InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Jezebel ( Chapter 13 )

~Chapter 13~

~~Jezebel~~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“You were attacked by the evil can opener of doom?” Isabelle said into the silence, interrupting the scratch of the ink pen in Griffin's hand on the notebook beside him.

 

He didn't look up, and he didn't even pause. “Yes,” he said dryly, tapping his claws on the arm of the chair.

 

“I thought so!” she exclaimed with a little giggle as she snapped her fingers.

 

“It says here that they were ready to start assembling a case study group,” Griffin muttered, ignoring Isabelle's commentary as he scowled at the journal.

 

“Really? Then they were almost finished with the research,” she mused, more to herself than to Griffin. “Wow . . . I hadn't thought . . . then that means . . . this is huge!”

 

He grunted in response.

 

Isabelle shot to her feet and hurried over, pushing herself onto the desk and leaning forward to gain Griffin's full attention. He looked a little surprised at her sudden show of tenacity, and he blinked quickly before leaning back and slowly shaking his head. “Seriously, Griffin! If they were ready to assemble test groups, then that means that that's all I'll really have to do once I study the notes! This is big—bigger than big! Bigger than my big, fat ass! Huge!”

 

Rolling his eyes, he didn't seem to share her enthusiasm. “Isabelle, before you go running off thinking that you're being given the keys to the city, you need to consider that you might want to look into it more than they had . . . and finding a study group for this sort of research might not be as simple as you think.”

 

“I know,” she agreed, waving a hand dismissively. “I mean, this sort of thing isn't something you want to test on just anyone. There're so many factors to consider . . . family ties, susceptibility . . . trust . . . I mean, this isn't the sort of thing that you want everyone to know about, right? But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that the ultimate test is something that I'm not sure can be handled. Think about it: hanyous only lose themselves to their youkai blood if their lives are in danger, right? We can't go around putting people in danger just to see whether or not the inoculation worked . . .”

 

He sat back, tossing the ink pen down on the tablet as he finally gave Isabelle his full attention. He seemed a little surprised, but she didn't stop to question it. No, her mind was moving a million miles a minute as she tried to comprehend the vastness of the research and of what it could mean. It was clear to her that there would have to be a way to test the hanyous, but short of nearly killing them, she wasn't sure how.

 

“You can figure that out when the time comes, can't you?” he asked slowly, grimacing as he flexed the fingers on his right hand.

 

Isabelle scooped some cream out of the plain white canister and reached for Griffin's hand. “It'll take a lot of thought, sure, but . . . there's got to be a way, right? Maybe they wrote something in the research on how they were planning on going about the testing, in the first place. After all, if they were ready to start assembling a clinical study, then they had to have thought all this through, wouldn't you say?”

 

Griffin grunted—his normal positive response—and tried to tug his hand away. “Maybe,” he agreed noncommittally. “Let go, will you?”

 

“Does that mean you're finished translating the journal?” she asked, ignoring his demand that she back off.

 

“Yes,” he allowed, rolling his eyes as he heaved a sigh and stretched his arm out a little further. He'd given up days ago, albeit completely ungraciously, when he'd figured out that she wasn't going to leave him alone about the salve. Still, he felt it was his responsibility to protest every time—a habit that never failed to make Isabelle smile.

 

She laughed, feeling entirely exultant, all things considered. “I can't believe it,” she mused seconds before her enthusiasm seemed to wane slightly. “It'll take longer to translate the actual research, won't it?”

 

He nodded, grimacing when she hit a particularly tender spot.

 

Intense and immediate concern filled her gaze, and she stopped rubbing though she didn't let go of his hand. “Oh, did I hurt you?”

 

He shook his head, but she could see his jaws bulging. He always said that he was fine, refusing to admit that anything pained him. She supposed it was normal for him. Griffin . . . he just wasn't one to complain.

 

“Is it helping at all?”

 

He grunted in response. She figured it was a good enough answer. The mixture of soothing herbs was doing its job, and that was enough, she supposed. “I've told you, right? I don't need that stuff.”

 

“So you say; so you say,” she agreed mildly enough as she studiously studied the scar tissue. Griffin snorted and tried to tug away. Isabelle responded by neatly locking his arm under hers. “Sit still,” she reprimanded when he shot her a baleful glower.

 

“I'll have you know I'm centuries older than you, little girl, so don't take that tone with me,” he pointed out.

 

“Centuries?” she replied, arching an eyebrow but holding tight to his arm just the same. “You don't say . . . how many centuries, Dr. Griffin?”

 

“Marin,” he grumbled with a shake of his head.

 

“You're ignoring the question,” she pointed out.

 

“I'm not,” he growled. “A few.”

 

“What kind of answer is that?”

 

“The only kind that a nosy cub like you deserves.”

 

“Nosy, maybe. Cub? I don't think so,” she quipped with a gentle smile. Griffin blinked and snorted, his cheeks pinking just a touch. “Why don't we go for a walk later?”

 

He rolled his eyes, probably at her inherent ability to change subjects at the drop of a hat. “I go for walks every day. You're the one who'd rather sit around on your fat ass.”

 

“But you're the one who says you'd rather eat dirt than go on walks with me,” she retorted though not unkindly. “Anyway, it's a nice day for once. It'd be a shame to waste it, don't you think?”

 

His snort was loud and quite pronounced. She didn't doubt for a second that the man was trying to come up with a feasible reason why taking a walk with her would be a bad idea, so she was rather surprised when he ducked his chin to glower at the floor, cheeks pinking as his brows furrowed, and he shrugged. “Never said anything about eating dirt,” he mumbled so low that Isabelle almost missed it.

 

“So I was exaggerating a little,” she replied with a flutter of her hand before scooping a little more ointment out of the jar and retuning her attention to Griffin's hand. “You think I'm preferable to dirt?”

 

“That's not really saying all that much,” Griffin grouched. “Dirt's pretty low on the food chain.”

 

“Ah, so you will go for a walk with me!”

 

He flinched again and tried to hide it. Isabelle pretended not to have noticed. “Will it shut you up?”

 

She shrugged. “Maybe, but I doubt it.”

 

He heaved an exaggeratedly heavy sigh. “I didn't figure it would.”

 

“But that's a yes?”

 

“It's a maybe,” he corrected.

 

“May bees don't fly in November,” she said.

 

Griffin shot her a quick glance, the corners of his lips twitching the tiniest bit. Isabelle blinked in surprise and stopped to stare at him. It was as close to a smile as she'd ever seen on his face, and while it was far from what the expression should have been, it was enough to add a hint of a sparkle to his eyes, even the left one that was permanently half-closed because of the buildup of scar tissue around it. The effect was shocking, really, removing years from Griffin's perceived age; dissipating the permanent worry lines that seemed to be embedded on his brow . . . She felt her heart skip a beat, felt it plunge all the way down to her toes before slamming back up only to lodge in her throat, and for a moment, she couldn't do anything more than stare.

 

All too soon, he looked away, and the amusement she'd seen hints of dissipated. “Are you done?” he asked, tugging on his hand for good measure.

 

Isabelle stifled a sigh and forced a small smile. “That'll do for now. I'll apply more later,” she said.

 

His answer was a curt snort as he pushed himself out of his seat to lumber off toward the kitchen for something to drink.

 

She watched him go, crossing her arms over her belly as a thoughtful frown replaced the wan expression on her face. He'd completely unsettled her, hadn't he? With nothing more than the barest trace of a smile, he'd completely taken her by surprise . . . If he really smiled, just how badly could he devastate her senses? she wondered.

 

A little tremor raced through her, and she closed her eyes for a moment to steady rioting senses. She had a feeling that he could possess her completely if he tried . . .

 

The only question was, how could she make him want it, too?

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

The steel door swung closed with a bang that echoed off the cinderblock walls as the watery light of the fluorescent bulbs high overhead flickered and danced. Rounding the corner, he ran down the steps, the soles of his shoes whispering against the marble tiled floor as he headed for the dimly lit hallway in the basement of the nondescript office building.

