InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Family Matters ( Chapter 30 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Gr iffin scowled at the brightly lit display window, wondering for the thousandth time if he weren’t making a huge mistake.  He’d spent the majority of the morning rummaging around in Isabelle’s things and feeling like some sort of deviant in the process: just a bare step above cat-burglar, or so he figured.  Even so, the worst of it had been when he’d inadvertently opened her panty drawer.   Against his better judgment, he’d pulled a pair out of there with a marked frown as he tried to rationalize exactly how the itty bitty scrap of fabric in his hands could possibly be considered an undergarment of any kind.  No, it had looked more like a torture device of sorts, especially when he’d finally figured out pretty much how they’d be worn.  When that realization had dawned on him, he’d been unable to stop the flow of blood that coursed to his face, just as he’d been powerless to stop the sharp gasp of breath that whistled into his lungs.  He’d always suspected that Isabelle was a bit of a sadist.  He was positive now.  Any woman who’d willingly wear underpants with a tiny string that comprised the backside of it had to be a few eggs short of a dozen, as far as he was concerned.

‘You inspected her panties but refused to as much as lay a finger on her bras . . . that’s a little warped, if you ask me,’ his youkai chided.

‘Shut up,’ he grumbled, scowl darkening as he perused the array of jewelry laid out in the window display.  ‘I wasn’t inspecting them; I was trying to figure out what the hell they were.’

‘Yeah, okay, if you say so, but you know, if you try to tell yourself that you were still trying to get gift ideas from that particular drawer, then you really are living in denial . . .’

He snorted.  ‘As if!  Like I’d buy her more underpants like that—if that’s even what they were, and I’m really having my doubts about that.’

‘You’re right; the last thing you’d want to do is buy her something that intimate . . . but how about a diamond?  Women love diamonds, or so I’ve heard . . .’

Blushing furiously at the implications in the idea of buying Isabelle such a thing, Griffin grimaced and resolved not to speak to his annoying youkai blood, even if it killed him.  No, best not to think about it and just do it, right?  It was simple, wasn’t it?  Pull open the door and walk into the store, buy a pretty necklace or something and get the hell out as fast as he could, right?

His hand was shaking as he reached for the handle.  ‘Right . . .’

The sounds of the town dulled and faded as the door slowly closed behind him.  The air lock resounded in his ears like gunfire, and it was all he could do to keep from wincing as he rather nervously adjusted the collar of his coat, flicking it up and tilting his face just enough to hide the part that wasn’t covered by his hair.  It was second nature, really.  He’d perfected the art of hiding himself centuries ago.  He’d always hated the probing stares, the looks of almost comical horror—comical, that was, if they hadn’t been gaping at him, anyway . . .

Forcing his feet to move, he kept his gaze lowered, peeking up through his eyelashes as he hesitantly approached the counter and the nearest sales girl.  She was jabbering on about a Christmas party she’d attended over the weekend, and she didn’t seem to notice him at all until one of the other girls laid a hand on her arm and nodded in Griffin’s direction.

“Good afternoon, sir!” she greeted brightly, her smile just wide enough to be welcoming but small enough to keep it from seeming genuine.  “Can I help you find something?”

Clearing his throat—strange how it had suddenly closed up—he shrugged and readjusted his collar.  “Uh, y-yeah,” he stammered.  “Please.”

“Okay,” she replied, “do you know what you’re looking for?”

Concentrating on ignoring the curious stares that he could feel without having to see, he shuffled his feet, painfully aware of just how out of place he was in a place like that.  Surrounded by delicate décor and impossibly fragile looking jewelry, he couldn’t help it as the unease built, layer upon layer, as the whispers of the other salesgirls thundered through his skull though at the moment, they just seemed curious.  At least he could be thankful for that . . .

“Good God, he’s a big man,” one of them whispered.

Her cohort giggled softly.  “A little too big, if you ask me.  He looks like he could snap you in half, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . big men have bigger parts, if you know what I mean . . .”

“That big?  Jeez, he really would kill you . . .”

Griffin blinked rapidly as he fought to keep his face from exploding in crimson color.  “Just something,” he forced himself to say, his voice dropping to a breath above a whisper.  “I-it’s for a . . . a friend.”

The woman’s mouth rounded in an exaggerated ‘oh’, and she offered him a conspiratorial sort of wink, as though the two of them had just shared a huge secret . . . or made a suicide pact . . . “I see . . . Well, we’re having a sale on Disney charm bracelets.   They’re the add-a-link kind, so you can always add more charms later.  They come with a single charm now, but if you wanted to buy more of them, we carry some individual ones, too.  Would you like to see one of those?”

He grimaced.  “Ah, w-sh-she . . . she’s not a cub,” he mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

Shaking his head slightly, he concentrated on ignoring the running commentary from the other girls, though he wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not when another young man breezed into the store.  The one girl called out to the newcomer, thus effectively ending the speculation about him.  “O-okay,” he said when he realized that the clerk was looking at him expectantly.

She reached below the counter top and punched in the code necessary to release the lock on the jewelry display.  A soft beep confirmed that the code was accepted, and she slid the case open, reaching inside for the charm bracelet she’d been telling him about.

“Here,” she said, holding out the delicate bit of gold for his inspection.  “As you can see, it’s a lovely piece; very popular with women of all ages.  I bought my grandmother one for her birthday, and she adores it.  Would you like to take a better look at it?”

“Oh, uh, o-okay,” he said slowly, lifting his hand to intercept the trinket.  She laid it across his glove-encased hand and stepped back.  Griffin stared at the piece for a moment though he couldn’t honestly say that he was actually looking at it.  The man who had come in after him was shopping for an engagement ring, and the girls seemed to be enjoying their task of showing him different rings.

A clatter made Griffin jump.  One of the girls had dropped a ring on the glass counter.  The sound was unnaturally harsh in his ears, and his head jerked to the side in absolute reflex.  Before he could think about it, he heard it: the sharp gasp as the girl who had been smiling at him stepped back, her hands flying up to cover her mouth as her eyes bugged out; as the color leeched from her skin.

Dropping the bracelet on the counter, Griffin hurriedly readjusted his collar, silently cursing himself for the momentary lapse.  The girl recovered her composure quickly enough, pasting an overly bright smile on her face as she looked everywhere but directly at him, as she tried to cover her faux pas with a flutter of her hands and a sudden and transparent discourse on the winter weather.  The other salesgirls were staring at him now, too.  He could hear them talking in hushed whispers to another, words that he wasn’t meant to hear, “. . . Horrible scars . . . what a shame, too.  He’d be so good-looking otherwise . . .”

Swallowing hard and trying to pretend that he couldn’t hear the conversation, he gestured at the bracelet still lying haphazardly on the counter.  “That’s fine,” he muttered.  “I-I-I’ll take it.”

“You wouldn’t like to see anything else?” she questioned.

Griffin shook his head quickly, unable to deal with the false kindness, the saccharine sweetness of her contrived tone.  She thought he was a monster, and he knew it.  The last thing she really wanted to do was to help him any more than she had to.

“Great!” she gushed, her smile shifting into something more of a normal expression—relief that he was going to keep it short, he supposed.  “I can gift wrap this for you if you’d like?”

He shook his head again as he dug into his pocket for his checkbook.  “No,” he mumbled.  “H-how much is it?”

The girl quickly scanned the tiny tag dangling from the bracelet and forced another overly-polite smile.  “Your total is three hundred ninety-eight dollars and fifty-seven cents, sir.”

Fumbling with the silver ball-point pen he kept in his checkbook, Griffin gritted his teeth and willed his hand to grip the pen.  He’d been having more difficulty than normal of late, probably due to the weather, and the glove he stubbornly refused to remove simply wasn’t helping him in the least.  Wincing as a dull pain reverberated up his arm, he refreshed his grip on the thin barrel and started to make out the check.

Still concentrating as he was did little to dull his sense of hearing.  The snide little sniggers and the harsh whispers tumbled one upon the next, ripping wide the gaping maws of anguish that he’d never quite forgotten.  ‘Monster . . . defiler . . . murder . . .’ Were those the things that what they were saying?  It didn’t matter, not in the end.  Biting down on the side of his cheek until blood flowed freely in his mouth, Griffin forced his hand to move.

After a minute of fighting with the pen, he grunted in frustration and bit down on the middle finger of the old leather glove, yanking it off in a fluid movement before retrieving the pen once more.

“Um, y-you know sir . . .” the girl began in a stunted tone.  Griffin glanced up long enough to see the utter revulsion in her eyes as she gawked at his thickly scarred hand.  “We have . . . a check writer.  If you’d just sign your check . . .”

Griffin winced inwardly.  He was used to this sort of reaction whenever someone saw his scars for the first time.  Even the university students tended to react with the same sort of expression, even though they tried to hide it, and even though they got over it quickly enough.  It was always the same—always the same.

Scribbling on the signature line, he muttered something under his breath.  He wasn’t even sure what he’d said as he ripped out the check and scooted it across the counter to the girl.

“Y-your license,” she stammered, her cheeks riddled with color as she hastily slipped the blank check into the writer.

Pushing the checkbook around, he waited.  He never drove, so it had seemed as good a place as any for the God-forsaken mockery—the identification card that bore one of the few actual pictures of him in existence.  It seemed to him that it took the girl an inordinately long time to write down the numbers on the check.  Finally—mercifully—she pushed it back with a brittle smile as she brandished the printed check for his perusal.  He didn’t look it as he nodded, as he reached for the checkbook and stuffed it back into his pocket.  Pulling the glove back over his disfigured flesh, telling himself that it was almost over . . .

“Here you are, sir . . . There’s an unconditional money back guarantee for the first ninety days after purchase,” she said, her voice resuming the efficient tone that she’d used in the beginning: the polite smile, all traces of her discomfort gone as she extended the small black plastic bag to him.

“Th-thank you,” he muttered, taking the bag, grimacing inwardly when she nearly dropped it in her reluctance to as much as brush his hand with hers.  He stuffed that into his pocket, too, as he turned and headed for the door.

The air on the street was welcome.  The cold wind rose as though to dispel the lingering unpleasantness; the remnants of his utter humiliation.  Even the knowledge that he’d done what he’d set out to do did little to comfort him.

Ducking his chin, hunching his shoulders forward, he trudged down the sidewalk, wanting nothing more than to reach the sanctity of his home—the place where he didn’t have to hide, where he didn’t have to feel as though he were little more than a monster.  The place where Isabelle . . .

The place where Isabelle called home, at least for now.

The sudden flash of bright golden eyes drew him up short, and he blinked at the empty air before him.  The harsh whispers dissipated, replaced by the soft chime of her laughter, and leaving behind a delightful warmth, a desperately needed bolster when he had nearly faltered.  She was the one who had never really looked at him like that, had she?  Even when she’d seen his chest, his back, the look on her face, he understood.  She’d felt for him, for the pain he’d endured, and not once had she looked at him as though she thought he was somehow inadequate . . . not once had she looked at him as though he were a monster . . .

A slow sense of calm ebbed over him, soothing the frayed ends of his raw nerves and pushing back the ugliness of the memories; a softness that reminded him of her laughter.  It offered him the sorely needed will to move on; lent him the strength to brush off the words that were spinning through his head; those words he wasn’t supposed to have heard.  She would be home soon, and she would smile at him, laugh for him, and maybe for a while he’d be able to forget that there really was a world outside the walls that contained her and the warmth of her aura.

‘Isabelle . . .’

And it was that thought alone that carried him home.


Gunnar blinked and sat up straight when the festively wrapped box thumped onto the desk mere inches from his face, only to find himself staring directly at his cousin, whom he hadn’t seen since the confrontation at the bear-youkai’s house.  She wasn’t smiling though she didn’t seem entirely angry at him anymore—not that it mattered to him.  He was just looking out for her well-being, and if she didn’t like that, then it was just too bad.

“Hello, Izzy,” he greeted rather brusquely before pushing the gift away from the file he’d been reading.

Isabelle nudged the gift toward him just a little as she sat on the edge of his desk.  “Merry Christmas, Mamoruzen,” she said, her tone light, even—almost cold.

“I’m surprised to see you,” he commented, sitting back and tossing the ink pen down.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still irritated with you,” she said as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  “But it’s the holidays, and since you can’t help the fact that you’re an arrogant ass, then I really can’t hold it against you, can I?”

He almost smiled—almost.  Crossing his arms over his chest as he quirked an eyebrow, he nodded slowly.  “If you’re waiting for me to apologize for being concerned about your well-being, you can keep waiting.”

