InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ New Light ( Chapter 30 )

Jessa grunted as she caught Ashur's arm and neatly flipped him over.  He landed with a heavy exhalation and stared up at her.  "Had enough yet?" he asked without bothering to get back to his feet.

She laughed and shook her head.  "I'm rather enjoying myself," she quipped, planting her hands on her hip and pinning him with a self-satisfied grin.  "Are you just going to lie there all day?"

"Thinking about it," he replied, holding up a hand to her.

"What’s the matter?  Getting tired of being thrown around by a girl?" she teased.

He chuckled and waved his hand.  She reached down to help him to his feet, but he yanked, catching her as she fell on him.  "You're supposed to fight back, Jessa," he murmured, his tone, soft, almost sing-song, as he held her tight against his body.

"Oh . . . okay . . ." she agreed, making no move at all to distance herself from him.  "How should I fight you?" she asked, smoothing his bangs off of his face with one hand while the other traced the outline of his lips with infinitely gentle fingers.

His chuckle took on a rather wicked lilt as he caught her hands and rolled, pinning her against the ground as his knee slipped between her legs.  She gave a half-hearted attempt to throw him off, bucking her body under his, and he groaned.  "That's not really convincing me to get off of you," he rumbled in her ear.

"Outside?  Here?" she murmured breathlessly.

"Here . . . there . . . wherever . . ." he replied, his lips falling to the pulse in her throat as her eyes drifted closed, and she sighed.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, common sense told her that she ought to stop him before anything went too far, before she completely lost herself in him.  Common sense, however, was a little too far away, especially against him, and she sighed again as pure sensation nudged aside the more pragmatic sound of the words of chiding that sounded entirely too much like her youkai-voice . . .

Ashur nuzzled against her, breathed in the scent of her, before he sighed, too, and finally leaned away for a moment before shoving himself off of her and back to his feet once more.  Then he scowled at her as he caught her hands and pulled her up.

"What's that look for?" she asked, arching her eyebrows high as she blinked at the absolute chagrin on his face.

"Horrible, what you've reduced me to," he complained, shaking his head for added emphasis.  "I’m no better than a cub who just discovered his own penis and what it can be used for," he grumbled.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line before she gave into the urge to laugh at him.  "Is that so?" she challenged mildly, turning away so that he couldn't discern her smile.

He snorted indelicately.  "It's not nearly as funny as you seem to think it is," he informed her.

She did manage not to laugh out loud.  It didn't help, though, when her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.  "You're right.  It's not," she choked out.

Grabbing her from behind, he wrapped his arms around her, purposefully allowing one of his hands to brush over her breast, which effectively killed her amusement as she gasped and leaned against him, just that simply.  "So . . . what else can it be used for?" she asked, eyes drifting closed as he very deliberately closed a hand on her breast and gave it a good squeeze.

He sighed again, letting his hand fall to her waist.  "As much as I'd love to show you, Jessa, I'm expecting someone soon—unfortunately."

It took her a moment to get a handle on her rioting senses, wondering absently, just how it was that he could set her blood to singeing in her veins with a simple look, a simple touch . . . "Who?" she asked, trying to convince herself that what her body wanted was not going to happen—easier said than done.

Her frustration must have come through in her voice, because he chuckled and leaned down to kiss her cheek.  "Later, Jessa, I promise," he told her.

She tried to shrug him off.  It didn't work, and he just chuckled some more.  "I think I'll go to bed early tonight—alone—with a good book . . ."

He took her pouting for what it was and laughed as he let his arms fall away from her and headed back toward the terrace.  "We'll see about that," he tossed over his shoulder.

If she had something in her hands, she might well have thrown it at him.  She didn't, unfortunately, so she uttered a very loud growl of frustration that also lit the torches lining the terrace.

Ashur glanced back and slowly shook his head, but his laughter did linger in the air, well after he'd disappeared inside again.

'You'd do well to learn a wee bit of patience, Jessa,' her youkai-voice chided.

She wrinkled her nose, waving a hand to put out the torches.  'Patience . . . Right . . .'

That was a lot easier said than done, given that there was something entirely addictive about Ashur Philips.  Besides, the last few days since they'd ended up in bed together had been absolutely magical in her estimation.  Making love until the wee hours of the morning, falling asleep in his arms, held against his heart, always with him, still deep inside her, always waking up to him, making love to her again . . . She savored those moments, those feelings of being in complete syncopation with him, and it was during those precious minutes that she'd felt like she wasn't entirely alone . . .

'Which you know is not really a good reason to sleep with someone,' her youkai-blood indelicately pointed out.

'And I don't hear you complaining at the time, either,' she retorted.

'Are you kidding?  That man . . . What he does with his penis?  Nope, no complaints, at all . . .'

Jessa snorted.  'See?'