 

Chill air with the lingering stench of dampness greeted him as he strode down the corridor. The light from the stairwell evaporated, leaving behind a filmy darkness that lingered somewhere between gray and black. Blinking red lights monitored all movement—he was used to the set up by now. It used to disconcert him a little, and the first time he'd made the trek down here, he'd been unable to control the edginess that had left his hanyou ears twitching to intercept every little sound. The clank and hum of the power generator housed in the bowels of the building rattled to life as the maintenance cycle kicked in.

 

Checking his watch, he paused long enough to press the tiny button, illuminating the timepiece in a blue glow. Six-thirty, it said. Bas and Sydnie had stayed longer than usual. They were making progress on a case out of Brazil—a viper-youkai child who had disappeared more than ten years ago without leaving a clue as to where or why . . .

 

A solitary light did little to dispel the darkness, casting harsh shadows around the door at the end of the hallway. The sleeping access panel beside the door beeped once as he slapped his hand against the sensor and waited for the air lock to release.

 

A longer beep followed by a metallic click sounded seconds before a hiss of air signaled the release of the lock. Pushing the door open, he blinked as he stepped inside, the brighter light a little disconcerting after the dimness of the hallway . . .

 

“So?” he demanded, wasting no time getting straight to the point when he spotted her sitting at the large metal desk situated in the small corner cubicle she used as her make-shift office.

 

Myrna Loy shifted her gaze to the side, peering up at the carefully blanked expression on Gunnar's face without moving her head—an entirely coy maneuver if he ever saw one. The halogen lamp on the desk reflected off her skin in a harsh sort of way, casting owlish shadows over her features that he supposed could be considered mysterious. From his vantage point, it all seemed a little melodramatic. “So?” she drawled without batting an eye.

 

She'd worked for the youkai special crimes office since its inception nearly nine years ago. She used to work for a bounty hunter organization until it had been summarily destroyed by Bas Zelig. They'd been hired to hunt Bas' wife, Sydnie—that was how the two of them had met—and Myrna had been the sole survivor in the end. She had decided it was in her best interests to cooperate with Cain Zelig, thereby saving her neck in the process. Now she lived and worked here, and she was afforded very few freedoms. None, actually, Gunnar had to admit, though Myrna didn't seem to mind the confinement. She was, however, treated very well otherwise. Aside from not being allowed to leave the apartment that had been specially outfitted for her, she was given every conceivable amenity as payment for her efforts.

 

All that aside, Myrna was the absolute best at what she did: gathering intelligence, she called it, and when Gunnar wanted to get under her skin, he called it what it really was: being nosy.

 

Too bad he wasn't in the mood for any of Myrna's little games. It'd been nearly a month since he'd set her on the task of digging up everything she could find on one Griffin Marin. If she still didn't have anything, he'd know why . . .

 

“Cut the crap, will you?” he growled, unable to keep the trace irritation out of his tone. He wasn't certain why he felt as though time was of the essence. He didn't understand the strange unease he felt whenever he thought about the idea of Isabelle living with him. All he knew was that on some base level, something didn't feel right to him. Maybe it was the secrecy that shrouded the bear-youkai—why else wouldn't he want any sort of recognition for translating the research? Even then, Gunner would be lax if he didn't do a background check on anyone who had access to that research. After all, if Dr. Avis had been willing to have Jillian Zelig Jamison kidnapped to get his hands on it, then that spoke volumes about the magnitude of the project, didn't it? Isabelle had admitted that much, too. No, this was something that needed to be done even if Isabelle didn't like it. In the end, she'd understand, or maybe she wouldn't, but he'd sleep better at night if he knew exactly who Griffin was and what his ulterior motives really were.

 

“My, my . . . someone bite your tail, pretty puppy?” she intoned, a hint of a smile quirking her lips as she leaned back far enough to level him with an amused stare.

 

“Not today, Myrna,” he warned. “Just tell me you've found something out.”

 

That drew a deep sigh from her, and Gunnar's scowl darkened. It wasn't often that Myrna let something like that slip, and it didn't bode well, in his estimation.

 

“How old is this youkai?” she countered, leveling a thoughtful frown at him.

 

Gunnar shook his head. “I don't know, but I got the impression from Izzy that he's been around for a while . . . why?”

