Chapter 1

The warm breeze lifted a strand of hair across Kagome's face; she blew it from her lips and tucked it back beneath her hat. In the fierce light of a northern New Zealand summer her curls glowed like dark treacle, repeating and emphasising the pale pearl of her skin and the dark warm hue of her eyes, not quiet brown, not quiet gold. A china girl, her husband had called her once, long years ago when she was seventeen and a girl indeed.

Strange how wilful memory can be. It was difficult to remember anything pleasant from the time she had spent as Inuyasha's wife, yet she could see his face as he said the words, hear the tender teasing in his deep voice and felt the way her body had quickened in the light of the little sparks which had irradiated the dark amber of his eyes as he spoke that day. Could remember, too, that he had said it without the patronising little smile which usually accompanied his compliments.

Kagome sat straight in the saddle, her gaze dark with inchoate fears as it followed the graceful white cruise liner making its way up the channel to its landfall in the tiny port of Opua. She scorned everything the Tetsusaiga represented, but each time the liner called at the Bay of Islands she watched its smooth arrival with foreboding and with a light heart saw it go.

For those who had nothing to fear it was a sight worth seeing. The ship, the pride of the Takahashi line, made its way across a sea of blue-green and silver, a molten sheet of colour beneath a brazen sky; around the sleek and lovely thing swayed the yachts and launches and runabouts of a water-loving nation. Further along the coast the small tourist town of Paihia was brash and busy, and across the narrow strait was Russell, charming in its old-fashioned appeal but crowded at this time of year when it seemed that almost all of New Zealand came up to the Bay of Islands to bask in the sub-tropical sun.

As it was after Christmas, the flowers of the pohutukawa trees had fallen to carpet the sand beneath then with crimson, but across their dark canopies Kagome could see the terracotta tiles of the sprawling homestead roof, almost hidden by a mist of blue jacaranda blossoms. It had been a warm, wet spring, and the grass on the paddocks was green and lush, the animals sleek.

In fact, everything was going so well that Kagome's cousin Miroku had left his beloved beef and cattle station to take her son on a men-only cruise around the Great Barrier Island, across the width of the Hauraki Gulf. Her generous mouth curved a little as she thought of the postcard which had come in yesterday's mail. Written in Taisho's untidy eight-year-old writing, it had announced that he was having a great time, he and Sam Beringer weren't allowed to snorkel by themselves but they had both caught fish for breakfast and he could now dive properly, Miroku having taught him.

Miroku had been right, as he usually was. Taisho was clearly having a wonderful time, not missing her a bit. She had spoken to Arminel Beringer only last night on the telephone and they had laughed a little wistfully at the ease with which each boy had shrugged off their mothers in the delights of masculine solidarity.

Shivering, suddenly cold in the sizzling air as her brooding eyes followed the liner down the channel. Kagome was strangely glad that Taisho was not here. The Tetsusaiga still had the power to frighten her even though she knew it was irrational. Nine years was a long time, a lifetime…

She turned her head away and made a chirruping noise, shaking the reins. The mare was sweet-tempered and docile, and obediently left the delectable tuft of grass she had been lipping to walk serenely through the herd of black Aberdeen Angus cattle which were watching them. Kagome swatted at a fly which was hovering impertinently above her long bare leg and pushed the Tetsusaiga firmly to the back of her mind.

Almost down to the homestead, they passed the house of the manager of the beef stud, and his wife. Meri was in the garden, humming as she played with her baby in the dense shade of a huge pohutukawa.

'Come and have a cup of tea,' she called, while the baby laughed and held out his chubby starfish hands for a ride. 'No, naughty boy, you mustn't cadge rides off everyone who goes past! You're a real bludger, you little villain!'

Not in the least abashed, he grinned disarmingly as Kagome dismounted and tied the mare to a post in the shade of the tree before swinging herself over the fence and joined them.

'Oh, you're gorgeous,' said Kagome, laughing into his merry face, 'you're just so beautiful I'd like to kidnap you and keep you for my own.'

He gave her his seraphic beam and sat down hard on the napkin which was his only clothing.

