It had been almost three weeks since Kagome last saw Inuyasha's demon, when he first came out and bit her; claiming her as his own.

Coming out of his trance Inuyasha had really panicked. Saying that they should get out of there he stood, but then he had taken a deep breath in. He looked at her oddly, and then cursed. He let her go, stumbling back.

"What is it, Inuyasha?"

"I'm not dreaming." he muttered. "I... I..."

With a curse he had jumped up and ran out of the cave, then he had ran around the era until he had a vague idea as to where we where. This was something she had sort of expected. It was obvious he needed to get away from her for a moment. She really couldn't blame him. He suddenly wakes up with the smell of her blood in the air, the taste of it in his mouth, and found them in a compromising position. On top of that, he had claimed her as his mate. And while she didn't fully understand what that really meant, she had a vague idea.

And she was no Kikyou. She somehow doubted that he wanted anyone other than Kikyou with the bite on their neck.

Kagome heavily sat down in the mouth of the cave, and put her head in her hands. She was only a little surprised to find that the cut on her chin had healed up, along with her lip. She looked down at her arm, exposed by the lack of her shirt, and saw the small scratch from her earlier fight was still there. That meant that it wasn't the mate mark that healed her so swiftly- it was the licking.

She sighed, and looked up just as Inuyasha came back in.

He looked away from her, at the side of the cave, and spoke to her. "We... we should find the others."

She nodded dully. "Yeah. I guess we should. Inuyasha..."

"Don't." He said, holding up a hand to stop her words. "Just... just don't."

She nodded, and then stood. She looked down at the ground of the cave, not really sure what to do. She bit back the tears that were rising to her eyes, and then rubbed her arms. She looked around for her shirt, and saw it lying a few feet away. When the full youkai Inuyasha had removed her shirt she had thought he was simply sliding it up over her head. But no, he had slit through the sides with his claws while in the process. Great- she wasn't wearing that shirt ever again.

She looked up in surprise when a red horri fell over her shoulders, and saw Inuyasha had moved closer to her. He still wasn't looking at her, but there he stood.

"Thank you." she mumbled, pulling it on over herself. It was still warm with his body heat. She hadn't even realized that she was cold until it slipped on and over her skin, warming her up. She gratefully drank in it's warmth.

"Let's go." He said, crouching down and helping her onto his back.

Then all conversation had just stopped, as they ran looking for the rest of their group.

Upon finding them Sango had ran to Kagome and hugged her tight, silently saying she was surprised to see her alive and unharmed and that she was relieved to see her fine. Her tears told that she had assumed the worst.

Inuyasha looked away in guilt and self-loathing.

Kagome turned away from Sango and to Inuyasha. "Inuyasha, it's-"
"Don't you dare say 'fine', Kagome." he growled out to low for anyone else to hear. Then he turned away and ran from her.

She sighed.

Shippo hopped over to her shoulder. "Kagome! Are you-" He stopped, and scrunched up his little face. "Hey... you smell funny, Kagome. You smell like... Inuyasha."

"Um..."

Miroku took the little kitsune away from his perch on Kagome's shoulder. "Let the ladies talk, Shippo."

Sango turned her around and looked her in the eye. "What... what happened?"

Without saying anything Kagome moved the red fabric away from her shoulder, showing the wound off to her friend's wide eyes.

Sango gasped. She looked back at Miroku, who was trying to see what was going on, and sternly ordered him to make camp. Shippo said he would help. Sango grabbed Kagome's arm and pulled her into the woods surrounding them, allowing only Kirara to follow.

Once they were far away from camp they stopped, and Sango sat Kagome down. She looked at her warily, as if waiting for Kagome to say something.

"What?"
The slayer sighed. "So... did he..." she trailed of suggestivly.

Kagome wasn't dense. "No."
"No?" Sango said in surprise. "He just bit you? That's... odd."
Kagome just nodded.

Sango sighed. "I bet you want to know what that mark means?"