 

Myrna stood up suddenly, her chair sliding back another couple of feet with the abruptness of her movement. Planting her hands on the small of her back, she rolled her head, rotated her shoulders before swiping up the empty coffee mug off the desk and striding over to the kitchen counter, her heels echoing obscenely loudly against the cold marble floor. “And if I were to tell you that he's only forty-five?” she challenged almost nonchalantly—almost.

 

“Not possible,” he stated flatly. “Try again.”

 

She shook her head and didn't look up as she poured coffee into the mug. “Want some?” she asked, lifting the carafe enough to emphasize the offer. Gunnar waved her off with a flick of his wrist. Deliberately taking her time, she carefully dropped one spoonful of sugar into the cup and reached for a small stainless steel spoon. “Actually, more like forty-seven if you want to be exact,” she went on, wiping the spoon against the rim of the mug before setting it on a napkin on the counter. “Almost forty-eight.”

 

“I told you, that's not possible,” Gunnar reiterated, scowling at Myrna as though he believed she was being contentious for the sake of the act.

 

Downing the hot liquid in a series of gulps, Myrna slammed the mug down and shot Gunnar a quelling glance as she strode back to the desk to snatch a paper off the neat surface. “Griffin Marin, born April 14, 2017, in Portsmouth, Maine, making him forty-seven years old; no record of name change, no indication that he ever existed prior to that date.”

 

Gunnar grunted. “Parents?”

 

“John and Jane Marin, both deceased.”

 

Lips curling back in a cynical sneer, Gunnar slowly nodded. “Of course they are . . . but there's no way in hell he could possibly be only forty-seven years old.”

 

“Unless Isabelle was mistaken about his age?”

 

That earned her a very decisive snort. “Not possible. Isabelle's a doctor. She'd be able to guesstimate an age well enough, and I daresay she wouldn't consider fortyish to be `old', given the ages of many of her relatives that she doesn't consider `old'.”

 

“Be that as it may, I'm telling you that this guy did not exist prior to 2017—2016 if you count in-utero,” Myrna shot back, quirking an eyebrow.

 

“Dig deeper,” Gunnar demanded, crossing his arms over his chest as he leveled a condescending scowl at the woman.

 

She heaved and exasperated sigh as though Gunnar were sorely trying her patience and rubbed her forehead as she dropped the paper onto her desk once more. “There is no paper trail,” she insisted slowly, carefully, measuring her words very precisely. “None.”

 

“There has to be.”

 

“Yeah, if he did exist before then, but I'm telling you there isn't one. Either this guy isn't nearly as old as you seem to think or—”

 

“Or he's done a dead-bang job of hiding his past existence,” Gunnar cut in, scowl darkening as a hard glint entered his gaze.

 

“Yeah, but that's not something easily done,” Myrna protested, dropping into her chair and rubbing the back of her neck with a tired hand. “I've been digging and digging for days, and I've been stonewalled every single time. There was no Griffin Marin and no incarnation of the name in existence prior to 2017 . . . and even if he did manage to completely reinvent himself, then there's no real way to trace him unless we happen to stumble upon someone who knew him before.”

 

“Isn't that what you're here to do?” Gunnar challenged.

 

Myrna blinked and shook her head, unconsciously adjusting the small electronic locator on her wrist that monitored her imprisonment. “I suppose . . . fact remains that if he is older . . . if he was able to bury his past . . .”

 

Gunnar nodded, understanding Myrna's unspoken assertion. “Then he had help. Good. It shouldn't be so difficult to trace him. There aren't many with the knowledge and the wherewithal to accomplish something like that; not in this day and age.”

 

She fell silent for a moment, as though she were considering her options. Gunnar was too preoccupied to notice. Striding over, he snagged the info sheet off Myrna's desk and read through it with a scowl. “Completely unremarkable, huh? Average grades in school, average grades in college . . . average house, average job . . . average everything . . .”

 

“Absolutely nothing to draw notice,” she mused as a slow smile turned up the corners of her lips. “Or maybe a little too average . . . is that what you're getting at?”

 

Gunnar nodded once more, golden eyes glowing with an independent light. “Something like that.”

 

“You know, Cain might know this guy if he really is older, don't you think?”

 

Gunnar's jaw tightened as he considered Myrna's words. “Sure,” he agreed easily enough. “Thing is, Isabelle made me promise not to tell him about it.”

