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Kagome’s lungs burned, and her legs threatened to buckle, but her body cried for relief. The weight of the man on her back pressed her into the earth, but the steady drips of blood off of him spurred her forward, away from the carnage, toward safety… toward somewhere… toward anywhere.
“Kagome, leave me behind.”
“No.”
“Kagome! You’re on the brink of falling over. Leave me behind.”
“No!”
This was her fault: her bodyguard’s broken and bleeding body, the decimated bandits, the blood—so much blood, all of it.
Because Kagome wanted to—no, needed to—escape.
There was a groan from the man on Kagome’s back; apparently, Kōga had finally accepted his fate.
“Take a left into that alley,” he murmured. “Follow it all the way to the back, then find the door with the crescent moon on top.”
As she did what she was told, Kagome noticed that Kōga was beginning to feel more and more like a ragdoll on her back, growing more and more limp as his strength waned, and she could feel the wet of blood now trickling down her legs. She needed to get him somewhere safe.
Kagome searched the alley until she saw it: a small crescent moon, scratched into a sign: The Harvest Inn.
“J—just tell them… that you’re Kagome Higurashi.” Kōga’s voice strained; he was weakening so quickly. “They’ll know what to do.”
Kagome silently hurried her feet into the small (and clean) lobby of the small inn. The woman behind the heavy wood counter was nearly too small to see behind it. Her eye widened and narrowed at the pair (the other was hidden behind a patch), and a weathered frown appeared on her face.
“I’m Kagome Higurashi!” Kagome cried, probably a bit too loud. “He—he said you can help.”
“Can you make it up some stairs?” the woman asked, eyeing Kōga now.
“I can,” Kagome snarled. This was her fault. She had carried Kōga this far; she could carry him up a flight of stairs, too.
“Come behind the counter, child. Take the servant’s stairs to the first open room. I will be right behind you.” The woman then waddled around the counter, and opened a wooden door, which hid a dark and steep staircase.
Kōga squirmed on Kagome’s back, but she tensed her arms to hold him in place.
“I have enough strength to carry us up these stairs,” she whispered.
“You can barely hold my weight on a flat,” Kōga whispered back. “I am not so weak that I cannot do it myself.”
“No!” Kagome didn’t hide her panic. Not now, not when light was at the end of the tunnel. When maybe—just maybe—everything would be okay. “I did this to you. I put you in that situation. I will not have you hurt yourself more because I was too weak to walk up stairs. You—you…” Kagome swallowed down the tears. She would cry later, when they were safe. “I can carry you.”
The last of her strength was holding her upright, burning her muscles with every single step, but she was making it.
“You have got to be—” Kōga may have been gravely injured, but he still managed exasperation in his voice. “The most difficult and stubborn charge I have ever had the misfortune of protecting.”
He was bleeding. He was limp on top of her. And he was grumbling?
Yes, fine, this time Kagome’s flight had gotten out of hand. This time, she had not been careful enough about wearing the family crest, and had hidden in a shifty part of town to avoid Kōga, but… did he not understand how it felt to be a bird in a cage?
She never did forgive her mother for remarrying. It didn’t matter that Suikotsu was a Duke, and a good man, or even that he cared for Kagome as he would his own child. He was the one who seemed deadset on gilding Kagome’s cage and keeping her in it. To “protect her virtue” so that she would be able to “marry well.” Planning for her to transfer from one gilded cage to the next.
That was why Kagome had started to find the cracks in the castle’s defenses, still more girl than woman, shimmying through a thin part of a rose bush (the thorns had been worth it), or stealing the clothes of a laundress and walking the wash down to the river before sneaking away, or scaling the wall where the climbing vines had grown thick enough to support her weight.
Her parents tried everything to contain her: bringing playmates into the castle (but only the snooty types of ladylings that cared nothing for the outdoors, preferring to endlessly gossip), locking her indoors until she stopped trying to run (Kagome climbed out the window and injured her ankle; the scar was still present), and, finally, giving in to their wild daughter and assigning her a bodyguard.
