In the mountains to the north, the demon prince found him. Though his presence was concealed, following the path of blood, broken land, and scattered corpses had led to him surely enough. While the prince couldn’t scent such things as fear, he could feel it hanging thick in the air—a tense and heavy brooding. The atmosphere of the Western Lands reflected the dark, uncertain mood of their lord and master. Most would not dare to approach him in such a state.

Most would not dare to approach him in any state.

Drawing close to the blood-splattered ridge, the demon prince met with a floundering Jakken. Clearly anxious, the imp hovered in sweaty indecision, eyeing the looming slope in trepidation. His green claws shook in the reins of the two-headed dragon beside him. Catching sight of the demon prince, he sagged with a sigh of relief.

“Hirokin-sama,” Jakken greeted, bowing low.

“Jakken,” Hirokin replied. His glance slid over Sesshoumaru’s retainer and mount as he stepped past them, ascending the ridge. “You’ll want to wash the gore off that saddle before it dries, or Sesshoumaru-sama will be most displeased.”

Grateful to be given a clear command—and desperate to avoid his master’s ire—the imp began tugging the resistant dragon toward a stream nearby. “Y-yes! I will do so at once, milord.”

It was a tedious climb to the summit. Envious of Sesshoumaru’s ability to fly, Hirokin had no choice but to make the trek on foot. The lack of a mountain creek or any other water source prevented him from accelerating the journey. He was parched and haggard by the time he reached the craggy heights.

Flung fur, cast-off clothes and armor—even a discarded Bakusaiga—lay in a bloody, haphazard trail across the rocky ground, as though Sesshoumaru had ripped them off in a frenzy. Considering that perhaps he had, Hirokin advanced with measured steps. He had barely rounded the edge of a boulder when the lash of an acid-green whip streaked toward him—

Only the demon prince’s fluidity kept him from getting sliced neatly in two.

The acid whip sheared straight through the stone behind him. As Hirokin’s vaporous torso reformed into flesh, the top half of the boulder shuddered away from the bottom. With a quaking crash it crumbled down the mountainside. 

Through the haze of windblown dust and steam, Sesshoumaru’s scowling face materialized. Hirokin scowled back.

“I thought you were Jakken,” the demon lord said. The poisonous glow of his claws dimmed as he lowered them.

Hirokin’s brows drew together. It wasn’t an apology so much as an explanation for why the blow had landed so low upon him. Had he been the creeping imp, the whip-lash would have clipped his little black hat neatly from his little green head—

In Hirokin’s optimistic estimation.

“Your retainer has better instincts than you give him credit for, my lord,” the demon prince replied, stepping around the rubble.

Which is why he remains alive, Hirokin reflected snidely to himself.

Sesshoumaru scoffed, glancing away. It was the most invitation Hirokin could hope for, with his lord’s temper as foul as it was. But he had seen Sesshoumaru in worse states.

And the sight of the mineral spring he was submerged in was heartening, at least.

Hirokin slipped into the water with a groan. Rapidly, his strength replenished as he drew energy from the spring’s balmy source. His clothes fell from him in a shimmering wave as he leaned back against the ledge. Through curling wisps of steam he regarded his liege lord.

Despite the seemingly casual splay of his arms behind him, Sesshoumaru’s eyes were hard, his jaw locked tight. A bit of bone and tissue clung to his tousled hair. A smear of blood streaked across his neck and collar. Hirokin’s fingers twitched with the urge to wash it away. Perhaps sensing this, Sesshoumaru glared.

“A band of northern raiders dared cross my lands.” Unnecessarily, he added, “I have dealt with them.”

Keeping his tone and expression neutral, the demon prince replied, “As is your prerogative, my lord.”

“Do not patronize me, Hirokin,” Sesshoumaru said lowly. The stone ledge cracked beneath his claws. “I know they were your following your directive. Play your political games if you must, but keep your filthy pawns far from me.”

“Pawns for a queen,” Hirokin said with a shrug. “But no matter, Sesshoumaru-sama. I am glad, at least, that they gave you some sport.”

But Sesshoumaru refused to be placated by Hirokin’s easy wit. “How long will you continue to bombard her?”

At his impatience, Hirokin’s demeanor chilled. “Each wave she annihilates adds credibility—and eliminates dissent. The benefits, sire, are two-fold. Let the events play out as planned.”

The logic of Hirokin’s words cut through Sesshoumaru’s muddled reason. As always, his lust for conquest made him insatiable. Yet unlike his cur of a father, Sesshoumaru was not without discretion. It was this combination of cool intellect and aggressive might which made him so worthy in Hirokin’s eyes.

Though his lord was still dangerously irate, Hirokin could see him sobering even now. Swiping a wet palm across his bloodied neck, Sesshoumaru moved out from the ledge as he began to claw at his hair. Hirokin’s lips quirked as he waded over.

“Allow me, my lord,” he said.

With a terse sigh, Sesshoumaru relinquished his hold on the gore-matted strands. Blue-limned water flowed from Hirokin’s deft fingers. His sharp, tear-shaped nails scratched lightly against Sesshoumaru’s scalp as he cleansed the sticky grime away. The demon lord relaxed into the heat—and Hirokin’s skillful ministrations.

Emboldened by this reaction, Hirokin smoothed down Sesshoumaru’s nape. Such fine marble flesh, regal and sculpted. Never had Hirokin seen another so built for rule. So perfect, dominant, and deadly.

His grip tightened on the steely, corded muscle of Sesshoumaru’s shoulders. An old familiar arousal stirred in him. Perhaps it was fairer to say that this lust was always simmering within him, merely awaiting an outlet. Hungrily, Hirokin’s eyes followed a bead of sweat as it trailed along Sesshoumaru’s throat. With his power, Hirokin briefly became it—bonding fleetingly with his lord’s fair skin, reveling in the burning heat of his pulse before skittering away into the spring.

It was all Hirokin could do not to seal his lips to that spot, but he knew from past experience that such an advance would be unwelcome. They had been barely into adolescence when he’d mustered the courage, so long ago, to attempt it. Even now he could remember the throb of heat between his legs, the silken slide of his cheek against Sesshoumaru’s. The precise knowledge of how to quench that heat would elude Hirokin for some time yet. But as he’d pressed his lips to Sesshoumaru’s, his hips to Sesshoumaru’s, he’d had an inkling. When Sesshoumaru’s clawed hands had gripped his shoulders, he’d felt a flare of formless hope. But then Hirokin had been shoved roughly back, sent to the ground in a humiliating sprawl.

“Don’t do that again,” Sesshoumaru had said with a glare. “It’s disgusting.”

Hirokin’s lips pursed at the memory. The fact that Sesshoumaru hadn’t killed him for the offense showed the depth of his regard for him, even then. Still, the rejection had cut deep.

Ever determined to pour salt in the wound, Sesshoumaru rolled his shoulders with an indolent crack. “Your touch is almost as soft as Kagome’s.”

Behind him, Hirokin glowered. Must they forever dwell upon that damnable woman? Infusing a fresh wave of heat into his hands, Hirokin speared his fingers into Sesshoumaru’s stiff muscle. The demon lord growled.

“Your priestess has wound you up tightly, my lord,” Hirokin said as he worked out the knots with a good deal more force than was necessary.

Tipping back his chin, Sesshoumaru smirked in profile. “You cannot imagine.”

Unfortunately, Hirokin could. Grinding the heel of his hand hard into Sesshoumaru’s back, he felt his resentment getting the better of him.

“Too bad she keeps an even tighter lock on that holy cunt of hers. Though with a little sake, you might be able to prise it.”

Faster than even Hirokin could see, Sesshoumaru whipped around. A breath of shock escaped the demon prince as his back hit the edge of the spring. Stony claws clamped around his neck and jaw. Golden eyes bore into his with chilling ferocity.

“Stop deriding her like a jealous mistress,” the demon lord snapped. Blood threaded down Hirokin’s quavering throat. “If I wanted you on my cock, you would be.” As Hirokin swallowed nervously, Sesshoumaru relaxed his grip. The suffocating youki preventing Hirokin from escaping into the spring abated. “Be grateful I do not.”

Bitterness edged Sesshoumaru’s words. Slumping down into the pool, Hirokin resisted the cowardly urge to meld into it. Instead, he stared after Sesshoumaru as he climbed out and strode away. Rivulets of water streamed tear-like down his powerful form. Hirokin tried to hold to him, yet with a sear of youki, the clinging moisture burned away.

“Grateful,” Hirokin muttered to himself as he leaned back against the unforgiving stone.

It was the furthest thing from what he felt, when Sesshoumaru’s suffering was his own.

…

Perhaps hours passed. Perhaps days. The sun had long since set by the time Hirokin dredged himself up from the subterranean depths of the mountain spring. Summoning his clothes to him, he began his descent along the treacherous slope. Only his nimble footing prevented him from sliding on the flinty slag.

A light, misting rain had begun to fall. Pausing midway down, Hirokin basked in the welcome respite. Tilting back his face, he sighed as the rain skimmed along his brow, his cheeks, his lips. Like a lover’s caress, the beads of water brushed over him, light and fleeting. As his hair grew dark and heavy, a similar weight pooled in his chest.

The thought of returning to his father’s palace filled him with aversion. Sesshoumaru’s Western Palace—even more. Though he was loath to consider it, he also couldn’t not consider it—

Returning there.

The rain presented the possibility. Climbing it like a lattice, he rose swiftly through the clouds, letting them ferry him toward the sea. At the boundary of his grandfather’s ocean kingdom, a tower appeared through the luminous mist. Shimmering in hues of mother-of-pearl, the castle awaited. His late mother’s spirit seemed to resonate from it. With a mixture of reverence and pain, he alighted on the moonlit steps, passed beneath a torii arch of glowing red coral.

Sheets of rain streamed beneath his feet as he approached the castle. Pushing back the screen, he emerged into a hall of blue-lit splendor. Sculptures of salt-crystal glittered from floor to ceiling. As he climbed the steps, the other rooms revealed ornaments of pearl, coral, sapphire and silver. A watery, azure radiance suffused the chamber at the top. Relatively scarce of treasure, a tidal pool beset one side. The clear water revealed an array of marine life—painted scallops and ruby-red crustaceans, jewel-scaled fish that shimmered as they swam. On the other side of the room was an ocean of pale billowing silk.

Approaching the bed, Hirokin deliberated once more. But the heaviness in his heart would not allow him to rest. With no choice but to relieve it, he opened the western-facing window and placed a shimmering blue lantern on the ledge.

Despite the inclement weather, he knew his beacon would not go unnoticed.

While he waited, Hirokin crossed over to the opposite window. Pushing open the shutters, he gazed out over the open sea. Often as a small child, he had seen his wise and beautiful mother standing at this window just the same. The hopeless longing in her eyes had caused his own to sting.

Hirokin, my love, someday you will see how the light plays over the sand at the ocean’s center, she had promised him faintly. It dapples in patterns that are wondrous to behold.

Firmly, despite the sheen of his tears, he had gazed up at her, pressing his hand into hers. We will see it together, Haha-ue.

Sadly, his mother had smiled.

Hirokin’s nails dug into the window ledge. He had seen the center of the ocean. He had seen the play of the light. But she had not been there to see it with him, to interpret the patterns so that he would understand.

Instead she had abandoned him to chaos. He remembered the first crippling years of her absence, the helpless rage he had felt at her death. Her murder, he corrected himself.

