A/N: I am SOOOOOOO SOOOOOO SOOOOOO SO sorry that this is so late! I've been dying under all the work I've had to do and, well, Jess was being a butt until he got more brownies. Honestly, Thank you so much to those who reviewed last chapter. I almost cried when I saw how many hits my story had! 1,703! I love you guys so much!
Disclaimer: Despite the hundreds of posters plastered all over my walls and the hundreds of CD's in my collection, I DO NOT OWN InuYasha OR The Phantom of the Opera.
RECAP
A second before it happened, Sesshoumaru realized what he was going to do. But he was too late. Naraku leaned down and captured Kagome's lips in his own, startling her out of her trance.
Kagome began to resist. This was wrong. His lips felt cold and fleshy, not at all warm or tender. Her eyes flew open as he bit down on her lip, causing a droplet of blood to form. He caught it with his tongue and smiled triumphantly as Sesshoumaru howled in anger. The entire bar went silent.
Ch. 7 Echoes in Whispers
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Kagome pulled away from Naraku and looked over her shoulder in terror. Sesshoumaru was standing not five feet away from them, his eyes glowing red and facial markings returned. His fists were balled at his side, and he snarled as a trail of blood went down Kagome's lip and onto her jaw.
Inside Sesshoumaru's head, only two things stood out. What he thought, and what his demon nature thought. They agreed perfectly.
Demon Sesshoumaru: 'Mine. Mine. MINE! Punish him!'
Rational Sesshoumaru: 'How DARE he draw pure blood from her! HE WILL PAY!'
"Sesshoumaru." Guilt appeared from nowhere and stabbed low in Kagome's gut, she could barely gasp out his name.
"Let.Her.Go. You had no right to draw pure blood. Now, release her go before I slit your throat." his claws rose menacingly and with a promise of death.
'Draw pure blood! What!' "Naraku let me go. What's he talking about?" Kagome tried to pull away and confront him face to face. Easily, Naraku turned her back to him and held tightly to his body. Her eyes widened as she felt something stab her lower back. 'That is so gross!'
"Umm…Naraku? Mind letting go of me now? I like you and all, but I just don't think it'll all work, okay? Better off friends and such." She was struggling now, desperate to get away from him before she got caught in the middle of something. That something being a full out bar brawl.
"As you wish Kagome. But I warn you, you won't even be able to so much as touch him, any of them for that matter, without the smell of your blood driving him mad." with a calculating smirk he let her go. "Sooner or later you'll give up even trying and just come to me on your own."
"Get away from me!" She shoved herself away from him and dashed behind Sesshoumaru, into the waiting arms of Kouga. Seshoumaru barely noted that she was safe before he took off in a split second, intent on tearing out the bastard's throat. He settled for a face-crunching blow to his jaw instead. Naraku stumbled and hit the opposite wall from the force of the blow, a trickle of blood glistening in the corner of his mouth.
"Now LEAVE Naraku! And NEVER come near Kagome again. If you do, mark my words: I. Will. Kill. You." His rational side was barely able to take over. He had no intention of someone as innocent as her seeing the gore of demon battle, if he could help it.
Kagome studied his profile from where she stood. He stood in a classic stance, back straight with his legs stiff and apart. His lips were a straight line and his entire face rigidly locked and devoid of any emotion, save his eyes. His eyes were no longer red, and although lacking their scarlet hue, they were no less cruel. His markings were still visible, along with his elfin-like ears and vampiric canines, adding to his presentation of pissed off.
"Now why would I do that? I do believe I like it here. I think I'll stick around for a while longer, make sure my little songbird enjoys herself." Naraku smirked at the growling Sesshoumaru. "Oh, I'm sorry, did that reek of innuendo? I do apologize."
"Naraku, please, just leave." Kagome found her voice after a few moments of struggling. She wanted to get out of there as fast as possible with a minimal amount of dead bodies.
"So my diva commands." A black cloud of noxious smoke gathered at his feet and spread along the floor of the club. Kagome watched in horrified fascination as tendrils of smoke clawed their way up his body to form a cocoon before he disappeared.
She breathed a sigh of relief, but noticed Sesshoumaru was still tense. She followed his gaze to where Naraku had been. Before anyone, demon or human, could react, the miasma regrouped and exploded full force onto the rest of the bar.
People ducked and scrambled, trying to avoid inhaling the poison. Sesshoumaru grabbed Kagome away from Kouga, his back to where Naraku had been, and held her face firmly to his chest, shielding her from the fumes, his free arm thrown across his face. Kouga stood shoulder to shoulder with Sesshoumaru protecting Kagome, his own arm protecting his sensitive nose.
