Sesshoumaru swept back his drenched hair as he broke the surface of the stream. The freezing current flowed around his hips, dampening the fire in his blood. As his muscles tensed at the steadying chill, he combed his claws through his long gleaming locks, moonlight shivering in the droplets that trailed along his skin.

His hair felt fine as always, but he could not help but think of how much finer it had felt after Kagome had tended to it. The soaps from her future era reminded him of those his mother and other demons employed. To think that humans would one day have the care and freedom to invent such luxuries was intriguing.

He usually did not bother with them himself, but he would have his mother’s apothecary provide Kagome with his wares. He was curious to see what she would think of them–and eager to have her slick fingers on him once again. Despite the cold, the thought had his blood simmering anew, his jaw clenching as the poorly-concealed presence of another interrupted his musings.

Without bothering to turn, he addressed the intruder, “Drop them.”

From behind him, he heard the flutter of falling cloth as his clothes returned to the shore. Glancing coolly back, he watched the demoness settle atop the boulder behind her in feigned nonchalance, a stiff smile pulling at her lips.

“Sesshoumaru-sama,” she cooed almost convincingly, her amber eyes catching his keenly as she ran a set of filed claws through her silver-white hair. “It seems you could use some company.”

She was one of his own kind–a distant relation on his mother’s side. Not the sort he would have trysted with in the past, nor one who would normally engage in such behavior herself. He could only suppose that with his ascension in status, she assumed he was in want of a mate.

“Himiko,” he said brusquely as he exited the stream, his icy gaze raking over her as she blushed at his brazen nudity, “leave.”

Duly intimidated, Himiko fled. But as morning dawned, his cousin’s approach became the first of many. At every turn, it seemed, Sesshoumaru found himself warding off the advances of yet another solicitous female–each demoness who appeared before him more determined than the last. He was accustomed to being sought after, but this amount of propositioning was staggering–and supremely irritating.

As the day wore on, Sesshoumaru’s aggravation–and his suspicions–only intensified. While a glare or growl would drive off even the most persistent, the fact that another demoness would arrive on the very heels of one he’d just dismissed was absolutely absurd. Clearly, they could see that he was not interested–and yet they continued to come at him all the same. He could only wonder at what madness possessed them.

By the time night fell, Sesshoumaru felt as though he himself were on the run–retreating at last to the remotest corner of his own lands in search of a reprieve from this incessant parade of grasping bitches. Kneading his brow with the pads of his claws, he reclined against the cold flinty wall of a desolate crag. Had his father, too, been hounded to this extent?

Just as his nerves were beginning to lose their edge, he sensed a faint whisper of youki encroaching upon his sanctum. His dwindling patience evaporated altogether, his eyes searing red as he rounded on the demoness with claws flexed and fangs bared. With a gasp she quailed before him, a little of his distemper receding as he saw how young she was–scarcely mature enough to mate. Wide-eyed and willowy, she regarded him in undisguised terror.

Sesshoumaru lowered his claws. Perhaps her crossing paths with him had been a mere coincidence, after all.

Then, hesitantly, she stepped forward.

“Sesshoumaru-sama,” the girl whispered, bowing her head as her trembling fingers undid her obi, her pale blue kimono slinking down to pool at her bare feet. “Please, consider me.”

For the first time that day, Sesshoumaru considered the demoness before him. Nervously, she tucked a lock of dark wavy hair behind the pointed tip of her ear, her blue eyes peeking up at him occasionally through the fringe of her bangs. She could not possibly be more reluctant to lie with him, her shoulders hunched guardedly as she strove to keep her balled fists steady at her sides.

Realizing this, he rose. At his approach, her posture went rigid, the sight striking an uneasy chord within him.

Frowning, he paused before her. Reaching down, he retrieved the girl’s discarded kimono and draped it around her shoulders. Holding it closed, she gazed up at him in bewildered relief. Exasperated, he stared back.

“Why have you come to me?” he asked her.

Anxiously, she swallowed. “J-Jakken-sama…he said–he told me that I must offer myself to you, my lord.”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes narrowed, his claws lancing into his palm. Jakken…

For the girl’s sake, he reined in the storm of his anger. “Go,” he ordered her tersely. “Return to your kin.”

Timidly, she nodded. Turning on her heel, she hurried away from him, into the night.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi