugh was genuine at her shocked expression. He hugged her again, quick and hard, and she didn’t flinch away this time. He let her go as they climbed the wide steps up the porch, and she paused for him to open the door for her. Lightly resting a hand on the arch of her spine, he let her go in first. His grin was toothy as she absently wiped a sweaty tangle from off her forehead, but did not try to slip away from his casually brief touch.

This go-slow shit just might work.


ooOOooOOooOOoo


Sango was up to her arms in sudsy water and dirty dishes, and Kouga was beside her, his look sour as she handed over the first, cleaned plate. Swiping at the dripping surface, he tossed it in the drain-rack and thought longingly of the simple convenience of having some servants to do it for him. But Sango seemed to take some perverse pleasure in cleaning up after dinner, and he had made a vow to stick by her side, no matter what, and by her side he was, towel in hand and scowl in place.

Inuyasha, of course, was taking a perverse pleasure in watching them, though he pretended to be busy untangling some type of netting as he sat at the rough-hewn table, a pile of knotted threads in front of him. Kagome was perched on the edge of the sopha a few feet away, reading tidbits to Sango from a gossip column of some kind. Kouga forced back a bored yawn as Sango absently handed him another dish, her attention on the black-haired onna.

“…and it says here that brown is the new black this season.” Kagome pursed her lips, thinking hard. “I don’t think I have a brown skirt.”

“You don’t?” Sango asked, perplexed, thinking of how many skirts Kagome already owned.

“No, I don’t.” Kagome looked chagrined. “I wonder if that nice little dress shop in Agariba carries some in my size…”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes.

“Maybe you could order it from one of those disk-catalogues you are always getting?” Sango helpfully suggested, handing Kouga a dripping glass.

“Shipping stuff in from off-world can get expensive.” Kagome bit her lip, thinking hard.

Inuyasha looked heavenward.

“But if I only buy one…” Kagome muttered to herself, slipping off the sopha’s arm to go hunting up one of those handy catalogues that came on a simple vid-disk by mail. “It shouldn’t cost that much…”

Inuyasha silently prayed.

“Though maybe I should try and get two---one never knows when one might need to change, and if brown is in this season, maybe I should go look in Agariba, just to see what they have…” Kagome’s voice grew muffled as she wandered down the hall toward the back room, where she kept her disks in a scattered pile across one end-table.

Inuyasha sagged in defeat.

“Do you know how much brown is gonna cost me?” He growled at Kouga, who shrugged and grinned.

“Why are you worried, mutt-face? You can more than afford it.”

Inuyasha just sighed, his deft claws neatly untangling another knot.

Sango gave Inuyasha a puzzled glance. Kouga casually bumped her hip with his, flashing her a grin and pointedly rolling his eyes in the cheap ass hanyou’s direction. She smiled tentatively, uncertain of the joke. Kouga risked a quick, amused hug as the taijiya bent back to her dishes. She didn’t even look up, so used to them by now.

Kouga’s smile was smug.

“Oh.” Sango said with mild surprise.

A slight, metallic scent rose and Kouga’s nose twitched. Suddenly concerned, he looked down at the taijiya, who held her index finger up to look at the shallow cut she had carelessly made on the jagged edge of a knife she had reached for, the sharp edge hidden among the sudsy dishes in the sink. The slight wound bled sullenly, bright red in the overhead lighting. Inuyasha looked up, apprehensive, as the coppery tang of the girl’s blood reached his own sensitive nose.

“You okay?” The hanyou asked.

Sango nodded absently. “Just a cut,” she said, reaching for a towel to clean up the blood.

“Let me see.” Kouga said huskily, pulling her hand up so that he could examine it closely. The cut was shallow, the blood already clotting. Without thinking, he lightly licked the seeping line, using the healing properties of his saliva to stop the bleeding and seal the wound.

Sango gasped, and tried to tug her finger away from his warm tongue. Kouga held her wrist firmly, his eyes too intense and all too blue.

“Let him.” Inuyasha was willing to aid the cause. He leaned back in his chair, his golden gaze amused. “Wolf drool can heal.”

“What?” Sango’s startled eyes shifted to the hanyou, who sat back from the table with a mild grin at her expense. She gasped as Kouga’s warm tongue swirled around the wound, lightly licking. She stared at his tongue in fascination.

“So does inu.” Inuyasha supplied conversationally, crossing his arms behind his neck with casual disregard, his eyes half-lidded so the taijiya would not see the amusement in their amber depths. “Handy, that.”

“H-Handy?” Sango stuttered as Kouga drew her finger into the hot, wet heat of his mouth, sucking lightly as she stared stupidly up at him.

“Yep.” Inuyasha wanted to chuckle as the girl’s brown eyes glazed over. Kouga continued to draw her finger deeper into his mouth, his tongue cupping around her skin, his lips soft as he slightly increased the inward suction. Withdrawing her finger a bit, she almost moaned at the loss of wet warmth, though he quickly sucked her finger back in a deliberate mimic of how bodies moved in carnal joining.

A pure stab of raw need rocked the taijiya right down to her core, and she shuddered as Kouga drew her finger deeper, the suction of his pliant lips making her nipples taut and her stomach muscles tighten.

The scent of her sudden arousal was heavenly to the ookami, who stared down at her with compelling innocence even as he deliberately fanned the flames of her need. Inuyasha cocked a brow at the sudden intensity of the girl’s scent, and he looked mildly impressed as Kouga continued to pluck at the strings of her reticence.

“What are you doing?” Kagome demanded, her arms full of various catalogue-disks as she returned from the back room.

Inuyasha scowled. He’d been rather enjoying the show. “Sango cut her finger. Kouga’s trying to heal it, the inu way. Remember that scrape you got on the inside of your thigh last week?”

Kagome blushed at Inuyasha’s smirk. She remembered that scrape, and her mate’s tender care for it. She also remembered what had followed that heady kiss on the inside of her thigh…

Flushing furiously now, she made a faint noise of protest as the hanyou grinned toothily.

Kouga finally let Sango’s finger go, though he kissed the healed tip lightly in mock apology at the slow withdrawal. The taijiya stared up at him in a daze, her eyes soft and almost cinnamon. A slow smile curved across the ookami’s lips, and he whispered huskily, “All better?”

Sango nodded, still in a daze. A flash of wistful regret darkened her eyes for a moment before she curled her freed hand against the fluttering heart in her chest. She took a deep breath of needed air, trying to regain her scattered wits. “Um, yes…um, thank you.”

Kouga was amused by the taijiya’s stumbling, and would have said something more, but a faint, familiar scent tickled his attention away from her enticing presence and toward the front door. He frowned, perplexed by the recognition.

*Hakkaku?*

Inuyasha sat up, catching wind of the wolf-brother’s presence even as Kouga strode toward the door and swept back the archaic locks. Hakkaku rapped helpfully on the door even as the ookami Lord swept the sturdy wooden panel aside, revealing the wide-eyes and white spiky-head of the youkai to them all.

“Boss?” Hakkaku’s gravelly voice broke the silence that had descended on the group at his unexpected arrival.

“What’s wrong?” Kouga growled, scenting the youkai’s anxiety.

“It’s Ayame, Boss.” Hakkaku, never good with words, stumbled all over them to explain. “She’s…she’s been…”

Kouga stilled minutely, his blue eyes boring into the younger ookami as his expression hardened. Hakkaku flinched under that steel-eyed gaze, wondering if this was what a terrified bush-tail must feel under the piercing hunger of the hunting predator.

“What about Ayame?”


ooOOooOOoo


A/N - I want to thank everyone for the reviews, and apologize for how long it took me to update. I am worried that Miroku, Sessy and Kouga are all OOC in this chapter, and kept dithering over it until I finally got fed up with myself and just published it, as is. Please let me know if they are, any comments are greatly appreciated! (Fate)