She dispatched of the first one within a week, succeeding in slipping past, out through the palace forest. When she returned, the guard—some overly large and unpleasant human—berated her in front of her parents. He was fired immediately. The next made an effort, trying to converse with Kagome. And he was handsome, with azure eyes and his black hair tied back in a long braid. But soon he started making overtures of love, clearly presuming that guarding Kagome would capture her heart. Her father dispatched of him with the first bouquet of roses. The third seemed happy to drown in drink and not watch his charge, which was an arrangement that worked perfectly well for Kagome, but unfortunately her stepfather caught him napping while Kagome went to the market, and that arrangement was severed.
That was when Suikotsu, at the end of his rope, hired Kōga.
Unlike all the rest, Kōga was good at his job. The first time Kagome snuck out (using the trusty vines over the wall), there he was, leaning against a tree at the point she was descending to, his ice blue eyes surveying her with amusement.
“Would it not be easier to simply alert me that you would like to spend the day away, Lady Kagome?” he had asked, a fanged smirk painting his lips.
Perhaps it was the smirk that had done it—though, yes, he had accompanied her into town—but that moment had set the game in motion. Kagome would use her favorite escape passageway, and Kōga would be there waiting for her. Kagome would don the disguise of a laundress and sneak out to the river, only to find Kōga, characteristic smirk on his lips, standing on the opposing bank.
Through every secret passage, every disguise, every attempt to scale walls and windows, Kōga’s smirk met her.
She truly believed that her stepfather had finally done it. He had finally found the way to cage her completely; Kōga and his smirk were the bars that Kagome could not escape.
That was, until today.
Kagome had been planning this escape for months. She had noted the guards’ schedules while she wandered the palace grounds with her embroidery, always aware of her wolf demon bodyguard’s looming presence. She paid close attention to when Kōga would eat his meal: the only time his attention on Kagome ever wavered.
So as Kōga settled down to sup, Kagome dressed in her peasant dress (the one she hid at the bottom of her wardrobe) and casually walked out the front gate, slipping between the guards as they changed shifts.
Kagome had braced for the familiar ice blue eyes and smirk, but they never came. Proof that even with all her careful planning, her cage would always find her, but… Kōga was not there.
She had done it! She was free!
That was, until it all went to hell.
“J—just drop me on the fl—floor,” Kōga murmured; they were through the first open door.
“Do you know the art of healing, little miss?” The inn’s proprietor had been right behind them, a basket in hand.
“Y—yes,” Kagome replied, and took the basket, which was full of herbs and bandages and salves. “Thank you.”
“I will be back with some food and new clothing,” the proprietor replied, and waddled from the room.
This was Kagome’s fault. Because she had finally succeeded in evading Kōga’s smirk. Because she, in her desperation to ‘win,’ had fled the castle near nightfall. Because she, in her elation at finally besting the bodyguard, had not paid attention to the curious eyes upon her. Because she, in her hubris, had wandered into an alley with only a single exit.
“What is such a pretty poppet doing walking all alone at night?” It was only when the first cackling hyena spoke that Kagome realized she was surrounded. “Are you looking for some company?” There were five of them; the one who was speaking had snake-like eyes and a bald head covered in a sash. “Because we can be very very pleasant.”
They had already blocked her exit, and they had started to tighten the choke.
“Ren, look at that locket. She might be worth money.” A muscled but effeminate goon pointed at Kagome’s neck, at the crest she forgot to stash when she donned this costume. “Might be too early to ruin her.”
“We can put her to sleep. No one’s gotta know.” An impish man with goggly eyes circled around her so swiftly that she shrieked.
“Muk, you startled her!” the first hyena—snake-eyes—purred. “Last thing we need is anyone interrupting…”
Even without them touching her, Kagome felt violated. She had become so adept at climbing and jumping and running; she had been so certain that she would be able to think her way out of any situation she found herself in.
She was wrong.
“That is why we should put her to sleep, Ren. Oh, the delightful concoctions I can provide her!” Kagome sidled away from the small man, the most menacing of those around her.
“The night is young, Muk. And she is clearly lively.” Snake-eyes—Ren—approached her. “What happened, poppet? Running away from a poor match, enraptured by a nightlife you have never truly experienced?”
Kagome needed to think. Needed to find the sweet words that might allow her to escape this.
“I—I’ll give you this locket if you let me be.” She twisted the chain that was around her neck. “M—my guard is already looking for me, so… if you don’t want trouble, then the locket for my freedom.”
“Did ya hear that, Ren? Poppet has a guard!” A huge lumbering man began to guffaw, his mass so great that it blocked the entire alleyway. “I’ve been fixin’ to bludgeon something, too!”
“And she is far too pretty.” Ren’s hand came to Kagome’s face; his snake eyes assessed her. “Your guard will do no more than lose his life if he tries to interfere. So I’d suggest you—”
“Kagome!” Never had that raspy voice sounded so beautiful. Never had Kagome searched the sky for those ice blue eyes and that jet black hair, but…
“Kōga!” Kagome shouted; right now, Kōga’s smirk was the only thing she could think of.
Her body slammed onto the ground with a painful thud; apparently, Ren had not taken so kindly to her call.
“Shit, that guy’s a demon!” the effeminate one shouted as a flash of black and brown and blue landed in the center of the circle, directly over Kagome’s prone body.
“Stay down and cover your head.” Kagome only got to see a flash of his face. Kōga’s smirk was replaced with a look of abject horror.
Kagome did as she was told. She lay on the ground and put her hands over her head. She tried to turn off her mind, because the sounds of rending flesh and shouts and grunts were too much. Kōga was a demon, yes, but he was still one man against five, and from the sounds of it, he was at best, evenly matched with them.
Soon came the first shriek, followed by a thud.
“You killed him, you demon prick!” It was Ren’s voice, furious, dangerous, but much farther away than he had been before.
Was Kōga fighting these five men and protecting her, too?
Kagome did not have time to understand, because the slashes of flesh and blows made clear that Kōga was not unscathed.
Another shriek, another thud, more shouts.
It was then that it dawned on Kagome that her bodyguard was killing the men who were bent on taking her.
“Just you and me now, baldie.” Kōga had never sounded so dangerous; Kagome took a chance and looked up. His body was painted in blood, and she could see the shredded forms of three of the hyenas in that alleyway. “Hurting my lady comes with the price of death.”
Kagome shoved her eyes shut again. She couldn’t watch Kōga kill a man. Not when he was drenched in his own blood, looking half-dead and half-feral. Not when this was her fault.
Because this fight, this folly, all of it, was her fault.
“You’re so pale.” Kagome eyed Kōga, who was leaning up against the bedframe of the inn; she would never know how she managed to pull herself up from the ground, ignore the carnage, then carry Kōga to safety, all the while chanting all my fault, all my fault. “Please let me see where you’ve been wounded.”
“I’m a demon; I will be fine.” It was relieving to know that Kōga’s stubbornness was still intact.
“I don’t care.” Kagome narrowed her eyes, taking in his blood-soaked tunic, where there were visible slashes through the fabric. She extended her hand toward the place, not paying attention to Kōga’s flinch. “Take off your shirt.”
“Absolutely not.” Kōga tried to scoot away, to evade Kagome’s hand. It was a testament to just how hurt he was at the lackluster fight he put up. “I will not be in a state of undress in front of my charge.”
“Please, Kōga.” Kagome couldn’t keep the desperation out of her voice. The guilt was already eating away at her, knowing that her folly caused not only the death of five men (who perhaps deserved it), but also the grievous injuries on her bodyguard. “Let me… try to do something to make up for—”
“For successfully catching me off guard?” Kōga growled.
“Y—yea—what?” Kagome would not have phrased it like that.
“My job is to protect you, Kagome.” Kagome had never seen Kōga’s eyes erupt in a storm before, but that was the only way to describe what she was seeing. “And I failed at that.”
“You failed?” Kagome was almost incredulous. “You?” Her hand made contact with the gashed spot on Kōga’s tunic; they both gasped. “I snuck out tonight to beat you, and…” She could feel the tears she had shoved down for so long reasserting themselves; they were coming. There was nothing she could do. “Look at what my naivete did.”
Suddenly, Kōga’s shirt was gone.
“Don’t cry,” Kōga huffed.
If Kōga truly believed that his acquiescence to Kagome’s request would stop her crying, he was sorely mistaken. Because once his shirt had come off and Kagome saw the toll her naivete had taken on him, her tears turned to uncontrollable sobs.
“Th—this is my fault!” It was a miracle that she was even forming coherent words at the moment.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Kōga grumbled, barely audible above Kagome. Suddenly Kōga’s hands were on Kagome’s face, forcing her attention, forcing her eyes into his. “Do I need to make you touch the wounds for you to get it?” Suddenly one of Kagome’s hands was on Kōga’s chest. His bare chest. His muscled (and wounded), bare, completely naked chest, but the gashes were… smooth. “Already scarred over.”
