Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Summer Time ❯ Chapter Seven ( Chapter 7 )

Chapter Seven: Marking

"It's time for you to wake up," Kurama whispered in my ear as he hugged me. I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter. I didn't want to get up. I hated mornings. It was much more fun to wake up later, as I usually did during my summer vacation.

"Huh?" I groaned, wondering what Kurama was doing in my room so early in the morning. More importantly, I wanted to know what he was doing in my bed. He definitely did not belong where he was. Salova would chew him up and spit him out if she caught him in my bed with me.

Also, why would he travel to my dimension just to wake me up? He'd never even come to my dimension before.

I moaned, noticing how cold the air was. I rolled over and reached down to find my small heater that I always kept near my bed. I couldn't seem to find it. "Where's that stupid heater?" I muttered. It was suppose to be right within reach. Man, if Kurama had moved it to help get me up out of bed, then he was going to get it.

"Kaline," Kurama said, reaching over and touching my shoulder. "It's morning." His voice was very gentle and pleasant. He sounded like he didn't mean any harm at all, even though he had woken me up.

"What are you doing in my room? Why aren't you at home?" I asked him, curling up in a small ball. "And since when did you start traveling between dimensions?" I was determined to go back to sleep, whether Kurama was there or not.

"We're on the yacht," he reminded me. "Koenma sent us here on a mission."

Memories instantly flooded my mind. "Oh." I sat up, blushing a little. "Sorry about that. I was a little disoriented." I had a habit of forgetting everything in the morning.

"It was kind of funny," Kurama commented, laughing softly. "And you look like an angel when you're sleeping."

I smiled at the compliment. "You're so sweet." I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and got out of bed. "So what time is it?" I asked him as I slung my clothes over my arm. I was going to wear a pair of black shorts and a bright blue halter top.

"It's seven in the morning," he replied, getting out of bed as well. "Breakfast is at eight, and there are fights from nine to noon."

"When are the people suppose to start hiring the mercenaries?" I wondered, going over to the bathroom.

"After all the mercenaries have had a chance to fight at least once," Kurama answered. "The fights should be over with the third week."

"Okay." I nodded my head. "I'm going to get changed in the bathroom. Tell me when you're done changing and it's safe to come out." I entered the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I got dressed with amazing speed and even got my face washed before Kurama announced that I could leave the bathroom.

I walked out of the bathroom, my nightclothes in one arm, my brush in the other. I folded my nightclothes and laid them on my dresser. I would wear them again tonight. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I set down my brush and began to remove my braid.

"Would you mind?" Kurama asked, pointing to my brush. He was dressed in a pair of black pants and a blue shirt with a red dragon design on it. The clothes looked very, very nice on him. He was also back in his fox demon form.

I smiled at him. It seemed like he had forgotten his own brush. "Sure. Go ahead," I answered. "I don't mind at all." I took out the last bit of my braid.

"Would you please hold still for a moment?" he questioned me, sitting down behind me.

"Um..." I couldn't figure out what he was doing, but he probably had a good reason for asking me that. "Okay."

I finally realized what Kurama was doing when he began to brush out my hair. He did it slowly and gently, causing me to relax and enjoy the moment. It was so sweet of him to do it. It was simply actions, like him brushing my hair, that reminded me of how much he loved me and why I loved him.

I was surprised when I began to purr. I really hadn't meant to do that, but I was doing it. Now that I had begun to purr, it was hard to stop.

Kurama chuckled in amusement and kept on brushing my hair. "Enjoying this?" he asked me.

"What do you think?" I countered gently as I fought to stop purring. It got even worse when my tail started swishing back and forth on its own. 'Stupid demon form,' I thought. 'Tomorrow night, I'm going back to my old form. This form does too much stuff against my will.'

"Perhaps I shall have to do this more often," Kurama said to himself. "I love your purring very much."

I couldn't help but giggle. He was so sweet. "I'll get you back, I do hope you know that," I threatened him jokingly.

Kurama ignored my fake threat. "Would you like me to re-braid it?"

I thought for a moment. "No, thank you." I had a feeling that Kurama would play with my hair all day, if I left it down. I was more than willing to encourage him. "I'm accustomed to my hair being down. I'll let you braid it tonight if you still want to."

