Unliving

Chapter nine – Take me

He cracked his eyes open and wished he'd been dreaming. However, an undeniable pain in his back and shoulders assured him that he was not. He tried to move his head, and found that the pain was even worse. He felt stiff, and in a bad way! He opened and closed his eyes a few times, just to get used to the dim light in the room. The memory of what had happened immediately spread in the back of his head, and he frowned, while moving his fingers.

The bandages made him feel like a mummy. They were tied tightly and they limited his movements, but it was probably for the best. He moved his upper body, arching his back a little, and whimpered the next second.

'Bad idea.' He thought and resumed resting on his back. There was no point in avoiding pain, because his entire body felt like an open flesh wound. He actually hoped he would be almost healed by now, he assumed it was dark again, which would have meant that at least 12 hours had passed since Kagome had brought him back.

'Kagome…' his eyes searched the room for the one who had probably saved his… life. But she wasn't there, and Sesshoumaru again closed his eyes. An empty feeling flooded his insides, as he felt the unquestionable call of the Hunger. He growled deeply, and sat up on the edge of the bed, completely ignoring the pain that came with that movement.

'I cannot even move properly, there is no question of exiting the castle tonight.' His thoughts crowded in front of his mind, and his head spun for a few seconds. All his strength had been drained during the fight, and now he felt as weak as a mortal who hadn't eaten in weeks.

Another growl rumbled inside his chest, but he saw there was no point in making the pain even worse with this show of discontent. Slowly, he moved his head from one side to another and tried to flex his arms. His shoulders hurt like hell, but maybe not as much as they did last night.

The door opened with merely a squeak, and Sesshoumaru looked up from under his eyebrows to a seemingly hurried Kagome. She closed the door behind her, and just stared at him.

"You're up."

"Obviously." Was his answer, a little more unaffected than he'd wished. Kagome nodded, and headed towards him, stopping just before his knees.

"How are you?" He momentarily raised his eyebrows in a tired gesture and Kagome saw he felt horrible. He rapidly passed his tongue over dried lips, and she stuck her gaze on his mouth.

"Could you undo these?" he said, and Kagome snapped her eyes up, blushing a little. Fortunately, the dim light from the black candles hid her display of emotions.

"Uhm… sure." She disappeared into the bathroom, and came back with the same kit as the night before. Taking out the scissors, she cut the bonds, and began unwrapping his bandages, passing her arms around his body, back and forth.

Sesshoumaru observed her focused look and the shadows under her eyes. Her movements were slow but steady. He looked at her face as she carried on with her job and saw she was tired.

"Have you slept?" he asked, and Kagome gave him a fleeting look.

"Yes." She lied, and he frowned.

"You have not slept." He stated, as if he could be entirely certain. The look on her face told him that she hadn't.

"It doesn't matter." Kagome reached his cold skin and carefully undid the wrapping. Curiously enough, the wounds seemed to be closed, although still a little swollen at the edges, and carrying some ugly scars across his body. She was satisfied with the fact that he was in one piece, though, and as she cast the bandages completely aside, his torso looked significantly better than it had the night before.

"It does matter." He said, slowly moving his body to get accustomed to the feeling. The pain was lighter now, with the bandages gone, although still making its presence sturdily noticed. He couldn't move right, and his speed was significantly cut down.

"I haven't been asked anything if you want to know… By your employees, I mean. It seems like they are accustomed, or just don't care." Her words were distant, and Sesshoumaru wondered what she was really thinking.

"They are accustomed." He said, standing up with a grimace. He moved his shoulders, and Kagome could see that the holes were gone. Instead he had a few round scars working their way from his collarbone to the edge of his shoulders.

She went around him, desperately holding back the urge to touch his scars. She noticed that those broad shoulders were still as broad even without any clothes on, and that she was a little too disturbed by the sight of his body. Sesshoumaru gave her a side glance, as she gathered the mass of his hair to one side to examine the scars on his back. Those looked better too. Almost the same as the one on his chest.

"Will you be left with these scars?" she asked, sort of reluctant.

"Most likely. They will partially fade away in time, but I believe not entirely." He had said that as if he didn't care much. Kagome stared at his white skin, her eyes slipping down to his narrow waist and hips. She felt her heart pound once or twice, and she blinked, looking to one side.

But she couldn't oppose the memory of his cold touch, as it invaded her mind and she felt her fingers tingle, begging her to touch him again. She raised her other arm and passed her fingers over his back, avoiding the scars, as she feared they would hurt him. His skin was smooth and icy, and she smiled sadly.

Sesshoumaru felt her warm breath over his back, and tried not to tense at her unexpected touch. His wounds hurt, but the woman's stroke was like a balm. He only turned his head to one side, to catch a glimpse of her, and could see the serious look on her still face.

She wanted to know what had happened to him, who had done this, but was almost afraid to ask. So she just stared at his back, wanting to rest her cheek against him, and feeling utterly confused about her own desire.

She let go of his hair, and it fell heavily over his back, reaching all the way down to his thighs. She moved to pass her fingers through it, but stopped midway and put some distance between them instead, as she thought she couldn't take any more physical contact with him, without losing her composure. He made her feel… unsettled.

Now, that the danger of his death was passed, she felt like he was again at a safe distance from her, as if he had closed himself again, away from her and everyone else, for that matter.

Sesshoumaru bowed his head a little when she'd backed away from him, and felt some regret to her action. Her warm touch soothed him.

The constant prickle inside his gut was what he couldn't stand though. The lack of blood made him feel weak, and he knew that if he could feed, he would recover faster. But he couldn't feed, because he wasn't yet recovered. It was a vicious circle. Kagome eyed him attentively.

"How long before you'll be able to move right?" he knew what she meant.

How long before you can feed? But she was far too horrified and maybe even disgusted by the thought, to word it out like that.

"Another night, I suppose." He wasn't sure, because the little amount of power he had left was insufficient and as time passed, he grew weaker still from the effort to heal. Another vicious circle.

Kagome swallowed and frowned. He sat back down on the bed, and she approached him with a twinge of heart. She felt her pulse accelerate at a surprisingly high rate, and she wasn't entirely convinced that she wouldn't do something incredibly stupid. She was known to act on impulse, and this was the exact circumstance which allowed such unthought-of idiotic deeds.

Sesshoumaru lightly spread his legs to gain some balance while sitting on the edge of his bed without using his arms. She broke his personal space, moving between his legs, and he could barely stop from looking up. If he looked at her face, he was lost, and he very well knew that.

"You can't heal if you don't have any strength left. That fight must have been dreadful."

"It was a werewolf. They are always dreadful." She said, not looking up at her face, but focusing on the button of her white cotton shirt. His head was leveling with her chest, and was slightly bowed. Kagome swallowed.

"It's true. I'm right, aren't I? How often do you need to… do it?" Sesshoumaru almost sprung his head up at her, but clenched his teeth instead, sensing his fangs as they were lengthening.

"Normally I could go by without feeding for several nights, but…" he stopped, and she nodded lightly, understanding his conflict.

"But now you need it to heal, and it drains you like hell." Sesshoumaru felt a shiver pass him, and closed his eyes tightly. He didn't want her to…

'No. Not her. She's not a vessel. No.' he thought, fighting against the Hunger, threatening to take over his reason.

Kagome couldn't believe she was doing this. She couldn't even word it out, and now she was considering allowing him to… Her thoughts were parted between helping him and helping herself.

She felt her hands trembling as she fought to stay still.

"How much do you need?" Sesshoumaru heard her dim voice and took it like he would have taken a slap over the face. He didn't want to do this.

"No, Kagome. I will not use you like that."

"You have to." She said, her sad voice almost physically hurting him.

"I will recover, eventually."

"You'll be so weakened by the time you recover, that you won't be able to even move, even if your wounds are healed. I'm not stupid, Sesshoumaru. Will you just hear me out?" She raised his head and saw something utterly inhuman inside his gold eyes.

They were filled with a cold, raw desire and their wild look scared her. She tried not to think too much, as she feared that if she would, she could very well run away screaming.

Sesshoumaru looked into her violet eyes and felt his every muscle tense and wanting to move his body towards hers. His jaws were lightly trembling as he clenched his teeth, and fought off his hunger, and his instincts. At the base of facts, he was a hungry predator, and the prey was standing between his legs, offering herself to him. The mere thought of it made him lose his mind. His nose wrinkled a bit, and his upper lip involuntarily flinched up in a snarl.

He tilted his head, as Kagome widened her eyes in fear. His face was almost unrecognizable. He didn't look like himself anymore, he was wild, feral.

'What did I expect?' she asked herself, and realized that she didn't know him at all. She'd seen him as humanoid, and she completely ignored his other side. Sides, actually. She couldn't believe she'd made this huge mistake. Sesshoumaru was by no means human, not even a bit.

He was youkai, and vampire. Both predators, untamed and dark at the core. She felt fear clawing the inside of her. She had to stop thinking, if she stood any chance of helping him. She wanted to help him. But she had to stop thinking in order to be able to offer her… help. She wasn't accustomed to not thinking.

"How much?" she asked again, and Sesshoumaru unclenched his fangs. His stomach was burning him, and he felt his every fiber revolting against him because of his refusal.

Seeing as he didn't answer, she insisted.

"I would still be able to remain awake, right? I won't faint or anything…" he eyed her, barely keeping still. His claws found the silk sheets and drew holes in the soft fabric.

"You would not faint." He worded out, and she breathed heavily a few times, swallowing in awe.

'I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do…' she repeated over and over again, not wanting to let reason prevail… for once in her life! Her self preserving instinct was very powerful, she thought.

Sesshoumaru knew it was the only way, but he couldn't bring his feelings to agree to it. It was the logical answer for him, although not the emotional one.

Kagome nodded once, deciding it once and for all, and moved towards him, placing one knee on the bed, just beside him, then climbing on his lap and positioning her body to fit him well without hurting him. Her heart was hitting her chest unevenly and seemingly more and more powerful, and she was trembling like a leaf in the wind. Her thoughts melted into a messy blur the moment she felt him under her, and she closed her eyes, letting out fast and heavy breaths as she leaned her head to the side, collecting her hair over her shoulder.

Sesshoumaru was still unmoving, but the contact with Kagome's body sent warmth through his veins, almost as if she would have been the blood running through him. He unclenched his claws from the sheets, and caught the back of her neck with one hand, resting the other one on the small of her back, slightly pulling her closer. Kagome's breath caught in her chest and she felt like she should be backing from this embrace that could only bring her pain. Yet, she did not.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes, then reopened them with determination, and her tanned skin flooded his sight. He could see her pulse beating against her neck, and the rapid movement caused his lips to part in a hungry grin. He tilted his head and pulled her by the back of her neck, unclenching his teeth. His fangs were fully grown now, and he could feel his body urging him to take her faster.

"It will not hurt." He whispered, but Kagome barely understood him. With a scream of his feelings, Sesshoumaru opened his mouth and sunk his fangs into her neck, puncturing the soft skin and her jugular. She flinched and instinctively backed away, but he was stronger, and held her in place, not without some amount of pain and resent.

He found her blood and thrusted deeper inside, as Kagome let out a whimper. She felt like she would have been on drugs or something. After the short pain came a release feeling, and now she couldn't even recognize herself in what she felt. She went almost completely limp in his arms and had to put a hand on his shoulder, entirely forgetting about his wounds. Her eyes fell closed as she rolled them back.

If Sesshoumaru thought that he could maybe go easier on her at first, he found that it was fairly impossible. His need was too great, and her taste was too sweet. Kagome's blood spilled inside him like light inside darkness, tearing at his senses and healing him at the same time. He tightened his grip and went even deeper. This time, Kagome didn't whimper, but she moaned almost like… His thoughts blurred and he couldn't think straight anymore. He only wanted her, and no other thought could occupy his mind.

His cold lips gave Kagome chills, and she felt a warm trail of blood making its way down her neck. His hands were firmly holding her in place, and she arched her back pressing against him as he settled his rhythm. His movements had been somewhat random at first, but then he had deepened his thrust and now he was moving unhurriedly by an unheard pace. She couldn't think, and she didn't want to think.

After what seemed to be an eternity, he stopped and slowly backed from her neck. Kagome opened her eyes and didn't care to move. She felt him under her, and against her chest, and simply didn't care to move.

Sesshoumaru slowly ran his tongue over the trail of blood on her neck, and she rapidly took in air, opening her mouth in an astounded, unsaid "Oh". She felt his mouth over her skin, and he licked her wounds a few times, sending spears through her small, already shivering body.

He felt like he would have been reborn. The taste of blood was lingering inside his mouth, and he took a second to settle his emotions. He pushed her back a little, to look at her face. He could feel her shivering, and wondered why that was. Usually, the ecstasy from the Kiss didn't cause shivering. They always went limp and completely abandoned themselves to his grip. Kagome was tensed and shivering.

She opened her eyes and took in the shock of his golden stare. Sesshoumaru involuntarily licked his upper lip, and immediately after felt like he could kick himself. It wasn't an image he would have wanted her to see. She was more than a vessel to him.

But Kagome said nothing, nor gave any sign that she was disturbed by his action. Instead she touched her neck and found than she had no wounds. She gave him a confused look.

"I have closed them." He whispered, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Oh." She said, as if it were logical that he would do that. He still had his arms around her, and she did too. He opened his mouth to say something but she didn't want to hear it.