“Wh—wh…” Naked Kōga may have been the only thing that could override Kagome’s sobbing sense of guilt, but… it worked. “Healed?”
Also sleek, and muscled, and…
Great. Now when Kagome closed her eyes at night, it wouldn’t just be that irritating smirk and those ice-blue eyes. She would definitely be seeing the washboard abs and the sculpted pecs and the…
Did Kōga know how tight his leather pants were?
They were surprisingly clean given the state of… the rest of him.
Kagome forced her attention away from the pants and the muscles and the… and fumbled for some bandages.
“Do you know nothing of demon anatomy, my Lady?” There it was, the Kōga smirk. “I don’t need those.”
Kagome ignored him, and began to wind them around the fading gashes in his shoulder anyway. It made her feel like she was being useful, and distracted away from the competing storms of my fault and Kōga’s naked chest.
“My fault…” Kagome decided to lean into the guilt. The other thoughts running through her mind were far too dangerous.
“I took my eyes off of you,” Kōga murmured, lifting his arm for Kagome to wind the bandages that were not strictly necessary anymore. “I vowed to never take my eyes off of you.”
“I’ve always been good at slipping through my yoke.” Kagome finished winding the functionless bandage. “You were just… you were…” She had to look away from those intense eyes for a second. “I just—that smirk every time you got me! I… I wanted to win.” She unknotted the bandage; it wasn’t perfectly tied. “So I got to be the one to smirk.”
Oh.
With every other guard, Kagome relished the day that her stepfather let them go, because they failed to keep her on her leash. She usually hid just out of sight and listened to him lambast them and send them packing. Innocently heading into the state room afterward to smile sweetly at his exhausted face.
Kōga… with Kōga… Kagome never fantasized about a moment like that. She never wished to hide outside the room as Suikotsu declared Kōga as ‘more useless even than the drunk,’ then watching with smug satisfaction, the hangdog expression as the man left the castle, yet another cage whose bars had been broken. No. With Kōga, Kagome wanted to get to be the one to smirk. To trot back into the castle after a successful escape, holding a bouquet of flowers from the market and two honeycakes. She would throw one to Kōga then, and watch as his eyes widened at her ingenuity at slipping through the bars.
“Do you want to know how I did it?” She would say as they shared the sweets, revealing to him all her secrets, which would set up the next game. The next time Kagome would be the one to smirk.
Crap.
That was it, wasn’t it?
Kōga was the first cage she didn’t mind, because he never made her desire to escape seem like some great disobedience. His smirk made it feel a game, a chess match. Because Kōga also never forced her to return to the palace. He simply took his place behind her and walked with her into the town, through the woods to the raspberry patch, or to skipping stones on the river.
She… she had wanted to smirk. That was all. And instead, she nearly got Kōga killed and herself ruined.
“I… I won’t…” Kagome whispered. “I won’t try to run away from you again.”
“Damn me,” Kōga grumbled, then he slumped over, fingering the bandage that Kagome had applied. “You are entirely unfair, Kagome.”
Artwork commission by sayuri-watanabe
His eyes were on her again, blue piercing through her. And… a smirk?
No, not a smirk. It was a smile, soft and warm. The type of secret smile that one gifts only their dearest friends.
Then Kōga’s arms were around her, and he was pulling her into him. Tight.
She could smell the metallic remnants of the blood he lost fighting to protect her, could feel the heavy beat of his heart. Every breath he took sent tingles through her, alien and yet all too familiar.
“I love protecting you. I love the game of cat and mouse you insist that we play,” he rasped into her neck. “You get the cutest indignant frown on your face when I catch you. I—I can’t help but smirk. Can’t help but keen for the moment you meet my eyes.” Kōga moved his head, so that he was eye to eye with Kagome again. “I went out of my mind when you eluded me. I have never run so fast in my life. Never… felt my blood rage with such fire as when I heard the way those men spoke of you.”
“I—I’m so sorry.” Kagome didn’t know what else to say. She was afraid to share everything, here in this inn where only the keeper knew them to be. With her bare-chested bodyguard whose smirk had sparked something inside of her. So close, too close, but somehow also not close enough.
