InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Love of a Hanyou ❯ The Love of a Hanyou- Chapter 7 ( Chapter 7 )

Chapter 7

***

 

 

 

“Master Inuyasha! A pleasure as always,” the little flea stammered out nervously as he rose up from his dazed slump. He twitched jerkily as his thoughts raced through his head at the speed of light, searching for an adequate way to appease the visibly bristling hanyou. The angered expression on his young master's face unsettled him greatly.

 

 

“What are you doing here? Is this where you usually run off to whenever you think there's danger you sneaky little parasite?” Inuyasha gritted out between clenched teeth. “Or do you only pop in to spy on me and then turn tail and report all to Sesshomaru.”

 

 

He couldn't believe it. The little flea demon that had always proclaimed his loyalty whenever he was around, actually stood cringing before him in his brother's palace with his wrinkled face creased in consternation.

 

 

He had never really liked the little parasite but he had always somewhere in the back of his mind trusted him on some level. Myouga had always been there, a constant part of his past but now to have discovered this betrayal of sorts, almost hurt.

 

 

“I thought you were serving me, how is it that you're here kissing my brother's ass!”

 

 

“I'm sorry milord but you must know that I serve the house of Western Lords. I gave my allegiance to your father and upon his death, by default to both of his sons.” Myouga cried as he made his way closer to the hem of Sesshomaru's hakama. He glanced up into said lord's face only to find the usual blank mask in place. Sesshomaru hadn't even spared him a glance since Inuyasha had started to move in on him. He had always been thus, ever since he was a youngling, always so serious and ruthless in his curiosity.

 

 

Master Sesshomaru had been a quiet, introverted, and more than willing to separate him self from all the other noble children. A solemn eyed child who stood on the sidelines, watching those around them, eager to strike at those that ventured to close. Myouga had always attributed the young lord's behavior to that of his lady mother. A demoness of high rank that had been brought to wed a then young Inu no Taisho, she had resented her family, resented her Lord husband and then had resented her own son. That resentment had turned to hate and then manifested into physical abuse that had quickly changed the young child. It had been painful to watch his young master reach out for his mother only to have been rejected time and time again by a selfish bitch too bitter about her life. He had told the Inu no Taisho but in a matriarchal society in which the male had very little say in the rearing of pups, not to mention the constant demands of governing the western territories and keeping treaties with surrounding kingdoms, there had been very little for him to do.

 

 

Eventually, when Master Sesshomaru had grown older, he had learned to protect him self, learned to deflect his mother's attacks but instead of retaliating against her in like manner, he had directed cold disdain towards her, delivered cutting remarks that oft times left the lady trembling in impotent rage. As the years continued to progress and the haughty, cold manner of the young lord had grown; Myouga had often wandered if the lady had made attempts on the master's life especially after glimpsing the maniacal look that had become a permanent resident of the woman's glare. The question had again risen at the baffling circumstances surrounding said lady's death.

 

 

It had been a cold night; a thunder storm streaking the dark sky when they had discovered the lady's body broke and twisted in the garden ground twenty feet below her chamber windows. The fall had not been what had killed the woman but rather the slit throat had been. There hadn't been any sign of a break in, an intruder or even any sign of a struggle. It would have appeared to have been a suicide if not for the minor detail, a major case of overkill that hadn't failed to arouse everyone's suspicions. No one had ever discovered what that had been about. Stranger yet, at the tender age of thirty, young master had expressed very little caring, standing stoically at through the funeral processions, not even hunching his thin young shoulder in an effort to show a brave front. No, he really hadn't cared which made him wander if the young lord had dispatched his own lady mother. Those had been treasonous thoughts, ones that he refused to look further into but as the years had continued and the ruthlessness in his young master had grown, he had acknowledged silently that he would certainly have been capable of killing the lady.

 

 

He glanced anxiously back and forth between the two dog demons, trying to decide which of the two were the safest to take shelter with, the one who was ruthless and coldly calculating or the other who was relentless and hot headed. He decided that neither of the two would be a good choice and looked desperately at the only available escape route.

 

 

He gasped in dismay when Lord Sesshomaru slowly moved into a position that blocked his vision of the opened window. The demon's hard golden eyes glinted with a mercurial look that suggested retribution of a most uncomfortable sort.

 

 

Myouga's brow broke out into a cold sweat; both set of hands twisted in increasing alarm as his other young master began to advance on him with a decidedly sinister glint in his eyes.

 

 

He knew that he would gain no quarter with Master Sesshomaru so he came to the conclusion that perhaps if he could get Master Inuyasha to calm down he might prove to be the more compassionate of the two.

 

 

It was a good idea, the only problem with that was that without the calming influence of his young master's beautiful miko friend, that attempt would be easier said than done. The young woman had a most uncanny ability to calm master Inuyasha, her presence like a soothing balm to his easily frayed nerves. However, right at this moment, anything would do right at this moment to help him deflect his anger.

 

 

“MMmm…my lord, please forgive me, but you must understand that I was looking out for your best interest.” He allowed himself to breath out a small sigh of relief when Inuyasha halted his stealthy advance and instead stared at him in bewilderment.

 

 

“Oh really? You want to tell me how finding out that my so-called loyal retainer who has also been serving my enemy for most of my life, was in any way in my best interest,” Inuyasha stated in a calm voice that belied the anger that surged up within him.

 

 

“Aah… well you see… that is to say… aah,” Myouga didn't want to agree but he did see Inuyasha's point, however his duty was sacred to him. Where would he be now without his honor in upholding his word? He wouldn't have been in his position that he had retained for five thousand years if it had not been for his integrity. It had been that trait that had won Inu no Taisho's favor, made him an esteemed retainer of the royal western family. His little chest puffed up just a bit at the thought but quickly deflated at the booming sound of his master's voice.

 

 

“Spit it out why don't you? I don't have all day!” Inuyasha thundered out as he watched Myouga steal a glance up at his brother who stood stoically, head turned towards the open window pretending disinterest in the proceedings of the room.

 

 

If not for the slight tick that affected his right eye Myouga would have believed that indeed Sesshomaru would rather be somewhere else. Inuyasha had followed Myouga's gaze and he too saw Sesshomaru's lack of interest for what it really was, his irritation at being disrupted in an unruly manner. Grunting softly he turned his penetrating stare back to the flea that continued to quiver in fear.

 

 

“Well?”

 

 

“Lord Sesshomaru sent me to watch you my lord. After that terrible night on which your lord father died, he sought to provide safety for you and your lady mother. I was sent to ensure that if anything should happen, I was to report it to him.” Myouga looked over at the tall youkai again who stood stiffly by the window, his long graceful fingers clutching the edge of the sill.

 

 

Inuyasha also looked at his brother, unsure of how to take in that information. For his part though, Sesshomaru neither acknowledged the other two nor did he seem to be in any haste to involve him self in the conversation, instead he acted as though he were completely alone. Something, Inuyasha also wished savagely that he could do. There were too many revelations to take in all at once, especially when he had come only for one specific reason.

 

 

“Is that true?” Inuyasha demanded of him. He watched and waited and waited and waited. The silence stretched out unbearably until Sesshomaru slowly shifted his weight, his cold gaze flickering with an indecipherable emotion.

 

 

They both stood staring at each other, the elder of the two, stiff and unmoving, and his gaze unrelenting.

 

 

“As the days passed after father's death, I often found myself wondering why it was he felt it necessary to die for you. I was curious about you, however my disgust for all things human, not to mention half- human, served as sufficient deterrents to keep me away and besides I had more pressing matters to attend,” he said with a half- sneer curling his lips. “Remembering my promise, I realized that I had a duty to at least see that you made it to your own majority against my better judgment. I should've killed you then and there. Perhaps then your life would not have been as it were and I would've had the tetsusaiga.”

 

 

Inuyasha sneered at the last part and clutched at the aforementioned sword's hilt. He watched as Sesshomaru shifted his weight in his chair, intelligent golden eyes similar to his own watching him intently, daring him to make a move. He was momentarily stunned when Sesshomaru heaved a sigh before waving a hand dismissively.

 

 

“I will see what I can do in putting forth your request to the council. Leave me now,” Sesshomaru said in a quiet voice laced with weariness. It left Inuyasha confused, uncertain as to the change that had come over his unbending brother. Questions swarmed through his head, questions with answers that would lead to more questions. What was his brother hiding? Did he even want to find out?

