Chapter Twenty-Six

While the women bathed, Sesshoumaru leaned with his back to them against a nearby tree. As much as he had resolved to keep his distance from her, after Kagome's inept display earlier that day, he had been reluctant to let her out of his sight.

She did not smell it, but perhaps she was ill in some way. Frailty was so intrinsic in humans that it was difficult, at times, for him to distinguish between their various afflictions. Once, he recalled, Rin had slept fitfully for the better part of two days simply because they had passed by the village of her birth.

Kagome certainly seemed afflicted in his estimation, and he had observed her long enough to judge. For a human, she was remarkably resilient—no doubt owing to her vast spiritual power. Yet, if he thought back some weeks, he could see the beginnings of this decline in her. As much as it vexed him to consider, the symptoms traced back to the night he had taken her.

Remote though it was, he considered the possibility that she was with child. This union of theirs was unheard of—who knew what toll such a conception might take? He was as dubious of the efficacy of her contraceptive as he was of its safety. The false fertility it seemed to evoke in her set his instincts on edge.

When her blood had come upon her a week ago, it had been all he could do to keep himself in check. False or not, her heat antagonized him almost as much as the girl herself. The urge to go to her was near insurmountable, but he had endeavored not to give in to the base demands of his own blood. Callously, she had rejected him, and before he could lie with her again—before he could even acknowledge her again—he needed her to admit that she had wronged him.

His pride demanded no less.

When she had come to him the night before, meek and contrite and seeming at last properly humbled by his reprimand, he had thought that she sought to make amends with him, to ask for his forgiveness. But instead…

His fist clenched at the recollection. Instead of submitting herself to him, she had insulted him once again. As if he would leave his own woman in enemy lands—and with her in such a weakened state. The mere suggestion of it was offensive.

He had underestimated her stubbornness—her sheer nerve. It was rare that anyone dared to try him, and the absurdity of being tried so relentlessly by a human girl chafed at him to no end. What, he wondered, could she possibly hope to gain from it?

Sesshoumaru grit his fangs in frustration. What did she want from him?

"…Thanks, Sango-chan, but I think I'll stay out by myself a little longer."

"Are you sure? It's getting late…"

"Yeah." A tired sigh. "I'm not ready to go to bed just yet."

The taijiya was hesitant. "All right, Kagome-chan."

There was the sound of splashing as the slayer returned to shore, the rustle of cloth as she dressed a minute later. As her footsteps faded in the direction of the camp, Sesshoumaru turned.

Thin and hunched as Kagome was, standing alone in the shallows of the spring, the moment his eyes fell upon her, Sesshoumaru realized his error. At the sight of her wet, naked body in moonlit profile, his weeks-long frustration reached a vicious peak. Her dripping hair clung to her back and shoulders, a few glossy tendrils curved over her breasts as she hugged them close to her chest. Water glimmered diamond-bright from her skin, a few drops glittering in the dark fur that dusted her sex.

Sesshoumaru's claws gouged deep into the trunk of the tree.

In that moment, he despised her.

He doubted she would even resist him if he pinned her to the bank and ravished her. A perverse part of him whispered that perhaps this had been her plan all along—to bring him to such a point of desperation that his will would be shattered. Perhaps this was what a woman did to a demon like himself.

Like his father.

Brought him to ruin, Jakken had said.

As her arms fell away, Sesshoumaru's resistance crumbled.

With the last vestiges of his self-control, he retreated into the wilderness. He cast off his swords, his armor. He tore off his clothes and surrendered to his lust. On his hands and knees like the low beast he was, he pleasured himself raw to that hateful image of her until all the venom he held for her bled out of him onto the dirt below. Panting and quaking in the aftermath, he sat back on his haunches and gripped his face in his soiled claws.

When the red haze cleared from his vision, he picked himself up at last.

Clean and clothed once more, he returned to the campsite in resignation. She was awake still, her leaden eyes fixed upon the fading embers of the fire. When he looked at her now, he didn't see a conniving seductress—he saw a young girl, wan and fatigued, and perhaps even as defeated as himself.

She gazed up at him as his shadow fell over her, and he wondered, as he gazed down at her in turn, if that made her hold over him all the worse.

"Come with me," he said to her at last.

Stiffly, Kagome stood and followed him to the edge of the campsite. As youki gathered beneath his feet, she moved closer and took a hesitant hold of his sleeve. Rising far above the tops of the trees, they soared high through the cloudless night, out of the southern lands and into the west.

Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed as he scanned the moonlit landscape of his home. Every mountain and valley were familiar. Every forest and field held significance to him in some way, but there was a place in particular he sought. A place he had not visited for some time.

