InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ The Blame Game ( Chapter 44 )

Jessa sat, arms crossed over her chest, a rather dumbfounded expression on her face as she watched Carol get ready for work.  After a nice, long, hot shower, the woman looked a little more like herself, but she still retained the darkened smudges under her eyes that bespoke their overindulgence the night before.

Kells was in the yard with Laith, learning the finer points of grooming the horses, and Jessa had left him there when she’d opted to stop in to see what, exactly, was going on.  The perplexing thing, though, was that, other than saying that she drank too much sake, Carol hadn't said anything else about being mated or, well, Laith in general . . .

"So, Carol . . . Did anything . . . interesting happen after I left last night . . .?"

Carol paused with her brush halfway through her hair to glance at Jessa.  "No . . . Not really . . ."

"And you're . . . Sure . . .?  You and Laith didn't have any kind of talk . . .?"

Carol giggled as she resumed her task of fixing her hair.  "Well, not talk, exactly," she said.  "At least, not out loud . . ."

Jessa shook her head.  "But you had sex!" she blurted.

Carol's giggles escalated.  "Well, yeah . . . There's nothing in the world better than slightly drunk sex—too drunk and the ol' weenie heads south, you know . . . So, just enough booze to loosen you up . . ."

She waved her hands to interrupt.  "Without a condom!"

Carol had to pause and think about that, tapping her index finger against her lips as she scowled up at the ceiling, and then gasped, eyes widening, mouth dropping open into a gaping 'oh'.  Jessa nodded emphatically.  "Oh, God, we did . . ."

"Yes!" Jessa hissed. Heaving a tumultuous sigh, she leaned forward, satisfied that she'd gotten her point across.

"Oh, no," Carol groaned, dropping onto the chair behind her, gripping her forehead in her hands. "Oh, my God!" she whined again, voice muffled by her hands.  "Oh, damn, I need to get to the pharmacy . . ."

"What?  Why?" Jessa demanded, shooting to her feet just in time to grab Carol by the arms before the woman had a chance to flee.

"I've got to get a morning after pill," she insisted.  "Sorry, dollface, but I gotta run . . ."

Jessa watched Carol's hasty retreat with a gap-mouthed expression as she slowly shook her head.

Just what in the world was going on . . .? And just what in the world was a 'morning after pill' . . .?

Well, she was going to get some answers, damn it . . .

Stomping out of Carol's apartment, she headed toward the stable, stepping inside just in time to hear Kells' sweet voice, and the words . . . "Is Carol gonna have a baby, too?  Jessa's gonna have one!"

Laith stopped what he was doing and turned abruptly to stare at Kells.  "Wh-What?"

"No, I'm not," Jessa grumbled, hoping she wasn't as red-faced as she thought she might be.  "Kells, just because I didn't feel very well this morning really doesn't mean I'm . . ." Trailing off with a wince, she made a face and yelled, “I'm pregnant . . ."

"Hmm, now, that was just not what I was expecting to hear," Devlin drawled as he stepped into the stable, leading Fletch by the reins.

"Heaven help me," she muttered, turning to glower at her friend.  "I'm not pregnant," she hissed.

Devlin blinked and stared at her, his eyes narrowing a little more with every passing second.  "I should hope not," he drawled.  "You don't even smell mated, so it'd be kind of a long-shot . . ."

"Jessa can be my mate!" Kells exclaimed, speeding over to throw his arms around Jessa's knees.  "You can be my mommy, too!"

She heaved a sigh and tousled the boy's hair.  "Oh, Kells, it doesn't work exactly like that . . ."

Devlin chuckled.  "One or the other, young'un, but not both—not ever."

"Here," Laith said, handing Kells the lead that he'd just attached to Humpty Dumpty's bridle.

"Thanks!" Kells hollered, taking a moment to calm himself before taking the lead and walking the pony out of the stable and into the paddock.

"Oh, hmm . . . Now, you, on the other hand . . . You smell quite different," Devlin remarked, frowning thoughtfully at Laith, who scratched the back of his neck and looked a little sheepish overall.

"You know, it's not really of either of your businesses," he grumbled, stomping over to retrieve a pitchfork to muck out Humpty Dumpty's stall.

"Maybe, except Carol doesn't seem to be aware of anything," Jessa pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly.

"She doesn't?" Devlin blurted, rounded eyes, shifting to stare rather stupidly at Laith.

