Wolves
This story is rated PG-13 for sexual situations
Chapter 3 - First Blood
They watched him run down the steep hill as if it were flat ground. When he got to the valley, one of them growled softly. Instantly the man stopped, every inch of his lean body on alert. His coal black hair was caught in a pony tail and his blue eyes glinted in the moonlight. He was poised to what they didn't want him to they came out of the trees surrounding the small valley and they could see him visibly relax. As their leader had predicted, he thought they were his own kind. The largest one, their gray leader with a cross-shaped slash of white on his chest, moved closer and closer until he was only a few feet away.
"Where do you guys belong?" the man asked, smiling, his guard completely down.
Fangs flashed and the moonlight turned red. Blood ran from a deep bite in his calf. That would stop the speed of the crystal fragments he wore.
The man moaned in pain and crashed to one knee, his hand clasped over the wound. "Why did you bite me? We are kin!"
The gray leader transformed, changing into a slender man with white hair and yellow eyes. "You are no kin of mine!" he snarled, his eyes glinting with hatred. "You are lesser wolves! You have lost the ability to transform living here in Otherworld. We are Demon Wolves! Your betters! I will fight you for control of the wolves of Otherworld and take them back to the Demon World where they belong. Where they will remember how to be true wolves. You are not fit to rule them, Kouga!"
The man shook his head, and then looked up at the pack leader. "And you have already made your first mistake. I am not Kouga."
"Are you too much of a coward to admit who you are? I know the description and you fit it perfectly!"
"My father is not a coward! I am Kome, his son! You are the coward for pretending friendship and then attacking." He struggled to his feet, wincing in pain, and stood there defiant, his fists clenched.
"Ah, so you are the son …" He moved up to Kome, exactly the same height, and snarled in his face. "Tell your father I will come for him, and tell him that I will kill him."
In an instant, the man became wolf, and then vanished with the rest of the pack into the forest. Kome pulled off one his straps and tied it around his leg. It would at least stop the bleeding until he got home, but he would not be able to run. Slowly, each step painful, Kome limped through the night toward home. Just as the sun began to push back the curtains of night, he arrived at Kaede's Village and home. He would have to warn his father about the Wolves of Demon World. Wolves that could change their shape at will. He wondered when the wolves of Otherworld had lost that power, and if they could ever get it back.
Everyone was still asleep when he got home. He limped to Kaede's little house and asked for her help. As Kaede was cleaning out the wound, preparing to bandage it, Kouga came into the house.
"The guards told me that you were hurt, son. What happened?"
Kome relayed the events to his father, and then asked, "Were we able to change shape at one time?"
"A long time ago. Ayame's grandfather was the last with that power. When he died, it died with him."
"How did we lose it"
"Many generations ago we were full Demon Wolves, probably very much like the pack that attacked you, but then one of the clans came to Otherworld and settled in the Northern Mountains, becoming the Northern Clan. They are the first of the Otherworld wolves."
"So Ayala is from the oldest clan. I will have to tell her."
"Yes, she is. The Northern Clan is the closest to the original Demon Wolf." Kouga agreed, then continued with his story, "When the clan first arrived, they were hunted as common wolves so they began to stay in their human form. Soon they began to intermix with humans, and interbreed. After all these generations, I doubt if there is a wolf demon in Otherworld that does not have human blood in its mix. As more we became more and more human, we lost the ability to transform into our wolf counterparts. We became a different form of Wolf Demon. You could say we became domesticated."
"I don't see that you had a choice. It was either change or be killed."
"And then I domesticated us even more, by making the wolves protectors instead of hunters."
"Well, if you hadn't, I would not have been born." Kome smiled. "You would have eaten Mom instead of mating with her."
"Don't even joke about that! Don't say that to your mother!" Kouga said in horror. "If I had met Kagome before I was a Protector, I'm sure I would have fallen in love with her. I would have never eaten her!"
"I was just kidding, Dad, and I won't say a thing to Mom; I promise. But who is the Demon Wolf who attacked me?"
"I have no idea. We severed all ties to the Wolves of Demon World long ago. I wonder why they have decided to come to Otherworld now? The leader said that he wanted to take our wolves back with them? It almost sounds as if they were in some war and needed warriors."
Kaede finished bandaging the young wolf and, leaning on his father, Kome made his way home. The news of a rogue band of Demon Wolves alarmed Ayala and Kagome greatly. Kouga doubled the guard around the Village and told Kenshin and Miroku what had happened. He sent patrols out, but with instructions not to engage the Demon Wolves, just to return with their whereabouts. Now, all they could do was wait.