 

 

“You will protect Kagome?” he asked cautiously. He was afraid to hope, this quick capitulation was not the norm in his brother's character. Of course then again, it could all be part of a sick twisted game that he sought to play. Yeah that sounded more like it, dangle the beef before the hungry eyes of the sad little hanyou just out of reach and watch how long it took him to beg and cry for it.

 

 

“This Sesshomaru said that he would take care of it. Stop pushing and leave me!” He sent Inuyasha a withering glare before moving swiftly to throw himself back into his chair. Inuyasha stood unmoving for a moment before taking his leave quietly, not sparing his brooding brother another glance and completely uncaring if Myouga had still been in the room. As he walked down the halls of the grand palace, he allowed his tense shoulders to relax, felt the slow grin spread and widen on his face. He had done it!

 

 

 

As he continued down the hall whose walls had seemed to close in on him before, he noticed that the glares of his ancestors somehow seemed less harsh and not as foreboding. This place had never been nor would ever be his home but he felt an odd sense of peace now that his future with Kagome didn't look so bleak. Amazingly that feeling was all due to his brother who would have thought it. He hadn't felt this way in a long time, not since his mother had been alive. He had never thought that he would feel that way again, not here, not in Sesshomaru's home. His thoughts wondered back to Sesshomaru and his sudden change of mind. Why had he capitulated so easily? It made no sense. But then again, nothing Sesshomaru did made sense to him and he didn't care enough to exert the extra effort to find out.

 

 

Shaking his head in exasperation he turned his thoughts to ones that were less perplexing. Thoughts that brought a smile to his face and made him eager to be away from this place. It was time that he turned his mind to more important matters now that the most difficult hurdle had been mounted.

 

 

“I'm coming home Kagome.”

 

 

***

 

 

It was quiet. All around her, everything was quiet. It was too quiet and she hated it. It had been two days since Inuyasha had left, three since she had come home from the hospital and she had never felt so alone. Even when surrounded by her loved ones she still felt that deep knowing sting of loneliness. At first, after Inuyasha had left, she had wanted to be alone; she had actively sought out ways in which she could avoid any human contact.

 

 

 

She had avoided her friends, refusing all phone calls and then frequent visits. Her three closet friends had proven their loyalty by showing up everyday religiously, inquiring about her health, bringing her gifts and get well cards from her classmates at school. Despite that though, she hadn't wanted to see them and she was woman enough to silently acknowledge to her self that she held them to blame for abandoning her on that night. If they had only stayed with her, instead off bustling off into different directions at that club, then maybe, just maybe she wouldn't have set off on her own that night. She knew in her mind that her thoughts were irrational but she didn't care because in her heart she felt betrayed and that was all that mattered.

 

 

Whenever she had heard the chiming of the doorbell, she had found herself standing silently, looking out her window down at them as her sympathetic mother had apologized for her and sent them packing on their way. When they left, if any one of them had turned to look back, they would have seen her staring back, an emotionless mask over her face. But they never had and eventually their visits had stopped. She only felt slightly bad for her treatment of Hojo. He was so kind, so considerate in bringing her innocuous gifts of healing whenever her gramps had fabricated an illness whenever she couldn't make it to school due to her quest in another time. This time had been no exception either.

 

 

Yesterday, his second venture, which had also met with no success, she had watched as he walked away, guiding his bike slowly towards the shrine steps. She didn't know what had possessed him to do so but he had looked back and up at her window where she had stood partially concealed by the window curtains. His boyishly handsome face had lit up in excitement at seeing her and he had raised his hand and waved it enthusiastically at her. She hadn't acknowledged him though and had simply moved away from the window, allowing the curtain to fall back him place, hiding her, shutting him out, shutting the world out. She didn't know how he had taken that but she thought that that action alone would stop him from visiting her again in the future.

 

 

She was the worst kind of person, but however much she didn't like her self for her treatment of the nice young man, she was loathed herself more for the way she had treated her family. They had done their utmost best to ensure that she had the time to cope with her ordeal. They hadn't even pushed themselves on her, extending to her comfort of any kind. She didn't want them to comfort her though and she ignored them. She didn't know why it had been so easy fro her to shut them out.

 

 

They loved her and she loved them but she didn't want to be around them. Did that make any sense? Maybe it was easy because she felt pain and extremely guilty whenever she imagined what she would see on their faces. She didn't think that she would be strong enough to look up and see the pity on their faces. It would prove to be too much. Every time she thought about it she felt the cloying clasp of desperation tightening around her, threatening to suffocate her and then she would feel the overwhelming, roiling nausea swamp her.

 

 

And now, she wandered the house in a constant state of bemusement, taking in very little of her surroundings, ignoring everyone around her, barely eating. She felt dead inside and she couldn't bring herself to muster up the least bit of feeling for anything. She had been content to block out the outside world, to not think about anything. It had been a struggle but sometimes she had been successful in overlooking her mother's saddened expression of guilt, gramps' watchful and knowing eyes or even the lack of gleeful, boyish shrieks of laughter in the house.

 

 

Wave after wave of pain crashed in around her, suffocated her, swirling around her. Day after day, the same endless cycle of drifting in a sea of torment that left her alone with relief nowhere in sight. She knew that she frightened her family with her somber moods but she could not muster the necessary energy to care.

 

 

 

It was better to cut herself off from her emotions, to not let the memory of her nightmares consume her every waking thought. If she shut off the faucet of her emotions then there was nothing that could hurt her. The sharp edge of pain from her wounds would recede and they became nothing more than a dull point poking harmlessly at the far plane of her mind. At those times, she almost felt free. She was free from the pain, free from thinking, free from guilt at hurting her family, free from hating herself.

 

 

She had become nothing more than a shell of her former shelf. Where before she was bright and cheerful but now she was lifeless and abrupt with those around her. Poor mama, she thought to herself. Everyone was trying their level best to tiptoe around her, to try to avoid saying anything that would make her break down and cry like a baby and there were times when she wanted to do just that. She was barely holding it together and she knew that if she didn't, if she removed the stopper that she had used to plug up the dam to her emotions, then the hollow echoes of her nightmares would become entirely too real and overwhelming.

 

 

The nightmare would become more than just a horrible dream, a figment of her overactive imagination. No, she refused to do that. Things had gotten bad though, she couldn't continue on as she was now. What would Inuyasha think of her? She wanted it to go back to the way things used to be before, where she didn't have a care fore anything in the world except her mission. Only now, everything had changed in a way that it could not be reversed. She couldn't go back, not now. She knew that. Too much had happened for her to ever go back.

 

 

Now on the fourth day since Inuyasha left, she sat outside on the back porch in deep thought. It was cold, the winter months in preparing the weather for snow, but she didn't care. She needed it to feel alive again, she needed it to jumpstart her back to the present but it wasn't working. She knew what she was doing to her family and she wanted to change but she just couldn't muster the strength. It saddened her that in her selfishness, she had placed a burden on their shoulders, going to the extent of secluding her from the outside world. The shrine had closed its gates to all tourists and visitors, an act that left the courtyard empty, barren, desolate and devoid of all life as if in mourning.

 

 

They watched her avidly now, always searching her face for the slightest hint of discomfort; afraid that if they put one step wrong that she would fall to pieces. Souta was probably the only one who treated her somewhat normally, although he too sometimes shuffled around with a look of confusion on his cherubic face on those few occasions when they all sat down to dinner. She knew that he had been told that she had been hurt badly but he did not know the exact details because mama had thought that an eight year old was too young to know the gruesome details.

 

 

The police still constantly called the house, however, wanting her to give them a statement about what had happened but she didn't want to think back and remember anything about that night. She had enough recollections from her nightmares to not want to have to do so when she was awake. Thankfully she had never spoken to them but their persistence to get at her proved to be more disconcerting than any thing else. She was relieved that they didn't bother to come around to the shrine for she was afraid that they would badger her into talking about an attack that she tried not to remember except unwillingly in her most haunting dreams.

 

 

Those horrid nightmares.

 

 

They came constantly now, not just at night when she lay curled up in the wee hours of the morning, after spending an even more restless night tossing and turning, alternatively staring unseeing up at the ceiling. As soon as she closed her eyes, the rank smell of sweat and booze rose up around her, the feel of hands too rough, ripping and pulling at her clothes, of booted feet falling heavily about her body came to her.