“Damn you, Touga,” he seethed even now, hoping some of the venom in his curse would reach the Inu no Taishou in whatever hell confined him.

How strange it was, Hirokin reflected, that he had come to love the son of his most hated enemy.

Of course, he had been determined to hate Sesshoumaru too, in the beginning. It had been easy to hate him—not merely for his parentage. 

…

Following the unification of the West, the great lords and their families were forced to live at court, Hirokin’s among them. Escaping the celebrity of Sesshoumaru was impossible. Hailed as a prodigy, Touga’s handsome young heir was constantly showered with acclaim. Crowds gathered on a regular basis just to watch him spar. Without so much as a change in expression, he would brutally beat down his peers and coolly disarm even his skilled tutors. The children flocked to him, the adults praised him, but all Hirokin saw in him was his father’s brutish strength.

Outwardly, Hirokin played along in the ruse of adoration. Secretly, he schemed to undermine Sesshoumaru at every turn. He spread rumors, planted stolen objects, sabotaged training equipment. Yet no matter how hard Hirokin tried, Sesshoumaru bore every embarrassment, every punishment, every undeserved loss in infuriating stride. Nothing, it seemed, could shake him. Grudgingly, Hirokin even began to respect him for it—even as his desperation to defeat him intensified.

When he overheard Sesshoumaru’s mother saying that she had an heirloom urn being brought up for the Autumn Festival, Hirokin began feverishly to plot. A tournament would be held that night—both for the adults and children. Obviously, Sesshoumaru was the clear favorite for the children’s tournament, but Hirokin had no doubt that if Sesshoumaru were to shatter his mother’s precious urn, his father would force him to sit it out. The shame of missing the festival would have to break Sesshoumaru’s stubborn pride.

In order for the framing to work, the timing would have to be perfect—Hirokin would have to scheme for Sesshoumaru to be summoned to his mother’s chambers while she was absent. While he was en route, Hirokin himself would smash the urn. By the time Sesshoumaru entered the chamber, a servant tipped off about a ‘loud crash’ would have to arrive and catch Sesshoumaru red-handed at the scene.

That Inukimi’s announcement about the urn had a theatric quality to it, that she was absent from her rooms a conspicuous amount following the announcement, and that the summons almost seemed to be expected by the one receiving them had escaped Hirokin’s notice at the time. In his desperation for revenge, he forgot all patience. In his arrogance, he forwent all suspicion.

When he entered the chambers and there was no ceremonial urn even to be found, Hirokin realized his error—a split-second before a fist slammed into his face.

The blow sent him flying halfway across the room. The irony of him crash-landing into an urn of flowers had been lost on Hirokin at the time, as his head swam and his eyes blurred. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth as he staggered to his feet. From the shadows Sesshoumaru materialized. The cold flash of his golden eyes froze Hirokin to the quick.

“So, it’s you,” Sesshoumaru said. His brow lowered as his expression darkened. “I wondered if you would take the bait.”

“You’re lucky I did,” Hirokin shot back, cringing as his broken nose realigned, “because that was pretty damn obvious.”

Sesshoumaru made a sound of acknowledgement. “Still, a win is a win.”

Before Hirokin was able to draw another breath, Sesshoumaru’s fist cracked across his other cheek.

“Fuck!” Hirokin shouted as he crashed to the floor again. Pain exploded through him. He hadn’t even seen Sesshoumaru move!

As Hirokin struggled to right himself, Sesshoumaru tackled him. Close combat had never been Hirokin’s strong suit, to say the least. Against Sesshoumaru’s superior strength, he was defenseless. Hopelessly pinned at the arms and waist, Hirokin stared up at him in bleary defeat. A crease formed between his brows as he saw Touga’s heir smiling down at him.

“You’re weak, but I like you,” Sesshoumaru said. “You’re not boring like the others.”

Hirokin flushed. His pulse quickened as he smiled slowly back.

“I think…I like you, too.”

…

Hirokin sighed as he pushed away from the window. The ache in his heart compounded at the memory. Even at such a young age, he had felt an indescribable attraction. He had liked to believe that Sesshoumaru had felt it, too.

After that fateful confrontation, the two of them had become inseparable. They were an enviable pair—Sesshoumaru, the indomitable heir of a cardinal lord, and Hirokin, the brilliant son of an esteemed ancient line. Powerful and well-connected, they complemented one another perfectly. They strengthened and sharpened each other, and disdained everyone else.

It was Hirokin’s own fault for ever wanting more from Sesshoumaru than friendship. But Sesshoumaru had never seemed to begrudge Hirokin his perversions. And when Sesshoumaru had enlisted Hirokin’s aid in disposing of the first body, Hirokin could not help but feel a measure of relief in the understanding they had shared.

With vivid clarity, he remembered Sesshoumaru’s bewilderment and shame. Remembered the mutilated body of their acquaintance lying still upon the ground. Without a second thought, Hirokin had sprung into action, clearing the scene with his particular power and ensuring the murder would not be connected to his friend. Tensions had been high at the time, and this demoness had been the daughter of a visiting dignitary.

All the while, Sesshoumaru had sat numbly by, as though uncomprehending. Shock, Hirokin had told him after.

You weren’t in possession of your full senses, Sesshoumaru. Next time, this will not happen. Next time, you will know what to expect. 

It’s not the first time, Sesshoumaru had confessed. The others, they just weren’t so…important.

As Sesshoumaru had looked to him in resignation, a cold ball of dread had sunk through Hirokin’s heart. He’d thought back to the dark times of his youth, when he’d hoped for Sesshoumaru to be brought low. What a bitter fool he had been, to think that there would be any pleasure in it.

After that, he and Sesshoumaru had come to a tacit understanding: When Sesshoumaru must indulge, Hirokin must help him obfuscate it. Until recently, Sesshoumaru had kept his indulgences to a minimum. Yet nevertheless, Hirokin had attended to him without fail. Even as a malicious part of him had hated and envied the females Sesshoumaru had selected, he had served him faithfully.

So faithfully in fact, that despite his enmity of Sesshoumaru’s father, Hirokin had planted evidence conspicuously enough even for someone as thick-skulled as Touga to become apprised of the situation. It had been a calculated risk. Yet knowing of the Inu no Taishou’s soft heart and peculiar powers, Hirokin had wagered that he would help his son, if he could.

It was a gamble that had not gone unrewarded. Still, nothing could have prepared Hirokin for the shock of that night—even now, he wondered if he had made the right decisions.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced the nightmarish memory from mind.

By the time he turned, Hirokin realized he was no longer alone. Warily, he regarded the hulking figure advancing from the western window.

Dark hair, half-bound, streamed down the inuyoukai soldier’s broad shoulders. Golden eyes seized Hirokin’s own.

“I brought sake,” the soldier said, pausing as Hirokin approached him.

“Leave it,” the demon prince said, hardly interested in whatever swill he’d procured from the barracks.

As his visitor set the bottle down on a table nearby, Hirokin drew to a stop. Clawed hands went immediately around him, drawing him in.

“Koi,” the visitor rumbled. Hirokin grimaced at the nauseating endearment. “How I have missed you these past eleven days.”

Rolling his eyes, Hirokin worked expeditiously at the fastenings of his visitor’s armor. At his eagerness, his inuyoukai partner began to strip him as well. Heat flared into Hirokin’s stomach at the feeling of calloused fingertips scraping over his chest.

As their eyes met again, Hirokin pulled the other demon’s face down to his. Their lips joined in a hungry clash. Hirokin moaned at the invasion of his fangs, his coarse tongue, allowing himself to be plundered by this brute. Kou, he thought in distaste—even his name was common and guttural. Like an animal call.

Kou’s tongue rasped once more against Hirokin’s as he drew breathlessly back. Clasping the demon prince’s cheek, Kou skimmed his thumb along the part of Hirokin’s lips, exposing a small, sharp incisor. The rough thumbpad caught briefly against the tooth’s fine serrations.

“I dream of your mouth,” Kou said on a gravelly murmur, “your eyes. How lovely you are, like a painting.”

Irritation prickled through Hirokin at these clumsy effusions. If he wanted to be reminded of how fetching his mouth and eyes were, he would look in a mirror. Sesshoumaru never waxed poetic about anything—not even his precious miko. Desperate to salvage the fantasy—and his mood—Hirokin gripped Kou’s hips and surged against him. His cock deflected like a blade across Kou’s hard stomach. Crushing his face to Hirokin’s throat with a muffled growl, the inuyoukai surged back.

“Your scent drives me mad,” Kou rumbled as he breathed him in. The needy grating of his thick, hard length over Hirokin’s abdomen made him heady with lust. “I could drown in it—in you.”

Hirokin grit his teeth. Again with the poetics. Reaching between them, he grasped Kou’s cock and began to roughly stroke it. Clawtips bit into his lower back, curled into his scalp. Hirokin hissed at the pain—and then at Kou when he started to draw back.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

If he saw some soft look of concern in Kou’s eyes, they were going to have to start over. Clenching his fist that much harder around Kou’s shaft, the demon prince was rewarded with a low, throaty groan.

“I love how you touch me,” Kou panted, crushing Hirokin to him again. The demon prince winced as his bones ground together. “I need to feel you more.”

Taking advantage of the momentum, Hirokin wedged his other hand between them and gave Kou’s balls a lusty squeeze. “What else?”

The inuyoukai shuddered, his aura flaring. “I need to be in you.”

Better.

Hirokin’s youki flared back. “Why should I let you put your peasant cock in me?”

Challenge flashed in Kou’s reflective eyes. Breaking Hirokin’s grip, the inuyoukai turned the demon prince flush against him. Sliding between his cheeks, Kou held Hirokin at the waist as he wrapped his thick, rough fingers around the base of Hirokin’s cock. Pumping the length of him in a slow circuit, Kou ground his dampened tip against Hirokin’s entrance. Conjured wetness beaded from Hirokin as well.

Fangs tugged at Hirokin’s fanned ear. “…Because you love my peasant cock.”

The corner of Hirokin’s lips rose. That much was true. It was by far Kou’s best feature. A near-perfect match.

It had been the deciding factor, that day in the palace baths. How long it had been since that first encounter purposefully escaped Hirokin, though no doubt Kou could recall it down to the minute. He couldn’t even write his own simple name, yet the inuyoukai had a scribe’s exacting detail when recounting all that Hirokin would rather forget.

…

Never one to suffer intrusions upon his solitude, Hirokin was in a particularly unobliging mood that day. Seeming to sense it, the few youkai who trespassed upon him quickly retraced their steps. Whether braver or stupider than the rest, Kou wasn’t deterred by Hirokin’s hostile aura. As he entered the spring with a noisy splash, the demon prince’s eyes slid open narrowly.

One look at him and Hirokin decided upon the latter—most definitely stupid.

Taller and bulkier than Sesshoumaru, the unwelcome visitor sat slightly hunched like an oaf on the ledge, as though conscious of the fact he didn’t belong there—a fact Hirokin’s critical regard reinforced with every passing second. Thick and slightly wavy, his long dark hair stuck to his chest and shoulders in messy chunks, completing the image that he’d lumbered in from some nameless backwater.

Not that Kou was ugly, but there was a crudeness in the heavy lines of his jaw and brow, a coarseness in his tanned skin and his overall blocky, soldier’s bearing. It was not a look Hirokin had ever considered attractive, when compared with Sesshoumaru’s aristocratic refinement.