"Very well," Kurama replied, running his fingers through my hair for a brief moment. "I will hold you to that."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I told him, leaning back against his chest.

"Breakfast is in half an hour," he said, wrapping his arms around my waist. "What are we going to do to occupy ourselves until then?"

"Just sitting here like this and talking sounds good," I answered, smiling happily. It was going to be a very good day.

After breakfast, I did my little job as the officiator. Kurama stayed nearby to watch, but whether he was watching me or the fights, I couldn't tell. In the first fight, one of the men nearly got killed. In the second, a girl seriously kicked a male mercenary's butt. The third match was much more drawn out. The two mercenaries were almost evenly matched, but after over half an hour, someone did win.

During the forth match, I finally spotted Yusuke and Kuwabara in the stands. They appeared to be perfectly fine. No demons were bothering them. In fact, no demons even sat near the two boys. Yusuke had probably threatened and yelled at them. It had most likely been a simple threat, like 'leave me alone or I'll punch your lights out'.

The fifth fight ended just before noon, which I was very happy about. My throat was starting to get dry. The running commentary was hard to constantly keep up.

As the last fighters left the coliseum, I hopped down off the fighting stage and walked over to Kurama. He was waiting for me very patiently, his back against the wall.

"You look a little tired," he commented, putting a comforting arm around my shoulder. "Shall we go to lunch then find someplace to relax?"

"Someplace warm?" I asked, feeling reluctant to go back to the room any sooner than I had to.

"Of course. We can probably find someplace on deck to lounge about," Kurama replied, gently leading me out of the coliseum and towards the dining room.

"Sounds wonderful," I said, leaning my head on his shoulder. "Now, I wonder what's for lunch..."

Kurama laughed.

An hour later...

Kurama and I were sitting on the deck in a large lounge chair. His arms were wrapped around me as I curled up at his side, my head resting on his chest. One of my hands was touching his side, while the other hand drew slow circles on his skin right below the collarbone.

"This is nice," I murmured, giving a happy sigh. It felt wonderful to have no worries, no problems for a while. I didn't have to officiate fights until after supper, and supper was at six, which gave me plenty of time to burn with Kurama.

"Yes, it is," he agreed, kissing me on the top of my head. "We can spend our other afternoons out here like this if you want too."

"I do want to," I replied immediately, smiling. I snuggled a little bit closer to him, as if that was even possible.

Unfortunately, the peace was interrupted by demon. It was the demon that had one the first fight. He was a cat demon, like I was. His hair was brown though, as was his skin and tail and eyes. A pink scar ran down one of his cheeks.

"Well, if it isn't the two 'lovers'," he snorted, the last word sarcastically emphasized.

"Huh?" I inquired, looking at him with a confused expression on my face. Why wouldn't he think that Kurama and I were lovers? We were definitely acting like it.

"What is your problem?" Kurama coldly demanded to know, ever so slightly tightening his grip on me.

"What kind of a fool do you take me for?" the demon snarled. "I know that you haven't touched her. You two aren't lovers!"

"Why do you think that?" I asked him calmly.

"You haven't been marked," he answered, his voice and manner stiff.

I rewarded the demon with a vacant look. "So?"

"No male demon in his right mind would not mark his mate," the demon replied, crossing his arms and staring down at me.

I didn't like the way he was looking at me. It made me a little nervous. And what was this 'mark' that he was talking about? Kurama had never mentioned anything about demons marking their mates.

"What's your point?" Kurama inquired, his fury barely being contained. He was about to explode. I had never seen Kurama so angry. It was almost unbelievable.

The demon smirked, which made him look even worse. "She's one of my kind, which makes me think that I should claim her."

Before I even knew it, Kurama was up and out of the chair with his fist buried in the demon's stomach. Kurama had punched the guy very hard.

"If you even try to lay a finger on her..." Kurama backed away, leaving the threat hanging in the air. The furious expression on his face nearly made me shiver. He had never looked that way before.

I got up and went over to Kurama, intertwining my hand with his. "Let's go," I whispered in his ear. "Please. Let's just go back to the room."

As Kurama and I walked off, the demon had to have the last word. "You better mark her Kurama, or she just might become mine!"

Back in the bedroom...

"Kurama, are you okay?" I asked him, gently touching his cheek with my right hand. He still looked furious.

