They are Pack by Hairann

Prologue

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all of its characters are property of the brilliant Takahashi-sama and I claim no ownership of them. Only the story belongs to me.

Summary: Book 2 in the Alpha Pack Mates series. A new pack member, blossoming romances, a wedding, completion of a quest, and learning how not only to be a pack, but also to be a family. Find out what else is awaiting the inu-tachi and get answers to some questions from Alpha.

Pairings: Inuyasha/Kikyou, Sango/Miroku, Sesshoumaru/Kagome.

Follows: The Anime and movies.

"spoken" 'thought' (translations)

AN: IMPORTANT PLEASE READ. Okies so everyone knows ahead of time, there is a slight jump in time at the start of this story. It does update you so you don't miss anything important but since each story has a different plot line, it does NOT pick up right where Alpha left off.

This story will answer most of the questions left open in Alpha. Though it will be about the same amount of chapters, They are Pack will not be anywhere near as long as I am Alpha. Moreover, in fact is a pretty small story, mostly just like an extended epilogue for Alpha to lead you up to the third book, We are Mates.

For those that were wondering why Inuyasha allowed Kagome to be the Alpha in the last book, he has had the chance to grow up a bit and is not as immature as he was in the series, he knows that the group as a whole is going to listen to Kagome more than to him and as Kagome explained it to Kikyou, it really is her pack. Sesshoumaru didn't have any major problems with it because he wasn't completely himself being as he was human. Yes, normally the male is alpha; however, I come from a matriarchal family and decided to have the alpha female in charge.

And while I hopefully have your attention, please read the AN's guys, there is no reason I should get 20 messages asking if there is going to be a sequel when I say there will be in at least five notes. Yes, I could just ignore these questions since they have already been answered, but I like to answer as many questions you reviewers leave as I can.

Anyways enjoy the second book of the Alpha Pack Mates series and as always reviews are welcome, good or bad.

Special thanks to They are Pack's betas Josie, TheMikoShivae and Shannon.

Recap from I am Alpha! : After Kagome's father escaped from jail and killed her okaa-san and jii-chan, she brought Souta back to the past with Inuyasha's rosary. Inuyasha announced he would be taking Kikyou as his mate soon. The group, along with Sesshoumaru and Kouga, destroyed Naraku by Kagome re-shattering the jewel. After the battle, she let Kagura and Kanna go since Kagura had let her pass with Rin during the battle. As they are traveling to recollect the jewel, they learn Sesshoumaru has been cursed to become human and ended up joining the group to protect Rin.

They meet a sorceress named Aki that can turn him back into a demon and start to gather the items he needs. Kouga shows up, still trying to get Kagome to be his mate and Ayame gets tired of waiting around for him and heads back to her den. Miroku officially proposes to Sango, who now has Kohaku back minus the memories of everything he did. Sesshoumaru and Kagome kiss at the hot springs but she stops it since she doesn't think it was right while he was human.

The group has a lot of problems with Kikyou trying to take charge and getting rid of Kagome but she finally starts trying to be a part of the group and Kagome ends up giving her the shards to hold onto. After gathering all the ingredients Sesshoumaru needs, he heads off to Aki to turn back into a demon and ends up being told of a problem needing him in the West. As he leaves the group, Sesshoumaru says 'an inu always returns to his pack'.

Prologue

It has been six months since Sesshoumaru left the group after being called back to the West, and although we haven't seen him once in that time, every so often a messenger would show up to talk to Jaken. Jaken would never tell us what was going on, but I wasn't really sure the messenger was telling him either.

However, it wasn't so bad. The rest of the group was getting along great and the kids loved having Rin around, so everything was working out. And Jaken really isn't that bad once you get to know him a bit. Well, at least when he's not putting down humans and grumbling about everything. You wouldn't think so just looking at him, but he's really good with kids.

About two months ago, we hit a major breakthrough with the shard hunting. It seems someone else was collecting them at the same time as us, only this time it was a monk. Once he learned who we were, he was happy to give us almost half of the jewel. Within a month and a half, we were down to just needing Kouga's and Kohaku's.