"Don't." she demanded, and he closed back his mouth. He'd wanted to thank her, but Kagome couldn't bear to hear it.

She climbed down, leaving him feeling rather alone in the bed, and tried to act normally. But the situation was far from normal, as fate would have it, and she didn't really know how she should react to him from now on.

Sesshoumaru just stared at her, saying nothing, as he wasn't sure what she could and could not bare to hear from him, at a time like this. It was maybe the most awkward moment in his entire existence.

"Was it enough?" Kagome asked, and for the first time in maybe 600 hundred years, he felt guilty for having drunk a human's blood. The feeling didn't even compare to what he had experienced in his first vampire years. Back then, it was disgust with consuming the blood of an inferior species in order to survive. Now, it was only the thought that he'd used her, although he was sure that without it, he couldn't have made it.

"Yes." He answered, trying to not break eye contact, but Kagome was avoiding him, and eventually she turned her back to him, and pretended to place the objects back in the medical kit. She was actually playing absentmindedly with the scissors. She couldn't define exactly what she was feeling. It was some sort of discomfort, and a significant amount of loneliness, like she would have been abandoned.

What he had just done to her wasn't even qualifiable as using, since she had offered herself to him. She actually didn't think it would feel that good, but the exact opposite. She dreaded the act in itself, the fact that he drank her blood, but she wasn't gonna be that hypocrite as to lie to herself. She'd enjoyed the feeling of his mouth over her neck, and his deliberate thrusts inside her. It was almost like making love, so intimate and consuming. She felt her cheeks burning and forced the thought out of her mind.

She turned to face him again, when she thought she could take the sight of his self-conscious gaze. Sesshoumaru didn't look as she would have expected. He wasn't trying to comfort her; he didn't care to ask what she felt like. Maybe he already knew, after all he had done this so many times, to so many… Her mind paused, and she felt dirty.

Suddenly, the realization that he'd done just that with maybe thousands of other people (actually, women was more like what she had in mind) made her feel common, just another… vessel, like he would have said it. A stinging pain shot up her stomach and into her throat, and Kagome whimpered as he stared at him.

Her eyes forced out the tears she didn't care to shed in his presence, and she felt the drops silently making their way to her chin. Her entire body began to quiver, and she slowly backed into a wall, and then sat directly on the floor, her head turned to one side and her arms resting on her knees.

Sesshoumaru wanted to do something to stop her crying, but didn't now what he could do. Nothing he could have said seemed good enough, mostly because he knew why she was crying. There was no point in trying to comfort her. No truth could have been more obvious that the one she'd just learned, while realizing how he'd used her and so many others before her.

Eyeing her salty tears, and aware of the absolute silence in which she shed them, he thanked the gods she wasn't looking towards him anymore. Her violet eyes simply could not hold the stigmata of a victim, and he simply could not take the reproach she most certainly threw at him right now.

Kagome eventually stopped crying, and breathed deeply a few times, standing up.

"I'm gonna go eat something." Without any more ado, she exited the large room, closing the door behind her with a small noise.

Sesshoumaru heard her footsteps moving away from the chamber, and he just sat there unable to think of anything at all. His wounds still hurt, but he decided to move around a little just to occupy his time with something.

:---:

Kagome ate her dinner in absolute solitude, as Emma didn't ask her much about her whereabouts the last night, and Kagome couldn't care less what anyone thought anyway. She felt like she wanted everyone to just leave her alone. She wanted to sleep. Looking at the clock, she saw that it said 11:23 pm. It was late, but she'd been used to staying up until 2-3 am. She felt tired, and her every muscle asked for rest. So she headed to her room, passing through the large empty hallways of Muncaster.

The angel gave her a weird look as she passed by the staircase, but she only glanced at the beautiful painting. It looked too much like him.

Crashing onto the large bed, Kagome fell asleep in a matter of seconds in a dreamless slumber.

Take me, lease, I'll die without you…

Kagome shot her eyes open and looked around. It must have been midday. She'd distinctively heard a woman's voice next to her.

"Kikyo… Where are you?" she whispered, but no answer came to her. She stood still for a few seconds, but then decided she'd just about had it with this entire thing, and wanted to eat something.

:---:

"Emma, could I have breakfast at this late time?" she said in the speaker phone, and the maid's voice seemed to hesitate for a second.

"O-Of course, Miss Kagome."

"Good, I'll be coming downstairs in an hour or so."

"Very well." She closed the phone and went straight to the shower. She still felt dirty.

:---: