Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from the Inuyasha universe. The rest is mine.
Chapter 1
The sutras searing his skin were humiliating. Immobilizing. Completely fucking necessary. He'd shred every single one of them if he could. They had taken him at sunrise, just after he placed a kiss on his mother's cheeks before resigning himself to meet his fate. He shouldn't have been surprised that they had come out in throngs to watch him go. That they would be waiting for him as soon as he opened the door.
Their hands plastered the sutras to him, and they carried him off into the forest to meet his fate.
He had been picked this time. Elected to be their sacrifice. Normally they would have had a murderer or an elder would have volunteered...but it was his fucking luck that everyone was on their best fucking behavior. No one had volunteered. So they drew together a lottery.
He sincerely doubted there was more than his name in the bag. They had wanted to be rid of him for years, after all.
Hell, if it hadn't been for his mother, he probably would have left years ago. But...she was old. She needed him. And he wouldn't allow her to sacrifice herself for his sake. He wasn't worth it. He didn't care what she had whispered into his pointed, furry ears every night since childhood. He was a mistake who should have had his throat slit at birth.
At least now, his life would matter.
Now he could save his mother.
If he didn't do this, he knew they would take her instead. He just worried what they would do to 'the demon's whore' now that he was gone - unable to protect her as he had.
They slammed his back against the stone pillar, their dirty, grimy hands tugging at his clothes as he struggled against them. They stripped him bare, shackling his hands above his head and plastering more sutras to his exposed skin. Arms, legs, chest, mouth...They left him wearing nothing but the holy papers and the shackles, abandoning him as nude as the day he was born. Not before the crowd touched him, though. Spat on him. Mocked the part of him that rest between his legs. He did his best to ignore them.
It would all be over soon enough, after all.
No one stayed as the sacrificed waited for the bringer of death.
When they left him, feeling dirty and cold, he could do nothing but stand at attention and wait. He didn't know when it would happen. He could spend all day here, or minutes. It didn't matter. In the end, the same fate awaited him as everyone who had come before.
They had been making these tributes for centuries. Once every twelve moons, someone would be left here, waiting for their fate...and for many, it was their chance to atone for their crimes before meeting their maker. Or at least the God of Death. He claimed one life for himself in exchange for sparing their land. To many, it was an easy, worthwhile transaction.
To others...it was an end. He did not know if it was a quick or slow one, but it was an end nonetheless.
He had never heard the same tale twice. The ground would shake, and the leaves would tremble, and from the woods a wild, bulky, hybrid of a boar and a man would emerge and the sacrifice would be run through with his tusks. Sometimes a throng of snakes would sliver out from the tree branches and strangle the sacrifice. Other times birds would descend upon them and peck out their eyes.
It was all bullshit.
No one had ever seen the God with their own eyes...otherwise they would be dead too.
He stood there all day, his stomach growling despite himself. His arms had become numb long ago, his shoulders and wrists aching as the sun beat down on his naked body. Sweat beaded and ran down his body, and insects tickled his skin as they crawled over his exposed flesh. Once, a butterfly landed upon his pectoral to drink the salty water from his chest. He would have smiled if he could...but his bindings made even that impossible.
As the sun started to lower, not yet setting, he began to worry.
What if he was an insufficient offering because of his heritage? What if he had been rejected? What would that mean? Would the God come to smite them all? What of his mother? He pinched his eyes shut as despair washed through him.
He didn't give a shit about the other fuckers. The ones who strung him up here. But his poor mother...probably wailing in her futon as he waited to die...He didn't want the God to hurt her. He raised his eyes to the heavens, silently begging them to send the God so he could fulfill his fucking purpose. Save his mother.
It was twilight when the fog settled in around him...The first sign that he was at last no longer alone. He watched it swirl around the trunks of the trees and the foliage of the forest he stood in, almost as if it were alive. Then he saw a figure in the distance. It was no more than a shadow at first, but his keen, citrine eyes could see the movement. His white, pointed dog ears could hear the faint, delicate chime of bells as the figure drew nearer. Then he could make out the glints of gold glimmering off of a headdress and chest piece.
His breath left his body as the figure finally appeared in the clearing...This God was no God...This God was a Goddess. Perfectly female in every way. She stalked towards him with a predatory gait, her movements fluid and her hips swaying with each step. Bells on her feet and arms jingled almost airily as she drew closer.
She wore an ornate headdress with radiating sharp spines, haloing her head like the sun and hiding her black hair. A matching collar rest upon her shoulders above her breasts. A skirt of sashes and fringe beads swayed with her every step, and a shirt of golden, tightly knit chainmail covered her breasts. The expanse of her taut stomach was bared to him, but he dared not let his gaze stay there, lest he anger her. Bangles adorned her wrists and ceremonial ring cuffs encompassed the tips of each of her fingers, coming together in long pointed tips, like claws.
She was exquisite. The most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon...and also the deadliest. He wanted to fall at her feet and worship her...fulfil her every whim and desire...and run away from her all at the same time.