 

 

The horror of it all so brutal that she couldn't bring herself to speak of it and so she pretended and allowed everyone to think that she did not remember. That was because she did not want to remember it. Because admitting it and acknowledging it made it more real, made the fear rise up in her uncontrollably. She didn't want to live her life forever caught up in reliving that nightmare over and over again in her head.

 

 

A rippling shudder of shame overcame her and she tugged insistently at her large sweater sleeves, covering her hands. She smiled bitterly as she thought back to when she had first seen the bruises that marred her white flesh. She had been appalled to see the large, discolored marks. They were spread over her entire body, so much so that she appeared to be nothing more than just one large sickening bruise. It was no wonder her body hurt so much. That alone however was not what had been the most shocking to see. No that honor was reserved for the large, deep gash in her side. The only time she had ever seen a wound as such was when she had tended to Inuyasha after his first transformation in his fight with Sesshomaru.

 

 

She lifted the hem of her sweater to gingerly trace along the sutured edges. It extended from just under her left breast curving around left hip. It looked almost as though, her attacker had been trying to slice her in half. She imagined the skin of her wound with its angry red coloring and the dark purple bruising around it. Another scar she mused, her searching fingers dropping down to smooth over an older scar from her adventure with Mistress Centipede.

 

 

Smiling wistfully, she raised her head up to the sun that shone brightly overhead, the tree leaves of the goshinbokou rustling quietly on the gentle breeze. The sounds, the tranquility soothed her nerves, quieted her mind, and made all the hurtful memories disappear for a time. She allowed her mind to drift up from her body, drift away to a happier time.

 

 

A long time later, she was drawn back to reality by the loud creaking of the shed door as it was pushed open. A jolt of excitement leapt through her and she had to do her best not to race eagerly across the walkway and straight into the arms of safety. The thought of that haven alone had her hurriedly rising to her feet, brushing gravel from the seat of her pants.

 

 

Her first sight of him almost proved to be her undoing, it was obvious that he had not seen her yet nor had he smelled her either because he didn't look in her direction. She stood just a bit in the shade of the goshinbokou tree, upwind from him, its bulky trunk obscuring her from view, so it didn't surprise her that he hadn't sensed her. It did surprise her though that he didn't look around him, which he usually did whenever he first came into an area, scenting the air for potential threats to him. Instead he shuffled across the courtyard at a slow pace, appearing preoccupied and that left her confused. What was he thinking so hard about? As he moved closer towards the kitchen door, she stepped out into his line of sight and watched as he paused.

 

 

He stood there for a long time staring at her, his handsome face unreadable with the wind blowing strands of his white hair across his face. The sight of him had always been enough to affect her senses in ways that always left her trembling inside, but to see him like this now, with the rays of the sun making his bronzed skin glow, the bright amber of his eyes reflecting emotions that were indecipherable to her. It was beautiful, he was beautiful. Her hanyou.

 

 

He moved towards her, coming to stand before her before raising a hand to run a clawed finger down the side of her heart shaped face. God, she's beautiful, he thought to himself. Her large, blue eyes shimmered slightly with tears that she refused to allow to fall. Her face still bloated and bruised but she was still beautiful to him.

 

 

It wasn't just her outside beauty that made him want her, want to possess all of her so badly at times it always almost a physical ache. No it was her inherent kindness, the way that she always had something nice to say to someone she hardly knew or whenever she saw someone hurting. The way she always lit up with a smile when she saw him, welcoming him even after he had done something to cause her pain. She was so generous with her happiness, her love. Always willing to share with him even when he was being a selfish bastard.

 

 

He could go on and on about why he found her attractive, why it was that his youkai blood called to her. But she needed him now and this time he had to smile for her.

 

 

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, her heart racing wildly in her chest. She was so happy to see him.

 

 

“You're back,” she whispered softly before pressing closer into his warmth. She felt his strong arms tighten around her, felt the rolling grumble of his voice when he answered. She didn't hear his words but the sound of his rasping voice was all she needed.

 

 

She gasped in surprise, jerked out of her little world of Inuyasha when he bent low and swept her up into his arms. He jostled her gently to get a better grip, and then strode off in the direction of the house.

 

 

He paid very little attention to his surroundings, not even to the other two occupants who sat silently at the dining table with mouths agape. Said occupants sat and watched as the hanyou bounded up the stairs dumbfounded.

