Chapter 11: Day 47
The innkeeper gave her a suspicious look as she dropped her pack on the ground.
"What kind of cat is that?" he asked, trying to peer at Kirara, who was in small form and had buried her face inside Sango's hair per standard procedure. Cute as she was, the elderly were always suspicious of her.
"A mountain breed from the north," she said. "Do you have any additional rooms available?"
He finally stopped trying to peer at Kirara eyes. "A few more. why?"
"For my companions," she began, "they should be arriving sometime—"
"Inuyasha! Osuwari!"
"—never mind," she finished quickly.
The giant crash interrupted their conversation. The innkeeper whirled around, bewildered, then quickly bowed and barreled into the house shouting for answers. Blinking, Sango left her bag for the servants and walked around to the other side of the building.
She found them in one of the larger rooms, the screen door ajar slightly. A table had been set up for tea. On the ground outside, Kagome was standing up, hands on hips, and glaring down at a snarling Inuyasha. Beside her, Shippou was sniffling.
"Stop picking on him," Kagome was saying.
"You treat him like a baby," Inuyasha snapped back. "He will never learn if you keep stepping in when he causes problems."
"He wasn't doing anything bad!"
Sango quietly moved to the table were Miroku sat, serenely drinking tea. She raised an eyebrow at him and he merely smiled.
"Nice weather, yes?" he said. "Here, try on of these." He handed her a thin, metal-like bag that crinkled in her hand. Inside were weird thin shapes.
"What's this?" she said, examining the bag. It was silver and reflective inside. An incredibly light form of metal? But it didn't feel like metal and it was far too light…
"Chips," he said absently. Then he saw her pointing at the bag. "Oh. No idea. Some kind of container that people use in Kagome's time?"
Shippou, who had slunk over to her in a pitiful bid for her affection, perked up immediately at her question and inspected the bag with a self important air. "I've seen a lot these before," he told her proudly. "There all over the place in Kagome's time." But he didn't seem to know what it was either.
Sango was interrupted in her investigation by a loud gasp.
She looked up to see Kagome running towards and she had a painful sense of deja vu, a flash of her brother running towards her outlined by the sun, before Kagome had wrapped her arms around her neck. She forced herself to breath, patting the crown of Kagome's head, and quickly averted her gaze when Kagome pulled away and beamed back at her.
"What is this?" she said quickly, nearly shoving the bag in Kagome's face. At the girl's confused look, Sango clarified, "the shiny metal stuff?"
"Oh." The confusion cleared. "I think that is aluminum? It's a type of metal that you can cut so fine that its flexible and light."
Sango blinked, intrigued despite the fact that she had asked as a distraction, and was going to open her mouth to ask about its potential to make weapons when Inuyasha stepped up into the room after Kagome, muttering darkly to himself. Her eyes flashed up, meeting his at the exact moment he noticed her in the room. He paused, his angry expression ebbing away.
"Aluminum is pretty cool," Kagome was saying to Sango, which she barely heard over the sudden buzz in her ears. Memories of their last encounter flashed through her mind, making her nervous. Should she feel nervous? Kagome was saying, "—There are all sorts of interesting uses for it in the future because it's cheap, flexible, conducts heat and electricity well—"
To Sango's own consternation, Inuyasha broke the gaze easily and turned to Kagome. "Kagome," he grated out. "You know she doesn't actually care."
Sango tried to suppress her flush even as Kagome vaulted to her feet, hands on hips. "And who says," she snapped, "You? Just because you don't care doesn't mean everyone else doesn't—"
"Just because you think someone cares doesn't mean they—"
Shippou jumped up, "Hey, you big—" A thump and a muffled shout, and all the occupants turned to look at him. Or rather, at who was now holding him.
"Gods," Miroku said loudly. He was sipping tea calmly with one hand, the other arm keeping Shippou's head securely under his armpit. Shippou's struggles were valiant, but clearly futile. "Can you guys give it a rest? It's still the morning."
Kagome looked at Miroku, flushing, then glared back at Inuyasha and stuck her tongue at him. He bared his teeth.
Sango held her arms out to Miroku, looking pointedly at the monk's own lapse of maturity with a raised eyebrow. With a put upon sigh, he grabbed Shippou's skull with one hand and deposited the now snarling kitsune into Sango's arms. The kid easily submitted to her embrace, even as he hissed and spit at the monk, who only raised a menacing eyebrow at him.