Laith sighed.  "I'm going to tell her," he muttered.  "She was a little hung over this morning, though, so I figured I'd wait till she was in a better mood to explain everything."

Jessa still wasn't entirely pacified.  "Why on earth would you do something like that without talking to her first?"

Laith snorted.  "It's not like I did it on purpose," he admitted.  "It just . . . happened . . . and my youkai thought it was a good idea, so . . . I went with it."

Jessa rolled her eyes and slowly shook her head.  "It would serve you right if she decided that you're insane, and that she never wanted to speak to you again."  Then she grimaced when Laith's gaze dropped to the floor, and she sighed.  "Okay, I'm sorry.  That was mean.  Honestly, though, how could you think that making her your mate without her knowledge—she doesn't even know about us, you know!"

"Well, I was a little drunk," he grumbled, scuffing his boots against the scratched wooden floor.  "Besides, she's your best friend, isn't she?  I'd have thought you'd be thrilled about this."

She opened her mouth to gainsay him, but Devlin shot her a look frowning at her as he jerked his head to the side, and she rolled her eyes.  "I'm going inside," she muttered casting Devlin a telling glower for his efforts.  "I need to start dinner, anyway . . ."

It just figured, didn't it?  Jessa had no idea, just what Carol would say about the whole thing.  It made her whole situation seem a lot less bleak, though, didn't it?  After all, at least she knew where she stood, even if she didn't like it . . . Carol knew nothing, and honestly, trying to explain to her that Laith had taken it upon himself to make everything permanent?  She sighed.

Maybe she ought to have Ashur talk to him.  If he could talk some sense into Laith, that was . . .

"Johnston."

A heavy sigh on the other end of the phone call greeted him, and he frowned, glancing up from the pile of contracts that he still had yet to go through.  "Vince?  It's me . . ."

He frowned as the sound of his sister-in-law's usually upbeat voice greeted him.  "Tess?  Hey, what's up?"

She sighed again, although this one sounded more like a very deep breath than an actual sigh.  "It's Ray," she said.  "He left a few hours ago—wouldn't say where he was going, just that it was something he had to take care of.  Anyway, I was trying to call him to see when he'd be home, but it all keeps going straight to voicemail . . . Have you seen him?"

Dropping the pen from his fingers, he rubbed his temple, squeezing his eyes closed.  "Uh, not for a couple days, actually . . . Not since he mentioned that he'd found Muira."

She cleared her throat, and he heard the water tap turn on in the background—not surprising.  Whenever Tess got upset, she tended to do one of two things: clean or bake.  He was guessing that it was likely the former of those two options.  "You . . . You don't think he'd . . .?"

"What?  Go after him?  No . . . It'd be stupid for him to go alone . . ." Vince replied, inflicting enough bravado into his tone to comfort the woman, or so he hoped.

Tess clicked her tongue—another nervous habit of hers.  He might not be able to see her, but he wouldn't be surprised if she were tugging at her earlobe, too . . . "I . . . I don't understand," she said quietly.  "I don't see why we can't just live and let live . . . I-I-I mean, I agree, there shouldn't be any hanyou in line to be tai-youkai—nothing but pure youkai should ever hold that title, but really, is it such a big deal?"

Drumming his claws against the glass top of the desk, Vince grunted.  "That's what we think, too," he allowed.  "Thing is, if we just go with it, we're no better than the ones who think it's great, awesome, fantastic . . ."

"I . . . I suppose," she said, but she didn't sound entirely convinced, either.  "If, uh . . . If Ray calls, will you let me know?  We . . . We had a little argument before he left.  The girls had asked me to meet them for lunch, and I wanted him to watch Will, but he said he had a meeting, so . . . So, I called him selfish . . ."

"I'll tell him," Vince replied.  "Don't worry about it.  He is a selfish son of a bitch, and he knows it."

She tried to laugh, he'd give her that much.  It was a pretty abysmal failure, but she'd tried.  "Thanks," she said.  "Speaking of Will, I think he's awake.  I've got to go."

"No problem.  Give him a hug for me."

"I will.  Thanks, Vince.  Come by when you can."

"Absolutely," he replied.  Clicking off the phone, he dropped it onto the piles of documents and heaved a sigh of his own.

Damn that idiot brother of his, anyway—always going off, doing things half-cocked, never stopping to think about anything in the tunnel vision of his mind.  He'd always been like that, ever since they were little.

Even so, he reached for the phone and dialed Ray's number, frowning, but not surprised when the call went instantly to voicemail.

'Eh, who knows?  Maybe the fool's out somewhere, trying to make Tess feel bad for having the gall to ask him to watch his own kid for one day . . .'

Reaching for the contract he'd been looking over, he sighed again, pushing his brother out of his mind.  After all, the contracts were due, some of them as early as tomorrow, and it was up to him to figure out which ones were lucrative enough to bother with.  He'd worry about Ray when the idiot bothered to come by to get his next batch of unlucky targets . . .

Ashur sighed and grimaced, straightening the cuffs of the billowing white shirt he'd put on after his shower as he sat on the sofa and tried to focus on the reports he'd just gotten from Ontario regarding a few youkai who had gone missing in the last couple years.  The incidents didn't seem connected, at least, on the surface, but even so, it was something that required a little attention to figure out if there was something going on or not.

Sneaking into the house had been easy enough.  He’d just used his energy form to enter through his balcony door and gotten in a good shower, so he was able to avoid notice, which was what he wanted since he just didn’t want to alarm Jessa or to freak out Kells, both of which were entirely possible, had they seen his sorry state when he’d gotten home.  His injuries were still sore, but he’d cleaned them up and applied some salve before bandaging them, so they’d be fine in a day or two.

No, the biggest issue, really, was the lingering funk that still clung to him.  Little wonder, he supposed, given the events of the day.  He didn’t feel bad about the outcome of the fight.  He’d done what he had to do to protect those in his care, and it was unpleasant, but the biggest concern to him was the scope of what Johnston had known—and whether or not he had told anyone else about Ashur’s immediate whereabouts.  Without that knowledge, the danger had shifted from something that was a distinct possibility to something that was complete reality . . .

'You know, you might want to report that altercation to Cain.  You know, just in case some kind of report happens to make it to him—a missing bison-youkai . . .'

He frowned since he hadn't actually thought of that, either.

'You were well within your rights to defend yourself.  The Zelig will agree, too.'

He snorted, biting back the latent rage that still flickered, hot and deep, when the memory of that image came to life in his head.  'Like that matters.  He deserved what he got after invading my land like that . . . for threatening Jessa and Kells . . .'

'And you knew that it really was just a matter of time before they found you—before someone demanded answers, even if they have no right to ask.  You heard the whispers, the innuendo, the guessing. That's why you moved here, to start with—in the hopes that you could distance yourself and Kells from all of it—but knowing deep down that you couldn't . . .'

'I did.  I heard it all,' he agreed.  'Kells, however . . . He never deserved that . . . Maybe I should have thought twice before accepting the position of general . . .'

'Maybe, but you know, general or not, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and it'll probably happen again.  But you are being stupid, trying to hide it from Jessa, at the very least.  Do you honestly think that she won't notice?  Because if you think that you can go another night without her, you're sadly mistaken.  We need her like we need air, and she’s going to see your injuries then.'

Ashur snorted.  'Horny bastard.'

His youkai chuckled.  'Yeah, so, what does that make you?'

Lip curling back in a sardonic little grin, he shook his head.  'I'll go along with it . . . I mean, if I must . . .'

'. . . Jackass.'

"Ashur, we have to talk."

Blinked as he glanced up at Jessa, he very nearly smiled at the look of utter vexation on her beautiful face.  Brows drawn together, lips puckered into a very petulant little pout, she had her arms crossed over her chest as her gaze met his and darkened, as though she could read his thoughts and didn’t approve at all.  It wasn’t lost on him, albeit, in a vague kind of way, just how quickly she could entirely banish the clouds that had lingered over his psyche for the greater portion of the day.

He cleared his throat.  "Okay."

She gave a curt nod and flopped down on the sofa beside him.  "Do you know that they did?" she demanded, flipping her head, her hair carrying with it the scent of her shampoo.  "I mean, honestly, do you know what they did?"

For some reason, he was sorely tempted to laugh.  Considering the absolute chagrin, present in her expression, he figured that she thought that he knew what she was talking about.  Given everything that had happened since this morning, though?  No, he really, really didn’t . . . "Uh, no, since I've no idea who you're talking about, but I have every faith that you're about to tell me."

She wrinkled her nose and pinned him with a no-nonsense glower.  "This isn't funny, Ashur Philips!  This is serious!  And . . . And did you know that they have a thing call the 'Morning After pill'?"

"Okay, it's serious," he allowed.  "And . . . I've heard of it."

She snorted.  "Do you know what it's for?" she demanded.

Pursing his lips, he tried to affect a neutral expression.  "I have a good guess."

Again, the adorable little snort, and she rather looked like she might well beat on him for his perceived nonchalance.  "Focus, Ashur.  We need to be on the same page here."

"Okay," he agreed.  "Though I still am not entirely sure, what you're rambling on about."

Those amazing eyes of her narrowed dangerously, and for a moment, he had to wonder if she was considering, setting him on fire.  Again.  "Laith took Carol as his mate."

He nodded slowly.  "I could have sworn I told you that this morning."

She erupted in a little growl that really did almost make him laugh out loud.  "First off, I was hung over this morning, so no’ a lo’ of anythin’ really stuck," she said, tapping her temple to emphasize her point.  "Second off, you dinna say that he dinna tell her what it all meant!"

He stared at her for a moment before slowly arching an eyebrow.  "He didn't tell her?"

She rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air, only to let them fall heavily into her lap.  "No, he dinna!  That's what I've been trying to tell ye!  And then, she went out to get one of those pills before she went to work—I had to look that up on the internet to see what it was—not that he'd have been foolish enough to do that—" She gasped, eyes rounding even more. "Oh, my God!  He wounna . . . would he . . .?"

Ashur sighed.  "Ordinarily, I'd have to say that it'd be a damn foolish thing to do, but, given that he didn't even tell her what he was doing?  Well, if he did do that, too, then I'd guess she'd probably be in the market for a new mate, sooner rather than later . . ."

"You have to talk to him."

He blinked and barked out a terse chuckle.  "I'm sorry.  I could've sworn you just said that I have to talk to him."

She nodded emphatically.  "I did.  You do.  You've got to tell him that he has to talk to Carol!  This isn't something that is just going to go away, you know!  We're talking about the rest of their lives!  I mean, this is serious, Ashur!"

He grunted as he tried to turn his attention back to the reports.  "Oh, you did say it.  Yeah, I'm not going to do that."

"Why not?"

He scowled at her.  "Surely, you can understand why I'm not going to," he replied.  "I'm a firm believer in fixing your own mistakes, and this one is most certainly his."

She pouted at him, but it was one situation where that adorable little pout wasn't going to work.  There was no way, short of God, beaming Himself down in the middle of the living room in front of him, that he was going to give in, period.

She must have realized that her ploy wasn't working, and Ashur sat back when she decided to try a different tactic.  Climbing onto his lap, settling herself astride him, she slipped her arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him.  "Please," she murmured between kisses.

"No," he replied, grasping her upper thighs and pulling her a little closer.  "But you can keep doing this . . ."

She sighed, shivering just slightly, though he had a feeling that it had very little to do with the temperature in the room.  "But . . . Carol's my friend . . . and I hate . . . that she . . .  has no . . . idea . . ."

He grunted, hands slipping up to sink into her ridiculously fine hair.  "She's a big girl . . . She'll . . . figure it . . . out . . ."

"She'd figure . . . it out faster . . . if you . . . talked to . . . Laith . . ." Jessa breathed against his lips, drawing herself up, arching her back, pressing her body against his.

"No," he replied, nipping her bottom lip.  She groaned, the shift in her aura, in her scent, immediate and intoxicating.

"Ashur!"

He sighed and leaned far enough back to keep her from kissing him for a minute.  "Jessa, I'm not doing it," he told her flatly.  "I know you care about Carol, but it's really none of our business.  If I go out there, what do you think is going to happen?  I'm his boss—and the general of this region.  I can't just and demand that he does as I say—and you can't, either."  Seeing the look of utter concentration on her face, he sighed.  "And you can't tell her any more than he has.  Whatever she finds out needs to come from him."

She didn't like what he'd said.  He could see it on her face.  She let out a sigh, pushed against him to crawl off, but he held onto her.  "Let go, you Philistine."

He chuckled, but that chuckle became a hiss of pain when she inadvertently grabbed his forearm where he'd taken the hit earlier.  "Damn!"

She gasped and flinched, then frowned at him as she slowly reached for his sleeve.

"It's nothing," he lied, pushing her hand away gently.

"That didn't sound like, 'nothing'," she said.

When he refused to let her push his sleeve up, she shook her head and cut through it with her claws, much to his chagrin.

"What's this?" she asked, picking at the tape he'd used to close the gauze he'd wrapped around it.

"It's fine," he insisted, trying to push her back.

She shot him a no-nonsense look and unwound the gauze, only to gasp when she saw the wound he was trying to hide from her.  "What . . .?  What happened?"

"It's not a big deal; I promise," he said.

She scowled at him.  "If it's no’ a big deal, then tell me what happened," she countered.

He sighed, pulling her back against his chest, tucking her head under his chin as she frowned at his arm.  "We're alone—finally alone—after weeks of endless houseguests," he told her.  "Surely you can think of something else you'd rather do than worry about this when it'll be gone by tomorrow?"

"Are you keeping the truth of it from me because you're trying to protect me or because you don't trust me?" she parried quietly.

"You don't need to worry about it," he replied.  "It's not a big deal, and . . . and it won't happen again."

She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted when Kells came barreling in.  Skidding to a halt next to the sofa, he tilted his head to the side and stared at the two of them.  "Why's Jessa on your lap, Daddy?"

Ashur cleared his throat but didn't relinquish his hold on Jessa, even though his arms did loosen just a little.  "Oh, uh . . . She . . . She had something in her . . . her eye," he replied, hoping that the boy would buy it.

Kells thought about it for a few moments, then scrambled onto the sofa and in between them, shoving his rear end in Ashur's face in the process, before plopping down on Ashur's abs, which wouldn't have been so bad, but the injury to his chest protested loudly, and he had to bite back a groan.

"I don't see nuffin'!" Kells hollered, using his hands to pry Jessa's eye wide open as he leaned in, nose to nose with her to inspect her eye.  She laughed.

"Watch your claws, Kells," Ashur admonished, wincing as he grasped the lad's foot and moved it over when he inadvertently smashed the balls of his foot a little too close to Ashur's parts.  "Your feet, too . . ."

Kells giggled, pretty well ignoring his father as he threw himself against Jessa's chest in a big hug.  "It's a snuggle sandwich," he declared happily.

"Is it now?" Jessa laughed, tousling the boy's hair and giving him a gentle squeeze.  Over his shoulder, she met Ashur's gaze, her cheeks pinking slightly.  She stared at him, as though she were transfixed, as she slowly blinked.  Her eyes sparkled in the warm lamplight, and she didn't smile, but she didn't have to.  It was all there in her eyes . . .

Kells yawned and slumped against her, and she finally broke the moment as she glanced down at the boy.  Her smile surfaced once more.  "He's asleep," she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

He slipped his arms around Kells' stomach and upper body and lifted him slightly as Jessa carefully scooted off his lap and gathered the boy up to put him to bed, pausing long enough for Ashur to kiss his rounded cheek—a cheek that never failed to remind him of a ripened peach, right down to the slightly rosy glow . . .

She smiled as she straightened up.  "I'll be right back," she said, but she stopped short, eyes widening in shock, then narrowing along with the soft gasp that slipped from her lips.  "Ashur . . ."

Glancing down to see just what had elicited that kind of a response from her, he sighed when he saw it: all of Kells' movements had jabbed him in the wounded spot on his chest, and it had bled through the bandage that he'd put on after his shower.  "Damn . . ."

She pinned him with a, 'Don't-You-Dare-Move' look and hurried from the room with the boy in her arms, and he sighed once more.

Taking his time, he worked the buttons, leaned forward far enough to tug off the ruined shirt, giving up on the idea of trying to keep Jessa at bay since she'd just resort to using her claws, and, considering she'd already ruined the shirt by cutting away the sleeve, he had very little doubt that she would repeat the same thing now . . .

'So, you're just going to sit here and wait for her to come back down here, and . . . what?  Treat you like a cub?'

He snorted at that reference.  'I'm not a child.'

'Yeah, well, hate to tell you, Kyouhei, but she's still going to have a fit when she sees it, and while she's at it, you might as well show her the one on your leg, too, because if you don't and she discovers that later, there's going to be hell to pay.  Dunno if you've noticed, but I have.  That woman's got one hell of a temper . . .'

'So . . . You think I should just strip right down?  Is that what you're saying?'

'Well, yeah.  Yep, you might as well.'

He snorted again.  'No.'