xxx

xx

The building sat wedged in the side of the mountain. Despite the ivy and kudzu that crawled all over the sides like a wild forest, the elegant angles of the roof shone in the sun like jade. A gold trim lined the sides and corners of rooms piled atop rooms, and Keiko marveled at the detail. Parts of the castle that had once been white were now the same dark grey as the stones in the mountain side; overall in a state of disrepair but still beautiful.

Hand in hand she let Yusuke lead her through the entrace, past solid statues of twin fuu dogs, forever frozen in snarls.

"Wow." Keiko had heard stories in her youth of great human castles, she had thought them only half truthful and exaggerated, but the history seeped into the old walls proved otherwise.

xxx

A haze of quiet covered the dark halls, a feeling of despondence tangible in the air as if the castle had seen many lives and held many ghosts. Little burning candles on the walls fought back the gloom. She tightened her fingers around Yusuke's hand, though the shadowed corners of many corridors piqued her interest. The scent of dust and candle wax lingered in the air, as well as an odd smell like the musk of animals.

A ruckus down the dim hallway shattered the silence and snapped Keiko from her thoughts. Brazen female laughter erupted down the hall, followed by another crash.

"YUSUKE!"

Keiko jumped. She glanced at her companion. "Shit," he grumbled. "Wait here," he released her hand and sulked down the hallway. He pulled a dingy shoji screen back with a slam.

"Where the hell have you been brat?" A sharp feminine voice demanded and Keiko thought she noticed an irritated glare on Yusuke's face, but the murky darkness shielded her vision.

"I told ya I was gonna be gone for a while. One of us has to earn some coin around here," he scoffed.

The hairs rose on the back of Keiko's neck and she glanced behind her. Four pairs of animal eyes gleamed at her from the shadows. Startled, she creeped away from them and stood behind Yusuke, pressing her back to the wall. She hovered out of sight behind his wide shoulders.

"I missed you son of mine," the stranger cooed.

Son? Curiosity got the best of her and she peeked around Yusuke's side.

A beautiful woman in a deep navy kimono reclined on several blankets heaped atop her bedding, despite it being well past morning. She held a bottle in one hand, long brunette hair piled across one shoulder.

An irritated sound rumbled in Yusuke's chest.

"Would your guest like some sake?" The woman slurred. At once Keiko noticed the similar features between them, the same high cheekbones and generous mouth, but Keiko guessed the woman to be in her late twenties, the peak of her beauty, startlingly young to be Yusuke's mother. She recognized Yusuke's ebony black hair in the woman's dark locks. Maybe her beauty kept her youth but Keiko wasn't about to ask.

The woman finally spotted Keiko. "Well look at this pretty girl!"

The woman stumbled her way towards her and Keiko took a step backward. Yusuke barked out something harsh but his mother waved his threats away.

The air around the lady stank of sake. "Who is she Yusuke?" She studied Keiko with interest but Keiko had inhaled the sharp alcohol smell on accident and coughed behind her hands, not wanting to offend her hosts. Red rimmed his mother's eyes but Keiko noticed her long dark eyelashes.

Keiko didn't know how the woman was standing, well, leaning, on the shoji screen door or forming coherent sentences in her current state. "You never bring anyone here-"

"Ok!" Yusuke snapped. He placed a hand on her shoulder but she ignored him. She smiled at Keiko, and though a sheen glazed over the woman's pretty black eyes, her smile was genuine. "Such a pretty girl!"

Keiko blushed when another woman, a short round lady in a yellow kimono, peeked her head outside the room and stared at Keiko. "Atsuko-san! A bride perhaps!?"

Yusuke and Keiko blushed in unison. "Hold on," Yusuke grumbled, "you drunks go back to your party." He halfway blocked their view of Keiko. "She's a friend and you've already made asses of yourselves, so introduction's are over."

He grabbed Keiko's hand and tugged her back down the dark hall from where they had came. Flustered, Keiko followed him blindly while the sharp laughs of the two women echoed behind her. "Look he's embarrassed!"

Keiko could almost feel the irritation seeping from Yusuke, as easily as she had smelled the sake on Atsuko. She padded barefoot behind him, silent. "My mother," he mumbled.

The tension in the air weighed on Keiko's shoulders. "Well..she was nice," she began with a tentative voice. "They seemed impressed by me at least."

She hadn't meant to sound like she enjoyed being compared to Yusuke's bride. She frowned, cheeks burning pink.

He scoffed, but didn't release her hand. His larger fingers held hers with rigid softness, like a lion with a cub in its jaws. "She's a lush," he grumbled, "and the other's a deadbeat tanuki."