'If he wakes just once more at three in the morning, you can have him,' his mother promised grimly.

'I might take you up on that,' Kagome scooped him up and hugged him to her slight breasts, saying, 'would you like to come for a ride with Kagome, my treasure? On Kagome's horse?'

Peter crowed and clapped his hands. As his mother led the way into the house she said, 'Don't let him be a nuisance. If I'd known he was going to beg a ride from every horse that passed I'd never have let him go with you that first time.'

'Oh no, Meri, he's a natural. Miroku says he's going to be too big to be a jockey, so he'll be the country's foremost eventer in twenty-five years' time. Won't you, my lovely boy?'

The baby thrust a hand through his rich brown curls and gave an impatient thump on Kagome's chest. 'OK, honeybun, we'll have a nice cup of tea with Mummy and then I'll take you off. All right?'

It was clear that Peter would have preferred to forgo the preliminaries, but he was as sunny-natured as he was beautiful, so he gave both women a wide, toothy grin and submitted to Kagome's cuddling with a good grace.

Meri watched them both with laughter and a faint sympathy in her eyes. Kagome knew it was there, just as she knew the other woman would never say anything about the fact that Kagome, who adored children, had only one of her own and no prospect of ever having another. Sometimes she ached with the unfairness of it, but she had long ago disciplined herself to a lack of self-pity. There was nothing else to be done. If she wanted more children she would have a divorce her husband so that she could marry again, and she could never do that, because then he would find out where she was.

Just occasionally she had read an article speculating on the reason for his obstinate refusal to marry again, usually coupled with sly references to his spectacular stable of mistresses, and she would shiver. She knew him far too well to believe that he hadn't divorced her because he still wanted her. If Inuyasha ever found her he wanted to be in a position of power so that he could exact the most exquisite of revenges.

But only if he found her. And even he, with all the resources he could command, had not been able to do that. She had hidden her tracks to well.

'Heard anything from Miroku and Taisho yet?'

Kagome welcomed the interruption to her thought. 'A postcard from Taisho,' she said cheerfully, 'making it brutally obvious he isn't missing me at all. Snorkelling and fishing and sailing are more than enough to take his mind off the fact that this is the first time he's been away from his mother for any length of time!'

Both woman traded glances wry with knowledge that the independence of sons, though necessary and desired was nevertheless a little sad.

'When are they coming back? Rod said you told him they'd be a little longer than they planned.'

Kagome chuckled. 'Of course, Miroku isn't really convinced that the place can function without him, but I was talking to Arminel Beringer on the phone last night and she said Kyle intends to stay away for about three weeks. Like Miroku, he needs a rest.'

Meri nodded. 'Miroku works far too hard; he needs a decent holiday, so I hope he manages the three weeks.'

'He hasn't had a holiday free from business overtones since I came here, except for the odd weekend skiing. Nine years!'

Kagome had lived with her cousin for nine years. And for all that time almost everyone who knew them assumed them to be lovers. Meri was one of the few who didn't.

Handling the baby a rusk, the younger woman said cheerfully, 'I wouldn't worry; these tough men can go on forever. He'll ease up when he acquires a wife.'

'Miroku? My cousin, the one who feels that his empire will crumble if he spends a day away from it?' Kagome grinned. 'Of course, if he ever falls in love, there's no telling what the man might do! Unfortunately, I shan't see it. When he marries I'll go, in spite of what Miroku says. No woman should be expected to share her house.'

Both woman were silent a moment, contemplating the short-sightedness of even the most hard-headed men. Then Meri said thoughtfully, 'Well, he's got a point. It's a huge house, there's plenty of room for you, it would be a shame if you had to go. Taisho loves it here, and so do you.'

'It wouldn't work.' The words were expelled on a little hiss; stark and so uncompromising that Meri was startled. Kagome bit her lip, hesitating, and then finished quietly, 'I tried it once. Isn't the Chinese symbol for trouble two women under one roof? How right they are!'

Her hand on the baby's warm little head trembled.

'Ah well, don't borrow it, Miroku shows no signs of losing his bachelor status yet. Petey, no, just wait until Kagome's finished her teas!'

The baby sat down suddenly and opened his mouth to wail, but the arrival of the cat brought a beam of pleasure to his round little face. Chuckling, he crawled busily across the floor towards it.

'Come and see the weaving I'm doing,' Meri suggested. 'My mother must think I've got unlimited time on my hands, she wants enough material to make a three-piece suit for my father!'

It was, Kagome thought gratefully as she admired the superbly subtle pattern on the big loom, a pleasant way of changing the subject. Slowly she relaxed; the stress which her sighting the cruise liner had caused began to ease. Somehow the rest of the afternoon ran through her hands like a skein of silk, so that it was almost two hours later when she said, 'I'd better get back before they begin to wonder at the homestead whether I've fallen over a cliff. Ready for your ride, Peter?'

'Sure you want him to go?'

'You know I love taking him'

Peter certainly enjoyed going with her. As his mother handed him up he laughed out loud and wriggled down comfortably on to the horse. Kagome's long fingers held him securely across his chest; she smiled and winked at Meri before chucking at the mare.

She would not have taken him out on any more skittish horse, but the mare was placid and accustomed to children, and she seemed to enjoy having Peter on her back, twitching her ears back as his laughter bubbled out through the hot air. Kagome turned her head towards the horse paddock, deciding to ride up and let Delight go, then walk Pete back to his mother.

The sun beat down on the checked cotton shirt which protected her shoulders, its hard clarity setting fire to the tossed curls escaping from beneath her hat. A little smile curved the soft full line of her mouth so that she looked much younger than her twenty-six years, no more than a child herself in the brief blue shorts which revealed the slender slightly honey-coloured length of her legs.

She began to sing, a cheerful little tune that Peter loved, and the smile grew as she heard his babbling attempts to join in. At that moment she was truly happy.

Just when she heard the first faint throbbing of the helicopter she wasn't aware. Perhaps it wasn't until the mare twitched her ears in its direction, or Peter turned a rapt little face southwards, his eyes squinting as he tried to pick it out in the blazing sky.

'I think it might be going to fly over us,' said Kagome smiling reminiscently, because Taisho too adored helicopters. 'Yes- look, darling, here it comes!'

She halted the mare in the shade of a broad totara tree, competent hands holding both the horse and the baby still, then frowned as the chopper pulled in low and dangerously fast over a woodlot of pines and eucalyptus. Whoever was piloting the thing was behaving like a brash cowboy flaunting his skill at a rodeo.

The noise seemed to fill the air. Delight tossed her head but stood her ground; helicopters were not unknown to her. Peter stopped wriggling and stared, eyes and mouth opened to their widest extent as the red and white chopper pirouetted, then settled down no more than a hundred yards away. The engine was cut; the rotors began to wind down, and Kagome was suddenly conscious that as she was the only Higurashi on the place it was up to her to meet the visitors.

Still frowning, she urged the mare into the sunlight, blinking a little when two men jumped down from the machine. One was the pilot; he waited beside the bubble as the other strode across the lush grass towards her.

She recognised him, of course she did. Only one man had walked like that, as though the world was his and he free to prey upon it. Only one man had the lean predatory body, hair black as murder, the arrogant, piratical beauty of feature and form which belied the coldness of the brilliant mind behind it.

Inuyasha Takahashi

Her husband and the father of her son, the son he did not know he had.

Sick terror held her paralysed until he was only twenty or so yards away, so close that she saw the sun flash in his cruel smile. Before she came to herself Peter let out a whimpering cry and for the first time in her well-behaved life. Delight reared.

What followed was a sudden, short nightmare. Kagome fought to control the frightened horse with one hand and her legs and her voice, the other hand splayed across Peter's chest, holding his warm firm little body clamped in a steel grip. It was as well that he seemed to have the instinct to ride born in him. He relaxed against her, allowing her to put all her mind and skill to countering Delight's antics. Fortunately the innate sweetness of the mare's temperament enabled her rider to re-establish mastery almost immediately; within a few seconds she had bought her to a trembling, fretting stop.

