Chapter Eleven: Blood Lust

Kagome opened her eyes the next morning feeling weak and tired as ever. She sighed as she rolled over onto her side to look at the sunlight coming through her window… at that moment…

"Kagome?" her mom called from the bottom of the stairs. "It's time to get up!"

"Ahhh," groaned Kagome as she forced her drained body to get out of bed. She didn't bother taking a shower as she got dressed and headed downstairs to have some breakfast. She hoped that some food would get her energy back faster.

"Kagome?" her mom said as she entered the kitchen. "You look terrible."

"Thanks a lot," Kagome said sarcastically as she sat at the table and grabbed some toast. Her mother only shook her head as she put some scrambled eggs on a plate for her.

"I warned you not to get in so late didn't I? Don't tell me that you've been up all night? What on earth could you've been doing at that lake that would've taken so long?" she asked.

"Nothing you would find interesting," Kagome mumbled as she began to dump some syrup onto her eggs. "What?" she asked as she saw her mother roll her eyes. "I like syrup with eggs!"

As she began to eat, she thought to herself, 'Besides… you wouldn't believe me if I DID tell you the truth of what happened last night.'

*Flashback*

"I-I-Inuyasha?" she croaked.

"Who else?" said that deep, rough voice that she heard just last night. "I'm impressed that you were able to figure it out. But really… was it you who found me? Or did I find you?"

Kagome gulped. "Well," she said hoping that she sounded braver than she felt. "It's about time that you got here."

She heard him chuckle as his hands slowly removed themselves from her neck. She let out a sigh of relief as she took several steps away from the vampire and turned look at him. As she saw Inuyasha standing underneath the light of the half-moon, she felt a deep blush beginning to overtake her features again.

Inuyasha smiled, revealing his sparkling white fangs. "To be honest…" he said in that voice that just seemed to send shivers up her spine. "I didn't think that you would ever figure out to come here."

Kagome felt her face grow hot, but this time from anger. "What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded. "Ok… look, I figured out the meeting place so… so you tell me what is going on! Are you really a… a…"

"Vampire?" Inuyasha offered helpfully.

"Yes," she said dignity. "Are you really a vampire? Or is that some kind of sick, twisted joke?"

As quick as thought, Inuyasha had Kagome pinned to the side of the car, with his hands gripping her wrists. He bared his teeth, letting Kagome get a good look at them before leaning down until he was inches away from her face.

"I wasn't lying," he breathed in her ear. "And this is no joke. I really am a vampire."

"Can you prove it?" Kagome asked, defiance starting to burn in her eyes. Suddenly, her eyes widened in shock at what she just said. Inuyasha leaned back, wanting to get a good look at her expression.

"B…but," Kagome stuttered, "Without the bite…"

He grinned, once again baring his fangs, and leaned down towards her again. Kagome stiffened when he stopped in front of her face, his fangs still uncovered.

"Alright," he whispered. He let go of her wrists to brush a strand of raven hair away from her face. "Touch them. That should be enough to prove it to you," he said as he opened his mouth again.

Kagome hesitantly reached up with a shaking hand, gently touching one of his fangs. She could feel the tooth… the hardness… the sleek surface… she knew that it was no fake. After pulling her finger back, Inuyasha closed his mouth and smiled again.

"Now do you believe me?"

When Kagome nodded, he grinned and stood back, allowing her to move.

"Ok…" Kagome whispered. "So… you ARE the real deal." He smirked at that. "So, you mind telling me why you were in my room? Are you the reason I felt so sick lately? Are you the one that I kept seeing in my window? What are you doing? Are there other vampires out there? And why…"

Inuyasha put one of his long fingers over her lips to silence her. "You talk too much," he replied.

Kagome forced his hand away from her mouth so that she could speak, "But you said that if I found you, then you would answer my questions!"

"Yeah, well it's kinda hard when you keep asking without stopping," he answered.

Kagome thought that one over for a second before saying grudgingly, "Good point. So how about we start with why were you in my room last night? Do you go there often? And if so… how come?"

Inuyasha sighed as he turned and began to walk towards the water's edge. At first, Kagome thought that he was leaving her behind… for some reason, this upset her…. but he just turned to look at her before gesturing for her to follow him.

Kagome hesitated for a second, ignored her better instants and went following after him.

*End of Flashback*

'Man… my life sucks,' Kagome thought as she put her empty plate into the sink.

"SOTA!" her mom called up, "If you don't get down right now then you'll be going to school without breakfast!"

"I can't find my soccer uniform!" he cried back followed by several crashing sounds suggesting that he might have knocked over something big and heavy.

"I put it in your closet!" mom called a little annoyed now.

"What? Is that some kind of sick joke?" he yelled.

Kagome shook her head as she grabbed her bag and headed out to wait by the car.

*In the car*

"Sota… that's why they invented closets. To put your clothes," their mom said as she stopped at a stop sign.

"That just seems like a waste of space isn't it?" Sota demanded who was busy stuffing the rest of his homework into his backpack.

"I don't know about you but I find them… hey I thought you told me that you finished your homework last night!"

"I did," Sota said defensive. "I have a test today… and I'm… not ready yet."

"In other words you didn't study!" mom said a little angry.

"Ok, this isn't what it looks like…"

Kagome smiled to herself as she leaned back in her seat to stare out the window. Everything seemed so… surreal after what happened last night.

*Flashback*

Kagome followed Inuyasha to the water's edge and when he sat down, she joined him. "Just to be sure," she said as she sat beside him; so close that they were almost touching. "You aren't going to bite me are you?"

Inuyasha shook his head, "Not without your permission." Kagome let out a sigh of relief as she then waited for him to start explaining.

Inuyasha was quiet for a little while as he stared out at the lake before he picked up a flat rock and threw it so hard that it skipped about 8 or 9 times across the water before landing on the other side.

Kagome gulped, she knew that he was strong… just not THAT strong.

He finally spoke, "The truth is… I have been over to your house most night's since Halloween."

Kagome's mouth dropped. "You've been in my room every night since Halloween?" she practically shrieked.

"Yup," he replied as if it was nothing.

"And… what were you doing?" she asked, afraid to know the truth.

Inuyasha sighed as he turned his body to face her and said, "Feeding."

All the color drained from Kagome's face as her hands immediately flew to her neck. She had been wondering why her neck had been hurting lately… but she thought that it was because she was sleeping funny. But it was actually a vampire drinking her blood?

Inuyasha saw her reaction and put his hand on her shoulder, "Calm down. Look I know that you must be upset but I have been trying to stop drinking from you."

"Stop drinking from me?" Kagome screamed as panic took over. "For weeks, I've been feeling sick and drained, and it's because you've been taking blood?" She then began to look at her hands as if expecting them to transform in some way.

"Please listen to me," Inuyasha pleaded. "And try not to say anything until I finish? I don't have much time here."

As Kagome opened her mouth to say something, Inuyasha put his hand over her mouth. "Listen," he repeated. "I'm going to tell you the truth… but you aren't going to say a word until I'm done ok? Or else you can forget it."

Kagome, not being about to talk, merely nodded.

"Ok," he said removing his hand. "My name is Inuyasha… and yes I'm a vampire. I've been one for a long, long time now. And all vampire's need to feed… and we have to drink blood. But… we don't kill if we can help it. Just because you've been bitten by a vampire, doesn't mean that you're going to turn into one. We just take enough from a human so that they only feel a little weak and light-headed for a little while."

He sighed again as he laid back to look up at the night sky. "We just take a small bite and take a little bit of blood before we heal the bite wounds up and send them on their way. We usually do this at night when people are asleep so they think that they're only feeling drowsy when they wake up."

"So how come I've been so weak that I can't get out bed?" Kagome demanded, forgetting that she promised to stay quiet.

Inuyasha turned his head to her and said, "Because your blood is… delicious. It's such a rare blood type… I couldn't help myself." He sat up to look at her in the eyes. "I met you on Halloween night remember?"

Kagome thought for a moment… before she remembered what he was talking about. "So it WAS you! You were the one who saved me from that jerk Bankotsu. Hey, thanks for that. If you didn't come by… I don't know what I would've done."

Inuyasha waved his hand away. "Oh I was just in the neighborhood, and I heard you both so I decided to lend a hand. But…"

"Wait," Kagome interrupted suddenly as she remembered more about that night. "I remember now… I thought that you looked so nervous about something… but I couldn't figure out why."

"Ah, yeah," he said in an upset voice. "I was trying to get you back to where some other people were so that I wouldn't be able to hurt you by accident. But I caught the scent of your blood… and I just sorta… lost it."

"And you bit me?" Kagome said through numb lips. "But I don't remember you biting me. I mean I remember you standing over me… and I think that I can remember something touching my neck but… I don't remember you actually biting me."

"Yeah well… it's a vampire thing. People don't remember being bitten by us. I swear I never meant to go after you… but after I tasted your blood…" his mouth began to water at the thought and Kagome actually had to scoot back away from him.

"No," Inuyasha said taking her hand. "Please… I didn't mean to scare you. But you have to understand… this isn't something that I can help. I had to force myself to stop that night so that I didn't accidently kill you. After that I followed your ride home, making sure that you were going to be ok. I watched you go into the house and literally crawl up the stairs and into your room. But you just collapsed and…"

"WHAT?" Kagome screamed in horror. "You followed me home? And were spying on me?"

Inuyasha held up his hands defensively. "I only wanted to make sure that you were going to be ok. I felt so guilty about making you sick that I just wanted to make sure that you got to your bed so that you could sleep it all off."

Kagome took several deep breathes to calm down before she began to think about that day. She thought about how she woke up in bed with the door shut, and her covers on… and her hair ribbon gone.

"That was you?" she asked softly. "You were the one who did all those little things? Like pulling my covers up and…"

Inuyasha nodded. "I just felt so bad for making you so sick that I guess I wanted to do something to make up for it. I just wanted to make you more comfortable and I left after that, I swear. I stayed away for as long as I could… tried to forget about you… but I couldn't say gone forever. In no time, I came back and took a little blood. I thought that maybe if I just took less and less blood from you, then I would soon be able to resist it. Accept…"

"It's harder than you thought it would be?" Kagome asked. She didn't know why she was feeling this way… shouldn't she be angry? Upset? Afraid? Horrified? But no… she felt sympathy… she felt sorry for this vampire. And judging by his story, he didn't really want to hurt her.

"I'm sorry," she said. She sounded so sincere that his head snapped over to look at her.

"For what?" he asked amazed. "If there's anyone here who should be sorry, it should be me."

"I know," Kagome said softly. "I don't know why… but I just can't help but apologize. I don't know what for… I just want to… I want to help you."

*End of Flashback*

"Kagome?" Sota asked from the back seat. "Aren't you getting out?"

"Huh?" Kagome said coming out of her daydream and finally noticing that she was outside her school's building. "Sorry, I didn't even notice."

"You noticing now?" Sota asked slyly.

"Shut up!" Kagome said to him. "At least I didn't spend the night watching TV and ignoring my homework."

"What?" mom yelled at Sota. "You mean to tell me that you DIDN'T do your homework either?"

And with that, Kagome quickly jumped out of the car and headed up the staircase for her first class.