Taking pity on him, Sango petted Shippou's comfortingly, amused when he immediately started to make funny purring noises between nasty glances thrown in Miroku's direction. Kagome came over to her, putting her head next to Shippou's and commiserating in loud grumpy whispers with the kitsune about the stupidity of men. Miroku sipped his tea, ignoring them all beatifically, and Sango tried not to roll her eyes.
She looked up, still smiling, only for her pulse to stutter in her throat when she found Inuyasha's gaze practically burning holes into her. He hadn't so much as batted an eyelash at her a moment before. And now he was..angry? No that was not quite right…
Before she could figure out the expression on his face, he clamped down on it quickly, his scowl now sullen, and sat down with a thump against a wall. He didn't look at her for the rest of the day.
Day 49
Things started to get… weird.
At first, she thought maybe it was because Inuyasha didn't like how easily Sango was always accepted back into the fold. How Kagome clung to her like she was starved for a female/sister/friend, how Shippou jumped on her shoulder when he was getting sleepy from walking, how Miroku seemed to always weigh her opinion above the others.
She was the not-quite-stranger that flitted in and out of their lives and she could see—and did see—how it buried under Inuyasha's skin. How he grit his teeth and looked away.
Then she thought maybe it was because of their last encounter. Or the encounter before that. Something had changed between them, whether she wanted to admit it or not. He was not a monster anymore than she was. And he was not heartless. Any more than she could be.
It was a good thought, until she realized after a few hours that it felt like only she had changed. While she was suddenly noticing him more, he continued on blithely ignoring her. No, he was acting perfectly normal in that regard. So after some contemplation, she shelved that idea and returned to her original one.
But that wasn't all of it. Another small piece clicked into place when another equally banal squabble broke out in the morning. As the argument escalated, she realized with a start that Inuyasha seemed to be increasingly biting his tongue. She had only known him to bluntly say whatever he felt.
She mulled the idea over breakfast in silence, staring at her tea, trying to carefully piece together her thoughts. Miroku and Kagome chatted amiably, Inuyasha with his back to them all in sulky silence. She stared at his back through mouthfuls of rice and fish.
There was a distance, she thought. A yawning distance that she had never noticed before. Between Inuyasha and everyone else.
Maybe she had only noticed now because her own hypocrisy was laid bare before her since the other night. Her own words haunted her. I will use you all.
As if reading her thoughts, she saw him turn his head, catching her eye before she could pretend she wasn't staring. Anger spasmed across his face—she didn't know what her expression looked like, pitying? She flushed, caught, looking down into her rice. When she did look up again, he was staring stiffly at the wall.
She thought Inuyasha would lash out at her more after that, but in that, she was mistaken. Rather, he barely looked at her. When he did, there was a dismissiveness to it that at times both infuriated her and appeased her sense of guilt. She should really just mind her own business.
She repeated this to herself as she went searching for fire wood with Kagome later that night. She half-listened to Kagome's chatter, chewing her lip and telling herself it was absolutely her imagination that there were a pair of eyes watching them both from the dark.
She had her own problems. She couldn't even begin to think of how to help herself, so how was she was supposed to help someone who probably didn't even want her to?
That night, stretched out under the stars near the campfire as everyone else slept peacefully, Sango resolved to put the thoughts aside.
But still, it gnawed at her, hypocrisy.
The dream began the same like every other night.
He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. She watched him covertly from where her head rested in the curve of his arm, fingers toying with his dark hair, tracing the shape of his nose, his lips. His expression was smooth. So at odds to the face in her memory of hours before, intense and piercing. She felt her neck flush a little.
"What are you thinking about?" she whispered.
He crooked a half smile at her. It transformed his face, pulling at the laugh lines around his violet eyes and mouth. His hand ghosted along her skin, and she shivered.
His smile widened. "What are you thinking about?" he said, and the flush crept into her face. His eyes traced it, darkening.
He rolled them over, her on her back while he towered above her, his arms bracketing her shoulders.
Then something shifted, the world spinning—
Now she felt grass under her back. The ceiling was gone, given way to thousands of bright stars. His golden eyes looked beautiful under the moonlight. He leaned over her, silver hair falling all around her.
Her mouth opened under his, the prick of fangs on her tongue. His hand was on her chin, then her neck, fingers tracing the collar of her dress before returning to cup the ball of her shoulder, his thumb settling in the hollow under her collar bone.
She moaned. She felt his smirk, the point of his teeth.
Boldly, his hand moved lower, cupping her breast through her dress—
She flung her eyes open with a gasp, fumbling with the blankets. Sweat trickled on the back of her neck, her chest. She nearly rolled into the smoldering fire beside her, jerked back to barely avoid it, and scrambled to her hands and knees instead. She stared at the ground, panting, her rabid pulse overwhelming her head and sight.
Kirara made an inquiring noise, lifting her head from the other side of the fire. Miroku too had stirred, moving into a sitting position. He blinked at her, quickly assessing, and when he found nothing alarming, brought a hand to his mouth and yawned.
"You okay?" he asked.
Sango jerked her head up, then shifted to a sit with her legs stretched out, leaning back with her arms supporting her.
"I'm—" She paused, swallowed thickly. "I'm okay."
Miroku nodded, yawning. Kirara cocked her head at her, slitted eyes narrowed, and Sango looked away with a flush.
"Just a dream," she muttered to the cat, moving to lay fully back and stare at the sky. Bright stars, white and yellow and gold.
Her body still burned where he'd touched. No, he hadn't touched. He'd never touched and he never would touch, she reminded herself.
She tried to ignore the pair of golden eyes that, even from some several yards at the perimeter, was boring into her upturned, flushed face. After a moment she turned to lay on her stomach, turning her back to him and staring with wide awake eyes at the grass beneath her hair.
Day 50
The young woman shook her head. "I haven't heard anything recently. But you may want to head to the village down the road. They get visited by caravans more than we do."
How many villages ago had she started hearing that?
Sango tried to smile, knowing it probably looked as stiff as it felt. "Thank you. I appreciate your time." She bowed.
The girl nodded and moved away, shifting her basket of fabrics from one hip to another. Sango watched as she meandered through the crowd near the village center, pausing at a stand with a young man who looked up with a grin at her approach.
She wondered how the others were faring. They'd just split up this morning and were planning to meet again at one of the larger villages in the area. She wondered if Miroku had charmed his way into another woman's house again. If Kagome had cajoled Inuyasha in to—
She grimaced, kicking a sandal into the dirt. No, she did not need to think about them right now. She was going to see them in a day, about twenty miles east of here. All the villagers she talked to for the last few days kept sending her farther and farther south.
One more village, she thought, turning her back to the bustle and sound of the village square. Somewhere a child laughed.
One more village.
Day 51
She found him in the castle gardens, plucking the petals of a small purple flower. On seeing her he stood up, laughing. He grabbed her hand, dragging her further into the garden, into the deep parts she'd never walked. The vines became thick and snarled. They reached for her, his hand slipping from her fingers—
Her back hit a tree. He was standing over her, silver-limed and glorious in his rage, sneering, a clawed fist above her head. Her heart hammering in her throat, she took a fist full of his red haori, pulled—
They were in the rain again. Except this time, he didn't pull away. Instead he laid down flat on top of her, her arms still caged above her head. She waited, trembling, as his hands travelled down her wrists, his nose nuzzling into the crook of her neck.
When he did kiss her, finally, it was so infinitely gentle that her heart clenched—
Day 52
"Do you, uhh—" Kagome hesitated when Sango looked up from viciously sharpening her sword with a whet stone, but then blustered on bravely, "—want to take a break and go wash up? There is a hot-spring nearby."
Sango paused, looking blankly at the abused stone in her hand. When even Kagome could tell Sango was in a foul mood, there was a serious problem. Sango sighed, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Sure."
The girl grinned, bouncing on her feet with barely leashed patience as Sango put away her tools and her sword and gathered her bathing things. She chattered to Sango as they walked away from the campsite in an easy way that required only hums and grunts as responses, and Sango was only too happy to let the sounds wash over her, soothing her frayed nerves.
She'd found nothing useful in their search for Naraku. Worse, she'd not slept through a full night the last two days. Her eyes probably looked bloodshot. She didn't care. She'd almost decided not to meet up with the group at all, but that was a coward's way out, and besides clearly being away hadn't stopped her from dreaming.
She should have been relieved that she was no longer dreaming about the memories of Kagewaki. Except she wasn't. Because what she was dreaming about now…
She'd gone early to the appointed camp site and had so buried herself in armor repairs for both her and Kirara's gear that she only barely noticed when the others showed up, and thank the gods, but pretty much all of them had gotten the hint and left her alone—
The hot-springs, it turned out, was a small pool nestled into the rock, just large enough to fit a couple people but no more. But it was deliciously hot. When Sango had quickly and efficiently scrubbed her body and hair clean in the nearby cold stream, she didn't wait for Kagome to finish and quickly made her way to the pool. When she lowered herself stiffly onto one of the submerged rock ledges, the heat made her eyes roll briefly to the back of her head. She draped herself pliant and happy onto a protruding rock and just basked in the heat like Kirara occasionally did under the bright sun on lazy days.
Kagome joined her minutes later, sighing in delight as she too submerged up to her neck. They talked only a little, light, superficial conversations punctuated by long moments of comfortable silence. It was perfect, exactly what she needed. Slowly, Sango felt the knots in her neck and back start to loosen.
Eventually, Kagome started to feel dizzy and got out. Sango stirred from her comfortable, drowsy sprawl, feeling slightly guilty. "Shall I get out with you?"
Kagome waved her down in between sliding her shirt and skirt back on. "No no, please stay. You look like you need a few more minutes. I'll just walk up and down the river a bit to cool off, then I'll come check on you if you're not out yet, sound good?"
Sango acquiesced easily enough, sinking back into the lovely heat. She listened as Kagome, humming, picked her way down to the river bank and began prancing away, arms swinging akimbo, until she disappeared from view.
It didn't take long, however, for the peaceful moment to fade away. Without Kagome there, Sango no longer had a buffer from her thoughts. The longer she sat there, the easier it was to start brooding, and soon even the warmth of the water was more stifling than pleasing.
With a sigh she too rose from the hot-spring, toweling herself and pulling on a clean underdress. Her taijya suit she would leave out to fully dry by the fire over night. Not wanting to return to camp and its inevitable company, she found herself moving higher up the cliff that the hot-spring was nestled in, in the oppose direction Kagome had gone.
The top of the cliff wasn't really that much farther up, so she hulled herself up with little effort. At the cliffs edge, a large boulder sat, and beside it, just enough space for her to squeeze into. She placed her back to the boulder, her legs dangling over the edge and propped her chin in her hands, looking down at the landscape. The view was nice enough—not high enough that she could see out of the valley, but enough that she could see the tops of some of the trees below and the river as it wounds its way farther west.
The longer she sat there, the more she became aware of a pair of eyes on her. At first, she stiffened, then she tried to relax and ignore it, but the longer the seconds ticked, the more the muscles in her neck start to bunch up. Eventually she sighed, then turned a sharp gaze behind her into the perimeter of trees.
"I know you're there," she said crossly, getting to her feet. Using the a hand on the boulder as an anchor, she moved away from the edge. "If you're trying to hide yourself, you're not doing a very good job of it."
Inuyasha didn't skulk out of the shadows so much as he stalked out of them, arms crossed. The moon was a thin crescent, slowly waning over the last few days as the new moon approached. But even in its sliver of light, the silver of his hair caught and shown luminescent, casting long sharp shadows on his face. He was always at his most harshest—and his most beautiful—under the moon. She looked away, scowling.
"Did you find anything?" he asked. The ears on top of his head were twitching restlessly, one turned to her and the other at their surroundings.
She glared at a pebble at her feet, kicking it heartlessly over the edge. "No."
He paused, processing. "How far south did you go?"
She pointed explicitly to her left, down the valley. She heard him step closer, probably craning his head and squinting. "See that village over there?" she couldn't but he probably could. "That one."
It had taken her several hours by flight on Kirara. They'd made good time and good distance, even he would have to acknowledge that. He grunted, which was as much of as an admission as she would ever get from him, but made no move to step away again. He stood there, maybe an arms length from her back, and even at that distance she could almost feel the heat of him. She wished he'd go away, give her peace back. Give her her sleep back.
When he opened his mouth to ask another question, she cut in harshly, "Why are you asking this? I told everything to Miroku already." Go ask him. She hoped he'd get the hint.
There was a long silence, and then he said slowly, "Contrary to what you may think, I don't actually answer to Miroku."
The bite in his voice made her turn to him involuntarily. He was staring stonily into the horizon. When he looked at her, amber eyes flashing in the moonlight, she found a surprising resentment there that made her only gape at him.
"Sorry," she murmured finally, unsure of what else to say.
After a moment, the emotion flickered out of his eyes. He grunted. They both turned, looking out to the vista again.
Slowly, Sango told him about her latest findings over the last few days.
He mostly listened, occasionally asking her a question here or there. They were good questions, and she found that he was surprisingly observant. Soon he was leaning against the boulder and she was crouched on the ground beside him, back resting against the rock as she sketched out her next plans in the dirt with a finger.
"If you guys head this way, then I'll head this way—" she was saying.
He grunted, shaking his head. "I don't think you should."
She paused, looking up at him. "Why?"
"Because Kagome sensed multiple jewel shards in that direction."
Her stare turned into a glare. "I can handle myself."
He looked down at her carefully. "I know."
She blinked.
"—But we don't have enough information about what's over there," he continued, ignoring her reaction. "And you can't tell me you've faced that many jewel shards at once before."
She mulled that over sourly. "Fine," she said with some reluctance. "But what else is there to do? We don't have time to check them one by one."
Suddenly, his expression turned inscrutable. He watched her in silence for a long moment until she started to feel nervous and asked, "What?"
"We could split into teams" he said finally, deceptively casual.
"Teams," she frowned. She bit her thumb. "Well I guess that could work. If Miroku came with me—"
Inuyasha made a sudden violent movement in her periphery and she cut off abruptly, looking up at him. His expression flashed first to something close to embarrassment, then to anger, then to defiance, but she felt only puzzled. "No? Well then what else…"
She trailed off, staring at him. He returned her stare warily.
"Do you—" she started tentatively. "Do you want to go with me?"
Silence. He looked surprised at what she'd said. Or maybe the way she'd said it.
His jaw worked for a moment, unable to formulate any words, then he looked away, grunting. He scratched at the side of his face with a clawed finger.
"There'd be too much of a power imbalance," he said. She knew what he meant. Miroku was strong, but his greatest strength was his spiritual powers, same as Kagome. Sango, on the other hand, was a close quarter and long range specialist. Like Inuyasha with Tessaiga and the wind scar, actually. It didn't make much sense to pair the same type of specialists together.
He hadn't answered the question, though.
She felt a flush work its way up her chest. The thought came to her suddenly, out of no where. What would it be like traveling with Inuyasha?
His hands slid up her waist, skimming her front, then sliding up the underside of her arms, urging her arms to rise. His thumbs caressed the joint of the elbows, then rose higher, enclosing around her wrists, briefly, so that she was pinned with her arms above her head against the tree—
"That would be a very bad idea," she agreed quickly, ducking her head to stare at her knees. Out of her periphery of her vision, she saw him stiffen, turning sharply towards hers. She wished her heart would stop pounding.
Let it go, she willed to him across the space between them. Let it go.
Sango was never so lucky.
"A very bad idea?" he repeated slowly, and there was something dangerous in his tone that made her look up instinctually. Then she wished she hadn't. He was glaring at her, the gold of his eyes so bright against the dark that she felt her pulse jump in her throat.
Oh no. This was going somewhere she didn't want it to go. She lifted both hands up, trying to diffuse the situation. "Come on, Inuyasha," she tried for light, swallowing. "It's not a secret that we don't get a long."
His face twitched. There was a heat there that scorched her insides. She couldn't tell if he was angry—no he was definitely, angry—but there was something else too… "We could," he bit out darkly, "if you would occasionally concede."
Concede.
Memories of the night of their spar hit her like a ton of bricks, and she mentally flailed for a moment. Which was exactly what he must have intended, judging by the smug look that flashed lightening quick across his face. Damn him. She stiffened, flushing. "Maybe if you occasionally stuck to the rules," she shot back.
"There are no rules in a fight," he replied immediately, just like he had back then.
She rolled her eyes angrily, pushing herself to her feet. "Oh please. Can you ever just—"
He blocked her path, his presence so sudden that she cut off abruptly, nearly stumbling back. Her back hit the boulder. Then he took a step forward and he was crowding her against the rock, his hair a silver sheet around them, his face so close that she could see how the silver of his lashes reflected against the gold of his eyes.
"Are you afraid of me?" he said, and there was something simultaneously derisive and challenging in his tone that had her bristling despite being cornered.
"Of course not," she snapped, glaring up at his face.
And then he did something that made her freeze.
His gaze flickered down. His hand came up, slowly, knuckles ghosting up the skin of her hand, then the sleeve of her arm. His finger picked for a moment at the collar of her dress and she remembered sharply, aghast, that she was only wearing an under robe. She shrunk against the rock, resisting the urge to cover herself.
