“NO!” Kagome screamed as she bolted upright.

Surfacing from the nightmare, she gasped for air. Her blurred vision cleared, her eyes darting around in a panic to catalog her surroundings. It was still dark. But she was in her own home—in her own bed. Cold sweat trickled down her temple as she dug her fingers into the familiar sheets for reassurance.

A watery whimper smothered in her throat. At the front of the house, the reed door banged suddenly open, and she started in fright.

“Kagome-sama!” Kanako cried, rushing toward her. “Kagome-sama, are you all right?”

The waif collapsed at Kagome’s side, her grey eyes silvery and luminous in the pre-dawn gloom. The girl’s timely arrival aside, from her dirty, rumpled appearance Kagome could tell at once that Kanako had been sleeping beneath her porch again. The miko forced out a terse sigh.

“I’m fine—it was just a bad dream.”

Again, Kagome added bitterly to herself.

Fingers clenched in the knees of her yukata, Kanako’s wide, round eyes roved over Kagome nevertheless. Beneath this unblinking assessment, the miko frowned. Chest still heaving, she at last felt the strain of her twisted sleeping robe—one slanted edge of its neckline cutting into the sweat-slickened swell of her breast. Splayed and askew, her legs were tangled uncomfortably in the bedsheets, the flesh between them still hot and wet and throbbing. Gritting her teeth, Kagome glanced away.

“Fetch me some water, would you?”

At once, Kanako scrambled up and over to the basin. Water sloshed as she filled a cup and brought it over. Straightening her legs and clothing, Kagome accepted it, her eyes sliding shut as she took a few bracing sips. Next to her, Kanako remained, hovering.

“It’s still early,” Kagome said wearily as she set down the cup and turned over onto her side, not particularly wanting to be alone. “If you’re just going to hang around here anyway, grab a blanket and go bed down by the hearth. I’m going back to sleep.”

With shaking hands, the waif took up one of the summer blankets Kagome had partially thrown off. The miko tensed as the mussed fabric slid sinuously down her calves. She had meant for Kanako to take a blanket from the shelf…

“Sleep well, Kagome-sama,” the waif whispered, the faint rasp of her voice crawling over Kagome as well.

The miko swallowed, suppressing an irrational shudder. She was still just rattled from her dream, that was all—her fears and misgivings magnified in the lingering night. When morning arrived, her mind would clear and her nerves would settle.

She just needed to close her eyes and wait.

But behind her lowered lids the darkness was deeper still, each stir of the air reminding her of hot panting breath on her neck, each catch of the sheets against her skin constricting. Stifled, distressed, Kagome kept her eyes open instead. Bringing her hands close to her face, she studied their pale trembling outline until her gaze seared from the strain, unfocusing mercifully at last.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi