InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Teaching Rin ❯ Chapter 38

Disclaimer - It’s not mine. Never was. I’m not the owner, nor am I making any money off of the characters originally created for the Inuyasha anime/manga.

A/N - Just so you know, it’s been a few days since the last chapter. And things are about to boil over.

(…insert maniacal laughter…)

-----

Teaching Rin

Chapter 38

Now We’re Finally Getting Somewhere

-----

The light glinting off her blades blinded her temporarily. Kaida finished the last graceful move of the warm-up kata and went straight into the next one. She was alone in the dojo, taking in the peace of the night.

She had returned to the Western Lands earlier that day and quickly found that something had changed drastically since she had left so abruptly five days before. Sesshomaru was nowhere in sight, which was odd. He usually was in the courtyard snarling at anyone who dared come into his domain. There was a tenseness in the air, almost like everyone was walking on eggshells.

The elites had been training right outside the defensive wall, so she had joined them after securing Ishika in the stable. What she had found was shocking.

---------

Kaida adjusted the straps on her blades and walked quickly over to where Bano was standing, his back to her.

“Captain?” she said, causing him to swing around and face her. The huge demon looked horrible. There were numerous scratches along his arms, and a deep gash down the left side of his face. Kaida took an involuntary step back and reached up to touch the wound. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Lady General.” he said formally, giving her a curt bow. “It is good to see you have returned safely from your trip.”

“Yes.” she said, noticing that he seemed more reserved than normally, almost like he was scared to see her, or he was reluctant to answer her question as to where those marks had come from. She let it go, knowing the proud Captain would avoid telling her since it was so obvious he did not want to. “How goes the training?”

He relayed what they had been doing, and Kaida listened intently before going to observe the soldiers practicing hand to hand combat.

She continued watching the men around her, intermittently correcting holds or showing them variations of one technique. She noticed that Bano wasn’t the only one who was sporting wounds. Yukio, Nekotu, and Reisho all looked like they had caught the wrong end of a pissed off panther demon. When she couldn’t figure out what could have possibly happened, she searched out Sakaki and pulled him to the side, demanding to know what the hell had happened while she was gone.

“General, permission to speak freely?” he had asked stiffly.

“Granted.”

“Don’t you dare leave this place again.” he said sternly.

“Excuse me?”

“Sesshomaru has been pissy the whole time you’ve been gone. He nearly killed half of us in training one evening, and sent Captain Bano, Reisho, Yukio, and Nekotu to the infirmary for two days! They were just released earlier today.”

“What? Sesshomaru has never trained with you since I took over the supervision. Why’d he do it now?” she asked.

“He didn’t say.” Sakaki answered truthfully. “He just showed up the day after you left and proceeded to do his best to maim every last one of us.”

A blaring surge of energy behind her alerted everyone that their Lord had arrived. Kaida swung around and found Sesshomaru’s golden gaze trained on her. She realized quickly enough that he wasn’t happy with something, and it was more than likely her. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, but was no more than a half minute at the most, before he turned and left without a word to anyone.

--------------

That was hours ago, and she still hadn’t seen him again.

‘‘But what in the seven hells possessed him to attack his own soldiers?!’ Kaze told me he was going to be grumpy when I got back here, but I honestly didn’t think he would go that far.’ she thought distractedly as she pulled some daggers from her sleeve and sent them flying into a target on the far end of the wall.

Kaze. The one who had given her a crash course in canine psychology after he had practically abducted her from Sesshomaru’s fortress. She could always count on Kaze to give her the facts straight, just the way he saw them. That bluntness had saved her many a headache before. And she had been once again grateful for it when he had taken her away from Sesshomaru’s lands and they had spent a few days alone in the forest of her homeland.

Of course, that had been after he had forced her to admit what was wrong with her. She had cracked under her long time friend’s persistent questioning and probing, finally coming clean to him about her feelings of attraction to Sesshomaru and her fears of the Western Lord knowing about it.

She had expected him to be angry, or even to tease her mercilessly about it. But he hadn’t. All the merchant had done was give her a hug and admit that he had suspected that and seen it coming.

Thus had began his attempt to explain why Sesshomaru had been acting the way he had been for the past few weeks. Some of his reasoning was farfetched and utterly ridiculous. But it had helped her understand a little more how Sesshomaru could possibly be thinking as far as she was concerned.

Kaze said Sesshomaru was jealous of the time she spent with the elites.

She reasoned that there was no point in being angry about that since Sesshomaru was the one who had given her the task to begin with.

The itinerant merchant had then pointed out that Sesshomaru didn’t like her spending time alone with himself.

Kaida quickly pointed out that if Sesshomaru had any problems with him, then he’d just get over it. Kaze had been her friend since childhood, and she wasn’t about to stop that just because some egotistical Lord didn’t like him coming around to visit her.

Kaze then had the gall to tell her that if she would have just went back to acting normal after she had went back with him, nothing would have changed.

She kindly pointed out that if he’d died, and then had to live with the one who had resurrected him, he wouldn’t be acting normal either.

So they had went round for round for almost four days straight. Kaze would point out another reason why she was acting like some kind of embarrassed teenage human girl, and she would try to justify her actions. He had switched topics on her then, defeating every negative thought she had about herself and the attraction she had to Sesshomaru.

It had helped immensely, knowing that at least one creature in the world cared that she was still functioning as normally as possible. Kaze had given her a much needed boost of self confidence, and had reassured her that what she was feeling was perfectly normal. He even went so far as to get halfway through one particularly graphic story about a woman he had met on one of his trips to the mainland and how they had….well, she had gotten the picture quickly enough.

‘I don’t think he honestly realized how much he helped me.’ she thought, smiling slightly in remembrance of the eclectic dog demon. ‘It feels better knowing that he understands, even if it is Sesshomaru for crying out loud!’

He had advised her to just go back to being normal; sarcasm and attitude included.

‘He doesn’t know how to handle you because you changed.’ Kaze had pointed out. ‘You went from someone hell bent on making him see things her way, to ignoring him completely. He’s suffering from lack of attention, Kaida! That’s all that’s wrong with him! He changed the way he was dealing with you, because you changed the way you were dealing with him. Simple as that. Start paying attention to him again, and trust me, things will get better much quicker. Just go back to being your usual unorthodox self and he’ll go back to normal as well. Whatever normal is for him…’

Kaida’s senses pricked up when she felt someone coming towards the dojo. She knew he was there before a word was ever exchanged between them. Sesshomaru had been hanging right on the outskirts of her senses most of the evening, especially during the training with the soldiers earlier, and when Kaze showed up.

‘Well, let’s see if Kaze’s time as my instructor amounted to anything.’ she thought, turning slowly to see the object of her infatuation standing at the entrance of the dojo.

“Lord Sesshomaru.” she said coolly, giving him a slow, if short bow. “What do I owe the honor of your presence here this evening?”

---------

‘What did that fucking mutt do to her now!’

That was the first thing that came to mind when he found Kaida in the midst of his elites earlier that day. He had felt her arrival back, and had quickly noted the changes in her aura, even from inside the thick walls of the fortress.

He had exited his conference room and made his way down to the elites’ training ground outside the fortress walls, watching as she interacted with his men. He had seen her pull Sakaki to the side and question him about something, probably the reason he looked like he’d lost a fight, but had refrained from interfering. She had sensed him, and met his gaze with one of her own, challenging him boldly to know what he had done to the men under her supervision. But she had said nothing, and he had been the first to turn away, leaving her with the men surrounding her.

He had observed her for the rest of the evening, noticing the slight changes in her stature and her overall presence. It did not take long to see that the old Kaida was back with a vengeance, especially when she had taken on Reisho to spar.

The thunder demon was the best hand to hand combatant in the elites. Despite his short stature, he was powerful. The warrior’s dark blue eyes never missed any twitch of muscle in his opponent. And, like Bano, he was not afraid to use his entire strength when fighting with Kaida.

Sesshomaru knew she realized he wouldn’t hold back, and was about to intervene when the spar started. Reisho and Kaida were like lightning as they danced along the practice mat, each trying to get an opening for a fatal hit had they actually been adversaries. Despite that, they continued on for nearly a half hour, until finally one wrong move on Kaida’s part forced her to concede the match to Reisho. The demoness had not shown any outward signs of anger for losing, though. In fact, she laughed and patted Reisho on the back when he admitted that he had used a variation of an attack pattern she had taught them the week before to overthrow her defenses.

