A/n This is the first story I've posted in a long time and I'm really looking for some constructive criticism from people who don't know me personally. The beginning's not so great, but the chapter gets better towards the end. Tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: I do not Inuyasha or the Dark Series by Christine Feehan.

Chapter 1:

She knelt in front of the toilet, shuddering as the last of what she'd eaten that day left her stomach.

'Koishii?'

She ignored the voice and flushed the toilet before getting up to wash her hands and brush her teeth.

'What is wrong?'

'You again? I should stop dreaming you up. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine.'

She slid back down to the floor with her knees bent and her back against the sink as she wearily moved the toothbrush around in her mouth.

'Tell me what is wrong.'

'I ate too much all right? Everyone's done that before.'

He was silent, and she felt his reproach.

'Please don't. Not tonight. I'm so tired. I don't want to talk about this tonight.'

She stood again to rinse her mouth out and put her toothbrush back in its place. She walked down the hallway back to her room in the dark and sat in the chair in front of her desk.

'Why do you not sleep?'

A small smile found its way to her lips as she picked up a highlighter. 'We go through this every night. I have work to do. I can't just leave it here.'

'You do not have class for the next two risings. Sleep.'

She looked between the clock and the book in front of her. It was just after two in the morning. If she let him talk her into sleeping now, she wouldn't wake up until tomorrow evening. If she waited a little, and set her alarm so that she could only sleep for three or four hours, she'd wake up and get back to work without too many problems.

'I think I should finish this first.'

'…What are you doing tonight?'

Her smile widened as she launched into an explanation of the latest philosopher she was studying. She liked that he listened and could comment on what she was saying. Not like her mother.

The thought of her mother sent a bolt of uncertainty through her and she set down her highlighter and abruptly stopped in the middle of her conversation.

'She thinks I'm wasting myself on this kind of stuff you know.'

'Who?'

'My mother. She says I should go back to my science classes so I can get into med school but…I hate them.'

'She does not like your ambitions?'

She shook her head, knowing that he would know even though he couldn't see her.

'I have a good memory you know? I memorize things and I don't forget them no matter how inane they are. Like serial numbers to laptops or something. She thinks that means that I should be good at everything and that I should keep pushing for it but…Never mind. Forget about it. I think I'll go to sleep now.'

He withdrew slightly as she got ready for bed so that she wouldn't sense him fuming. Her mother didn't know that she was working herself into the ground. Her mother could only see her own selfish dreams and didn't realize she was slowly killing her daughter.

She reached for him again as she was sliding beneath the covers.

'You know, I've never asked you…'

'What?'

'What's your name?'

He couldn't stop the small smile that had made its way to his face. They'd been conversing for weeks, but she hadn't asked anything about him until now.

'Sesshoumaru.'

'Sesshoumaru. Well then, Sesshou I am Kagome. My friends here call me Kags though.'

His claws bit into his palm as he clenched his fist. She had never given him any personal information, knowing that he was looking for her. What had changed tonight? Whatever it was, it was enough for him to overlook the foolish nickname she had given him.

'Tell me a story.'

'…Are you asking this Sesshoumaru for a children's story?' Her laugh brushed over him.

'Not a fairy tale or anything. I get the feeling that you are very old. Renaissance old. You must have seen so many interesting things. Besides that, compared to you I'm a baby. So, tell me a story.'

Despite the childish way she had phrased the question, he understood what she wanted and was surprised that she had tried to pin his age (though he was older than what she suspected).

Halfway through his tale about a famous, long dead artist, she fell asleep. He missed her sleepy commentary almost instantly and fell silent himself. A few moments later he roused himself. He had a clue as to her whereabouts now. It was only a matter of time until he found her.

He knew that she was somewhere in the western part of America, most likely somewhere in the south-west from her description of the heat and lack of humidity. Of course, he was bound to run into some problems (who knew how many Kagome's there were in that part of the country) but he was closer than he had been before, and that was something at least.

SessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKag

She sat at her desk and shoved away the urge to cry in frustration. It was almost three in the morning on Monday and she had yet to get anything accomplished. She looked away from the note cards she was making to try and determine where her weekend had gone.

Sesshoumaru had convinced her to sleep Friday night, and as she had predicted, she'd slept for a good thirteen hours, only awakened by a phone call from her friend Eri. Eri had predictably wanted to get together and cook dinner, so Kagome had gotten up and headed over to her friends apartment. She'd made it back home around midnight, but she'd stayed up reading a novel for two more hours.

She'd woken up at around nine on Sunday morning but had dived back into the novel, completely forgetting about her assignments. As she was getting ready to start her homework, Eri had called in tears and it had taken some time to draw the whole story out and then console her friend. This had ironically thrown her mood into a downward spiral, and she found that she was fighting herself just to complete the homework that was due in a few hours.

Stubbornly, Kagome shoved away any and all discomfort to concentrate on the note cards she was making for the quiz she had in a few hours.

'You got yourself into this Kags. Where has the responsibility and self-discipline of high school gone?'

'You are not taking care of yourself.'

Oh not now. Not tonight.

'Kagome?'

A few hot tears squeezed past her tightly closed eyes and trickled down her face.

'Go away. Please go away. You're not real, I made you up in my desperation for someone to talk to and now I'm making you go away.'

'…this Sesshoumaru is not a figment of your imagination.'

'You're either someone I made up or you're a mass murderer. I'd much prefer it be the first. Please go away.'

Propelled by instinct, he followed the trail she was broadcasting with her thoughts. It was time to end this once and for all. She needed him whether she wanted to admit to it or not. If he could just keep her talking long enough to find her…

As if she had caught the stray thought, the link between them was suddenly severed as she put up a block. It was block he could get around, but he doubted if that would be conducive to his ultimate goal.

It didn't matter anyway. He had followed her presence in his mind and now knew she was San Francisco. If his memory served him, there was only one university there that met the description she had given him. How hard would it be to find one untrained miko?

It was too close to sunrise to do much more than travel the short distance to San Francisco. By some stroke of luck he had a house just outside of the city. He would rest there until sunset and then, he would find her.

SessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKag

Despite her distractions over the weekend, she'd done passably well on her quiz and completed most of her homework. Now, a little before sunset, she was waiting outside of her teaching assistant's office as he handed back essays and spoke with each student individually.

For any other class, she would have waited until the next discussion section and received her grade with everyone else. For this class, though she truly enjoyed philosophy, she had another reason for coming to get her grade early.

"Kagome? You can come in now."

She stepped back and let a frowning boy go by as he read the comments on his essay, then slipped inside the dimly lit room and stood nervously in front of the desk.

Instead of sitting behind the desk in a chair, her teaching assistant was perched on the front of the desk with his long jean-encased legs stretched out in front of him. Her essay was held face down in large, long fingered hands and Kagome checked once again for a wedding ring though she knew there wasn't one there.

Her eyes flickered up and took in the slightly nerdish blue striped shirt and wire-rimmed glasses set on a too large nose. His eyes were small and deep set and his eyebrows entirely too thick. His hair was dark and cut close to his scalp but a little too long to be considered a buzz cut.

All in all, he was not attractive nor was he ugly. 'Plain' was a good way to describe him. Despite his lack of good looks, Kagome had a crush on him anyway. It wasn't his looks that attracted her, but his intelligence. He was a graduate student a year away from getting his Ph.D and he had a true love for philosophy that he'd managed to instill in her as well.

She shook herself out of her thoughts and accepted the essay when he passed it to her. Later, in the privacy of her room, she would read through his comments over and over again, as if they were small declarations of love. For now, she just wanted to know what her grade was. After the last discussion session she had been afraid that she had misinterpreted one of the philosophers and failed the essay. She found that her fingers trembled as she flipped to the last page.

At first, she wasn't certain that she'd read the grade or the comment he'd written underneath correctly (his handwriting was atrocious), but when she blinked and it was still there her jaw dropped as she looked up at him. His eyes twinkled slightly and he smiled at her.

"Excellent as usual Kagome. I gave you full marks."

She squealed and threw herself at him in a brief embrace before she remembered that he was her teacher and it was not at all proper for her to be hugging him in the privacy of his dimly lit office. She pulled back quickly even as she felt her face heat up and mumbled an apology before she darted out of the office and down the hallway, not bothering to glance at his no doubt shocked expression. It wasn't until she was running down the steps to the ground floor that she let another smile break across her face.

An 'A' with three pluses behind it! He really liked what she'd written and he thought her normal work was excellent! Thinking of his comment in the office made her slow down and look at her essay again, this time slowly reading each comment he had written in the margin.

Each word of agreement or amusement made her smile widen and a little more heat rush to her cheeks. Maybe once the class was over and he wasn't her teacher anymore, they could have a more casual relationship. Friends first of course…but later…

She bit back a giggle as another surge of happiness overcame her and she tucked the essay into her bag tenderly as she headed to the bus stop. When she got back to her room she would read it all again, and search for hidden meanings in his words.

SessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKagSessKag

Sesshoumaru was torn between excitement and fury.

The strong surge of emotion from Kagome had awoken him and drawn him into her mind in moments. Finally, he would find her and make her his. It had been easy to slip into her thoughts (she was very preoccupied) and peer at the world through her eyes. He had not liked what he'd seen.

She was fawning over that ridiculous awkward-looking boy who apparently didn't know how to sit at a desk properly. He wasn't the least bit attractive and didn't have the slightest clue that she admired him. His envy hadn't spiked, however, until she'd hugged him.

She'd given him a hug. A hug. She had willingly jumped into his arms, wrapped her own about him and pressed herself against him wantonly. Though Kagome hadn't looked, Sesshoumaru had seen the surprised and then pleased look that crossed the assistant's face as he looked at her in a new light before she sped out of the office.

Sesshoumaru wanted to kill him. Slash him apart, burn his skin off with the acidic poison that dripped from his claws, have him drawn and quartered, anything to make the threat to his mate disappear. Or he could simply castrate him. A smirk crossed Sesshoumaru's face as he jumped into the air and flew towards Kagome with red bleeding into his eyes. Castrating would be nice, but killing was a more fool proof plan (Kagome's admiration hadn't extended to physical desire yet and he didn't want to chance her affections remaining even if the emasculated boy couldn't offer her that kind of pleasure). He would castrate the man and then kill him, thereby eliminating all future problems.

More small surges of happiness came from Kagome as she read each of the messy comments scrawled in the margins of the paper. Each surge made him increase his speed and more determined to rid her mind of the idiot boy who still sat flushed in his office. Once he had her she would never think of another man again. He'd make sure of it.