Sliding back the screen door a fraction, Kagome peeked out into the hallway beyond. It was empty as far as she could tell. Tiptoeing across the newly-lacquered floor, she and Kanako crept down the corridor as quietly as possible, straining their eyes and ears for any hint of sight or sound.

Up one staircase and then another they advanced.

Kagome’s palms began to sweat more from this steady climb than from her free solo up that wall. The threat of Ren looming above her seemed to grow menacingly closer with each added step. But why should she have hoped otherwise? Of course he would want to keep Rin close if he was keeping her here at all—not too close though, Kagome prayed.

A sudden spill of light down a side-corridor had her and Kanako scrambling for cover. Half-hidden behind a pair of square support beams, they watched with baited breath as a figure emerged through the opened door—a young female servant, whose arms overflowed with skeins of silk. Yawning as she went, she probably wouldn’t even have noticed Kagome and Kanako if they’d been standing in clear view. As it was, the servant passed their hunched shadowed figures by without a second glance, and in her wake they sprinted on hushed footsteps for the door she’d shut lazily behind her.

The room was an antechamber—a servant’s lobby. Its inner connecting door stood similarly ajar. Padding closer to it, Kagome and Kanako spied through the gap. The miko’s heart leapt into her throat.

“Rin-chan!” she softly exclaimed.

Within the adjoining room, Rin stood, clothed in the traditional red and white not of a Shinto shrine maiden, but of a bride-to-be. Her warm brown gaze was flat and cool, her expression tired and distant. Brooding, Kagome observed with a pang.

Rin wasn’t with him—but she wasn’t alone either. A pair of waiting women bustled about her, adjusting the pinned flowers in her hair and smoothing the folds of her wedding kimono. They seemed almost finished with their work. But before Kagome could even think of making a move, the screen on the far side of the bridal chamber whisked open, and Ren strode through.

“My sweet little bride,” he said, his tawny eyes flicking over the servant women who bowed and hastened through the door behind him. “How lovely you look.”

Rin frowned, her gaze straying to the window. Drawing to a stop before her, the samurai tipped her pale face back to his.

“Why the long look, my dear? A little boy broke your heart, but here is the man to mend it. In time, you will come to rejoice in this martyrdom of yours, I am certain.”

The muscle in Rin’s jaw tightened. Ren grinned, skimming a knuckle along that fine set line.

“Do not fall into one of your sulky silences, Rin-chan. You know that I prod you only because I like to see you riled. I think you like it too, on occasion—I think you might even like me on occasion, though you’ll never admit it.”

Two tiny spots of red rose to Rin’s cheeks. The samurai chuckled as Kagome fumed. Arrogant bastard.

“You are sweet as a peach to me even when you’re angry,” he said, his sneer relaxing into something more subtly threatening as his voice lowered in pitch. “Have I not been good to you?” His thumb and forefinger pinched Rin’s chin. “Well?”

“…Hai, Ren-sama,” the girl answered woodenly.

“Rennosuke,” he admonished her.

“Hai, Rennosuke-sama,” Rin said, glaring up at him, “though you are a rogue and a villain.”

“Scolding me now, kitten?” Ren laughed. “‘A rogue and a villain’—and what, pray tell, is my offense?”

Rin scowled, balling her hands into fists. “Kagome-chan took you in, and you betrayed her!”

“Betrayed her—that blue-eyed she-devil? The mad demon’s whore who calls herself priestess?”

Kagome’s face went scarlet as Kanako made an affronted little sound.

“Don’t speak ill of her,” Rin grit out, paling further. “Kagome-chan has endured a great deal. You may not agree with her actions, but she means well.”

The samurai shook his head. “You are hopelessly blind when it comes to that woman. But no matter; she will be gone from here soon enough.”

“You said you wouldn’t harm her!” 

“Nor do I intend to.”

Rin flushed in anger. “You’re mincing words, you traitor! Is that how your old master came to harm too?”

Ren’s eyes glinted at her, cold and sharp. “Such bold accusations for a wife to level against her husband.”

“I am not your wife yet,” the girl retorted, “and I speak only the truth as I see it.”

“Not my wife…” Ren muttered, his features darkening into a wolfish half-smile. “Is that how you see it?”

Pulling Rin to him, he kissed her so long and hard despite her protests that Kagome would’ve charged in there like a bull if Kanako hadn’t been practically lying on top of her to restrain her.

“…Do you think a bit of ceremony makes any real difference to me?” he said against Rin’s bruised lower lip. “You are a warlord’s adopted daughter, but before that you were nothing. There is mettle in you, as there is in me, and strays like us are too practical for such frivolous nonsense. You are my wife if I say you are.” 

Rin shoved him off, yet he pursued her. Cupping her face in his hands, he studied it with a fierce, heated reverence that disturbed Kagome to the core. 

“How darkly your eyes flash at me! I knew from the moment I saw you that you would be mine.” Pinning Rin’s body between his and the wall, he raked a hand over her from breast to hip. “Chide me for my sins all you like, my sweet little priestess. But save the choicest ones for when I’m in you.”

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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