InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Lies ( Chapter 13 )

Staring out the opened windows at the beautiful mid-May morning, Ashur drew a deep breath and slowly sipped the mug of coffee in his hand, a half-smile tugging on his lips as he watched Jessa and Kells in the garden behind the house.  It kind of looked like they were dancing, but he honestly wasn't entirely sure what they were doing, exactly.  It was keeping the boy entertained, which was saying something, in Ashur's estimation, considering that all he'd talked about for the last three days was the impending arrival of his aunt and uncle and cousins for his birthday . . .

'Three years old . . . Three years ago today . . .'

That thought was enough to obliterate the good mood that Ashur had carried since he'd woken up this morning.

Lying on the stone floor, entirely helpless to do a thing but to watch as Hana literally ripped his mother to shreds, and the horrifying realization that everything he thought he had left was being torn away with every slash of her claws . . . Watching as Hana closed her hands around Yukina's throat, squeezing so hard that he heard the sickening sound of her delicate bones as they crunched and snapped . . . And when the senbon that had held him, immobile, was removed, he hadn't had a choice, had he?  Hadn't had a thing left in the world, but the unborn child still inside his mother's stomach . . . And a dying mother that had watched him with hatred and loathing in her remaining eye as he'd done the only thing he could do—as he'd cut her open and pulled Kells free, even as her body disintegrated in a harsh wind and a bitter gust of dust and dirt . . .

Three years . . .

Heaving a sigh as the sound of the doorbell jerked him out of his unpleasant reverie, Ashur turned on his heel, strode through the house and into the foyer to answer the door.

"Very nice," Ben said, stepping inside as he let Nadia down.  Charity walked in behind her mate and set Emmeline down, too.  It was their first trip up to visit, the first time they saw the house in person instead of a few snapshots that he'd sent.  "I must admit, I didn't picture you as someone who would buy an estate like this, but it's pretty impressive."  True enough, the house was more like a smaller-scale mansion, a lot larger than what he normally would have considered, bigger, actually, than the house that Ben and Charity had built in Maine—maybe twice as large or more.  But something about the place had felt comfortable to him, despite the understated opulence of the house on a whole.  Kells had called it a castle, which it definitely wasn’t, and Jessa?  Well, she’d smiled in quiet approval, mentioned that she loved the airy feel of the place, thanks to the many windows that let in so much natural light . . .

"Glad you approve," Ashur replied dryly, ruffling each of the girls' hair in passing.  "Kells is in the back yard with Jessa," he told them.  That's all they waited to hear, taking off at a speed only devised by the young and the reckless.  A moment later, the sound of the slamming French doors echoed through the house, and Ashur slowly shook his head.

"Here," Charity said, handing Ashur a small but beautiful potted plant that looked like a number of bamboo stalks, all growing together.  "Housewarming present.  It's a lucky bamboo, but it's actually a member of the Dracaena family.  It's good fortune," she told him.

He chuckled.  "Thank you," he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek before arching an eyebrow at his brother.  "Where's your present?" he asked, hefting an eyebrow to underline his question.

Ben laughed and clapped Ashur on the shoulder.  "For you?  Oh, yeah," he replied, digging into his pocket and producing a gift card that he handed over with a flourish.  Ashur snorted indelicately since it was a well-known fact that Ben Philips’ idea of gifting was exactly this, and it just figured.

Charity rolled her eyes, but slipped her arm under Ben's elbow.  "I told him to buy something nice, but he didn’t listen.  So, where's our birthday boy?"

"Jessa's teaching him how to dance . . . or something," he said, dropping the card onto a table beside one of the easy chairs that flanked the sofa.

Charity smiled and hurried past to go find the boy in question.  Ben started to follow, but Ashur stopped him.  "I wanted to talk to you," he said, figuring that now was as good a time as any.  "Did you find out anything?"

Ben made a face as he rubbed his forehead.  "Just because I'm familiar with the MacDonnough doesn't mean that he'd actually tell me anything, you know," he pointed out. "Even then, I can't really go around, accusing him of plotting someone's murder—if there even was a murder.  I mean, you said yourself that Jessa indicated that her father was pretty incoherent when he'd made those accusations, right?  So, it's entirely possible that he was rambling."

