Hi everyone! Chapter 7

And of course he had been right. Now Kagome turned her head to look at the sun-drenched landscape through which she was traveling. She had not had a good night. Not then, nor any night since.

And she could not even blame anyone but herself. Oh, he had been a stinker, not telling her who he was, leading her on, using that profoundly dubious sexual expertise against her.

But she had started it. No matter which way she looked at it---and in the ensuing lifetime she had looked at it from every angle there was---she could not get away from one inescapable fact. He had said it was her choice. And she had made the first move.

She put both arms over her middle, as if she were in pain.

"Heaven help me," she said aloud.

The car pulled up at a flight of moss-covered steps. Kagome sat up with a jerk. She must have fallen asleep. For a moment she did not know where she was.

The driver swung round in his seat.

"San Pietro," he said reproachfully.

Kagome looked round. As far as she could see they were in the middle of a wood. Tall chestnut trees were planted seemingly at random. The track which they had come almost lost itself in places under a riot of hedge grow plants. The leaves were so green they seemed to be burning in the sun.

Kagome appreciated the picture even as she registered that there was not a soul in sight. More important, there was no Castello.

For a moment she quailed. Then she pulled herself together. The driver looked more than disappointed than any kidnapper would be under the circumstances.

"It's beautiful," she said. "Er---bello."

It seemed to be the right thing. He beamed and swung out of the car. He held the door open.

"Thank you."

She scrambled out and stood up, sniffing the air. The woods smelled of summer, of moist earth and vegetation racing wildly towards maturity. Now she looked more closely, she saw early wild roses and the small bindweed tumbling among the hedge grow. She drew a long breath.

"Beautiful." This time she meant it.

The driver got her pack out of the trunk and put in on the bottom step.

Kagome thanked him. "But where is the house?"

It was too much for his English. He looked blank.

She tried again. "Castello?"

He grinned and waved his arm up the steps. They looked as if no one had climbed them for a hundred years. Kagome gave private thanks that she was wearing sensible shoes.

"Oh, well, adventure is good for the artist," she muttered.

She pulled out her wallet from the much she wore around her waist. The driver shook his head violently. It did not take much floundering through their two languages to work out that the trip was already paid for. So there was nothing for Kagome to do except thank him, heave her pack onto her shoulders and start up the slippery steps.

He got back into the car and she heard it bump off down the track. When the engine died away, she was left in silence except for her own breathing. Kagome stopped, listening. No, not silence. Somewhere in the wood to her right there was running water. A desultory bird called in the afternoon haze.

It all felt very strange. For some reason it made Kagome uneasy. She had not expected the place to be so wild. Or so lonely. Still---

"I know there's a Castello round here her somewhere," she said aloud with determined cheerfulness.

She went on up the steps. And then suddenly, turning an overgrown, she came upon a huge oaken door. It spanned the steps and was set between gray stonewalls that curved away into the trees as far as the eye could see. They were quite twenty feet high and looked as if they had been there for centuries. She fell, open-mouthed.

"Where there's a door, there's a doorknocker," she encouraged herself.

It was like something out of a fairy tale. In spite of her trepidation, Kagome could not help laughing. Feeling a bit of a fool, she began to pass her hands carefully over the door's old wood.

The knocker took some finding. For such a huge door it was rather modest. And when she had rapped as hard as she could, there was no response at all. In the distance the bird called again, and was silent. Kagome's unease grew. She looked over her shoulder nervously. But the woodland hillside and the steep steps were empty.

She banged the knocker again, with the full force of her arm.

And then, with a creak that any horror movie director would have been proud of, a small door set into the larger one swung slowly open. No one came out. Kagome's heart started to bang. But she was no coward and she was pretty sure that this was a test of some sort. More and more like a fairy tale.

"This is ridiculous," Kagome muttered. She raised her chin and said in the sort of voice that quelled the lower grade tens, "Love the effects. Where's the director?"

There was a soft laugh. And Sesshoumaru Takari stepped through the doorway.

Kagome was so relieved she could have kissed him. It was only for a moment, of course. But a moment was enough to give him the triumph he wanted.

She saw his eyes flare and knew that he had seemed her instinctive reaction. But by then she had remembered her dark suspicion about the ease with which Souta had made these arrangements. Remembered, too, Sesshoumaru's deception, his cleverness, and the heartbreaking skill of his seduction technique. But by then it was too late.

It made her so furious she could have screamed.

"I might have known," she spat at him. "Did you deliberately get me all the way out here so you could scare the living daylights out of me?"

He was more laid back than she ever seen him, in well-washed shorts and no shirt. It was horribly, maddeningly sexy. He gave her a lazy grin.

"Nope. That was bonus."

Kagome was speechless.

He took her pack from her and looped it easily over one shoulder.

"Good journey?" he asked, quite as if he were an ordinary welcoming host and she a willing guest.

Kagome was not going to allow herself to be deflected but hospitality. Especially when it was spurious.

"A great deal better than it would have been if I'd known I'd find you here," she said between her teeth.

"Which goes to show how right I was not to tell you," he said complacently. He gestured to the small wooden. "After you." Kagome hesitated.

"Where were you thinking of running?" he asked softly.

She looked at the sun-filled chestnut trees with loathing. He was right. The taxi was long gone and she had not the slightest idea where she was. She did not even know how close she was to the nearest village. And if she tried to reach it she would certainly get lost in the woods. All of which Sesshoumaru Takari had presumably calculated in advance.

There was nothing else for it. She gave a small shrug and allowed herself to be led inside.

"Good thinking," he murmured, closing the door after them.

Kagome hated him, then. She said nothing, though. There was no point. And she would have her revenge, she promised herself. Sesshoumaru Takari was not going to be allowed to get away with trickery like this.

They were in a small garden. It was filled with a geometric pattern of low box hedges and a startling amount of statuary.

"Your collection?" she asked in a cool little voice.

He frowned quickly. "Part of it, certainly."

It was an interesting combination of baroque nymphs and ultra-modern pieces. Normally Kagome would have wandered happily, discovering. It was measure of her temper that she barely let her eyes rest on a voluptuously naked lady throwing herself backwards onto a diving dolphin.

Sesshoumaru did not miss her determined indifference. He said with irony, "you must let me show you round."

He put his arm round her to guide her through the intricate pathways. Kagome moved away decisively. His arm fell.

"I've given you a room in the turret. It's not as grand as the main suites but I didn't think you'd mind that. You get a wonderful view."

Kagome's flash of temper was uncontrollable. "I don't care if you've put me in the hen coop. I won't be staying."

He remained maddeningly calm.

"I hope you're wrong."

"You can't kidnap me," she said with contempt.

"Of course not." He even managed to sound shocked, damn him. "It's just a question of practicalities."

Kagome was instantly on her guard. "What sort of practicalities?"

"I think you'll find you ticket is not exchangeable."

There was a nasty silence as she took this in.

"Of course, you may have brought enough money to pay your fare back on another flight…"

He left it hanging in the air. There was no need for Kagome to say she had not brought anything like enough money. It was written all over her.

He relented. "You really don't have to see any more of me than you want, you know."

"What do you mean?"

He gestured to the castle ahead of them. The closer they for to the building, the greater the crick in Kagome's neck as she looked up at its formidable battlements. It felt huge.

"There's more than enough room for both of us," Sesshoumaru said with irony.

"But---"Kagome was bewildered. She stopped and looked at him very straightly. "Why did you bring me here?"

The gold eyes were ironic. "Did you think it was to finish what we started?"

She flushed. But she held his eyes steadily. "The though did flit across my mind."

"Banish it."

He sounded perfectly sincere. So why wasn't she relieved? Kagome asked herself. It couldn't be---could it? ---That she had wanted him to say something quite different.

Sesshoumaru saw her hesitation and misinterpreted it.

"Look, the Castello is supposed to be a center for artists to work. We have master classes for musicians. In the summer there is a whole month devoted to painting. You're just here between scheduled groups, that's all."

Kagome found the flaw in that argument. "So why are you here?"

He gave her a soundless laugh. "I am not entirely selfless."

She thought about that. She did not like the sound of it. Again she could not have said why. Oh, this man was tying her up in knots.

She said almost to herself, "I wish I knew what to do."

"Stay here," Sesshoumaru said swiftly. "Use the studio. Go out and paint the landscape. Forget about me.

The trouble was, thought Kagome, that was easier said than done. Not that she was going to enlarge his already huge ego by saying so. She shook her head wearily.

"All right. I'll give it a try. I don't seem to have much choice, do I?"

There was an odd, intent look in his eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to reach out and touch her. Instinctively she braced herself. But he was only shifting her pack.

"Try and keep an open mind, Kagome," he said quietly.

And took her into the house.

One thing he had said to her was true at least, she thought. The Castello San Pietro was enormous.

The room he took her to was circular, sitting on top of a larger round gallery with a mosaic floor and painting that made her catch her breath.

"It's like a cathedral," she said.

Sesshoumaru nodded, not unduly flattered. "It started out as an abbey. This part if Romanesque. Then the Abbot fell out with the local landowner and the Count moved in and took over."

"I didn't think that sort of thing happened in Italy," Kagome remarked.

"They were also brothers. Family feuds happen everywhere."

She pulled a face. "Tell me about it."

Sesshoumaru put her dusty old pack down carefully on a sixteenth-century blanket chest.

"Do I detect a woman who falls out with her siblings?" he asked lightly.

Kagome shook her head. "No siblings."

"No? Then that's something else we have in common." (Ace: I know, weird, but I don't want Inuyasha to be in my story. For give me, those who like Inuyasha… but sometimes I get really annoyed by him and his idiocy. Sorry, maybe in my next story.)

His voice was smooth as honey. Kagome sent him a suspicious look. She did not ask what was the first thing they had in common. She was half certain that she knew. And it was not a subject she wanted to bring up in a remote room with a huge four-poster bed between them.

Instead she said hurriedly, "I've got a rather---critical father. Not that we fall out exactly. He doesn't approve of me." She was rueful suddenly. "Or my mother. The wonder is they stopped fighting long enough to have me.

Sesshoumaru nodded as if she had just given him a valuable piece of information.

"Ah. Divorced?"

Kagome could not prevent herself shuddering. "Eventually." She turned way, looking out blindly into the green distance. "My father left when I was sixteen. But these things take time."

"Don't they just?" agreed Sesshoumaru. He said with great deliberation. "It took me longer to get free of my wife than the time we were actually married."

"Married!"

Kagome was so startled that she topped looking out at extinct volcanoes she was not seeing. She felt as if the floor had given way and she was hurtling down towards the mosaic floor below. But of course he would be married. How could she not have thought about it before?

She turned. Sesshoumaru's expression was unreadable.

"Does it bother you?"

Kagome was thrown into confusion.

"Yes. Not. Of course not. What has it got to do with me?"

He did not smile but there was a gleam in his eyes. "Only you can answer that."

She backed up. "Nothing," she said hastily. "Nothing at all."

He bent his head in acknowledgement. "If you say so."

He left.

Kagome did not have much to unpack but it took her a crazy amount of time. She kept getting things out of her bag and then sitting down, undecided about where to put them this was partly because half the cupboards she opened proved to have a stock of painting tools and materials such as she had never dreamed of being able to afford.

She ended up throwing her clean clothes all anyhow into the herb-scented drawers. Then she collected her box of paints and chalks, the soft roll of rag that kept her brushes straight and her pad of oiled paper and returned to the ground floor.

Almost at once she was lost. The medieval part of the castle was really no more than the ancient hall she had come through and the rotunda where she was housed. The rest was an eighteenth-century mansion. She found herself in a high-ceiling salon with wide windows and creamy tiled floors. And spectacular furniture: inlaid cupboards polished to a golden gleam, brocades the colors the sun struck out of the landscape outside, marble-topped tables, intricately carved bookcases.

Kagome was no expert on antiques. But she knew enough from her degree course to look about her and gasp at the treasures. Nothing else had brought home to her how truly---unimaginably---wealthy Sesshoumaru Takari really was.

It made her obscurely angry. When the man himself appeared through the double doors at the end of the salon, she turned on him like an avenging angel.

"This stuff is worth a fortune," she accused him,

Sesshoumaru blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Kagome was working herself up into a real rage. "It should be in a museum. Not sitting around here getting faded." She remembered her painting things and clenched the box to her bosom protectively. "I could smear charcoal on it. Or oil paint. Or---or anything."

His eyes danced. "You could," he agreed gravely. "Are you going to?"

She stamped her foot. "It's not funny."

"I agree. It took eight weeks the last time the chairs re-covered. We were sitting on the floor. I had intended to come here for Christmas. I had to go to the Caribbean instead."

"The Caribbean!" That only made it worse. Kagome was very nearly in tears. "You're seriously rich, aren't you?"

