Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

Sweet Surrender	By : inumom Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > InuYasha/Kagome Views: 7748 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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3. True Confessions

I could hardly stifle a yawn as I was carried back up to my bed. After placing me carefully in the center of the bed with a pillow in place to keep my injured leg elevated, he turned to the door. Before making his way out of the room, I held up a hand. �Wait,� I said. �Don�t go.�
He turned back to face me, a dark silhouette against the bright lights outside my room. As though against his better judgment, he moved to stand next to my bedside. I was more than a little surprised to notice that he was holding something clutched in his hand. �What�s that?�
He tried to stuff the object back into his pocket, but I caught his wrist in my left hand. �Show me?�
His ears drooped in a defeated sort of way, and he opened his hand. The band was more than a half inch wide, and woven and knotted in an intricate pattern with a great deal of skill. I blushed when I realized the source of the silky silver-white fibers that had been used. A single large jade bead was suspended from the center of the band. I stared at him in shock. �You made this?�
He nodded silently, and I took that as a cue to continue. �This is your beautiful hair, isn�t it?�
He shrugged and mumbled something. �Come on: give me a break--I don�t have adorable hanyou ears like you.�
He spoke a little louder, and I would never have expected what he said next. �I thought that at least a little part of me could be with you all the time.�
I waited in silence, and he continued, �I mean, I can�t give you what you really wanted, but I thought that this would maybe do--at least for now.�
Now I was really confused. I mean, I know what it sounded like he was saying, but that simply couldn�t be right. �Nani?�
He shook his head. �You�re hurt. What you asked me for could hurt you further. It can wait until you�re feeling better.�
I knew I�d hate myself for what I had to say, but it was only fair that I say it. �What about Kikyou?�
He sat on the edge of my bed, reaching around me to tie the choker in place. �Kikyou�s dead. She�s been dead for more than fifty years. I finally understand that. The Kikyou I knew would never have tried to kill you like that--that kind of hate and desire for revenge was never in her. I think that�s why she could never bring herself to kill me. Hell, even when she sealed me, that�s all she did--she didn�t kill me outright like she would have a true youkai.� He looked down at the floor between his feet. �Kaede-babaa was right--I should have put her to rest when she was first revived. It would have saved us--all three of us--more than a year of pain.�
I looked down at the hands in my lap, still not quite understanding what he meant. �But I thought you said your kind mated for life. Kikyou--�
He shook his head slowly, something like disbelief settling across his features. �Is that what you thought? Kikyou was never my mate. She would never have accepted me until I became human. Besides, she wasn�t the kind of person you tended to think of that way--she was more distant, kind of removed from things like a normal life. In any case, she�ll never bother you again.�
That sounded kind of ominous. �What do you mean?�
�I finally decided that the old hag was right to begin with. After she hurt you I did what I should have done from the beginning. I put her to rest for the last time.� He didn�t look at me.
�I�m sorry�.�
He looked up in surprise. �What the hell are you sorry about? You didn�t do anything. This is something that should have been done a long time ago. The only reason it wasn�t was because I was such a damned fool. Now,� he said, wrapping his haori around me once again, �Try to get some sleep.�
The long day was beginning to catch up to me. �I�d love to,� I murmured, �But I don�t think I can get comfortable in these clothes. Could you bring me a long t-shirt from the top drawer in that chest?�
He returned in only a few seconds with a long shirt in a deep blue. He was a little embarrassed about my changing my clothes while he was still in the room, but he turned his back while I managed to get undressed and pull the shirt over my head. I got a little stuck while pulling my injured arm through the short sleeve, but I got it all sorted out all right. �You can turn around now.�
He gathered up the clothes I had worn, depositing them on my desk for the time being. Once again he turned away, this time in the direction of the window. �Sleep with me?�
He stopped in his tracks, turning to face me with a shocked expression. �I thought we just settled this--you�re in no condition for anything like that.�
�Baka,� he said, smiling a little to take the sting out of my words, �I didn�t mean that at all. I just thought that you could sleep next to me--it�s probably more comfortable than sitting in the tree outside.�
He shook his head slowly. �You trust me that much?�
I laughed. �Of course. I always have. If you think I�m not well enough for anything more�intimate, I know there�s nothing in either of our worlds that could make you do it.�
He looked me over carefully. �I don�t think I can. You were injured on both sides, and I don�t want to take the chance that I could make your wounds worse.�
My expression softened just a little. �I�m sure you can think of something.�
He thought about it for a few minutes, then lifted me from the bed. Moving carefully, he settled himself on the bed, half leaning against the wall. He pulled me into his lap so that my back was firmly against his well-toned chest. Wrapping both arms around my waist, he dropped his head until his chin rested on my uninjured left shoulder. �How�s this?� he asked, his breath warm in my ear.
I could feel my eyelids starting to slip shut as I relaxed into his warmth. �It�s absolutely perfect�.�

*

I awoke to the now-familiar and still utterly delightful sensation of him tending my injuries. �You know,� I murmured, �If you keep that up, you�re going to start something we probably shouldn�t finish--at least not here and now.�
He looked up from my leg with what looked suspiciously like a smirk. �How do they feel?�
I moved my arm experimentally, surprised to find that the deep, tearing pain had all but gone. Looking down, I saw that the wound had closed and that only a small pink mark remained where the arrow had penetrated my flesh. I had no doubt that even that would be gone before very much longer. �I don�t get it,� I said. �Even you don�t heal this fast. What�s happening here?�
�Think about it,� he said, sitting back to look directly at me. �I don�t usually give my own injuries the kind of repeated attention these have been getting--I�m usually too busy trying to get into another fight. That doesn�t give my body a chance to concentrate its full abilities on healing. I haven�t been letting you do anything but sit in one place and heal, and I�ve been tending your wounds every few hours since they happened. It�s only natural that you�d heal pretty fast.�
�So why are you in such a hurry to get me healed?�
�We still have a job to do, you know. Besides,� he continued, running a finger lightly around the nearly-closed hole in my leg, �I think I want to start something.�
His voice deepened slightly on his last words, and I saw something unreadable in his amber eyes. Whatever it was that I saw, I definitely liked the reaction it created in me: I was suddenly aware of a warm, shivery sensation somewhere that nobody had ever managed to reach before. I couldn�t stop myself--I reached out with both hands and lightly rubbed the base of his soft, furry ears. He stiffened slightly, then tried to pull away, but I wasn�t about to relinquish my prize. �Don�t--� he whispered.
Feeling suddenly guilty, I pulled my hands back as though I had been burned. With my head down, I looked at him from behind the curtain of my bangs. �I�m sorry--I forgot how much you hate that.�
�I don�t hate it.� His voice sounded strange to me, a little hoarse and rough with something I couldn�t identify. �I don�t hate it any more than I hate your scent. It�s just that if you continue like that I�m not sure I�ll be able to stop myself.�
�Then maybe you shouldn�t.�
He shook his head. �No. When the time comes--and it�ll be coming soon, I think--I want to be able to make you forget about the pain I�ll be causing you. I want to give you so much pleasure that you�ll never even feel it. I�m not experienced at this--as I said, inuyoukai mate for life and aren�t promiscuous like some humans--but I swear that I�ll try to make your first experience a good one.�
�I don�t doubt it for a second,� I murmured, pulling him up to where I could wrap my arms loosely around him, resting his head against my shoulder. In that fraction of a moment I swore to myself that I would do everything in my power to make his first experience something that he would remember even if he lived to be a thousand years old.
I don�t know if he could somehow sense my curiosity, but he began to speak, never once looking at me. �I�m hanyou. I don�t think you ever really understood what that means in my world. I never really belonged anywhere. Youkai thought I was too weak to live, and humans thought that I was a dangerous monster. When I was just a pup, I didn�t understand any of this--my mother kept me shielded from the human reactions, and I didn�t see many youkai, just a few passing through the area once in a while and Sesshoumaru.� He took a deep, shuddering breath before going on, �After she was killed, my protection was gone. If my father had still lived, he would have probably taken me in, but he had been killed years earlier, and Sesshoumaru--let�s just say that he held a grudge against me because my father had replaced his mother with a human woman.� He paused briefly, then looked up at me. �What happens to human orphans?�
I realized that he wasn�t asking about my world, so I thought for a few seconds before shaking my head. �Some don�t survive. The lucky ones have family that will take them in. Sometimes they�ll be adopted by a village leader or some other, unrelated family--remember Satsuki? Other times, they survive on the edges of the village, eating whatever they can find, like that little girl who follows your brother around used to do.� I looked at him with what I hoped he would understand was compassion. �Why? What does this have to do with anything?�
He ignored my question, turning his haunted eyes away from me. �But they aren�t killed? They�re not locked away and allowed to slowly starve to death? They�re not beaten by the �decent� people around them until they can barely move?�
My grip on him tightened as I understood what he was saying. No wonder he had so much trouble learning to trust anybody! I�d always thought that his wariness stemmed from the whole Kikyou/Naraku debacle, but now I could see that his unseen scars ran much deeper. �They didn�t!�
His voice had gone quiet. �Of course they did. Don�t forget--I was something that was never meant to exist, possible only because a woman allowed herself to be defiled by something evil. They said that she should have killed herself rather than allowing him to touch her. When I finally escaped from there, I was skinny and filthy, barely able to stand and walk from my injuries and hunger. As I remember, I didn�t walk very far--I crawled most of the way until I found a small cave a few days� travel from a human village. I survived on whatever I could find, fruits and plants in the forest, the remains of fresh--and sometimes not so fresh--kills of wild animals and youkai. In time, I healed and taught myself to hunt. Sometimes I�d steal food from a village or a human traveler. It wasn�t easy: both humans and youkai were more than willing to kill me on sight.�
I clutched him tighter against my chest as the tears began to flow down my face, landing in his beautiful hair. I rocked slightly from side to side, sensing rather than seeing the pain that he had lived with for so long. �No wonder you couldn�t trust me--or any of us--at first.� I stroked his hair, not so much because I loved the feel of it in my hands--although I did--but because I hoped to show him how much it hurt me to know what his life had been like.