"Of course I do." She said quietly.

"Well," Sango began. "It's a little complicated..."

She went on to explain that the bite.. well, it smelled. Any demon that came close to her would be able to smell the mark, as odd as that sounded. Kagome, upon hearing this, tried to discreatly lean over and smell her shoulder. Sango laughed at this, and told her that no human could smell it. To other demons it didn't smell good or bad, it was just a sign telling them that she was mated and very much unavailable. Every youkai that came close would smell Inuyasha laced with the mark, and know it was him she was mated to. Even though she wouldn't yet smell strongly like Inuyasha, because he really hadn't finished the process... She also went on to explain that it couldn't be undone, and that it was almost unbelievable that Inuyasha had marked her in the first place. The mark would only work on his mate, his meant-to-be, it would only work on one person in the whole world. So, if he had tried to bight Sango, for example, it would have hurt like crazy and then nothing would have happened. It would just be a bite.

It was all so complicated, and hard to keep up with, that Kagome was starting to get a headache by that point in the explanation. Still, she let Sango go on.

"That's it though." Sango said. "There's more to it, but I really just don't know it all. I only know the basics; slayers don't really need to know about the whole mating process."

So then she was in the dark again.

Eventually they had come back to camp, and everything had been normal... ish. Inuyasha wouldn't even look at Kagome, and only once spoke to her in a polite tone and asked her to hand him some ramen. That was it.

Sango watched them closely that night, and while Kagome missed a lot, she didn't. The slight satisfaction in the hanyou's eyes when Kagome looked through her back and found she was out of extra clothes and would have to wear his. The way he was never let her out of his sight, though he didn't really look at her. It seemed this was done in... shame. She also noticed how close he stayed to Kagome, always sitting across from her or next to her. Always she was near him. And she also noticed how after everyone had crawled into bed, he hadn't gone up to sleep in a tree. He had sat at the trunk right behind Kagome. Ans in her sleep, he did look at her. In fact, she was the only thing he looked at.

That had been three days ago, and they had behaved the same way, and in the three days Inuyasha said a little less than five sentences to Kagome, and was pretty quiet in general.

But now it seemed that Kagome had enough.

They where sitting around a fire, around noon, and eating. Kagome looked up at Inuyasha, and then scowled as he hastily looked away from her. Then she exploded. "Look at me already, will you! Look at me! LOOK at ME!"

He looked up at her for a second, startled, before looking away again.

"No! Don't look away from me! Look at me!" she was standing now, yelling at him.

He stood to, though he only looked at her shoes. "What do you want from me, wench?" he asked, but the fire was gone from his voice.

"I want you to cut it out! Stop avoiding me!"
"I'm not av-"
"Yes you are!"

The others were all staring at them, Kagome noticed. She marched up to him and grabbed the sleeve of the white covering her wore, as she still had his top layer. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" She asked, yanking him to the little clump of trees just a little bit away.

"Uh..." He let her pull them away, just following until she finally stopped by a stream.

She looked up at him. "So?" She asked heatedly.

"So what, Kagome? You brought me out here to talk to me." And he still wasn't looking at her!
She grabbed his chin and yanked his face up to look her in the face. Not entirely sure were her sudden boldness came from, she still took advantage of it while it was there. "Listen to me, Inuyasha. You did this to me. Okay? Not anyone else! I'm your mate! Not another demons, not another human's, not another hanyou's- I'm yours!" she yanked his clothes away from her shoulder and pointed at the mark. "This is your mark!"

He looked at it for a moment and then remorsefully turned his gaze away. "Kagome... I'm sorry..."
"Why do not look at me! Am I that disgusting to you, as your mate, that you can't even look at me?"

"No, that's not it-"
"Then look at me, goddamn it!" She screamed.

He gasped, unused to hearing her curse. His gaze slowly lifted up her body, up her neck, and then settled on her eyes. She gasped under his intense gaze, but looked right back.

