InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Jealousy ( Chapter 19 )

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

Knocking on the doorframe, Ashur cleared his throat when Jessa stubbornly refused to even glance at him.  He sighed, mostly because she'd refused to as much as speak to him since the night before—even if he still wasn't entirely sure why.  "Jessa, here's your mail," he said, setting the small yellow mailer on her nightstand.

She kept on reading her book, pretending that she didn't hear him, and he stifled a snort.

Okay, he got that she was somehow irritated about Manami, even if he wasn't entirely sure why.  It made no sense, actually.  Striding down the hallway and down the stairs, he checked his watch, but made a face as his cell phone rang.

'Halsbeck', the caller ID said.  Ashur connected the call as he stepped into his office and closed the door.

"Hello?"

"Ah, Mr. Philips.  This is Greg Halsbeck from the Irish Consulate's office.  I'm sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday.  Had a bit of difficulty in getting a hold of the horse's buyer."

"It's fine," he said, brushing aside the irritation that the man hadn't called back when he said he would.  At least he had a reason, he figured.  "Let me get a pen and paper . . ."

"Well, you won't need to," Halsbeck said.  "The buyer—Sam Guthrie, said that he took the horse out riding the day after he got him, and the horse got spooked by a snake, he thinks.  Anyway, the horse threw him, and took off, and when Mr. Guthrie managed to catch up with him, he was tangled five ways from Sunday in a barbed wire fence.  Unfortunately, between the lacerations from the fencing—some of them were quite deep, I'm told—he also suffered a broken leg and a broken rib, so they had no choice but to put him down."

"What?" Ashur growled with a wince.  "You're kidding."

"I wish I were.  I'm sorry I don't have better news."

Ashur sighed.  "Thank you for your trouble."

"Yes, well . . . I'm supposed to hear from Mr. Dunbyrne sometime in the next week," he said.  "Should I call you or would you rather that I call Lady O'Shea with the update?"

"You'd better call me," Ashur said.  "She's still not really ready to handle some of the details, but I was wondering . . . I'd like to see a copy of the official accident report," he said.  "Is that possible?"

Halsbeck sighed.  "I'll see what I can do . . . Is there a reason you want to see it?"

"I'd just like to verify a few things for Jessa.  You understand."

"I'll get that out to you as fast as I can," he promised.

"Okay, thank you."

"Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you."

"Absolutely," he said.  "Thank you."

The connection ended, and Ashur dropped the phone onto his desk as he let his face fall into his hands.  Her horse, dead . . .? Grimacing, he had to wonder just how he was supposed to tell her that—that, on top of everything else . . . She'd said it herself, hadn't she?  That horse was the last connection she had—the very last thing.

The sadness in her very aura, the absolute misery that she hadn't been able to hide . . . It was all there, all so raw, and he . . . "I'll never see him again . . . Just like Ma and Da . . ."

How bad was it for her, really?  He'd gotten glimpses, of course, but she tried to hide it all; he'd seen it before.  No parents, no siblings, no aunts or uncles, and a couple cousins who weren’t really interested in having a major role in her life . . . and now, no horse, and maybe to some, that horse was just a creature, but to her . . . Well, he knew better.  She had nothing left, did she?  A title?  An estate?  A vast amount of wealth?  And yet, what did that really account for when the people she cherished—that cherished her—were gone?

It made no sense—no more than his unbidden desire to help her, to comfort her, even if there wasn't anything in it for him.  He didn't know if it was simply because he understood her on some level.  Maybe she hadn't been through the same things he had, and maybe the circumstances weren't the same.  True enough, he'd come out of it all with his older brother and Kells, so maybe, in that, he was a little more fortunate than she was . . . Even so . . .

Even so, her losses were so much worse, weren’t they?  Doting parents who loved her, who doted upon her.  If he were honest—brutally honest—he'd have to admit that maybe he'd gained more than he'd lost when his parents died, but to do so . . . Just what kind of monster was he, anyway?

'Cut that out, Kyouhei . . . You're no more a monster than she is, you know.  Your parents—they were the monsters, if there were any—and you . . . All you did was to pick up the pieces, and you put them back together again, maybe in a different way than they were originally intended, but they fit together, just the same . . . And now, you want to help Jessa to do that, too, don't you?'

He snorted inwardly.  'Except that she's ten kinds of pissed off at me, and I don't know why.'

'Don't you?  Are you sure?  Because if you stopped and thought about it, it might make more sense to you.'

'More sense to—? How?  All she did was get all pissed off over Manami for no reason, and—'

'And?  Are you sure it was for, 'no reason'?'

Ashur snorted and started to argue, but the chime of the doorbell cut him off, and, with a loud and frustrated growl, he stood up and pushed out of his office.

The man on the porch smiled broadly at him, shoving a very stout, calloused hand out to shake.  "Thurston Margreave," he said, introducing himself as Ashur shook his hand.  "You must be Ashur Philips . . . Any relation to Ben?"

"He's my brother," Ashur admitted, stepping back to allow the man to enter.

Thurston laughed jovially.  The squat little man—a chinchilla-youkai—followed Ashur into the living room and waved a hand in dismissal when Ashur gestured at the wet bar.  "Oh, no, thanks," he said, settling on the sofa.  "I don't want to take up too much of your time.  I just wanted to welcome you to Canada."  Digging into the breast pocket of his well-worn sports jacket, he pulled out a white envelope and handed it over.  "It's not much, but the new season's starting.  They're doing a twelve-week run of Ghosts of Olde at Margreave Hall, and my wife and I . . . Well, we'd love to see you there.  Those are good for any time except for opening night, but if you'd rather have opening night tickets, I can arrange that, too."

"Uh, thank you," Ashur replied, setting the tickets on the coffee table as he sat down in a nearby chair.

"I saw your stables," Thurston went on.  "I'd love to see your stock.  My wife is obsessed with horses, and I do what I can to indulge her.  I've become a pretty good breeder, if I do say so myself."

Shaking his head, Ashur settled back in the chair.  "I don't have any yet," he admitted.  "I actually don't know a thing about them, really, but I've got a guest who does.  I was considering finding one for her."

"Oh!  If you're interested, feel free to stop by sometime.  We have mostly Arabians, and one of my prized mares just foaled a few months ago, but we've got one of hers that's close to a year and a half that we just finished breaking.  Gorgeous creature, that one . . . We've been looking for the right person to sell him to . . . Is your guest someone with a background in horses?"

"She's a very accomplished rider," he said.  "I'll bring her by sometime to see the horse, if that's all right."

Thurston dug a card out of his wallet and handed it over.  "Absolutely!  Just give me a call, and we'll arrange something!"

"Thank you," Ashur replied, stashing the card in his pocket.  "I certainly will . . ."


Jessa scowled in concentration as she stared hard at the tiki torches from where she stood on her balcony.  Narrowing her eyes as she gathered her energy to one point in the center of her hand, she drew a deep breath and let it go, let it fly, as it exploded from her, igniting the torches in one mighty gust of fire, just as she'd seen her father do before.

She smiled vaguely as she stared at the dancing flames.  Then she waved a hand, satisfied even more when they all sputtered out together.

She was getting better at it, she had to admit.  'At least, there's that . . .'

'Oh, don't be that way, Jessa.  It's your own fault, you know.  Jealousy's such an ugly emotion.'

'Jeal—I'm not jealous!' she blurted.  'I'm so . . . the opposite of jealous . . .!  I’m . . . I'm just not!'

'It's okay,' her youkai-voice went on, ignoring her little outburst.  'It happens to the best of us, or so I've been told.  It's really not that big a deal, if you stop and think about it.  I mean, all you really have to do is just make sure that Ashur doesn't have a reason to think about Manami instead of you, right?'

Snorting indelicately since she wasn't about to dignify that with a response, Jessa turned around and flounced back into her room off the balcony.

'Fine, if you want to ignore me, but you should at least apologize for trying to set Ashur on fire last night.'

'As if!  He's lucky I didn't do worse than just send a few sparks at him!'

'A few sparks?  Bitch, please!  You damn near burned him to a crisp, and if he were human?  He would have been hottie flambé, for sure!'

