InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Courage ( Chapter 64 )

~~Chapter 64~~

~Courage~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Griffin pushed a low hanging branch aside and waited for Samantha to pass before carefully letting go of it and resuming his gait along the packed dirt path that he'd worn through the forest. The intent had been to go for a simple walk away from the alternate universe his nice, tranquil house had somehow morphed into. In the course of a week since Isabelle's mother and youngest sister had arrived, his blissful quiet had been shattered with lots of female laughter, dinners with her immediate family that Griffin had somehow been talked into allowing, hushed whispers that stopped the second he walked into a room and started up again when he left it, and worse, her cousin . . .

 

He sighed and moved a little faster. Mamoruzen was still in residence though he'd reverted back to his hanyou form a couple of days ago. Still weak and obviously not well, he didn't like the arrangement but hadn't managed to extricate himself from Isabelle's clutches yet, anyway, and as much as Griffin hated to admit it, Mamoruzen's presence was far more unsettling to him than Isabelle's mother, father, and sister, combined. His only real solace, as he saw it, was that as much as he hated the situation, Mamoruzen hated it more.

 

Of course, that didn't explain why he'd let the cub tag along on his walk. No, that was something completely impromptu, but given what he'd inadvertently witnessed, he figured that she was safer with him than she was with her so-called loving sister, the daughter of darkness, Isabelle.

 

He'd ventured into the kitchen to tell Isabelle that he was going to go for a walk, only to stop short when he saw her manhandling her little sister as she tried to lift Samantha's shirt. The younger girl was squirming in an effort to gain her freedom, and Griffin had stared in abject horror as Isabelle had announced very loudly that Samantha needed to stop struggling and let her look at her—and he was quoting—boobies.

 

Apparently, though, Samantha hadn't wanted Isabelle to look at any such things, but the little girl wasn't big enough to fight off Isabelle, and before Griffin knew what he was doing, he'd strode across the floor, pulled Samantha away from Isabelle's clutches, and shoved the girl behind his back.

 

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” he growled, glowering at Isabelle in complete and utter exasperation.

 

She laughed and tried to push Griffin aside. “Mama said that Sami's got pretty little boobies, and I wanted to see!” she insisted.

 

Samantha groaned and huddled against Griffin's back. Griffin snorted loudly and pushed Isabelle back a step. “Leave her alone, Jezebel,” he countered. “She's a good girl, and you're trying to pervert her.”

 

Isabelle was undaunted. “But Mama said that she had really lovely nipples—a really gorgeous shade of mauve—and—”

 

Snorting again—louder this time—to cut her off mid-sentence, he shook his head almost violently, his cheeks painfully hot, as he narrowed his eyes on Isabelle. “If you want to see . . . You have your own. Go look at them,” he snapped. “We're going for a walk, and you're staying here.”

 

He turned on his heel then, grabbing Samantha's arm, and he pulled the girl out of the kitchen behind him, not stopping until they were out of the yard and on the forest trail.

 

Only then had he trusted himself not to die of complete embarrassment, all things considered, and he'd spared the girl a quick glance only to find her smiling up at him in a completely besotted sort of way. “Wh-what?” he stammered, cheeks pinking again though he wasn't entirely sure why.

 

She laughed a little self-consciously and hoppity-skipped beside him. “I knew you were a hero,” she replied happily.

 

“Hero?” he echoed with a shake of his head.

 

She nodded, lacing her fingers together and turning them outward as she wandered along. “Yep! I mean, she and Mama . . . well, they're kind of alike, and . . . and Isabelle's always been like that,” she admitted, her smile diminishing just a little. Shrugging off the thought, she grinned at him again. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

 

He grunted in reply and kept moving, hoping that she'd end the lauding of his virtues there, and luckily she had.

 

They'd been walking for quite awhile now in silence, which was fine with Griffin. It was something he could appreciate about the girl—Samantha. She seemed content enough to watch the happenings around her, whether they were in the house or out here walking, her eyes, her ears, never seemed to stop moving.

 

“Oh . . . a deer . . .” she breathed, stopping in her tracks as she stared into the dense woods.

 

He stopped, too, and narrowed his eyes, finally spotting the animal that Samantha had no trouble locating. Wandering sedately through the tangle of trees, the doe didn't seem to care that she was being observed, and Griffin almost smiled. “They're thicker in the less populated areas,” he commented quietly, more to himself than to the girl. “When I was young, they were all over . . . Everywhere you went, it seemed like they were there . . .”

