InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Trial and Error ( Chapter 20 )

"I could have told you that it was a stupid idea.  In fact, I think I tried to tell you that," Devlin remarked as he and Jessa rode along the southern edge of his estate.

Jessa scowled, casting Devlin a dark glower.

"I confess," he went on, as though they were discussing the weather, "I'm surprised that he let you out of the house today, much less allowed you to come riding with me . . ."

She snorted.  Loudly.  "Ashur Philips doesn't own me," she shot back, sitting up a little straighter in the saddle.  "And he doesn't tell me what I can and cannot do."

Devlin shot her a no-nonsense look.  "He doesn't have to own you to be thoroughly besotted by you."

"Wh-What?" she barked out, a little harsher than she should have.  "He—He's not—"

Devlin rolled his eyes, but chuckled.  "Honestly, Jessa, why did you want me to kiss you, anyway?  Some sort of exploration and discovery mission, was it?"

The high color in her cheeks must have convinced him that he was right, and he sighed and slowly shook his head.  "I should be properly offended, but I'm not—not really, anyway . . . So, did you figure it out?"

This time, her answer was a long, drawn out, irritated sigh.  "I . . . I thought it'd be the same," she admitted, more in a grumble than in a regular, conversational tone.  "I was . . . was hoping that it wouldn't matter, who did the kissing . . ."

He chuckled.  "But it does, doesn't it?"  He drew a deep breath.  "You could have just asked me.  I would have told you that much."

She snorted.  "And how would you know?  How many women have you been out kissing?"

"Enough to know that it certainly does matter," he shot back pleasantly.  "Anyway, now that we've established that little fact, I take it you have been kissing your Ashur, then."

"Just . . . Just twice," she replied, her tone haughtier than she meant for it to be, almost like she was daring Devlin to say something negative about it, "and he's not my anything."

"Twice, huh?"

She shrugged.  "It's fine, though, because it won't be happening again—not until he stops kissing other women, anyway . . ."

He nodded sagely, as though he understood something she didn't.  "A cad, is he?  Well, that's a shame . . . Although, from what I've seen, women seem to like that bastard type . . ."

She rolled her eyes.  "Can we talk about something else?" she asked pointedly, arching an eyebrow at him to emphasize her question.  Given that she hadn't felt brave enough to even leave her room until she knew that Ashur had stepped out for a bit was telling enough, and not something that she wished to admit, especially to Devlin, and, considering the current conversation, she just wanted to drop it.

"All right," he relented.  "So, what do you want to talk about instead?"

Glancing at him, frowning at his profile, she narrowed her eyes.  "How many women have you kissed?" she asked.

He chuckled and shot her a highly amused look.  "Me?  Oh, so many, I lost track, you know . . . The more, the merrier, I say . . ."

She laughed.  "So . . . less than five; is that what you're saying?"

He shrugged.  "Three.  Well, four, counting you."  He paused, considered that for a moment, then grinned.  "I don't think that I'll count you, though.  Nothing against you—you're a gorgeous little bit of baggage—but I wasn't kidding when I said it was like snogging with my sister, and that . . . Well, that's just weird, really . . ."

She stifled a sigh, mostly because his assessment was entirely accurate.  The kiss was nice, sure, pleasant—and entirely without the crazy-mad emotion that those kisses from Ashur had possessed . . .

"Granted, I'm still waiting for my own earth-shaker . . ."  Suddenly, he barked out a laugh—an entirely too amused laugh, actually.

"What's so damn funny?" she demanded when his amusement escalated.

It took a minute for him to wind down enough to speak, and even when he did, he still kept chuckling.  "Earth-shaker," he repeated.  "Your Ashur—he's an earth . . ."

And he dissolved into another round of laughter again.

"You know, you're kind of a jerk," Jessa intoned rather dryly as she nudged Flicker into a gallop.

He didn't stop laughing as he caught up with her, as she dropped Flicker to a steady trot.  "Okay, so, that was a bad joke.  I apologize," he said, sounding anything but contrite.

Jessa snorted.  "A huge jerk."

"I'm nothing if not consistent," he quipped, reining in Fletch.  “So, uh . . . Did you really set him on fire?”

“. . . The biggest jerk on earth.”

He laughed again—the jerk.

She let out a deep breath as her gaze swept over the horizon.  Too many things, tumbling about in her head, and none of it really made any sense.  Between Ashur and his brooding hostility since he'd stumbled upon her while she was kissing Devlin and everything else that was always there, she felt as though she were slowly going mad.

'Brooding hostility?  Way to gild the lily . . . He's furious with you, you realize—with you.'

'It was just one little kiss, not a big deal—certainly nothing for him to get all upset over.  You saw how that woman kept touching him any time she was anywhere close to him.  He was probably off, kissing her while I was cooking or watching Kells . . . If he's that upset, then it's like the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?'

Her youkai-voice sighed.  'You don't know that there's anything going on there,' it said.  'It could just be what you think is there when, in reality, there isn't.  Did you even try asking him?'

'Asking him?  Of course, I did!  You heard me!'

'I heard you screaming at him and railing at him.  I didn't hear you ask him anything; not really . . . because when you ask someone something, then you have to listen to what the answer is, and you didn't.'

She snorted inwardly.  'Because he laughed at me,' she admitted.

'And he hurt your pride.  You realize, don't you, that you have more than your fair share of that.  Letting go of some of it isn't really a bad thing.'

'Why should I do that, I'd like to know?  He doesn't . . . doesn't care about me!  He—'

'Doesn't he?  Do you really think that a man who doesn't care would get that upset over an insignificant little kiss?  Because he wouldn't.  If he didn't care, then he wouldn't have given a fig, either, who you kiss and don't kiss.  Maybe he doesn't even realize it himself yet, any more than you do, but it's there, Jessa.  You know it is.  All you have to do is show him.'

'Show him what, exactly?'

'You silly girl . . . Show him what's in your heart, in your mind . . . Show him because if you do, maybe . . .'

'Maybe . . .?'

Her youkai-voice sighed—a weary kind of sound, a sad kind of sound.  'Maybe . . . Maybe we can belong with him, Jessa . . .'

Ashur nearly smiled as he gazed at the picture that Manami had sent him: Kells, hanging upside down from the huge arm of a monkey statue—one of the giant climbable sculptures outside the Bevelle Children's Museum.  Nadia and Emmeline were chasing each other around the monkey's spread legs while Bailey sat on one of the monkey's shoulders and Daniel sat on the other.  All in all, it was a very sweet image, and he stared at it for another long moment before sending it to the digital file where he kept all his pictures of Kells.

Then he sighed, letting his phone drop on the wide desk.  Looking over the contract that had been faxed in this morning from the attorney at Muira International, he frowned as he stuck it into a drawer.

It was the very last step, the very last thing that had connected him with his old life.  After much deliberation, he'd opted to sell it—at least, most of his shares in it.  Besides, with his new job as the Canadian general, he was still plenty busy.  Even so, there were a few businesses that he'd been looking at, as well—things that he could buy out and try to build them up, too . . .

It was something that he enjoyed.  When he thought back to those years, especially the early ones with Muira International, it had given him something so much more valuable, a sense that he'd built something entirely on his own.  Sure, the first year or so was heavily subsidized by his father's money.  After that, though, he'd paid Hidekea back within two years and still managed to turn a healthy profit.  He wanted to do something like that again, didn't he?  Only this time, he wanted to build a legacy, something for Kells . . .

'And for Jessa . . .'

Uttering a terse sound not entirely unlike a grunt, Ashur didn't bother to respond to that.

'You're still mad that she was kissing that guy—your neighbor.  I get you.  To be honest, I'd be a little irritated about it, too, except . . .'

'Except, what?' Ashur growled back.

