Author's Note
Hi - I appreciate that you're here!
It's hard to believe that this fic is years in the making, but I'm finally getting around to doing something I've meant to for a long time: editing and quality revisions. My writing has changed (dare I say improved?) since I started this fic, and I'm glad to share that I've started the journey of updating and revising. Content/story won't be significantly impacted, but there will be enough updates to each chapter that I'd encourage you to consider revisiting.
For anyone who is doing a re-read (bless your hearts), I'll ensure to include an author's note at the start of each chapter to acknowledge once that respective chapter has been revised.
Also, as my one and only disclaimer for this story and all my others, I own zero part of Inuyasha. Rumiko Takahashi financially owns all of him, and emotionally owns the part of my soul that adores Inuyasha so (and has since I was 13 years old lol)
Thanks again for checking out this story! I hope you enjoy it!
Lead Me Down the Garden Path
Prologue
"No! No!"
Panic rose up the column of Inuyasha's dry, thickening throat. His hands were slick and sticky with her blood.
"FuckfuckfuckFUCK!"
He'd been on familiar terms with fear before, but not like this. This fear felt like hopelessness, like foreboding, like helplessness. It squeezed his heart, constricted his lungs.
He placed one hand on top of the other, interlacing his fingers as he pressed down into the heel of his palm. Hard. He needed to stop the bleeding from her wound. Well, one of her wounds. The biggest one. The one that was pumping out blood like that was its full-time job.
"Kagome—goddammit—don't do this! Please!"
He choked on the last word as it snuck out, as if he hadn't meant to beg. But he knew he would do anything to save her, to keep her. Even if that meant swallowing his once impregnable pride and begging, pleading. Shit, he'd even consider praying. Stubbornness clawed at his chest, wrestling the desperation that sat like a boulder in his belly.
Pleasepleaseplease! His mind chanted as he leaned into the pressure of his hands, his elbows beginning to shake.
She would live.
She had to.
A wet, hacking cough spumed from her lips. The jerk of her body forced dark red blood to swell between Inuyasha's fingers. Blood trickled from her curvy, full lips, staining the skin around her mouth.
His heart pounded as she fell into stillness once more.
"Don't you fucking die on me, Kagome!" he cursed, his voice hoarse, desperate.
God, there it was again.
Fear.
Desperation.
Another emotion that Inuyasha recognized like an old friend. Inuyasha had spent most of his youth feeling desperate. Desperation was what had goaded him into making the choices he did back then—during that time of his life that he wished he could forget, that he wished had never happened.
Because it was his past that caused this. It was his past that resurfaced, rearing its ugly head. It was his past that was trying to steal Kagome from him.
Her head fell limply to the side, her cheek indenting against his thigh. Inuyasha released her wound to cup her neck with both hands, his blood-crusted thumbs a crude colour against her pallid cheeks. Her rich black hair was matted and tangled with her blood. Locks of her hair cascaded to the lacquered floor beneath where they sat, her body propped at an awkward angle in his lap. His large hands lovingly cupped her face, keeping her head upright, not allowing her to slump or yield to her injuries.
She had to fight. She needed to be stubborn enough to fight this.
"No!" Inuyasha screamed at her listlessness, torn between shaking her to keep her alert and preserving her stillness to ensure he didn't worsen her injuries. "Nononono!"
It was a chant. It was a plea. It felt a lot like panicked denial.
"God-fucking-dammit, Kagome! Fight it!"
This couldn't be happening.
But it was, it fucking was.
Perspective was a spiteful, caustic bitch. The renowned celebrity, once imposing, self-sustaining, previously hard-hearted, had become intimately familiar with weakness, powerlessness, and vulnerability—all in the package of Kagome Higurashi.
How was there ever a time he breathed before her? Loved before her? Made love before her?
She made up for it all. She fixed all the broken, shitty pieces that were his life before her. Her laugh was caulking to his fragmented emotions. Her smile made him feel strength again. The pleasure she gave him with her body made him feel infinite and whole, things he would never have guessed this life would grant him.
When all was said and done, there was nothing but Kagome. There could only ever be Kagome.
Maybe it was her stubbornness that got her involved in the danger of his past life. Maybe it was her love that wouldn't allow him to go through it alone. Either way, Inuyasha knew one thing: he would never forgive himself.
Until his dying day, he knew that what he'd done, her love, and the time that the two of them wouldn't get...it would all haunt him.
He wished he could rewind, that he could go back in time to ensure this never happened. He would do so many things differently—like ensure the name Inuyasha Taisho wouldn't mean shit to Kagome. Because Kagome could have been spared from all of this if she never met Inuyasha.
He wished that he could save her from this fate. From him.
But all that wishing was futile, unavoidable. Fucking useless.
Because here they were.
Because fate was a ravenous, punitive bitch.
Because Kagome's life had changed irreparably as soon as she learned about Inuyasha, the second she took her first step onto his goddamned property.
