The words had barely left her mouth when Sesshoumaru appeared, already unarmored and unshod—as if the sight of him standing there in his full forbidding attire wouldn’t have been an affront enough to her, on this day of all days. The cup clattered to the floor as Kagome leapt to her feet and balled her

Hirokin left. In his absence, Kagome seemed to shrink in upon herself. Half in a daze that even demonic sake couldn’t be blamed for, she started home at last. The house was empty, for the moment. As her eyes scanned dismally over the dark, cluttered space, a new neat pile drew her attention. Checking herself

Kagome frowned, glancing away. “You and I are different in many ways,” Hirokin stated frankly, “yet what we want is the same.” “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think so.” There was the faintest ripple in the water around her. Lapping her just below the hip, it raised gooseflesh on her skin even

The smell of smoke was in her hair, in her clothes. Rank and heavy, it polluted her lungs. It grimed her skin to the point that even after she’d stripped down and shaken off the ash, she felt it clinging to her still. It was unshakeable—tireless and singular in its oppression. It had plagued her