Those bright golden eyes narrowed menacingly, and Gunnar figured that any other man might well be a little intimidated by that sort of expression, especially from a drop-dead gorgeous woman like Isabelle.  Too bad he knew damn well that she was all bark and no bite, so to speak.  “Are you really so conceited that you honestly believe that I spend my days worrying about whether or not you’ll ever apologize for anything you’ve ever done?” she asked, her tone dry, brittle.

He chuckled.  “One day you’ll thank me,” he assured her.

She rolled her eyes and stood up, sparing a moment to smooth the form-fitting cream mohair sweater over her hips.  “No, I don’t think I will,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as she leaned over the desk, planting her hands dead center and leaning in.  Eyes snapping, cheeks pinked with her righteous indignation, she really was a sight to see, this cousin of his . . . “Leave him alone, Mamoruzen.  Just leave him alone.”

“No.”

Heaving a sigh, she pushed herself up and shook her head before turning away and reaching for the coat she’d dropped over the back of a chair.  “He’s a good man; I don’t care what you say.”

“That’s my point, Izzy,” he finally said, stopping her in her tracks as she reached for the doorknob.  She stopped but didn’t turn to face him.  Gunnar sighed, rubbing his temple.  “You don’t know that.  No one does.  Thing is . . . men who have nothing to hide don’t hide.  Can’t you understand that?”

She chuckled though the sound was hollow at best, perfunctory at worst.  “And you’ve never made a mistake in your life?  You’ve never done something that you weren’t particularly proud of?  Must be nice to be so perfect, Mamoruzen, and given my choice between an insufferable man who’s never made a mistake in his better-than-thou life, and one who is kind and gentle and sweet who has made a mistake or two, I think I’ll take your perceived imperfections any day, thank you very much.”

Gunnar sat back, his chair creaking with the sudden movement.  “It’s not that he has made mistakes as much as the idea that he is trying his damndest to hide them.  Izzy . . . you don’t know anything about him.  How can you say you love someone when you don’t really know who he is?” he countered mildly.

Shaking her head, she heaved a sigh and whirled around to face him.  Gaze flashing with rising temper, cheeks blossoming in a surge of angry color, youki spiking with an electric sort of tension, she pinned him with a disbelieving stare as she slapped her gloves against her empty palm.  “I don’t need you to look out for me,” she informed him.  “I don’t need you to tell me what’s best for me when you can’t even figure that much out for yourself.  Griffin is a damn good man, and it doesn’t matter to me what you have to say about him.  I don’t need your permission for anything.  When he’s ready—if he’s ready—then I’ll be willing to hear him out, but you . . . you have no right to cast aspersions at him, do you?  No,” she surmised with a shake of her head, “I really don’t think you do . . .”

“You know,” Gunnar went on, ignoring Isabelle’s tirade, “has he told you how he got those scars?”

She blinked in surprise, caught off guard by his sudden change in topic.  “What does that matter to you?” she countered, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

“Don’t be stupid, Izzy.  Has he?”

She didn’t answer him right away.  He had a feeling that she was counting to twenty in an effort to contain her temper.  “I hardly think that’s any of your business,” she bit out tersely.

He let out a deep breath full of resignation and slowly narrowed his gaze on her.  “So he doesn’t trust you.  I didn’t think so.”

“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?” she said, shaking her head in abject disbelief.  “Just because he doesn’t want to talk about something that is obviously painful for him doesn’t mean that he distrusts me.”

Gunnar smiled insincerely.  “Doesn’t it?  As I see it, that’s exactly what it means.  If you really were his mate—if he truly believed that—then he’d tell you everything, regardless of whether or not it’s a painful memory for him.”

Her eyes widened, and she nodded slowly, the smile that surfaced full of disbelief.  “And you know this because you’ve had a relationship that’s lasted more than a few months before you get bored and start looking elsewhere?  You know this because the women you date never have a chance in hell of actually being your real mate?  You know this because you’ve actually given a damn about someone other than yourself?  You haven’t, you know.  You sit there and cast judgment upon everyone but kami forbid you ever bother to turn that discerning eye on yourself.”

“This isn’t about me, Izzy,” he reminded her.

She forced a tepid smile and jerked the door open.  “Hmm, well . . . maybe it should be.”

Gunnar watched her go and sighed, fishing in the desk drawer for the half-empty pack of cigarettes he kept there.  He really hadn’t meant to agitate her again.  He just wished that she could understand that there was something fundamentally wrong when the man she claimed to be her mate was hiding things as stubbornly as Griffin Marin was.

