Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. It belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
He didn't know anything about trust or love; until he met her. Now, Kagome MacClesfield should teach to the stubborn count of Warwick that something beautiful still existed inside his heart. But could she love a man that, people said, was an assassin?
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PROLOGUE
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Somewhere in Willey, Coventry. 1622.
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Inuyasha McLonney felt the sharp pain even before he opened his eyes; the light was burning him through his closed lids.
He growled.
Merde...
He covered his face with the forearm and turned his body around as he groaned. He was vaguely aware of the hard floor below his back; the echo of a constant and annoying leak resounded painfully in his sensitive hearings as an amplified and sharpened several dB noise. It seemed to bounce inside his skull like a leather ball.
The repellent scent of the old and cheap tobacco, moldy ground and dirty bodies hit him the face with the force of a mallet and left him woozy as he tried to accustom his sensitive eyes to the light.
His mind, stunned by the alcohol, made a useless effort to recognize his surroundings. He barely rose on an elbow and grunted when his head hit against something hard and made a deaf noise.
A table.
A damned moldy table. Moldy as everything in that damned place.
He couldn't help but to frown in confusion. Where the hell he was?.
Oww... He felt so bad he almost could hear the nuts of his brain being painfully adjusted as he tried to remember how the heck he had end up in that strange, filthy and noisy place. Whichever it were...
He had headed to Surrey to meet his lover. His beautiful, intelligent, rich and above all, liberal divorced lover. Hmm... A smile potentially idiot curved his mouth as he thought of what he liked the most of her: her breasts. Surely the best in her qualities: exuberant, ripe, firm, crowned by those rosy and delightful...
Halt!
His mind stopped so quick that Inuyasha almost groaned. That sexy and very gifted woman was no longer his lover. No. Days ago everything among them had finished. God! The drunkenness almost had made him forget the last two days of his life. As he realized his eyes were staring at a low and cracked ceiling, he found himself wondering how the hell he hadn't broken his head when he got in that room.
Then again, he might had; judging by that damned pain, which didn't leave him alone.
His mouth was pressed in a fine line and his eyes were narrowed suspiciously. No matter how much he tried, he could not remember anything of what happened last night. He heavily rose as he grunted and cursed inconceivable blasphemies. A weary resignation overpowered him when he saw his unfastened pants and the open shorts. Not again...
Almost not wanting to look, he turned his face and realized that what he had hit with was not a table, but the splintered border of an old bed. Although it was certainly moldy.
He saw the vulgar and dirty reddish tone of a long and scruffy mane spread on some odorous sheets, which were repaired with chunks of fabric in several colors. The voluptuous body of a woman barely covered by a red blanket.
How low you have fallen, Inuyasha McLonney...
With his back to the bed he put right his clothes and his lips curved into an ironic grimace that could have been a smile, but it didn't end up being so. He wondered what feats that woman would have made to excite him; keeping in mind that he was drunker than never before.
- I can't believe I've been taken to this whore's bed...
He was getting tied up the knots of his pants when the door of the room opened up unexpectedly. It only passed an instant before a sharp and terrified scream ripped the air and the noise of a metallic tray smashing against the floor made him turn, startled.
A small girl not elder than fifteen was staring wide-eyed at him from the frame of the door. The tremble of her body speaking of an irrational terror. He frowned.
- Hey, you...
He took a step toward her; he wanted to calm her, but she fled shouting as if she had seen the very devil.
Suddenly, her screams were unexpectedly drowned and Inuyasha heard the blows of her small body against the steps of the stair. He rushed to the door and stared down. She lied on the floor. Immobile. Her neck twisted in an impossible angle; her eyes were still opened and terrified. They were deadly shiny.
He flew down the stairs to arrive beside her. A cook came closer quickly; she was surely alerted by that row. She let out a gasp and brought both hands up to her mouth. An instant later, Inuyasha was surrounded by a dozen of eyes. All of them anxious to know what had happened. The terrified and excited murmurs filled his hearings: "She's dead", "Is he responsible? ", "What the hell did happen? ", "What a pity. She seemed to enter the business next year; a little small, but there's who like it that way... "
He ignored them as he straightened the girl's body and took the thin face among both hands, but that cold remark really bothered him. Without knowing reason, Inuyasha felt the sudden necessity to explain himself.
He closed the girl's eyes with a hand and rose to all his height. He stared at the madame.
- I don't know what scared her. I was up in the room when this girl entered and began to cry out as a madwoman. She fled and fell down the stair.
A collective murmur rose. One men stared at the girl and made a grimace before tilting his face. Never looking away from her, he spitted.
- Doesn't look like a whore - he speak in a husky voice - What did she do here, Darcy?. I had never seen her.
Madame got closer to him as she dried her hands with a cloth.
- She came two days ago. I don't know if she had family. She only brought a change of clothes and a mangy cat - she shook her head -. She was so tiny and sick. She wouldn't have lived long more anyway...
Inuyasha clenched his jaw strongly.
- Is there someone to take charge of her funeral?
Madame snorted as if the mere idea were ludicrous.
- We have no surplus money to waste. This girl will go to the common grave as the vagabond she is.
The man's golden eyes narrowed as he returned his look to the girl. He brought one hand to the pocket of his pants looking for his money, but it wasn't there. He had left it in the room. He frowned.
- I don't know what could scare her that much... - he whispered, almost to himself.
- I do - said a hoarse and lightly trembling voice.
Everyone looked up to the standing figure in the stairs. The man was right before the room's door; he pointed at the interior. As he did so, he never took away his gaze -pretending an indifference he actually didn't feel- from Inuyasha's.
More intrigued than before, he hurried up the stairs. When the man got apart, Inuyasha looked.
The breath was caught in his throat.
Nothing at his surrounding seemed to get his attention after that moment. Neither the terrified gasps of those who had gone up after him and had looked over his shoulders, which almost fill the width of the door. Neither the fact that there was a practically naked woman on the bed. Not even the pain that had been hammering into his head with no pity since he had recovered the sense.
The only thing he saw was what his sleepy and drunk eyes thought it was a red blanket covering the woman's body.
Just that it was not a blanket.
For the first time since he woke up, he knew why the air of the room was so repugnant. It had not been mold what he had smelled...
It was the metallic, sweetish scent of blood.
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Author:
Well, there the prologue is. I apologize if you found some grammar error because English is not my first language.
I thank infinitely to my dear friend, Athen. You helped me a lot by pointing out all my errors so I could correct them. I would not have been able to do this without your support -Beaucoup de baisers pour vous!-.
Any comment will be very appreciated.
Kisses.
Arce.