A/N – graphic and suggested rape, but not quite. Possible triggers depending your point of view
Resisting the elegance of her growing ferocity was a more daunting task than he remembered. Sesshoumaru watched her from the circle gathered around her sparring match. Even covered in mud and panting, she stole his breath. It was damnably irritating, but he couldn't pull his eyes away from her.
Rain was coming down in sheets around them. Both Kagome and her opponent were sliding in the mud, struggling to maintain their balance as they lashed out at each other. She struck out and landed a blow in her opponent's solar plexus, doubling him over so she could then bring her knee up against his nose.
Sesshoumaru finally strode away as she leaned down to help her opponent up and heal his nose. He needed away from her scent. Even in the deluge around them, the tang of her purity was a tantalizing beacon.
In the year and a half since he had helped his father build the war camp, Sesshoumaru had grown another foot and a half and come more into the strict control he'd all but bullied himself into establishing. He trained and fought and hunted. He interrogated and spied. He was a soldier in everything but name, despite his father's objections.
Six months ago they had arrived. Sesshoumaru had argued until he felt dead inside, but it had been pointless. According to his father it was done, and the girls arrived only days later.
And so Sesshoumaru resigned himself to the unbearable task of avoiding Kagome entirely.
As obsessive as he was with escaping her, Kagome was relentless in pursuing him.
Even as he walked away from her finished match, he could feel her eyes on him despite the yōki he'd used to mask his scent. He made haste to duck out of view, though it grated on his nerves to feel like he was hiding from her. She was only Kagome, only a female who still struggled to control her wild reiki.
Striding into his tent, he ordered his servant to fetch hot water for a bath.
Indifference had not been so difficult to practice when she had remained at the citadel and he had followed his father to war. He found it a difficult façade to maintain when faced with her every day. Sesshoumaru was not accustomed to facing anything difficult, except perhaps the magic she still excelled in.
Unbuckling his armor, he set it on its stand and made quick work of cleaning it as he waited for the hot water. The methodical act soothed his ire and discontent and helped him to focus on making a plan to quell his blasted heart.
If there was anything he had learned in the past three years since the attack on the citadel, it was that love was nothing but a burden that made you weak. For a warrior who was desperate to gain power and bring honor to his clan, love was not a weakness he could bear.
As if his thoughts summoned her, he looked up to find her standing at the entrance to the tent with two buckets of steaming water.
"I ran into the servants on my way here," she said, still dripping wet with mud and rain, "thought I'd play a joke and steal your bath water, but I think you might smell more than me."
"Aren't you a little old for childish pranks?" he muttered, turning his attention to his boots as he sat and began to unlace them.
Oblivious to his mood, she stepped inside and emptied the steaming water into the tub by his pallet. "If I'm every too old for pranks, I hope you'll put me out of my misery."
He ignores that, and her, and stripped of his boots, stands to continue undressing. It should be a clear sign that she can go, but when he looks up she's still standing there, looking down at her feet. "Was there something else, Kagome?"
Kagome isn't stupid, or blind. She might not have seen it at first, but she can see now that he didn't want her there. Hope is a stupid thing though, and she missed the boy she used to call Sho'mru. "I miss you," she blurted, and looked up to find him glaring at her. "It's just that you always leave when I'm around and you never train with me and it's like whenever I walk into a room you pretend like I don't exist." The words came out fast and hot, confusion evident as she dropped her gaze again when he finally made eye-contact. "It's like you hate me or something."
Though he knew these words to be the emotions of a girl who missed her childhood friend, her pack mate, the beast inside of him deliberately interprets them as something else. Something more. The threat of that loss of control makes his decision for him.
Sesshoumaru remembers the last time he lost control, remembers the deaths to this day he still blames himself for. He remembers the last time he gave in to his emotions and the way his hair still does not fall much past his shoulders from his last failure. He will not fail again.
Smirking, he moved to her side. "Look at me, Kagome."
She does, and something like relief settles inside of her at the kindness in his gaze. When his hand slides up to cup her jaw, she leans her cheek into him. It is heartening to know she is not the only one who missed their closeness—but relief turns to confusion as his grip tightens and she feels herself being walked back until her hips bump into his small desk. "Sesshou-
"I do hate you, Kagome," he murmurs, and because he knows the best lies hold honest truths, he leans down to trace his lips along her jaw. "You have been the bane of my existence for decades upon decades."
He makes quick work of untying her leather armor, of dragging his nose down her neck to her collar bone to lave his tongue over a cut there, the dried blood fresh from her last bout of sparring. "The day my father dragged you out of that well was the worst decision he ever made—the only thing worse was bringing you back from hell after I killed you when we were pups."
She shuddered as her mind scrambled to make sense of what was happening. His touch said one thing, but his words another. "Sesshoumaru, wait this-" A sound escapes her as his tongue sets her skin aflame—but the heat is quickly doused at his proclamation and even though his hands and mouth are fire against her skin, there is nothing but empty frost inside of her. "You don't mean that," she whispered, gripping his wrists to hold his hands in place as he shrugged aside her armor. "Sesshoumaru we're family—you're like-"
He laughed and it had none of the warmth of the childhood she remembered.
"Family?" he demands. Ripping free of her hands, he spreads her legs and shoves himself between them so they can both feel the shameful proof of his desire against the rough fabric of their hakama. "This is not what family feels for each other. You are not my family. You are only a useless little orphan girl my mother and father took pity on. The only thing you're good for is rutting and as bait for enemies." He gripped her chin again and forced her to meet his eyes. "The question is, are you going to keep pretending you're not just a worthless ward of the West, or are you going to start spreading your legs for me like you did the youkai bastards who attacked the citadel the night Atsuki died protecting you?"
Stunned is not a strong enough word to describe the guttered hope inside of Kagome. He looks at her like she is nothing, and for a moment, just a moment, Kagome believes it.
A moment is all it takes.
In that space of time it takes for her heart to beat one more drum, for her eyes to lime with tears, for her body to quicken with one flash of traitorous desire, Kagome's heart breaks.
This is all it takes for Kagome to accept that she will never have a home in this world with him, with his family. This is all it takes for Kagome to recognize, after centuries by his side as they grew, that she has no home or family. That she is completely and utterly alone.
"You're a monster," she whispered.
Shoving him away, she abandoned the leather armor—a gift from him anyway—and strode out of the tent.
The moment she stepped outside and the pouring rain soaked her again, power exploded from her in a burst of emotion. It was not reiki that filled her form, but yōki as where once a trembling girl stood, a towering black inu stood in her place. Her eyes glowed pink and an equally pink circle graced her brow—all anyone could glimpse before she exploded into the sky and escaped the sorrow destroying her from the inside out.
o.O.o
Word Count – 1547
A/N – I know I said we'd have some happier, more fluffy moments in the next several chapters but uh—I guess Sesshoumaru wasn't ready. I did try, but nothing flowed the way this one did. Anyway, as always, hope everyone enjoyed the chapter. Should be getting back to my weekly fic update schedule, a different fic updates every week. Hopefully. Sorry for the delay on this one!