"Sesshoumaru! Get her the fuck outta here! He took Kikyou and Kohaku, can't sense them anywhere, and I gotta get everyone else out! InuYasha took off after Naraku, so GO!"
He didn't need telling twice, and he silently smacked himself for not thinking clearly. He held his breath and lifted Kagome into his arms and cradled her there so her face was still smothered into his shirt. He sped out the door and down the city streets, passing wailing ambulances. He didn't stop until he reached Kagome's apartment.
He clanged his way up the stairs and set her feet down onto the concrete outside her door, but she held fast to his shirt. Her nose remained buried in his chest. She began to shake. Shivers combined with sobs wracked her small frame as she clung to him as if her life depended on it.
'What am I supposed to do?' he panicked 'Make her stop, please.' The normally calm and cool Lord Sesshoumaru was at a loss. He had no idea how to bring her comfort. Maybe if he tried what he did with Rin, would she calm?
Slowly he rubbed slow circles on her back with one hand, the other combed through her thick hair. Deep in his chest, he growled softly enough for her to feel it against her face. His nose nuzzled into her hair, his breath warm.
"They're gone…because of me…God…Sango…. it's all my fault." Kagome spoke in a hollow empty voice, tears streaming down her cheeks.
No! This wasn't what he wanted at all! Desperately he nuzzled her neck, placing small kisses meant to calm an upset mate. He whispered against her, and held her, more frantic to soothe her as the moments ticked by. He pulled her closer and rocked her back and forth, nestling his nose to the base of her neck at her shoulder, taking in deep pulls of her scent.
She couldn't think straight. Kohaku was gone and so was Naraku. She was in shock and didn't know what to do. She didn't even feel Sesshoumaru was there untill she felt him softly nip her shoulder.
Shocked, her eyes flew open and up to his, but he continued. He would stop nipping long enough to breathe deeply against her. His warm breath against her neck made her drowsy and she tilted her head exposing more of her throat to him, an unconscious sign of trust.
Nips and kisses went up and down her neck in a blind delirium. Sesshoumaru felt a comfortable red haze settle over him as his tongue began to lap away the trails of tears on her face with his tongue. He whimpered as they continued to pour down her face steadily. But still she clung to him.
She accepted his ministrations without question, making him continue without control. Her scent was intoxicating. More heady than any wine, but clear as spring water.
'Rain and roses, clean and pure…pure…' it began to click in his mind 'Pure. Blood. Pure. SHIT.'
He pulled away so fast Kagome's head spun. Still dazed, she brought her hand up to her still warm cheek. Quickly she tried gathered her thoughts.
"Wha…what? Sesshoumaru, I don't understand. What just happened? And what did you mean by 'draw pure blood?' back there? What the hell is going on?"
Sesshoumaru leaned heavily on the wrought iron railing meant to stop small children, animals, and drunken frat boys from falling to their deaths five stories ass over feet into the ground. He kept his back to her and buried his face into his open palm. How was he going to explain this without her flying off the proverbial handle?
Kagome watched him carefully, scrutinizing every detail of his back as she waited for an answer. She watched as his ribs expanded slowly and less perceptibly with each breath. How his neck and back tensed up further in his rare display of bad posture. Every little bodily movement spoke defeat.
She leaned against the wall softly and crossed her arms across her chest in an attempt to stay the cold night air now attacking her at the loss of extra heat. The trails of dried tears mixed with Sesshoumaru's, well, saliva made her skin feel like cold leather about to freeze. The rims of her eyes were cold and wide from crying, giving her a slight deer-in-the-headlights expression.
Sighing, she studied the odd stucco looking concrete, waiting for him to say something.
"What he did is despicable." Kagome jumped about a mile at the sound of his voice. It was still the same, but somehow hoarse? She brought her eyes up to the back of his head and waited for him to elaborate.
"What he did, was-IS a cheap way of marking you. When a demon wishes to have a certain female he will draw her blood to mark her as his, I'm sure you know that much." Kagome nodded behind his back and he continued.
"Scent is the strongest sense a demon relies on, being much stronger than a human's. Your…virgin… blood is now out in the open, so to say. He drew your blood without claiming you as a mate or even a prospective mate, all the benefits of a mate without the responsibility. You are now his "virgin whore". A bolster to his status as a demon. Marked as a…future notch on his bedpost." he cringed. "Every…available…demon can smell it, and now desires it, before he gets to it. (AN: Really not one to mince words is he? Shutting up now) But they can do nothing because another demon male drew the blood first from you.
They will then try to convince you they would make the better… mate, making complete fools of themselves. This will go on until you begin feeling a deep revulsion for any and all males in such a state. All males but himself. He will sit back and watch, keeping his distance, waiting until you are so worn down, that you will welcome his company, as he makes no advances and allows no others to."
"In other words, I'll only be able to stand him because he doesn't follow me like some twitterpated fool? But that's to easy, it's all in my mind then-"
"NO! Gods, no! Why don't you understand?" In a rare show of impatience, he began to pace back and forth in the six-foot space between Kagome's door and the door across from hers. The steady sound of his feet was only broken by the short snarls and sighs escaping his lips every other moment.
"What I did just now put you in a lot of danger. By technicality I have begun the cycle and now all will vie for your… hand. And to have to watch them touch you will…" 'kill me. Oh gods.'
"Will what?" Kagome's heart drummed against her ribcage. Would he finish that sentence? She shyly turned to look at him, and started, eyes widening, at the difference. His cold icy stare pinned her to the door and he stood ramrod straight with his hands behind his back.
"Good night, Kagome. I have seen that you are home safely enough to assure that wolf and idiot half-breed you will be fine." He turned sharply on his heel, jumped over the rail, and landed lightly on his feet at the bottom. He walked away without a second glance back leaving a stunned and very hurt Kagome.
Kagome stood there. Her mind completely halted and ceased to function, leaving her anger and disgust for Naraku and her confusion and hurt for Sesshoumaru to be saved to come back full force when the impact of what Sesshoumaru tried to explain finally hit her.
Out of pure habit she pulled out her keys and let herself in. She dropped her coat from her shoulders as if it were lead in the entryway and slowly made her way to Shippou's room, not even acknowledging Cassie curled up on the couch with more textbooks and a veritable lake of drool.
Kagome stood in Shippou's doorway and watched the kit just breathing. Every now and then he would change positions or throw his arms around a spread-eagled bouyou. She just watched and didn't let herself think. Letting her hand fall from the doorjamb where she had been leaning on it, she silently padded to her bedroom a few feet down the hall.
Inside, she shut the door and stared blankly at the bookshelf across from her door and next to her bed. Feeling like her eyes saw something before her brain she studied the spines of the well-worn books. Austen, Steinbeck, Bronte, Dickens, too many more to keep track of sat silently on their shelves. On the edge of the next to last shelf sat a black leather bound copy of Rebecca that hadn't been there before, Her own dilapidated paper-back copy sitting two shelves up.
Set in the spine seemed to be a rhinestone or some other fake glassy bauble. Forgetting everything she bent to pull the book off the shelf, but it stuck. It seemed to be stuck in the shelves, like it had been shoved there knowing it was too big to fit. Tugging with what little strength was left in her arms, the book finally came free with the sound wires popping.
Hanging like copper vines from her wall were torn cables. The "stone" in her book sparked and blinked red before darkening. The lens of a mini-video recorder.
With Naraku…
Silently the image of Kagome on his laptop computer fuzzed out into snow. Naraku smirked as he looked over onto his bed across the room of his flat. Kohaku was curled in the fetal position on the bed, his ankle chained to the bottom bedpost. Kikyo sat at the coffee table flipping through a magazine wearing nothing but a see-through robe and some scraps of cloth that passed for lingerie. He completely understood Kohaku curling up in fear after seeing that…
Naraku clicked off his computer and stared at the black screen for a moment. He stood and slowly stretched, checking that the keys to Kohaku's shackles were still in his pocket. Thought the boy served him well, albeit under force from threat of harm to his sister, he still did not completely trust him to freedom. Thus the earlier theatrics. He smirked as he made his way over to Kikyou.
Author's Corner: Well, there you are! Please don't kill me! I know it's short and Naraku's a bastard AND Sesshoumaru was a royal class ass, but I do have a master plan!
Jess: Uh-huh. I'll believe that when pigs fly my dear mademoiselle. Your plan only includes staying up until 5 in the morning typing and calling it a story-
Sorry Folks! Jess is currently tied up and gagged at the bottom of my closet with an IV of chocolate to sedate him. I hate him yet I love him, I love him yet I hate him…well…. hate's too strong. And I'm rambling! So ignore my early morning stupidity and tell me what you think! Thanx all!