Chapter 1

Dangerous Games

I'm afraid to love,

Is that so wrong?

These feelings I do not know,

So whisper my name and love me for eternity.

Hiei sat across from Kurama, pondering why he had even bothered to show up. Kurama could be rather pathetic when he wanted to be, even now when he was telling him off.

"Hiei, are you listening to me?" Kurama asked, turning flaming green eyes on him.

"Hn?"

Hiei's usual reply made Kurama sigh and sit back in his chair across from Hiei, resting his fingers lightly on his temples and closing his eyes. "You don't just disappear when Yusuke and the rest of us need you the most."

Kurama was talking about how Hiei had snuck off earlier and Yusuke had been left on his own to track down some unknown item that that whinny little brat wanted, Hiei remembered. He hadn't felt like fighting at that time and gone off on his own to do some practicing with his katana, he had gotten side tracked, though. He didn't care what Yusuke wanted, but Kurama being pissed off at him was another thing. " Yusuke did fine on his own, you or anyone else didn't need my help." Hiei stated blandly.

"Fine, but where did you go, and what was more important then getting the Chapter Black tape? Since I've known you, that's all you could talk about, your greatest ambition since you couldn't steal it from Spirit World." Kurama smiled, knowing Hiei couldn't back out of this one unless he got up and left, which he would not do.

"He was with a girl!" Morgan voice reached their ears as she entered the room carrying a tray with tea and cups on it. She gave them both a smile, set down the tray on the coffee table and sat down on the arm of Kurama's chair. Hiei's eyes flicked to her smiling face and then down at the ground. "She's right, but not completely." He muttered faintly.

"I didn't think you were much of a stalker, Hiei?" Morgan asked, rising to get herself a cup of tea and sit back on the arm of the chair.

The fire in the fireplace next to them flared briefly with Hiei's temper at being insulted. How was she so damn smart? " Fine, I was watching her!" He tried to meet Morgan's eyes but she was staring at Kurama with a loving look on her face. Kurama was trying to stare at both of them at the same time but could only smile and gape at the both of them. He was thoroughly confused at how Morgan knew this easily what Hiei had done. So was Hiei, and he didn't like it one bit. He watched as Morgan laughed and tucked her shiny chocolate hair behind her ears. He had had enough and was leaving. Hiei stood up roughly and walked out, but not before he caught the glint of Morgan's wedding ring out of the corner of his eye, mocking him with thoughts of love.

Morgan bit back a sigh and wished she hadn't provoked Hiei so. She knew it vexed him when she knew what he was thinking, but even Sorna would have been able to read the emotions in his eyes. Love was a queer thing.

She smiled and looked down at the man she loved and giggled at the expression on his face, a mixture of humor and confusion at what had just happened. "Let's just call it a women's intuition and leave it at that." Kurama nodded, knowing not to broach the subject. She pulled at the bottom of her shirt in frustration and stood up, going to clear the dishes that only she had touched. She always made tea for the two friends but to no avail, they never drank it.

Kurama watched Morgan clear the dishes and stood, as she was about to reach the door.

"What?" She had seen him rise.

He came over and took the tray from her hands, setting it on a nearby desk. "What game are you playing?" He asked Morgan playfully, wrapping his arms around her waist.

She melted into his embrace and braced her hands on his lean chest, looking up at him threw her lashes. "A dangerous one." She replied with a taste of disgust in her mouth. "He'll thank me later when he goes to her."

"Oh really!" he had an evil glint in his eye. "I don't know if you're cuter in vengeance or anger, but only the latter when it's not me."

She grinned and hugged him, then tried to work her way out of his embrace. "Let go!" She beat at his chest teasingly.

"No." His mouth claimed hers and she chuckled into it.

Hiei jumped from one branch to another, thinking as he went. Time seemed to stand still as he flew into a clearing and then hit another branch, speeding time up again. He hated Morgan at the moment and her damn husband, so happily married. He knew he didn't really hate them, but why did they have to mock him so with their loving glances and passionate embraces!

His thoughts went back to the girl, the one that he had left the company of Yusuke for, and the one who had caught his interest with one single glance. Smiling, happy, he settled down in one of the top branches of a poplar to remember her and the first encounter with her, one week earlier…

Hiei couldn't stand it anymore, if he heard one more of Yusuke's gay remark's about how he could beat anyone, he was going to punch the bastard's face in! He'd snuck from the company of the team when they had had their backs turned, but he was sure that Kurama felt him leave.

He stood in a tree several miles away after that and closed his eyes to steady his thoughts. It didn't help, so he sighed and started to move again. Then he heard it, a faint cry from a thousand miles away off to his right. The wind ruffled his hair and he decided to ignore it. He ran in the opposite direction from the plea, but it followed him, desperate and insistent, not really a call at all, just a flux of power. "What the hell?" he muttered, hoping that it wasn't some nagging spirit that Boton had forgot to pick up, but then why would it be, human's were to weak for that sort of cry. He waited in stillness, now standing on the ground. It came again and he reached up and pulled the wrappings away from his Jagan eye. It roved in its socket, coming to rest on a distant flux of power he knew would be there, in Kyoto! Hiei's eye zoomed in on the power increase and paused, it was dieing slowly. He sighed and wrapped the eye back up, hoping that his curiosity wouldn't get the best of him.

The clearing Hiei was standing in suddenly didn't have a presence in it as Hiei leapt gracefully up into the nearest tree and speed off.