InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Ribbing ( Chapter 63 )

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

The most beautiful feeling awoke Jessa.  So nice, in fact, that it took her a minute to figure it out before she tossed aside those last, lingering remnants of peaceful sleep and opened her eyes.  Maybe it was just the simple fact that it felt like the first time in a long time that she'd actually slept peacefully.

In fact, the last time she could remember sleeping so peacefully was the last time she'd slept with . . .

"Ashur?" she mumbled, rubbing her eyes with balled-up fists as she struggled against a jaw-splitting yawn.

The warmth of lips on her forehead as she turned and huddled a little closer to the inviting warmth of his body.  He chuckled softly.  "Morning, Amaterasu . . . Did you sleep all right?"

"Mmm," she muttered, still refusing to open her eyes.  "Shu'up . . . tryin' t' go back t' sleep . . ."

He sighed, but the sound was ruined when he chuckled again.  "As much as I'd love to accommodate you, if I stay in bed longer, I'm going to be late."

"Late?  Whaffor?" she said, her voice muffled by his chest.

This time, he snorted.  "A hopelessly boring meeting with the generals," he admitted.  "Why don't you come along?  Gin will be there, too . . . She mentioned something about a brunch."

"No, thanks," she replied, tightening her grip on him, unwilling to let him get up, either.  "Tell them you're sick.  Have to stay in bed all day.  Sorry . . ."

He chuckled again, wrapping his arms around her a little tighter, giving her an affectionate squeeze.  "I wish.  Unfortunately, we probably ought to get back to Quebec within the week, and this has to be done since everyone's here, anyway."  He sighed.  "You know, don't you?  You utterly wrecked Kells."

That got her attention quickly enough, and she struggled to lean up on her elbows.  "But I left him my flames . . ."

He stared at her for a long moment before slowly shaking his head.  "Yeah, you did.  Then I took them away from him, so he's pissed as hell at me."

"Why would you take them?"

He rolled his eyes.  "He was trying to break it—trying to summon you back," he explained.  "Jessa—"

"I told him not to unless he really needed me . . . I said—"

"And what do you think is an emergency to a three-year-old?  You know, don't you?  You're the closest thing to a . . ." Trailing off with a scowl, he shook his head.  "He loves you. You were gone.  He didn't know when you were coming back.  He thought you'd left forever, even though I told him . . ." Suddenly narrowing his gaze, he scowled at her.  "But you weren't going to come back, right?  You weren't planning on it from the time you walked out the door . . ."

Heaving a sigh as her bubble of contentment burst like an overblown balloon, Jessa sat up, rubbed her face, refusing to look at Ashur again.  "No, I . . . I wasna . . ."

"Why?  Because of the whole . . . gift thing . . .?  Jessa—"

"No!  Well, a little, but . . ."

Letting out a deep breath, he sat up, too, slipped an arm around her to draw her against him once more.  She resisted for all of a minute before slowly relaxing against him.  "Because of what you overheard, right?  You know, don't you?  I didn't mean any of that.  I honestly didn't, and I . . . It killed me, to say those things—to lie like that, but I . . . I was afraid that they'd hurt you to get to me . . ."

He was speaking, she could hear him, but something else—something that felt just a little . . . different . . . was blocking out the sound of his voice.  Something . . . but . . . what was it . . .?

'Come now, Jessa.  Surely, you're not that thick . . .'

Scowling at the sound of her youkai-voice, she shook her head.  'What . . . do you mean . . .?'

'Do you think the condom broke or did he simply just . . . not use one?'

It took a minute for that bit of nonsense to dawn on Jessa.  It took her another moment for her to wrap her brain around, just what that might mean.  Slowly, cautiously, she sniffed, her eyes flaring wide as the change in her scent—the change in his—registered.  'But . . . We didn't . . . We never . . . He's not . . . No-o-o-o-o-o-o . . .'

'It's a little too late for that, lassie.  What's done is done and cannot be undone, as your ma would say, but you know—'

'It . . . It can't be!  Oh, God . . . Oh, my God!  He . . . He doesn't realize, but when he does . . .'

'Stop that, now!  You don't know that he doesn't know, and you don't know that if he doesn't, that he'll flip out when he does.  You know, things like this aren't accidental.  Maybe if you stopped feeling sorry for yourself and stopped trying to find reasons why he would never want you—'

'Of course, he doesna want me!  Why would he when he's in love with Hana?  You heard what she said!  He's her only one!  What do you think that means?'

'To me, that means that she'd be with him if it were true, you stupid, silly little girl!  If you're so worried about that, then open your mouth and ask him because—'

'Oh, what do you know?  Just shut up!  Shut up so I can think, damn it!'

'So, you want me to shut up, do you?  All right, fine, then I won't tell you what I know . . . After all, I'm just your youkai-voice!  What in the hell would I know?'

Wincing as her youkai finally, blessedly fell silent, Jessa leaned forward, gripping her temples between her fingertips and rubbing furiously.  He was going to be livid when he found out, wasn't he?  And he ought to be, shouldn't he?  He'd never wanted to take her as his mate, and . . .  She groaned.

"Jessa?  Are you all right?"

"Uh, oh . . . Umm . . . I'm fine," she lied, hoping that he couldn't see her face.

He sighed.  "Why do I feel like you haven't heard a thing I just said?"

"Ashur?  Have you . . . noticed . . . a-a-any . . . thing?"

"Aside from the fact that you're ignoring me?" he asked dryly.

She flinched.  "Last . . . night . . . did the, uh . . ." Trailing off as she squeezed her eyes closed, as she gathered what was left of her scattered courage, she blurted, "—didthecondombreak?"

He blinked and shot her a raised-eyebrow-ed look.  "Huh?"

She bit her lip, dragged her hair over her shoulder, twisted it around and around and around at lightning speed till he reached over and pulled it away from her.  "It . . . broke . . ." she squeaked out, her throat suddenly bone-dry.  "I'm . . . I'm so sorry . . ."

"Sorry?" he echoed, pinning her with a look that was more disbelief, but she saw the irritation there, too, and she grimaced.  "You're. . . sorry . . ."

"I-I-I know this isn't what you want, and-and maybe there's a way to un-do it, or . . . or maybe it won't matter since we're not really, um, you know—"

He snorted indelicately as she shot out of the bed and toward the bathroom.  "No . . . Of course not," he growled, yanking the door open.  "Because being my mate would be a fate worse than death, wouldn't it?"

She flinched again when the bathroom door slammed closed, drawing up her knees to hide her face as she let her forehead fall against them.  Being his mate wasn't the problem, and deep down, in a part of her that she hated, she'd have to admit that that small part of her was thrilled—entirely thrilled . . . But he . . .

He didn't want it; didn't want to be stuck with her . . .


Gin Zelig opened the door to the very large and very impressive townhouse, only to step back, her eyes widening as a very blatant look of absolute shock surfaced on her pretty face.  Seconds later came the high-pitched squeal that made Ashur flinch as the tiny woman fairly flew at Jessa, who managed to stoop down just enough to hug the tai-youkai's mate while she pinned him with the most fulminating glower she possibly could.

He stifled a sigh as Gin babbled her congratulations and pulled them both inside.  "Oh, my goodness!  I had no idea that the two of you would—" cutting herself off, she cleared her throat and giggled again.  "Well, never mind me!  That's so wonderful!  Come on, Jessa!  The rest of the ladies are here, and I'm sure they'd all love to meet you!"

"The rest of the . . . ladies?" she echoed with a frown.

"You hear that?  It's wonderful," Ashur murmured, grasping Jessa's arm to keep her from following Gin right away.

She jerked away from him and narrowed her eyes before turning on her heel and stomping off toward the back of the townhouse where Gin had disappeared.

"Oh, hey, Ash!  We—" Cutting himself off abruptly as he stopped dead in his tracks and leveled a completely blank look at him, Bas Zelig stared, eyebrows slowly drawing together, mouth shifting to the side in an exaggerated show of complete befuddlement.

Ashur sighed and rolled his hand to hurry the commentary along.

"W—I mean, I—Isn't she your—I didn't know—C-Congratulations."

Ashur snorted.  "She was Kells' nanny—she isn't anymore.  We weren't really broadcasting it, and thank you.  Can we move on now?"

Bas chuckled but still seemed a little perplexed.  "Oh, uh, yeah.  We're in here.  We were waiting for you but, uh, well, it . . . It kind of makes sense, why you're late.  I'm actually kind of surprised that you showed up at all, all things considered . . ."

Uttering a terse grunt and steeling himself for the next round of Twenty Questions, Ashur followed Bas into the large and warm living room, and he wasn't entirely surprised when all the talking ground to an instant halt as Cain's expression mirrored his son's, as the tai-youkai leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat rather dubiously.

The first one to speak, unfortunately, was Steve Vasquez, who chuckled.  "Don't look at me.  I gave him a condom.  Not my fault Ben apparently never taught him how to use it."

"What's that?" Ben demanded, and Ashur stifled a groan.  No, Ben hadn't made it back to the States, but what did that matter when he could be connected via video feed on the large screen television off to the left?

Cain cleared his throat again. "Morning, Ash.  You're . . . smelling very . . . 'Jessa' today . . ."

How he'd managed to say that with a completely straight face was rather beyond Ashur, he'd give him that.  Too bad it wasn't nearly as amusing to Ashur, though.  "That usually happens when one takes a mate," he grumbled.

"Wait, what?" Ben intoned, leaning forward in his chair.  "No, seriously, what?"