Sesshoumaru looked at her with a curious smile. "Yes."

She hugged her painting box. "And you paid me to come here. And put me up. And all that painting gear in my room."

She was clearly distressed. He watched her for a moment, unspeaking.

Then he said, "The Takari Trust supports all sorts of artists."

"But not the artists you know," Kagome said, really upset.

His eyebrows rose. "Don't you mean not artists I want to go to bed with?" he said coolly.

"Oh."

"We're both adults," said Sesshoumaru. "Let's not pretend."

Kagome swallowed. Her eyes slid away. "I feel like a parasite," she muttered.

He looked amused. "I don't think so."

"I do. I---"

"Parasites," he drawled, "are quite happy with what they are. If the creature they're battening on fancies them like crazy, so much the better."

Her painting box fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. Thoroughly disconcerted, she stared at him. He picked the box up and threw it carelessly on a satinwood drum table that was probably priceless. Kagome winced.

"Sit down."

He did not touch her. Still dazed, she sand onto a white and gold-painted spindle-legged chair. Its fan-shaped seat was designed for hoped skirts rather than jeans. Kagome was beyond noticing.

Sesshoumaru leaned against an open shutter, one thumb in the belt of his shorts. He looked as scruffy as she felt. And yet he owned all this. Kagome felt her head spin.

He said dryly, "Some men are born rich. Some achieve riches. Some men have riches thrust upon them. The last one is me."

She blinked. "What?"

"It happened by accident," Sesshoumaru said patiently. "I'm no wheeler-dealer. I never went looking for money. I just thought of a process before anyone else did. Then I'm the richest kid in the lab."

Kagome shook her head, bewildered. "I don't understand."

He passed a hand over his face almost as if he were tired.

"I'm a chemist. I take little bits of this, little bits of that, put them in test tubes and wait for them to blow up." His face darkened. "Or I did." He shrugged it off. "Anyway, one day they didn't blow up. I'd found the plastic coating of the twenty-first century. Or so they said. At least until someone improves on it. And I hold the patent."

Kagome looked round at the still-sun-filled salon, the heavily ornate mirrors, the heritage furniture.

"All this?" she said in disbelief. "From a plastic coating?"

"A plastic coating no one had ever thought of before," he corrected. "It improved every electronics system from jumbo aircraft to the in-car CD player. And, incidentally, my standard of living."

"You don't sound very happy about it" said Kagome dryly.

Sesshoumaru shrugged. "Maybe if that's what I'd wanted from the start…."

"Most people would have thanked their lucky stars."

"Would they?" His eyes were hard. "I doubt it. Everything changes, you know. Not just the bad stuff. Ok, once I'd got Takari up and running I could risk opening letters from the bank. I didn't have to choose between talking a girl to the movies on Saturday night or eating on Sunday."

"Did you ever?" said Kagome, fascinated.

"Sure. Ceila---my ex-wife---wouldn't look at me when I first joined the lab. She told me she didn't waste her time with scruffy students."

Under the cool tone, Kagome could detect an old pain. For a moment she almost put out a hand to him. Almost. His smile was crooked.

"My father was a mathematics teacher. He was paid peanuts. Mother sits on committees. She isn't paid at all. I got through university by carrying bricks on building sites."

Kagome tried not to look at the muscles in his naked shoulders and signally failed. He saw the direction of her glance. A grin his somber mood.

"No, I don't do it anymore. These days I have to work out if I want to stay fir. Back then it came with the territory. I hauled bricked or I didn't eat."

"Well, that has to be an improvement," Kagome pointed out.

"I don't deny it."

She heard the equivocation in his voice. "But---?" she prompted.

Sesshoumaru shrugged again. "I told you. It's not only the bad stuff that changes. Everything stands on its head. Including people." He was cynical. "Particularly women."

Under the cynicism, Kagome heard pain again and was shocked. "Surely not all women?" she protested.

There was a pause. His eyes were very gold, suddenly intent. "I thought so, certainly."

Kagome found she could not look away. Her heart was thundering. He must hear it in the quiet room. The moment seemed to stretch out endlessly.

And then, suddenly, there was another noise. A phone beeped insistently. Kagome jumped. The moment was gone.

Sesshoumaru was annoyed. "I knew I shouldn't have let Naoka talk to me into bringing that phone. She promised the office wouldn't disturb me but I ought to have stuck to my guns. Excuse me a minute."

