The darkness swallowed up Kagome’s tried-and-true command of subjugation, its afterecho ringing hollow in her throat. Huge crimson eyes scintillated with derision. Black canine lips pulled back in a fiendish leer as the lights of her rosary beads dimmed and sputtered out. Kagome’s features crumpled in defeat, but before she could dwell too long on

Raggedly, Kagome sobbed, her throat going raw with hopeless grief. Her bloodied shoulder blazed and throbbed. Her bruised spine zinged with pain. But it was the ache in her heart that threatened to cripple her, as the Beast bit down on her shield with brutal, crushing force. At the attack, at the sight of his

Before Kagome could even think of retrieving her bow, the Beast was upon her. Air slammed from her lungs as her back smashed against a tree trunk, noxious jaws clamping down on her collar in a vicious, bone-grinding gnash. Kagome screamed out in blinding pain, her skin and haori shredding as she forced him off

Kagome blanched. “What?” Recovering, she advanced hotly upon him. “Kill you, Sesshoumaru?—really?” She ground her teeth in irritation. “Don’t say such careless things!” In the hard set of his features, there was only resignation. “You will not check me, and I cannot. I am weary of it, this senseless violence.” After a slight pause, he

Kagome’s arrow cut a brilliant, rosy swathe through the darkness. Streaking toward the rutting pair, it flared almost white as it struck the ground near Sesshoumaru’s left knee. With a deafening roar, the daiyoukai reeled from the blast, the bloodied girl breaking away from him with a frightened scream. As Kagome rushed into the clearing,

With a start, Kagome found herself standing on familiar ground. Her fist clenched around the neck of her haori as visions of the night she’d stumbled across Sesshoumaru and Mayuri assaulted her consciousness once more. Here now, in stark, vivid relief was the girl—prostrate and naked, gasping and moaning and hanging on for dear life