InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Collision ❯ Unmask ( Chapter 4 )

A/N: sorry I left you hanging like that! In apology, I gave you a treat at the end.

Chapter 4- Unmask

Sesshoumaru had been walking back to the spot he had left the hanyou on the river bank. The mutt had taken to lounging in the tall grasses, where it was cooler and the ground was softer, instead of doing anything actually useful lately.

Sesshoumaru had been in the river, further downstream taking in the conditions ahead and considering if they could still take the short cut to the castle this late in the season. If it was still open, they would shave off weeks from their journey and be at the castle within a few more days travel.

It wasn't that the Western prince especially wanted to return to the castle, where he was constantly under watch from his servants, friends, and enemies alike, and forced into the tedious duties given to the acting ruler of the land. He certainly did not look forward to the coming discussion with his advisory council of just who and what he had taken as a mate.

Still, it would be worth the agitation just to divest himself of the very trying presence of his mate. Every day spent in his company drove the daiyoukai wild with anger and suppressed frustrations. Once they reached the castle, he would be able to shove the blight to his father's- and now his- name into the far reaches of the manor and set a team of servants to attend him and not think about him again until he had to.

He was heartened to discover that luck had been on his side, finally, and the path was open. The narrow passage through the small and craggy mountain range that bordered the farthest reaches of the royal province was not yet impassable. Discovering this, he had made his way back to where the hanyou and his kit could be found.

The news had significantly raised his mood. He would be essentially rid of the beast for a good long while if he could get through these next few days without doing anything drastic. His relative cheer came crashing back down in a heap around him as he neared them and heard the kit spout his inflammatory words.

"Inuyasha, you're pregnant? You're gonna have a baby?"

Sesshoumaru's eyes widened and he froze mid-step. His body shook with the force of his shock, before he raced over to the assembly and loomed over the hanyou.

"What did you just say?" he said in his most menacing voice.

The hanyou looked up at him with large eyes, filled and quivering with fear and horror. His mouth opened and shut, his throat working as if to answer yet never uttering a word. The old flea retainer jumped from his open palm and hopped onto the kit's head in fright.

Sesshoumaru reached down and grabbed the front of the hanyou's hitoe. He yanked the beast up, bringing them face to face and lifting the abomination off the ground.

"What. Did. You. Say?" he repeated, his voice so low he could have been whispering except for the growl that came out underneath the words.

“Inuyasha!” the kitsune squeaked.

“My Lord! Please!” the flea admonished in astonishment.

Not waiting for the disgrace to answer, he ripped open the hitoe he held in his hands and tore down his hakama to pool around the hanyou's slim hips. The hanyou whimpered pitifully, which only increased as he lowered his nose to the delicate skin of his lower belly.

Sesshoumaru sniffed, pressing his sensitive nose into the hard muscle and smooth skin of the hanyou's abdomen. He sifted through the scents; the strong presence of trees and plants and earth and water, the heavy scent of the kit, food smells and the smell of sick, his own scent and the deep musk of the hanyou himself. He filtered through them searching for what lay beneath all of it.

The hanyou continued to whine and his legs attempted to curl in and cover his bared stomach from demon lord. Sesshoumaru allowed none of that as he buried his nose in the curly hair above his mate's genitals and searched his scent for something that was still too small for even his senses to have sniffed out.

Suddenly he stiffened. A spike of something soft and delicate and warm made it into his nostrils. He released the hanyou, letting him drop to the ground with a thump and a yelp. The hanyou crumpled on the ground and curled in on himself, bringing his knees up and wrapping his arms around his stomach. He whined in distress. The kit and the flea immediately raced toward him to fawn over him and make sure he was unharmed.

Sesshoumaru simply stared down at him in shock. It was faint, almost not there at all, but he did in fact smell of a bred bitch. The hanyou was truly pupped.

That could not be possible. Wasn't his brother just the lowly hanyou who had ruined him in an attempt to…? Admittedly, Sesshoumaru had never had any idea what the beast had been attempting to get out of being mated to him- he could not have possibly thought that he would not suffer by Sesshoumaru's hand for his idiocy. All the western prince was aware of, all he focused his hate and anger towards was the idea that the hanyou had got in the way of his raging youkai and refused to step aside, causing his youkai to take his brother as his mate.

He knew that his brother was strong and more than a worthy opponent on the battle feild. The hanyou had proven it time and time again. That was what had made Sesshoumaru so bitter. His brother had the power to fight him off, whether Sesshoumaru had been in control of himself or not. And yet, the hanyou had come out of the mating relatively unharmed, appearing as if he had not even tried to put up a fight and simply rolled over and allowed it to happen. It looked as if he had welcomed the mating, welcomed shackling himself to the Western prince, and welcomed his brother's potential downfall.