 

That earned him a rather droll look tinged by misplaced amusement. “Oh? And since when do you let anyone swindle a promise like that out of you?”

 

“Mind your own business, Myrna,” Gunnar said with a snort. “In any case, I never go back on my word.”

 

“Okay, you promised her you wouldn't ask Cain . . . what about Ben? He's older than dirt.”

 

“An observation that he would likely dispute,” Gunnar scoffed.

 

“Maybe, but you know as well as I do that Ben knows just about everyone, and if he doesn't know them personally, it's a fair bet that he's at least heard of them.”

 

Dragging a hand over his face, Gunnar shook his head. “I thought you knew of just about everyone,” he goaded.

 

Myrna waved a hand in blatant dismissal. “Incidentals, my pet. As much as I'd love to brag that I do, I don't. Anyway, you could ask him.”

 

Gunnar snorted, restraining the desire to crumple the paper in his hand. “No, I couldn't. If I did, Cain would know about it in a second. Ben never keeps anything from him, you realize.”

 

“Hmm, I suppose,” she agreed. “There are a few more people I can try . . . but I'm warning you, I'm not too optimistic that I'll get any answers.”

 

“Just do what you have to do,” he retorted. “Otherwise I might start thinking that you're slipping.”

 

“Bite your tongue, Gunnar Inutaisho,” she replied.

 

“Call me if you find out anything—and I do mean anything,” he said, letting the info-sheet float down onto the desktop once more.

 

“Certainly,” she allowed. “Next time you come down here, bring me a slice of cheesecake, will you? I've been dying for some.”

 

Gunnar almost smiled as he headed for the door. Not quite, but almost . . . “I'll see what I can do,” he called back over his shoulder. “Get more information for me, and I might even bring you a whole one.”

 

Her laughter followed him out of the makeshift apartment. Still, he couldn't quite shake the questions that seemed to loom even larger in his mind. All the information Myrna had managed to dig up only led to a host of improbabilities that ticked him off even more. Griffin Marin really was running from something, wasn't he, and as much as Isabelle might not want to acknowledge it, men did not go to such lengths if they didn't have things to hide. There was something else going on. Gunnar could feel it; there was another reason why this bear-youkai didn't want anyone to know about his past: a deeper reason.

 

“What about Ben . . .?”

 

Scowl darkening as he strode back down the hallway toward the stairs, Gunnar raked a long-fingered hand through his hair. It was true that Ben had met pretty much every youkai living in North America at some point or another, and it was entirely likely that he might even know Griffin Marin. Too bad Gunnar wasn't kidding about the idea that Cain would know within the day if Gunnar made such an inquiry. Ben was loyal to a fault—not a bad thing, but . . . But he'd made that promise to Isabelle, and he'd keep it though at the moment, he sorely wished he'd told her that there was no way come hell or high water that he'd make such a vow . . .

 

All in all, Gunnar couldn't help but feel like ripping something to pieces. Frustration never had sat well with the future Japanese tai-youkai, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he was going to be suffering more than his fair share of that particular emotion before the mystery surrounding Griffin Marin was solved . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Isabelle pulled groceries out of the brown paper sack and heaved a sigh, wishing she could just leave the items on the counter until after she'd gotten a little sleep but knowing that doing so would drive Griffin crazy. She'd stopped on her way home from the hospital to pick up a few things, but as it was, she just wanted to drop into her bed and not move for a few days.

 

It had been a really horrific day, all told. After such a nice day off the day before, she'd been rudely awakened the moment she'd walked through the doors at work when one of the nurses had thrust a clipboard into her hand, and she'd only had a moment to look over the incident report—an accident: school bus versus semi—before the first of the patients had been rushed in.

 

Twelve hours later, they'd finally managed to finish taking care of everyone, but they'd lost two children all totaled, and she couldn't get the image of those two little faces out of her head. She was used to losing patients now and again, certainly, but children were always harder to reconcile in her mind.