“For being the biggest pain in the ass I have ever guarded?” Kōga actually chuckled. Could he read Kagome’s mind? She really hoped not. “Who refused to let me die in the street? Electing instead to use her tiny human body to carry me to safety?”
“Not that tiny…” Kagome grumbled. She didn’t need to look at Kōga’s face to know he was smirking. “And… I was the one who got us into that terrible mess. I would never be able to live with myself if I abandoned you there.”
“You… should smirk,” Kōga teased. “The escape, that was impressive and annoying. But… rescuing me, well… I had not realized how fully I underestimated you, Kagome.” Kōga brought the clawed hand of his uninjured side to Kagome’s bottom lip. “Not only your strength, but also… your heart.”
“I will never smirk about getting you hurt.” Kagome leaned away from Kōga’s touch, taken aback by how empty she felt when she broke the contact. “I—I just wanted to win.”
“Then perhaps we should find other safer games to play,” Kōga answered, letting his hand now find one of Kagome’s. “I… can think of some delightful ones, if you are still looking for ways to shake your cage, Lady Kagome.” His lips were there, curled into a smirk. It was infuriating. It was intoxicating. It was… irresistible. But just before she gave in, leaning to close the final distance, to kiss the smirk off of his face, Kōga leaned away. “As long as you always let me protect you, that is.”
Kagome was wrong. She hated Kōga.
He deserved to have that sneak-thief smirk wiped off of his face for all eternity.
He deserved to be punished for teasing a lady.
He deserved…
Kagome lunged forward, not giving Kōga time to react, and she kissed his smirk, opening her mouth and letting her tongue explore his fangs.
His frozen eyes were enough for Kagome to reclaim the smirk as her own.
“Never ever toy with a lady,” she lectured, entirely too pleased with the way Kōga still had not completely come to his senses. “Especially when she’s willing to give up trying to break from her cage… for you.”
Kōga’s smile was back: not the smirk, the soft one, the genuine one.
“I never said that you needed to stop escaping the palace,” Kōga rasped, he had wrapped both of his arms around her waist, sending electric warmth through her in the places their bodies were touching. “Just that you must let me protect you when you do.”
“You—you’re going to help me?” Kagome beamed, scooting herself closer.
“Of course,” Kōga answered, pressing his lips to Kagome’s nose. “Your smile is always brighter when you’re free.”
“You’ll… you’ll protect me, too? And let me walk through the market?” Kagome asked.
“My life belongs to you, Kagome.” Kōga leaned in again, the hair of his ponytail swishing against her collarbone. It was softer than she had ever imagined. “And you never have to ask me for permission to walk in the sunlight.”
“You’re the most infuriating guard I could have ever imagined,” Kagome scoffed, but the blush to her cheeks entirely gave her away. “What am I going to do with you?”
“And you’re the most aggravating charge I’ve ever had the pleasure of guarding,” Kōga retorted, but the smirk on his lips gave him away. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Just… get better,” Kagome answered, eyes back on the unnecessary bandages, and on the gashed and bloodstained shirt. “Okay?”
“I promise,” Kōga sighed, and, unable to resist, recaptured Kagome’s lips.
Suikotsu could never quite understand what happened, but his stepdaughter finally seemed content to behave like the lady she was born to be. True, Kagome had refused the prospect of marriage, proclaiming that now that Suikotsu and her mother had had a son, her duty was to her family. Kagome doted on Sōta as only a sister could, and so Suikotsu did not press her to find a match, content to know that his son would never want for love, even after he and his wife were gone.
It was not precisely the future that Suikotsu had imagined for his stepdaughter, but he could not deny her. Not when her smiles were finally free again. Not when her wild habits seemed quelled. Not when, finally, Kagome seemed to acquiesce to allow her bodyguard to guard her properly.
Yes, Suikotsu thought. Hiring Kōga had been a good decision.
Wolves were loyal to their pack, and extremely loving to their mates.
And wolves could leap over castle walls with minimal effort, even with a woman in their arms.
But the best, most wonderful characteristic of a wolf demon was… their superior senses meant that they would never be caught out of place, out of turn. Meaning that the only sign of the new games that Kagome and Kōga were playing together were a pair of knowing smirks.