‘Did that mutt do this to her? Did he reawaken her warrior’s spirit once again after so long? How?’ he thought, walking towards the dojo. He had felt her calmed energy emanating from the building, and figured it was as good a time as any to find out what had happened. ‘She is as she should be. Challenging, strong, demanding…’

The Western Lord had continued to watch her interaction with his men. She did not flinch when someone put their hands on her or pinned her to the mat, not like she had done before. Sesshomaru growled in annoyance, wondering exactly how Kaze had managed to make her get over that particular hang up of hers in such a quick time. It had taken him weeks to make her overcome her dislike of physical closeness to anyone when she had first come here to the West. He had made her overcome her fear by forcing her to fight him, to deal with the contact that came with sparring.

What had Kaze done to alleviate her concern in merely five days? Had he used another tactic, a much gentler, more pleasurable way to show her it was okay to be touched by another person. Was it that same reason she was now glowing in self assurance once again.

‘Stop it.’ he growled angrily, chastising himself. ‘Stop thinking about it.’

He suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to know for fear of hunting the mutt down and mutilating him beyond recognition.

“Lord Sesshomaru. What do I owe the honor of your presence here this evening?” she asked, breaking him out of his thoughts. He noticed the slight smirk on her lips and damned Kaze’s interference again.

“This is my abode, is it not?” he asked coldly.

“Indeed it is.” Kaida said, nodding. “Did you need something of me?”

‘Was that supposed to be a rhetorical question?’ he wondered idly.

“Not at all.” he answered.

“Ah. Feel like sparring?” she offered, shrugging. Sesshomaru quirked an eyebrow at her sudden want to fight with him. “Just a thought since you were standing there looking lost.” she added, her left hand on her hip. “Your call.”

Sesshomaru just looked at her for a few seconds before moving to the opposite end of the practice mat.

“That sounds reasonable.” he said, unsheathing Toukijin. Kaida pulled her own blades and easily fell into a defensive stance very similar to one he had seen before.

He watched as she gripped the hilts of the blades, instinctively looking for some sort of opening in her form for something he could exploit in his attempt to take her down. She started to move, slowly circling around him until he was forced to move or lose her behind his back.

They stared at each other, each one moving on their own, waiting for the other to strike first. Sesshomaru did not have to wait long, and Kaida was sprinting towards him, slashing at him in a very controlled fashion. He could see the fire dancing in her eyes, could feel the iron strength as their blades met in a metallic ring that swept through the dojo’s silence.

He pushed her back, kicking out and burying his booted foot in her abdomen, sending her flying backwards clutching her stomach.

“My point, Lady General.” he said, watching as her eyes narrowed down into slits of green hellfire.

“Didn’t see that one coming.” she growled, steadying herself. Sesshomaru tamped down a grin and readied himself once again. “My turn.”

He hadn’t expected her to recover that fast, and the next thing he knew, somewhere in the process of dodging her swings and kicks, she had knocked Toukijin from his hands using the dull side of her left blade, and had the right one at his neck.

“My point.” she said simply, stepping back from him carefully and allowing him to retrieve his blade. She had gotten quicker somehow, Sesshomaru realized. He should have been able to block that attack easily. ‘She will get no more.’ he thought, readying for another attack. He rushed her, causing her eyes widened in surprise before he brought her blades up to parry his thrusts.

And so they danced, each one seamlessly blending from offense to defense as they clashed time and time again on the dojo floor. Her fighting style seemed different, though. She wasn’t relying on her blades as much as she normally had during their previous matches. This time, she seemed intent on using them as a defensive shielding, as opposed to an offensive weapon. Apparently she was more focused on disarming him than anything else, leaving the actual fighting to kicks and punches when she could throw them in without taking too much damage to herself.

The change in her tactics had caused her reaction time to be slower than normal since she actually had to think about what her next move would be as opposed to just going with what she knew best, and he managed to catch the back of her leg unprotected and kicked the back of her knee, sending her flying to the ground on her knees. He was on her before her hands ever hit the ground, disarming her of the blades and pulling her arms behind her back.

“You are forcing yourself.” he said, jerking her arms up behind her back forcibly until she growled. “Your movements should be fluid, like water.” He backed up, letting her go. Kaida took up the stance again, but made no move to attack, so he took the initiative. He rushed her, letting a barrage of kicks and punches be blocked before trying to subdue her again. He managed to grab her wrists and sweep her feet out from under her, making her fall flat on her rear end. He knelt down and crouched down in front of her, his hands still holding her captive.

“Use your head.” he barked. “This is the second time you have been stopped.”

“Use my head? Okay.” she said. He caught the smirk on her ace but didn’t move quickly enough to avoid the shock of a head butt to his face. He staggered back, letting her go and giving her enough time to follow through by picking up her swords while simultaneously knocking him flat on his back. She pinned his wrists with her knees and sat on his chest, her scimitar blades crossed at his throat like a pair of oversized scissors.

“My point.” she said, reigning in a smile while he glared up from her from his position beneath her.

“Perhaps next time I should specify to use your brain as opposed to your head.” he said sourly.

“Maybe.” she shrugged, getting up from her position.

Their clash of blades was slowly turning into a clash of wills as they both stared each other down.

---

Back in the center of the mat, they once again took up their positions and Kaida tried to think of something that would allow her something of an advantage over him. ‘He’s bigger than I am. More powerful.’ she thought frantically. ‘But not faster…he can’t keep up with me. And he can’t hit what he can’t find. That’s it!’

She waited until he was back in a defensive position before starting the next round of their fighting. She had to distract him long enough to zip behind and catch him off guard.

Easier said than done considering her opponent.

The fighting was a blur to her, a mixture of weapons meeting and leaving, fists dodged, kicks avoided. She didn’t have time to think about anything because he was so fast, so intent on her moves. Somewhere along the way, they had disarmed each other and were fighting hand to hand with only their fists.

Combat without a sword wasn’t one of Sesshomaru’s strong points, but was by no means a weak point in his talents either, as she had found out a number of times before.

She sincerely doubted he had a weak point anywhere!

Kaida palmed one of her small throwing daggers and sent it flying towards him, hoping it would distract him long enough for her to put her plan into action. The two of them had been fighting for nearly forty-five minutes, and if she didn’t put an end to this soon, her energy was going to give out.

The blade served it’s purpose, forcing him to shift left to avoid being hit. Kaida grinned at the split second opening and used her speed to suddenly appear behind him, another dagger aimed at his throat. Unfortunately, when she saw him wheel around right as she appeared, she knew he had caught her.

She felt one hand knock the razor sharp dagger from her hand while the other one gripped her arm, immobilizing it. Two seconds later, the sharp pain in the back of her head proved that her plan had failed, and that Sesshomaru now had her pinned up against the dojo wall.

‘Well, that didn’t work out exactly how I had anticipated.’ she thought glumly, trying in vain to wrench her hands from his grasp above her head, where Sesshomaru had pinned them. They were both breathing heavy and she rested her head on the wall. She could feel his breath hot and heavy on her neck, and his body pinning her up against the wall and high enough off the floor to put them almost face to face. The muscles in her legs were locked around his waist in an attempt to make sure he didn’t drop her on the floor, and she groaned at the picture anyone would see should they walk in. His left hand was keeping her own hands immobilized above her head, and his right was digging into her leg, causing the muscles to twitch spasmodically.

She was stuck between the wall of the dojo and the wall of his chest, and her overactive imagination was going haywire at the close proximity of someone so strong, so powerful, so ….male.

“You gonna let go anytime soon?” she breathed hoarsely, trying to catch her breath.

“And give you an opportunity to send me sailing into the wall?” he asked smoothly, despite his own labored breathing. “I think not.”

“Well at least let my leg go, Sesshomaru.” she said plaintively. “I’m losing circulation.”

“You are not the only one in such a predicament.” he countered casting a glance at her legs.

“I’ll loosen up if you do.” she offered with a cheeky grin. “Of course you better not drop me.”

-----

“Agreed.” he relented, letting his right hand fall back to his side as she loosened up her grip on his hips a little. The metallic smell permeated the air and she looked down to see that there were two small rivulets of blood running down her leg.

“Leave a matching mark, why don’t you?” she groused.

“Matching?”

“One of the soldiers scratched me up today when I got back.” she said, attempting to shrug it off.

“He was probably trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.” Sesshomaru answered vaguely, before he could stop himself.

“Excuse me?” she asked, her head cocked to one side in apparent confusion.

“You are acting…differently.” he said stiffly.

“Different?” she asked.

“You are more….like you were before.” he said, trying to figure out a way to express what he had seen. “Why?”

“Let’s just say Kaze kicked me in my rear end and made me realize a couple of important things while I was with him.” she said with a grin.

“You mean that mutt is actually good for something?” he growled.

“Leave him alone.” she said, her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits at the slight of her friend.

