InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dream No More of Me, My Love ❯ Part Four ( Chapter 4 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Part 4

---oOo---

Later came a lot quicker than she'd thought it would.

After taking her to the rooms they would now share, along with the servants bearing her luggage, they quickly got her settled in, and then went down to share a light dinner.

Once the meal was done, he showed her around the grounds a bit, especially some of the lovely gardens as they walked in the cool early evening air.

It was magical - and highly romantic.

He probably did this to calm me - I'm glad he did, because I'm really nervous... she frowned to herself for a moment, though it's only because I don't have any experience. Virginal fear. She blushed.

Mattaki kept his gaze forward, though he was well aware of where her thoughts lay, and her virginal nerves. It was endearing - and something that pretty much every woman went through, like a right-of-passage.

A small smile tilted one corner of his mobile mouth.

"What is it that you fear?" he asked, as he tilted his head and looked at the darkening sky.

Kagome paused in her step, caught a little off-guard at his perceptiveness, though she knew she shouldn't have been, after all, a great deal of emotion was shown in scent - Inuyasha had always been good about sniffing out how she'd felt about things, though he hadn't been as good at dealing with her swiftly changing emotions.

Her pause in step became a full halt as he also stopped, and she smiled a bit uncertainly.

Turning his head to look down at her, he sighed lightly, and smiled back at her. "If you have decided that you wish to wait, I will not push you, Kagome. I have waited this long - I can wait longer."

Brilliant red shot into her cheeks; Kagome couldn't answer at first as she thought about what he was saying. Part of her, she would admit, wanted her to accept that offer - to put off the encounter.

But it was the smaller part - the larger part encouraged her to go for it... not to mention, Kagome had never let her fears stop her before, and she wasn't about to let them now.

"No," she sighed, "I'm just scared a little - but I won't let that stop me."

An elegant brow met his bangs; I always admired that spirit of hers. "Are you certain that you do not feel it is too soon for you?"

She shook her head. "No... I feel as if I've known you forever. I suppose, in a way, I have." She chuckled wryly. "My life has been so intimately entwined with time; yet I understand it so little, you know? But if I learned one thing in my years in the past, it was acceptance. Sometimes, we just shouldn't ask questions. Do I understand how you spent three hundred years courting me on your end of the dreams, and yet it was only two weeks for me? Nope. But I don't need to."

She shrugged - Mattaki understood the gesture.

"I see. You accept this aspect of the unbelievable, because sometimes, all that is really needed is faith."

Kagome nodded. With a quick smile at him, she began walking again - he followed. "Yes. The thing is, I already have strong feelings towards you. I don't need to wait because I know that these feelings are not going to weaken with time - they'll only get stronger. So why do I need to waste more time worrying about it?"

He looked thoughtful, eyes gleaming in the dark, entrancing the young woman walking with him.

"I understand," he flashed her a quick, mischievous grin, "and I will not deny that I am glad that you do not wish to wait longer. While I could do so were it required, I will admit that it would not be pleasant."

Another blush, a quicksilver laugh; Mattaki was more than captivated by the woman he would soon take to mate. And then, of course, on the morrow - wedding plans. He would honor her in both cultures.

He came to a halt and bowed to her, asking, "Are you ready to head inside, then, koi?"

She knew what he was asking in that as she half-turned to look at him, standing in the now abundant moonlight - it leached all color from him, making him all silver and dark shadows and pale, pale skin... save for luminous gold eyes watching her like a hawk.

With a shiver - he was a predator, she was his prey - she nodded, and he took her arm, leading her back inside her new home without once looking away from her.

---oOo---

That was intense!

She breathed a little more freely now - the moment they had stepped into the house, Mattaki had been pulled away to a phone call.

It was Sesshoumaru.

She half-listened as her soon-to-be mate informed his son that he was taking a mate... and just who it was he was mating. She frowned, then.

You mean, in all the centuries he was waiting, he never told them about this?

I wonder why?

The reaction from the other end of the phone must not have been objectionable, because Mattaki laughed, and seemed perfectly at ease as he finished the call.

"Was he angry?" she asked, wanting to make sure, and the big inu turned to her and smiled, that predatory look returning to his eyes as his met hers.

"No. Surprised? Yes, but not angry."

"Good... I wouldn't want to come between you and your sons."

His expression turned fierce. "You won't. No matter their reactions, they would not be allowed to interfere, just as I did not interfere with their choices."

She nodded, not entirely convinced, but willing to let it go. "Didn't you ever tell them about waiting - and what you were waiting for?"

He moved over to her, taking her arm and leading her from the room towards the staircase. "No. They have occasionally spoken to me about perhaps finding a mate, however, I just put them off by saying that when I found the one worthy of such a position, I would do so. They left it at that."

Something occurred to her, then, and she had to ask. "Mattaki... why me? I kind of don't understand that. I mean... you're you. And I'm just... me. There's nothing that I have to offer you..." she trailed off, for the first time a little uncertain. He was just too beautiful - too masculine - too powerful - too everything. She was... not.

Eyes narrowed, he stopped at the top of the staircase and pulled her to him, holding her upper arms. "Who knows why any one person fascinates and draws in another? For me, it is a combination of things. Your scent being one of the first things... it pulls at me, taunts me, tempts me."