'Give the child to me.' The deep, almost unaccented voice was harsh with command.

Numbly, feeling like a traitor, Kagome obeyed, handing a startled, resistant Peter down before dismounting herself. Inuyasha quelled the baby's rejection with the smooth competence he brought to everything in his life while Kagome leant against the horse's damp shoulder, white and shaken, drawing deep breathes into her lungs, her pulse gone crazy in her ears and every bone in her body malleable as dough.

It seemed like an age before she recovered enough to insist, 'I'll take him.'

Another voice interrupted, speaking in rapid Japanese. Inuyasha answered in a curt sentence and the pilot turned and went back to the chopper, but not before casting a curious glance at the woman who still shivered as if she had a fever. Peter stared goggle-eyed up into the harshly etched features of the man who held him, then essayed a tentative beguiling baby smile.

It was not returned. Inuyasha Takahashi looked at his wife, his expression so murderous that she cried out, then he spat in the soft voice of ultimate fury, 'Whore!' And when she gasped and took a trembling step away from him he smiled as Ulysses might have smiled when he killed his wife's suitors, and went on, 'Is this yet another son fathered on you by your lover?'

Peter began to whimper and Kagome recovered herself enough to say huskily, 'you're frightening him, damn you!'

For the first time Inuyasha looked down into the bewildered little face lifted to his. The terrifying fury altered, eased into a mask; he thrust the baby forwards her, commanding blackly, 'Take him.'

She turned away, cuddling the child as she forced her sluggish brain to work. Only one thing came through. Dangerous though it might be to claim Peter as her own, it could well be even more dangerous to tell the truth. Whatever the reason Inuyasha had arrived here, it was not for her well-being; the only shield she had against him was the fact that most Japanese, he loved children and would not willingly hurt one.

Looking down into the round, flushing cheeks of the child burying his face in her breast, she thought half-hysterically that he was a small and flimsy defence indeed.

Aloud, her face still averted, she asked, 'What do you want?'

'You, of course.' He sounded bored, but she was in no danger of misinterpreting this; as many had discovered, when Inuyasha Takahashi sounded this most languid and world-weary he was at his most lethal.

The warm sun could raise no heat on Kagome's skin now. Ice stabbed through her body. She wanted nothing more than to shudder, but her will held her upright and calm. 'A pity you came all this way,' she said, forcing a hard, confident note into her voice. 'I have nothing to say to you. Unless you want a divorce.'

His smile made the blood drain from her heart. 'No, I do not want a divorce. Not yet. And I think my dear wife that you will find that you have much to say to me. In fact, I am looking forward very much to hearing your voice as you plead with me'

'I'll see you in hell first.'

His hand closed cruelly hard on her shoulder. 'Oh, no,' he promised easily, 'it is you who will go to hell, Kagome. And only when you have broken under the pain of it will I let you go free. Then you will be able to come back to your sons and your lover. If he still wants you when I have finished with you.' He lifted his hand away as though to touch her dirtied it.

Kagome's blood ran cold, but she said steadily, 'You're talking through a hole in your head and you know it. You can't force me to go with you-'

'How much do you love this cousin who is also your lover, this Miroku Higurashi?'

His softly snarled interruption brought her head up sharply. Slowly she turned, her eyes seeking his above the baby's soft curls. He was still smiling, but the cruelly sculptured line of his lips made a mockery of laughter. Beneath long thick lashes his golden amber eyes were blazing in fury.

'What-has that to do with anything?' she asked, from the depths of a dread she had thought impossible. Inuyasha's hand stretched out to touch the dark curls above Peter's face, still hidden in her breast. Her pulse leapt and then slowed, sluggish with foreboding.

'You bear handsome children, strong, vigorous. I have seen a photograph of the older boy; he looks very like you. This one looks only like himself. No doubt you wish them both to inherit from their father. He owns much, doesn't he? This station, other farms, orchards. Extensive interests in both agriculture and industry. I could make that heritage-nothing!'

Kagome said nothing while he pulled gently on a curl, then released it to watch with dispassionate eyes as it coiled back against the baby's hot little head. That disdainful hand moved to her temple, fingered a heavy ebony-coloured lock until the sweat sprang out across her brow. He smiled and his hand fell away as he stepped back and continued in the softest of voices, 'When I have had my filled of your meretricious charms I will consider the debt paid.'

'You couldn't—you can't make me go with you,' she breathed, appalled.

'You must know that there is very little I cannot do! Money and power are all that are necessary for me to bankrupt this cousin whose bed you share, who has given you two sons. I can make sure that he never earns another penny in this life. And he will know why? How much will he love you then, this big, confident, proud man? I can see to it that your children do not-'

'This is New Zealand,' she whispered, sickened by the naked barbaric bludgeon of his power. 'You can't do that sort of thing here.'

Inuyasha laughed an ugly sound which made Peter stiffen and cast him a terrified glance. 'I can do that sort of thing anywhere,' he stated with such total confidence that she had to believe him.

Kagome's brain seemed to seize. She didn't know what to do. The only bright spot in this awful situation was that Inuyasha had no idea that Taisho was his son. For a fleeting moment she wished Miroku was here to help her and protect her, but she soon banished that. In the shown sufficient ruthlessness for her to know that he didn't make threats lightly. He was co-owner of Takahashi Corporation with his brother Sesshoumaru; his power was by most standards virtually unlimited. If he said that he could reduce Miroku to poverty, then he could.

And would

Carefully, in a voice that was flat with the effort to keep it under control, she asked, 'So just what do I have to endure in this-hell? And for how long?'

The cold satisfaction in his eyes bruised her like a blow. He had expected her to submit. Few defied Inuyasha Takahashi; he was not accustomed to resistance from any man-or any woman.

Yet she thought she was disappointment darken the deep molten gold depths of his eyes before he told her calmly, 'Only for a little while, it should not take me long to tire of you. Certainly no more than the three weeks your lover intends to spend sailing with the bastard son he fathered on you. We shall enjoy a passionate holiday together and then I need never see you again.'

'My god!' she whispered, horrified. 'You arrogant swine! Do you expect me to go to bed with you just like that? As if I were one of your women?'

His eyes narrowed. 'But you are one of my woman,' he said starkly. 'My wife. You could have had my respect, an assured position in my face. So now you will get only what I choose to give you, what I would give a mistress.'

Kagome could have screamed with frustration sand rage and fear. Her body seemed to tremble with the force of her emotions, but she held tightly on to Peter's little form and returned as calmly as she could, 'Hardly.' And when his straight black brows lifted she enlarged, 'I've always presumed that they at least had a choice. Or do you have to blackmail them into your bed too?'

He smiled, that archaic, humourless smile seen on old Greek statues. 'Oh they have a choice. Believe me when I say that I have never in my life taken an unwilling woman. And I will not force you. Your sort of woman is easy to arouse. You were very responsive nine years ago. How old were you when we married? Seventeen. A sweet, passionate little schoolgirl, all innocence and enthusiasm and shyness, and with a child's selfish demands to be the centre of attention. It took only five months for you to become bored with the realities of married. Perhaps that was too short a time for you to have discovered that I hold on to my possessions until I tire of them.'

'And so you want revenge.' She said slowly

'Perhaps, or perhaps I want to know whether your lover has taught you anything in the years since last I had you.

His misapprehension nauseated her, but she had to admit that is was understandable. Miroku was a handsome forceful man, and they lived in the same house. That they were cousins didn't seem to make any difference to the gossip, nor did that fact that, although discreet, Miroku had affairs. At first Kagome had hated the persistent, inevitable rumours which cast her in the role of Miroku's mistress, but as the years went by she had made friends who accepted that she and Miroku felt no more than a cousinly love for each over, and most of the time she managed to forget what others thought.

And she had to admit that she was glad that most people assumed that her son was Miroku's; such an assumption was an added protection against Taisho's real father.