 

She sighed, rubbing her eyes with a slightly shaking hand. At least one good thing had happened. One of the children's doctors had come in to help out with the traumas, and she'd gotten a chance to talk to him later over a cup of half-cold coffee. He'd offered her a job at his local clinic: a staff position with regular hours and her name on the door, and Isabelle . . . well, she supposed that she might well be ready to make that sort of change . . .

 

Besides not having to work twelve or eighteen hour shifts, she'd have regular days off and more importantly, she'd be working in the area that she'd actually specialized in during college: pediatrics. All in all, it would allow her the freedom to work on the research as Griffin translated it, and she wouldn't feel so worn down all the time. In the beginning, the satisfaction she got from helping people in their hours of need was fulfilling, and it still was, but more and more frequently of late, she'd felt so drained that she'd often wondered if she weren't spreading herself just a little too thin, and to that end, she'd called her father since he'd understand that better than anyone.

 

“Baby, you need to do what is best for you,” he'd said in that rather philosophical tone that normally meant that he was carefully considering the way he stated something.

 

She could hear the rattle of the newspaper as Izayoi Kichiro folded it and set it aside. “I know,” she'd allowed unhappily picking at a stray thread on the worn quilt that covered her bed. “I love helping people, but . . .”

 

“But it's wearing you down,” he finished. In her head she could see him sitting in the thickly cushioned chair behind his desk in the quiet of his study, his gaze trained out the generous windows that lined the far wall and overlooked the backyard in the midst of InuYasha's Forest on the outskirts of Tokyo. “Maybe it's time to look for something else—something a little less stressful.”

 

She smiled a little sadly, a little ruefully. “You wouldn't think I was taking a cop-out, would you?”

 

He snorted. “Hell, no. Admitting that you've had enough of something isn't a cop out, Baby-Belle, and you know it.”

 

“Thank you, Papa.”

 

He chuckled, the warmth, the richness of the sound comforting her even over the expanse of distance between them. “You're welcome . . . and maybe it's time for a visit home?”

 

Her smile broadened as a soft laugh escaped her. “Soon, I promise. Give Mama my love.”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

And the line had gone dead.

 

“You all right?”

 

Isabelle squealed and jumped when the rumble of a deep voice shattered the reverie. She hadn't heard Griffin enter the room, and he scowled at her. “For the love of all that is holy, woman, must you do that?” he grumbled.

 

Clutching her chest, she slumped against the counter and drew a few deep, steadying breaths. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't hear you come in.”

 

That earned her an even darker scowl, and Griffin grunted tersely before digging into the bag. “Clean out your ears once in a while.”

 

She managed a weak laugh at that but it was cut short by a wide yawn. Griffin cocked an eyebrow at her as he slipped a few packages of steak into the meat drawer. For a moment, she thought he was going to make some sort of comment. He didn't, though he did shake his head slowly as he continued to put things away.

 

Froofie wandered into the kitchen, his claws clicking lightly against the wood floor. He looked up at Isabelle and wagged his tail then glanced at Griffin and whined softly.

 

“Forget it, fat-so. You just think you're still hungry,” Griffin remarked.

 

Isabelle couldn't help the little smile that surfaced. “Are you still insisting that he only needs to eat once a day?” she countered.

 

“Yes,” he said.

 

“But my baby's a growing boy; yes he is!” she crooned, hunkering down and grasping Froofie's ruff of hair as she smacked a loud kiss on the animal's head.

 

Griffin snorted. “He's not a baby, and he's not growing,” he complained. “He's fine; just fine.”

 

Isabelle wrinkled her nose but let go of the dog and pushed herself back to her feet. “So you say, Dr. G., but he says he's hungry.”

 

“Forget it,” Griffin asserted, carefully folding the paper sack and pulling another one toward him. “Did you buy the entire grocery store?”

 

“Hmm, just half of it,” she quipped, reaching around him to delve into the bag.

 

He slapped her hand and nudged her with his shoulder. “Back off, girly. I'm busy; can't you see?”

 

Waving him off as she stifled another yawn with the back of her hand, Isabelle couldn't answer right away. “Since when do you take any sort of interest in the groceries that I buy?”

 

He shot her a droll look. “Since I've decided that you do a terrible job of feeding yourself,” he shot back.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Hmph. Yes. From now on, you're not allowed to go grocery shopping, and I use that term very loosely.”

 

Arching an eyebrow as she contemplated the wide expanse of Griffin's back, Isabelle bit her bottom lip and smiled to herself. Opening the cupboard behind her, she retrieved the bag of honey roasted pecans that she'd already put away. “All right, but if I can't go grocery shopping anymore, then just who is going to buy these for you?” she countered.

 

He stopped still and slowly glanced over his shoulder as Isabelle's triumphant grin widened. Standing the way he was, she could only see the scarred side of his face, and she couldn't help the little flutter that welled up inside her. Though she'd realized long ago that his scarring really did bother him, she couldn't help but think that what he viewed as imperfections were perfect on him, just the same. The scars didn't diminish the effect he had on her; not in the least. The mysterious air it lent him unsettled her completely, and maybe that was the real reason she'd been so drawn to him in the beginning. She'd never met another man like him, and she knew that she never would again.

 

But he turned to face her, his gaze never leaving the bag she held in her hand. She opened her mouth to tell him that maybe if he asked nicely, she'd consider sharing with him. He shot his hand out, snagging the bag, and neatly plucked it out of her grasp, turning on his heel and striding out of the kitchen, leaving a gape-mouthed Isabelle staring rather dumbly in his wake.

 

“Oh, it's on!” she muttered under her breath, darting out of the room to intercept the pecan thief. “Hand them over, big guy,” she said, catching his arm and tugging.

 

He shook her off easily enough. He'd already managed to open the bag—the twist tie was lying on the dining table—and was in the process of eating, looking absolutely triumphant as he made a show of dropping the pecans into his mouth, one by one. “I told you before. These are rent.”

 

“I already paid your `rent',” she insisted, reaching for the bag and growling when he neatly whipped them away, hefting them over his head so that she couldn't reach them. “Now share!”

 

“Sharing's overrated,” he stated flatly.

 

“Spoken like a true spoiled man,” she rebutted, hopping up in hopes of snagging the bag, to no avail. “You know damn well that you want to share your nuts with me.”

 

“Oh, I don't think I do.”

 

She couldn't help the secretive little grin. “Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

She sauntered closer, ran the tip of her claw down the center of his blue cotton shirt. “But I promise you: you'd like it if you let me . . . share your nuts.”

 

He blinked suddenly, face reddening as the implications of her double entendre sank in, and Isabelle laughed. “Jezebel,” he mumbled as the color in his cheeks darkened just a little more.

 

“Jezebel?” she echoed, pondering his accusation for a full minute before throwing her head back and laughing. “Jezebel! I love it!”

 

“You would. It wasn't a compliment.”

 

“I'll be your Jezebel,” she promised with a wink.

 

“I don't think so,” he said with as much finality as he could muster, “and you're breaking your promise.”

 

“Promise?”

 

“Yes, your promise. You said you'd agree not to hit on me while I translated your research notes.”

 

She heaved a sigh and stepped back, letting her arms drop at her sides in abject defeat. “That was a deal forged by Loki,” she informed him.

 

“But you agreed.”

 

She made a face but nodded once. “That doesn't mean you get to keep that entire bag for yourself,” she said, hopping up and down once more as she tried in vain to snag the pecans.

 

Griffin grunted. “Knock it off before you break the floor,” he said.

 

“Good. I'll get the nuts back and get to see what you're hiding in the basement!” she retorted as she kept hopping.

 

“Face it, fat ass; you're too short to do anything but talk big.”

 

She snorted and glanced around before scrambling onto one of the dining room chairs and leaning against Griffin's shoulder as she stretched to reach the bag. “We'll see about that, Dr. Marin.”

 

“Ugh, you weigh a ton,” he complained waving his arm almost lazily, taunting her without words since she still couldn't reach the pecans. “Don't break my chair.”

 

“As if!”

 

“Well, your ass is as big as the entire eastern seaboard, so—” he started to say but was cut short when a loud, splintering crack boomed through the house.

 

It happened so fast that Isabelle didn't have time to scream. The world became a blur of motion as the chair buckled beneath her, and the sensation of falling was interrupted as two strong arms caught her. Squeezing her eyes closed, she swallowed hard, willing the painful pounding of her heart to still as she tried to understand just what had happened. The house was dead silent aside from the tremendous thumping echoing in her ears, and in the chaos, it took her a moment to discern what it was.

