A/N: For Janis' prompt: Eros and Psyche. AU - feudal era style.

Kikyo had been chosen to be the sacrifice to the great inu daiyokai who had recently come into his power. The village hoped that by offering Kikyo up as a blood sacrifice, the daiyokai's blood lust might be satisfied and he would allow the village to remain in peace.

Kikyo had taken the news of her fate with serenity, though Kagome knew that the other village priestess had to be suffering inside. The two young women had spent over a decade together, both apprentices under Kaede until the elder priestess' death the year before.

And Kagome knew that Kikyo had recently received a proposal. Kikyo had been secretive about who she was seeing and Kagome couldn't blame her friend. Priestesses were supposed to remain pure to keep their power—a notion Kaede had scoffed at more than once. Kaede had a wild youth, she'd informed them, and had still kept all of her holy powers intact.

But the village they lived in was traditional and they were not understanding. Kikyo would never be forgiven for turning her back on duty for love and Kagome had firmly suspected the elder priestess had been making plans to leave with her lover in secret.

Plans that would now prove fruitless.

Unless...

Kagome's eyes narrowed as she thought. Kagome wasn't romantically involved in anyone—no one ever even paid her any attention with Kikyo's refined beauty always nearby as a ready source of distraction. Kagome herself had plenty of holy power—Kikyo even believed that Kagome possessed more, even if she'd had less training under Kaede's tutelage—enough to even placate a daiyokai.

She shivered at the thought but her mind was already made up. Kikyo deserved the happiness she found.

But the villagers, Kagome knew, would never accept Kagome as a replacement. In their eyes, she was always second-best.

So, she would have to take matters into her own hands.

Resolutely, Kagome took the rope that had been set aside, now blessed by Kikyo herself, and made her way to tie herself to the rock and await her fate.

.

.

Sesshomaru, the great daiyokai of the west, flew over his lands on his cloud, reflecting on the last year's events. Now that he'd come into his power with a sword of his own, he was the most powerful yokai in all of Nippon.

He could, he thought to himself, start a war with someone else but there wasn't anyone left on his level to be worth the challenge and resources. No, a war would simply be a disappointment.

He could find some task in need of doing at his shiro but that sounded as boring as the paperwork that had no doubt piled up in his absence.

He could mate, perhaps, as his mother had been urging, but no female had managed to capture and hold his attention long enough for him to consider her as a viable candidate.

Sesshomaru sighed heavily. If he returned with nothing to distract himself, he could almost bet on his mother once again renewing her efforts to see him mated, wed, and with an heir on the way.

Perhaps he would visit Totosai and commission new armor to celebrate his recent accession to power and the fact that he'd finally surpassed his father...

Suddenly, something caught his eye and he slowed, wanting to get a better look in the evening sky.

A woman, he realized, had been bound haphazardly to a rock. He sensed the quiet spark of her reiki and realized she was a priestess. This realization was further supported by her traditional priestess clothing and the shimenawa that bound her to the rock.

What was more, she appeared to be trying to get his attention, struggling against the rope that bound her to wave at him. When he met her gaze, she smiled.

Odd human.

If it had been any other day, he would have flown by without paying her any attention. However, he admitted to himself that his boredom compelled him to move closer and so he did, dropping lower until his cloud fell away and he stood on the rocky outcrop on the high shoreline the priestess was bound to.

"Priestess," he rumbled, wondering what had compelled her to signal him—and why he was so interested.

"Inu-daiyokai-sama." She bowed her head in respect. "The village has offered me as blood payment for your leniency in making their lives here." She took a deep breath. "Um, I just hope I didn't make the rope too difficult for you to bite me in your true form. I had to tie it myself, you see, and it was more difficult than I'd expected."

He had the distinct impression that there was more that she was not telling him. "Is it a human ritual to tie yourself up when you are the offering?"

He supposed in the end, it mattered little. His father had forbade human sacrifice and Sesshomaru himself saw no reason to reinstate that policy now that he'd come into his power. He cared naught for what humans did so long as they kept to themselves.

"Um." She bit down on her lower lip and then suddenly brightened. "Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? When the villagers see my blood on the rock, they'll know you were pleased and accepted their gift and that's all that matters."

He raised a brow at her assumption. "This one is not interested in accepting anything from humans."

"Wait!" she called after him as he turned to leave. "You don't understand! If you reject me, they'll see it as I'm unworthy and I'll be sacrificed anyway and worse, they'll keep at it until they do find something that placates you!"

He sneered at that notion. "There is nothing humans could offer that would have any value to this one."

She opened her mouth but didn't get a chance to reply.

"Kagome!" Kikyo came running over to the rock, followed by a familiar hanyo. "You fool!"

Kagome stared. "A hanyo...?"

InuYasha...

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed as his brother growled, too low to be audible to humans. "What're you doing here, asshole?" InuYasha ground out, glaring at his half-brother.

"So this is where you escaped to." Sesshomaru was amused at how low his half-brother had fallen, following around a human priestess as if she were his master. How fitting of his human blood...

InuYasha's hands moved to the hilt of his sword.

"InuYasha!" Kikyo sounded frantic, though it was of little concern to Sesshomaru. "We have to free her before the villagers wake up and realize what she's done! They'll kill her for interfering in this, InuYasha!"

"But I had to!" The priestess—Kagome, he presumed—cried out. "Kikyo, you deserve to be happy!" She hesitated for a moment and then plowed on lamely, evidently realizing the significance of the hanyo's presence, "Ah, he looks very nice. I didn't know your fiancé had silver hair."

InuYasha huffed. "It's white," he stressed, looking annoyed. He'd never appreciated the silver comment, complaining that it made him feel old.

Sesshomaru thought InuYasha just sounded like an idiot.

"Right." Kagome's brows were raised but she didn't press the subject. "You both need to go before anyone finds you here."

"Kagome..." Kikyo's face grew more stern. "I will not allow you to do this."

"It's my choice," Kagome defended. She nodded at Sesshomaru, to his surprise. "And his. And he's already accepted," she lied.

Sesshomaru's gaze narrowed and he opened his mouth to correct her assumption.

"See, Kikyo?" InuYasha sounded relieved. "The bastard will take care of her. He never shirks his duty. We can always check in on her later at his place. It's a nice shiro, even if it is the bastard's."

Sesshomaru flexed his claws. His shiro was more than simply nice.

"Very well..." Kikyo let InuYasha draw her back and usher her onto his back. "I will see you soon, Kagome." She glared at Sesshomaru and he blinked at the vehemence he saw there. "You. If anything happens to her, I will ensure you pay it back...in full."

Her power rose as she spoke but he would not give her the satisfaction of seeing any reaction.

"I'm sorry about Kikyo," Kagome said apologetically as she left. "She can be very strong-willed."

"Hnn." Sesshomaru considered the matter. He had been ushered into caring for her by her lie and the hanyo's own presence during that lie. To allow her to die at the villagers' hands would be most dishonorable.

Yet it would be a nuisance to bring her with him. She was human and—

He smirked, absently noticing the twinge of arousal and fear that emanated from her as he did so. Human. She was human. His mother had been all but forcing him to mate but if she'd learned he'd chosen a human as a mate, she would expend all of her energy on ensuring the two could never mate.

It would be perfect. His honor, forced into this as it had been, would be intact while his mother would be the one forced to deal with the problem.

"Very well." Sesshomaru used his poisonous whip to free her of her bindings.

She stared at him in surprise. "Um, well, I guess the rope probably wouldn't taste very good..."

He ignored her mutterings as irrelevant. "You will not move or speak until this one gives you permission. Understood?" He waited for her to nod before he continued. "This one has agreed to accept your life as his to do with as he pleases. You will seek to obey him in all things. Now," he stopped, recalling her words about blood. He stepped up to her and slit her palm, letting the blood well before he smeared it, palm and all, on the rock as she hissed in pain. "We will depart."

His cloud formed under him and he was pleased she obeyed, moving as he gestured her onto it and then silently letting him take to the air with her.

After a few moments, however, she seemed to forget his warning. "Where are we going?"

His jaw tightened. "Home. Now be quiet."

She fell silent and he sighed in relief. There was something about her voice that tugged at him and he found he didn't like it.

"And then what?" she asked suddenly.

He took a deep breath. "Be silent."

He felt the spark of her reiki against him and cursed under his breath. If her voice had somehow broken through his barrier, her reiki had all but smashed it as it moved, teasingly, against his yoki.

Perhaps, he admitted to himself, he was more captivated by the human woman on his cloud than he'd allowed himself to realize. It would explain why he had stayed his hand and not killed her when he'd had the chance.

Was he more like his father than he'd realized?

No. His lips thinned. He could not, would not—

"Inu-daiyokai?" she prompted, her reiki quieting to his relief. "I know this is not what you wanted, but it is my life too, you know."

She moved, despite his warning growl, to grab a hold of his sides and his obi to steady herself, and despite himself, he shivered slightly at the heat of her touch. She'd managed to find the one place where he had no armor on his torso to touch.

Infuriating woman.

And yet he could not find the voice to insist she desist. In spite of everything, he found that he enjoyed her touch.

He sped up. He needed to reach home before he did something truly intolerable, like mate with the woman.

.

.

"Mother," he greeted as they landed in his courtyard, noting the look of displeasure on his mother's face. "Allow me to introduce my mate-to-be."

The priestess stiffened as he wrapped one hand around her hip and pulled her to him. He rumbled soothingly to her, as much to soothe her as to irk his mother.

His mother studied the girl for a moment. "You're sure?" she asked neutrally but he could sense her ire that lurked beneath her genial manner.

He nodded shortly, resenting himself for how much he enjoyed the feel of her pressed against him.

"Very well," his mother said to his surprise. "Then we will prepare for a mating at once. After all," she added, raising a brow, "you would not have brought a human priestess to your mother if you were not serious. It seems that even I could not hope to sway my beloved pup in this."

He swallowed back his surprise at how his spectacular plan had backfired. "Mother..."

"Ah ah." She snapped her fan shut. "There is no need to thank your mother. A swift mating and impregnation will be thanks enough, Sesshomaru. It has been too long since your mother has had a baby around."

"Mating?" Kagome hissed, glaring up at him as her reiki once again rose to tease his, sparking with her irritation.

"Later," he ground out, realizing his mother had already moved away to give the orders to expand his rooms to accommodate his new mate. "This one will discuss the situation with you later." He pulled away from her to go stop his mother's meddling.

But, to his surprise, he was stopped by Kagome's gentle kiss to his jaw, the highest she could reach without his assistance. "Thank you for not killing me," she said quietly, unaware of the turmoil she'd unleashed within him by her very inu-like action. "I'll do my best to make a good wife."

"Hnn." The tension fled at her kiss and it took everything he had not to show her what a real kiss would be like. He would not succumb to these odd desires or to her, he promised himself as he strode away, ignoring the quiet, pleased look on her face at his reaction to her kiss.

He ignored the voice in the back of his mind that tauntingly suggested that he already had.