 

She let out a soft sigh, her eyes darting around only to light on the deer time and again. Nothing got past her, that was certain, and she laughed quietly when the doe, spooked by the loud squawk of a bird, lifted her head then darted away into the cover of the forest.

 

He set out again, absently relishing the slight breeze that lifted his bangs off his forehead. Samantha gazed into the woods for a moment longer before hurrying to catch up with him. “Where did you grow up?” she asked suddenly though he had a feeling that she'd been pondering her question since they'd stopped to watch the deer.

 

“Uh, Japan,” he muttered, hoping that she would let it drop.

 

“Really?”

 

“Y-yeah.”

 

“Where in Japan?”

 

He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Up north,” he mumbled. “Hokkaido . . . probably close to where Sapporo is now.”

 

“Hokkaido? You were from the north,” she replied with an impish grin as her ears flicked to catch the sounds of the forest. “Was your name always Griffin?”

 

He wasn't sure why her question caught him off guard. Faltering in his step, he recovered quickly enough, but not before Samantha noticed. “Uh, no,” he admitted as her smile faded slightly. “E-everyone changes their name sometime, don't they?”

 

“Mama said that Grandpa Cain's name was Zelig when he was small,” she said. “Was yours Marin, then?”

 

“N-no,” he admitted with a frown. “My name . . . my name was . . . Kioshi . . . but that was a long time ago.”

 

“Kioshi,” she echoed thoughtfully then smiled. “I like that name!”

 

“I haven't . . . told anyone that in . . . centuries,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “I don't know why I even said it . . .”

 

“So you told me?” she asked in an awed sort of tone, her deep blue eyes rounding in wonder as she darted ahead and turned around, walking backward as she stared at him.

 

“It's not . . .” he trailed off with an inward grimace. “It's just . . . haven't really had many people to talk to. Didn't really . . . didn't really want to.”

 

She clapped her hands and whirled around, waiting only to fall into step beside him. “You should do it more often. I . . . I like talking to you.”

 

“That's only because the rest of your family is warped,” Griffin intoned with a sigh, leaning on the cane he'd grabbed before stalking out of the house. Gritting his teeth together, he ignored the bitter twinge that was keeping time with his gait.

 

“Do you have to use that?” Samantha asked gently. He spared a glance at her and scowled when he noticed that she was frowning at the cane.

 

“Sometimes,” he admitted, his tone gruff but not unkind.

 

Shifting his gaze to the path ahead, he could feel her eyes on his face, but he tried to ignore it as he made himself move forward.

 

“It's not fair,” she blurted at length as she crossed her arms over her chest and heaved a tumultuous sigh.

 

Griffin glanced at her again, blinking at the petulant little pout on her face. “What's not fair?” he asked, veering off to the left and heading for the thick tree trunk where he normally rested for a few minutes before heading back.

 

She followed him and sat down, hunching forward and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Isabelle and Lexi,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose at the perceived injustice.

 

“What about them?” he questioned since he wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about.

 

Samantha heaved a sigh, slowly shaking her head as her hanyou ears flattened for a moment only to perk up again though they didn't stand up straight by any means. “I wish I were older, too!”

 

He was a little surprised by her emotional outburst, and he still had no idea what she was upset about, anyway. Nodding slowly in agreement since he could allow that life wasn't fair, Griffin heaved a sigh and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his hands hang between. “Older than them, you mean?”

 

She scrunched up her shoulders then let them fall. “No . . . yes . . . maybe.”

 

“Well, that's a decisive answer,” Griffin muttered, more to himself than to the girl. Not for the first time, he had to wonder exactly what planet women were from since none of them had ever made a damn bit of sense to him . . . “How old are you?”

 

“Fourteen,” she mumbled. Griffin had to strain to hear her. “I'll be fifteen in a few weeks, though!”

 

“And being that old is . . . bad?”

 

Samantha twisted a lock of hair around and around her finger before sticking the wispy end in her mouth. “Kind of . . . I used to think that Lexi was so lucky,” she admitted in a tiny voice. “I mean, John's perfect, right? He really is, you know?”

 

Griffin nodded even though he had never met this `John' guy, but Samantha seemed convinced that he was perfect, and that wasn't really the point, was it? “So your sister's mate is perfect,” he concluded with a frown, “and that's not fair?”