She stared at him, mesmerized as his distinctive baritone deepened. His voice was so sexy - he could pull a response from her body just by speaking in that tone. It was a shock to her... she was, after all, an innocent.

"Then there is your strength - you will not be dominated by anyone but the strongest. There is a fire in you that makes me burn. Intelligent, kind and beautiful with a purity that hypnotizes in its brilliance - tell me, little miko, what is not to love?"

She shook her head, oddly mute, and he took that opportunity to sweep her up into his arms as he took her back to their chambers.

Almost before she could blink, they were in the rooms and he was closing the doors... and locking them.

Idly, her mind bemused, she realized that while the rest of the castle was fully traditional in its rice paper doors, this one room went against the grain, with heavy wooden western-style locking doors.

Apparently, when he was in here, he wanted no interruptions.

If I'm gonna be in here, and we're gonna be doing... that... I don't want any interruptions, either. She swallowed heavily, her heart speeding up as he turned to face her.

Reddening eyes met hers, and her breath hitched - it didn't faze her at all to see him looking so feral and heated - instead, it was setting her blood to burn, raising her own body temperature higher to meet his.

"No. This is not how I want you this first time," he finally breathed out, his eyes narrowing. "This time... I want to take you in the ways of my ancestors - outside, beneath the skies and surrounded by all of nature." He eyed her as she blinked, startled. "Does this surprise you?" he asked roughly. "Remember, I am not human. The blood that flows through me... I am a spirit of nature - youkai - and my blood is wild, untamed. Can you handle that, I wonder?"

There was no denying she was taken aback, but she had to admit... the idea of being outside...

"There won't be anyone around, will there?"

"I would never allow anyone to see my female unclothed, nor watch my mating. It is a vulnerable time. I will take you deep into my lands, to a place that I know. I believe it is a place you will like," he rumbled, his beast very close to the surface now.

Kagome nodded, unable to take her eyes off him, and he stepped forward immediately at her answer, once again sweeping her into his arms along with a blanket folded at the end of the bed, he stepped through the huge window facing onto a private courtyard.

The moment he hit the open air, he flashed into his energy form.

She barely realized they were outside before he was setting her down in a small clearing ringed by tall trees. There was the tinkle of a small stream dancing in the air, and the scent of many nightblooming evening glories - better known as moonflowers.

She looked around at her surroundings, entranced - it was a small forest glade, a protected dell.

It was perfect - different, not the average cliche`d claiming - she was surprised... and excited.

Her male could scent exactly that, and with a low growl, he dropped the blanket on the ground without once taking his eyes from her.

At that growl, a deep part of Kagome tightened, and something almost instinctual in her whispered, "Run." Without another thought, she did just that.

Mattaki's eyes widened in shocked surprise - her actions were absolutely the last thing he'd ever expected. She was reacting in the same fashion as an inu female would - he could only surmise that, on a deeply instinctive level, she had picked up a great deal of knowledge about inu from her travels with Inuyasha, and her meetings with Sesshoumaru. After all, inu instincts weren't really all that different than human - it was just that humans had tried to breed their instincts away.

Perhaps they had not succeeded as well as they thought. The idea pleased him.

With that, he figured she'd had enough of a head start, and went after her, his beast pleased and more excited then he'd ever been, despite the fact he'd been mated once before, and married at one point, too.

Sesshoumaru's mother had been an alliance of power for an heir, nothing more, on either side. After Sesshoumaru's birth, they had decided that they truly despised being mated to each other, but both felt trapped - after all, mating was for life.

That was when he'd created Tensaiga.

And after speaking to his son's mother, she was willing to let him kill her, then bring her back, so that they could break the mating bond. She knew that he would keep his word and bring her back to life afterwards - he was honorable. They didn't hate each other, they just couldn't handle remaining mated to each other.

In the end, once she'd been returned to life, it was an amicable enough separation, though Sesshoumaru had been angry about it for a long time after he'd understood what had been done. That's probably why he'd been so enraged about receiving Tensaiga on his father's death.

Izayoi had been different. Human, beautiful, she'd captured his interest, but been too afraid of youkai ways to ever be a true mate; he'd married her in the human fashion, instead. It had been a short marriage, really, before fate had torn them apart, but it had been happy.

Now, though, the fates had gotten it right. Kagome was human, undeniably, but strong, more than capable of being a true mate in the youkai fashion, and possessed of a scent any inu would easily be entranced by.

And this time, there would be no need for an exotic escape route as he'd needed with Sesshoumaru's mother.

This time, he was pleased it was for life - if he could, he'd bind her to him for eternity, not just life.

Maybe he could find a way - but that was for later.

For now, he would be content to chain her to him for this lifetime.

---oOo---

A/N: Next chapter, and the first part of 6, is all lemony activity - but since the lemon crossed both chapters, I won't make ya'll wait through a lemony cliffie, I'll post both chapters in one day. As for the whole reason that he had Tensaiga created... I always wondered what caused the great Dog General tocreate such a sword... and this idea came to me and I just had to run with it - I hadn't seen it done before so...

Hope everyone enjoys!

Amber