Sesshoumaru had imagined that Inuyasha had relished the thought that he had backed the daiyoukai into a corner he could not fight his way out of. There was nothing Sesshoumaru could do once he mated. There was no way to undo a union of two youkai. They became one being for eternity, the dominant partner pouring his youki into his mate and securing the submissive as a part of them. Inuyasha had to have been basking in his triumph.

But, if the hanyou was pupped…

Was his little brother in truth an uke? He had heard of ukes. They were valued for their rarity. Only the strongest of male youkai could turn out to be ukes and even among those that were strong enough, it was still rare for one to turn out to actually be one. The male body was not made to be pupped and the feat was done only with the help of great physical strength, health, and demon power. Given this, how could his half-breed brother be and uke?

Sesshoumaru had always thought that they were more desirable. He had grown up to appreciate the male form. To him, the harsh planes and hard muscle of strength and power, contrasted enticingly with that delicate vulnerability that all men share, if one looks in the right places. A man's body was far more enthralling, far more interesting than the curves and softness of a woman. Couple that with Sesshoumaru's disgust with female simpering weakness, and an uke looked like his ideal mate.

His eyes fixed on the huddled body of his mate as he attempted to crawl away with his hakama tripping him up as it hung around his legs, and Sesshoumaru finally saw what he was looking at. His mate, his pregnant mate, was crawling away from him. In fear. His mate could barely move his legs as he attempted to both crawl and keep them curled against his stomach in protection. It was as if the hanyou feared that the baby would be ripped out of him if he were to leave it vulnerable to attack.

Sesshoumaru's eyes widened in horror as the thought struck him.

That was exactly what his mate feared. He feared that his seme would kill their pup. He feared that his seme, the figure that was supposed to care for him above himself and protect him with his life, would reach out and claw the life from him, if not kill him outright. And he had a very good reason to think it would happen.

As the implications of this new understanding of the situation between him and his mate began to sink in, the events of the last few weeks began to fall into place.

Gods! What has he done?

For the first time he realized that none of this was Inuyasha's fault. The hanyou had never wanted any of this, had probably never even known it could happen or why it was happening. Despite his actions the past few weeks, Sesshoumaru was not thick enough to think that the hanyou had any idea about youkai mating. He was well aware that the half-breed was raised among humans. That was one of the reasons he gave himself to hate him for.

There would have been no way for him to fight back. Not with a powerful youkai on his scent. The hanyou must have been in heat. The daiyoukai's own heat induced mania could only have been fueled by the scent of a ready bitch. There is nothing that the hanyou could have done to resist.

Dimly, while his mind raced over the cruelty he had bestowed on his mate - his own mate! - he was aware that he was simply standing frozen over his struggling brother. He had to do something. The part of his mind, his youkai, that had been pleading with him to care for his mate all these weeks was seemingly working harder to make up for lost time now that it was unleashed from where the daiyoukai had caged it in his unconsciousness.

He had to calm his mate down. Seeing his mate so distressed was painful to him. He had to sooth his mate.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he gazed down at his mate. He continued his stilted crawl away from Sesshoumaru. His hakama had slipped down to bare the pale flesh of his ass in his struggles in the grass and his hitoe was still hanging open, but he seemed unmindful of his exposure as he concentrated on keeping his stomach covered with both his arms and his knees. His hair was in total disarray and his head was bowed, though he was sure to keep his eye on Sesshoumaru at all times, looking at him though the side of his eye.

He whined and whimpered as he trudged toward the kit and the flea. They fluttered about ineffectually, the kit not knowing what to do and the flea too cowardly to try anything.

It made him sick with guilt.

Abruptly, Sesshoumaru bent down and picked the hanyou back up, bracing his hands across the back of his shoulders and under his knees. Immediately the hanyou and the kitsune began to cry out louder in fear.

“Silence,” the prince ordered. Immediately the kit was silent. His mate's whines only lessen in volume but did not cease altogether.

“Kit, you will make your way back to camp. We will be back by nightfall,” Sesshoumaru announced. With that he turned on his heel and made his way back to the river.

In his arms, the hanyou began to shiver; his whines began to intensify once more.

It was disheartening to see Inuyasha like this. He had never seen his half-brother like this. Despite all of his many enthusiastic attempts at destroying him, his heart lurched at the realization that it had been his cruel words and brutal actions that had fostered this in his brother.

“Hush, mate, I will not harm you,” he soothed.

Inuyasha quieted, more in shock than obedience. Sesshoumaru had never once referred to him in any way that was not derogatory. Hearing the title “mate” from his lips was unexpected enough to silence him, at least for now.

The Prince of the Western lands quickly brought his mate to the cool rushing waters of the river. Without speaking further, the youkai lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross-legged in tall grasses that lined the side of the water. He sat the hanyou in his lap, settling him across him and bracing him against his chest.

Inuyasha swung his head widely back and forth, still in flight of fight mode, and his frightened whines began again, unsure of the daiyoukai's intentions.

“Hush,” Sesshoumaru urged again, “calm yourself.”

He ran his fingers up from where he held the hanyou's shoulders to the nape of his neck. He caressed the supple skin and lightly ran his claws through the hair there. His other hand, freed from under Inuyasha's knees, was settled on the hanyou's chest. It was as much a gesture of comfort and intimacy as an effort to hold the frightened hanyou in place.

Now thoroughly confused, as the youkai had never once in his lifetime treated him with anything close to kindness or tenderness, Inuyasha looked up at Sesshoumaru with his wide golden eyes. Sesshoumaru gazed back, pained by the abject fear and resignation he saw there.

“You are an uke,” Sesshoumaru began. He saw by the lack of response that it was something the hanyou had already known. So would not have to explain it to him after all. “I was unaware of this.”

Sesshoumaru looked away, staring into the rushing waters as it passed. He did not know what else to say. That he had been wrong? That he had been unfairly cruel? It was not in him to do so, no matter how warranted it was. His acknowledgement of his mistake was the closest he would come to apologizing to the hanyou.

For now, Sesshoumaru had brought him here for a reason. He needed to wash his mate clean of his, Sesshoumaru's, mistakes. The daiyoukai felt as if he had tainted his mate and their union with his petty viciousness and cruel shortsightedness. With slow movements, he began to strip away the ripped fabric of his mate's fire rat hitoe.

“What-what are you doing?!” Inuyasha finally spoke, his embarrassment bringing a hint of the familiar bark back into his voice. The seme's actions seemed to have brought the hanyou's attention back to his exposed state as he scrambled to cover his cock with his hand and cross his arm over his uncovered chest.

“Silence, mate. Let me bathe you,” Sesshoumaru ordered with a gentle but firm tone.

There was that “mate” again. Inuyasha was still perplexed by the youkai's shift in attitude. He had guessed that Sesshoumaru would have killed him immediately the moment when he heard that Inuyasha was carrying their pups. His sudden lack of any kind of angered hatred towards him was confusing to say the least.

He supposed that Sesshoumaru's admitting that he had been ignorant of his status as an uke had something to do with it. Inuyasha was confused as to how it would have mattered if the daiyoukai had known. Sesshoumaru had never bothered to inform the hanyou why he was so angry with him. Inuyasha had just assumed it was for the same reason that the inu had always hated him- because he was a hanyou.

In his confusion, he was unresisting to the youkai's continued efforts to disrobe him. Sesshoumaru slip his hands down the smooth skin of his shoulders and biceps as he slipped the cloth from his arms. He then turned to the pair of hakama that pooled around his thighs and soon dropped them to the ground.

Inuyasha silently watched with ever widening eyes as the daiyoukai began to strip off his own kimono. He eyed the broad expanse of pale hard muscle as Sesshoumaru bared his chest and slammed his eyes closed as he dropped his hakama.

He shivered again with fear. Was Sesshoumaru going to rut with him again? The last time had been one of the most frightening experiences of his life. It almost over shadowed the intense physical sensations had had felt at the time. Almost.

His body began to burn from the sight of his mate naked and strong before him. He could feel wetness gather at his entrance and his cock twitched in interest under the hand that he was using to cover it. Still, he was not sure if he wanted to go through that again.

Sesshoumaru was not ignorant to his mate's struggles. He could smell the hot musk of his arousal from where he stood. However, he was still focused on his main goal. He had no right to bed his mate after he had sullied their mating. They needed to be clean.

He pulled his mate up from the ground. The hanyou over balanced and slammed into his hard body, sliding his delicious skin against his own. He wrapped his arm around the hanyou and guided him to the water, ignoring the pleasant sensation. He directed his mate to kneel in the shallow water and he did the same beside him. It lapped at their thighs, rising only a few inches high. He dipped his own obi into the water and began to wipe it on the flushed skin of the hanyou's neck and chest.

The hanyou gave out a shivery sigh, the water cool against his skin, enflamed with embarrassment and desire. He gasped when his seme's hands trailed lower. However, the youkai's hands never deviated from a strictly platonic cleansing, though Inuyasha's faced flamed as he saw his seme's cock, hard and red, bob above the water.

Sesshoumaru continued to ritualistically wash their conflict away until even the hanyou's clawed toes had been swiped with the silky fabric. Finally he laid the soaked obi aside, comforted by the sight of his mate's glistening skin. However when he met his mate's eyes, all he saw was confusion, remembered pain, and hurt.

Without pausing he glided his hands back up from his mate's feet, up his hard muscled shins and over his sinewy thighs. Inuyasha gasped at the sensation, Sesshoumaru's hands burning a trail up his legs.