Kouga, of course, was easy enough to track down and gave his two up without a fight, oddly enough not calling me 'his woman' once during the meeting and he didn't even fight with Inuyasha. But then again, he did seem a bit distracted. We stayed at his den for a week, celebrating the near completion of the jewel since it was only one shard shy now, before returning to the village.

All that was left was Kohaku's shard and none of us were looking forward to collecting that one. But Sango took it in stride and had everything ready to go to head back to her village. She had decided to bury Kohaku there since it was where she felt he belonged. The day we were to take it out, she spent the entire day with him off by themselves explaining what was going on.

Kohaku took it a lot better than any of us thought he would and even sat down in front of me when it was time without any prompting. He trusted Sango's judgment so much, even without knowing everything behind it. She didn't tell him what he had done - just that the shard was keeping him alive and it was for the good of everyone for the jewel to be whole again so we could wish it away.

We were all so ready to start the funeral, and it wasn't even needed. Apparently Kohaku had lived long enough that everything had the chance to heal and was no longer living because of the shard. It was just sitting there dormant. So after it was removed and added to the now complete Shikon no Tama, we had a week long celebration, both for the jewel and Kohaku.

This brought us to our next problem. Not a single one of us could come up with a wish that was completely selfless and wouldn't risk re-tainting the jewel. With the jewel being whole again, it seemed to attract even more demons after its power and it was soon obvious to us that the village wouldn't be safe holding a beacon like that in Kaede's hut.

So we decided to just hold onto it for now and built a small village of our own around the well, I often wonder if this was the original shrine that was there. It wasn't anything big, a one room hut for Sango and Miroku, one for Inuyasha and Kikyou, and a three room hut for me and the kids. A bedroom for the girls, one for the boys and then a living room for the whole group.

Though Shippo seemed to stay in my room more than in the room for the boys, it worked out okay since there were only Rin and I in that room. Souta and Kohaku got along great and could normally be found in the yard playing one game or another, with Shippo and Rin normally joining in. They could even get Jaken interested at times and it was fun to watch the little toad run around trying to keep up with the ball.

Sango and Miroku continued to work on their wedding plans and we were getting close to the date. She had originally wanted a spring wedding but wanted to wait until we had finished the jewel and that put us in the summer. But the fields were still full of flowers and so Sango was happy to have a July wedding.

Kikyou was doing much better in the group. In fact, about a month and a half after I had given her the shards to hold onto, she regained the ability to purify the shards. Guess she was just letting herself become too tainted to be able to do it before, but since she was getting along with us, the problem seemed to fix itself.

On one of my trips to the future I found that my aunt had taken over the shrine and was working on trying to get it back up and running. She was a shrine maiden when she was younger, so she already knew everything she needed to do. She just had to have me sign some papers since it seems the shrine went into my name if anything ever happened to okaa-san and jii-chan.

When I first found out that she was living at the shrine I asked Souta if he wanted to go back but seems he had grown fond of living in the past and wanted to stay here with us. I was both happy and scared at the same time, but thankfully Inuyasha and Sango decided to start training him with a sword so he would be able to protect himself better.

Poor Miroku. He was hoping he could train him as a monk, thinking that since I was a miko that he would have some powers as well, but he had not a one. Then again, I'm not really sure if jii-chan ever had any either. I'm guessing the only reason I do was because of my past life, as Kikyou, and the jewel.

But I am really glad he decided to stay in the past with us. It was only a matter of time until we could wish the jewel away and then I would have no way to come back if I went through the well to the future. I had long ago decided to stay in the past since, other than Souta; there wasn't anything for me in our time.

So it worked out much better this way. During the night, Inuyasha and I began sneaking stuff from the shrine to our new huts so when the time came, we wouldn't have to worry about not being able to go back into the future for supplies. I ended up raiding the shrine's library and local bookstores for any medical books for how to make present day medicine with 500 years-old ingredients.

And of course, I had to learn how to make ramen, or as close as I could get to it, by hand to keep Inuyasha happy. We ended up bringing Buyo back to live at the shrine, which made my aunt happy since she was currently running the shrine by herself. We even explained everything, including the traveling through time to her and she took it rather well.

I gave her a couple of coins to sell to the coin dealer in case she ever needed money for the shrine. And other than a couple of supply runs and going there to visit her and Ayumi, we were pretty much done with going to the future. We had everything we needed including some photos of the family.

I was worried about what might happen if some of this stuff was found in the future dating 500 years so I instructed Inuyasha to make sure, that everything that would last a long time and be out of place, was destroyed after Souta and I died. He of course, didn't like participating in that conversation but nonetheless agreed.

It was about an hour after lunch and Jaken had taken the kids down to a nearby river to cool off from the heat wave we were having. Sango and Miroku were in the village working on wedding plans with Kaede. Not really sure where Inuyasha and Kikyou were, but since I was sitting outside near our little village with the Shikon jewel on me, they couldn't be that far away.

Since it's completion and the increase of demon attacks, I have not been left alone for even a second. Completely understandable and annoying at the same time, but at least they had stopped hovering over me and were giving me a little space now. It gave me some quiet time to study herbs and medicine, which was exactly what I was doing when I was interrupted by the presence of an incoming demon.

Already used to having them show up out of no where, I merely put the book down and picked up my bow that I had sat down next to me. Just as I had taken aim toward the rustling bushes, a blur flew out of them and headed straight toward me. Faster than I could see, the blur rushed around behind me, but instead of attacking me, it whispered, "Help me."

Turning to glance over my shoulder at the now motionless demon, I could see that he was still a young pup, younger than Rin by the looks of it. He had waist length red hair and silver eyes. Judging by his clothes I would say who ever this pup was, that he was from a well off family, if the silk they were made from was any indication.

"Is someone after you?" I questioned as I turned around to face him fully as I lowered my bow. He nodded his head as he glanced around, eyes darting between bushes. Whether he was hearing things I could not or he was just paranoid, I haven't the foggiest.

"He's trying to kill me," he told me as he glanced back at me with frightened eyes. I decided now would be a good time to yell for Inuyasha since the pup didn't look like he would be scared easily and if he was worried, I probably should be too. However, a deep voice that I hadn't heard in six months stopped me before I could.

"Hand him over, miko-san," Sesshoumaru called out from behind me startling me and causing me to jump. As I glanced over my shoulder at him, I caught the pup using my body to hide himself from Sesshoumaru's view.

"Why are you after him, Lord Sesshoumaru?" I inquired, doubting Sesshoumaru would attack a demon pup without good reason and couldn't, for the life of me, come up with a reason for him to.

"It is none of your concern. You will hand him over to this Sesshoumaru, miko-san," Sesshoumaru replied instead of answering my question. I fought the urge to roll my eyes, surely he knows me better than that by now and would know I wasn't about to hand the scared pup over.

"Lord Sesshoumaru, now you know I'm not going to do that. He is scared of you and has asked for my help. Maybe if you explain what is going on, we can figure this out. Preferably without scaring the pup anymore or getting myself killed for annoying you," I suggested as I sent him a smile hoping the six months apart didn't change his mind about seeing us as pack.

"Miko-san, it isn't any of your business and this Sesshoumaru is not about to hurt the pup. This Sesshoumaru would rather not have to force you to hand him over," he warned as he kept his amber eyes on me and never once tried to see the pup standing behind me shaking.

"Well, Lord Sesshoumaru, he seems to think you are trying to kill him. I doubt that you would try to kill a pup, or that he would get away from you if you were, but I also know how intimidating you can be. I hate to go against you, Lord Sesshoumaru. You are an ally and a friend, but I would sooner go against you than myself. It would go against everything I am to hand over a scared pup to a demon lord who is known as being a ruthless killer."

"Again, I do not believe you would kill the pup or even harm him. He, however, does and I am not turning over a child, who is scared to death, to the one they are scared of. So either we talk about this and you explain what is going on, or we have a problem."

"Miko-san, ally or not, this Sesshoumaru can and will kill you if you keep me from what is mine," Sesshoumaru warned, his threat seeming to lack the venom it normally held, as his amber eyes tried to pierce my own.

"What do you mean, 'what is yours', Lord Sesshoumaru?" I questioned, deciding there just wasn't something right about this whole thing. It just didn't make any sense for Sesshoumaru to be chasing after a pup, whether he intended to kill him or not.

"He is this Sesshoumaru's son," Sesshoumaru replied after a slight sigh.

Please R&R, good and bad reviews are welcome, however, I will ignore flames.