 

Griffin was holding her so tightly that she couldn't rightfully breathe. Smashed against his chest, the sound she heard was the erratic pounding of his heart. Gradually, his grip loosened though he made no move to let her go, which was fine with Isabelle. Leaning back in his arms, she opened her eyes only to see that he had his squeezed closed, his face leeched of color and looking quite pale in the graying light of evening filtering through the windows. His chest heaved with his shallow breathing as he swallowed hard, and when he finally opened his eyes, he stared at her with such intensity that it made her catch her breath all over again.

 

His gaze raked over her features as though he expected her to be injured. `Silly,' she thought absently. She wasn't high enough to hurt herself . . .

 

Still he didn't make any move to let her go, and staring up at him, unable to form a coherent word, she couldn't rightly complain about the situation, either. If he realized exactly what was going on, he didn't give a clue, and as he stared at her, she could feel the stuttering heat that burgeoned deep inside her. He shook his head slightly, as though he didn't really understand exactly what was happening, his brow furrowing as his lips slowly parted. Color slowly crept into his skin once more as the unsettling brightness in his gaze shifted into something far headier. Isabelle's breath caught in her throat as a whisper of cognizant thought infiltrated her mind. `He . . . he wants to . . . kiss . . . me . . .'

 

She could see it in his eyes, half-closed, as though he was caught in a trance, and maybe he was. She lifted a hand, placed it against his chest, could feel his muscles jerking under her touch. As if the entirety of her existence had led her to this one moment, she couldn't think of a single reason to fight the emotion that surged through her. The consuming sense of absolute perfection seemed to wrap around her—around the both of them, and in that moment, she knew that he felt it, too. They belonged together; the knowledge more of an unvoiced understanding than any sort of decision, and as he leaned in just a little closer, she couldn't help the soft little sigh that escaped her as the moisture of his ragged breaths condensed on her lips.

 

The unwelcome rattle of a plastic bag broke through the idyll that encompassed them. With a start, Griffin jerked back, blinking vacantly as slow understanding dawned on him. The greedy smack of jaws resounded in the quiet as Froofie helped himself to the forgotten bag of pecans lying haphazardly on the floor. He'd obviously already eaten the ones that had fallen out of the bag and was content to forage in the bag for the rest of them.

 

Griffin let go of her so suddenly that Isabelle had to grab his shoulders to keep from slipping off his lap and onto the floor. He winced and shoved her aside before grasping her wrists and tugging her hands free, but she couldn't credit the almost sickened look on his face; couldn't comprehend why he seemed so entirely disgusted. Bracing his weight on a shaking hand that he place on the floor, Griffin pushed himself to his feet and strode out of the room without a word and without looking back. Isabelle sighed, grimacing as his bedroom door slammed closed moments later, and she wrapped her arms around her ankles, burying her face in the cradle of her raised knees.

 

`Why . . .?' she asked herself, shaking her head as her hot, dry eyes throbbed, burned. `Why did he . . . walk away . . .?'

 

For once her youkai remained conspicuously silent, offering her neither censure nor comfort with only the sound of Froofie's feast echoing in the quiet.

 

 

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A/N:

Jezebel: The wife of Ahab, king of king of Israel. (I Kings 16:31, the Bible.) … She was known for being a wicked, shameless woman.

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Reviewers

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MMorg

smallflower ------ Jester08 ------ Tarzan14 ------ Simonkal of Inuy ------ OROsan0677 ------ indigorrain ------ silveraliora ------ Kyasumi ------ leeksandmisosoup

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Forum Reviews

psyco_chick32 ------ My Own Self ------ Proforce ------ cutechick18 ------ MouF ------ Heoeca (I hope your father is feeling better very soon!!!) ------ stefikittie ------ OROsan0677 ------ Firedemon86 ------ angelfire777 ------ kds1222 ------ Chva the Mai-Coh

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Final Thought fromIsabelle:

Jezebel, huh …?

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Avouchment): I do not claim any rights to InuYashaor the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~