InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Hanyou Wars ❯ Fighting Back ( Chapter 11 )

Disclaimer: They’re still not mine, no matter how much I wish they were.

11. Fighting Back  

The hanyou jerked awake at the feel of something cold against his skin. It had been another difficult night, full of nightmares in which he relived the slavers’ cutting the skin bearing his mark from his mate’s body. He had howled along with her screams of pain as their mating bond had caused him to experience it with her.

He glared at the hooded and cloaked figure that was running a proprietary hand over his naked flesh. “I should have known,” he snarled. “You were behind this all the time, weren’t you?”

The cold voice was unconcerned. “I’ve thought long about our last conversation, when you refused to honor your commitment to me. What gave you the right to choose that copy over me?”

“When we defeated Naraku I fulfilled my obligation to protect you. You no longer have any claim on me or on my mate.”

The cold eyes turned to the woman who hung suspended from the tree, sagging in her chains as she lacked the strength to support her own body. With a disdainful sniff at the small circle of exposed muscle tissue on her shoulder and the dried blood that had flowed down her slender body, the undead miko turned back to her real prey. “I see no indication that this little whore is anybody’s mate. Rutting together like animals does not make you mates.”

He found it strangely easy to ignore her hands as they wandered into territory he would have preferred that she avoid. “A mark doesn’t make a mating. It’s only a visible symbol of a union that’s stronger than time, or place, or even death itself. The likes of you can never disrupt it.”

“Really?” He shuddered in disgust as her chill fingers teased his flesh, finally understanding exactly why his kind tended to mate for life. Was this what his mate had felt when that bastard had touched her mark? He bit back the growl that threatened to force itself from his throat, more than a little pleased that she had not been successful in arousing him. She stepped back slightly, her eyes showing more expression than they had since before her death at Naraku’s claws. “Since you seem to decline my offer to live on as a stud, perhaps you should be gelded like any other animal unworthy of breeding.” She cocked her hear to the side and gave him an appraising look. “Even so, you would still make an amusing pet.”

The growl slipped through just a bit, but it was well below the threshold of human hearing. “Think so, whore? How amusing will it be when I claw that fake body of yours to shreds?”

Pain exploded behind his eyes as someone behind him began swinging a whip that was made up of more than a dozen leather thongs that had each been dipped in molten metal. As the deadly blades slashed into his unprotected skin the undead miko stepped forward once again, closing her cold hand around his flesh and squeezing hard to bring a howl of pain from him. “You underestimate me again, baka. I have much of the deep learning--there are ways to force your body to perform against your will.”

As she pulled her hand away he realized with a sudden shock that she had somehow caused his body to prepare itself for mating despite the disgust he felt at her touch. What the hell kind of magic was this? He only vaguely realized that the whip had stopped falling when the heavy locks holding him to the framework were opened and he was dragged to the middle of the clearing before being thrown to the ground. The five human men holding him in place flipped him over onto his lacerated back, ignoring his feeble struggles, and shackled him to the four stone blocks sunk into the ground.

At a nod from the hooded figure standing over the bound hanyou the others left the clearing to tend to the other captives in the cave nearby. The dead woman walked slowly around the hanyou, muttering some words in a language he had never heard before. By the time she had circled him the third time he realized that he had somehow grown even more painfully erect, a deep groan forcing itself from his throat at the sudden desperate need for release she had inflicted on him.

The undead miko nodded in something resembling satisfaction. “Very impressive. You will make an excellent plaything--surely your natural attributes will allow your new master to achieve great pleasure.”

His only answer was a low, almost subsonic growl. He watched in horrified silence as she undressed quickly, leaving the heavy hood and cloak in place. She moved gracefully to the other woman, yanking her blindfold free, before returning to the bound hanyou. Straddling his hips, she lowered herself until he was firmly seated within her body, ignoring the whimpers of pain as the cold, rough, dry interior of her false body scraped his sensitive flesh. “Now,” she said, rocking her hips above his helpless body, “Give me the pleasure you denied me with your betrayal.”

The woman opened her eyes to the sight of her mate of several years lying on the ground, his breath coming in hoarse pants as her long-ago rival for his affections bounced up and down above his body. Though the act in which they were engaged seemed intimate enough, there was something distant and impersonal about the scene, as though the bodies engaging in it were empty of souls.

Ignoring the pain in her wounded shoulder, her eyes met the golden-amber ones of her mate. Seeing only humiliation, disgust, and pain, she closed her eyes in an emotional pain of her own. It was obvious to her what was happening, although she couldn’t imagine how her previous incarnation had managed to force him to comply.

With tears rising in her eyes at the humiliation her mate was being forced to endure, she could only think of one thing that she could do. Praying to any Kami who might be listening that he would forgive what she was planning, she reached out along the thin thread that connected the two parts of her divided soul, whispering, “Return….”