His eyes flickered at her movements. "Going to run away again?" he said softly, a hint of disappoint in his voice. Like she was some coward. He was baiting her, she knew he was baiting her.
And she took the bait like a fool, teeth snapping, "No."
A flicker of a smirk against his mouth. The flash of his canines. She stilled, eyes catching on his teeth, heart thumping. She watched as the smirk faded under her gaze.
"No?" he said, and then he was leaning closer, and the back of her head hit the rock hard, but he merely tilted his head and leaned into her neck, the heat of his proximity a ghost touch on her skin.
"How about now?" he asked harshly, his nose brushing her ear in first skin to skin contact, searing her to the bone. She shivered.
She shook her head mutely. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was pounding. She couldn't pretend like she didn't know where this was going. And she shouldn't want this. She really shouldn't want this. Not after what Naraku had done. And yet…
She had imagined it. Dreamed it. And she had wondered, in her darkest, most shameful moments. Could she chase away the memories of him, the loneliness those memories left in her, if she replaced them with new ones?
Her mouth worked, trying to form words. "This is a bad idea," she said again, voice almost hoarse.
He stilled. "Why?"
"Why?" Frustration rose in her and she barked a harsh laugh. She reached out, clutching the lapel of his haori. But she didn't push him away. "We don't know each other enough. And we don't need another complication when…" We are searching for Naraku.
And what about Kagome? She still didn't know what lay between the two of them…
"This doesn't have to be complicated," he grunted, interrupting her thoughts. She stilled, eyes flickering up to his, and her breath caught. His eyes were dark, dark amber. Not red. Just a color so deep she couldn't see where his iris started and his pupil began.
Did it make her an awful person that the thought of Inuyasha wanting her as much as she wanted him made her want to surrender to him completely, regardless of the consequences?
"How can it not be?" she asked, afraid.
The knuckle of his hand grazed her cheek. The look in his eye was surprisingly serious. "Like you said." He paused, then echoed her words back to her. "This doesn't have to change anything, if you don't want it to."
The words hung between them, balanced on the edge of a knife. He was giving her a choice. She didn't flatter herself into thinking this was anything more than shared lust and perhaps a mutual respect, and it was wrong, it didn't matter how lonely she was or how much she craved simply being touched again—
Before she lost her nerve, she pushed to her tip toes and pressed her mouth to his.
She felt his sharp inhale of breath. His arm lifted to rest beside her head, caging her in, but he didn't make any move. He let her take control, pressing against him, her tongue licking the seam of his mouth, and when he finally opened up his mouth to her, she slipped in to trace with her tongue a single canine.
He shuddered against her, fist clenching near her head. She pulled back a little, panting for breath, and felt he was breathing equally as hard.
Her eyes fluttered open, to find that he was already looking at her, pupils blown, and pure heat rolled down her spine at the sight, flooding her senses. Later, she would blame that for the way she smiled against his jaw and whispered, smug, "I concede."
His body jerked at her words, eyes flashing hotly as he was suddenly crowding her again, his hand moving to sink fingers into her hair—
"Sango?" came Kagome's voice from below, curious.
The tension broke in the worst possible way. They broke apart immediately, him with a soft curse, her with a shaky breath. Then, when she knew she couldn't just stand there looking like an idiot, she pushed away from the rock and peered over the edge. She looked down to see Kagome looking around near the base of the hot-spring. Soon enough, the girl had spotted her and was waving an arm. Kagome put her hands to her mouth. "What are you doing up there?" It sounded like she thought Sango was alone.
Sango peeked a glance back at Inuyasha, who had turned away from her slightly at Kagome's call. Already, to her great disappointment, the color in his eyes had returned to a steady pale amber. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, staring blankly at nothing.
She looked away, clearing her throat. "Just taking in the sights," she called down. Then before Kagome could offer to come up, she added, "I'm coming down right now."
The girl nodded, then proceeded to begin gathering their wet clothes. She would wait until Sango came down before heading back to camp. So there was no excuse to not head down. Not a tenable one, anyway.
She looked back to find Inuyasha studying her. While the immediate need was gone, there was something calculating in his gaze that made her pulse quicken, made her self consciously clutch at her dress sleeves.
He didn't approach her, but he didn't have to.
"We are not finished," he said darkly, his tone as absolute as a vow and she shuddered under his gaze, "and next time, you are going to make good on your word."
He walked away first, leaving her standing there.