He went quickly out of the salon. Kagome hesitated for a moment, then picked up her painting box and followed him. After all, if she was going to stay here, it was only sensible to work out the layout of the Castello, she told herself.

The salon opened onto a hallway graced with a huge staircase that Kagome suspected was marble. It was hung with dark portraits. Urn stood at every landing, filled with palms and trailing ferns. There was no sign of Sesshoumaru.

Kagome hesitated, then made her way cautiously into the room opposite the salon. No Sesshoumaru again. This time the furniture was second empire, including an impressive piano and a harp. There were also plenty of photographs.

Kagome inspected them quickly. They were happy, informal shots in the main. The people in them seemed to be having a great time, picnicking in woods she thought she recognized or grouped around a pool. There was one, much more formal, clearly taken in this very room, with the men in dinner jackets and the women in long dresses with bare gleaming shoulders.

One or two of the women were beautiful, she saw. She tried not to mind. Why would she, after all?

The blonde that Kagome had seen with Sesshoumaru on that first day was in several of the pictures. Even windblown and with wet hair by the pool she was gorgeous, Kagome recognized. In black satin with a pearl choker, at some reception, she was devastating. It was a depressing thought.

But Sesshoumaru himself was a notable absentee. So he must be the photographer, Kagome judged. Presumably this was one of those master classes he had talked about. Kagome wondered if he enjoyed them as much as the participants appeared to and decided he must do. A lone painter was going to prove disappointing entertainment by comparison. At least---

She hurriedly gave her thoughts another turn and continued her exploration.

She found the pool. It was still as a sheet of blue plastic, surrounded by great terracotta pots of pelargonium. Kagome shook her head at it but she smiled. It was too much of a temptation for someone who was here to work. She plunged on through formal gardens to what was obviously the vegetable plot, then out into the wood itself.

In the end, she found herself in the lea of a hilltop wall where she could look back at the house if she wanted or out across the volcanic valley if she preferred. She tucked herself into the arm of the wall, unpacked her pad and chalks and began to sketch rapidly.

As the day cooled, the birds began to sing again. A pair of swallows dived in and out of the trees beside her. Kagome lowered her pad and watched them. By now she had eight or nine sketches of different subjects and was feeling quite pleased with herself. The gentle air of the late afternoon must be having a calming effect, she thought. She even felt quite well disposed towards Sesshoumaru Takari. After all, it was due to him that she found this magical place.

So when she heard him calling, she did not retreat into the undergrowth but raised her head and called, "Over here."

He was bearing a bottle and two glasses. He had still not put on a shirt. Kagome was shocked at the little lurch her stomach gave at the sight.

What was wrong with her? She was a professional artist, for heaven's sake. She had drawn naked men three times a week for years.

He put the glasses on a mushroom-shaped outcrop of rock and undid the wire, which held down the bottle's cork. Kagome raised her eyebrows.

"Champagne?" she said suspiciously.

Sesshoumaru grinned. "Asti. As local as you're going to get before dinner. This is red wine country. Good stuff, but it needs food with it.

Kagome looked across the wild hillside. In the late sun the hills sent long shadows over a broad, flat valley. Beyond it she could see the trunk of an old volcano. The view looked as if it had not changed since the Ice Age. Not a hospitable vine in sight.

"Doesn't look like any sort of wine country to men," she said. She nodded at his makeshift table. "Pumice?"

"Observant," he said, holding the cork and turning the bottle easily.

"I'm an artist," she pointed out. "Part of the job description."

The cork came out with barely a hiss. He held the bottle with the carelessness of long practice and when he poured the foaming liquid, none of it spilled. He handed her a glass. Kagome took it with caution.

"I don't drink much."

Sesshoumaru smiled. "That's all right. I'm not going to give you very much."

Kagome's eyes narrowed. She suspected an unpalatable meaning.

"Why?" she challenged.

His eyes were wide with innocence. "That's quite a climb back up to the Castello. I can't carry a comatose woman up forty steps."

Kagome choked on her wine. He had carried her up the flight to his bedroom in Tokyo. From Sesshoumaru's wicked expression he was remembering it---and everything that followed. The picture it conjured up made her feel hot. She had a nasty suspicion that, that was exactly what he had intended.

She drew several steadying breaths and said crushingly, "Then you'd have to summon help."

"Oh, I would," he assured her earnestly. "But it could take some time. The village is at the bottom of the hill."

"The village---"

Kagome realized that she had been given a new and unwelcome piece of information. And that he had deliberately kept it from her until now.

"Are you saying there is no on in the house?"

"Not while we're out here, no."

"But---" She looked back up the hill. From this perspective you could see the tower very clearly. It looked like a small village. "It's a mansion. You must have people to look after it."

He shook his head. "No one lives in. The Bates' look after my Tokyo house and they're great. But sometimes a man wants to be alone."

Kagome looked at the Castello again. It did not get any smaller.

"Then why but a palace?"

Sesshoumaru gave a crack of delighted laughter. "All the people who have come out here since I bought, and not one of then has ever said, '"Isn't it too big?"'

Kagome sniffed. "Well, if you don't want staff, it seems daft. Why did you do it?"

"I didn't mean to," Sesshoumaru said ruefully. "I was looking for a small farmhouse. But the Castello was falling down. It needed rescuing." He added deliberately, "I like rescuing things."

"Don't you mean subsiding them?" Kagome said waspishly.

There was a small silence. Then Sesshoumaru put his glass down.

"I'm getting the message that my income is a problem for you."

Kagome realized she had been led into indiscretion. "It's nothing to do with me."

He came towards her.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said hastily.

"Good. Neither do I."

Sesshoumaru took her glass away from her. He seemed much taller. She had to put her head right back to look up into his face. He was laughing gently.

"I thought you weren't going to touch me," she reminded him breathlessly.

"I lied."

She put her hands up to ward him off. A mistake. They met bare warm flesh. Kagome jumped as if she had touched live electricity. He laughed quietly, privately and touched his mouth to hers.

And then she was lost.

He slid his hands her shirt. Kagome swayed against him, eyes tight, tight shut, feelings she had suppressed for too long bubbled up. This time the memories of that night in Tokyo were not so easily banished. Was it only four days ago? Remembered sensation caught her by the throat. Her head began to spin.

Í was born for this, she thought. It alarmed her.

But he did not kiss her. Confused, she opened her eyes. "Your decision," he said quietly.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Sesshoumaru gave a crack of delighted laughter. "All the people who have come out here since I bought, and not one of then has ever said, '"Isn't it too big?"'

Kagome raced up the spiral staircase as if a screaming mob were after her, which was nonsense. Sesshoumaru was still in the garden. He had let her go without resistance. He had not tried to pursue her. No, what was after her now was all in her own head, screaming at her that she was not going to escape much longer.

She flung herself into her room and banged the door shut; she leaned against it, breathing heavily. She was shaking. This was crazy. She could not go on like this. If only she had more experience, any experience, something to give her a clue about what he meant and how she was supposed to hang onto any sort of dignity when he looked at her like that.

She gave a little sobbing sigh and came away from the door. A tall mirror stood in the corner. Kagome felt as if, like something else out of a fairy story, it had been waiting for her all her life.

She swallowed. Stepped forward. Pulled her t-shirt over her head. Faced it.

The scar was not as bad now as it had been when she was sixteen.

It snaked up from her hip, across her body, in a jagged line where the bull's horn had caught her. It no longer had the awful look of a weeping wound which had made her father turn away and had sent Hiten leaping back in disgust.

Kagome put her fingertips to the puckered skin. No one had seen it since that terrible moment when Hiten had fled. She had even avoided looking at it herself. Now she made herself.

This was the ultimate test, she realized. Sesshoumaru wanted her trust. Well, here was the key.

In Tokyo, it had been too dark when he had stripped off her t-shirt. He had not seen this. She had stopped him turning on the light.

But if they made love here---properly made love--- Sesshoumaru would want to her. Would have a right to see her, as she had a right to see him. If she took her clothes off for him again she would have to endure him seeing what no one had seen for six years. Have to risk him flinching, as her father had flinched. Retreating, she Hiten had retreated, with a muttered, embarrassed excuse and a look of absolute horror.

Could she bear to risk that again? From Sesshoumaru whom she nearly, so nearly trusted?

Could she bear not to?

Sorry it was major late, but I have tons of schoolwork…seeing as there's school…

Anyway, the next chappie might be little late as well…hope you guys wait.

Thank you for reading, and hope you continue.