Like he had the day after their mating, Sesshoumaru was overwhelmed with the urge to heal his mate. He had hurt his mate deeply, both physically and emotionally. He did not deserve to have a mate as it stood. Inuyasha's current hurts were strictly inside of him, but that did not stop Sesshoumaru's instinctual urging to sooth him, to heal him.

Like the last time, he began to lick at his mate's skin, trying to sooth his mate's aches with his healing saliva. Immediately, Inuyasha gasped and arched under him as he lapped at the skin of his neck, dragging his rough tongue over the sensitive mating mark. Sesshoumaru was assaulted by the instantaneous scent of his mate's arousal.

The daiyoukai licked down that slender pale neck to his chest. This is where his mate was hurt the worst; he lapped at the muscle over his mate's heart. Inuyasha's hips bucked when his tongue passed over a stiffened nipple.

“Mmm,” Inuyasha sighed.

Sesshoumaru was hard as a rock, listening to his mate as heat surrounded them. His sizable cock dribbled pre-cum onto Inuyasha's hard belly as he continued licking at the sensitive nubs, switching from the left side to the right and back again. His hands ran over his mate's perfectly soft white skin, running down his sides, over his ribs and the small hills of muscle, to rest on his slender hips.

Inuyasha echoed Sesshoumaru's hardness, his cock flushed purple and a bead of pre-cum swelled on the cock head. His face was flushed, a beautiful blush painted across his cheeks as he sighed his pleasure. He felt as if his skin had become super sensitive, leaving his mind drowning in sensations, unable to think about their past or their future. He only saw the now. He only saw the stunningly hansom youkai that loomed over him, sucking on his nipples, and was making him feel a thousand kinds of pleasure in each touch.

Sesshoumaru's hands continued their downward path curving around to cup the flesh of his rounded ass. They squeezed lightly, causing Inuyasha to exhale harshly in surprised pleasure. His hole clenched as he was forced to remember what it had felt like to be filled by Sesshoumaru.

The youkai's long fingers rubbed down his cleft as Sesshoumaru distracted him with a searing kiss. Inuyasha moaned into the lord's mouth as his mouth was invaded. They had never kissed and Inuyasha was thrilled down to his toes. Sesshoumaru drank from him greedily, mapping out every part of his mouth and tasting him for the first time.

Meanwhile, his fingers brushed lightly over the hanyou's twitching entrance. His mate was wet for him, his passage lubed with the uke's natural juices. He teased and tickled the clenching muscles eager to play with them. The prince dipped a finger inside, pushing it in as far as he could. He thanked the gods for Inuyasha's natural ability to stretch; he would not have to spend much time on stretching the hanyou in order to be able to enter him. He was already nearing his limit as the hanyou writhed in pleasure beneath him.

A second finger joined the first and he pushed them in and out of the hanyou. Inuyasha arched at the action, automatically spreading his legs wide and presenting himself completely to his seme.

That was all Sesshoumaru needed; it was all he could take. Quickly he removed his fingers and aligned his throbbing cock to the twitching pucker. He thrust home in one go.

“OHHH!” Inuyasha moaned loudly, drowning out Sesshoumaru's pleasured grunt. He felt his heartbeat match the throbbing cock in his greedy hole as Sesshoumaru's thick member spread him wide and filled him deliciously. Just as the first time, the sensation felt right. It felt like a part of him that had been missing was now back in place.

Sesshoumaru immediately began to piston his hips, slamming his thick cock into the hanyou, his balls slapping on his enticing backside. He knew he would not last as long as he wanted to, as long as Inuyasha deserved to be pleasured, especially as Inuyasha locked his arms around his neck and cried out those beautiful sounds in his pointed ear.

“Oh, Gods!” Inuyasha exclaimed as Sesshoumaru grabbed his pulsating member and began to stroke it in time to his thrusts. Inuyasha had never been touched there by another person before. He would have been surprised at how much more it was in the hand of another, if he had been able to think at all. As it was, it only took three pulls on his cock and Inuyasha was coming in torrents over his belly and Sesshoumaru's hand.

“Ahhhuungh!” he screamed, feeling his balls empty at the same time as his passage was flooded with Sesshoumaru's seed. The youkai thrust punishingly into him as he filled his mate with his hot cum and growled his climax into the hanyou's neck, biting hard at his mating mark without breaking the skin.

Sated, the daiyoukai slumped on top of his mate, feeling warm and lethargic and right with his uke beneath him. This is where Inuyasha should have been all along. His mate would always be out of place unless he was balls deep within Inuyasha, cum dribbling from his abused hole, and pressed against him, panting and flushed.

In his post orgasmic euphoria, Inuyasha was inclined to agree.

A/N: Don't worry, it won't suddenly turn into sunshine and daisies between them now that Sesshoumaru knows. They still have things to work out. But for those who didn't like the violence, it is over now.