Then they just stood there, looking into each others eyes. There was an unspoken challenge in the stare between them; to look away was to admit defeat, to show weakness. The first to break under the others gaze...

She was once more reminded of how much he sometimes reminded her of a dog. She remembered reading somewhere that looking a dog directly in the eye was to challenge it.

As she was now.

And she was not about to lose.

Still looking into his eyes, as he was to her, she spoke. "Do you regret mating me so badly?"

"Wh-what?" He said, his brow furrowing. "No." He said softly.

"Then why won't you talk to me? Why won't you look at me?"

"I'm looking at you now." He murmured.

He took a step forward and placed gentle hands at her elbows- never breaking eye contact.

"That doesn't mean you don't regret it." She said, her voice dropping as well.

"Well I don't. I don't regret it."
"Then why?"

"Why?"

"Why are you avoiding me?"

"Don't you regret it?"

"What? No!"

"You don't regret it?" He said incredulously. "You don't care that you're bound to me, a half-breed, a lowly hanyou, for the rest of your life? Kagome, I'm a worthless monster." His tone indicated he expected her to hate him for what he had done, but how could she ever hate him?

"Don't talk that way!" She snapped. "You're not worthless, and you're not a monster! And no, I do not regret it!"
"Why?" He growled out. "Why don't you?"

Her voice was raising along with his, growing into shouts. "Why would I?"
"Because it's me you're mated to!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way!" She yelled angrily.

"Well nether would I!"

"Good!"
"You don't make any sense!"
"I love you!"
"I love you, too, then!"

"GOOD!"
"FINE!"
And then he lunged forward, tackling her to the ground. She squeaked in surprise and closed her eyes as she hit the ground. Inuyasha wrapped his arms around her to soften the fall, and then he was right over her. And then he kissed her. Hard.

His mouth slammed down over her's, an angry kiss that she responded back to with just as much ferocity. He nipped at her lips with fangs, and she bit his with surprisingly shard human teeth. He licked her lips, suckled them in his mouth, and she did the same to him.

Nether one of them knew how much time had passed with their brutal kissing, but when Inuyasha started kissing a line down her neck Kagome realized just how long they had been gone.

"W-we have to g-get back." She panted.

"What was that, wench?"

"Y-you heard m-me."

He grinned and chuckled darkly."You broke eye contact." He said in triumph.

"You cheated." she breathed out, panting.

"There is no such thing as cheating." he said with a bigger grin. "Everything goes." He returned to liking a trail down her jaw, loving the way her heart accelerated.

"Inu-Inuyasha, we h-have to get b-back." She said again. "I know; y-you won. Y-you're dominant."
He grinned against the flesh of her jaw. "I know, wench. Keh, I don't need you to tell me."
But they really did have to be getting back, didn't they?

He sighed, and then pulled away from her. He helped her to her feet, and then looked her sternly in the eye.
"I won, and I'm gonna take my prize."
"P-prize?" She stutterer, and then gulped.

He grinned. "We'll finish this tonight."

"We will?"

Then he let concern cover his face. "Well... only if you still want me. I mean, I'm just a-"
"Inuyasha, stop."

He looked at her, and then braced himself. He got ready for her to say no, just as he knew she would.

"It's a little fast, but because it's you..."
"Wait, what?"

"I'm telling you yes." She answered, blushing despite herself.

He grinned, and the let out a long laugh. He drew her to him and kissed her one last time before heading back to the others. "Keh. Guess I'm just one hell of a lucky bastard then, aren't I mate?"

She laughed. "And I'm one hell of a lucky girl."

(~The End~)

.

So... the sequel! Ah! Yep, everyone wanted it, and even though it sucks... it works! Sorry that it's so freaking OCC! I tried to make not so out of character, but I sucked epically. Oh well.

If you have any requests, lemme know and I'll see what I can do. Big thank you to everyone who read this, commented, favorited, and subscribed!

Reviews are loved! Thank you!