She gasped. "Really?" Instinctively she glanced back behind her, though they had made a few turns already in the halls. She had never seen tanuki, only heard of them from word-of-mouth stories.

She noticed the twinkle of more dark eyes in the shadows. But now she spotted the black masks and fur around the curious followers. There were at least three sets of eyes.

Curious who their lord had snuck in the castle, no doubt, assuming Yusuke was in charge here, if no one else it would be the Mazoku. She felt better knowing the onlookers were sweet animal youkai. The clean scent of the forest wafted in to the corridors from somewhere close.

"They're harmless." Yusuke said. "They aren't as biased or greedy as humans and not dangerous like some other youkai." Yusuke shrugged. "Just annoying. But there aren't any servants in my quarters."

Yusuke spoke the last part with nonchalance but butterflies fluttered in Keiko's belly. "We'll be alone?"

"Yeah."

Keiko halted her steps, which caused Yusuke to stop. She squeezed his hand, smiling up at him. "Thanks for everything, really."

"It's nothing." Unraveled by her large brown eyes, Yusuke spit out the first thought that entered his mind. "Are you hungry? These animals can actually make decent soup. But not much else."

Keiko smiled and nodded, but her eyes still held a tinge of humility. She moved to bow but Yusuke stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "It's no big deal, you don't have to be so formal."

"I've never been in a home like this."

She studied her surroundings, the wood floor, a hint of a garden around the corner, as a distant song from a lonely sparrow drifted inside by the wind. She sighed. "I can't believe I'm here right now. It's beautiful. But Botan, Shizuru..." She let the thought hang unfinished in the evening air.

"Hey," Yusuke leaned towards her and lightly tapped the side of her cheek, and she studied the thin black triangles beneath his eyes, almost like smudges of soot but too perfect. "We'll leave tomorrow. I have to leave tomorrow, Hiei is gonna want my throat cut for getting so side tracked," he sighed. A pensive look slipped over Keiko's features. "Yeah yeah I won't ask you about the ice maiden."

Keiko's shoulders relaxed. Not that she knew Yukina's current whereabouts anyway, but she didn't want to hand her over to the wolves or for Yusuke to pester her about it all day either. Again, he gently cupped her hand in his, and she smiled to herself.

They entered his room on the first floor, in the farthest western corridor, and Keiko was delighted by the sight of a small garden alongside it. Weeds sprouted at the base of the roses, but wildflowers in orange and yellow had taken it over, and dark ivy crawled down from the roof. A few tall sunflowers stood far above the overgrown bushes, like happy sentials. Who knew a Mazoku liked flowers?

"Nature is relaxing," Yusuke said gruffly, though her liked to see her face light up at the view of his shabby garden. "It was already there when we moved in, might as well keep it. Don't tell anyone."

Keiko giggled. "Ok."

They relaxed by the garden and conversed without bickering until a tanuki with shy black eyes brought them food; hot onion soup. She wouldn't be surprised if she found a strand or two of fur in her food but she wasn't about to complain.

She laughed when Yusuke slurped the food down in one gulp. And she had once thought Botan to be a noisy eater.

xxxx

She don't care how she comes off to people anymore."

Keiko glanced at him. They had been talking after their meal, their voices only slightly louder than the droning cicadas in the evening garden. Keiko found she rather admired the wild white chrysanthemums against the purple night sky. They glowed like ghosts in the shadow.

She had sensed a shift in the air in the room as she sensed Yusuke's mood turn sour before he spat out the tidbit about his mother. "She's a drunk for sure. Always been that way."

Keiko cast her eyes down at her hands in her lap. What could anyone even say to that statement? "Maybe she's sick..." she mumbled.

Yusuke scoffed. "Yeah, sick in the head. It's partly my fault though."

Keiko stared at him. "I don't see how that's true." How could he think such a thing? Atsuko had some issues but didn't everyone? Some people were burdened with a drinking problem. Keiko had seen them laying passed out in fields in the middle of the day, and she had heard of others with the even worse opium addiction. How could their children be blamed?

Yusuke leaned back against the wall. He didn't appear upset but he avoided her eyes. "My birth. My father was full Mazoku and a drunk and he raped her."

Keiko covered her mouth with her hands.

He peered back at her with a solemn expression. "Yeah, it's bad. Been like that since the damn day I was born." He shrugged. "It is what it is."

Keiko pushed her broth away. The conversation had dropped her mood and she imagined poor Atsuko alone and pregnant from a youkai encounter. It all made sense. The tragedy of the woman's situation gave Keiko a sense of grief and pity, but also respect as she studied the old pains apparent in her companion's eyes. "And you've kept her safe in these mountains this whole time?"

Yusuke shrugged. "What else was I supposed to do?"

She smiled solemnly. "The gods at least gave her a loyal son."

Yusuke scoffed at that, but didn't reply as he devoured the last sweetened rice balls. Keiko studied the handsome angles of his face, and his eyelashes, long for a man's, resting like lace against his cheek. Despite his rough attitude it was hard to believe that angelic face came from such a desolate situation. "Who raised you?"

Yusuke ignored the chubby tanuki that entered the room with a bow and gathered their empty plates. "Myself," the Mazoku stated. "Well and my grandfather, king Raizen."

The little raccoon dog tiptoed around Yusuke and Keiko, wary around Yusuke but not terrified, she noticed. She smiled at the little youkai and it almost blushed through it's fur. "You were close," Keiko whispered, hesitant to broach an awkward conversation but curious. "Despite..everything?"

Yusuke seemed unfazed by her prodding. "Yeah, Raizen knew his son was a fuck up and fucked up in the head too, but my father was strong."

"You met him?"

"Yeah, and I killed him."

Keiko went silent, surprise written all over her face, but she didn't ask why like Yusuke expected, she only regarded him without judgment. Affection swirled in his chest for the brunette.

"I know it's bad. Patricide. But that bastard deserved it."

Keiko regarded him with those big, sympathetic eyes and he almost felt guilty. Almost. "I trained all my life to kill him. He didn't stand a chance."

Keiko inched closer to him, and her gentle scent of lavender teased his senses, but the girl seemed oblivious to her effect over him. "Your grandfather didn't stop you?"

"Hell no. He knew his son was a bastard and had it coming after what he did to mom. He ate people, Keiko. And he was half human."

Keiko covered her mouth with horror.

"Yeah, and Raizen had stopped all that, though I guess it wasn't cannibalism for him, not really."

Keiko stared down at her hands. Mazoku eat people, she had heard these old tales, though she never thought she would be conversing with one, and despite his words Keiko felt safe. He could have killed her during their first encounter, days ago. She let everything sink in. Yusuke was more complicated than he appeared.

"Where's your grandfather now?"

"Dead."

Keiko bit her lip. "I'm sorry."

Yusuke shrugged. "Don't be."

Keiko put two and two together. Her eyes widened. "So you're the...king?"

"Yep."

Yusuke answered her simply, without arrogance. Keiko studied him. A king of youkai. She didn't know what to say.

Yusuke brushed away the topic, like it was a miniscule detail. He grinned at her. "You like the garden huh? 'Wanna go sit outside?"

xxx

A shoji screen lined with ash shielded her view of the room as she kneeled like a polite maiden, her light skin almost luminescent against the red of her kimono. She studied the sleeves and the soaring white heron stitched onto the hemline. Confused, she tried to shake the muddled thoughts from her head to no avail. Gold thread had been stitched with a precision Keiko herself didn't have, and the material felt smooth as real silk.

The shoji screen slid open and she started unseen beneath her many layers, decadent red and gold cloth with a long trail, in the old style popular long before Keiko's time. Yusuke stood before her in a navy kimono and hakama, a grin wide on his face and the open Makai wilderness at his back.

She noticed the familiar dark wood and thorns clustered together and a lonely expanse of dry field and cracked red earth to the east and west, a red sky above like endless fire. She smiled. She hadn't expected the doorway to hell. Her home as usual, only now instead of a barefoot peasant girl her attire matched the blood color of the sky.

Yusuke's eyes sparkled as he held a hand out and helped Keiko onto her feet, into the wide open world. Despite her opulent state of dress grass pricked her bare feet, but she didn't flinch and let Yusuke pull her into his arms.

She immediately got the sense that she was a bride, a present for the demon king, but she trusted her new friend, her new husband; she spotted the gentleness in his eyes, sometimes hid away but there and real while others saw only wild hair and black youkai markings. Keiko thought somewhere in there was a little boy lost in a demon's body.

She sighed a contented breath in his arms. He held her almost painfully close. Neither one spoke.

Slowly, as if in ritual, he grasped her shoulders and moved her away to stand in front of him, and she stared up at him eye to eye. Romantic affection made her pulse race, and her mouth had gone dry. He peered at her with those passionate deep brown eyes and Keiko thought she may melt out of her kimono.

The thought her heart might jump out of her chest when he slid her clothing down her bare shoulders until the folds fell away like a light summer fursode. She stood before him fully nude. Her cheeks burned red, but she didn't shield herself or cry modesty. She stood before him confident though her legs shook beneath her and the wind chilled her skin.

The look of intensity in Yusuke's eyes made muscles clench deep in her belly; he had returned his hands to her shoulders and they burned her skin in delicious heat. She wanted those strong hands lower on her body.

Keiko sucked air in through her teeth when she noticed Yusuke's chiseled abdomen and chest, and the expected taboo Mazoku markings that so boiled her blood, but the expanse of bare skin continued down to his toes.

They enveloped each other in a single movement and Keiko felt the grass and earth beneath her back and legs and Yusuke hovered above her with a wave of male passion she wanted to revel in forever. He kissed her fiercely until she whispered his name and nipped his bottom lip between her teeth. He moaned.

Keiko's eyes opened, and she saw only the wood floor, blankets around her shoulders, and Yusuke leaned against the wall, with a peculiar look on his face that caused a hot ache between her legs. Desire simmered behind his dark eyes. "Have a nice nap?"

Nap. She must have fell asleep, and slept hard, not the uneasy half slumber she was so used to in her home village. She actually had sturdy walls between her and the threats of the outside world, and an unbeatable warrior protecting her back. But that dream! She hoped she hadn't cried out in her sleep. Had he been watching her sleep?

She sat up and blushed when she felt moisture along her inner thighs. She definitely wasn't afraid of him any more; instead an aching need throbbed at the center of her arousal. She had never felt like this! Her body wanted a Mazoku, a Mazoku king, the gentle Yusuke. She needed cold water.

She cleared her throat, blushing. "Can I take a bath?"

xxx

Keiko sighed as she eased herself into the old brass tub, alone in her own room alongside his. She hissed as the hot water simmered against her chilled skin, though the heat soothed her aching muscles. She couldn't pass up the opportunity for rare hot water.

A little kitsune had heated a barrel of water for her with its fox fire. Unusual, but practical and it sure beat bathing in the cold river.

Keiko's thoughts wandered to the dream and with a blush she recalled Yusuke's nude, chinseled form above her, all hard muscle and the scent of spice. She caught herself during the day admiring his strong arms, his abs, his markings...She sank down and the water line rose to her shoulders. It wasn't like the Mazoku left much to the imagination, since he ran around half clothed like a madman or a barbarian and not a proper lord. Keiko realized with a start she liked the vision of his tanned skin under the hot sun, and she would be a liar if she said the sight of his strange taboo markings didn't make her blood run hot.

Keiko washed herself with the lavender water, an extra luxury thanks to Atsuko. The herb grew in wild purple patches in the garden, forgotten most of the time, Atsuko preferred the roses.

She sighed. She realized she liked it here on this mountain, in this strange quiet youkai manor where magpies sang in the garden and forest animals bowed in the hallways.

Flushed from the heat and her thoughts she knew she liked Yusuke's wide smile and his intense, expressive eyes even more. She liked his strong presence, and she realized his outlaw facade was due to his reckless attitude and conflicted power, not any real danger.

She yearned for her best friends advice. She missed her smile, her optimism, and she knew Botan would have hysterics when Keiko told her of her new strange relationship with a youkai. She knew her friend wouldn't rest until she dished out all the details. Shizuru would disapprove, but the older girl only wanted the best for Keiko. She never wanted Keiko to suffer as she had suffered.

Worry and guilt knotted in her gut and she sank down further in the tub. She rested her head back against the brass lip, letting tears form in her eyes but kept them from trailing down her face.

She had seen Suichi and Kuwabara chase of youkai, but a whole hoard? She didn't know the range of their power but a whole demon hoard seemed impossible. She wondered how many in her village had survived the attack and she tries not to picture familiar faces.

She had no idea what the future held for her. It seems fate had thrown her to the wolves.

Guilt nagged at her when she realized she could stay in this secluded mountain villa forever, listening to the soft songs of magpies in the garden, the quiet wooden halls, the seclusion...and cute furred faces instead of monsters lurking in the night.

She realized she had never felt safer than when nestled in Yusuke's arms, or holding his rough hands. She was able to release the tension in her body and sleep through all day, without nightmares, without painful memories of her parents, the soft cries of night birds would be her only disruption through the night.

She would regret leaving this place.

Footsteps sounded down the hallway. Keiko slid down in the large tub, the warm water up to her shoulders as she waited for her visitor, she thought maybe Atsuko had come again to offer her sake.

Yusuke slid the door open and barged in the room, unaware of Keiko's state of undress.

The large tub shielded her bare skin from his gaze, only her head above the sides, but she crossed her arms over her chest, frowning at him.

With a guilty smirk Yusuke turned and faced the door. "Sorry."

Keiko's hands shook. He made her nervous, not in a negative way, but when those deep brown eyes settled on her and her alone, warmth filled her heart and she momentarily forgot all about the pinch of unrelenting sadness, and bad memories.

Keiko admired the lines in his back, all square muscle and broad shoulders. A tingle of excitement zinged though her body. Yusuke cleared his throat. "Glad someone gets to use that heavy ass thing. I'd rather bathe in the hot spring myself."

Keiko made swirls of little whirlpools in the water with her fingers. Words left her empty handed with nothing to say. She had plenty to say to him,(thanks for the hospitality, thanks for the food, thanks for saving my life), but the words wouldn't form on her lips.

After a long, anxious moment Yusuke spoke. "I uh, came to give you some kimono mom never wears. Had to bring them myself, I don't want the tanuki and their dirty paws all over it." He sighed. "I told them they need to wash their hands more but the damn animals don't listen."

Keiko laughed, a soft pleasant sound like wind chimes in the breeze. "Thanks Yusuke."

Still facing the door, he ran a hand through the black tangles of his hair. Keiko wondered if he would ever let her run a comb through it. She loved the feel of the wild strands between her fingers, so unlike her own soft straight hair.

Yusuke shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Keiko wondered if she gave him nervous butterflies too, or if she was reading too much into his body language. She wasn't sure how she felt about the ease of conversation while she was naked, but she didn't want him to leave, either.

"We should head out when the sun's high tomorrow," he said, looking up at the ceiling and making his hair seem even longer. "It takes forever climbing down these damn mountains." He paused and Keiko waited for him to continue, admiring his lean, muscled shoulders.

"One of the kimono is silk," he added. "Wear it, sell it, whatever. It's worth some money."

A silk kimono? Her eyes stung with tears but she held them back. "Yusuke I can't take something that valuable! It's too much but thank you..." she clasped and unclasped her hands. "Thank you..."

She would have been embarrassed over her tears, but Yusuke kept his gaze steady at the floor. "I'm giving it to you. You'll be pretty in it."

Keiko smiled and her heart swelled with affection for the Mazoku. He thought her pretty? As much as she hated to admit it, she wanted those intense brown eyes locked on her, full of affection, maybe something like...love.

She hadn't had a crush on anyone in years. And who wanted to raise a family in this world?

"Keiko-"

She stood up from the brass tub in one swift, gentle movement. She knew he heard the splash of the water and his shoulders tensed, but he didn't move.

"T-turn around."

He did. Yusuke's breath hitched in his throat. He slid his gaze from her big eyes and doll features, down her pale chest adored with pink tips, past her smooth belly and the dark curls between her legs. All long limbs and pink skin.

Desire burned in the pit of his stomach. "Keiko-," he said, voice hoarse.

With an expression of resolve set in her features, she opened her arms to him. Her breasts moved with the movements of her slender arms, soft mounds of light flesh. "Let me kiss you," she whispered. She hoped he didn't notice how her legs trembled, she felt raw, bare in front of male eyes, but with a start she realized she wanted this. So what if she gave him her maidenhood? Her death could come in the guise of a dark youkai, or disease, or famine. She yearned to run her hand down the rigid lines of his body and be alive and loved, before time slipped out of her grasp.

Yusuke didn't have much experience with women, and his cheeks burned red at the thought of laying with Keiko, but he'd be damned if he let lack of experience fuck this up. He crossed the room in an instant; kissing the nude brunette in the tub with a heat that surprised even himself.

Her delicate lips tasted like honey, and he swirled his tongue in her mouth. She squeaked against him in surprise but didn't pull away, and he trailed his arms around her side and held her slender back, pressing her to him.

She grazed his bottom lip with her tongue; they clashed teeth. Both were clumsy and new at this, but the ache between her legs flared up again and she didn't care about much else, just the very real, very male, Yusuke. His chest heated her skin like a furnace.

They broke for air and he laid his forehead against hers, arms still wrapped around her waist. His mahogany irises and the desire she found there did crazy things to her insides, but she found her voice. "Stay the night with me?"

His eyes filled with uncertainty and she touched his lips in a feather light caress. "Keiko? You sure?"

She swiped his bangs from his forehead so she could better see his eyes. "Yes."

She kissed him again.

xxx

xx


I tried to catch the mistakes but I don't have a beta. I hope you liked this chapter, I'm not one hundred percent satisfied with the pacing..and sorry bout the cliffhanger, I'm working on the next chapter asap, and it'll be a lemon since this is rated M so...;) Thanks for the feedback on this story! Thanks for reading! Write those Yu/Kei fics please!

7/7/16. 1st edit.