He sighed.  "Maybe," he drawled, wandering toward the French doors, frowning as his gaze lit on the girl in question.  "I don't know.  It's just a feeling . . ."

"What do you mean?"

He shook his head, raising his forearm to lean on the doorframe as he stared outside.  "Just . . . the whole thing seems weird . . . The timing . . ."

Ben scowled thoughtfully as he stuffed his hands into his pockets and stood beside his brother.  "Okay, you've officially lost me.  Care to elaborate?"

"Different things she's said," Ashur replied.  "A lot of things that . . . that feel . . . oddly connected, I guess.  I mean, they don’t, if you know what I mean, but if you think about all of them together?"  He shook his head, unable to reconcile the strange and unsettling sense that something almost sinister, lingered just below it all.  “It’s just a feeling.”

"As in . . .?"

He nodded once.  "As in, she says that her father thought that her mother was killed intentionally—murdered—that he said someone tampered with the car . . . And she said that someone asked her father to arrange a marriage to his son, but that her father had declined because they weren't true mates . . ." His frown darkened as something else occurred to him . . . Something else she'd said . . .  "And then she said that last year on her birthday, her parents suddenly wanted to hold her official debut into society; that her mother seemed like she was in a rush to see her married off, but . . ." He narrowed his eyes as he slowly turned his head just far enough to pin Ben with a suspicious glower.  "But she died less than a month after that . . ."

"Which could add some credence to her father's idea that someone had her killed," Ben concluded slowly.  His eyes flared wide.  "Manami . . ."

"Manami?"

He nodded, but he looked thoughtful, completely circumspect.  "She mentioned something about a family—she didn't say who—whose daughter would be an heiress to a fortune if her parents were to suddenly die.  She said that MacDonnough wanted to see the girl married to one of his lackeys . . ."

"You don't think . . .?"

Ben nodded again.  "Could be wrong, but . . ."

Ashur's eyes darkened to a stormy blue as his gaze shifted out the window once more, as they lit on Jessa as the girl appeared to be teaching Charity and the children a few dance steps.  The memory of that kiss near the pond flashed through his head, the mad passion that had nearly spiraled out of his control; the expression in her eyes when he'd finally pulled away—and the promise that he'd made to her, that he'd protect her . . . "But if we're not, then something needs to be done about it."

"He really likes you."

Jessa blinked and turned to look at Charity as the woman sat down on the stone bench beside her.  "Oh, uh . . . He's a really sweet boy . . ."

"I love watching them play," she went on, nodding at the children as they chased each other through the raised-bed flower garden.

They'd had the cake and ice cream—made a royal mess of it, actually—leave it to a few toddlers who were left to have at it when given their treats, and Kells, who normally didn't get sugar because of his hyperactive tendencies, was currently running it off in grand style, playing with the Nerf guns that his uncle had thought to give him.  The twins had their own, and, as far as Jessa could tell, it was a miracle that they hadn't lost all of the Nerf bullets yet.  Then again, Ben had gotten them refills, too, so there was that . . .

"I felt bad when we moved," Charity went on.  "I'd thought about asking Ben if we could stay longer in the city, just because of Kells, but Ashur needs to be up here, so . . ."

"Ashur . . . He said he's one of the Zelig's generals," Jessa remarked.  "What . . . What does that mean?"

Charity looked surprised.  "What does it mean . . .?  To be one of oji-san's generals?"  She nodded.  "That means that he's in charge of this region—basically, he's answerable only to oji-san—my uncle—uh, the Zelig."  She made a face, then laughed.  “Well, strictly speaking, he’s not really my uncle.  His wife is my father’s cousin, but they’ve always felt more like an aunt and uncle than that, so . . . Anyway, he asked Ashur to take on the responsibility of the Canadian region.”

"He's in charge of the youkai, you mean."

Charity smiled.  "Yes, exactly."

"Then he's pretty important."