 

Samantha sighed and let her hair drop from her fingertips. “Well, yeah . . . Papa and Mama really like him, and he's crazy about Lexi . . . and Isabelle . . . she has you, right? She says that you're her mate, so you must be, right?”

 

The abrupt change in the conversation brought a flush to Griffin's cheeks. “W-w-we, uh . . . m-me?” he stammered then shook his head with a decided snort. “That's just to keep her away from the general populace,” he muttered. “She's a menace.”

 

Samantha laughed just a little then sighed again. “But you love her, right? I mean . . . it's kind of obvious . . .”

 

“I-i-it . . . it is?” he couldn't help asking despite the acute discomfort that he couldn't quite repress.

 

Nodding slowly, Samantha looked even more depressed. Even her hanyou ears dropped—something that disturbed Griffin more than he could say. Absently thinking that he was rather glad that Isabelle didn't have those in her arsenal, he cleared his throat then coughed. “Uh-huh . . .” Samantha murmured, biting her lip in a thoughtful kind of way. “You kind of get this expression when you're looking at her, I guess . . . I mean, you can just tell . . .”

 

“I-I-I do?” he choked, wondering what else people were drawing conclusions about based on what they thought they saw on his face. “What kind of expression?” he asked dubiously.

 

She shrugged. “I don't know . . . kind of like the same as the one that Grandpa InuYasha gets on his face when he looks at my grandma . . . He never talks a lot, you know? But you know he loves Grandma just because he looks at her like that . . .”

 

Clearing his throat nervously, Griffin snorted and wondered if it would look odd were he to whip out a mirror the next time Isabelle was in the vicinity. Somehow, the idea of being that obvious bugged the hell out of him . . .

 

`Of course it's obvious,' his youkai spoke up. `Did you really think it wasn't?'

 

He sighed and pushed himself to his feet once more. That couldn't be right, could it? He'd never actually admitted anything to himself, had he? How could he possibly be that easy to read?

 

“Are you going to marry her?” Samantha asked as she hurried after him.

 

Griffin shot her a quick glance and grunted something completely unintelligible as an explosion of heat erupted under his skin once more. Dancing along beside him—he couldn't rightfully call her gait a walk or even a skip—he noticed in a distracted sort of way that she really was nothing but arms and legs, and stick skinny ones, at that.

 

“I mean, you will, won't you? I still think it's a little unfair. I don't think there're going to be any decent guys when I get old enough to find my mate . . .”

 

“Well . . . you're . . . a little . . . young, aren't you?” Griffin forced himself to say. To be honest, he wasn't sure why he kept answering her questions. Then again, he got the feeling that she didn't say as much to her parents. They seemed like an open-minded sort, maybe a little too open-minded. After all, if her mama had told Isabelle about Samantha's—chest—then he supposed he couldn't fault her for not wanting to say more to her, anyway.

 

“That's what Papa said,” she admitted as she slowed her gait and kicked at rock. With a sigh and a shake of her head, she looked completely disgruntled when she said, “Then he asks me if there are any boys in my class that I like.”

 

She sounded so discomfited that Griffin had to smile just a little. “Are there?” he couldn't resist asking.

 

She wrinkled her tiny nose and snorted indelicately. “No . . . and even if there was, boys my age are all stupid and silly. They're either drooling over some anime girl—hello? She's not real!—or trying to peek into the girls' dressing room or stuff like that . . . A couple of them got into a fight over a stupid bento omake the other day . . . Grandpa twisted their ears really hard when he caught them.”

 

Griffin blinked. He'd never done any of that when he was young, had he? Of course, times were much different then. Still . . .

 

He supposed that he'd simply never really given it much thought, had he? He hadn't had a reason to. Times had changed from the world he'd known so very long ago, and maybe living through all those changes had made them seem a little less severe. He'd known, of course, that girls weren't nearly as demure as they had been, but even that hadn't been so strange. Shorter skirts and much more daring behavior—Isabelle was a prime example of the latter—had never been something that he'd noticed, mostly because he hadn't had it foist upon him.

 

Then again . . .

 

Shuffling uncomfortably as the memory of Melissa Thompson and the kiss he hadn't wanted assailed him, Griffin ground his teeth together and tightened his grip on the cane as a wave of hopelessness washed over him. He'd been trying to figure out exactly how to explain it to Isabelle since the afternoon that it had happened, and he was no closer to having an answer for it than he had been. The one time he'd come close to telling her, her family had showed up for dinner, and he hadn't been able to do it, and even if he had, she'd been so preoccupied with her cousin's health that he wasn't entirely sure that she would have listened to him, anyway.

