InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Normalcy ( Chapter 61 )

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

Something was bothering Fai.

Staring down from the balcony of their bedroom, Saori frowned thoughtfully as she watched her new mate, wandering through the rolling garden behind the castle.  That he’d woken up long before she had was normal enough.  But he wasn’t in their bed when she opened her eyes a few minutes ago, and that was strange.

She’d spotted him easily enough when she’d stepped outside after donning her robe.

It had been a couple days since the last of the visitors had gone—the final ones to leave being Rinji and her parents, who had flown out two days ago after promising that they’d come visit soon.  It left her feeling a little lost, a little alone, but adjusting to her new life was worth it, too.

Now the problem for her was trying to find something to fill in time since her job for Fai was done—or so she’d thought.  Yesterday, he’d mentioned to her that he wanted her to start looking into properties nearby.  After hiring a couple of contractors to look over the old orphanage, they’d come to the conclusion that Fai had originally suspected—that the old place was too far gone to really make renovations worthwhile.  To that end, he’d decided that the whole operation might as well be moved closer.  He’d said that he’d like to be a little more hands-on with the orphans that they still had, and Saori had loved that idea, too.  So, he’d put her in charge of selecting a site with either buildings they could work with or one that they could build from scratch.

He didn’t like the fact that Sesshoumaru had insisted that he reimburse himself for the years that he’d been paying everything out of pocket.  She supposed that she could understand that, to a point.  He figured that he could easily pay for the new orphanage, even though the tai-youkai account had more than enough to cover that, too.  She had a few appointments in the next couple days to look at a few potential sites.  One of them was almost adjacent to Fai’s land, and she’d driven past it but hadn’t stopped to really get a feel for it yet . . .

But that wasn’t what was bothering him.  She could sense the unrest in his youki, even when he tried to say that nothing was wrong.  The only reason she hadn’t confronted him about it was because she also had the feeling that he wasn’t entirely sure what he thought for himself—and she figured that he would tell her whenever he was ready.  Besides, it was her responsibility to make him comfortable, wasn’t it?  To ensure that his home was as calm and peaceful as it could possibly be—a haven away from the things that usually troubled him, and, given his position, she knew well enough that those things were many and varied . . .

As if he sensed her quiet presence, he turned suddenly, his head lifting, and, even from the distance, she knew he saw her.  She waved at him, felt her youki stretch out, seeking his, and when they connected, she laughed softly.

He turned, vaulted off the ground, managed to reach the balcony in a few long hops, where he lit next to her with a smile that brightened his eyes despite the lingering worry that still clung to him, and she sighed as she reached up to tousle his hair, to use her fingers to comb through it.  “I meant to be back by the time you woke up,” he told her, his tone taking on an apologetic kind of lilt.

She shook her head, slipping her arms around his neck.  “I don’t mind,” she told him.  Then, she laughed.  “Well, okay, waking up in a big old bed all alone is a little disappointing . . .”

He chuckled, wrapping his arms around her as he leaned against the railing.  “Is that right?”

She nodded.  “I suppose you have a full day planned?  Making your life-altering decisions . . . playing Masters of the Universe . . .?”

He rolled his eyes.  “I feel like you’re making fun of me,” he told her.  “Are you?”

She giggled.  “No . . . Well, maybe, just a little . . .”

He snorted.  “I thought so.”

“So . . . What do you have planned while I’m out, looking over a couple properties for the new orphanage?”

His lips twitched slightly.  Resting her cheek against his chest, she didn’t see it.  “What else?  Making life-altering decisions and playing Masters of the Universe.”

She laughed and leaned back far enough to peer up into his face.  “You sure you don’t have time to come with me?  What if you don’t like the one I pick?”

He kissed her forehead.  “It’s your project, I told you.  You make the decisions, and I’ll be satisfied with whatever you do.”

He looked serious enough.  He looked like he actually meant what he said.  Even so, she couldn’t help the hint of anxiety when she considered just how much responsibility he’d given her.  “Fai . . .”

He sighed, but it was a contented kind of sound.  “Hmm?”

“I . . . I just don’t want to mess this up,” she ventured quietly.  “It’s such a big deal—it’s your mother’s project, right?  And I—”

“It’s your project, too, isn’t it?  I . . . I feel like it is . . . You care, and you’re good at finding placements for them.  The ones that come in, the young ones . . . They need someone like you, looking after them, trying to find the best homes for them because you were right when you said that they don’t belong in a place like that.  Even if we were able to make it a nice place, it’s not ever going to take the place of a real home . . .”

She blinked, smiled at him.  “You’re a good man, Fai,” she told him.  “All right, then.  I think . . . I think I can do it.”

He chuckled.  “I know you can.”

“You know, I was thinking earlier . . . This castle is so quiet, isn’t it?  Now that everyone’s gone back home . . . and I know that you wanted to wait to start a family.  I’m okay with that.  Maybe working with the children again will be good for me.”

“Is that some weird way for you to try to hint that you want a baby, Saori?” he countered, scooting back to sit on the railing, his knees apart as he pulled her between them, idly playing with the long strands of her hair.

She giggled.  “No, not at all.  I was just thinking earlier that maybe I should look for a job—a real job—but then, you said you wanted me to work with the children, and . . . and I like that idea—a lot.”

He shrugged.  “Well, if you’re still looking for something to keep you busy, there’s always the east wing of the castle . . .”

“Isn’t it haunted?”

He snorted.  “Don’t tell me you believe in stuff like that.  You don’t, do you?”

She shrugged.  “You never know.  It could be real.”

He grunted and rolled his eyes.  “Hardly,” he muttered.  “You’ve been talking to Yerik too much.  When he was little, he went in there one day and he swore that the door closed and locked him in.  It’s true that the door had a faulty lock that tended to catch, but that was all it was.  Yerik just had an overactive imagination; that’s all.”

“Poor Yerik-kun . . .” she said, shaking her head slowly.  “You aren’t being very supportive of him . . .”

“I’m very supportive of him,” Fai argued.  “I never sent him off to an orphanage, now did I?”

She gasped, then rolled her eyes.  “You’re so mean, Fai-sama.”

“Back to the -sama again, are we?”

She shrugged.  “Only when you’re being mean.”

He chuckled.  “As if I would have . . .”

“Speaking of Yerik-kun, where did he go?”

Fai scratched his chin thoughtfully.  “I had an errand I needed him to take care of.  I sent him to verify a story for me.”

“A story?  What kind of story?”

“A man who was found, drained of much of his blood . . . He kept telling this tale that he was attacked by vampires, that he escaped them—managed to get away.  Now, it’s possible that he was just hallucinating, but . . .”

“But you wanted to make sure he was?  Fai-sama, there are no such thing as vampires.”

He nodded.  “True, but there are blood-youkai.”

She shot him a dark look.  “They’re extinct . . .”

“Actually, they’re not.  They haven’t caused trouble in a very long time, though, so odds are that the guy is just telling some weird story, but it doesn’t hurt to check it out.”

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know . . . a few days, maybe?

She hugged him tight, rose up on her toes to kiss him.  “Okay . . . Now, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

“What do you mean?” he hedged.

“Aren’t you the one who told me that I needed to tell you if something bothered me?”

He shrugged.  “Do as I say, not as I do?”

She snorted.  “Cute, Fai-sama.”

He grunted.  “I am not being mean.”

“Arguable . . . You’re my mate.  That means you can’t keep things from me,” she told him.  “You’re the one who told me that I’m your equal—equal—which means that you have to tell me things—that you don’t get to decide what you tell me and what you don’t.”

“Wow, you’re kind of tough,” he pointed out.

“Thank you.”

He nodded.  “And very pretty.”

“Thank you.”

“And absolutely gorgeous with your hair, still tousled from what we were doing last night . . .”

She narrowed her eyes and stepped back from him, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Yeah, that’s not working,” she grumbled, despite the heightened color that flooded into her cheeks.

He chuckled and tugged her back against him.  “What’s not working?”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Trying to distract me,” she told him.  “You’re going to tell me what’s bothering you, and you’re not going to tell me that it’s nothing.”

He smiled, but not before she saw the flash of guilt on his face.  “I . . . Well, to be honest, I don’t know what to do.”

“About?”

He didn’t answer right away.  Letting his arms drop away as he grasped her hand and pulled her back into the bedroom, he left her there just inside the doors while he wandered over to pour a cup of coffee on the breakfast tray that had been brought up while she was outside, watching him.  “Evgeni,” he admitted, lifting the cup to his lips.  “I . . . I want to question him, but the odds that I’ll get a real answer out of him?”  He shook his head as she wandered over to grab a glass of juice.  “I’m not going to.  Father’s diary mentioned him.  It said that he was trying to undermine his authority, but he wasn’t sure why.  I mean, it’d be easy to say that he simply wanted to cause unrest, hoping that Father would be challenged or something, and it did happen, but the youkai knew that Father wasn’t one who could be so easily beaten, either.”

“And you think that’s what he’s been doing now?” she asked, setting the glass down, picking up a slice of black bread.  “Then why doesn’t he just challenge you outright?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe he thinks he couldn’t beat me.  Maybe he has no desire to try to win the seat of tai-youkai from me . . . I’m not sure, and the only one who knows . . . Well, I doubt he’ll tell me, even if I confront him.”

“But why would he go to the trouble of . . . of doing all of this?  It seems like it would just be simpler to either challenge you or to find someone else to do it . . .”

He nodded slowly.  “That’s what bothers me.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

This time, he sighed.  “That’s just it.  I don’t know.”  Setting the mug down, he paced the length of the room and back, hands on hips, scowl on his face.  “What he’s done amounts to treason—keeping the account information from me, spreading rumors to try to undermine me, especially in regards to the regents . . . I’ve killed five of them, Saori—five of them—all because they heard the rumors, they got frightened, and they challenged me, and all the while, he . . . He knew . . .”

She frowned.  He was angry, and rightfully so, but it was the underlying sense of confusion, of hurt, that she couldn’t stomach.  Those emotions . . . Maybe he didn’t realize that they were there—maybe he didn’t even sense them.  She could feel them, though . . . and the ugly sense of righteous indignation on his behalf, even hatred, surged through her: hot, frothing, almost overwhelming . . .

Fai sighed.  “It’s not as simple as just issuing a hunt for him.  I could do that, certainly, but I wouldn’t get answers . . . And then, there’s you . . .”

“Me?”

He nodded.  “He doesn’t know your connection to Sesshoumaru, and . . . and I think it’s better that way, but the thing is, about the time he realizes that you’re my mate—my true mate . . .”

She narrowed her eyes, swallowing a bite of bread that somehow tasted akin to a mouthful of sawdust.  “You think he’d threaten me?”

He shook his head.  A sudden and almost frightening kind of coldness slipped over his features, and she opened her mouth, to try to diffuse whatever thought had just come to him.  “Fai—”

“I want you to go home, Saori.”

“Fai?”

He stared at her for several long moments.  “I need you to go back to Tokyo, just for a little while—until I’ve dealt with him.”

“I won’t,” she stated flatly, glowering at him as her stubbornness kicked in.  “I belong here with you!”

Again, he shook his head.  “You do,” he allowed, stepping over to her, grasping her arms in his hands.  “Don’t ask me how I know.  It’s just a feeling, and . . . and I can’t ignore it.  You’re not safe here.  When he finds out that we’re mates, the easiest way to hurt me will be to hurt you because your life is mine, and mine is yours . . . Do you understand?  I . . . need . . . you . . . to . . . be . . . safe.”

She swallowed hard as she stared at him.  As much as she wanted to argue with him, she could see it, couldn’t she?  He believed what he was saying—absolutely believed it . . . He . . . He really was afraid for her . . .

He sighed, dragging her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her in an almost stifling embrace.  “It’s just for a little while,” he told her, as though he were trying to soften the blow.  “You’re everything to me—everything . . . You . . . You mean more to me than anything—than my office, than my own life . . . and I have to know that you’re safe.”

She closed her eyes, her hands wrapping tight around fistfuls of his shirt.  Then, she sighed.  “I’ll . . . I’ll call and book a flight,” she told him.  “You’ll . . . You’ll be careful . . .?”

He couldn’t even manage a smile as he stared at her, as he kissed her forehead and hugged her tight again.  “I will,” he promised.  “I . . . I will . . .”