"Well, something like that," Charity agreed.  "Basically, it'll be up to him to monitor the region, to settle minor disputes if necessary, but if anything comes up that requires a hunt order or anything, then he'd recommend that to oji-san . . ."

She frowned.  It sounded a lot more important than Ashur had let on.

Charity sighed, flipping her hair back over her shoulder, affecting a casual air that seemed a little too casual . . . "You two . . . You seem to be getting along better."

She didn't miss the overly-cautious tone in Charity's voice.  "Do we?"

Nodding her head, her amber eyes, shining gently in the late afternoon sun siphoning through the leaves above, she laughed softly.   "I'm glad."

Jessa wasn't sure what to say about that.  To be honest, she wasn't entirely sure where she stood—or didn't stand, as the case may be.  Ever since that night—ever since that kiss . . .

Cautiously polite—maybe a little too polite . . . That was a good way to describe it.  A cautiously polite distance, a cautiously polite isolation . . . and a loneliness that was far worse than any she'd ever known before . . .

"You . . . You're not alone . . . You'll never be alone again . . ."

And the memory of those words . . . It cut her deep, left her raw and bleeding.

"I'll admit, I was hoping that the two of you would come to terms.  He could help you, and maybe you could help him, too . . ."

Biting her lip as she refrained from replying to Charity's statements, Jessa shifted uncomfortably, praying that the woman didn't notice her odd silence.  The forced distance, the backing away when she inadvertently came too close, the inscrutable looks when he thought that she wouldn't notice . . .

'But . . . But that kiss . . .'

Deliberately closing down those particular thoughts was tough, mostly because, to be honest, she didn't really want to, and yet, the stubborn lilt of her pride was just enough to nudge them aside, locking the door on the memory since it wouldn't lead to anything but confusion . . . and a good dose of anger.

"I don't need his help," she replied tightly.

It must have been a little sharper than she'd intended because Charity slowly turned to look at her, a very frank expression of bewilderment on her beautiful features.  "You know, if you need someone to talk to," she finally said, carefully measuring, weighing, her words, "I'm a good listener . . . At least, that's what I've been told . . ."

Jessa shook her head, hooking an errant lock of hair behind her ear.  "It's nothing," she replied, forcing a smile that she wasn't really feeling.  The memory of just how fiercely Charity had defended Ashur right after her arrival was still too fresh in her head, too clear, and at the moment, the last thing she wanted or needed was to hear that particular man's virtues lauded.

Charity didn't look like she believed Jessa, but she did let the subject drop.  "Okay, but . . ."  She laughed again, offered a little bounce of her shoulders.  "You seem like a really sweet young woman . . . I just hate to see you, looking so down."

Jessa watched as Charity stood, called to the girls and Kells to take them inside and wash them off since they were all pretty well covered with cake and icing and melted ice cream.  She gathered them up and shot Jessa a bright smile as she herded them toward the house.

Jessa let out a deep breath, shaking her head just a bit at the complete and utter devastation that was the once-clean outfit that she'd helped Kells pick out for his special day.If it could be washed clean, she'd be amazed.Then again, it was his third birthday, wasn't it, and things like a third birthday?Well, it had to be properly observed, so the loss of one outfit?She figured that would be okay, too, in the long run.

She started to step over, to clean up the wreckage left on the patio table, but her cell phone rang, and she glanced at it, only to smile slightly when the name appeared on the caller ID.It took a second for the video feed to load.

"Hey, girlfriend!  How's Canada?"

Jessa rolled her eyes.  "In a word?  Boring," she replied.  "Boring . . . and stupid and insufferable and ridiculous and maddening and stupid and irritating and stupid—"

"Oh, my God!  That was three 'stupid's in one sentence," Carol interrupted with a raised eyebrow as she rolled over onto her back, suspending the phone over her face.  "For some reason, I don't think you're talking about Canada nearly as much as you might be talking about someone in Canada . . . Want to make me guess or should I already know?"

Jessa sighed, propping the phone against the umbrella pole in the middle of the table before plopping down, crossing her arms and letting her chin drop onto them.  "Sorry," she grumbled, her cheeks pinking as she made a face.  "You didn't call to hear me complain.  Canada's great, fantastic, just beautiful . . . So, how's the city?"