Her youkai sighed.  'It's entirely beside the point, though.  For our kind, you know that sex was never intended just to be a sport, something you do when you're feeling lost and alone.  Jessa . . .'

'So, what?  I should just . . . just, what?  Lock myself in my bedroom, don't come out till morning?  Give up the first thing that's made me feel . . .'

'Go on, lass.  You can say it, you know.  It's still there, and it's still true, and you can't run from it, even if it comforts you for a little while.  Sooner or later, you're going to have to deal with it, and letting yourself rely on him, just for those few moments of comfort isn't going to help you in the end.'

'It's not like . . . like that,' she argued, wrapping her arms over her stomach as she turned, as she glared out over the horizon, over the fields and the paddocks and the great, wide expanse of emptiness.  'Ashur . . .'

'You cannot truly be with someone when you cannot face your own feelings, Jessa.'

Frowning at the truth in that statement, she sighed.  As much as she hated to admit, she could understand what the voice was telling her.  She didn't want to think about it, didn't want to drag it all back up to the surface, to face the rawness, the scars that hadn't yet truly healed at all . . . To be with someone—anyone—meant that she had to work through her own issues, didn't it?  Because if she didn't, just what would she really have to offer someone else, and Ashur . . .?

She flinched, knowing deep down, loathing the melancholy that surged through her as the realization came to her, creeping into her like a spreading virus, like something that one couldn't see until it was too late—until one was looking over the devastation that was left behind the silent assault.

Ashur . . . deserved more than that, didn't he?  Deserved someone who was whole, complete, and not broken beyond repair . . .

Trotting along beside Devlin as they skirted the edges of Ashur's property, Jessa frowned as she concentrated on the ground under Stardust's hooves.  There was a hint of rain in the air—a wild sort of feeling that only came, just before a storm, and it occurred to her that they ought to head back, but she had the feeling that it wouldn't matter, that they wouldn't make it back before the clouds broke.  Besides, there was a certain electricity in it all, one that she could feel as a current of restless excitement surged through her.  Stardust felt it, too—she could feel him fairly quivering under her.  He was itching to run, but she held him back since she wasn't as sure about the landscape in this area as she wanted to be before allowing him to have his way.

"Are you going to melt if it starts to rain, Lady O'Shea?" Devlin asked, his tone a little drier than normal.

She snorted but grinned at him.  "Why?  Are you afraid of a little water, Dev?"

"Yes," he deadpanned.  "Took me all morning to do my hair, don't you know?  It'll be utterly ruined, and then I won't be able to do a thing with it."

She rolled her eyes.  "Are you gay?  I mean, I don't care if you are . . ."

He grunted, casting her a very dull look.  "No, I'm not," he muttered, kicking his horse a little faster.  "I mean, I am quite fond of my own man parts, but touching someone else's man parts just doesn't really appeal to me . . ."  He brightened suddenly, shot her a wicked grin.  "If I were, though, I might well be quite attracted to your Ashur . . ."

The mention of that name was enough to bring a wash of color to her cheeks as she ducked her chin and hoped that he didn't notice.

She should have known better.  "Oh, a blush?  Does that mean there's been more snogging?"

Her blush deepened as she quickly whipped her face to the side.

Devlin laughed, the ass, and then, he coughed indelicately.  "More than just, uh, snogging, perhaps?"

"Shut up," she muttered, willing her cheeks to cool.  It didn't work.

"Oh, come now, Jessa.  You can tell me," he cajoled.

She snorted.  "I'll set you on fire," she warned.

That threat only made him chuckle.  "And why would you do that when I'm so dead damn funny?"

"Because you're not," she growled.  "Anyway, I don't want to talk about . . . that . . . so, can we move on, please?"

His eyebrows lifted, disappearing beneath the thick fringe of his bangs.  "Oh, my God, there has been more than just snogging!"  Then he laughed, only to hold up his hands in defeat when she leveled a withering glower at him.  "All right; I get it.  No teasing.  Okay.  Just one question?"

She heaved a sigh, mostly because she figured that it wouldn't matter if she said no or not.  "What?"

He chuckled.  "Well, I figure that when you called to ask me to go riding with you that you had something on your mind, and since you've been up to doing more than snogging your Ashur, then I guess you've some kind of question about him, so I'll just cut to the chase and ask you what it is you're wanting my advice about?"

She flinched at the deadly accuracy of his roundabout question and sighed as the horses continued along the slight trail that had been tamped down a few times since Jessa had gotten Stardust.  "I just wondered, you know . . . I . . . I don't understand it.  It's like I cannot think clearly around him, and yet, I don't really know anything about him, either, so it can't be . . . be more . . . I feel like I don't really know him, at all . . ."

"Do you have to know everything about him in order for him to be your mate?"  He blinked, smile fading at the confusion that surfaced on Jessa's face.  "He is your mate, isn't he?  I mean, I just assumed . . ."

"I . . . I don't know what he is to me."  She sighed again, brow furrowing as she shook her head, hair falling over the side of her face, hiding her from Devlin's view.  "I don't know what I am to him, either . . . I . . . I don't know anything . . ."

"Maybe," he agreed slowly, sounding just a little too casual in his reply.  "You don't strike me as the kind of woman to simply jump into the sack with just anybody."

She pushed her hair back over her shoulder as the first sprinkles of rain started to fall.  "Did your ma or da ever say what it was like, when they found each other?  My ma only ever really said that I'd know, that I wouldn't be able to help it, and—I'm not saying that Ashur . . . I mean to say, I don't know if . . ." She grimaced.  "There has to be something more to it, right?  Just having a . . . a physical attraction doesn't necessarily mean anything, does it . . .?"

He sighed.  "I’m afraid you're asking the wrong person," he admitted, slowly shaking his head.  "My parents' marriage was arranged.   They've never been true mates in that sense.  Don't get me wrong.  They were very comfortable with one another—at least, until recently . . ."

"Really?"

He shrugged.  "Yeah, but they got married a long, long time ago, and arranged marriages were all the rage back then, or so I've been told . . ."

She detected the slight bitterness in his tone but didn't remark on it.  Too busy, pondering her own situation, she didn't give it much credence.  "I should have asked Ma more about it," she said.  "Whenever she started talking about it, I always told her that I didn't want the sordid details of her and Da's courtship . . ."

"And beating yourself up about it now isn't really going to help," Devlin pointed out gently.  "Listen, Irish, hindsight is always twenty-twenty, right?  And there's really nothing you can do about it now.  All you'll really accomplish is making yourself feel worse about the whole situation.  Your parents, unfortunately, are gone, and there's no way that you can make up for feeling as though you didn't take time to listen to them.  But dwelling on it wouldn't have made them happy, would it?  They'd hate to see you, wasting your time, wallowing in regret, don't you think?  Because they loved you, and when you love someone, you don't want to see them sad or upset or trying to live in the past . . ."

She sighed, pushing her rapidly dampening bangs out of her eyes as the rain fell a little harder, as a rumble of thunder echoed in the air.  "You're right," she allowed, however grudgingly.  "Sometimes I forget that . . ."

He chuckled.  "I'd make a damn fine big brother, wouldn't I?"

She started to laugh, but a sudden movement off to the right drew her up abruptly.  Stardust complained about the sudden stop as she swung off the horse and tossed the reins to Devlin.  She wasn't sure what it was, but she had to look.

"Jessa?" he called, swinging down off his horse, too.  He paused long enough to pat Fletch to reassure him before turning to see exactly what she was investigating.

As she cautiously stepped through the dense grass, she gasped as the movement came again, so rapid, so sudden, that it was hard to discern.  Devlin uttered a low sound, not exactly a gasp, almost more of a bird-type noise, carefully stepping past her as he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off.

It was a bird—a very large bird—but it wouldn't hold still long enough for Jessa to get a good look at it.  From the way it was floundering around, though, she could tell that it was injured.

Devlin crept up to it, managing not to spook it too much as he continued to utter that strange noise, and quickly dropped his shirt over it before carefully scooping it up, taking extra time to avoid the flailing talons.

"Poor thing," Jessa murmured, hunkering down beside him as he adjusted the shirt to get a better look at the bird's wing.  "What kind is it; do you know?"

He sighed.  "It's a golden eagle," he told her.  "And its wing is mangled . . ."

She grimaced.  "Mangled?  It . . . It can't be fixed . . .?"

"I don't know," he said.  Adjusting the bird in his arms, he slowly stood.  "I'm going to take it home with me, see if I can help it," he said.  He managed to mount his horse while holding onto the bird, which was no small feat.  "Will you be all right?"

She nodded as she grasped Stardust's reins.  "I'll be fine," she told him.  "Let me know how it's doing!" she called after him as he kicked his horse into a gallop and waved over his shoulder.

Staring out the windows at the darkening sky, at the rain that fell in heavy sheets from the skies.  Nearly five in the evening, and Jessa still hadn't returned from her ride . . . She'd mentioned to him that she was taking Devlin along with her, so he'd figured that she was safe enough.  That was a few hours ago, though, and he was used to her ability to lose track of time while she was out on one of her jaunts, but with the rain coming down so heavily, he couldn't help the gnawing worry that ate at him.

Turning on his heel, he stalked through the living room, pausing just long enough to grab a jacket out of the walk-in closet in the foyer before striding over to the door and yanking it open.  Scowling at the skies as he stepped off the porch and tried to locate her scent, he heaved a heavy sigh in abject frustration.  The wind was blowing just a little too hard to make her scent discernable, and the rain that pelted down seemed to be coming from every conceivable direction.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he willed away the grim emotion that clouded rational thought, concentrated on the vision of her, of her face, extending his youki . . .

Eyes snapping open, he broke into a sprint, heading toward the western boundary of the estate without stopping to question it, without wondering how it was that he knew.

Rounding a thickly overgrown hedge that stood a good twelve feet tall, he slid to a stop when his eyes lit on her.  She held onto Stardust's reins, simply wandering along as though it weren't raining at all.   She was soaked to the skin, her clothing molded to her body—check that.  The dark grey riding breeches already fit her like a second skin above the knee-high leather boots, but the white cotton knit shirt was plastered to her, and if it weren't for her bra, it would have been almost entirely translucent . . .

"Jessa, where the hell have you been?" he demanded, striding over to her, planting himself directly in her path as she stopped.

The look she gave him was impossible to interpret, almost a cross of belligerence with a hint of wariness tossed into the mix.  Whatever it was, it lent her gaze an incandescent glow, a dazzling wash of crimson over midnight as she blinked slowly.  "I was riding," she told him in a tone that indicated that he should have known the answer to that particular question already.

He snorted.  "Yeah? And didn't you say that you were going with that friend of yours?  Devlin?"

She waved a hand, as though the entire discussion were moot.  "We found an injured bird—an eagle, he said—and he took it home to try to help it."  She sighed and stared at him.  "I was on my way home, Ashur, and—"

"Walking?"

She made a face.  "I can't ride him in this.  Mud's dangerous, you realize.  If he were to hurt himself because I was in a rush to get in out of the rain, I'd never forgive myself."

Snapping his mouth closed as he tried to grind down the swell of irritation, he heaved a sigh and stepped aside to allow her to keep walking.  "I don't want you out by yourself, even here," he reminded her.

"I know, and I'm sorry," she told him.  She didn't say anything as they headed back the way he'd come.  Slowly, his irritation was ebbing away.  Glancing at Jessa, he shook his head when he noticed just how wet she actually was.  Hair, plastered to her scalp, hanging in drenched clumps, she pretty well seemed like she did right after she'd stepped out of the shower, only fully clothed, and yet, she'd never seemed quite as beautiful, quite as radiant, as she did at that moment, either.

'She's something, isn't she?  But you know, Kyouhei, you've got to be careful.  Something as rare, as precious, as she is . . . It'd be way too easy to let her slip through your fingers . . .'

Scowling at the strange undercurrent, the warning, in his youkai's words, he shrugged off his jacket and dropped it over her shoulders.  She turned her head, peered up at him, and suddenly, she laughed.

"Something funny?" he asked when she kept giggling.

She waved a hand, fighting back her amusement.  It took another minute for her to get herself under control enough to speak.  "It's just that I'm already soaked to the bone, and you're being chivalrous, giving me your thoroughly drenched jacket," she giggled.

He rolled his eyes, taking the reins of the horse as he gestured at the house.  "Go get dried off.  I'll take him to the stable."

She didn't argue with him, and her laughter lingered in the air as she walked away.

Stardust stomped the ground, danced around almost nervously, feeling the electric crackle in the air seconds before a rumble of thunder, a flash of lightning, cracked the skies.  "Easy, easy," Ashur said, stopping long enough to give the beast a reassuring pat before leading him toward the stable.  He was doing a good job, holding it together, even though Ashur could easily feel Stardust's raw nerves.  By the time he reached the stables, Stardust was pawing the ground, tossing his head, basically seeming entirely agitated as Laith hurried over to take him.

"There now," he said in a very soothing tone.  "Come on, let's get you settled down . . ."

"Thanks," Ashur remarked, letting out a deep breath.  "He was fine until I sent Jessa in the house to dry off . . ."

Laith nodded.  "Not surprising," he remarked.  "He's really taken a liking to her."

That didn't really surprise Ashur, either.  He had a feeling that she simply had a way with those horses, didn't she?

"Oh, uh . . . I've been meaning to talk to you.  I wondered if you'd be interested in being master-of-stables?  I'm sure Jessa will want more horses, and Thurston said he'd recommend you for the job."

Laith seemed taken aback as he took his time, putting Stardust in his stall before wiping him down with clean, dry towels.  "He did?"

"Said he'd be happy to let you go if you wanted to take a job here.  He said that you're more than qualified to take the position if you want it."  Ashur turned to go, stopping just before he stepped out into the rain once more.  "Think about it and let me know."

"Okay," Laith said, dropping the wet towel and reaching for another.  "I'd like that . . . Might be fun to help grow your stable."

Ashur smiled just a little, and he stepped back out, into the rain.