Kagome turned her face away. Warm breath fanned down the side of her neck. Sesshoumaru spoke her name, dark and furtive, as if it were a secret word known only to them. Her chest drew tight. She shook her head, closed her eyes.

“Please, Sesshoumaru. Don’t do this.”

“Look at me,” he said.

Kagome turned. She looked at him. What she saw mirrored in his eyes filled her with sudden, terrible knowing. Desperate fear. She wanted to run from it, straight into the howling storm. Because whatever was out there was harmless compared to this.

But as much as she wanted to flee, she was frozen. Paralyzed by that look, trapped in a paroxysm of dread suspense. It broke as he closed in on her, and crushed his lips to hers.

Kagome’s heart gave a wild jolt. She tried to pull back, to break away. But he caught her by the cheek, deepening the kiss instead. His tongue swept past the seal of her lips, and she was lost in the dark heat of his mouth, in the desire that licked at her like a fast-spreading flame, threatening to consume her whole.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Her heart was racing, out of control. So wrapped up in him—in his arms, in his fur, in his claws that were tangling in her hair, his mouth that wouldn’t let hers go—she was stifled, sweltering and frantic. He nipped at her lower lip, bloodying it. At the prick of his fangs, her reiki stirred. Clearing the air, giving her the space she needed as he withdrew from her, slicking his tongue over the nicks he’d made in her flesh.

Kagome’s hands balled to fists against his chest. “You said,” she choked out, her voice cracked and pleading, “you told me you understood…”

He caught hold of her again, kissed her breathless again. When he freed her, it was only to tilt her head back by his grip in her hair, and expose the curve of her throat.

“You speak,” he growled against her thrumming pulse, “you exact these words from me. Then you pursue me. When I turn and give chase, you reproach me for it. Enough of this ruse. What good is your word or mine? You want me, I can sense it.” He pulled her back flush against him, rolled his hips up into hers as he murmured, “Can you feel it, how much I want you?”

Kagome could feel it, the hot hard length of him cleaving her front to back. Grinding against her tailbone to the point of pain. Flashes of memory cracked like heat lightning across the fevered surface of her mind. The memory of him burning away inside her, spilling molten into the depths of her through those entrances he was grating over now.

He wrenched the collar of her kimono aside, shoved his hand through the skewed neck of her dress as he ravished her throat. Her chest heaved when he seized her. Her breast squeezed in the vise of his claws. Beneath the pad of his thumb her nipple raised taut. He turned it under, scored his clawtip over the center of it just sharply enough to make her gasp—then thrust his thumb into her open mouth.

She bit down on him, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or to care. Clasping her by the jaw, he groaned into her hair, a gravelly canine sound that rumbled through her bones.

“I have been in torment,” he rasped, trailing his thumb damply down her lower lip, her chin, her naked chest. “And you…”

He smoothed his hand over her flinching belly, then past it to the swell of her hip. Her shortened kimono was already riding up, but he tugged it higher, almost to her waist, holding fast to her when she tried to shy away. Her injured leg blazed from her feeble struggling. She bit her tongue not cry out in pain. Tears welled stinging in her eyes.

“Be still,” Sesshoumaru said huskily, as though she had any choice but to lie there panting against him. “Only be still, and I will do the rest.” His claws hooked and slid under the band of her panties, skimmed across her flinching mound. “Let us make the best of this hell.”

Time seemed to slow as he wedged his hand between her thighs. The slim crotch of her panties dragged aside, snagging against the swollen outer lips of her sex. Her wet slit grazed bare against the cock urging into her. She shivered at its demonic heat, its raring hardness. Only a thin layer of silk separated them, skin to skin. He angled her up as he reached behind her, between them, for the ties of his hakama. 

She felt lightheaded, dazed. Her heart pounded in her ears. Her blood pumped hot and fast in her veins.

If she did this, if she let him—

“S-stop it, Sesshoumaru. Let me go.” If he heard her, he didn’t show it. Her reiki kindled, white-edged with panic. She twisted in his lap, slammed her glowing palms to his chest. “I said, let me go!”

His grip on her broke with a blinding flash. She scrambled up and away from him, whimpering when her calf flared in pain again. She crumpled in a heap to the icy floor, edging back. 

Sesshoumaru’s youki smothered the air. Through the miasmic darkness, his glare was seething.

Kagome tensed, thinking he might lunge for her. But with a growlsome curse, he brought his fist smashing down on the cave floor instead. The stone splintered under the blow, making her jump, as he gathered his power to him and shot past her, out into the storm.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 3/14/23