"The city's fine—a little less gorgeous since you're not here . . ." Carol sighed.  "All right, so tell me what he did to put you in such a mood."

Jessa shot Carol an imploring sort of look.  "I miss you," she admitted, unable to stop the quiver of her lips, her nostrils, at the quiet reply.  "Can't you just hop on a plane or . . . or rent a car and drive up here?  Just for a day or two?"

Carol's face shifted into an exaggerated pout.  "I wish I could . . . Daphne and Sondra quit, so I've been pulling doubles for the last couple weeks.  Hell, today's my first day off, and I had to threaten Stan to get it.  He said that he's looking for a couple new girls to take up the slack, but you know how he is . . ."

"I'm so sorry," Jessa murmured since her unexpected vacancy had also left them short-handed already.

Carol waved off her concern and smiled.  "It's okay.  The extra money's pretty damn nice.  Anyway, back to you . . . Tell me what Ashur's done?"

Jessa sighed, biting her lip as her gaze slipped to the side, as the color in her cheeks deepened, and she didn't have to look to see it.  "He . . . He kissed me," she said quietly.

"Really?" Carol squeaked, her voice rising about ten decibels. "Jessa!  I want details!  No, I need details!  Was it hot?  I mean, sure, of course, it had to have been hot . . . Was it just a peck or was it a kiss kiss?"

She made a face.  "It was . . . It was . . ." Giving up with a tiny half-whimper, Jessa slowly shook her head.  "He's pretending that it never happened," she finally said.  "Like it was . . . was nothing . . ."

"Oh, ouch," Carol murmured.  "Is he around?  I have a few choice things I'd like to say to him."

Jessa choked out a laugh.  "No, no," she said.  "I mean, it's . . . It's not a big deal, right?  It was . . . It was just a kiss," she went on with a little more conviction than she actually felt.  "No big deal.  People kiss all the time, and it doesn't mean anything."

"Do you?" Carol challenged quietly.  "Somehow, I don't think you're that type—and I wonder if he is."

"Of course, he is," Jessa argued, her irritation rising when Carol tried to defend him.  "Otherwise . . ." She grimaced.  "You're supposed to be siding with me."

Carol laughed.  "I am, Jess!  I mean, think about it.  If he were a guy who just randomly and thoughtlessly kissed women whenever?  Do you think he'd be playing the stand-off game?"

Jessa snorted.  "Yes, actually, I think he would."

Shaking her head as she set her phone into a stand and reached for a bottle of dark purple nail polish, Carol shrugged.  "Are you kidding?  A guy like that would have done a hell of a lot more than just kiss you, and he'd be kissing you all the time, too, because he'd be trying to get to the fucking . . ."  She looked up from polishing her toenails.  "You didn't fuck him yet, did you?"

"No!" Jessa hissed, sitting up straight as she quickly glanced around to make sure that no one else had heard that, as her skin exploded in a brilliant shade of instant mortification.  "Carol!"

Carol laughed—an entirely pleasant sound, actually, even if Jessa couldn't rightfully appreciate it at the moment.  "See?  If you think about it, it makes perfect sense.  There's not a doubt in my mind that you'd have fucked him if he had pushed the issue.  The fact that he didn't just reinforces the idea that he isn't that type, either."

Rubbing her forehead, Jessa shot Carol a dark scowl. "Okay, then, if you're so smart, tell me why he's acting so . . . so bloody polite."

Carol's laughter died away, but her smile didn't.  "Maybe because he's supposed to be your guardian?  Even if you turned eighteen, that doesn't mean that he wouldn't feel like he's taking advantage of you."

She stopped, considered that since she hadn't thought of it quite like that before.  Was there some truth in that?  Could his behavior since that night been simply the product of, what?  A guilty conscience . . .?

"Do you want to kiss him again?"

Blinking as she shook off the train of thought that she'd been sidetracked on, Jessa cleared her throat.