'Except that there wasn't anything to it.  You saw it yourself.  You saw her face; you saw his.  They kissed, but it wasn't anything spectacular—not like it was when you've kissed her . . .'

'The idea that she kissed him is more than enough,' he shot back.  'Damn it . . .'

'And that's just your bruised ego talking.  Besides, you know that she was already upset about the whole Manami thing, and—'

He snorted.  'There never was a Manami-thing!  It was the one time, and we were drunk, and it was just one kiss, so—'

'Yeah, except the two of you were going to sleep together—you know it, and I know it.  If there had been even a little spark to it, it would have happened, but you know, the thing is, neither you nor Jessa is perfect.  You've both been muddling through this thing—'

'There isn't a 'thing',' he argued.  'It's . . . It's . . .'

'It's a thing, stupid!  Of course, it's a thing!  It's a thing that might be the best . . . the best thing that ever happened to us if you'd let it be . . . If you wanted it to be.'

'And what's that supposed to mean?  She . . .'

His youkai sighed.  'She's stubborn and impulsive and infuriating . . . passionate and unpredictable and smart . . . and caring and nurturing and absolutely perfect with Kells, too . . .'

Making a face, he slid down, slumping over, letting his temple rest on his raised fingertips.  'And she's still little more than a child herself.'

'That's not the truth, and you know it.  Her age has nothing at all do to with it.  Okay, yeah, so she's only eighteen, but to our kind, that's not really that relevant.  Besides, you saw her in that damned bikini.  You saw her when that towel fell . . . Ain't nothing, 'little girl' about that . . .'

The fleeting image of her, in that blasted black bikini, shot to life in his head.  There wasn't a part of her he hadn't seen in that, not one bit left to the imagination, and the lust that the very memory could inspire . . .?  As for the towel?  Well, the only thing—literally, the one single thing—that had saved him then was that he hadn’t gotten a good eyeful of that, because if he had?  He sighed.  Entirely unfair, if you asked him . . .

‘That doesn’t really matter, you know.  What you didn’t see, you felt . . .’

He ground his teeth together hard.  ‘It’s so important that you stop, right now,’ he muttered to himself.

His youkai-voice laughed.

The bottom line of it was that he was treading on very dangerous ground—ground he'd never stepped foot on before.  There was something about Jessa: something that could thrill him, even as it frightened him, too—something about the way she smiled, the brush of her youki over his . . . He could feel it, the overwhelming draw of her, the familiarity in her that belied her age in years, in numbers . . .

As much as he hated to admit it, he was certain that her losses, everything she'd loved that had fallen away, all of that had aged her soul, had driven her emotions well beyond the eighteen physical years of her body.  There was something about her soul that matched his, and whether it was that sense of yearning, that bone-deep sadness that permeated everything around them, he didn't know.

No, the one thing he did understand—understood it on a level that was harsh and frightening—was that he . . . He hated to see that part of her: hated to lay in bed at night, wondering if she was laying in hers, crying alone . . . That smile of hers that had the ability to take his breath away . . . He was willing to spend the rest of his life, caught up in this statis where he still lingered, long after the ghosts had stopped whispering in his ears, if he could hear her laughter, if he knew that it was real, genuine; if he could banish those shadows from her eyes . . . If only one of them could venture out of the twilight of the caliginosity where they both existed . . . He’d rather that it was her—definitely her.

Which really only left one question in his mind . . .

How . . .?

Jessa pulled herself through the water, ignoring the burning in her muscles as she kept moving, lulled by the rhythmic pattern.  She'd lost track of how many laps she'd already done in the pool, tried not to think about just how silly it was that she missed Kells so badly, especially when she was swimming . . .

If only she could shake off the sense of restlessness, which was the real reason she was out here, working off some nervous energy.  Flipping over, kicking off the wall, she glided through the water.

It was all his fault, damn it.  All of it had started with Ashur Philips, hadn't it?  If he wasn't incessantly so maddening, none of this would have happened.  If he'd just talk to her instead of hiding behind his half-statements and brooding looks, maybe she wouldn't be lost in such a quandary, and maybe she wouldn't have gone looking for answers, in the first place . . .

'And just why are you blaming your actions on him, Jessa?  Seriously, do you honestly believe that he makes you do things?  He's not God or something, you realize.  He's just a man—a man that you can't figure out, and you're doing what you always do when you can't figure something out: you're blaming your failure on him.'

'I am not!  If he'd just be more forthright, then I wouldn't have to question everything all the time!  It's his fault!  His!'

'No, it isn't.  Stop being a spoiled little bitch whose da fixes everything when you go crying to him because, like it or not, it's time to grow up.  You can't fall back on those old tricks.  Da's not around to be your repairman anymore.  I know, it's harsh for me to say that to you, but you know that I'm right.'

Jessa winced, taking another turn in the water.  'Time to grow up . . .'

Her youkai sighed.  'Yeah, and that means . . . You have to admit, whether you want to or not, that kissing Devlin really wasn't the smartest course of action.  You couldn't really have believed that it wouldn't matter, who you kissed.  Even you, with your limited knowledge, had to understand on some level that it does matter—it matters a lot . . . And you have to realize, too, that those kisses with Ashur?  They really are just as special as you thought.'

'But . . . But what does that mean . . .?'

'It means, silly goose, that you really should try talking to Ashur—leave your defenses out of it, leave your pride at the door.  Talk to him, Jessa, like an adult . . . Maybe you'll get some answers that you need to hear.'

'Talk to him . . .'

She finished another few laps before letting her feet drop in the shallow end of the pool, heaving a sigh as she lifted her face, as she gauged the time by the position of the sun.  It was somewhere around five in the evening, she decided.  She ought to be starting dinner, but somehow, the idea of sitting down and eating alone just wasn't appealing.

Ashur hadn't bothered to eat last night.  He stayed in his office with the door shut, and she had no reason to think that he'd bother to show his face tonight, either.  That was all right, she figured.  She wasn't particularly hungry herself.

Even so, she waded over to the steps and out of the pool, grabbing the white towel she'd left, tossed over the back of a chair. She draped it around her hips and tucked it in to hold it in place and leaned to the side, pulling her hair together, running her hands down the length of it to squeeze out the excess water, making a face at the chlorine that she needed to wash out.  It was one of the things she hated about pools . . .

"Jessa."

Gasping softly as she whipped around to face the owner of that particular voice, Jessa's eyes flared wide, only to narrow as she met Ashur's inscrutable gaze.  Standing not far away with his hands in his pockets, his shirt caught up by the gentle breeze that ruffled his golden-brown bangs, molding his clothing to his body in a wholly provocative sort of way, tossing his hair in a haphazard cadence.  Something about the way he stood there, the way he stared at her . . . She could sense the questions in his head, knew what he wanted to know as a strange sort of sensation broke loose somewhere deep inside her, making her limbs feel leaden, making her breath catch between her lips and lungs . . .

"A . . . Ashur . . ."

He sighed, shifting his gaze out over the landscape for a long heartbeat that throbbed in her ears.  "Why would you kiss him?" he asked quietly.  Under his words, she could feel his emotions—the deepening in his gaze, the pain that shifted the clear blue skies to a harsher indigo—and the added spark of unspent anger, of a rage that was thick, that held her back, kept her from approaching him . . .

"I . . . I just wanted to know," she whispered, her gaze dropping away as she crossed her arms over her chest in a protective sort of way.  "I needed to know . . . what's real . . . what's . . . illusion . . . What I . . ."

He nodded slowly, as though something she'd said made perfect sense to him.  "And did you get an answer?"

She didn't respond to that.  What could she say, anyway?  Turning away from him, she shook her head, tried to gather her waning bravado . . .

She couldn't.

Minutes passed that felt like hours.  Maybe they were seconds, she didn't know.  When she turned around again, though, he was gone.