Martin Sanstrom laughed.  "Well, if you've got to be mated to someone for life, she's not a bad way to go . . . So . . . just . . . one . . . question . . ."

Ashur shot him a rather bored look.  "One."

Martin nodded.  "You, uh . . . You did know her before the gala . . . right?"

Ashur sighed and didn't bother to answer that as he dropped into a chair and slowly shook his head.

"All right, so if I'm understanding you all, you, Ashur . . . You and Jessa . . .?" Ben interjected.

"Yes, Ben, that's right.  Jessa and I are mated as of yesterday since everyone here apparently has to know all the fine details.  It's fine, it's great, it's wonderful . . . Just ask Gin.  She said so."

Ben blinked and slowly nodded.  "Well . . . Um . . . It's just a little . . . abrupt . . ."

"All right, all right, Ashur's got a point.  It's not really our business," Cain stated.  "Moving on . . ."

"Sorry to keep you all waiting," Gunnar Inutaisho said as he strode into the room.  It really was too much to hope that he wouldn’t notice, Ashur figured.  He was right.  The future Japanese tai-youkai stopped, his head pivoting to look at Ashur, who sighed.  "Wow," he said, slowly shaking his head.  "I've seen some interesting reactions from men who wanted to keep me away from their women, but to mate her just to do it?  That's a new one."

"My God, you're so narcissistic," Bas grumbled.

"How is a true statement, me, being narcissistic?" Gunnar shot back.

"Well, when's the wedding?" Ben interrupted before Bas and Gunnar could get going in one of their legendary verbal battles.

"Whose?"

Ben rolled his eyes.  "Yours, Ash.  Charity loves weddings . . ."

"I hadn't thought about that," Ashur admitted, hoping that his brother was going to drop it.

"What do you mean, you haven't thought about it?  She's your mate.  You'd better, as they say, put a ring on it."

"One thing at a time, Ben," Ashur grumbled.  "I mean, she's still a little . . . She hasn't quite . . ."

"What do you mean?" Steve cut in.  "It's not like you just made her your mate without talking about it, right?  I mean, you just don't take a mate, and . . . Oh . . . Oh, you did . . ."

"Ash?  You . . . You told her what you wanted, didn't you?" Ben asked, his tone registering his utter disbelief.

"Not . . . exactly . . ." he admitted.

"Well, what exactly did you say to her?  I mean, Ash, you can't just take a mate and not tell her that you're doing it.  How did you even explain it?"

"Considering she jumped to her own conclusions?  I didn't . . . yet . . ."

Covering his mouth with his hand, Ben scowled at the camera.  "I . . . I . . ." Letting out a deep breath, Ben seemed at a total loss as he shook his head instead.

Ashur sighed.  "If you all must know, yes, she's my mate, and she was going to be my mate regardless, even if she thinks it's a fate worse than death, but we'll get past that.  It's a far sight better than her original plan of running off back to Ireland to marry Duke Paddington Bear's son—who, incidentally, has no interest in marrying her, in the first place—so, as it is, MacDouchebag can deal with it and release her estate since she now officially has a mate, and he can give up on the idea that she'll ever, ever marry any of his little cronies, and—"

"Mac . . . Douchebag . . .?" Cain repeated, lips twitching as he fought back the urge to laugh.

Ben cleared his throat.  "Did you really just call the European tai-youkai—?"

"Yes, I did," Ashur interrupted.  "Can we move on now?"

"This just keeps getting better and better," Bas muttered to Gunnar, who was sitting next to him.

Gunnar nodded.  "I'm a little jealous that I didn't think of that one myself . . ."

Cain grunted.  "Just . . . one last question, and then I swear we'll move on."

Ashur heaved a sigh, slouching in his chair, resting his forehead on his propped fingers and rolling his other hand to indicate that Cain should continue.

"It's just . . . Have you actually met the son?  Duke, uh . . . Paddington Bear's . . . son?"

Ashur shifted his gaze to the side to meet Cain's, though he didn't move his head.  "You've met him, too."

"I have?"

"He's Jessa's friend, Devlin.  He left home when his father told him that he was arranging his marriage.  Apparently, he's not too keen on the idea, and even less so now, knowing that Jessa's the girl he was to marry.  He says she's like his sister, and . . ." Suddenly, Ashur chuckled.  "Well, he seems to have a certain fascination for Manami, actually . . ."

"Manami?  Is that right?"

Ashur shrugged.  "Not like anything will ever come of it," he said.  "Considering Dev can't even form a coherent sentence around her?  Jessa told me that his pick-up line was something about liking birds . . ."

"Oh, no . . . No-o-o-o-o," Ben grimaced.

Ashur nodded slowly.  "Poor bastard . . ."

"Maybe, but maybe Manami might like being mated to him," Gunnar pointed out.

Ashur sighed at the entirely unwelcome and also entirely accurate barb.

Cain waved a hand.  "All right, all right, as fascinating as all of this is, I think we'd all like to get back to the real reason for this meeting?"

"I feel like I'm back in high school again," Marshall Billings muttered.

Cain rolled his eyes and slowly shook his head.

Ashur could only heave a sigh of relief since the worst of it was over . . .


"Ladies, I'd like to formally introduce you to Cain's newest general's mate, Jessa!  She's a real lady, you know!  As in, Lady Jessamyn O'Shea—oh, but I guess that'll be Lady Jessa Philips soon enough, right?" Gin giggled as she gave Jessa's arm a little squeeze.

"Oh!  Congratulations!" Jan Sanstrom exclaimed with a bright and friendly smile.  "I have to admit, though, my daughter, Paige is going to be pretty sad when I tell her."

"I wasn't aware that Ashur was seeing anyone," Denise Billings remarked with a thoughtful frown.  "Why weren't you seated with him, dear?"

"Oh, that was my fault," Gin explained, gently pushing Jessa toward the table where the other women were already seated.  "I told Chelsea, but she was so busy, she forgot to give the waiters the amended chart . . ."

"Even so, I could have sworn they said you were just the nanny," Denise went on, tucking a long strand of black hair behind her ear.

Jess didn't know how to respond to that.  Truthfully, she wasn't entirely sure how to respond to anyone.  Sydnie, however, smiled at her and jerked her head toward the open seat beside her, and, seeing no way around it, Jessa sat down.

She hadn't actually spoken more than a sentence or two to the cat-youkai, mostly because of the rather intimidating looks the woman cast her when she'd danced once with her mate at the gala . . .

"I'm going to go finish up the quiche, and I'll be right back!" Gin said as she hurried off toward the kitchen.

"So, how long have you and Ashur been dating?" Jan asked, standing up to fill glasses with orange juice and champagne.

Jessa frowned since she didn't have an answer to that, either, given that they really had only gone on a couple dates—and even so, that was stretching it, just a little.  "N-Not very long," she replied.

"Oh, love at first sight!"  She sighed happily, her eyes taking on that sense of seeing something that no one else could for a moment before she snapped herself out of it and laughed.  "That's how it was for Martin and me . . . What about you, Denise?"

Denise laughed and took a glass.  "Actually, I hated Marshall.  I despised him for a very long time.  Of course, our mothers were friends, so we knew each other . . . forever.  It wasn't until he clobbered my boyfriend at the time for being a jerk that I . . . decided he was all right, after all . . ."

Sydnie laughed and reached for two glasses, but Jessa held up a hand to decline.  "Oh, sorry . . . Gin doesn't really drink, either," she said, setting one of the glasses back.

"Uh . . . Well, I'm not legally able to here," Jessa admitted.

"Oh?  What are you?  Twenty?" Jan asked.

"Eighteen . . ." Jessa said.

"Oh . . . You're still just a baby!" Denise exclaimed.  Her laugh was friendly, but even so, Jessa bit her lip.

"Old enough, obviously," Sydnie quipped, sparing a moment to wink at Jessa.  "Anyway, I remember thinking that my puppy was very hot the first time I saw him," she went on, and it struck Jessa that she was trying to steer the conversation away from her.  "All tall and golden . . . and huge . . ."

"You look like the cat that ate the canary," Denise remarked with a wink.

"What can I say?  I adore my puppy . . ."

"Sebastian is a very nice-looking young man—granted, he's young enough to be my son," Jan allowed.  "I still remember when he was born . . ."

Denise shook her head as she stared at Jessa.  "I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to be rude, Jessa, but . . . Did you curl your hair or is all of that natural?"

She blinked and glanced down at the riot of curls that had fallen over her shoulder.  "It's natural," she said, unable to staunch the hint of defensiveness that crept into her tone.

Denise's eyes widened.  "Well, it's beautiful!  I was hoping that maybe you had some sort of secret . . . I've tried everything to get my hair to curl, but it never stays for more than a few hours . . ."

"Oh, it, um . . . My nannies always complained about it," she said.  "It tangled so dreadfully easily . . ."

"Nannies?  What about your mother, dear?" Jan asked.

"I spent evenings with my parents, but most of the day, I was with my nanny or governess . . ."

Did they have to look so very appalled?  Something about it brought out the sense of awkwardness that Jessa couldn't control . . .

"That's entirely unnatural!" Jan exclaimed.  A moment later, however, she had the grace to blush. "I'm . . . I apologize.  That was rude of me . . ."

"I think you turned out fine," Sydnie said, giving Jessa's hand a little squeeze.  Jessa smiled, and slowly, for the first time since she'd realized that she was somehow mated to Ashur, she started to relax . . .