“Why?” he challenged. “I should assume that he has been neglecting his duties along the trade routes in favor of coddling you like some child. It’s amazing your father puts up with such insolence from his subordinates.” Kaida looked like her jaw was about to hit the floor, and he could see her gearing up to start arguing with him.

“I’ll have you know that my father gave him explicit permission to come here and get me should the need arise.” she said angrily. “And as far as his job is concerned, that’s really none of your business, now is it? Kaze does his job well, and you….”

Sesshomaru watched as the louder she got, the more tense her features became. Yes, Kaze had done something to her all right. And whatever it was, he’d unleashed the Southern hellcat that Kaida had been once before.

“Will you cease your yelling?” he said simply. “I can hear you well enough.”

“I will not!” she practically yelled, stalking across the dojo to stand right in front of him. “I don’t know why you hate Kaze, but I’m going to tell you right now that….”

And off she went again, glorifying the name of that damned half-breed dog and all that he had done. After a few moments of her going on about the merchant, Sesshomaru turned away. He’d heard enough.

“That’s enough about the mutt.” he growled. “I do not want to hear his name again.”

“Why not?”

“Do I need to give you a reason?”

“Yes, if you want me to shut up about him.”

“He is annoying.” Sesshomaru said. “And so are you when you speak so familiarly of him.” Kaida did fall silent that time, but the peace was short lived when her next statement stopped him in his tracks.

“You’re jealous.” she said quietly.

“Hardly.”

“No, it makes sense now.” she said, a half smirk on her lips as she went on. “That’s why you don’t like him being around. You don’t want him….” Unfortunately, her sentence was cut short when Sesshomaru rushed her and picked her up by her neck, his eyes bleeding into an angry red color, and his claws digging into her neck.

“Shut your harping.” he ordered. This was getting quickly out of hand. He had to stop before he did kill the flaring woman in his grip.

“So you’re trying to choke me…..because you don’t want to listen….to me….defend him?” she challenged, pulling at his hands around her throat. He put her back down on her feet, but modified the hold so that her hands were restrained behind her as she was faced away from him.

“You would do well never to mention that name in my presence again.” he hissed, pulling her arms up painfully, causing her to jerk. “He is cocky and brash. Someone who thinks he does not answer to a higher authority. How can you put up with him?”

“I put up with you, don’t I?” she growled, turning her head over her shoulder to look back at him. “You’re not all that different in the end. Cocky, brash, egotistical, self centered. It has to be traits all canines share because you’re just as bad as he is.”

“How dare you insinuate….” he demanded. For her to associate him with that mongrel half-breed was the worse kind of disrespect ever. His hands tightened his hold on her, and he could smell blood starting to trickle out of her wrists.

“The only difference is, Kaze’s attitude is tempered with an understanding of people.” she rasped out as he pushed her arms up further. “He cares about other people because he enjoys their company. He’s not stuck in some kind of self-induced isolation that forces everyone else out of his circle of comfort!”

He had heard enough from her, and put his other hand over her mouth in an attempt to shut her up, only to feel a sharp pain shoot through his fingers. He yanked his hand away and looked at it. There was a small trickle of blood and a perfect bite imprint of Kaida‘s teeth in the middle of his hand.

“You bit me.” he said quietly, looking at his hand in surprise and then back at her as if she was some sort of barbaric animal who had managed to free itself from his deadly . No one had ever had the nerve to bite him.

“Stick’em there and see if I don’t do it again.” she said with a glare, gearing up to rant at him again now that he had been surprised into letting her go. She was on the verge of slipping into her full demonic form, and he could tell. Even he could feel the tension in the air between them. It was so thick it was a wonder that neither of them had suffocated yet.

‘This is getting too far out of hand.’ Sesshomaru realized abruptly. ‘It has to stop before one or the both of us do something we will regret.’ He picked up his sword from the dojo floor and sheathed it without another word, heading for the exit.

“Where are you going? I’m not finished yet!” Kaida called after him.

“This is finished.” he said coldly.

“Oh, no, it isn’t.” Kaida started out, planting herself right in front of his planned escape route.

“Shut up.”

“I will not.” she said hotly.

“Cease you harping woman.” he growled. “Before I am forced to….”

“What’re you gonna do? Stick your hand over my mouth again?” she said cockily. “You’ll be pulling back nubs.”

Sesshomaru couldn’t help his reaction at her defiant nature. The fine thread of patience he had managed to salvage finally snapped. His mind was a haze and he barely had time to realize he had pinned her against the wall again, rather forcefully, and was hovering over her. The look of utter surprise in her eyes caused him to smirk.

“I told you to shut up.” he said. “But it seems like you refuse to cooperate.”

He lowered his head down to hers, sealing her protest with a kiss that held the fires of hell behind it. He felt her tense up immediately, felt her hands push furtively at his shoulders in a halfhearted attempt to push him away. After a few seconds she stopped, apparently too shocked to actually do anything else.

It had been too much for him to take, having her so close to him after being gone with the other dog for five days straight, and then for her to come back with his smell all over her, happy as a lark.

Sesshomaru tamped down a feral growl when Kaida’s hands wrapped around his neck, her fingers gently threading through his hair. She had lost the stiffness in her body, and was soft against him, pliable. She met his kiss with an intensity of her own, and Sesshomaru had to pull away before he let this go any further.

The Western Lord pulled away from her lips, nuzzling her neck and nipping at the soft skin right above her shoulder blade. He felt her chest rising and falling as she panted for breath, and his thoughts suddenly took a turn down a road that was hardly appropriate…but none the less very pleasing.

This was what he had wanted for weeks since she’d come back, but she had been as prickly as a porcupine anytime he did manage to find her somewhere on the grounds. But her reaction to him proved that she was just as susceptible to her baser instincts as any other being in the world. Sakaki and Kaze be damned!

He didn’t know when his usual indifference towards her had turned into a physical want, but it had. And the fires of hell were barely a flicker of light compared to the overwhelming need to consume her that had suddenly overcome him. His baser instincts were coming dangerously close to the surface, prompting him to claim the stubborn, panting female crushed to him. Had he been honest with himself, he would admit that her attempts at indifference to him had only spurred on his attempts to get some kind of emotion to surface.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that the status quo between them had just been irrevocably changed beyond a point that things would ever go back to the way they had been.

“What are you…doing to me?” she whimpered, more confused as to why her body and mind had suddenly become two very violent warring factions. On one had, her head was telling her to maim Sesshomaru to the verge of death for manhandling her like this. While her heart was telling her to pull him back to her and not even give him a chance to answer her question.

“Something I should have done weeks ago.” he growled, taking her lips back into another kiss that effectively rendered her senseless.

They had put so much effort into fighting the attraction that when they had finally stopped, the release had left them both breathless and heady.

Kaida shifted against him, and he suddenly picked up the smell of Kaze on her. Tamping back a territorial growl at the other demon’s intrusion even when he wasn’t physically in the vicinity, Sesshomaru lifted his head up and met the shocked eyes of the only female who had ever made him lose control like he just had.

He couldn’t help himself from tasting her swollen lips one more time, and gave her a lingering kiss before finally letting her go for good. This was quickly getting out of hand, and Kaida just stood there, obviously too disoriented to do or say anything. Sesshomaru was just glad he wasn’t the only one reeling from the tidal wave of emotions that had been exchanged in those few short seconds.

“He won’t make you happy.” Sesshomaru said quietly, turning his back on her after setting her on her feet, then walking out the entrance to the dojo without another word.

---

Kaida felt herself sliding down the wall she had only moments before been pinned to. Her mind was whirling, and her body was tingling. And she was stuck somewhere between laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened, or crying because her body was wound up tighter than a spring that was ready to launch.

She took a deep breath and stood up, finally able to stand on knees that had previously been no more stable than jelly. She headed straight for the small wash basin on the other end of the dojo, intent on getting a cool rag to wipe away all the sweat that had accumulated on her face, and hopefully using the cold water to shock herself out of this stupor Sesshomaru’s kiss had put her into.

Kaida grabbed the small cloth that was beside the basin and dipped it in the cool water, then ran it over her face and neck, only to stop when she felt a small pain right above her shoulder blade.

Kaida walked over to a small mirror that had been hung next to the basin, tilting her head sideways to get a good look at the bruises littering her exposed skin. Her confusion melted away like ice on a sunny day, not allowing her time to think of anything else that had happened, only to quickly be replaced by bubbling indignantly when she saw one particularly prominent mark on her neck that had not been put there by a weapon, or a set of claws.

“That bastard bit me!”

-------

A/N - Hello, How’s everyone out there? I hope you all are enjoying this little story. Not much to say this time, so I bid you farewell.

A.A.

Oh, and please remember to review. I’d love to know what you are thinking...especially after what I did to Sesshomaru and Kaida! ;)