Traitor Wolf

by Sycogerl64

 

Chapter 2: Blood of the Alpha

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

OK. The three wolves all loved Cheza.

 

Toboe held a deep, loving affection for the girl that became nearly brother-sister. He was always complimenting the Flower Girl and searching to please her even more so than he tried to please Tsume and the others. It was very innocent and (for lack of another adjective) cute.

 

Hige was fond of her in the sense of awe and admiration one had for a legend or a dream come true. She was a wonder to behold and he was totally at peace with that fact and the feelings that came with it. What was the point in pretending he didn’t care? Made him think too much anyway. Got him hungry.

 

Tsume would never admit it, but in a cold, ‘I-only-put-up-with-you-‘cause- Kiba’s-obsessed-with-you kind of way, he valued her. He often had said he was just using her to get to whatever Paradise Kiba was looking for and like all the humans he’d used before, he cared nothing for her. . . He was a miserable liar of course, but he was damn good at keeping his image.

 

So they all loved her to varying degrees, but right now Cheza was pushing most of the pack’s limits. (Tsume had suggesting ditching her twice already. It was all bluster, but that still spoke for something.)

 

“Kiba!” she wailed, dashing into the nearest shop and searching the aisles desperately for the lost wolf. As if the attractive white wolf would just materialize conveniently inside the tiny flower shop. “Kiba!” she repeated, ducking under a table of roses to search the floor.

 

“Why is that little brat searching in *here*?!” Tsume snarled, as Toboe raced over to the flower girl to aid in her search. Hige halted, panting in the door and sniffed the floral smells of the flower shop, sensitive nose taking in the individual scents all at once.

 

“Kiba was attracted to Cheza by her scent right?” Hige remarked, rubbing his nose with a finger. Tsume grunted the affirmative and the smaller wolf continued. “She smells like a flower. Kiba likes Cheza; therefore, Kiba must like flowers, resulting in Cheza searching any and all places with flowers in them because *of course* Kiba *must* be where ever flowers are, because he *must* like them and obviously MUST be here.”

 

Hige gasped, taking a breath after a huge run-on sentence/rant. Tsume eyed the other wolf derisively a moment.

 

“Feel better?”

 

Hige straightened up and laughed as he slung his arms behind his head. “Yeah, actually.”

 

“Kiba?” came the repetitive, pitiful inquiry. The two pack members blinked down at the Flower Maid who was peering at them from underneath a table cloth draped over the nearest flower stand. Her ruby and rose hued eyes were lost and afraid. Toboe’s reddish colored head emerged from the depths of the table cloth beside her, crawling across the floor. There was a dust smear on his nose and his bright russet eyes were sad.

 

“He’s not here, Cheza,” said the youngest wolf, looking at the girl beside him. She looked at him, face falling. “We can’t just wander around looking for him. We gotta-,”

 

“Kiba!!” Cheza exclaimed and dashed out the door again, voice confused, and frightened. People were staring at the three boys left standing in the store with a mixture of distrust and dislike. Tsume scowled and turned out the door as Hige and Toboe sprinted after the runaway Flower Maid. 

 

“Cheza! Stop!” Hige wailed. “Ugh! What is she *doing*?! We’ll never find Kiba like this!”

 

Tsume ran up and drew even with him matching his pace quickly. He golden moon eyes looked more irritated than before.

 

“She can’t sense him so she has nothing to go on. No hint of where Kiba could be, so she just wanders around,” he said in disgust. “Her logic is too simple to actually figure a proper plan to find him. She’s a *flower*! What more did you expect.”

 

Toboe glanced back at Tsume, hurt. “That’s not very nice to say,” he murmured.

 

Tsume snorted, but said no more.

 

“Kiba! Where is Kiba?! I cannot find him!” the girl lamented, dashing up and down the streets with desperate abandon, peering into windows, doors, bags and other equally improbable places to find the missing wolf. Cheza looked ready to cry.

 

“I must be ill! I cannot find Kiba!” she wailed, collapsing on her rear in the middle of the road and bursting into tears.

 

Hige slapped his face. “Oh boy,” he grumbled and followed Toboe who was already helping Cheza off the ground. Several bystanders were eyeing the sweet looking, but miserable little girl with sympathy and some apprehension. What the heck was she bawling about?