At last, as they flew low over the wooded hinterlands bordering the rocky coast, his eyes fell upon his destination. Landing before the grove of trees, Kagome's head tilted inquisitively—as if she, too, could sense the magic of this place. Trailing a little behind him, she followed him to the grove, which shimmered almost imperceptibly as he passed through.

Drawing up beside him, Kagome released a soft sound of awe.

Silvered and rustling with its own light floral breeze, an enchanted meadow sprawled before them, dotted here and there with flowering and fruit-laden trees. Perfectly clear, a mirrored stream wound through the space, whispering merrily over the smooth stones that glittered at its bed. Large and bright above them, the moon shone—closer here than outside the grove—its pale radiance burnishing the grass and fruits and leaves and glowing through the gauzy wings of the moths that fluttered past.

Wide-eyed at the beauty of her surroundings, Kagome wandered ahead. Sesshoumaru watched as she knelt at the bank of the stream, running her palms over the soft gleaming grass blades, skimming her fingertips over the water's glassy surface. Blue and glittering, her eyes lifted to him in wonder.

"Where are we, exactly?"

Stepping forward, Sesshoumaru stood beneath the shade of a silver-barked tree. As his claws touched to the bell-shaped white blossoms drooping from its branches, a faint chime rang out.

"My mother's bower," he answered. "A gift to her from my father."

"It's beautiful," Kagome said, rising and walking over to another tree studded with jewel-like berries. She studied them for a moment before glancing back. "…Can I eat these?"

Sesshoumaru considered. If by some chance she were poisoned, he could always revive her with Tenseiga.

"I suppose."

Eagerly, she plucked one of the fruits from its stem and popped it into her mouth, her features pinching at the tartness. "…Those are better just to look at, I think."

Sesshoumaru agreed, but his mother had a penchant for the flavor. Crouching down again, Kagome sighed as she breathed in the fragrance of a cluster of standing starburst blooms.

"Do you come here a lot?" she asked, looking back over at him shyly.

"When I was a child, I played here often." His claws traced along the shimmering bark in remembrance. "My mother would sit beneath this tree, while I defended her from imaginary foes."

"You must miss her," Kagome said gently after a moment.

"Miss her." His eyes slanted toward her. "Haha-ue is still alive."

"Oh," Kagome said, her expression falling slack a moment later as realization dawned. "…Oh."

An embarrassed flush stole across her cheeks, her gaze returning to the flowers again as she fidgeted with their silky leaves. For once, as he reflected on the subject, Sesshoumaru himself felt remarkably at ease.

"Chichi-ue held my mother in high regard," he said as he approached her. "But his affections were for Izayoi."

Kagome looked up at him in sympathy as he stopped before her. "I'm sorry, Sesshoumaru. That must have been very painful."

Forsaken though she was, his mother had taken his father's betrayal in her usual measured stride. It was Sesshoumaru who had been truly wounded by it, who had felt spurned and displaced. Despite their differences, he realized, he had missed his father.

He missed him still.

"It was," he found himself admitting to her as he slipped his tail from his shoulder and placed it in her hands. "This grove is protected. You can sleep safely here. I won't be far."

Frowning, she clutched his fur to her chest. As he turned to leave, her fingers curled around his own.

Sesshoumaru glanced back at her in question.

"Please," she said, her voice wavering slightly as she held his gaze. "Please, don't go."

Sesshoumaru frowned as he regarded her.

He should leave. He had brought Kagome here to rest and recover her strength. To remain any longer ran counter to that aim.

Yet he asked her all the same, "You wish for me to stay with you?"

Her grip on his hand tightened as she nodded, her large brilliant eyes gleaming up at him in supplication, and he knew that he could never refuse her. Setting his swords aside in the grass, Sesshoumaru unclasped and removed his armor as he reclined against the jewel-fruited tree and pulled her to him. With a contented sigh, she settled into the crook of his arm, her hand splaying across the center of his chest.

"Thank you," she said, her eyes closing briefly as her fingers curled against him, "for bringing me here."

His arm fell, curving around her waist as he drew her closer in. "This place pleases you, then?"

"It's wonderful." Red fanned across her cheeks as she gazed up at him. "You're wonderful."

For a moment, as he gazed back at her, Sesshoumaru found himself at a rare loss. A curious warmth spread through him at her words, his pulse quickening ever so slightly beneath her palm.

"The hour is late," he said, his free hand rising to her face as he touched the pad of his thumb to the shadows beneath her eyes. "You should sleep."

She nodded, her own fingertips lifting to trace the stripes on his cheek.

His claws curved back into her hair. "You need your rest for the journey ahead."

Nodding again, she guided his face down to hers. Their brows touched briefly, his lashes descending as he breathed her in.

"Kagome…" he murmured, as if in a dream.

Her lips brushed against his as she spoke his name in turn, her fingers trailing to his neck. There was no sense of urgency, no mad drive in him to possess her. Closing the meager distance between them, he kissed her slowly, lingeringly, savoring the glide of her mouth against his.

The only need he felt was to be closer to her—a need she seemed to echo as she slipped her fingers beneath the collar of his haori. Lips remaining upon hers, he shrugged out of both layers of silk, her hands leaving his skin only to bare her own. Their need for one another ferried them to the ground, a soft, shared groan passing between them as his naked chest fit to hers.

Sesshoumaru broke briefly from her then, continuing languorously down her throat, her breasts, her stomach and thighs—his mouth departing her body only to return to hers, again and again. It was her small deft fingers that loosened the ties of his hakama at last, that drew him to her as he rose from the cradle of her hips and combined her two heavenly tastes together between them.

Her tongue pressed into him as he pressed into her. Each unhurried thrust pulled them both deeper in, her arms and legs clutching around him as she embraced him fully from within. He was lost in her, drowning in her. As he felt his desire for her close over him, he could see that she was drowning, too.

"Sesshoumaru," she breathed out as her bliss overcame her in waves. "Oh, Sesshoumaru…"

In the centuries he had walked upon this earth, he had never heard a sweeter sound. The rock of her hips carried him over, the pulse of her release resonating with his own. He brought his lips to hers again as they rode out their pleasure together as one, his body continuing to surge forward, continuing to seek her still.

At the scent of her tears, he drew reluctantly back.

Her head was turned away, her bent arm rising to shield her features as they crumpled. Still inside her, Sesshoumaru raised his hand to her wrist, feeling strangely helpless as he pulled her arm aside. Tears trickled down her temples as she squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

"Kagome," he said, his voice roughening as he entreated her, "look at me."

Grimacing, she shook her head.

"Look at me," he faintly growled. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Please, Sesshoumaru," she whimpered, shaking her head again. "Please, don't make me…"

He grit his fangs as he took her face between his claws. "Tell me."

She swallowed dryly as her damp lashes parted, the pain mirrored in her eyes arresting him completely. He could see now what it was that had been plaguing her. He could see what it was that had made her so perilously feeble, so acutely wretched—this frailty, this weakness. He recognized what it was long before the words fell from her lips—he could see it all in that eternal moment when he looked into her eyes and saw his own weakness reflected back.

"I love you," she whispered brokenly. "Sesshoumaru, I love you…"

The truth hit him like a death knell, his claws biting into her as he clenched his eyes shut in denial.

I love you.

His breath hissed through the vise of his fangs, his face snapping sharply to the side.

I…

He could feel it rising within him, smothering him—this knowledge, this feeling.

This affliction.

…I love you.

Lurking within him, the sickness swelled, dark and mocking—lying latent in his bones since the very beginning. Since the first time he laid his eyes upon her, it had been there—festering, waiting. The evidence, the proof—

"No," he snarled, wrenching her over to hide her damning gaze. "No."

But it was not enough. Even with her face pushed to the grass, he could still see it. Written in her skin like a proclamation, like a decree from the gods themselves—

His fate, inescapable. The curse of his blood, irreversible.

Incurable.

"…Sesshoumaru!" Kagome choked out as his claws lengthened. "Sesshoumaru, stop!"

He heard her only distantly as he roared in anguished protest, the red fog of his desperation eclipsing all else. He could feel death bearing down upon him as he bore down upon her—

"…Sesshoumaru—"

His claws were sinking, scraping—

"…S—Sesshoumaru—NO!"

Rending—

Tearing.

Fire.

She was on fire.

Kagome's jaw wired tight, her nails carving trenches into the soft earth below. Tears streamed down her burning cheeks as she scalded from without and within, every nerve and muscle straining to withstand the blaze.

No! she screamed to herself. I won't—I WON'T!

Reiki seared through her veins, roiled like lava beneath her skin. Again and again, the scorching tempest of her own spiritual power ripped through her, demanding an outlet—demanding to unleash itself on her demonic attacker in a torrential, purifying flood.

If she gave even an inch, she would surely kill him.

Sesshoumaru…

Low in her throat, Kagome choked on a silent sob. Sesshoumaru, why…

Her insides cooled as she reined in her power at last, and now there was only the inferno at her back—a pain so immense it consumed her completely, a dark void of torment with no beginning and no end. A black hole that sucked in her entire existence, compressing it to a singular point of absolute agony.

No more, she pleaded. No more, no more, no more…

But the pain went on and on. Had there ever been anything else? Her mind cracked as she struggled to remember, as she struggled to hold on to herself.

But pieces of her were already slipping away. Her vision dimmed. Her body went slack. Distantly, she realized she was dying. A growing part of her even wanted to die—just so that the pain would be over.

Please, she cried out from within. Please, make it stop…

Make it stop.

And then, suddenly, it did.

Liquid heat gushed over Sesshoumaru's fingers, the scent of iron assaulting his senses—jolting him violently back to himself.

As his hellish vision began to clear, a new nightmare rose to replace it, sharpening into terrible, vicious relief.

Beneath him, Kagome was silent and still. Her glassy eyes stared at nothing, her back ripped open from shoulder to hip. Blood streamed from her scored flesh, spilled over her sides as she lay lifelessly there.

Then, to his deepening horror, she stirred.

Kagome blinked, drawing in a shuddering breath. She could see the silvery grass now, still faintly rippling in the warm, scented breeze. Beside her temples, her stiff fingers twitched as she tested them, her heart pounding sluggishly in her chest. Slowly, she pulled her numb body forward at a crawl, out from underneath his, her stomach sliding sickeningly over the blood-slicked ground.

Her lungs heaved as she sat up, cold sweat breaking out across her shivering skin. Everything was coated red—her body, her clothes, the grass, him. Unmoving, Sesshoumaru crouched, rigid as a statue, his shadowed gaze riveted straight down before him. Turning away, Kagome haltingly stood, gripping the nearby tree for support as she stepped shakily into her hakama and pulled her haori about her, her nausea quelling slightly once she'd covered her bloodied self up.

Sesshoumaru made no move to stop her as she trudged ahead, leaving him and the grove behind.

Magic buffeted faintly at her skin as she stepped out into the surrounding wilderness. Even with the stars guiding her, she struggled to find her way. Beneath her feet, the ground was rocky and loose, and more than once, she lost her footing on the crumbling ridge and was forced to pick herself up again.

Doggedly, wretchedly, Kagome pressed on. After yet another jarring fall, she hauled herself up by the rough trunk of a fir tree, tears of anguish coursing freely down her cheeks.

Why…why did it come to this…

Her teeth pierced her lower lip as she pushed herself onward again, her sandals catching on every rock and root. Her head swam, muddled with grief. Farther and farther, she wandered through the night with no real sense of direction, with no destination even in mind. All she could think was to get away—to get as far away as she could from him.

Sesshoumaru…

Her hand clutched to her throat in despair. Keenly, she felt the violence of his rejection—gouging her far deeper than his claws ever could.

This was how abhorrent her love was to him. This was why she had tried not to tell him—why she had tried to hold herself together. She had tried to be content with what she had. She had tried, but…

Tripping, Kagome crashed to her knees again.

…I wanted too much. Her sticky hands clenched around her thighs. I pushed him too far.

Unable to stand, Kagome dragged herself up, onto a slab of stone. Her tears pattered against the smooth rock, the blood her haori was unable to wick away threading down her arm to pool at her fingertips. I must be in shock, she figured, wondering at her lack of sensation.

Then, finally, she saw it—stabbing her straight in the chest.

Trembling, her fingers rose to the Jewel shard embedded in her—pink and glowing still. As she tugged on it, her back began to flame again, a flare of such intense agony assaulting her that she doubled over with a cry.

"You seem to be in a great deal of pain, priestess."

Swallowing, Kagome glanced blearily up at the figure striding toward her through the darkness. Silver hair, white skin—in her blurring sight, in her blurring mind, her first dazed thought was that it was Sesshoumaru, come to finish her off. As the moonlight revealed him, Kagome drew back.

"W-who are you?" she rasped.

Pale blue lips curved into a smile. "My name," he answered, "is Magatsuhi." The demon's smile deepened at her unease, his vast youki smothering her as he continued to advance. "I have come for the Jewel shard which you possess."

Kagome grit her teeth as she clapped a hand over the fragment buried in her breast. "You can't have it."

"Such bravery." Red eyes glinted as he moved toward her still. "…For one so close to death."

"S-stay back," she warned. "One step closer, and I'll purify you."

"Purify me?" the demon laughed. "Foolish girl…"

A cold wave washed over her as her reiki receded, the Jewel shard within her darkening to black. As her consciousness faded, an icy finger traced along her cheek.

"…You are no threat to me."