"So, you do," Carol said, drawing her own conclusions from Jessa's non-reply.

She sighed, cupping her chin in her open palm, elbow resting on the table top.  "Well, that won't be happening," she muttered as her irritation sparked once more.  "He'll barely speak two words to me unless he has to, and he never comes near me if it can be helped."

Carol considered that then shrugged as she went back to painting her toenails.  "Nah, it's easy," she countered.

"Easy?  How so?"

"Oh, Jess . . . You have two options: you can either go up to him and start the kissing . . . or you can just do whatever it was you did before that made him want to kiss you, in the first place."

"Benjiro!  How nice to hear from you!" Manami greeted, her smile brilliant as she sat back on the white sofa in her living room and brought up her knees, curling them to the side as she reached for a cup of steaming hot tea.  "And Kyouhei—Oh, Ashur—sorry . . . You look well."

Ben chuckled.  "And you look beautiful, as always," he replied.

"And Ashur?  How are you?"

He nodded, willing himself to relax, unsure why the sense of foreboding had been building throughout the day.  "Fine, thanks," he replied, growing more impatient with the perfunctory pleasantries.

"So, to what do I owe the honor of receiving a phone call from the two most handsome men on the planet—and speaking of handsome men, where is that absolutely delicious Kells?"

"He's working off the sugar that was plied on him today," Ashur said.  "I have a question for you, Manami.  Ben tells me that you mentioned something to him before about a family in Europe?  The father didn't want his daughter to be married off to one of MacDonnough's men?"

She frowned thoughtfully, tilting her head to the side as she tried to remember.  "Oh, yes!  The marquess . . . I hear he died recently . . ."

"Actually, his wife was killed a little over a year ago," Ashur went on.  "At least, if it's the same family."

"Marquess Aumberlese?  Or rather, Niall O'Shea?"

Ashur shot Ben a narrow-eyed look, and Ben nodded.  "Didn't you say something about MacDonnough wanting you to kill them?" Ben asked.

"Him," she agreed.  "Potatoes, potahtoes . . . I mean, the end result would have been the same."

Ben frowned.  "She was killed in a random car accident—or maybe not so random, I'm starting to think."

Manami's frown darkened as she set her tea mug aside.  "Then you recall the other . . . problem . . . I told you about, Benjiro?"

"What, 'other problem'?" Ashur demanded.

Manami sighed.  "When Marquess Aumberlese and his wife made out their wills, they filed them with Ian MacDonnough, which means, he holds the only copy of them, and if Ian . . . misplaced them . . . then the heiress would be subject to the old laws, which means . . ."

Ben grimaced.  "Which means that her entire estate and title would lie in escrow until such time that she married."

"Which makes sense as to why her parents might have wanted to rush her into finding her mate—her parents knew.  That's why . . ." Ashur concluded.  "What a bastardly thing to do . . ."

Manami chuckled, but it was an empty kind of sound, far more ironic than humorous.  "Ian MacDonnough is a bastard," she pointed out.  "One of these days, he's going to overstep himself—and I, for one, cannot wait to see him get his comeuppance."  Her smile shifted into one that was far closer to her normal ebullience.  "Tell me, why the interest in this now?"

"She's staying with me," Ashur replied.  "She's Myrna's cousin."

"The heiress?  She’s Myrna's cousin?  You don't say . . ."

Ashur wasn't nearly as amused as Manami seemed to be.  "The police removed her from her estate when she called to report her father's death," he said.  "She was barely allowed to take anything with her—not even a change of clothing."

"Hmm . . ." Manami drawled.  "Keep her hidden, then," she suggested.  "If Ian knows where she is currently, I have very little doubt that he'd send that oaf of his in to claim the girl, willing or not."

Ashur snorted.  "What oaf?"

She rolled her eyes, her distaste quite evident.  "I would assume it'd be the same buffoon that tried to set his son up with her in the beginning," she said.  "Duke Portsmouth—or most assuredly, his son, Hughbert."

Ashur nodded and slowly shifted his gaze to lock with his brother's.  "Ben, what can you find out about this guy . . . and how fast?"