 

Hige rubbed the back of his head and laughed nervously, waving at the people.

 

“Kids, huh? Heh heh. . .real fun,” he giggled woodenly as the human frowned at him and hurried away. “Heh, heh. . .Toboe get her out of here!” his added under his breath, face sliding from disarming and friendly to dangerous and impatient in a blinking. Coming from the usually laid-back guy, this held some hint as to his current mood.

 

Toboe grunted and gasped, trying to haul the limp, uncooperative, Cheza to her feet. However, she seem quite content to flop in the middle of the street, crying. Flustered and indecisive, the pup looked imploringly to Hige.

 

“Oh come on. She won’t get up. Maybe we should just let her sit so we can talk – Hey! Tsume!”

 

The older wolf had already solved the problem his own way and relieved the boy of his burden, both physical and mental by grabbing Cheza around her tiny waist and easily swinging her up into his arms, bridal style. He looked just and annoyed as before, only now he was acting on it. He ignored Cheza’a loud protests of “No! I must find Kiba! Tsume needs to put me down right now! Where is Kiba!? Kiba!?” and marched quickly down the road.

 

“Come on. I have a hunch,” the eldest wolf snapped at the other two. Hige and Toboe glanced at each other, equally startled. Tsume didn’t pause in his walk as he moved down the street, ignoring all the queer-gazes following them.

 

“We don’t have all day!” Tsume snarled over his shoulder. “The sooner we find Kiba the sooner she’ll shut the hell up.”   

 

Toboe looked uncertain, but dutifully followed after Tsume, quickening his pace to catch up with him and Cheza. Hige sighed heavily and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling sorry for himself again. He wondered for the millionth time how he’d gotten mixed up with these guys and started after his comrades.

 

“Bet he went out to get lunch or something,” grumbled the boy and trotted after the distressed Flower Girl, the confused pup and the pissed off lone wolf. “Better have saved some for me. . .”

 

@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@

 

Kiba was in pain. He was no stranger to the sensation but this was a new kind of pain. Through the haze of muddled thought and dark he felt he was laying eagle spread, drifting in an ocean. Just drifting, the waves of the dark ocean lapped gently at his body, washing over his arms and face, and soaking his skin. But the movement was not nearly as soothing as it sounded. In fact it was fast becoming a torment. He bit back a whine as the discomfort became very real agony.

 

The water, by some strange means had been transformed to mild acid. It was all over him, encasing him. He was drowning in the horrible feeling, but he didn’t struggle. He couldn’t. The wolf’s vision filled with black veils of darkness, like a starless night and the pain was invisible to him, hidden, attacking Kiba in the cover of shadow.

 

He stared listlessly into the liquid darkness, drifting, sinking in the acidic pain, helpless to stop it. Paralyzed.

 

It was a horrifying sensation.

 

Kiba swallowed and tried to speak, lips struggling to form words. His throat seemed to clench and the wolf utter a faint ‘ugh’ of pain, but nothing more. Stray wisps of dark hair trailed in his eyes, but he couldn’t see them. His hands shifted slightly, the only movement he could manage, but he could see nothing.

 

-Hige? Toboe? Tsume?-

 

Darkness. Only darkness, slithering under his body, caressing his skin, burning him with steady waves of pain. He fought to move. He’d never been this helpless, so drowsy, but screaming at the same time.

 

-Cheza? Where are you? It’s so cold here. So dark. No stars. No moon. No wind. I can’t smell the Lunar Flowers anymore. I can’t feel Cheza. I can’t feel anything, but pain. Where are you guys?-

 

KIba’s eyes clenched shut, but he could decipher no difference in the light. So dark.

 

-Someone. . .anyone. Can you hear me? It’s so cold and dark. . .-

 

#$#$#$#$#$#$#$

 

“I heard you.”

 

Kiba’s vibrant green-blue eyes snapped open fast as any startled hunter and too fast to follow he lunged at the speaker.

 

Correction.

 

‘Attempted’ to lunge at the speaker. His charge was cut pitifully short as his body refused to finish the movement and he collapsed back to the ground before he’d even had a chance to properly see his attacker.

 

He only saw that eye. Covered by a black streak of shadow, but he knew who it was.