As this intruder continued to loiter in Hirokin’s presence, openly ogling him, the demon prince had a mind to boil the soldier’s staring eyes from his skull. There was nothing subtle about the way he was looking at Hirokin—half-hopeful and leery and shamelessly appreciative all at once. But beyond looking, the intruder didn’t seem to know what else to do.

Beyond murdering him, Hirokin didn’t either.

Of course he’d experienced this kind of interest from other males before, on occasion. Apart from disrupting the tedium of a seemingly endless stream of female advances, they hadn’t been something he’d ever seriously entertained. Obvious dangers aside, Sesshoumaru would never allow it.

A spark of resentment burned within Hirokin at this knowledge. For centuries, he had catered to Sesshoumaru’s perversities. Considering the absurd new heights he had recently taken them to, Hirokin was not particularly inclined in that moment to abstain himself.

In order to give Sesshoumaru all that he wanted, Hirokin would have to perform feats of social and political maneuvering previously unimagined. He would have to expend every resource, call in every favor, and make good on every threat. He would have to turn the immortal realm upside-down, and he would do it all because he loved Sesshoumaru. But Hirokin needed something in return—and it had never been more painfully clear to him in that moment that it was something Sesshoumaru would never give him.

Perhaps it was this revelation, this bitter defiance, which made Hirokin re-evaluate the demon before him. An inuyoukai. Though a far cry from Sesshoumaru, there were enough similarities to appeal to Hirokin’s deviancy. Flexing it like a muscle long disused, Hirokin let his eyes roam leisurely over the soldier’s naked body—or what he could see of it, at any rate.

“Stand up,” he said.

Though Hirokin was no warlord, he had no trouble issuing commands. At once, the inuyoukai rose in stiff attention—his cock as well. Hirokin endeavored not to swallow at the sight. As large and well-formed as Sesshoumaru’s, the thick veined length faintly throbbed beneath Hirokin’s greedy scrutiny.

Glancing sharply away at last, he fought to maintain his composure against his mounting excitement. A slosh in the water drew his attention back. The soldier’s cheeks were ruddy, his clenched jaw somehow squarer than before. Mistaking Hirokin’s bracing, averted look for dismissal, the inuyoukai stepped up from the submerged ledge to leave.

“Stop,” Hirokin snapped. The soldier’s head whipped around to him in surprise. “Sit back down.”

Slowly, he sat. His golden eyes flared wide as Hirokin appeared suddenly before him in the spring. With a flick of Hirokin’s wrist, a wall of water flew in a wave toward the entrance to the baths. Upon impact, the wave froze feet-thick against the screen double-doors, sealing them shut with a chilling crackle, as Hirokin dissipated the extracted heat into the air.

The steam around them thickened as he moved between the inuyoukai’s muscular thighs and rested his hands atop them. Breathless, the other demon gazed at Hirokin transfixed, as his slender fingers slid inward.

“What’s your name?” the demon prince demanded, gripping the inuyoukai’s hard cock.

“Kou,” he gasped out.

Thinking this was just a sound he’d made when Hirokin seized him, the demon prince arched a brow. “Well?—you do have a name, don’t you?”

“…My name is Kou,” he mumbled.

For a beat, Hirokin stared at him, before shaking his head. “Of course it is.” Shifting his grip suddenly to the inuyoukai’s tight sack and twisting, Hirokin glared straight into Kou’s dilating eyes. “Make a sound, Kou, and there’ll be no shred of you left for your bitch mother to burn.”

At his wordless nod, Hirokin smirked, before dropping beneath the water’s surface and taking Kou into his mouth.

…

Kou hadn’t made a sound.

And so Hirokin had made him his lover, shown him every ounce of the passion he’d never been able to show Sesshoumaru. Shared with him an exchange of pleasure more sublime than what any female partner could ever provide or receive.

It was Sesshoumaru’s loss, Hirokin had told himself. Yet as the pleasure had dimmed and the shame had set in, it had been impossible to convince himself that he was not the loser.

After that first time, the shame had been acute. So acute in fact, that Hirokin had sworn never to cave to his perversions again. Violently, he’d rebuffed Kou’s clumsy advances, yet like a dimwit, the inuyoukai had persisted. Each run-in with him made Hirokin even more viciously question the other demon’s sense of self-preservation. More times than Hirokin could count, he’d considered getting rid of him, but that in itself had seemed like an admission of weakness.

A thorn in his side, Kou had remained, lingering and chafing. Nagging in the possibility he’d presented, even when he had the good common sense to stay out of Hirokin’s sight. In retrospect it had only been a matter of attrition. As a water demon, he understood all too well the power of erosive forces, subtle and slow-working as they were.

Worn down from hundreds of years of deep dissatisfaction, Hirokin supposed it was inevitable his flawed character would be exposed. That day in the baths had driven a wedge into the crack. No matter how badly he’d tried to patch over this fault, he couldn’t erase it. He couldn’t forget how good it had felt to finally give in.

It had been the actions of his accursed father which had been the next catalyst. All his life Hirokin had labored to keep his idiot family in line. A pack of grasping fools, the lot of them. Reckless in their greed, incapable of foreseeing a single consequence. If not for his mother’s sacrifice, he would have rinsed his hands of them long ago.

But he could not allow his family to destroy themselves, no matter how keen they were to do so. If his father and siblings were to die, then his mother’s death would mean nothing. And if her death meant nothing, what meaning was there to anything?

Only narrowly had Hirokin managed to prevent disaster. With such boundless idiocy to contend with, he supposed that despite his precautions it was unavoidable that blunders would yet be made. But even Hirokin could not have foreseen the magnitude of this latest debacle.

His house would spend centuries making amends for it.

Yet it had survived.