 

`Nice excuses, Griffin,' his youkai muttered. `That's all those are, you know.'

 

Griffin snorted and kept moving. `Not really,' he retorted. `Knowing her, she'd have just said that it was fine without really hearing me.'

 

`And that's not okay, is it?'

 

`Of course it's not!'

 

`Why? Because you want her to blame you and what? Yell at you and curse you? But you know she's not like that, right?'

 

`She . . . she should be . . .'

 

`Maybe,' his youkai agreed with a sigh. `But she's not, and that's what you really can't stand. You hate the idea that she may not be angry at you at all.'

 

“Griffin?”

 

Blinking away the lingering traces of reverie, Griffin glanced at Samantha only to find the girl staring at him in a worried sort of way. “What?”

 

She shrugged a little too carelessly but didn't falter in her step. “You were growling,” she replied.

 

“I . . . I was?”

 

Nodding matter-of-factly, she shrugged again. “You were,” she allowed with a little giggle. “It was cute.”

 

“Cu—?” Cutting himself off abruptly as more color filtered into his cheeks, Griffin clamped his mouth closed and kept moving. Maybe Samantha was more like her sister than he'd wanted to believe . . . or Isabelle really was a disease that could spread like the Plague . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Leaning back in his chair in the darkened corner of the opulent restaurant, Alastair shifted his gaze around, taking in everything about the place in an instant as he waited.

 

He despised the place, damn it all. Filled with the reek of humans, it was, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth as he carefully blanked his expression to keep his utter contempt from showing. `Murphy better have good news for me,' he thought with an inward sigh—a sound that he was loathe to make. Demanding that they meet here, of all places . . . `Yes, it had better be good . . .'

 

“Sorry to keep you waiting, my lord,” Murphy said in lieu of greeting as he hurried over and sank into the chair across from Alastair. “Traffic was terribly thick . . .”

 

“Dispense with the pleasantries,” Alastair commanded. “Traffic, indeed.”

 

Murphy nodded quickly, muttering to the waitress who had wordlessly stopped beside the table, and he waited until she'd moved on before addressing Alastair again. “I have a name.”

 

Alastair nearly smiled. To be truthful, he'd been more than a little irritated that he hadn't had one in the beginning. “Tell me.”

 

Murphy nodded again and paused long enough to accept his drink from the waitress before turning his attention back to the youkai lord once more. “Marin. Griffin Marin.”

 

“Griffin Marin,” Alastair repeated, pondering for a moment whether or not the name meant anything to him. It didn't. “And you're sure?”

 

Nodding as he set the glass of amber liquor aside, Murphy cleared his throat. “Aye, absolutely. I referenced all the people who were registered for the conference, and it seems that Dr. Marin teaches ancient linguistics at the University of Maine—specializes in ancient Indian dialects, he does. He's got tenure, and they tried to make him head of the linguistics department, though he turned them down flat. They say that there isn't another man anywhere who knows as much as he does.”

 

“Maine?” Alastair repeated, his eyes flaring wide. “And you're sure that he isn't working for the Zelig?”

 

“I'm sure. Seems he really is trying to avoid undue attention,” Murphy went on, turning his glass on the table in an absent sort of way. “Where better to hide than right under the tai-youkai's nose?”

 

Alastair wasn't nearly as amused by Murphy's assessment as Murphy was. “What else do you know about him?” he asked pointedly.

 

Chuckling at his own wit, Murphy shook his head and shrugged. “That's about all there is,” he admitted. “The university doesn't have any home address on file—at least, not on public file, that is—and he doesn't have any other common records, either.”

 

“The University of Maine,” Alastair murmured, his gaze shifting from Murphy to stare over his head as Alastair pondered the information he'd been able to glean.

 

Murphy shifted slightly in his seat and licked his lips, looking distinctly uncomfortable for a moment as he cleared his throat to regain Alastair's attention. “Will you . . . do you require anything else of me, my lord?” he asked in a carefully constructed tone.

 

“No,” he decided at length, rising to his feet. Pausing long enough to pull a neatly folded wad of money from his pocket, Alastair peeled off a fifty pound note and dropped it onto the table. “That should cover the cost of your drink,” he remarked baldly before sweeping through the restaurant toward the door.

 

Ignoring the prattling of the human maitre de, he exited the establishment and wrinkled his nose at the stale air of the city—smells that had accumulated in the thousands of years since its inception. Built layer upon layer, the stench was soaked into the very earth, or so it seemed.

 

`Soon enough, though . . . soon enough . . .' Alastair would have the means to do what should have been done long, long ago . . . and Griffin Marin . . . He was going to help whether he wanted to or not . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Pulling off her glasses and rubbing her eye with the inside of her wrist, Isabelle stifled a sigh and pushed the notebook off her lap. Glancing at the clock on the mantle, she let out a deep breath and reached for her cell phone. It was nearly eleven o'clock, and though she was reasonably sure that Gunnar was all right, she'd feel much better if she checked on him. Knowing him, he'd gone straight to the office despite his promise that he wouldn't do any such thing.

 

She hadn't wanted him to go home, at all. He was still a bit weak even if he would never admit as much, and while he wasn't really in any actual danger, she would have felt better if she'd been able to talk him into staying at least a day or two longer.

 

He answered on the third ring, and she wasn't surprised to hear the trace weariness in his voice, either. “Hello, Izzy. I'm just fine, and no, I'm not at the office.”

 

Wrinkling her nose, she snorted. “I hate caller ID,” she muttered, leaning forward, propping her elbow on her knee and rubbing her forehead. “You should be resting, and you'd damn well better not be at the office.”

 

“I've been resting for the last week,” he countered mildly. She could hear the chime of Gunnar's clock in the background—a clock that stood on the mantle in Gunnar's living room. Handcrafted for him as a gift from one of the ancient youkai tribes of northern Japan before his birth, the clock was imbued with a strange sort of youkai power. To her knowledge, it had never needed to be wound, and as beautiful as the intricately carved piece was, the reason that she was so happy to hear it was far simpler to explain. The dulcet sound that tolled the hour at least satisfied Isabelle's worry that her baka cousin would push himself too hard once he left her care.

 

“All the same,” she argued, “don't you dare overdo it. Do you understand?”

 

“You're worrying about nothing,” he commented. “I'll stop by tomorrow for the blood work, just like I promised.”

 

“Okay,” she replied hesitantly. “But if you start to feel bad for any reason, you'd better call me.”

 

“I know; I know.”

 

Pushing herself to her feet, she paced the length of the room and back. “Promise that you're not going to hole yourself up in your study all night looking at case files.”

 

“Well, not all night,” he drawled. “Goodnight, Izzy.”

 

She heaved a sigh. “Night.”

 

Clicking off the device, she crossed her arms over her chest as she wandered into the dining room. A soft glow shone under the basement door—the only sign of light in the duskiness. Pausing on the closed side of it, she bit her lip and frowned. If she knocked, would Griffin let her in? Somehow, she didn't think he would.

 

The distance that she'd felt since she'd foolishly tested the serum on herself felt wider than ever. It was her fault, she knew, and while everything had been pushed aside while she conducted the first real test on Gunnar, she understood deep down that she really did owe the man an apology.

 

Still, it took a few moments for her to garner her resolve enough to raise her fist to rap on the door.

 

She waited for a couple minutes then let out a deep breath as she turned away. She would have been more surprised had he actually opened the door, she supposed. Shaking her head as she shuffled into the living room, she shut off the lights and checked the front door to make sure that it was locked, figuring that she might as well go to bed since it was obvious to her that Griffin still wasn't interested in hearing her apology.

 

That presented a whole other issue, though. Whether he was upset with her or because Gunnar had been staying with them, Griffin also hadn't stepped foot into their bedroom since she'd tested the serum on herself, either, and that was enough to make her want to cry.

 

`Can you blame him?' her youkai blood spoke up. `Sami stayed here almost every night, even after your mother decided that she and your father would stay at your grandfather's house. Even if she hadn't been here, you should know Griffin well enough to realize that he wouldn't be comfortable sharing a bed with you when anyone else was here, even if Mamoruzen wasn't well enough to have noticed at the time.'

 

But she'd hoped, hadn't she? `Mamoruzen went home, and everyone's out at the mansion tonight . . .'

 

`Which doesn't mean that Griffin's not still feeling entirely unsettled. Think about it, Bitty. He's not used to having so many people around all the time, is he? Do you honestly think that he'd be comfortable right away just because they've all left for now?'

 

She supposed that her youkai had a point, even if she hated to admit as much. `It's cute, though, isn't it? Sami really took to him . . . and he didn't seem to mind having her underfoot, now did he?'

 

No, he didn't, and that had both surprised as well as amused her. Of course, everyone loved Sami. It was impossible not to, after all. There was just something about the girl, wasn't there? Isabelle had noticed that, herself, over the years. Still, that Griffin would take to her as quickly as he had was a wonderful thing, as far as Isabelle was concerned, and yet it made her feel a little sad, too. Not for the first time, she had to wonder if having Samantha around had made him think about his own sister—the sister he'd lost so long ago.

 

It didn't take long to change into the oversized shirt she'd swiped from Griffin's side of the closet and brush her teeth, and she'd just slipped into bed when Griffin poked his head into the room, his dark eyes as intense as ever, and that slight scowl that she adored firmly in place. “Don't suppose you're coming to bed?” she asked in what she hoped was a light, if not casual, tone.

 

He blinked and grunted though his cheeks pinked slightly, and for a moment, she thought that he was going to say that he wasn't.

 

“I was going to let you in,” he muttered as he stripped off the long sleeved shirt he wore over his t-shirt then sank into the chair beside the bureau to pull off his socks, too. “Charlie started whining.”

 

“Oh, did he?” she commented absently, curling up on her side and trying not to look too obvious as she watched him. The muscles in his arms rippled and bulged with his movements, and she bit her lip, trying not to be too obvious of her blatant assessment in case he looked at her. Those arms were thick and strong, and even the angry red puckered lines of jagged scars that traversed his flesh could not detract from the overall effect. Smiling wanly, she realized in a vague sort of way that she was clenching a fistful of the coverlet in her hand as her eyes linger on him. Sometime after he'd gotten home from the university, he'd changed into a pair of sweatpants. Scratching the back of his neck, he retrieved the discarded clothing and quietly left the room to put them in the hamper and brush his teeth.

 

Her smile widened slightly as the gurgle of the old pipes rumbled through the quiet house. Running the water for exactly fifteen seconds before shutting the tap off for two minutes, the rumble resumed again, lasted for a full minute more, then stopped for the final time. A creature of habit, he was. She appreciated that about him more than she could credit, and when he padded back into the bedroom once more, she couldn't help the little laugh that escaped her.

 

“Your, uh, cousin's all right, then?” he questioned as he sat on the side of the bed.

 

“He says he is,” she said. “I wish he would have stayed her at least another night or two.”

 

“Your father said that he thought it was all right to let him go home, didn't he?”

 

Leaning up on her elbow as he stretched out beside her, Isabelle shrugged. “It's not that,” she argued a little defensively. “Mamoruzen tends to push himself. He won't slow down just because I've asked him to.”

 

Griffin snorted. “You're worried about nothing.”

 

Tucking a long lock of hair behind her ear, Isabelle shrugged and scooted closer to Griffin's side. “Maybe,” she allowed quietly. “Griffin?”

 

“You're not really going to talk all night, are you, Isabelle?” he asked pointedly.

 

“No, but . . .”

 

He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “'But', what?”

 

“I just wanted to tell you,” she began slowly, “I . . . I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to . . .” trailing off as a sudden and brutal wash of tears stung her eyes, Isabelle forced them back and swallowed hard, “. . . to hurt you.”

 

He shifted slightly and cleared his throat, his body tense under her touch. “Forget it,” he finally muttered. “Just don't . . . don't do anything like that again.”

 

She squirmed closer and kissed his cheek. “I was thoughtless,” she went on. “I should have considered how you'd feel, and I'm sorry . . .”

 

He sighed again and scowled at the ceiling. “Stop apologizing, Isabelle. You don't . . . you don't need to.”

 

“But—”

 

“I mean it,” he interrupted.

 

“. . . Okay,” she relented. Closing her eyes as she settled her cheek against his shoulder, she smiled just a little as he reluctantly slipped his arm around her. The fatigue of the past week was quickly catching up with her. She'd spent hours on end beside Gunnar, making sure that he was as comfortable as he could be, and with the tempered excitement of her family's impromptu visit, it wasn't any wonder that she was so tired, was it? It was the first time in days that she felt completely at ease, lulled by the steady beat of Griffin's heart.

 

“I-I-Isabelle?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Griffin licked his lips and frowned. Her unexpected apology was eating at him, grating on his nerves. Maybe she was wrong to have done what she did, but . . .

 

But it paled in comparison to what he'd done, didn't it? Even if she had made a bad choice, she'd done it for the right reasons—reasons that he could understand, even if he didn't think it had been the best idea at the time. No, she'd done it simply because she couldn't countenance the thought of trying the serum on someone else, and the hell of it was that he could appreciate her dilemma.

 

And then she'd apologized because she thought that she had hurt him.

 

He had to tell her. There was no other way. If she couldn't forgive him, then it was no more than he deserved, wasn't it?

 

Forcing himself to open his mouth, he closed his eyes for a moment. Yes, he had to tell her. He owed her that, didn't he?

 

He glanced at her only to look back again, then he sighed. Fast asleep, she was, not that he could blame her. She'd worked herself silly the past week, fretting over her cousin. To be completely honest, he was surprised that her exhaustion hadn't caught up with her sooner.

 

With a grimace, he clumsily turned enough to wrap his other arm around her, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that accused him of being a coward.

 

And still he allowed himself to hold her, to relish the feel of her. He wasn't entirely certain when he'd first realized that she belonged in his life, and he wasn't sure what he'd ever do if she left him, either. The gentle scent of her lent him a calm that he hadn't realized existed in this world, and he couldn't quite help himself as a bittersweet pang shot through him followed by a fear so thick, so encompassing, that he tightened his arms around her, fighting against the irrational fear that she would somehow slip right through his fingers.

 

“My . . . my . . . mate . . .” he whispered as a single tear slipped down his cheek only to disappear in the tangle of her hair. Squeezing his eyes closed as the words gave way to an insular surge of anxiety that he couldn't contain, Griffin winced as a dull, throbbing pain erupted deep in his chest. He knew, didn't he? He'd known even if he hadn't wanted to admit it. It didn't matter, did it? The truth . . . he knew the truth—exactly what she'd told him from the start.

 

Tightening his arms around her, he willed away the panic, the fear, concentrating on the steady pulse of her youki as it soothed him, reassured him, and this time—only this time—maybe he could be thankful that she was asleep, after all . . .

 

 

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A/N:

Bento: Japanese lunch box that can be purchased at the storeor packed at home.

Omake: a `bonus', normally a figurine or some such that is given away as a promotional item with certain purchases. In this case, Samantha is referencing one that came with a purchased bento.

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SpikeRulesHell:

Gunnar's kinda an interesting guy... I mean, in Phantasm, he seemed like such a laid-back jokester, except for the (few) moments that he was completely serious. Now though, he seems to carry a few traits of the old Sesshomaru. He's incredibly prideful, and I see that he's a bit... I guess the best word would be conceited? After reading The Lesson, I can see where that might have come from. Interesting, though... Oh, and on your website forum, I take it posts over 1 year old are deleted? ...Great chapter(s), though, and I'm glad to see Griffin seems well on his way to accepting Isabelle as his mate. Write on ^^

 

There's a method to my madness, really. In Phantasm, which took place a good number of years before Avouchment, Gunnar was younger, and yes, he acted a bit different. I mean, everyone changes over time, right? Also, he was dealing with Bas in Phantasm, not Isabelle, and while he and Bas are very close (the best of friends, really), Gunnar has a special relationship with Isabelle—more like a big brother and little sister (though technically, Isabelle is a few months older than Gunnar). He has a tendency to let Isabelle see much more of his inner thoughts than he allowsBas or any of his other male contemporaries, for that matter, to see. Think of it this way: Gunnar would never, ever tell Bas about that night in the forest, and even if he hadn't figured out that Isabelle knew about it, he probably would have talked to her about iteventually.

As for the forum? No … It crashed a few months ago, unfortunately, and all the data was lost, which is why everyone has or has had to re-register.

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Reviewers

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MMorg

Jester08 ------ OROsan0677 ------ Starr Stealer ------ free_freeme_free (I remember that username lol) ------ Sesshomaru4Kagura4ever ------ sunshine161820

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Forum Reviews

gin-hayashi85 ------ psycho_chick32 ------ OROsan0677 ------ Proforce ------ cutechick18 ------ sueroxmysox ------ ai_Artista

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Final Thought from Samantha:

I want a teddy bear, too!

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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 InuYasha or 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~