A Forest on Fire (KuramaxOc)

Ch 28: The Letter

Yumiko was still dead tired as her alarm went off. Two more weeks had passed since that first camping trip, and Mako still hadn't returned home. She yawned, and stretched her sore muscles as the smell of bacon wafted into the room. 'Shizuru must be working the morning shift today.' She thought as she sat up in bed, wincing as pain shot through her left leg.

Every weekend, she and Kurama had taken off for the mountains, and this past weekend she had broken the leg in three places due to her own stupidity, and his! It had been a climbing exercise, and her pride had gotten to the girl as he proved to be a much better rock climber, despite his human body. She hadn't paid enough attention as she made her way around him, passing him with ease only to find her hand-hold breaking loose.

The idiot had tried to catch her as she fell, and she had been forced to spin them, allowing her demon body to take the majority of the impact, resulting in her leg broken in three places, her right arm a mangled mess of flesh and bone, and a jagged cut across her torso where she had landed on a sharp rock.

He had been more fortunate, a broken wrist, which she healed with ease, and several cuts and bruises. She had screamed at him, literally screamed for being so stupid as to think he could have survived that fall, even as he set her leg and went to work healing it. As they both sat shirtless in the tent that night, tending to each other's wounds as best they could, her mind had wondered back to their first camping trip.

She had woken that morning in his arms, completely nude, and unable to remember anything past nuzzling his shoulder in her fox form. She had nearly shrieked with embarrassment, while he simply chuckled, head propped on his arms. He had made a point not to look in her direction until she had found her clothing, and teased her mercilessly for it until they had reached the training clearing. Then he had given her the best birthday gift of all.

"Today, I am your target." He had said, while scattering Echinacea seeds around the clearing. "These makai flowers will heal wounds even as you deal them, so there is no need to hold back. Short of removing my head, or my heart, you cannot kill me so long as they bloom. So, my little fox... show me..."

That command. Those two words she was quickly growing to love had given her the ability to take every ounce of frustration the fox had caused her over the past two months out on him, and she had delighted in it. She had used her claws, her petals, her fern vine and needles. She had even tested the same technique she had used against Mako on him, which resulted in a beautiful, quickly healing hole through his abdomen.

Around midday, he had scattered new seeds, and gave her a smirk. "From here on out, the training wheels are off. We will fight in earnest. The first to achieve five wounds will be the victor of this game."

"The reward?" She had asked. He had gave her a wicked grin at that and cooed.

"Should you win, my easily startled fox... we can try picking up from last night."

She had gone red immediately, eyes wide at the thought, before saying in a much smaller voice.

"And if I lose?"

His grin had widened at that, those eyes becoming predatory.

"Then I will have another hunt, little rabbit..."

He had taken to using that nickname for her when he wanted her to run. She noted that he seemed to enjoy the hunt more and more every time she lost one of their games. They always ended the same way, with her pinned to either the ground or a tree, his teeth on her neck.

Yumi sighed, lifting off the soft bed with a grunt. While they had set and healed the bone, it was still very sore, and her leg resisted a bit as she tried to walk to the vanity mirror across the room. She had lost their game yesterday, before that climb, and the bite marks that littered her upper back and shoulders still ached a bit as a result. She examined one particular bite he had given her, just below the shoulder blade on her right side when someone knocked on her door.