…

Of course it would fall on Hirokin to bear the brunt of Sesshoumaru’s unspent fury. After another round of verbal evisceration, in which the demon lord disparaged Hirokin as too “milk-blooded” and “womanly” to manage affairs of state, all while heaping even more impossible demands upon him, it was all Hirokin could do at his wit’s end of forbearance not to retort that if it weren’t for him there’d be no state left to manage. But seeing as how smashing his face in was precisely what Sesshoumaru was gaming for, Hirokin grit his teeth through the tirade.

He had scarcely managed to escape from Sesshoumaru’s presence when Kou came upon him. Standing atop a raging fall, Hirokin was taking out his anger on the surrounding landscape. The churning white water of the swelled river cleaved like a jagged saw through the valley below. At the sight of Kou, the floodwaters surged that much higher. Heaving up a tidal wave of murky water from the depths, Hirokin hurled it toward the thrice-damned inuyoukai. His frustration only intensified when Kou sunk his broadsword into the rocky earth to weather the deluge. Panting and dripping in the aftermath, Kou shook himself off like the mongrel he was before alighting on the stony perch before Hirokin. Rendered momentarily speechless by the inuyoukai’s audacity—and resilience—Hirokin glared.

Kou’s heavy brows forged a chasm as he frowned. ”You are troubled,” he said at last.

“Troubled.” Utterly exasperated, and more than a little unhinged, Hirokin laughed. “Yes, I’m troubled—what a clever observation! You should be Sesshoumaru-sama’s advisor.” With a scathing toss of his head, the demon prince turned from him. “Leave me be, you stupid fuck.”

Hirokin pitched forward as a gale of youki slammed into him from behind, nearly sending him over the fall. Hirokin whirled in rage. His own aura stormed back in a white-edged tempest. Kou dug his heels in to keep from being flung off the rock. Lightning sparked at the collision of their churning energies. A towering wall of water and broken earth spun around them. Teeth and fangs bared, they heavily breathed as they stared one another down through the tumult. The rush of adrenaline pounding through Hirokin’s veins steeped to a carnal throb as Kou’s eyes darkened in blatant proposition.

Beneath the mounting tension, the desperate need, Hirokin finally splintered.

“All right,” he snapped, dropping his guard as Kou dropped his own and lunged for him, dragging Hirokin up against his armored chest. Seething, the demon prince shoved him off. “Not here, you fucking fool—we’re too close to the palace.” To Sesshoumaru, Hirokin reflected darkly as he raked his nails through his disheveled hair. “There is a floating tower, at the edge of the western sea. I’ll set a light so that you can find it,” he said tersely, seizing Kou’s amber gaze with a jolt of exhilaration. “Meet me there tonight.”

…

One such transgression might be considered a mere indiscretion. A temporary lapse. But another?—and another still? Even Hirokin’s twisty mind could not convolute such naked truths. Or conceive of a means to reverse them.

And so their assignations had continued according to this established ritual: Hirokin would place the lantern, and Kou would watch for it. Each descent into debauchery made easier the next. The shame was still there, yet not so strongly as before. As Hirokin began to feel ashamed for not feeling ashamed, he wondered whether he was becoming inured to the feeling altogether.

It was a terrifying thought.

Afraid of what it might mean, he clung instead to his bitterness, which was ever-present. Grounded himself in his thwarted love for the lord who was dearer to him than a brother. For whom he had devoted himself wretchedly and completely.

To find pleasure apart from Sesshoumaru seemed to Hirokin the gravest of betrayals. Yet what could he do?

Kou kissed down his neck and shoulder, continuing to work his fist over Hirokin as he descended. The demon prince shuddered in visceral anticipation. Circling around him, Kou went down on his knees, skimming his open mouth along the bone of Hirokin’s hip, the smooth ivory length of his shaft. There was the barest scrape of fangs against the raised central seam, the rough wet flicker of tongue over the glistening head. Hirokin’s cock twitched as he sharply inhaled. Twisting his fingers into Kou’s thick hair, Hirokin forced his parted lips away.

Sesshoumaru would never do this. He would never lower himself in this way.

Desperate to maintain even the smallest, most tarnished glimmer of loyalty, Hirokin turned and fell to his hands and knees. Spreading them, he presented himself in full. Kou’s youki flared instinctively at the display of submission. Breathing shakily, Hirokin’s aura spiked in vicious counterpoint. As a male, this position was wholly unnatural. The beast in him railed at being thus exposed. His stomach twisted in knots even as his aberrant cock gave a heavy throb.

He groaned when Kou’s fist clutched him from behind. Hirokin’s hips thrust reflexively forward. Dark hair teased like brushstrokes over his lower back—a tantalizing pattern. Hot breath and fang points grazed along the cleft in his cheeks. Hirokin tensed when Kou nuzzled his prone, hanging testicles, scenting and rolling them in their silky casing. When the flat of his tongue rasped against them, Hirokin gasped with pleasure.

“Do that again,” he whispered harshly, though he hardly needed to.

Growling, Kou was already licking him again, long and rough and slow. Hirokin’s sack dragged up at the caress. His breath caught at the delicious constriction. He was weak to this brand of torment, as his partner well knew. Despite his urgency to be mounted and fucked, Hirokin felt powerless to stop this gratuitous fondling. This series of tortuous swipes and swivels that had him bucking away and rearing back for more in maddening tandem.

It was with mixed relief and disappointment that he felt Kou’s attentions rising along his perineum. A fresh trickle of fluid welled from Hirokin’s cock as Kou tongued him deeply through that slim stretch of skin, before continuing upward. With one hand at Hirokin’s hip, Kou opened him further, skirting the tip of his nose over the demon prince’s waiting hole. Hirokin bit his lip at the excessive scenting and prodding, on the verge of snapping at him to hurry the hell up when Kou began to lick him there.

Hirokin’s teeth clicked shut. Curling the sharp, pearly points of his nails into the tatami, he closed his eyes at the flood of sensation assaulting his sensitive rim—another form of torture he was particularly susceptible to. Moaning low in his throat, he ground back against the rough length of muscle wetting and tasting him, pressing into him with perfect, fleeting cruelty. Another thing Sesshoumaru would never do, and pointless besides. Given Hirokin’s natural liquidity, there was no need to prepare him in this way. No need to have his entrance teased and stretched, no need to have it slickened to the point that a thin rivulet of saliva was wending its way down to drip from his straining balls.

It was fortunate the fist around his cock had stilled in its stroking, or the demon prince might not have lasted beneath this rectal onslaught. Forcing a breath through his teeth, Hirokin shifted his hips in impatience. Annoyance spiked through him as he swore to the gods he could feel the inuyoukai’s frown.

“Fuck me already,” Hirokin seethed.

With a rather sulky parting lick, Kou complied. Releasing his bruising grip on Hirokin’s cock, Kou clasped him by the hips as he brought the huge, broad head of his sex against him. Hirokin stiffened. Though it wasn’t a foreign sensation any longer, he didn’t think he would ever grow accustomed to the utter vulnerability he felt at being so intimately breached by another. It was the ultimate violation, as devastating as it was darkly arousing.

He couldn’t suppress the strangled moan that escaped him as Kou’s massive cock forged its way inside him. Hirokin eased the entry only enough so that his flesh wouldn’t bleed or tear. Otherwise, he committed himself to the initial, grating discomfort. Even the first bumping slide of Kou’s erection over his prostate didn’t elicit enough pleasure to override the pain.

Veins stood out on Hirokin’s forearms as he endured the slow, sadistic progress. Kou was striving to acclimate him, but Sesshoumaru wouldn’t have bothered. And so not even Hirokin’s delusion was satisfied.

“Hurry up,” he said finally through clenched teeth. “Stop treating me like a goddamned virgin.”

Even having to order Kou around like this was sullying the fantasy. Yet though his reluctance was palpable, the inuyoukai thrust forward fully and deeply, burying himself to the hilt in Hirokin’s seizing flesh. As the demon prince hissed through every curse in his extensive vocabulary, Kou pushed in and out of him in a gradually accelerating circuit. His movements grew more forceful and fluid as his primal instincts began to overtake him.

Hirokin could feel the shift in his lover’s aura when he started to pound him in earnest. The claws at Hirokin’s hips lengthened and stabbed. The pain he felt was a welcome distraction. The demon prince focused in on it for a time before pushing back with his own cutting youki—though only the slightest urging was required to make Kou relent. Sobered a bit, Kou breathed raggedly as he fucked Hirokin hard and fast. The demon prince’s lips parted in speechless bliss as his discomfort ebbed, and he gave himself over to the singular pleasure of being so brutally taken.

Now he could feel the successive strokes against his inner gland. His stiff cock wept freely at the pummeling invasion. Sesshoumaru himself could not have plundered him better. The conviction sent a fresh wave of arousal coursing through Hirokin, leaving him dazed.

“You like it?” the demon inside him panted. One set of claws detached to fist in Hirokin’s spun-silver hair. “You like how I fuck you?”

“Yes,” Hirokin shamelessly groaned, rearing back to take his lover’s savage cock into him even deeper. “Fuck, yes.”

“You’re so tight.” The grip on his hair redoubled as the other demon’s hips pistoned madly against his. “So perfect.”

“So are you,” Hirokin murmured, drunk on the sensation, vaguely aware that he was out of his senses.

In his mind, the heated exchange continued.

“Tell me you love it,” Sesshoumaru said.

“I love it,” Hirokin replied huskily.

“Tell me you love me.”

“I love you,” Hirokin confessed. “I love you so much it’s destroying me inside.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I need you to fuck me harder,” Hirokin pleaded. “Harder, my love.”

Kou must have felt the sentiment, for the pounding pressure in Hirokin’s channel rapidly escalated. The demon prince yelled out as his balls drew perilously high and tight. His vision spotted as the base of Kou’s cock swelled to split him. Hirokin barely had time to puzzle at it before the knot of flesh drilled him perfectly in the pleasure point, sending him violently and abruptly into orgasm. Seed gushed from him in pulsing bursts as Kou continued to fuck him with short, rampant thrusts, milking Hirokin dry before spilling into him hot and deep.

At the moment of release, Kou’s fangs tore into Hirokin’s left shoulder, making the demon prince curse and thrash. But Kou was locked tight within him. Fuming as best he could through his euphoria, Hirokin lay pinned beneath his lust-addled partner in furious realization—

This lowbred cur had dared attempt to mate him.

Two males could be mated about as well as two sticks, but the fact that Kou had even tried rankled Hirokin to the marrow. As Kou’s fangs and cock finally released him, Hirokin sealed the gash in his shoulder with murderous vehemence before rounding on the still-dazed inuyoukai. Not quite meeting the demon prince’s glare, Kou shoved his fallen hair out of his eyes.

Incensed, Hirokin crossed him arms at his chest as he continued to stare witheringly at Kou. At least the bastard had the decency to look abashed for his insolence.

“Why the hell would you do that?” Hirokin bit out. “Sheer pointlessness aside, in what universe do you think someone like me would ever want to be bonded to someone like you?”

“I…” Kou flinched. “…It’s just, the things you were saying. You said, ‘I need you to fuck me harder. Harder, my—'”

“Forget what I said,” Hirokin snapped, paling in mortification. “It doesn’t mean anything. Do you understand me?”

Slowly, Kou nodded, though they both knew full well he wouldn’t forget anything. He never did. Releasing a terse breath, Hirokin kneaded at his temples. Dimly, he realized he was still sitting in a puddle of cum—only some of it his own. Not even needing to gesture in this place, he summoned water from the nearby pool, washing and drying them both in a single, brisk sweep that had Kou yelping as ever in surprise. Snorting, Hirokin stood and stepped toward the bed—a wordless dismissal.

“Will you have a cup of sake with me?”

The demon prince paused, glancing narrowly back. Kou was always trying to wheedle more time out of their encounters. Normally, Hirokin had no compunction in kicking him out. But still unsettled by what he’d unintentionally said, the demon prince felt that he could use a drink now more than ever—soldier’s swill or otherwise. Not to mention accepting the offer would wipe that pathetic, stricken-dog look off Kou’s face. A necessity if Hirokin was ever going get hard again in his presence.

“Fine,” the demon prince said, as though horribly inconvenienced by the notion.

Brightening at once, Kou went to fetch the sake. Not even bothering to dress, Hirokin sat back down. Maybe a second round of fucking was in order. The first had ended rather calamitously, and he was certainly feeling agitated enough—at least for cheap wine to have no effect. Kou poured the sake and offered him a cup. As Hirokin braced himself for the acrid taste, his eyes widened at the strong, fragrant smoothness that met his tongue instead.

“This…” Snatching up the bottle, Hirokin rotated it. His gaze narrowed at the familiar signature etched upon the glaze. “Where did you get this?—did you steal it?”

Kou frowned, looking slightly indignant. “No, I earned it.”

“Earned it?” Hirokin said incredulously. “On a soldier’s stipend?”

It was a year’s worth of such wages, at least.

The inuyoukai scratched behind his pointed ear. “I won it in a wager.”

Hirokin scowled. Gambling, of course. As he opened his mouth to berate him, Kou clarified, “A fight. A lordling was boasting in front of his friends, so I challenged him. I asked for the sake in return.”

At a loss, the demon prince stared at him, grudgingly impressed. “This is my favorite brewer.”

“I know,” Kou said. His tanned cheeks reddened. “I memorized the symbols.”

“Characters,” Hirokin corrected mildly, pointing them out sound by sound.

“Ku-mi-ra-ta,” Kou echoed, his brow furrowed in absolute concentration.

Finishing the first cup, Hirokin eyed him over the rim, savoring the subtle complexity of the flavors before pouring them both a second. Kou was ignorant and uncouth, but he wasn’t stupid. In fact, he was rather powerfully observant—as Hirokin had come grudgingly to understand—apart from being remarkably strong.

As if reading the demon prince’s train of thought, Kou said, “I saw you the other day, during training.”

Hirokin tensed, nearly choking on his drink. Smoothing over the reaction expertly, he replied, “I happened to be passing by.”

In truth, on a whim he had been curious, to see his unlikely lover in his element. As oafish as Kou appeared, Hirokin had been surprised, and yet strangely not, to see him wielding his bludgeon of a weapon with such poise and dexterity. Despite Sesshoumaru’s painful lessons, Hirokin was no expert on the subject of combat, yet even he could recognize martial talent when he saw it—and Kou was talented, to be sure.

How else would he have made it into the Western Palace Guard? How else would he have been bold enough to approach Hirokin in the first place? It was a sobering thought, yet the fine sake was having its intended effect. Hirokin’s eyelids grew heavy as he regarded his lover through yet another cup.

Perhaps he should teach Kou some basic letters. The inuyoukai seemed capable enough to the task, and perhaps the only thing more degrading than being fucked by a male was being fucked by an illiterate male. Crushing a palm to his forehead, Hirokin checked himself as he rose, pivoting unsteadily toward the bed.

Kou’s arms went instantly around him. Unable to shrug him off, Hirokin let Kou lead him to the bed and settle him into the cool silken sheets. Surprising even himself, Hirokin clutched at the inuyoukai’s burly biceps as he started to withdraw.

“You can stay with me,” the demon prince said impetuously. “If you want.”

Kou’s eyes widened. Regretting the momentary slip in reason, Hirokin opened his mouth to correct it as Kou crushed his lips to his, kissing him long and slow before slipping into bed behind him. Muscled arms slid over and around him. Clawtips traced along Hirokin’s chest and stomach as strong thighs caged his own—a true lovers’ entanglement. Even through the haze of the sake, Hirokin wondered at the lightness he felt.

“I know you didn’t mean what you said,” Kou admitted, so quietly even Hirokin could scarcely hear him. “I just wanted to believe it.”

Hirokin closed his eyes as his head began to pound. His features twisted in a grimace. How could he admonish Kou, when he himself was guilty of the same? Wretched with desire for one who would never return it, contenting himself with the scraps of attention that happened to be cast his way. It was a pathetic way to live, a half-existence. He could not help but think that they both deserved better.

Even with the muddling effect of the wine, he could not help but think.

“You are so clever,” Kou murmured, “always changing. Like an actor in how you move and speak. Like a warrior in how you lead and parry. I could watch you, always. You…” he seemed to be struggling for the right, no doubt overly-saccharine word. Yet for once Hirokin felt no desire to dissuade him. “You fascinate me, koi.”

Hirokin shifted. Heat rose unbidden to his cheeks. Normally, praise for his eloquence and shrewdness did not affect him. It rolled off him like rain, or perhaps with a response of affected courtesy—if his audience was important enough for the condescension. Most were not even aware of his performance, for that is how he saw his negotiations—as subtle, artful, and deliberate. An elaborate dance and act with a movement toward a crescendo which was often violent, but beautifully and elegantly so. Even Sesshoumaru did not quite appreciate it as such, though he acknowledged the utility. And here, this true warrior was inarticulately, yet so poignantly and sincerely, commending Hirokin’s inborn, well-honed skills.

Considering Hirokin’s intellectual strengths as equal to his own.

“Call me ‘koi’ again, and I’ll cut out your tongue,” the demon prince muttered half-heartedly, though from the soft, growling snores against his shoulder, he could tell that Kou was already fast asleep.

Sighing, Hirokin relaxed against him, drifting off as well.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 3/28/23