She heaved a frustrated sigh, gaze sweeping over the room, only to stop when she spotted the mailer on the nightstand.  She'd forgotten that Ashur had brought it up to her room.  Striding over, she picked it up, turned it over in her hands.  Carol said last night on the phone that she'd sent Jessa a little something.  She hadn't said what it was, just that Jessa better use it.  Even so, she couldn’t help but feel just a little nervous about the contents of the package.

Drawing a deep breath, she tore it open, wincing as she held it open, as she looked inside.  "Oh, my God," she muttered, slapping the mailer back down on the nightstand as her cheeks blossomed in color.

Her phone rang, right on cue, and Jessa snatched it up and connected the call.  "Carol!" she hissed, pressing her hand against her forehead.

Carol laughed.  "It said online that the package was delivered," she said.  "So, did you get it?"

Jessa snorted.  "I'm going to kill you," she grumbled, pacing across the floor.  "You sent me condoms!"  The last word came out as a hiss of breath.

"You can thank me later," she replied happily.  "Oh, better yet?  Make some videos while you're using those.  A man that looks like that just has to be a damn good fuck."

She uttered a sound caught somewhere between a moan and a groan.  "I don't know why I'm friends with you," she complained.

Carol laughed again.  "Because you love me, sweetie . . . Now, get out there and use those condoms!"

She sighed as the call ended, dropping the phone onto the bed as she plopped down beside it, as she buried her face in her hands.

'Well, as misguided as she might be, Carol has a point.  I mean, at least now he wouldn't have to worry about him being your, 'lifetime regret', now, would we?'

Groaning into her hands at the sarcasm in her youkai-voice's words, Jessa shifted her hands, rubbed furiously at her temples as a headache the likes of which she'd never experienced before surged through her.

'I don't want to do that with him . . . I don't even think I like him . . . Why should I, I'd like to know?  He's done nothing but play with me and lead me on from the get-go, hasn't he?  And all the while, he's got . . . got her . . . which means that I . . . I don't matter . . .'

'Is that really what you think?'

She stubbornly refused to answer that.

'But you know what you felt when you kissed him, Jessa.'

'What I felt . . .' Face screwing up in a belligerent scowl, she stood up and strode toward the door, not really thinking in terms of a destination.  She just wanted—needed—to get out of the house.  'No, actually, I don't know what I felt.'

'Don't you?  That was special, it was tremendous—it was magical.'

Snorting indelicately as she pushed out of the sliding kitchen doors onto the terrace, she broke into a sprint, running thoughtlessly, blindly, away from the house.

'I don't know a damn thing,' she argued.  'How would I when he's the only man I've ever . . . ever kissed before?'

'And you think that matters?  You wanted to kiss him—you still want to kiss him.  You—'

'For all I know, it doesn't matter,' she insisted.  'The who of it or the why of it . . . It's all the same.  Those feelings would be entirely the same, no matter who is doing the kissing.'

'You're not serious,' her youkai shot back, then suddenly sighed.  'Oh, wait, you are . . .' The voice sighed.  'All right, Miss Bitch.  If you really think so, but don't say I didn't warn you when you get yourself in over your head.  Foolish girl, anyway . . .'

Rolling her eyes as she blinked, as she dropped to a walk along the trail that led to the pond, Jessa sighed.  Biting her lip, she couldn't help but wonder, now that it had occurred to her.  It really was entirely one-sided to simply think that kissing Ashur was all that different from kissing, in general.  True, she had to admit, however grudgingly, that there was a certain attraction with him, but what did that matter, really?

Stepping out of the trees, she blinked when she saw him, sitting on the boulder by the water.  He wasn't paying attention, reading a book, she realized.  Fletch was tethered nearby.

Squaring her shoulders as an insular thought sprang to life in her head, she stepped forward, gathering her resolve.

"Fancy meeting you here," Devlin remarked, closing the book as he turned just enough to peer over his shoulder at her.

She didn't stop until she was standing beside him, her gaze alight with her stubborn determination.

"I realize that the pond's on your Mr. Philips' land, but I couldn't resist," he admitted.  His smile faltered when he finally noticed the steely glint of absolute determination in her eyes.  "Jessa?  Are you all right?"

Ducking her chin as she stared at him, she peered up at him through her eyelashes.  "Devlin, will you do me a favor?"

He looked a little leery, but he nodded.  "If I can," he allowed.

She nodded.  "Kiss me," she blurted, her cheeks pinking just a little.

He blinked, then finally choked out an incredulous laugh.  "I'm sorry.  I thought you just asked me to kiss you."

"I did."

"Oh, bloody hell, you did . . . May I ask why?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Will you do it or not?"

"What's the catch?" he asked, shifting his gaze from side to side, as though he were looking for the answer to his question.

She sighed.  "Forget it, then," she told him, turning on her heel to stomp away, cursing men in general under her breath.  "I'll just go find someone else who'll do it."

"Now, hold on," Devil insisted, hopping down off the boulder to grab her arm.  "I didn't say I wouldn't.  I just wanted to know why you'd want me to."

Crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly, Jessa refused to meet his gaze.  "I . . . I need to compare something," she muttered.

Rubbing his face thoughtfully, he seemed to be considering his options.  "If I refuse, you're just going to go snog some poor, hapless chap, aren't you?"

When she didn't answer, he sighed.

Then he leaned down, and he kissed her.


Following her scent through down the path and through the trees, Ashur heaved a sigh.  One way or another, he wanted to get the girl to listen to him, to talk to him.  Maybe he just felt bad over what had happened to her horse.  Maybe just couldn't stop thinking about her absolute melancholy the night that he'd caught her, downing sake.

'Or maybe it's just that she was jealous as hell last night,' his youkai-voice piped up.

He wasn't sure when that little gem had struck him, but once it had, everything else about last night had made perfect sense.  Oh, he was certain that she'd rather bite her tongue off than admit as much, especially to him.  Still, he couldn't help but think that it did brighten his mood in some weird and rather twisted way.

Stepping out of the tree line, he stopped short, eyes flaring wide as he felt the breath rush right out of him.

There Jessa stood near the pond with some strange man, and they were . . .

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Asher demanded as he shot forward, as he grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and gave him a good shake.  "Just who the hell are you?"

The man seemed surprised—he was youkai—but he held up his hands and shook his head.  "Devlin Broughton," he rasped out.

"Ashur!  Stop it!  Are you mad?" Jessa demanded, grabbing his wrist and tugging to try to make him let go of the stranger.

"Mad is a relative term, Jessa," Ashur bit out.  "I'm going to rip him to shreds."

"You won't!" she insisted.  "Ashur!"

Devlin grimaced.  "She wanted me to kiss her," he admitted.  "It was me or some random bloke—anyone would do, I think—and it was like kissing my sister—I imagine, anyway . . ."

That didn't appease Ashur in the least as he erupted in a low growl.

"If you don't let go of him, I'll set fire to you again," she warned.

Ashur narrowed his eyes at the flames dancing on her palm.  "Damn it—"

“Again?” Devlin asked.

Ashur shifted his mutinous gaze on the stranger once more, and Devlin chuckled, but he also groaned when Ashur dealt him another shake.

"Let him go!" she insisted once more.

Biting out a frustrated sigh, Ashur gave the man a solid shove, but finally let go.  Devlin spared a moment to frown at Jessa before hurriedly untying his horse and taking off.

Ashur didn't trust himself to speak to her.  Judging from the look on her face, she wasn't too pleased with him, either.  She started to open her mouth, probably to blister his ears, but good.  He narrowed his eyes at her, and she stopped, staring defiantly back at him for a long moment before her gaze dropped to the ground.

And yet, the longer he stood there, the angrier he grew.  The image of that man, kissing her, had burned itself into his mind.  What he wanted to do was to lash out, to rail and rage against her.  Some small part of him, however, wouldn’t let him.

“Ashur,” she said.

He didn’t want to hear it—couldn’t stand to hear it, actually.  Holding a hand up to stop her, he quickly shook his head, and before he could say something that he might end up regretting, he turned on his heel and stalked back toward the path—back toward the house . . .