 

 

The old man was the first to snap out of it when the resounding slam of the bedroom door echoed throughout the house. He gestured wildly in the direction of the stairs and sputtered, “Don't you think that we should stop them? It is most highly improper for the two of them to be alone together. It's simply not done!”

 

 

His stern tones were enough to jerk his daughter out of her own befuddlement, only to watch the older man in fascination as he muttered about propriety as he glared suspiciously in the direction that the hanyou had carted her daughter off to.

 

 

His rheumy eyes swiveled back to her and she sat in quiet contemplation before taking a calm sip of her chai tea. Mmm, that's good.

 

 

“No Dad, she's been through so much already. It saddens me to see her wandering around the house staring at nothing. If it comforts her to have Inuyasha close by, then I will allow it. I want my little girl back.

 

 

Gramps sighed in exasperation, and then he too sat back and took a sip of his tea. “I have a feeling that nothing good can come of this.”

 

 

 

***

 

 

Kagome sighed blissfully as Inuyasha gently laid her against the pillows. She closed her eyes and smiled, everything always seemed to get better when he was around. The feeling was hard to understand when the man himself could make a saint cry out in frustration. But she supposed that that was a part of his charm. Inuyasha just wouldn't be Inuyasha if he didn't have the attitude.

 

 

She giggled to herself when the image of him being supplicant and bringing her home remedies to cure her aching feet as Hojo had once done, crossed her mind. No, she much preferred him the way that he was.

 

 

He was bad-tempered and at times insensitive but he was fierce in his loyalty and so brave that his actions sometimes bordered on the side of irrational. He was a good man that had learned to survive in a world that hated him, grown up alone the best way that he could in an environment that was cruel and unforgiving.

 

 

“Are you alright?” she gave a start at how near his low rumble sounded in her ear. She blinked rapidly and stared up unabashedly at his handsome face.

 

 

“I'm fine…been better though.” She felt the burning sting of tears again and turned away from him before saying in a broken whisper, “I'm sorry.” She didn't see the confusion that came across his face but she heard it in his voice.

 

 

“Sorry? What for? You didn't do anything,” the bed dipped under his weight as he pressed closer to her back. She flinched away from him, ashamed of herself. Humiliated at what she had allowed to happen to her. How could he want to be around her? She was nothing but a weak, helpless little girl. Who would want a worthless and pathetic little nobody like her?

 

 

Her thoughts ran across Kikyo. She smiled bitterly to herself; of course Kikyo wouldn't have allowed herself to be used like that. She would have done something to protect herself. Perhaps she wouldn't have been so stupid as to go out in the middle of the night alone. No, not the smart and intelligent Kikyo.

 

 

She curled in on herself in the middle of the bed, so lost in her own tortuous thoughts that she barely registered when Inuyasha wrapped his arms around her from behind.

 

 

His hot breath trickled over her neck and left her feeling shaken. Her cold flesh heated from the hot rush of blood that began to pump rapidly in her veins. The low husky growl of his voice had sensuous thoughts running through her head and she shivered with need for him. She turned in the circle of his arms to face him and looked up at him shyly from beneath her lashes. She thought back to their heated embrace back at the hospital and felt an all-new rush of heat overcome her, her face flushing hotly. She wanted another one like that.

 

 

“Kiss me…please.”

 

 

Inuyasha stiffened in surprise. There was no way that he had heard her whispered words correctly. He clenched his eyes shut because he was sorely tempted to do just that. To pull her close against his chest and rain small kisses all over her face before drawing closer to her lips.

 

 

She had no idea how hard it was to restrain him self from ravishing her. She meant so much to him and he would never be so bold as to take her in a time when she was still recovering over what had happened to her. He didn't want her to have any regrets when they finally mated and so he refused to do as she bid. He knew that once he started that there wouldn't be any stopping for him and so he pushed her away.

 

 

“I can't,” he moved off the bed his back still to her. She was hurt he knew; he could smell it. His ears flattened on the top of his head and he turned to look at her. She wouldn't meet his eyes and she had wrapped her arms around her body as if to protect herself from his rejection. He felt like a complete jerk, hurting her had not been his intention.

 

 

Kagome sat motionlessly, the feeling of rejection so painful that she felt her chest tighten. Her throat was clogged with emotion and she knew that she could not stop the hot rush of tears that had been building up behind her eyes this time.

 

 

“Why?” she asked faintly.

 

 

“You don't know what you're doing right now. We just can't! I won't take advantage of you like that!”

 

 

“How do you know what I want? How can you say that I don't know what I'm doing? I know exactly what I'm doing, what I want.”

 

 

“No you don't! This isn't the time for us to be doing anything like that!”

 

 

She felt a surge of recklessness go through her, as she struggled to find a foothold in the argument. She realized that for too long she had allowed thoughts of Kikyo to get the best of her. She didn't want to push him to make a decision to choose between the two of them. She knew that but her own desire was stronger than her will power. Kikyo had had her chance and now it was hers! She was alive and so was he; she would make him realize that he loved her. Inuyasha look at me and love me, only me!

 

 

“Inuyasha, you know what your problem is? You're afraid… you're afraid of wanting something that you think that you don't deserve! Of letting someone get close to you only to have them turn around and leave you. You're afraid of living, always pining after Kikyo and you know what? I'm sick of it!” Kagome exclaimed and she twisted about to present her back to his angry face with tears streaming down her face.

 

 

“You don't know what you're talking about! What the hell do you think you know about how I feel about you?”

 

 

Before she could react, before she could blink or even draw in a breath, his clawed hands had already spun her about and pulled her towards him in a great show of strength. He bent his head and his hard mouth came down on hers. His hands gripped her tightly by her upper arms and then softened to a light caress. She loved it. Why can't things always be like this, she thought dizzily.

 

 

His hard, unrelenting mouth softened and then he began to really kiss her. She felt the rough edge of his tongue as he traced along the seam of her lips. She gasped loudly when he left off from that only to nip lightly, soothing the sting once again with another sweep of his tongue. She grew restless as a little bubble of excitement burst in the bottom of her stomach and she pressed closer to his body to try and relieve it.

 

 

His hands trailed down her arms slowly before he wrapped them around her waist to pull her even closer. She jumped a little when she felt the hardness of him, the possessive pulsing against her stomach. He jutted his pelvis against her. The feel of it making the ache low in her belly just a bit more painful and she whimpered against his mouth as she clutched at his shoulders. She shivered with pleasure as he groaned out loud, whispering something against her mouth.

 

 

It was so hot and it grew even hotter as his hand slid down to cup the globes of her bottom. He squeezed them, slowly caressing between the crease, gently pulling apart the cheeks. A spike of desire so intense shot through her and she cried out with it. Her head was swirling in the heavy haze of passion that he wove around her and as if from her great distance, she heard the strangled noises, it was only after he stopped kissing her, stopped touching her, that her mind was able to resurface from the fog long enough for her to realize that the sounds had come from her.

 

 

 

 

He lifted his head and their gazes met. No anger remained in his eyes. Instead they were lit like twin braziers, igniting an ache, a yearning in her that she had never experienced before.

 

 

He pulled away from her and then staring intently at her dazed face, he whispered softly, “I'm afraid of nothing, least of all in wanting you.” The blush that bloomed immediately across her face and throat seemed to amuse him slightly because a small smirk crossed his face for a minute before changing back to the cold indifference that he seemed intent on showing her since the attack.

 

 

He released her abruptly and she immediately felt the vulnerability surround her as she stumbled back on wobbly legs. She wrapped her own gently rounded arms about her body as she felt the renewed sting of tears threatening the corner of her eyes. As though he couldn't stand there a moment longer, Inuyasha stalked aggressively towards the bedroom door.

 

 

“I'm going out for minute, you should get some rest”, he muttered gruffly without turning back to face her. He had smelt the scent of her tears and wanted nothing more than to gather her up against him but he had already done too much tonight.

 

 

Closing the door softly behind him, he leaned heavily against the wall, briefly closing his eyes. Kagome always brought out the possessiveness within him, had always brought out the more primitive side of his nature. Even now his demon clamored mightily inside him but he would not impose that on her. She was too fragile, too small. Perhaps he could have before the attack but not now, she needed more time to recover. Straightening to his full height, he made his way towards the stairs. He wouldn't allow her to push him past his limits before he felt that she was ready. He owed that much to her.