Sesshoumaru sighed and pressed a button on his intercom. "Let him in, Ms. Smith." Then, he slowly began to count down. 'Three... two... one.'
"Sesshoumaru! You bastard!" Inuyasha shouted as he barged into the full youkai's office. "You bought her just because I was bidding on her." He was half-tempted to draw his sword, the tetsusaiga, and attack his pompous bastard of a brother.
"Please close the door behind you. I do not want you to disturb my employees who are actually working," the inu youkai told his half-brother calmly, pointing one clawed hand at the door.
Growling, the inu hanyou slammed the door shut and stomped up to stand right in front of Sesshoumaru's desk. "You had the nerve to buy the slave girl just to spite me! I wanted her!"
"And who's to say that I didn't?" he countered gently, slowly organizing some papers on his desk. He really hadn't wanted the girl, but he did enjoy torturing his brother.
"But... but..." Inuyasha sputtered, surprised unknowingly doing just what his brother wanted. His eyes went wide and his mouth was hanging slightly open. He could have sworn that his older brother hated slavery even more than he did.
Also, Sesshoumaru loved proving how superior he was when it came to words. He smirked slightly, loving the look on the younger demon's face. 'Such a priceless look. It would be nice to have a camera right now. A picture would make a perfect memento for my recent little victory over him.'
Right then, Inuyasha let loose a stream of words that would have astonished even a seasoned sailor. He hated being bested by his half-brother in anything. "I want the girl. That's all. Now, give her to me."
"No. I bought her for a reason, and I have no desire to sell her at this moment," Sesshoumaru responded, sounding disinterested. "If you want a slave girl so badly, then visit the slave store. I'm sure that there are many more where Kagome came from."
"Kagome? That's the slave girl's name?" Inuyasha demanded to know, narrowing his golden eyes. He liked the name instantly, and his desire to gain possession of the slave increased.
"Yes. Now, if you have finished your business with me, could you please leave so that I may get back to work?" Without waiting for a reply, Sesshoumaru returned to looking through his papers with a calm, attentive eye.
Growling in annoyance, the hanyou stormed out of the office, leaving his half-brother in peace. He wasn't happy about how things had gone, and he wasn't going to cheer up until he had his way. He was a stubborn demon, after all, and he never gave up on anything. To make that very point, he slammed the door on his way out.
Once Inuyasha was gone, Sesshoumaru chuckled and allowed himself a small smile. 'He certainly is entertaining. I must remember to do this more often.' Then his smile faded, and he went back to work.
The rest of the day was normal for the inu youkai, which meant that it was boring. He dealt with the normal problems, talked with usual people, and went through the normally large amount of paperwork.
When it was finally time for him to go home, he found himself not quite looking forward to that prospect as usual. He wasn't quite ready to deal with Kagome just yet.
'Taking her shopping is going to be exhausting, especially since I'll probably be forced to fight her slave training almost every step of the way,' he thought sourly, mentally scowling. 'It has to be done though. There is no way I want her to continue wearing that ridiculous outfit that she has. Some nice pants and shirts will do her a lot of good. I can't get her too much though, because none of it will probably fit in two or three weeks. As soon as her form fully fills back out, I'll make sure she gets plenty of clothes.'
Putting the rest of his work in his briefcase, Sesshoumaru got up and left his office. As he left, he said good-bye to a few of his employees, checked with his secretary to make sure that no pressing matters had suddenly popped up, and made sure some of the more important lab doors were locked. With nothing pressing that remained for him to do, he went home.
~*~
As soon as Sesshoumaru got out of his car, a most unpleasant smell hit his nose. It smelled like filth, dirt, and bad blood. 'Naraku has been here. He left a few hours ago, judging by how stale the smell is, but he was here.' He growled, having a pretty good idea as to why Naraku had decided to pay his house a visit. The hanyou had wanted the slave girl.
His mood dark, he went to his front door and unlocked the lock on the knob. He opened the door as much as the chain lock would allow him, wincing as more of Naraku's smell hit him. 'That damn hanyou was inside my house!'
Before he could shout for Kagome to let him in, she appeared on the other side of the door. He was a little surprised at how suddenly she had appeared, but he didn't let that bother him. He had more important things to worry about... like why Kagome had let the hanyou inside.
"Mi- Sesshoumaru-sama, if you'll let me close the door for a moment, I will undo the chain lock for you," she told him, her voice calm, dull, and still beautiful. As soon as the dog demon nodded his head, she shut the door, undid the lock, and reopened the door for him.