She would always love Miroku, because he had welcomed a distraught, unknown cousin without demur, taking her in even although she had explained that if Inuyasha found out he could be dangerous, even when she had to confess her pregnancy. Miroku had not hesitated. He knew that if Inuyasha ever found out he would have one of the most powerful men in the world as his enemy , but he had not considered turning her away, he had made her feel that she was wanted and needed and loved.

Thanks God her mother had defied her husband's instructions and kept in touch with his cousins in spite of the bad blood between them. Miroku was, she told the young Kagome only a few months before the heart attack which killed her, the only relation Kagome had, and she should not forget his existence.

Unspoken had been the intimation that it was to be a secret kept from her father who had been ruthless enough to cut his New Zealand cousin so definitely from his life that it had taken nine long years for Inuyasha's bounty hunters to make the connection.

Desperately she said, 'That's obscene. I thought chastity was important to you-'

'In my wife, of course, but in a mistress it is a distinct disadvantage.' Inuyasha watched the colour flame across her cheek and smiled with sardonic enjoyment. 'In a mistress one wants experience, and an inventive lack of inhibition. You must have learned that from this cousin lover of yours, for you were in his bed immediately you arrived here. The child was born only born ten months after the last night we made love.'

Weak with relief, Kagome buried her face in Peters curls. Thank God a combination of jetlag and exhaustion had blotted out of Inuyasha's mind the very last time he had taken her, in her father's house in Tokyo the night before she had fled from Japan and a marriage that had become unbearable.

And thank god Taisho favoured the Higurashi said of the family. Apart from the soft amber of his eyes there was nothing to connect him with his Japanese dog demon father. Kagome blessed every individual one of the genes which had worked in her favour, giving her son the raven black hair which made everyone who saw them together to assume that he was Miroku's child.

Peter began to wriggle and looked down at him, her thin brows drawn together. 'Hey, baby,' she said softly, an automatic, reassuring little smile coaxing an answer from him. 'Give Kagome a smile, now. We're going home-'

'You have a housekeeper.'

It was a statement, not a question. Kagome felt smirched by the fact that someone had been spying on her. 'So?' she asked haughtily, without looking at him.

'So we will take the child to the house and then you and I will leave.'

'Now wait a minute-'

He stepped closer, pinning her against Delight's warm shoulder; she looked into a face harsh with control except for the savage determination in his eyes.

'I have waited nine years,' he said between his teeth, 'I will wait no longer. I accept that you are a good mother, but I do not wish to take your child with us. My plans for you do not allow for your attention to be on any other person but me. So you will leave him with this housekeeper.'

'Kagome!' Meri's voice, tentative and a little alarmed, came from behind. The baby gave a great leap and held out his hands to his mother.

Inuyasha swung on his heel and after a quick stabbing appraisal of Peter's mother looked back at Kagome with knowledge in his eyes, knowledge overlaid with contempt. 'Liar,' he gritted beneath his breath.

Kagome ignored the savage imprecation as she held a chuckling Peter out to his mother. 'I'm afraid he got a little more than he bargained for this time! I couldn't control Delight when the chopper landed and she reared.' She was babbling, the words running freely and thoughtlessly from her tongue.

'Oh lord!' Meri grabbed the boy, hugging him tightly to her.

Inuyasha intervened smoothly, 'Rest assured he enjoyed it! I was watching, and there was no fear on his face.' He cast a sardonic glance at Kagome's strained expression and held out a hand, saying with smooth charm, 'I am Inuyasha Takahashi, Kagome's husband.'

Poor Meri gulped, but recovered quickly, putting her hand into his, only to be taken aback as he lifted her fingers to his mouth. Sheer rage held Kagome rigid; she remembered only too well that specious charm, the way his eyes gleamed and he kissed a woman's hand, making her feel that she was being wooed with romantic courtliness.

A flush covered Meri's cheekbones; she cast a harassed glance at Kagome's stony face and said hastily, 'How do you do. Are-are you staying long, Mr Takahashi?'

'Alas, only a few minutes. I have come to carry Kagome off with me for several days, and we must leave immediately.'

Meri gasped but persisted bravely, 'I see. Where are you going?'

He smiled, the steel momentarily submerged by quick mischief, so disarming it was difficult to believe that it was just as much part of his armoury as his formidable charm and the temper which terrorised his associates.

'On a second honeymoon,' he said outrageously, half-closed eyes watching above a smile which dared either woman to object.

Warmed by Meri's partisanship, Kagome said slowly, 'Don't tease, Inuyasha.' She looked at him, met the warning in his face without flinching. He had the power to make life impossible for Rob and Meri too. Reluctantly she went on, 'Meri came here before I did, she knows very well that we haven't lived together for nine years. We have things to discuss, Meri.'

He was angry, but he said nothing, only held her gaze a fraction longer, the implied threat ugly in its nakedness. Meri nodded, her eyes going from one to the other, still uneasy.

'How long do you plan to be away?' she asked, hugging Peter to her as if to give her courage.

Inuyasha said quiet gently, 'I do not consider that to be any of your business. However, if it will ease your fears, I am not in the habit of murdering people. When Kagome and I have finished our business together I shall return her here. With no bruises, quiet unharmed.'

When he spoke like that nobody dared press the subject. Meri stepped back. She gave Kagome a shocked, commiserating glance but retained enough courage to ask, 'And what do we tell Miroku if he wants to contact you?'

'Say nothing!' Inuyasha's brows drew tightly together when Meri looked at Kagome appealingly.

It took a strength Kagome had to summon from deep inside her to stay calm, 'If the occasion arises, don't bother him. I'll tell him about it when he gets back. However, if there's an emergency, if you have to contact me…'she turned to Inuyasha, her expression calm. 'How can Meri get in touch?'

He stared blankly at her before admitting the sense of her unspoken demand. With sharp incisive movements he took a notebook from his pocket and used a slim gold pen to scribble something on a page which he tore out and proffered to Meri. 'That is the number of my office in Auckland. Ask for Mr Leeson. He will know how to contact us.'

Peter began to fuss a little and Kagome said with s serenity she was far from feeling, 'I'll see you when I get back. 'Bye.'

Meri bit her lip, her eyes travelling uneasily from the granite beauty of Inuyasha's face to Kagome's small valiant one, paler beneath its crown of silky black hair. With dignity she said, 'Try and have a holiday, Kagome. Goodbye, Mr Takahashi,' and left them facing each other like enemies.

'So, Inuyasha said coolly. 'Come, it is time to go.'

Anger was the only way to suppress the fear. Kagome welcomed the emotion, freeing it from the bonds of her normal restraint. 'Are you crazy? I'll have to get some clothes and tell Mizuki Nakamura, the house keeper, that I'm going. And-'

He silenced her with a caustic smile. 'You will not need clothes. I have provided you with what you will need. And I do not remember that telling people when you are leaving was ever one of your strong points.'

She said bleakly, 'But I'm not running away from here.'

'No, that is so. However, I feel sure that the charming and very pretty Meri will inform the housekeeper that you have gone, and with whom.'

'I have to take Delight back to the horse paddock,' said Kagome.

He looked at her with merciless contempt. 'I am glad to see that the years have produced some sense of responsibility in you, but I am sure that someone will see to her as soon as it is learned that you are gone. However, if it will appease whatever conscience you retain, you may take off her harness.'

He realised of course, that she was snatching at straws to delay their departure. And he knew the reason. Fear. Black. Primitive fear, kicking her in the stomach with its power and potency. He was watching her with a hard enjoyment, his arrogant smile pulling at the corners of his mouth because her fear was what he wanted, it fed his ego.

And even knowing that, she was unable to control it. Numbly she removed the saddle and carried it across to the fence, hoisting it up on to a post. Inuyasha made no move to help her, but stood hands thrust into the pockets of his well-cut trousers, watching her with aloof and mocking detachment as though she was a servant.

Her skin prickled, but she kept her expression as serene as she could, refusing to look his way as she slid the bridle down the aristocratic nose of the mare and slung it on top of the saddle. Delight whickered and put her nose out to be scratched before walking away, swishing her long tail against flies.

