Warning: werewolf smut

AN: Thank you so much for reading, hope you enjoyed it!

Epilogue

In the months that followed, they practised every day. Kagome gained confidence, transforming during the day without the use of a moon. Even on the nights of the full moon, transformation proved a less painful and traumatic experience. Sesshoumaru suspected it was tied to her state of mind regarding her 'curse.' The second she began thinking of it as something to be embraced, her body stopped resisting the change- and she'd bloom into a maned wolf with finesse and ease. Nonetheless, Kagome remained wary of staying in her wolf form for more than an hour. They had no proof, but she'd come to reflect on her sire's demise as a warning. Perhaps he'd been a normal man once. Maybe he'd started out just like her, and then lost himself in transformation: fell too far into the animal state he could not return to being human.

Therefore, Kagome straddled the line between her natures. She embraced both sides of herself without giving either complete dominance. She was simply…Kagome.

As for himself, Sesshoumaru began to ease more into verbalising what had happened in the past. He shared past horrors but could also paint a picture of what life had been like centuries ago in its happier times. He'd forgotten those lighter moments but Kagome could worm them out of his memories and he'd be glad of it.

Sesshoumaru watched her walk towards the mountain trail clad in his silks. Glancing over one shoulder, she smiled impishly, before taking off into a run. Heat stirred his blood and Sesshoumaru shuddered. He then pushed off the ground in hot pursuit.

Shrieks of excitement bounced off the summer trees. Her bare footprints crushed into the dirt began to elongate and change. Sesshoumaru pumped his legs, raising bright, burning eyes to the woman as she dove ahead into a crouch and changed. Rippling black fur smoothed over her head like a cloak- spilling down long gangly limbs and flushing a tail out behind her. The werewolf continued running, glancing at him and yipping her surprise at his proximity.

He could almost keep up with her now. Sesshoumaru smirked and followed suit, letting youki enclose his form. Bursting free of red flames a moment later, the white dog demon fell into step beside her.

Kagome regarded him with glittering blue eyes. 'Did you see? I can transform perfectly now.'

'I noticed.' Where else would he look if she was in view?

Her features managed to look smug as she tilted her jaw up, paws thundering across the earth as they weaved around tall trees. 'You can keep up with me now too.'

'I can do more than that. I will beat you to the cave,' Sesshoumaru suddenly bolted ahead, forcing power into his legs.

Kagome let out a noise behind him and from the sound of things seemed to be hot on his heels.

His heart thundered loud and powerful in his chest. Fluffy ears bounced into the breeze, tail sailing and tongue lolling out.

Alive.

He was alive.

He could feel everything so much keener. And right there with him was her scent. Bright, sweet and strong. Sesshoumaru inhaled it until his lungs ached. He felt the need to voice such a feeling. Like a bomb of rapture needed to detonate in his chest. He threw his head back and let the inferno spill up his throat, bursting out as a bellowing howl.

Kagome brushed up beside him in her gallop, black fur sliding intimately against snowy white. She joined him in song, her own howl matching his in volume but pretty in its drawl.

Sesshoumaru dropped his head and bumped noses with her, licking her muzzle. Kagome nuzzled against him in return, nipping his ear. This sufficiently distracted him enough for the werewolf to race ahead with a victorious yip.

Letting out a deep bark, he cut his eyes to the sky and pursued.

In the end, both quite forgot about their race. After reaching a remote cave and panting wildly together, they took to sitting on the slab of smooth warmed rock outside the entrance, Kagome lazing down as he licked at her face.

The sunlight bathed midnight blue fur into shades of brown. Her eyes remained nebulous, drawing him in.

Sesshoumaru blinked when she sat up and padded into the shadows of the cave.

"I transformed perfectly, right? I can maintain my shape pretty well," came her melodious human voice from the shadows.

He followed, making a noise of affirmation. His claws clicked on the stone surface, eyes adjusting to the dim light. His nose bumped her stomach once inside, looking at her.

Kagome smiled and held his canine face between her hands, smoothing gentle fingers over his muzzle.

"Then, you remember our terms?"

Sesshoumaru's gaze darkened. He nodded slightly, and Kagome stepped away allowing him to transform back.

Their lips met, and the world fell away.

Clothes were tugged loose, baring flesh. Hands strayed, cupping and caressing lovingly. Her tongue, lightly running over his pectorals, felt like heated dew. He ran the tip of his own along her chest and then made a slow, broad lick across a hardening nipple. Kagome stiffened, a deep moan rolling out of her as she arched against him. He felt lithe fingers wrap around his cock and he nearly bit down on her sensitive breast. She slid a needy hand from base to tip, stroking a thumb over the head. He hissed between his teeth and jerked in her hold. Kagome smiled like a vixen, and it was all too much.

She began to undo him with well-placed kisses and the graze of teeth and tongue over his broad shoulders and chest. His tapered waist flushed with goosebumps when Kagome nipped him there, stroking him languidly all the while. Sesshoumaru bucked into her palm a few times before snarling and finally shoving the tease to the floor. Their forms shifted without either really acknowledging it.

