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

A/N: I was almost bowled over by the response to the last two chapters. Thank you so very very very much for the reviews and uplifting comments! It spurs me on to write more of this little story…
WARNING! Dark imagery and lime, adult situations and issues. On the very good advice of CWolf, I will not omit foul language from ff dot net.

CHAPTER NINE

A lone howl rose eerie in the distance as Kagome ran for her fallen friend, the tears streaming down her cheeks as she threw herself forward, heedless of the danger she herself was now in.

“Sango!”

She almost didn’t hear the coldly feminine voice that addressed her youkai guard with the mildness of one merely discussing the weather. “We are finished here. Prepare for our immediate departure---the Wolf’s minions are close.”

Without a backward glance, the Lady and her impassive escort ascended the ramp, the hatch closing firmly behind them. Kagome didn’t see them take off, too busy turning her friend over and desperately searching for any sign of life.

The retro-sonic blast burned through the clearing, roaring over the dissonant howls that seemed to ring the forest now from all sides. Kagome knelt in the leaf-mold beside her friend, her fingers feathering across the white face and closed eyes. She nearly sobbed with relief when she saw Sango’s chest rise and fall in shallow breath.

“Sango! Oh gods, Sango! Please wake up, oh gods, please!” Kagome shook the limp body, but there was no response. Although she checked everywhere, there were no discernable wounds. The unconscious girl’s pulse, though fast, was strong, and Kagome could not understand what that haughty bitch had done to her sweet and innocent friend.

Sango remained insentient, though Kagome tried to rouse her, even slapping at the pale cheeks. Running back to the cabin for a glass of water, the tears still ran down her face with a tumultuous mix of shock and relief and nagging fear. Kagome almost stumbled and dropped the glass as she ran back outside---to be confronted with a scene she would never in her short life have believed if it were not right there in front of her.

Dusky gray and chestnut brown forms surrounded the small clearing in a flood of furry bodies. Kagome’s eyes widened, and she choked back a hoarse cry. She could not see Sango’s still form for the furry throng pressed around it, and although she knew Kouga was an ookami lord, and might somehow control these crazy wild dogs, she did not know how she might be able to.

Kagome jumped as a heavy head nudged her in the back of her knees. Water sloshed, and she let out a small gasp as the giant gray wolf lurking behind her gave her another hearty push, this time with its shoulder. Kagome whirled around to confront it, but it only sat back on its haunches and looked at her with yellow eyes. It wuffed low in its throat, seeking to reassure her, but Kagome backed away---and right into another, who also nudged her thigh with its head before taking a drooling swipe with a long, pink tongue at the hand she spread out for balance.

Kagome shuddered, half in fright, half in disgust. Dog drool was one thing, especially if it was Inuyasha’s, WOLF DROOL, on the other hand, was just downright ew!

But she wasn’t too stupid to take the hint. “You’re friends, aren’t you? You’re trying to help me.” She addressed the wolf that sat on her front porch as if he were a king on its throne. He seemed to be the one in charge, and his answering “woof!” let her know her guess had been the correct one.

But how could a pack of four-pawed wolves help her? They were not healers, not human, not youkai, not Inuyasha. Kagome felt a sudden, intense need for her mate, but she was made of sterner stuff than to wish for things she couldn’t get. ~Like a doctor…~

The King Wolf, as she was already calling him in her mind, was trying to give her an urgent message. He jumped to his feet, and bumped her thigh with a whine. Kagome thought he meant that she should tend Sango, and he at first seemed satisfied when she walked over to the unconscious girl’s side. The wolves, whining and wuffling low in their throats, made room for her, but when Kagome started to kneel, the King Wolf growled sharply at her.

Kagome turned around, her brown eyes wide. “What? What are you trying to tell me? Sango needs help!”

“Wruf!” Agreed, but it was a different kind of help that the King Wolf had in mind. With short, sharp barks, he had the milling pack nosing at Sango’s still form, lowering their forepaws to try and scoop her up as if they had hands to carry her.

King Wolf leapt past them and just inside the shadowed forest, tossing his head to show Kagome that he wanted them to leave the clearing, that it was not safe.

“But we can’t leave!” Kagome protested, looking wildly around.

King Wolf growled, showing that he wouldn’t put up with any of her arguments. The other wolves were pawing at the leafy dirt around Sango, one even taking a fold of her sleeve delicately in its wide jaws, as if it could drag her along like a fresh kill.

That would never work! The wolves could not lift the woman, and neither could Kagome carry Sango’s slight but sturdy weight. But Kagome had a sudden idea, and she turned and ran for the cabin, King Wolf bounding after her with a snarl.

Kagome tore through the house, slamming open the door to Sango’s bedroom. Grabbing the folded covers off of the bed, Kagome staggered back outside with their sturdy length.

“Here!” She waded her way back among the furry bodies, clasping tight her armload of blankets. King Wolf barked a command for the wolves to move aside as Kagome spread the heavier one out on the ground beside Sango. Falling to her knees, Kagome awkwardly leaned across Sango’s body and started pulling. Sweat beaded her brow, and her arms felt like leaden weights by the time she was done, but she had finally been able to position Sango squarely in the middle of the impromptu stretcher.

Even as Kagome fell back on her heels with a tired sigh, the wolves were already surrounding the blanket, grabbing fistfuls of cloth in their powerful jaws. Kagome was soon crowded back, and she just stared in mind-numbed exhaustion as the wolves started hauling, awkwardly walking backwards, their tails waving for balance as their paws scrambled in the leaf-ridden dirt.

A gray head bumped her shoulder and King Wolf gerruffed at her to get up and follow. Kagome used him as a crutch to get wearily to her feet. He left her side as she stumbled forward, bounding away into the woods with some of the others, their ringing chorus sounding more like the baying of hounds than the howling dirge of wolves. Warm bodies surrounded Kagome as she watched Sango being dragged deeper into the forest. She followed, the wolves’ cries drawing her into the darkening shelter of the trees as much as her own heavy heart.

~Sango-chan, please be all right…~

*~*~*~*~*

“Hey, Boss?”

Hakkaku’s white-spiked head thrust into the room even before the door-panel had finished sliding open. Kouga looked up with a harassed expression, his voice terse. “What?”

Hakkaku slipped inside and rubbed the back of his shaved head, his expression apprehensive. “You got a vid-comm signal coming in, Boss.”

“Who?” Kouga had already dropped his eyes and attention back to the various papers and data-printouts that littered the top of his massive desk.

“I.D. shows…uh…it’s the Lady of Kumo.” Hakkaku rubbed the back of his head again, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other. When there was no immediate response from his lord, the ookami tried again. “The…uh…Taiyoukai of the Oni Five Systems.”

“Hakkaku, get to the fucking point.” Kouga growled, finally looking up. “Who the hell is it?”

“It’s Kagura, Boss. Naraku’s heir.”

“WHAT?” Kouga’s eyes were as bloodily crimsoned as the Wind Lady’s were reputed to be.

There was a muffled thump from the outer room, and the door-panel slid open to reveal Ginta sprawled on the floor. The inner-comm, which linked Kouga’s office to the outer room, crackled with static. The damn fool had been trying to listen in as he sent his hapless brother, Hakkaku, inside with the bad news. Kouga’s roar had the idiot’s sensitive ears ringing, which served him right.

Kouga hardly noticed Ginta’s embarrassment at having been caught. The lord’s claws were curled into the edge of his desk as he furiously battled his rising youkai temper into a semblance of cool deliberation. His ookami nature was snarling at the thought of what that bitch might ever have to say to him. Why was she seeking him out? Vengeance?

Was she looking for her own death, as her father had, by his claws?

It took a moment, but the blood finally receded from his vision, and Kouga’s light blue eyes emerged. He gave Hakkaku a hard look. “I will take the call in my sitting room.”

It was more casual than his cluttered office, and the relaxed atmosphere would both soothe the tension inside of him and convey the perfect sense of casual contempt he wanted to display before the youkai female. It would never do to let the lady think that she might be able to affect him in any significant way. Although Kouga detested and despised the subtleties of the ancient youkai Game of rivalry and Clan preeminence, he had still been drilled by his arrogant father in how to pay lip service to the unspoken rules.