Kagome stood with unseeing eyes following after the horse, her mind racing in circles until he said softly,

'Why did you pretend the child was yours?'

'I didn't have much of a chance to deny it,' she returned wearily. And then, although she knew it was hopeless, 'Inuyasha, can't we talk this over like sensible people?'

He smiled coldly. 'I told you that you would plead with me,' he said without expression. 'No, we cannot talk this over like sensible people. Perhaps you are sensible, no doubt your lover is, but I am Japanese, and one thing we Japanese understand is revenge.'

'And your own version of hubris,' she said hopefully.

'If overweening pride brings its own reward, then so be it. I shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you will have paid your debt to me,'

She paled, but forced herself to hide the desperation in her with an unemotional voice. 'I see. I have your word on that?'

He nodded, watching her keenly. She was looking at the ground, her head bent in almost a defeated fashion, but at that moment she looked up at him, her warm golden brown eyes suddenly piercing. After a tense second she inclined her head. 'Very well,'

As if she had surprised him, he asked ironically, 'You trust me?'

She was astonished herself at her own conviction. 'Yes. If you give me your word that my going with you will wipe out what you see as a debt, I believe you.'

His mouth twisted, whether at her naïveté or his own darker thoughts she couldn't discern, but all he said was, 'Then let us go, Chiko has waited long enough.'

Kagome remember Chiko. Nine years ago he had been a boy, with the quick-eyed vital attraction of his race; he had matured into a handsome man. She smiled at him, but although he nodded back there was no warmth in his face and she thought she saw insolence in his eyes before he turned them towards the instrument panel. Sighing, but not surprised, she hauled herself up into the helicopter and fell into a seat, her fingers trembling as she fastened the safety belt.

Later she was to realise that it was shock which had made it so easy for Inuyasha to kidnap her. Shock and a deep-rooted primeval terror which kept her silent when she should have screamed, made her follow him as resistlessly as sheep follow the Judas into the pens at an abattoir.

Later it was easy to wonder if there was something she could have done; threatened Inuyasha with publicity, perhaps- he hated publicity. But no, she had let him carry her off like a piece of plunder and made no attempt to get away. Perhaps subconsciously she had expected this, known that he was too Japanese, too implacable to ever give up the search for the wife who had deserted him. Revenge was a necessity, the desire for it a part of the framework of his character.

Beneath the conscious levels of her mind she must have accepted that, prepared herself for it, and that knowledge had weakened her will to resist.

The helicopter rose and above the trees in the woodlot, swooped across farmland and, still rising, sped out over the coast and the sparkling waters of the bay. She half expected it to head towards the Tetsusaiga, but it went on over a little settlement at Tapeka Point with its two beaches and steep terraced headland and then out over islands and the glittering sparkling mockery of the Bay, heading towards the wild fastnesses of Cape Brett and Piercy Island until it reached a small island.

Kagome remembered it. Unlike All the other islands in the Bay, it had never been cut over, so it was still covered in trees, mostly Manuka scrub, but in the centre were the remnants of the old forest cover. It had changed hands a few months ago, and the local newspapers had speculated about the new ownership.

But with all the clout at his command, Inuyasha had been able to keep his name out of the dealings. He must have known then where she was, been plotting this revenge while she was happily going about her life, happily unaware. The knowledge that she had been watched, every movement charted by impersonally prying eyes, brought her out in a cold sweat. More than anything else it made her afraid.

She sat tensely as they came down on a small landing area cut out from the scrub not very far from the only building on the island, a house which had been built above a curling, pale pink bay facing north and west towards the mainland.

Inuyasha turned at the skids touched earth; he jumped down the lithe economy of movement which was characteristic and reached for her, his hands biting into her narrow waist as he half dragged her out of the machine. Ducking to avoid the rotors, she was pulled into the shade of the trees; the chopper rose, and was gone, leaving only the rapidly diminishing throb of its engine to mark its presence.

'Welcome back,' said Inuyasha, and his icy white head swooped and she was kissed with a savage demand which hurt her mouth and stretched her neck intolerably.