At my touch, his expression softened. "I'm fine," he replied, his tone normal. "The demon just upset me."

"How? You usually just ignore people like that," I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I've never, ever seen you punch a guy like that."

"He made a threat," Kurama answered, sitting down next to me. "He threatened to make you his own, most likely against your will."

"He couldn't possibly do that," I stated, laughing. What an absurd idea. Someone claiming me as their own without my permission. That would only happen if the moon suddenly left its orbit and went crashing into the sun.

Kurama merely stared off into space. "If he marked you, he could."

"Marked me?" I asked, frowning slightly. "What's that?"

"When a male demon finally picks out who he's going to spend the rest of his life with, he makes a small mark on her. That's so no other demon will touch her. Demons are possessive creatures," he replied, turning and pointing to the spot where my collarbone met my shoulder. "Right here is where demons mark their mates. The demon bites the skin very gently, and uses his spirit energy to make the mark permanent. No blood is drawn, but the skin is torn a little."

"And because I've been showing off so much skin, they know that you haven't marked me, and thus haven't claimed me as yours yet," I said, quickly catching on. "I'm still free game to them, even though I've said that I'm yours."

I curled up in a ball and began rocking back and forth, thinking about everything. We couldn't have demons walking up to us and questioning our story. That could possibly endanger the mission.

I gave a small sigh. "You're just gonna have to mark me."

"What?" Kurama asked, taking my by the shoulders and turning me around so he could get a good look at me. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," I replied, giving him a smile. "It can't be that bad. You said that it won't bleed, and I really kind of like the idea of you claiming me as yours..."

"If I do mark you," Kurama said seriously. "Then no other demon would even think about taking you as his. You'll be forced to choose between marrying me or a human."

That didn't seem so bad to me. There were only two male demons that I knew really well, and that was Hiei and Kurama. I had come across other, decent, male demons, but I hadn't liked them near as much as I liked Kurama. I hadn't been attracted to any of them, so marrying any one of them did not appeal to me. Also, I wasn't about to even think of marrying Hiei, so that left only Kurama and humans.

"I thought you said that demons didn't marry?" I joked, trying to lighten up his mood.

He gave me a half smile. "I've been raised as a human for the past seventeen years, and so have you, so I think that marriage between us is possible."

"Would you ever want to marry me?" I inquired curiously. I had thought about the subject of marriage a month ago, and I had discovered that the idea of marrying Kurama greatly appealed to me. Of course, I was still too young to marry, although he technically wasn't. Kurama was, at the very least, a couple of centuries old.

"Yes," he answered after a moment, a blush tainting his cheeks. "I've known that I wanted to marry you since the moment I first saw you."

"How?" I wondered. He had never mentioned anything like that before.

"Demons just know," he said. "It's part of being a demon. All males know exactly who they're going to marry the instant they lay eyes on their future mate. If it wasn't that way, then many demons would end up killing their mates in battle."

"I can sense something like that when it comes to you, but it's not very strong," I told him, hoping that he would feel better after I had admitted that. When he didn't react, I moved closer to him so that I was just a half foot away. "Kurama, you may mark me if you wish."

Kurama looked down at the offered shoulder. "Do you want me to?"

"Yes," I answered immediately, my voice firm and my tone sure. If Kurama would mark me, then I would officially be his. Hmmm... I kind of liked the sound of that.

"I'm not sure if this will hurt or not, but it shouldn't," he said, leaning closer to me.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me," I reassured him.

"Okay," he responded, putting his teeth against my skin.

I felt a slight pressure, but it wasn't much. There was no pain, although I did feel his spirit energy flowing into where he had lightly nipped me. When Kurama moved his head, I looked down at my shoulder. There were teeth marks there that looked like they had come from a dog... or a fox. The marking was slightly red, but it wasn't very large.

"Now, what?" I asked.

"You're now mine," he replied, sounding a little bit possessive. That did make sense. He had just told me that demons were possessive creatures.

I thought about what he had said for a moment. "I like the sound of that. Mine... I belong to Kurama..." I paused for a moment, then thought of something. "Now, am I suppose to mark you?" I asked, acting a little silly. I already knew the answer to that question.

"No," Kurama replied, chuckling. "You don't need to do a thing, my love."

Okay, now that pet name, I really liked.