Kouga forced his tight muscles to relax, and when he had assumed a casual sprawl across the buff-colored sopha that faced the descending vid-screen, Hakkaku and Ginta were almost drop-jawed with amazement at the abrupt change in his demeanor. He motioned Ginta to activate the monitor with a careless wave, but it was the hard glint in the ookami lord’s icy eyes that had the gray-hair youkai jumping to obey.

The visual display flickered and then stabilized to show a narrowed view of a small chamber that could have been anywhere, on ship, station or planet, for all but a tapestry-hung wall was shown of her surroundings. The Lady of the Oni Five Systems was seated on a heavily carved, backless chair of deep mahogany, the armrests coming up on either side of the seat to form an encircling U.

The Lady herself sat stiffly erect, the fine silken robes of her rank swathing her slight form in traditional layers of mystery. Her skin was so pale she need not resort to rice powder, though she had carefully applied rouge to her lips and liner to her eyes and meticulously arched brows. Her midnight hair was swept up into an intricate coil of looping braids. Dangling jade beads at her ears and a small, gleaming emerald pendant with two white feathers were her only vanity. It was a studied culmination of elegant simplicity, and artfully achieved.

Kouga stared at the wind youkai, the daughter of his loathsome enemy, and said nothing. It was for her to speak first. Hers was the smaller domain, the lower ranking among their kind, and it was SHE who had sought out HIM.

Kagura did not appear to take notice of his cold silence. With a deep bow, one of scorning subservience---a shade too low for what among youkai had been perfected to the merest breath---she mocked him. It was a rather inane tool, a suitably vague weapon in the artful finesse of strike and parry that made up the Game that ruled all youkai life. It was a gimmick many had used, as she did now, to taunt without reprisal, as the youkai who deigned to notice and protest would feel oblique shame.

A black brow arched in contemptuous appraisal, as if questioning the Lady’s mental competence. By that simplistically vague insult, Kouga showed himself as good a player of the Game as the Wind Lady.

Kagura allowed a small smile of acknowledgement to curve her red lips before her face smoothed out into the emotionless mask of the true youkai noble. Her red eyes were unfathomable, her expression ambiguous. “Greetings, my lord Kouga. I am flattered that you have given me but a moment of your time, which I may assert must be a precious commodity indeed.”

The low growl in the back of Kouga’s throat was unseemly for a youkai of his breeding, but he had always hated the fine art of verbal fencing most of his youkai equals enjoyed. His limited patience for such crap had been reached, and he didn’t give a good damn if he was breaking the unspoken rules. “What do you want, Lady?”

Crimson eyes narrowed, and she allowed distaste to color her soft voice. “I find this experience as distressing as you, my lord Wolf. There is no love lost between our two Clans.”

The hard blue eyes misted with blood, but Kouga kept a tight rein on his fury. The Lady was even more sly than her damnably treacherous father---and almost as capricious as the wind she was made of, for she abruptly changed the subject.

“But I tarry overmuch on the unnecessary. Allow me to explain, my lord, why I have contacted you.” Kagura smoothed her skirts with slender claws, a deep emerald winking at him from one long finger with the slow, hypnotic movement.

Kouga’s answering smile was cold. “Finally.”

“Your impatience is legendary, my lord.” The youkai returned his smile with a chilling one of her own. “I am merely here to settle a debt between us. A debt of blood.”

NOW she would get to the point of this useless waste of his time. Kouga’s muscles tensed in anticipation, though his posture remained carelessly relaxed. Would she want to fight him directly? It might prove interesting. The lady bore the appearance of a fragile lily (as was traditional), but her gaze was level, her spine straight. She was more direct than her fool father, and Kouga thought idly that it might be diverting to see how quickly he would defeat her or her ‘champion’, if she so chose.

His blue eyes glinted, and he even smiled---a true smile, though it was quite predatory.

Kagura seemed slightly amused. “You are eager to misinterpret my debt of honor, ookami. But I am just as eager to discharge it.”

“Are you then?” Kouga smirked.