�I used to sometimes hide in the forest near travelers and listen to them talking. That�s how I found out that the Shikon no Tama was in a village not very far from where I was living. In spite of the troubles in my life, I grew up and got stronger. In time, I came up with a plan. I�d find this village, steal the jewel, and use it to become a strong enough youkai so I�d never have to worry about being hurt again.� Unconsciously, he pushed his head harder against my hand, urging me to continue. �What I didn�t know was that there was a very powerful young miko guarding the stone. I tried to steal it--it must have been a hundred times or more--but she always stopped me. She wouldn�t kill me because I was partly human. Even though my human side had been �corrupted� by my youkai heritage, it was still human, and she had to protect it. In time, it became a ritual of sorts, almost a game. I�d try to steal the jewel, she�d stop me, then she�d lecture me.� He paused, and I could almost feel the shift in his muscles as he smiled at the memory. �I was young and ignorant. That�s not an excuse, but it�s an explanation. She was the only person to actually speak with me since my mother�s death more than ten years earlier. I thought I loved her. After all, I�d been alone for most of my life--what the hell did I know about love? Then Naraku came.�
He trembled a little as my hands found his ears once again, this time moving in what I hoped were long, soothing strokes from base to tips. �Only after you revived me and we met up with Shippou and Miroku did I understand what actually happened. We never really loved each other. If we did, we would have trusted each other enough so that we wouldn�t be so easily deceived by that bastard. I know for a fact that you would never fall for some copy of me--neither would any of the others, for that matter.�
I shook my head. �There are still other ways they could use me to hurt you. I can be controlled, at least for a while--remember Menomaru and Tsubaki? I know, I managed to break free both times, but look how badly you were hurt.�
�Maybe,� he said, looking up at me with something strange lighting his eyes, �But you�ve saved my ass more times than I like to think about. You were the one who actually beat Yura. You tried to protect me from my pain in the ass brother, even when it could have gotten you killed. You tried to leap into Miroku�s kazaana so that he would seal it and not pull me in. You went out to face Naraku that morning while I was still in my human form. Hell, you even managed to reverse my transformations at least twice.� His voice turned suddenly bitter. �And what did I do? I yelled at you all the time. I gave you an argument every time you wanted to come and see your family or go to your �school.� I whined about how you were weak, and useless, and no match for Kikyou. And through it all,� he said, reaching an arm around my waist, �You stayed with me. You took all my bad temper and gave me back kindness. You were willing to step aside so that I could be happy, even if it wasn�t with you. Even when you left me, you always came back. You defended me to others, even your own kind. You trusted me enough to approach me when I was in my youkai form, and could have killed you without even knowing it. You,� he said, pulling back far enough so that he could trace the line of my jaw with his free hand, �Showed me what it meant to love.�
I shivered a little under his touch, but loved the feel of his powerful claws lightly stroking my skin. Still, maybe it was better if I changed the subject, just a little. �There�s still something I don�t understand. If inuyoukai mate for life, how could your father take a human mate when he�d already been with Sesshoumaru�s mother?�

He shook his head. �From what I�ve been able to find out over the years, that was an arranged mating for political purposes--a neighboring youkai clan wanted to merge with ours to raise their status. There was no real attachment between them. I think that�s why my asshole brother hates me so much--I was born of the love between my parents, while he came about as the result of political intrigue and duty. As my father saw it, he had but a single mate in his lifetime.�
�So, then, you�re not just talking about sex.�
�Of course not. Even though the customs are pretty different, inuyoukai matings are really a lot like some human marriages--they�re exclusive, for one thing. There may have been cases where inuyoukai mates haven�t been faithful to their counterparts, but they are rare, if they exist at all, and are probably the result of arranged matings for political gain. Of course, these unions also provide for pups, even though youkai--at least the more powerful kinds--don�t seem to breed very fast. Mates usually live together and take care of each other.�
�What kind of customs are different?� I was getting intrigued--I�d never suspected that youkai even had a culture, much less one that seemed to be so similar to those of humans.
He shrugged. �I�ve seen human mating rituals--from a distance. There�s a lot of talking. With inuyoukai, it�s different. Sometimes there are verbal pledges made, but not always. There are only two required parts of the mating ritual--claiming the mate, and the marking ritual. They�re often performed at the same time, but might not be.�
I must have looked confused, because he started to explain. �Claiming a mate is simple enough--that�s just the physical act of mating itself. There has to be at least one youkai witness not related by blood to either of the mates.�
�A witness?!?�
He shook his head. �It�s not like that. The witness doesn�t actually watch--he usually waits outside and listens.�
�What about the marking ritual?�
He blushed a little. �The mates leave scars on each other during mating. The resulting scar is visible proof that the mating took place.�
�How does that work if one of the mates is human?�
�I don�t think a human�s teeth could tear youkai flesh, so the youkai mate probably just scratches himself and allows the human mate to take a few drops of blood that way.�
Suddenly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking, I leaned down to look into his golden eyes. �Why are you telling me all this?�
He blinked a couple of times in confusion. �You asked me.�
I ran a finger along the outer edge of his right ear, enjoying the involuntary shiver the gesture caused. �Since when does that mean anything? I�m serious: why are you explaining all this?�
He got up and paced across the room. �I�m serious, too. I have something I want to ask you, and I want to be sure that you understand what I�m talking about before I start.�
I didn�t quite know what to make of that answer. �So ask me, already.�
He turned to face me then, and I was almost frightened by the intensity in his expression. He studied me for a few seconds, then seemed to give himself a little shake to bring his full attention back to the matter at hand. �What are your plans once we finish the mission?�
I hadn�t known what he was going to ask, but I certainly didn�t expect that. �I�m not sure,� I said. �So much could happen by then. How can I make any definite plans?�
He was growing agitated, almost aggressive in his intensity. �Will you be coming back here to live?�
I shook my head. �I don�t think so. I mean, I want to come back and visit my family sometimes, but I�m pretty sure that the life I really want is back in the Sengoku Jidai.�
�In that case,� he said, moving to sit at my bedside as he so often did, �I have something I would like you to do for me.� He fidgeted briefly before fixing his beautiful golden-amber eyes on mine. �Be my mate. Live with me, and let me protect you and provide for you. Help me to raise our pups to be loved and respected by the people around us.�
It was not necessary to think about it for more than a fraction of a second. �Of course I will! You have no idea how long I�ve wished for this.�
He seemed suddenly shy. �I have something for you.� Reaching into the sash of his hakama, he pulled out what looked like a pair of elaborately carved chopsticks. As he handed them to me, I realized that they were in fact carved from a pale green--almost white, really--jade.
�They�re absolutely beautiful!� I turned slightly away from him. �Could you put them in for me?�
Even though those hands and claws were more than capable of tearing me to shreds, I could barely feel his touch as he twisted my thick hair up into a sleek knot at the back of my head and thrust the sticks through the mass, holding it firmly in place. He dropped his hands to my shoulders, and I couldn�t suppress the shiver caused by his touch. His voice in my ear was soft. �These belonged to my mother. I have a number of her things hidden away. After we are mated, I�ll retrieve them for you. She was,� he said, �Very beautiful, but I think that you�ll far outshine her in time.�
�Oh, no!� At my inadvertent exclamation, he looked suddenly stricken. �No,� I said, �It�s not anything like that. I just realized that I�m still in my night clothes--I�ll never be able to change without messing up the beautiful job you did with my hair.�
His voice took on the gentle tone usually reserved for those times when he was badly hurt. Plucking the rods from my hair, he said, �Then I guess I�ll just have to do it again after you�re finished dressing. What will you want to wear today?�
I waved carelessly in the direction of my closet. �I don�t really care. Go ahead and pick something.�
When he returned a few moments later he was carrying a sleeveless silk dress with a short skirt in a shade of deep rose pink lavishly embroidered with white and pale pink sakura blossoms. �Is this okay?�
I smiled broadly. �It�s perfect--this is one of my very favorites!�
He looked vaguely disappointed. �I�ve never seen it before.�
�Well,� I explained, �It�s not really suitable for chasing around the wilderness, and I haven�t worn it any of the times you�ve come here because I didn�t want you to think that I was one of those useless women who can only care about their appearance. Do you like it?�
He nodded slowly. �Sakura blossoms always make me think of you.� When he looked up at me again, his expression was troubled. �What are we going to tell your family?�
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Sweet Surrender