 

The pain before, which had been appropriately compared with fire brands pressed all over his skin, had dulled to a constant ache that filled his muscles, dragging him to the ground. His eyes felt so heavy, he could only just keep them half open, lack black brown hair trailing into his astonishingly feral features.

 

Kiba panted, breathe shallow in his throat as he struggled to breathe with his paralyzed body. His chest heaved painfully against the cold stone beneath him, the smells of chemicals, metal, plants and human – No! Noble! - assaulted his nose, making him need to sneeze, but unable to do so. He slowly focused all his mind’s energy, every particle of his thought on moving his left arm, lying beside his face.

 

Painstakingly slow, and unsteady, he managed to shift his limb closer to his body. He could feel the presence of the human Noble close by, crouched behind him, watching. He didn’t care. Let the man think what he wanted. Gritting his teeth, Kiba dragged his hand to his neck, fingers trailing up to his throat.

 

A thick, leather collar, much like Hige’s was fastened about his neck. He let his hand go limp, fingers laying loosely the hard rawhide strap. His face had gone unnaturally vacant.

 

“I’m terribly sorry,” a deep reverberating voice murmured apologetically. “It had to be done. For both your safety and that of my colleague.” Kiba’s hackles rose and he growled deep in his throat, chest rumbling with the hate filled snarl. The human was the farthest thing from sorry. He was pleased.

 

“Why -,” Kiba gasped, forcing the words from his throat. He managed to move his hand off the collar, eyes burning his in pale face. His dark green gaze swung around to stare at the man’s shadowy figure.

 

“Why did Yaiden give me to you? What do you want?” the wolf demanded monotonously, eyes looking away from the man and scanning the room. Damn. He was facing some random corner of the chamber and unable to move his aching neck, he couldn’t see anything behind him.

 

Kiba stiffened suddenly, a gasp catching in his throat as his deep green-blue eyes widened.

 

The Noble was touching him! The man’s fingers were stroking his hair gently as anytime Cheza had, smoothing the disheveled tendrils from his brow and tucking it behind his ear. Kiba shivered slightly as the Noble’s skin brushed the back of his ear. It was a highly sensitive spot.

 

“It’s not just you, Fang. It’s the Flower Maid too, of course,” the man told him, idly using the alternate meaning for Kiba’s name. “She has always been precious, but now, you too are valuable. Worthy to be used for my purpose,” he explained as if Kiba and Cheza were but mere tool to be purchased.

 

Cold anger burned through Kiba’s blood, mimicking the acid ocean he’d been drowning in moments before.

 

All while the man spoke he stroked his captive’s head, gently combing the messy strands with graceful fingers. He wasn’t hurting Kiba, or even trying to scare him, but it was far worse. He was damn *petting* him, like a common house creature. A venomous rumble of loathing welled up in Kiba’s throat, filling the air as his face darkened in rage, helpless to teach this arrogant Noble he was NOT something to be owned!

 

“Don’t *touch* me!” Kiba hissed, hatred permeating his usually soft and dreamy voice. “I do nothing for *humans*! Especially you! You’re the man you kidnapped, Cheza!”

 

The Noble laughed, sounding startled by Kiba’s tone. He rose gracefully to his feet, reaching down to ruffle Kiba’s hair as if congratulating a dog on learning a new trick. Kiba bared his fangs at Cheza’s kidnapper, pupils dilating as bloodlust boiled through him, his whole body coiling, but lacking the energy to actually attack. The man, however, merely smiled, dismissing the wolf’s bitter hatred.

 

“I thought a Flower Girl was all I needed,” he breathed, staring off into space, contemplating some unimaginable puzzle. His dark hair shifted on his neck as he shook his head and his long cloak slipped across his wide shoulders. The man reeked of wealth and arrogance. . .but something else too. Kiba inclines his head just slightly, sniffing the air carefully, sorting through the hundreds of individual scents and picking out a sour, poisonous stench.

 

It smelled of grief and ambition.

 

“I should have known it would be you though,” remarked the Nobel, still rambling on to himself. Kiba curled and uncurl his fingers, vainly hoping that the drugs in his system would dissipate with movement, but the leaden feel in his body didn’t fade. The human paused a moment, thinking before he finished his thought. “The other piece.”

 

Kiba’s rage was momentarily forgotten as he stared up at the man.

 

“Piece?” he murmured, voice soft.

 

“Yes. The Book of the Moon mentioned it before. I was a fool to let this goose chase go on so long,” the Noble murmured under his breath, but Kiba’s sharp ears picked up every word clear as day. “Flower Child and the blood. I forgot about the blood.”

 

The man laughed suddenly and walked toward Kiba once more. Kiba stiffened again, snarling, hackles rising as his eyes somehow became more bestial despite his human form. There was something wrong about this human.

 

Unnatural.

 

The closest thing he’d ever scented to it was the odor of a rabid mountain lion. Cunning, deadly, but mad. And all that together made for a hideous combination. Kiba sensed the man wasn’t insane as that cat of course. He was obviously very intelligent, but whatever it was that drove him to do this, to collar a wolf and kidnap the Flower Maiden, was something of an obsession.

 

“Stay back!” Kiba warned; the low growl of a wolf snarl was unmistakable in his tone. His eyes had become predatory slits, his mouth pulled back in an inhuman snarl that bared ivory fangs. The overall effect transformed a good-looking human teenager into a deadly, hunter; darkening those beautiful features and morphing them into something far more primal. Still breathtaking, but primal. Of course this man could see straight through the disguise to the predator beneath; to the claws, the fur and fangs. He knew the hatred in Kiba was real as any fire.

 

And he was playing with matches.

 

“I’m terribly sorry, young Kiba. To have stolen your name and not given mine in exchange,” the man laughed, crouching in front of the collared wolf. Kiba growled, the deep, nightmare sound echoing through out the cavernous room, filling the room with a whole pack of snarling beasts instead of the one. The Noble knelt beside him so Kiba had to struggle to look at him. The man solved the problem however, by catching Kiba under the chin.

 

A dangerous move.

 

But by sliding the palm of his hand, under the wolf’s jaw and slipping long, slender fingers on either side the arch of his throat, he could safely hold the wolf’s face without fearing a bite from needle sharp fangs.

 

He forced Kiba’s head up, bringing his angular face inches from Kiba’s dark greenish eyes. Both pairs actually. The green ones and the gold ones.

 

The Noble’s smiled.

 

“I am Darcia.”

 

Kiba’s face went completely neutral, gaze drilling into the man’s single good eye. Darcia seemed to frown only slightly as he met the alpha’s gaze. Kiba’s eyes were usually intense in a distant kind of way, but now all that passion had zeroed in on Darcia and it seemed to key in on one nerve or another. Kiba sensed the status of their positions change. Kiba wasn’t just an object now.

 

He was a predator.

 

The Noble, however, did not exhibit any outward recognition of the change. He didn’t gasp, or frown or show anger or fear. But both Darcia and Kiba knew something had changed and the human’s wariness of the captive wolf had risen. The human’s face remained calm, a cool mask as he continued to study Kiba’s unnatural, and feral features. Whether the wolf had a measure of human attractiveness or not he certainly hit the mark well.

 

“Beautiful animal,” he said admiringly. Kiba snarled and bared his fangs again, but the man only seemed amused. “The same way Cheza is a rare and precious rose. You two were meant to share this fate. But that’s enough talk. This conversation must be wearying on you, Kiba.”

 

The wolf’s jaw tightened as he gritted his teeth, but otherwise his face had gone dreamily blank. As if he cared less what this man was hinting at, much less feel fear. Darcia could see the stubborn pride in the boy’s eyes, wolf and human both.

 

“You’d best get some more rest.”

 

Darcia reached up and lifted his eye patch. Knowing full well what he was doing Kiba quickly tried to close his eyes, but it was too late. He met the human’s gaze and. . .

 

 -Blood moon. . .- 

 

@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#

 

Author’s Note: @_@ GAH!! Kiba ish in trouble!!! ARGH!! What do we do?! *Runs in a circle* I know what we can do! R&R and give meh ideas or just plain review! WHEEE!!!!

 

Remember all you dirty-minded ppl out there. . . I SAID NON-YAOI!! No nasty stuff here! It’s against meh code. Sorry. You’ll have to look elsewhere.

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