“But not in the way you may expect, my lord. I have disparate reasons for seeking you out, and although my gratitude is paltry, still I think a life is fit payment for a death.”

Kouga frowned, not knowing where this wily bitch was going with this. A faint growl resonated deep in his chest, and his claws curled slightly. “It there a point to all this, kaze?”

Kagura straightened, her amusement dissipating like air in the deep vacuum of space. “Distasteful as I find this debt, my lord, still I must honor it. And so I have come with a simple warning, in order to save your life, which should eradicate any further debts between us.”

The blue eyes narrowed.

“There are those who seek your life, Taiyoukai. Their power is not inconsiderable, and the possibility of their success quite fair. The tong hired has refused payment, as they seek their own reasons for your demise. I have uncovered information of long-laid plots and deeper conspiracies, involving parties as high as your estimable self, and as lowly base as the idyllic idiots who call themselves the Destiny of Man. Your recent escapades have not escaped notice by our youkai brethren, Lord.”

Kouga sneered. “You thought this important enough to contact me personally? I have always heard the hungry yowls of foraging cats in the hills, Lady, but never cared, for they could do me and mine little harm.”

Derision colored the wind youkai’s soft voice, and the contempt fairly dripped from her words. “You underestimate the strength of your foes, Lord---and their determination. To use your quaint symbolism---the cats are howling, yes, but they are already inside your home. You have already given berth to one of them, and as I know of her in the past, I have taken certain measures to limit her effective use as their tool. You should know of her, ookami---it is not hard to identify the taijiya when one has enough brains to look for them.”

~Sango.~ Kouga felt a chill, and his blue eyes hardened.

“The tong is not easily thwarted. I do not doubt that they will send other…operatives.” The cold smile on the wind youkai’s lips seemed to take mild delight in the thought.

“Why the hell are you telling me this, kaze? What benefit do you get out of it?” Kouga’s fangs were barred, and he could feel the crimson anger misting across his eyes.

Taijiya…

The blood-red eyes of the Lady Taiyoukai were as hard as rubies, her voice harder. “Take my warning as you wish, Wolf. I care not; my honor has been satisfied.”

With a snap of her red eyes and wave of her clawed hand, the visual was abruptly cut off, leaving Kouga to seethe.

But his thoughts were not on the wind youkai’s cryptic warning, but on her even more cryptic remarks concerning Sango. ~Taijiya…tong assassin…tool.~

And then he remembered how that stifled bitch of a Taiyoukai had taken ‘measures’ to limit the effectiveness of that tool. And he remembered that Inuyasha was here, with him, on Yoro, and not down on Kyouko…leaving the onna below defenseless.

Defenseless.

~Taijiya.~

Assassin.

But even as his mind swirled with the angry rage of his inner thoughts, his body was already rising and running for the door. He snapped orders over his shoulder at his slower wolf-brothers to comm-link Inuyasha, and have the hanyou meet him in the docking bay where the sleek little skimmer patiently waited for the next time he had need of it. His stride lengthened as his fury lent him speed, and he snarled the hapless out of his way, bent on one goal.

Taijiya.

*~*~*~*~*

Kagura allowed herself a bare moment to relax her constant guard. Her stiff shoulders sank minutely as her red eyes closed. The interview had been difficult, far more difficult than she had anticipated. But she had fulfilled the debt, satisfied her honor, and thus relinquished further responsibility. If the stupid wolf decided not to heed her warning, than so be it.

“My lady?” The soft-spoken deference of her guard-captain soothed her frayed nerves, and Kagura opened her eyes. The youkai bowed, his features bland, though the concern flashed across his moss green eyes before being stifled behind the indifferent mask of the youkai. “Our sister Kanna has awakened.”

Gathering calm composure like a mantle to clothe her, Kagura nodded once. “Thank you---Juuroumaru.”

By using the captain’s first name, she acknowledged his concern, his patent refusal to concede her own momentary lapse of poise, and the respect of shared blood and shared history between them. Though a younger son of her father’s seed, Kagura still valued his quiet competence as a gift of the kami. Juuroumaru had survived their father’s madness, as she had. His twin brother, Kageroumaru, had not been as fortunate, and his regrettable death by humiliated suicide from the incestuous treachery of their debauched father still gave Kagura nightmares.