Sesshoumaru gracefully walked into the living room and set his briefcase down in a nearby chair, his face dark. He was not happy, so he immediately turned his displeasure onto the girl. "Why did you let Naraku into my house?" His tone wasn't very loud, but it was louder than usual and laced with anger.
She fell to her knees, pressing her forehead and palms to the floor the instant he began to speak. "Forgive me, milord! I did not let him in. He tried to enter though, milord; but I did not let him in." 'He's going to hit me now. There's no doubt about it. He's angry at me, so I can't see how he could possibly do anything else. I wish he would just hit me and get it over with though. Considering he's a youkai, it's really going to hurt.'
'I can smell fear on her. She's scared of... me?' His frown deepened. 'And she's back to the 'milord' stuff again. I don't think she's lying to me, but I don't see why she's so scared.' He stared at her for a few moments, and then it dawned on him. 'She thinks that I'm going to hit her. Since I'm angry, she believes that I'm going to take it out on her.'
"Please get up, Kagome. I'm not going to hit you," he told her, sighing very softly. When she stood back up, he addressed her again. "So, if you didn't let him in, how did his smell get into my living room?"
"Forgive me, milo-" She shook her head, deciding to try again. "Sesshoumaru-sama. I heard a knock on the door, so I opened it up a bit, leaving the chain still locked in place. The smell must have come in that way, Sesshoumaru-sama." 'He's not going to hit me? But... why? He is angry. I can tell that without any problems, but why doesn't he hit me?'
"Do you know why he came here?" he asked, hoping to get an exact answer.
"Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama." She paused for a moment, hoping that he would leave it at that. She really didn't want to have to say anything more on the subject of Naraku.
Sesshoumaru mentally sighed in exasperation. "Then tell me the reason." He couldn't figure out why the girl had suddenly become a little more difficult. He had expected her to give him the reason immediately, not make him draw it out of her.
"He wanted me to go somewhere with him," Kagome responded reluctantly, although she hid her reluctance well. She had obviously made her master unhappy once, and she wasn't about to do it again.
"Why?" He frowned slightly, not quite sure as to why Naraku would want Kagome. His brain was tired from the long day at work, and it was just plain refusing to come up with any answers.
"He didn't say, Sesshoumaru-sama," she replied simply, although she had an excellent idea as to what Naraku had wanted with her. She wasn't stupid.
The dog demon took one look at her and realized that she knew more. "You have a good guess, don't you?" Kagome nodded her head. "Then why don't you enlighten me?"
She mentally cringed. "I believe that he wanted to have sex with me, Sesshoumaru-sama." She hadn't wanted to say that, really she hadn't. She hated the fact that she had been used as a toy in the past, and she always tried her best to avoid speaking about it. However, if the inu youkai wanted to use her as a toy, then the spell would make sure that she was more than happy to comply.
Sesshoumaru's gaze softened considerably, but he worried about the dull, bored tone she had continued to use when she had said that last statement. "That is not going to happen to you while you're with me," he assured her. "From now on, I want you to stay away from Naraku. Don't go anywhere with him, don't do anything with him, and don't let him into the house. Don't even open the door for him."
"As you wish, Sesshoumaru-sama." She bowed to him, trying to keep a surprised look off of her face. 'All my other masters didn't care. They let Naraku use me as he pleased as long as he did it while they were gone. Why does this one want to stop Naraku?'
He narrowed his eyes slightly at her, considering something. "He's done this before, hasn't he? Before I bought you?" he asked, getting an affirmative response from the girl. "Did your other masters let Naraku play with you?"
"Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama." It took all her self control to keep her hatred from showing on her face.
"All of them?" he inquired, frowning when she replied in the affirmative. "And how many of them used you as a bedmate?"
"All 36, Sesshoumaru-sama," she answered, still sounding emotionless.
"Did you want any of them to use you as a bedmate?" he asked, carefully watching her face for any reaction at all.
'Well, at the time, yes; but afterwards, when they were no longer my masters and the spell no longer worked for them...' she answered mentally. "No, Sesshoumaru-sama," Kagome replied simply, her eyes just as blank as ever.
The dog demon growled softly. "I'm going to tell you right now that I am not going to force myself on you. I don't like slavery or the way slaves are used and treated. I am not going to behave toward you like all the others," he informed her, his tone one of sincerity. "As far as I am concerned, you are a free person, so I will treat you like one."
"Mi-milord?" she asked, her voice shaky. 'He... he can't have just meant what he said. There's no way... just no way at all.' She shook her head, forcing herself not to believe the inu youkai. She wasn't going to let herself be drawn into any trap. 'I let myself be tricked once, but never again. I will obey him with all my heart, but that doesn't mean that I have to believe every word he utters.'
"I do not lie, Kagome. I have honor," he told her firmly, leaving no room for argument. He wasn't about to let the girl think that he was a liar. That just wouldn't do. His father and mother had raised him much better than that. True, he wasn't the kindest person in the world, but he wasn't cruel either. Above all, he did not ever go back on his word.
"Of... of course, Sesshoumaru-sama. Forgive me. I did not mean to offend you." Again, she bowed very low to him, her hands on her thighs.
The dog demon rubbed the bridge of his nose to fight off the headache that was quickly coming. "You don't need to bow to me, Kagome," he told her.
"As you wish, Sesshoumaru-sama," Kagome responded, standing up straight.
He sighed mentally, knowing that it was going to be a very long evening. "Follow me, Kagome. I'm going to take you shopping and get you some better clothes." He turned and went back out the door, gesturing for the girl to walk behind him. She did as ordered without questioning him.
Once he had locked the door behind him, the inu youkai instructed the girl to get in the car as he did the same thing himself. With a soft sigh, he pulled the car out of the driveway and headed towards the mall.
~*~
At the crowed mall, Kagome stuck close to her master, faithfully following him like a puppy. She didn't like all the people being so close to her, but she put up with it. After all, Sesshoumaru had told her to follow him, and that was exactly what she was going to do.
Sesshoumaru went into many different stores, trying to find something that he thought the girl would like. Kagome wasn't being much help, much to his disappointment. She kept refusing to state any opinion at all. Well, avoiding his questions was more like it. 'She must be very deep in slave mode because she keeps insisting that she doesn't have an opinion. This is going to be a long, boring shopping trip.'
Finally, he gave up on making her choose something, and he picked her clothes out for her instead. He didn't chose anything revealing or indecent. Instead, he bought her nice, stylish clothes that were just a little bit big. 'I can't get her too many things now because she might not be able to wear them in a week or so.'
After an hour, Sesshoumaru decided that it was time to leave the mall. Kagome had a couple of shirts, two skirts, a couple pairs of nice pants, necessary undergarments, nightclothes, a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of nice, dress shoes. There was nothing he needed, so he saw no reason to remain at the mall any longer. Also, he was getting a headache again, and the noise in the mall wasn't helping.
"Kagome, we're going home now," he told the girl, knowing that she would automatically follow him out of the mall, carrying her half of the bags.
"As you wish, Mi- Sesshoumaru-sama," she responded instantly, doing her best to call him by his name as she followed him out of the mall. She had found the shopping trip rather interesting, especially when her master kept trying to get her to express an opinion. 'Does he honestly think that any slave is going to go against even one bit of their training while they're out in public? He must not know much about slaves, otherwise he would have known better,' she thought humorously, letting none of her amusement show on her face.
While she walked, her mind recalled how sincere he had sounded when he had said that he would treat her like a free person. 'He could be telling the truth. He does seem honorable.' After giving that thought a moment of consideration, she tossed it out the window. 'No. He's probably only toying with me. I know better than to trust my masters.' She studied the back half of her master for a brief moment. 'But my heart seems to be revolting against my mind and telling me to believe him. Perhaps I should- '
Kagome squished that thought like a disgusting bug, silently scolding herself as she did so. She knew how bad thoughts like that one were. She knew how dangerous it was for her to trust anyone, yet she had almost admitted that she could trust the inu youkai.
'What is with me? Am I losing my mind?' she wondered, mentally frowning at herself as she approached Sesshoumaru's car. 'I wouldn't have even considered that two days ago. Perhaps this youkai has some strange kind of magic that I've never seen?'
Kagome knew that Sesshoumaru couldn't have magic that was effecting her in that way. Neither youkai powers nor miko magic was capable of making someone feel like they could trust someone else. It just wasn't possible, but it was the only explanation that she could come up with.
Her mind kept trying to think of explanations all the way home, completely unwilling to consider for even a brief moment that the inu youkai was trust- worthy. The dog demon couldn't be kind. It just wasn't possible, and she was determined to stick by that fact.
It took her the entire way home to force her traitorous heart to believe that statement even a little.