Fur glided over skin, teeth knocking, growls and whines entwining.

Instinct to mate took over and everything tilted on its axis as the pale inuyoukai and black-furred wolf nuzzled and licked at one another.

In typical lordosis behaviour, she lifted her hips into the air until her back was sharply arched, sinking into the instinctual pose with her upper half lowering. Kagome shifted her legs further apart until she was presented to him, panting.

The feeling of his weight on her made the werewolf hum with satisfaction. A croon rumbled from his throat and Sesshoumaru licked and nuzzled at the back of her head before they began.

It was a testament to her control and complete mastery of instincts that Kagome didn't reject the unfamiliarity of the situation. But he could see it in her eyes when she tilted her head to glance at him. She was there- with him. Nothing else mattered, not even the forms they took.

Mine, mine, mine, his heart sang. He was going to bite her. He was finally going to join with Kagome and take her as a mate.

Thinking about it made his blood hum.

He pulled back and thrust deep inside her again and again. Hard and fast. He groaned low in the back of his throat each time she clenched around him. She pushed her hips back to meet him, and whimpered and panted under him.

'I'm yours!-' her cries confirmed it.

Noticing hand-like paws digging their claws deep into the earth as she trembled, Sesshoumaru continued nuzzling the back of her head. Adjusting his form- a front paw shifted and morphed, until it reached and covered her own, lacing their monstrous fingers. Then his hips jerked spasmodically as he started to come.

There wasn't even a sensation of orgasming, merely a blaze of whiteness as though the world momentarily bled away as the intensity of his climax struck him like a heated blade. Pearly white teeth sank into her neck until he tasted blood, pouring youki into the bite that shot through her bloodstream. Kagome screamed and jerked, so he tightened his hold, the youki flowing through him into her body and lacing their aura's together. When he recovered enough to formulate thought again, he was still orgasming. On and on. Kagome hadn't stopped wailing, her body seized around him, taking the mating mark.

When it was finally over, his knot prevented him from shifting off her immediately. Kagome tilted her neck to one side, and he helpfully removed his teeth to start lapping at the wound. He made low noises of apology, nuzzling. She huffed in response, paw-like fingers squeezing around his own.

The second the swelling died down and he pulled out of her, Kagome shifted forms and shoved him down, blue eyes hard. "Now it's my turn. If you get a mark, then I get one too. I think that's fair."

Blazing red wind whipped her hair back as Sesshoumaru lay beneath her in his humanoid form once more, looking sated and lazy while the beautiful woman straddled him. "It is traditional for the male to claim the female. I apologise if it hurt," he hummed.

"It killed," Kagome grit out, stilling when he lifted a hand to brush a palm against the wound on her nape. Sesshoumaru let out a comforting noise and sat up to graze his tongue over it. She shivered in his arms as they slid around her waist gently. "Besides," she said quietly, lifting her head to press a possessive kiss to his skin. "You're mine too," she said against his throat, sighing. "I've definitely become weird over these past few months because all I'm thinking about is everyone in Tokyo seeing my mark on your neck when we walk through the streets together."

"You intend to put it in such an obvious place where everyone may see? You certainly are possessive, woman," he teased, licking the mark and languidly beginning to palm her breast. She arched against him, tangling her fingers in silver hair as she ground her hips into his slowly, new smells of arousal betraying her eagerness for round two. He moaned against her neck and gripped her waist harder.

"Well, I learned by example," Kagome gave a small giggle. Cradling his face in her hands, she shifted and pressed her lips to his.

Sesshoumaru held her closer, flesh pressing against slick, bare flesh, sighing against her mouth.

"I can feel you so much keener than before," she mumbled. "Are you…happy? You feel happy."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru rested his forehead against hers with half-lidded eyes. To think he'd tried to force her to leave in those early days. Tried to resist the magnetism of her personality that drew him in like a moth to a flame. Power called to power. They'd licked each other's wounds and could call themselves equals. That solitary Halloween night seemed so far away now.

"I am happier…than I thought possible," he uttered, sensing it when her own joy bubbled to the surface. "Such emotions felt beyond my reach, so this one thought of them as a vapid indulgence to starve away the desire for company."

"Edgy," Kagome smirked, stroking a thumb over the shell of his pointed ear. "You don't have to think that way anymore or punish yourself for feeling it. We'll have more company too, in the future."

The former warlord gentled and slid a hand over her stomach, before pressing a long kiss to her lips.

Change was a funny thing. It could happen slowly and insidiously, the type that could sneak up on someone and catch them off guard. And then there was sudden change. Death, danger and the shocking discovery of feelings that hadn't been present before.

Sesshoumaru wasn't sure which category Kagome's presence in his life had fallen into. He'd long thought himself too jaded and too old to shake circumstances enough to enter a metamorphosis. Surely he would always be the widowed former lord sitting alone by the fire in the lonely mountains?

But there would come a time, not many days after, when they'd leave his cabin for Tokyo. The city air would choke his lungs and blinding lights would sting sensitive eyes, and worse still the sight of her family drawing closer on the shrine grounds would fill him with a sense of imposter syndrome- but Kagome's grip remained steady. His hand would stay locked in hers. When she looked at him and tearfully smiled, Sesshoumaru willingly pushed aside all that he'd been-

-and changed.

One Halloween night, Sesshoumaru stood in the threshold to a small room. A blue light showing a happy moon and sun rolled around the walls, passing over his face- coming from a slowly twirling nightlight near the crib.

It had been three weeks. Three long weeks listening to loud wails, feeling Kagome's aches, sores and tiredness. Three weeks of drowning under the weight of his own uselessness for not being able to help overly much.

This was something people didn't talk about often when celebrating growth. The slip back. The regression and stumble. Kagome giving birth to their child was his stumble.

Because Sesshoumaru couldn't bring himself to touch him.

Their son stirred again, whining. Sesshoumaru's eyes flickered as the humanoid looking baby started kicking at the covers, fussing.

"Cease this," he rumbled, walking to the crib. "Your mother fed you not long ago and I know for a fact there is nothing in your diaper. She is tired. Do not wake her."

Apparently logic didn't fly too well with their son, who blinked baby blue eyes and stared up at him- starting to cry.

Sesshoumaru grit his teeth, looking around helplessly. Kagome was sleeping in their room not too far away, exhausted. Extending a hand, the demon rumbled, trying to calm his pup. It did nothing, his son only getting more worked up the longer he delayed comforting him.

Taking deep, steadying breaths, wintery lashes squeezed shut. The afterimage of an ashen body burned behind his eyes, but Sesshoumaru reached down blindly despite this. He couldn't keep putting it off. Horror gripped his throat as his palm met something warm, fingers gingerly petting soft, short white hair. His stomach buckled, but he did not tear himself away as he would before. Exhaling shakily, Sesshoumaru opened his eyes and forced himself to slide his hands beneath the pup, lifting him out and supporting his weight.

He felt surreal.

Heart thundering, Sesshoumaru stared. His son quieted and stared back, gazing up at him like his father were an amazing work of art. He didn't feel brittle to the touch, nor did his warm tiny body break and crumble into nothingness like little Koji.

Sesshoumaru didn't realise how hard he'd started breathing before a hand lay over his arm.

Kagome brushed up against his side, tears in her eyes. She drew up on tiptoe and kissed the sweat beading upon his brow. "It's alright," she murmured, stroking her mate's arm. "See? He's okay? You won't hurt him."

She'd been so patient. Sesshoumaru swallowed, resting his chin on her head briefly and exhaling. He was truly blessed to have such an understanding mate. Their son made a squeaking nose, tiny hands patting his chest. Sesshoumaru blinked down at the boy as he transformed- a snowy white pup with triangular ears now licking at his hand.

"He likes you," Kagome giggled softly.

"Hn...forgive me for-"

"Don't apologise," she said firmly, before gentling and resting her head against his shoulder. "No one's ever really free from the past. I still have nightmares about Hojo, and sometimes I wonder if I should've actually committed to seeing his parents like I said I would. But...we can't let bad memories ruin the present, right? Otherwise, we miss the good things happening right in front of us."

Sesshoumaru gazed at his son. Giving a slight nod, he inclined his head, leaning down and brushing a regal nose against the white fur of the pup's forehead where a crescent moon lay- inhaling his baby smell and recognising that this was his flesh and blood. This tiny life was alive. He couldn't keep mistaking him for a ghost, lest he miss out on everything he'd built with them. His son yipped and gummed at his chin.

Kagome stifled a giggle behind her hand as Sesshoumaru straightened with slobber on his face. She wiped it away, spying his mildly amused expression.

"What should we name him?" she asked softly. "Did you finally settle on one?"

Raising warm golden eyes to the nursery window, he picked up on small flecks spiralling outside. They fell like pretty white confetti, beautiful and silent. He could hear the distant shouts of children in their neighbourhood squealing at the first snowfall of the year.

"Yuki," he muttered, looking down at their now dozing son. "Yuki. I will think of him as cleansing snow...not as ash."

Kagome's brows drew together and she leaned up, cupping a striped cheek and kissing him tenderly, reverently. He leaned against the comfort she naturally exuded, so safe and secure. It was never a failure on Kagome's part that he'd slip and remember the past sometimes. He couldn't have asked for a better woman.

She crooned softly, wrapping him up in a loving hug- which was rudely interrupted by some banging on the door.

Sesshoumaru surfaced from his melancholy to huff and groan, annoyance painting his features. "Those brats. Have they not had enough candy for one night?"

"Gah! We ran out of sweets earlier too...what should we give them?"

"Fruit."

"You can't give kids fruit on Halloween!"

Leaning down, he carefully tucked Yuki back into his crib, smoothing a careful, loving hand over fluffy white hair that had returned. Straightening, he wrapped an arm around his wife's waist, sighing and walking from the room with her.

"Money?"

"I don't know if their parents would appreciate that, honey."

"Fine- we open the door as our transformed selves. That will scare the little pests off for good."

"Ohhh my God, you're so evil," Kagome paused, grinning wickedly. "Let's do it."

End