As Kagome descended the porch steps to the yard, there was a scurry beneath the deck—too large of a movement to be a raccoon or some other nocturnal pest. Nocking an arrow, the miko whirled around, her breath catching in her throat. From the shadows between two wooden support posts, a pair of wide, silver-grey eyes peered out at her, the sight giving the miko a frightful start.

“Kanako-chan,” she hissed, her lowered bow shaking in her furious hold. “Get out of there right now!”

Fearfully, the girl scrambled forth, dirt glaring from her wan skin and clothes. “Kagome-sama…” she said, blinking slowly, “where are you going?”

“Never mind that,” the miko snapped as she put her weapons away. “What in Kami’s name were you doing, hiding under my porch?”

Kanako’s loose, scraggly braid swayed like a frayed rope as she shifted. “…I sleep there, sometimes.”

“Well, stop it,” Kagome ground out, pointing heatedly in the direction of the village. “Go back to the shrine.”

The waif hesitated, her nervous gaze trailing between Kagome and the forest’s edge. “But, Kagome-sama—”

“Go.”

Breathing hard through the vise of her teeth, Kagome glared after Kanako’s retreating form until it was well out of sight. As if she didn’t have enough to contend with…

Determined to give the waif a proper scolding tomorrow, the miko took a moment to collect herself before turning on her heel and striding into the woods. About a half-mile in, she saw him at last—his still ivory figure contrasting sharply with the fluid darkness of the surrounding trees. Youki simmered faintly around him as he turned, pinning her with his reflective stare.

“So,” Sesshoumaru said, “you have locked me out.”

Crossing her arms, Kagome halted in place. “I told you that you weren’t welcome here.”

His expression sharpened as he stepped toward her, an instinctive tension coiling within her at his soundless approach. It was unnerving and surreal, to be near him once again. He was so composed, so regal—borderline angelic. Seeing him like this, she struggled even now to reconcile him with the savage killer who had ravaged all those poor girls to their graves.

“You would keep me from Rin,” he stated, a rumble of challenge underscoring his words. “She is my ward.”

Anger flared in Kagome’s eyes. “Is that why you’ve come here—to see ‘your ward’?”

Sesshoumaru stopped just before her, his gaze darkening as he held her own. And now she could see it—now she could feel it. A phantom touch that lingered just above her toes, chilling her even now.

“You know why I have come here, little sister.”

Kagome set her jaw at the gibe, willing her heart to stop hammering so erratically in her chest. It was an effort that went to nothing as he reached out and skimmed his knuckles along the outer curve of her breast.

For a split-second, Kagome was too shocked to say or do anything. Then the tide of her outrage came crashing in. Her features twisted viciously as she jerked back—Sesshoumaru snarling at the sudden, violent surge of her reiki.

“You—” she seethed, her power crackling rose-white in the space between them. “How dare you touch me like that…”

Leaves rustled and branches creaked as Sesshoumaru’s youki churned the air, the stir of his agitation mirroring her own. “If there is a way to fuck you without doing so, it is unknown to me.”

Kagome shrank at the cold vitriol in his tone—even as her blood scalded in indignation. Since the moment she’d spotted him, she’d sensed that something was visibly off-kilter about him. Narrowing her eyes, she glared into his own bristling stare. It had been over a month now, since Mayuri. Trust Sesshoumaru to have abstained to this point of frustration of sheer spite.

She only wished that her own monthly cycle hadn’t drawn out for so long this time. The cocktail of hormones coursing through her veins certainly wasn’t helping her maintain the sort of level head she so desperately needed right now.

“I said I would check you, Sesshoumaru—not fuck you,” she responded through gritted teeth.

As her brother-in-law regarded her in dark, stony silence, Kagome stepped briskly past him, looking toward the north. Hands on her hips, she glanced back at him with cutting impatience.

“There’s a brothel a few miles this way,” she said shortly, turning north again. “I’ll hire a girl for you and stick around to make sure things don’t get too out of hand. Now, let’s go.”

Before she could take another step forward, his steely voice cut her off—

“No.”

Kagome turned back to him with a glare of contempt. Her insides cinched at the feral intensity in his gaze—an intensity that heightened as he closed the distance between them.

“The woman must be to my liking,” he said, the low timbre of his voice making her numb fingers curl to fists. “My choosing.”

A cloud of shimmering youki gathered beneath his boots. As his clawed hand beckoned to her, Kagome stepped warily up beside him, taking a reluctant hold of his sleeve. A startled gasp escaped her as they lurched through the air, his arm catching her around the waist to steady her. Blood rushed to Kagome’s cheeks, pounded in her ears at the press of his fingers against her stomach, the fine points of his nails pricking her through her clothes.

Pushing back against the cold rigid surface of his armor, she forced her thoughts away from his disturbing closeness. “I assume you have someone in mind?”

Sesshoumaru looked down at her, his slit pupils dragging slowly over her face before returning to the sky ahead.

“Always,” he said.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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