Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha

Beta: Tokahlia

A White Rose _ A Kiss of Desire

Chapter 3

Kagome was quiet as she lay motionless on her back. She had left their camp on a whim due to her frustration at the hanyou. She knew for certain that she could subdue him but it was too much of a drag to do so constantly. No good merit could come from doing so and so she had left. It had taken some time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness; it was quite dark this night because the moon was a waning crescent. Her judgment told her that there would be four nights 'til the new moon. She did not have a destination in mind when she had left. Her feet wandered without her control, and, once her eyes had adjusted to the low light she followed the brightest light source that caught her attention. Her rising level of self-reservation, due to her training with her grandfather, caused her reiki to mist out and search for danger.

It was not long after that she found herself enter a small, smartly hidden clearing that housed a small spring. The lights that had beckoned her to follow turned out to be a hive of fireflies. If she were a person that believed in fairies, which was pretty likely now that she thought about it, she did travel with a kitsune, bakeneko and a hanyou for heaven's sake, she was sure that she had just entered their kingdom. The small pond had crystal clear spring water that trinkled down from a small waterfall on a cliff-ace.

The small clearing was filled with all kind of flowers. Most were shut tightly however, as it was night time. It made Kagome wish that she had come during the Sun's ruling hours. She still had great appreciation for the mystic beauty, which glowed softly even in such little moon light, the night's floras. The lunar flowers in bloom emanated a very seductive aroma that had Kagome in trance. She was not sure when she had reclined her body on the soft grass lawn. She only noticed that she had changed position when the etheral view of twinkling star-lights heaven was displayed before her eyes.

"So pretty..." she whispered. Her heart felt content with her surroundings. The atmosphere was very serene, sacred even. The soft sounds of the night, the insects, the nocturnal animals, the aquatic creatures, the winds; all weaved melodic serenity. The silent allure of night captivated her and she could not help but sigh in serenity. Her eyes closed and she let herself bask in everything. Her reiki gently trickled out of her and into the land; she felt as if the ground under her had disappeared and that she was laying on water. The refreshing feeling of liquid purity was tactile on her skin. The land of utopia and paradise, if such a place existed on earth, was sure to be this. There was no good and there was no evil. The balance of nature around her was neutral. there was life and there was death; and most of all, there was survival.

'Life, death and survival.' She opened her eyes. Her lungs expanded steadily as she ran the thoughts over in the mind. Life and death are neither good or evil. Survival is a necessity. 'But I want to live, not just survive.' Another impromptu image of Sesshoumaru flashed in her mind for the first time this evening and she rested her forearm over her eyes. A sharp breath left her in an almost chuckle like manner and an ephemeral smirk raised her lips. She could not believe she was thinking of him again. 'I wonder if he is living or just simply surviving.'

Just as she finished that thought, recollection of his apathetic eyes staring stoically at her caused her heart to ache. "What's wrong with me?" she groaned. If she was the type to curse she would have done so then because she was getting frustrated about her excessively stray thoughts concerning a certain stoic lord. If said demon would enter the clearing right at this moment she would not know how to react. 'Stop thinking about such stupid thing, Kagome. Of course something like that would not happen.' she mentally berated herself. Even as she thought that, she could not help her-self but feel paranoid and quickly scanned the clearing with her reiki. 'Still, it would have been kinda romantic if we have a chance meeting at this kind of place.' She blushed then mentally smacked her forehead in exasperation. 'Yeah, romantic if he was 'magically' no longer disgusted about human beings and wouldn't kill me outright.'
Kagome could just imagine his impassive face as he went for the killing blow, she had seen it once. "Tsk, even if he killed me I would get a kiss in first."
'Baka, Sesshou...' was her last thought before she fell into slumbering rest.

A White Rose _ A Kiss of Desire

Sesshoumaru was annoyed. He had not been so annoyed since his first encounter with idiotic On'nanoko (girl) that followed his baka half-brother around. That girl had always been an enigma to him. He could not figure out how she was able to remove his father's fang blade when neither he nor his brother could do the feat. Testsusaiga also protected her from his poison. Every time he fought the hanyou he noticed that she was secretly watching him. Her bangs had carefully hidden her analogical eyes that studied his every movement, though it was not enough to merely physically hide something from Sesshoumaru, such arrogance she had to think that he would not notice! He did not think much of it when he caught her the first few times but after the third encounter he deemed it as important. It had become a pattern. From then on, without her knowledge, he had studied her more closely. He memorized her scent and the feel of her power. It was surprisingly pleasant for a ningen (human); her power was something that he found both intoxicating and revolting. 'Not frightening, nothing could ever frighten this Sesshoumaru.'He was a creature of dark nature; her pure reiki went against his very existence. Yet at the same time the powerful energy called to him, being a creature that valued power.

Sesshoumaru relaxed his body on the warm bolder as the tension in his muscles loosened while he soaked in the hot spring. He breathed in the soft scent of lilac from a nearby plant and allowed its calming aroma to further unwind his body. He closed his eyes and reminisced on the numerous occasions he had felt that someone was watching him. He had doubled back on his trail and taken off in a different direction, masked his youki, flown, stepped through many rivers until he had deemed that this feeling was psychological, not physical. He felt no evil intention from the ghostly presence. A presence might not be the correct word; he could not sense the origin of the feeling anywhere near him. It was just so irritating. He vowed that once he figured out what or, more specifically, who had caused him such unease, he would be sure to make them pay for this transgression. How was it that someone could cause him such irritation from so far away? Maybe he should have another 'chance encounter' with is half-brother's pack and burn off some steam. Inuyasha was always fun to toy with.

A White Rose _ A Kiss of Desire

The river god was awaken from his sleep by a foreign presence in his sacred spring clearing. He was puzzled by her presence, for he was certain that it was a female, for his territory heavily warded. He did not have a priestess as he did not feel the need for one. Unlike other deities, he was assigned his job by the Almighty Creator and not because he simply came into a sentient state due to mortals' beliefs.

A flash of her foreign energy crept through his land and he could not help but blush as the warm feminine power brushed his entire body. Nothing like this had ever happened before. He was acutely aware of her state of undress in his spring. He should be mad by her usage of his sacred water but could not find within himself the will to feel so. Her feminine scent tickled his nose; he could feel and 'see' her every movements. He was so tempted to appear before her to either berate her for using his spring or to ravish her and make her his bride. He was not one to force his will onto another but he felt so violated by her. Why should she not feel the same? The sacred spring held half of his soul!

Kagome was not sure what implored her to bathe in the spring. She could sense the holy essence thickly concentrated within the clear blue water. She subconsciously knew that to simply drink a drop of this water would be a blessing all on its own but something in her just made her greedy and a small sip would not be enough. Her body broke free of her conscious control and she found herself submerged head to toe within the cooling liquid. She felt an acquiescently excelling being within this small body of water; however, at the same time she felt scared, guilty and apprehensive as if she was doing something forbidden, which she probably was.

Her heart's fluttering made her feel uneasy, dizzy. The currents around her began to act abnormally. Every moment made her more suspicious. She felt as if the water was sentient and suddenly realized that if it was she stood vulnerable within its territory, naked as the day she was born. She hugged herself, arms swung around her chest. The urge to escape for land was strong but she could not make the action to get away from the spring's center where she floated; something was holding her in place, though she did not feel anything physical.

Then the answer to her paranoia came. She felt a growing concentration of a presence behind her. Her heart, which had been fluttering before was now a mere staccato. A claw seemed to reach up through her esophagus and catch her breath in her throat. Yet all she could do was float in the spring and hope that whomever or whatever she had disturbed wasn't hungry. She squeezed her eyes shut and flinched when she felt the silky texture of something tactile against her skin. She waited until the fabric had stilled then carefully opened her eyes, almost sighing when she saw that it had cloaked her nakedness. That sigh was stopped however, and replaced with a choking sound when her mind registered that the presence had circled around her. An "Eeep" escaped her throat and once again she closed her eyes in fright, her hands were now free and she used them to cover her exposed body with the unknown garment that she had been provided with. She was grateful for the privacy but her fear of the strong power overruled every other emotion.

"A pure maiden had entered my spring." the masculine voice spoke slowly, enunciating each letter with perfect infliction. The velvet tenor tone caused Kagome to shiver and her knees to go weak. She wanted to quickly apologize for her trespassing but her voice was still locked in her throat by that invisible claw. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped tighter at the fabric in her hold. She took a deep calming breath and slowly opened her eyes.

She gasped; her arctic silver-blue eyes met his blazing gem green orbs. Never had she seen such green eyes. His hair, straight and shoulder-length, was cut into an A-line hairstyle. She couldn't decide on the color, at times it seemed white, others a bright cobalt. His face seemed ageless. At first sight she would have thought him to be about ten years older than she but now he seemed to be just about her age, maybe a bit older. When their gaze crossed again she realized that she had been staring at him, and he at her. She blushed at his intense gaze and flushed with even more vibrant hue when she registered how handsome he was and that she stood nearly naked in front of him with only a light fabric that heprovided to keep her modesty.

"Do you know what it means when a holy maiden bathes in a sacred spring of a god, Fair Lady?" His voice was nice, like a bubbling stream. She was too distracted by this fact to register what he had said. It took her a while but she absorbed his words.

'A god?'Kagome nervously shook her head before the bonding feeling once again encased her.

He bestowed on her a charming smile then, without her comprehension, bridged the gap between them to caress her cheek with the back of his fingers. He maneuvered his fingertips to softly glide through her dripping hair before cupping her petite face. Then, he leaned in close to her, and kissed her lips, the kiss of a butterfly on a flower's first bloom.

"A greeting to you, my bride."

'For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.'

A White Rose _ A Kiss of Desire