She stopped before him, stormy grey eyes raking up and down his body, and he wished that the fuckers had at least left him with a fundoshi. He could feel his cheeks heating under her critical eye. She was examining him closer than he had ever examined himself. Was she deciding if he would suffice?
He felt her hands land on his legs as she slowly drew them upwards, her finger cuffs dragging over his thighs and up his sides, sending tingles of electricity running through his body towards his groin. He wanted to close his eyes and look away from her beauty, but if she was going to kill him, he was determined to face that fate headon.
She tilted her head to the side in thought, watching him as he looked back at her in defiance. She was fascinated. Over the centuries she had seen many men and women abandoned here, left to her as a sacrifice.
She had never seen a man quite like him before, however. He didn't look human. The first thing she had noticed about him was his starlight hair. Such a unique color on such a young, spry body. A delectable body. One that was coated in sutras.
How abnormal.
That's when she noticed his dog ears.
How intriguing...They didn't leave her a human this time. Perhaps the most intriguing thing about him, however, beyond the physical, was the look in his eyes. Most looked upon her with pleading eyes. Eyes filled with regret. Terror.
His golden orbs spoke of defiance. Pride. He had fire in him.
The corner of her lip quirked upwards as her fingers splayed across his abdomen, his skin jumping at the contact. He trembled under her touch as she continued to move her hands upwards, her finger cuffs leaving red welts in their wake. They stopped on his shoulders as she stared him in the eyes - their gaze never once breaking since she had touched him.
She was in no rush.
She did not need this sacrifice just yet.
She could afford to indulge herself for a bit.
"You are different," she purred huskily, and she watched his eyes dilate. "Tell me why," she demanded, her fingers coming to rest against the sutra across his mouth, disintegrating it.
He tilted his head back, moving his jaw in circles before rolling it back down to address her. His lips tingled and his mouth felt dry.
"You don't normally receive half demons as offerings?" he croaked, lips quirked upwards and she silently delighted in his humor.
Oh yes.
He was quite intriguing indeed.
"Am I...Inadequate?" he asked almost nervously, licking his lips, and her hands trailed down his chest again. She watched the muscles of his chest clench under her touch, and a smile kissed her lips. She held power over him. A different kind of power than those bestowed upon her at birth. A more ancient power.
The power a woman held over a man.
"You do not wish to be?"
"I only wish to spare my mother. I don't care what you do to the rest of them," he replied honestly, and she quirked a brow.
"You hold no love for your people?"
"My people hold no love for me," he explained simply, looking into her stormy grey eyes. When she did not say more, he found himself swallowing and supplementing his previous statement. "They despise what I am. I was selected from the lottery, but I suspect that it had been rigged. No elder offered them self. No crimes occurred. They picked me for you...because my crime is my heritage. My blood is dirty, and they don't want me sullying their city with my presence anymore."
"This is your only crime?"
"It's enough," he smiled weakly. "When you are hated for what you are, you need to commit no other crime than to exist. If you hate someone as much as they hate me...I think only my mother will weep over my death," he whispered, swallowing thickly.
Her eyes flashed silver in anger and she placed her fingers on each of his sutras, disintegrating them to dust. He gasped as the searing pain his body had felt all day finally, blissfully ended.
"Thank you..." he whispered as her hands came up to his shackled ones above his head. "Does this mean I'm worthy? You'll accept me?"
He watched her lips press into a thin line as her silver eyes slowly ran down his body, staying on each red welt left behind by the sutras for a moment before flitting back up to meet his golden ones.
"Do you wish to die?"
"Does anyone?"
Her lips quirked back up into a smile, her eyes softening back into their stormy grey as she seemed to ponder something. Finally, she seemed to reach a conclusion, and with a dismissive wave of her fingers, his shackles disappeared. He unceremoniously dropped to his knees, unprepared for the abrupt freedom she had allowed him.
Inuyasha looked back up at her, confusion marring his features as she dropped into a crouch, taking his face between her golden tipped fingers.
"What does your mother call you?"
"Inuyasha," he breathed, rubbing his wrists nervously, still uncertain as to what was happening to him.
"Inuyasha," she repeated, rolling it around in her mouth and letting her tongue try the syllables of his name. It had never sounded sweeter than when it poured from her full lips. It was the most melodic sound in the world to him, and he felt completely bewitched as she tried it once more.
"They call me the 'Goddess of Death'...but you may call me 'Mistress'."
"M-Mistress?" he stuttered, his eyes widening.
"Yes, Inuyasha. You intrigue me, and I do not wish to take your life yet. You will be my servant for the next six months. You shall meet my every need...fulfill my every wish. In exchange, you will live in my temple, sleep in my bed, and dine at my table."
"W-what happens at the end of six months?"
She shot him a knowing look, and he lowered his gaze.
Of course.
It was a temporary stay of execution.
Still, it was better than dying now.
"Do you agree to this, Inuyasha?" she asked him quite seriously, surprising him.
She was a goddess. She could demand anything of him, and he would have no say. This kindness was unexpected, and yet...delightful.
"Yes, Mistress."
A/N: New fic. I know. I'm horrible. Not sure when the next chapter will go up – I kinda wanted to get this done in time for the first night of Passover so…here we are!