Which was another reason that Gunnar was in such a dark mood despite the impending holiday . . .

He hadn’t realized nor had he ever thought that there would be quite so many legends involving bears in North America.  Apparently, there were, and every night, he waded through website after website, printing out ones that struck him as important while discounting the more fantastical ones while Myrna worked to do the same thing on her end.  All he needed was one of these legends to say something concrete, something he could use to pinpoint Griffin Marin’s whereabouts so that he had a lead to follow . . . Taking a drag off the cigarette he’d just lit, he let his head fall back against the chair and released a slow stream of smoke that rose in the air in a fragile string that frayed as it escalated, only to dissipate into nothing to disburse in the quiet.

A curt knock sounded on his open door, and Gunnar blinked and turned his head in time to see his secretary leaning casually in the doorway with a coffee mug in each hand.  When Connie noticed his attention, she pushed away from the jamb and strode into the office, setting one mug on the desk and sitting in one of the two thickly cushioned chairs facing him.

“So what are you sticking your nose into this time, Inutaisho?” she asked in the no-nonsense way that he admired about her.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied, lifting the mug of coffee to his lips and savoring the bitter brew.

“Don’t you?” she challenged, arching her eyebrows as she leaned forward to set her mug on the desk.

“Izzy has terrible taste in men,” he remarked—a good enough answer, as far as he was concerned.

Connie rolled her eyes and dug a cigar out of the pocket of the long white sweater she wore every day during the winter.  He watched with a measure of amusement as she pulled the paper seal off and tossed the plastic wrapper into the garbage can.  “Isn’t that for her to decide?” Connie asked, retrieving the lighter that Gunnar scooted across the desk.

“Of course not,” he insisted, a little smile twisting the corners of his lips as he watched Connie light the unseemly smoke.  “She’s my cousin, after all, and she’s never had much in the way of common sense.”

“That’s what my husband used to say about me,” she replied, her gaze clouding over momentarily as she indulged herself in her memories.

“You’ve got more common sense than anyone I know,” he said, snuffing out his cigarette before leaning back, steepling his fingertips together in an idle sort of way.

“And Isabelle will, too.  It comes with age, you know.  Anyway, I’ve got to side with her on this.  This guy she’s interested in really isn’t any of your business . . . unless he owes you money.  Does he?”

Gunnar snorted and shook his head.  “No, he doesn’t.  That still doesn’t matter.  He’s not good enough for Izzy, and that’s all there is to it.”

Connie uttered a very unladylike snort.  “If women waited around for a man who was good enough for her, half of the general population would cease to exist,” she scoffed.  “Leave her alone, will you?  She’s a smart girl, even if you don’t think she is.”

“I’m not questioning her intelligence,” Gunnar grumbled.

“Then have some faith.  It’s Christmas time, remember?  The season of faith and goodwill toward men.”

Gunnar couldn’t help the little smile that surfaced as he reached for his coffee once more.  “Goodwill toward men, huh?” he repeated.  “Hmm . . .”

“Sounds to me like you’re selling your cousin a little short,” Connie mused over her coffee mug.

Gunnar shot the woman a sidelong glance.  “No, I’m not.”

“Are you sure?”

One ebony eyebrow arched at her contention.  “Are you really implying that I would do such a thing?”

“Maybe not intentionally,” Connie allowed with a shake of her head.  “But  you know something?”

“What?”

Breaking into a wry smile, she shook her head and got to her feet once more.  “She’s a grown woman, whether you like it or not, and sometimes we grown women don’t appreciate it when anyone tries to tell us what to do, no matter what they believe to be right.”

That earned her a marked snort.  “Yes, well, it’s been left up to men to show women the error of their ways when they’re too stubborn or too blind to see what is staring them in the face.”

Connie heaved a sigh and reached for his mug before turning on her heel and heading for the doorway.  “If you think so, boss.  Just you be careful, or you’ll piss her off beyond all reason.”

He didn’t comment as she strode out of the office, pondering her claim before heaving a sigh and flicking his wrist to check his watch.  No, it didn’t matter in the end.  Isabelle would get over it, or she wouldn’t, but either way, Gunnar knew—just knew—that Griffin Marin was definitely hiding something . . . and he was going to find out what it was or die trying . . .