She had been the one, after all, to find the bloodily tattered remains. Locked into his own madness of betrayed blood and lost respect, Kageroumaru had vivisected himself on his own claws.

Yet another needless death she could lay squarely at her father’s feet.

Few of Naraku’s children had survived the liberating gift of his demise. Many had been abandoned by their fickle father, others shown far too much favor. Those who were bestowed with Naraku’s favor rarely survived the experience. Kageroumaru was a classic example of what had happened to many of Kagura’s siblings. Few had survived Naraku’s particular attentions with their minds intact. She and Juuroumaru were the rare exception to the rule.

Kanna, sadly, was not.

As Kagura directed her slow steps toward the small chamber in which Kanna had been berthed, Juuroumaru her ever-present and ever-protective shadow, she mused at how fickle the Fates were. It should have been Kanna, not her, who succeeded their foul father as Lady of the Oni systems. Kanna was the eldest, Naraku’s first born by his unlamented first wife. But Naraku, young and full of his own arrogant conceit as Lord, had taken the child too young, and too often, using her for such sadistic experiments that it made Kagura cringe to think of it. As horrific as her own experiences were at her father’s hands, they were nothing to compare with her small white sister’s, and the loss of Kanna’s fragile mind had been more of a poignant expectation than a distressing detriment.

Kagura had despaired, believing Kanna would eventually end as Kageroumaru had, or worse---simply fade away into nonexistence, uncaring of her body or her self as her mind escaped the coils of the treacherous world who had betrayed it so young. Force-fed nutrients had taken away what little growth the white youkai might have had, and the result was that she would be forever trapped in the body of a small child. But with the mind gone, it had not mattered.

But then Kagura had learned of a possible cure for her sister’s particular madness, and fragile hope had taken hold of her despairing heart. Ruthless in her drive to correct the evil misdeeds of her predecessor, the new Lady of the Oni and their subservient clans had traveled from her protected territories to find the one woman she had been told who might be able to give back some small part of Kanna as herself.

Dr. Kikyou Higurashi.

The psy-medic’s theoretical research and initial experiments had only been with ningen, but she had easily adapted her psychological program to the small white youkai who Kagura had brought to Station Nine for her express talents.

And the blessings of Identity Alteration had saved Kanna, as nothing else could have. Robbed of radical emotion, and programmed for passive response, the small childlike innocence in Kanna’s black eyes was still far better than the blank withdrawal of trauma-induced psychotic paralysis. Dr. Higurashi had cautioned the Wind Lady that she could never expect a full recovery of Kanna’s memories or initial personality---there had been too much trauma induced at too young an age to recover. But Kanna as she was now was far better than what she had had…

Kagura could now return to her Clan with a lightened heart. She had disposed of all her obligations, rectifying what damage she could of her horrific father’s shaping. She could relax now, and let the dark pain of his shadowy influence pass from her weary soul.

Kagura’s fingers lightly touched the identi-lock plate, and the door slid open with a reversing whirr of mechanized parts. She paused, looking for the small white form of her sister.

Kanna raised her compellingly ebon eyes, and her smile was one of innocent query, until the dark obsidian shadows lit with happy recognition. “Kagura!”

Kagura bent down to gather the small form that hurled itself at her, and the Wind Lady finally allowed the joyous tears of relief and lessening of burden fall one by one into the snow-white locks as she hugged her sister to her, the darkness forever withdrawn from their lives.

Never to return.

*~*~*~*~*

A faint howl woke Kagome from an uneasy doze, and she bit back a moan as circulation returned to her numbed extremities. Rotating the sore shoulders of her neck and back, she tried to peer through the cave’s thick darkness. There was a louder whine from within the enfolding gloom, and she drew in her breath sharply as she heard the faint click of claws on rock and dirt as the scrambling furry bodies around them suddenly withdrew, their strange cries making Kagome shiver with renewed tension and fear.

Kagome nervously checked to see if Sango had been hurt in the abrupt departure of their wolfly hosts, but the limp form beside her remained unresponsive. Kagome’s fingers felt along the leaden arm to the reassuringly strong pulse-point in the girl’s wrist. She could hear the faint breaths as Sango’s chest rose and fell in the rhythmic cadence of life, but the girl’s skin felt chilled to the touch. Kagome had hastily pressed both blankets around the girl’s pliant form after the wolves’ had escorted them to the dark hollow of the dry cave. The wolves had piled around them, giving what warmth they could, but the cold autumn night had soon robbed the lightly-dressed humans of even that small comfort.

Kagome had thought of building a fire, but the wolves would not allow her to leave the confines of the cave, growling at her with toothy menace whenever she tried. Those yellow eyes and sharp grins had been a good deterrent, and she had finally sunk down beside her insentient friend, wondering what, if anything, could come to rescue them…

The wolves’ abrupt exodus could signal either friend or foe, and Kagome didn’t have much hope in the former. Inuyasha and Kouga were not even on the planet, and if that crazy youkai lady had been able to penetrate the remote safety of their cabin, what was there to stop her from pursuing them into the deeper forests? The wolves, protective as they were, could not face a serious charge from an energy-lance or blast gun. The youkai might have realized her mistake in not having killed Sango outright, and come to rectify the problem.

Gritting her teeth, Kagome stumbled to her feet, determined to guard her fallen friend with the last breath in her body. Picking up a heftily solid rock in one hand, she crept to the cave’s entrance, carefully trailing her outstretched fingers across the roughened wall for guidance. The deep darkness of the night was not even pierced by the faint hazy shimmer of moonlight, as the first moon had long since set and the twin journey of the second and third had been hidden by the thickening drift of concealing clouds.

She could hear frantic whelps and whines just outside, and she could not stop the icy tremor that shot straight down her spine. Ignoring her fear and the hands that shook, she gathered her courage and sprung out of the cave’s mouth with a screaming cry of angry retribution, determined to see the bitch dead before she dare harm Sango again.

But she was caught in strong arms, and even as she abortively tried to swing her rock in automatic reflex, the motion was arrested, and Inuyasha growled out at her in worried relief and irritation, “Damn it, wench, what the hell are you trying to do to me? Knock me out?”

With a gasping cry of overwhelming relief and pent-up terror, Kagome released her abortive missile and wrapped her arms tight around the reassuringly strong chest, breathing in the familiar presence of her hanyou mate and sobbing aloud with relief. “Inuyasha! Oh, Inuyasha! You came for me!”

“Of course I came, you idiot.” Inuyasha’s claws curled tenderly around her chin, his thumb brushing at the salty tears that dampened her cheek. Kagome sagged into his embrace, and just sobbed with the remission of the pent-up fears of the past terror-filled hours. She could not stop mumbling his name in hoarse repetition, and Inuyasha just held her, allowing her to spend her emotion against the hard reality of his solid presence.

She’d never allow the bastard to leave her behind again.

*~*~*~*~*

Kouga had wasted no time in leaving the reunited pair behind, assured that Inuyasha would take care of Kagome. He sharply motioned for the protective pack’s alpha male to lead him inside the cave, where his four-legged brothers reassured him that the other ‘two-foot’ (as they called the onna) was sleeping. Flashing on the glowing beam of his hand-held torch, Kouga narrowed his eyes to adjust to the abrupt change in light.

The dry cavern was deep, and twisted slightly to the left before widening out into a large, oblong chamber. The torch’s beam bent crazy shadows across the rocky walls as the large gray wolf led the ookami lord deeper into the cave. Sango’s particular scent filled his senses, and Kouga spied the still form across the sandy floor, huddled in blankets filched from the girl’s own bed.

Quickly dropping to his knees, the ookami automatically searched for a pulse, though he could hear the faint beat of her heart and hear the fainter inhalations as her lungs took in air. His hands glided over the girl’s still form, searching for injury, and when he found none, he tried to shake her awake---to no avail.

Sango lay as one dead, too deeply asleep to be called to waking. Kouga even resorted to the medi-kit in his hastily filled carry-sack, using the stinking fetor of smelling salts to try and rouse the unconscious girl. He growled with futile anger as the girl remained inert, her body and mind unresponsive to any of the myriad tricks he tried.

The youkai bitch’s words came back to him in haunting recall. What had the kaze bitch done, exactly, to ‘limit her effective use as their tool’? What measures had she taken? How had she induced a coma-like somnolence on the girl, and was there no way he could combat it? With a snarl, Kouga ruthlessly began stripping the girl of her dusty clothes, determined to make certain that he had missed nothing. He examined her slender body minutely, looking for any sign of poison or recent injury. She had an extensive collection of past scars, most only faint white lines against her pale skin. Gently turning her on her side, he examined her back and legs, seeking anything that might explain her insentience. He allowed himself a momentary pause as he gently touched the outline of the deeper scar on her spine, his blue eyes darkening with memories of a chilled night on a shadowy terrace in Agariba…

There was a gasp behind him, and Kouga looked over his shoulder impatiently as Kagome, huddled against Inuyasha’s protective side, started to protest. He growled a curt reply, and quickly covered Sango’s naked form with the light blanket, carefully tucking the edges around her limp frame.

“What are you doing?” Kagome demanded, new tears welling up in her eyes.

“I checked for preliminary damage.” Kouga growled back, jerking open the collapsed mouth of his carry-sack to pull out the heavier thermal blankets neatly folded into airtight, plaz-sealed squares.

“Anything?” Inuyasha’s amber eyes were darkened in the tilting shadows of the cave.

Kouga shook his head in disgust, tearing open the plaz-film squares with his claws. The thermal blanket expanded once oxygen hit it, unfolding into a heavy length of strongly durable fabric.

Kagome moaned softly, looking small and defeated in the solid embrace of her hanyou mate. “It was a flash of light. The youkai lady held up something, and it flashed, and Sango fell to the ground unconscious…just as she is now.”

Kouga snarled, his eyes crimsoning with frustration and rage. That youkai bitch would pay with her paltry life if she had indelibly harmed Sango…

A wolf whimpered, and Kouga abruptly called his frothing fury in check. It would do none of them any good right now. There was damn little he COULD do, having wasted what little fuel had been left in the skimmer’s tanks with the break-neck speed he had set getting down to the planet’s surface.

Inuyasha nodded grimly, understanding. There was nothing more they could do right now, but wait out the night. In dawn’s light, they could trek their way back to the cabin, where Kouga could use the comm-link to contact Yoro or Agariba, where he could demanded transport to a better-equipped medical facility.

Kouga threw the silver-haired hanyou a couple of thermal squares, and Inuyasha turned his mate about so that he could drape the fabric around her shaking shoulders. He murmured reassuringly in her ear, and Kagome reluctantly nodded. Her brown eyes flicked to Kouga, but Inuyasha muttered, and she dropped any issue about sleeping arrangements. Inuyasha sank down to the sandy floor, his back supported against the rocky wall behind him, and Kagome wearily climbed into his embrace, nestling her tired head against the firm pillow of his shoulder. The hanyou bent his silver head down to hers, and their murmurs were a soft sound in the background as Kouga directed the helpful wolves to gather dry wood and fallen branches for a fire.

There was a stone-ringed pit already blackened from past use, and he laid a fire in no time, the flames crackling merrily and causing rusty-brown shadows to dance across the rough walls of the cavern. Kagome now slept, and Inuyasha’s head was sinking to his chest.

Kouga took the time to change into his usual hunting garb, having brought it with him without conscious thought. The furred hide was more natural to his youkai form, and he discarded his armor in favor of pulling the limp form of Sango into his arms. She was easy to lift, and he gently tilted her so that she lay nestled against his chest, much as Kagome was curled around Inuyasha on the other side of the flickering fire. He wrapped a third blanket around the unconscious girl as the wolves crept close, to add their silent warmth to the girl, and the comfort of their sturdily reliable presence to their lord. Kouga turned Sango so that he could gently rest his chin on her bent head, his eyes staring broodingly into the snapping flames, the muscles in his shoulders and arms rippling as he tightened his protective hold around the unconscious taijiya.

And with the girl in his arms, he waited out the long night.